Barrett let out a sinister laugh and turned his gaze to Judge.
He clenched his fists and flexed his wrists, making Judge beg for mercy:
"No!"
"You can't kill me!"
"Or the World Government won't let you off the hook!"
"I am the king of an affiliated nation!!!"
He cried, trembling uncontrollably. He didn't want to die... and he couldn't die!
His dream of reviving Germa had not yet succeeded. He begged shamelessly, hoping for a sliver of life.
Barrett scoffed:
"How boring."
"Shut up."
Judge immediately fell silent, trembling.
Barrett no longer looked at Vinsmoke Judge.
He preferred people with backbone, crushing their bones bit by bit, watching how long they could endure.
But for those who compromised endlessly for survival, he had no interest.
Enel also stopped his exaggerated pronouncements, already engrossed in Judge's experimental logs.
He flipped through Judge's research journal in shock. It was horrifying...
This guy truly lived up to his origins from an illegal organization, just like those bacteriologists at Punk Hazard's Research Institute Three.
Utterly inhuman.
After a long while...
When the equipment displayed 'Copy Complete,' Enel snapped back to reality and stopped reading.
He stood up, unplugged the device, and picked it up:
"It's done, Brother Barrett."
He frowned slightly, looking at Judge. Killing him... would be troublesome.
Barrett nodded, walked over to Judge, and kicked him:
"All the data is in that device, right?"
"You didn't hide anything."
Judge flinched:
"No, absolutely not."
"It's all in there!!!"
Barrett said:
"Are you sure?"
Judge quickly replied:
"Sure, sure!"
Barrett grinned sinisterly:
"Very good."
"Enel, leave the one in your hand with him."
"Take the original with us."
Enel blinked:
"Huh?"
"Oh! Oh!"
"Got it!"
Judge's pupils contracted. Damn it all...
Just as he was about to speak, he glanced at Barrett's sinister smile and froze.
He swallowed his words back down.
Seeing Judge about to speak, then stopping in anger, Barrett took out a wanted poster and threw it at him.
"Congratulations, you are acquitted."
"However, we need to take these suspicious documents back for thorough examination."
"Are we done, Enel?"
Enel, holding the original device containing the data:
"We're done."
"Let's go, Brother Barrett."
Barrett grunted and stomped, breaking through the ceiling and vanishing.
Enel, carrying the device, turned his lower body into electricity and also shot into the sky.
As the two disappeared, Judge's taut nerves finally relaxed. The physical pain combined with the mental release caused him to collapse unconscious.
After an unknown period, someone gradually awoke and discovered Judge, his limbs broken.
They rushed him for treatment...
----
North Blue, an island before the Reverse Mountain, a fleet's resting area.
Sakazuki looked at the excited Enel:
"Take a few days off and deliver it to Dr. Vegapunk."
Enel nodded:
"Yes!"
Then he asked:
"Uncle, is it really alright?"
"That guy, although he's not a good person."
"He is still the king of an affiliated nation."
Sakazuki chuckled:
"If it were any other affiliated nation, perhaps."
"But Germa Kingdom is an exception."
"A kingdom led by a naive scientist with grand ambitions but no political acumen."
"They wouldn't make a big fuss about something like this."
"Because it would be a disgrace to their family, who once 'unified the North Blue'."
"And in a world ruled by the World Government, they dream of unifying the North Blue."
"Do you think the World Government would agree?"
Enel shook his head. Indeed...
Sakazuki said:
"Have you seen their soldiers?"
"How do they compare to ordinary Marines?"
Barrett said:
"They are all emotionless killing machines, each one an elite soldier from the Four Seas branches."
Sakazuki nodded:
"Precisely."
"Yet Germa, possessing such soldiers and technology, could not unify the North Blue."
"Most nations in the Four Seas are in an agrarian era."
"A country dedicated to developing technology and weapons would be like a dimensional strike against agrarian nations, easily capable of annihilating them."
"Yet after their brief period of glory during the 'Slaying of the Four Kings,' they faded into obscurity again."
"While the combined resistance of the North Blue kingdoms was certainly a factor, the World Government's covert interference was undeniable."
"It's a matter of when he will finally realize it."
Sakazuki's words were not baseless. In the original story, Judge didn't wake up until twenty years later.
During those twenty years, he served as a world mercenary, fighting everywhere, essentially working for the World Government for free, without even being paid.
This was why he later chose to break away from the government, even without the benefits of an affiliated nation, and arranged a marriage alliance with the Big Mom family.
Because he realized that even with such technology and military strength, without absolute power, he couldn't break the stalemate and was always manipulated by the government.
Twenty years of struggle, apart from accumulating vast wealth, yielded no land, and the dream of unifying the North Blue remained distant.
For his dream, he took a gamble and sought an alliance with the Big Mom family.
This pathological obsession... could even be called naive...
Because he completely lacked the matching political skills and emotional intelligence.
He overestimated his own position and underestimated Charlotte Linlin's ambition.
Charlotte Linlin treated Vinsmoke Judge like a pig to be slaughtered.
The goal was to lure him in and seize his country and technology.
Being an affiliated nation of the government was merely being a hired hand, and his alliance with Big Mom almost cost him his life, with all his assets nearly being handed over.
If not for the villain's tendency to talk too much, and if Perospero had said a few less words, his entire family, except for Sanji, would have perished.
These bizarre decisions...
Pushed the Germa Kingdom, after the war, into an extremely awkward position... loathed by both sides.
At this moment, the den den mush suddenly rang.
Den den den... den den den...
Sakazuki chuckled:
"The ones demanding accountability have arrived."
He answered the den den mush and said leisurely:
"This is Sakazuki, please speak."
The voice of the Five Elders, wielding a sword, echoed from the other end...