Chapter 240: The Escaped Golden Lion
Leaving the Marines was Dragon's choice; remaining in the Marines was Garp's choice.
Regardless of which path they took, both men carried the weight of their own resolve. As for what would happen when they eventually met again...
Garp was never a man who could coldly disregard his emotions. In the original timeline, it was Garp who slipped Dragon the key to his cell; during his pursuit of Luffy, he put on a theatrical display of minimal effort, striking poses with a giant iron cannonball while intentionally letting his grandson escape.
Even during Ace's execution, his presence on the platform was ultimately a tactical piece exchange with Sengoku.
However, Sengoku understood Garp's mindset all too well. He never expected Garp to exert his full strength against his own family; under those grim circumstances, Garp simply refraining from interfering or causing chaos was already the greatest assistance he could offer.
Garp made frequent trips back to the East Blue, subjecting the local pirates to the overwhelming, dimensional gap of a top-tier powerhouse. Aside from Dragon, it was exceptionally difficult for anyone else to pull off any major schemes in that sea.
The Ohara incident didn't cause a lasting ripple across the grand ocean. Very few people truly cared about ancient history, and currently, the World Government still commanded absolute public trust across the globe.
When the Government proclaimed Ohara a nest of demons, the vast majority of citizens chose to believe them without question. And this was the result without the World Government exercising complete control over the press, allowing Morgans to freely publish his newspapers every day.
Otherwise, given enough time, even if they couldn't completely erase true history, they possessed more than enough influence to fabricate a brand-new history that everyone would accept as gospel.
Yet, compared to the Buster Call launched against Ohara, an even greater crisis had erupted internally within the World Government's own institutions. Today, the underwater fortress known as Impel Down—the world's ultimate prison, renowned for its impenetrable iron walls and the boast that no prisoner had ever escaped—welcomed its very first jailbreaker.
A fortress-like tower sat submerged in the dark depths of the sea, with the vast majority of its structure hidden below the surface. This was Impel Down, the greatest prison in the world.
Surrounded entirely by the Calm Belt, terrifying Sea Kings frequently breached the surrounding waters. Throughout its long, bloody history, countless notorious felons had been cast into its depths, and only a tiny handful had ever left its walls alive.
Any pirate imprisoned here was essentially facing either execution or life imprisonment. From the moment the gates closed behind them, their connection to the outside world was permanently severed.
But today, the unbreakable iron walls of Impel Down were shattered. Ear-piercing sirens echoed across every level of the prison, and panicked voices blasted through the loudspeakers and Den Den Mushis:
"All combat personnel, assemble at the elevators immediately! A maximum-security prisoner has escaped! Repeat! A maximum-security prisoner has escaped!"
The guards on duty didn't mobilize immediately; in fact, their reactions were visibly sluggish.
Although Impel Down possessed an alarm system, it had long been treated as decoration. Guards who had worked there for decades had never witnessed a real prison break. Even when the sirens sounded in the past, it was always just another routine crisis drill.
Impel Down's reputation for impenetrable walls was no empty boast. Zoan Devil Fruit users who had failed their awakenings were transformed into mindless, fearless Jailer Beasts; their terrifying brute strength and near-immortal recovery made them reliable living tanks patrolling the halls.
Surveillance Den Den Mushis monitored almost every corner without blind spots, and the Calm Belt completely eliminated the possibility of escaping by sea. Even if a lucky prisoner managed to seize a warship and flee the facility, they would be trapped within the swirling Tarai Current.
As long as the World Government refused to open the massive Gates of Justice, any escapee would inevitably be trapped on the open water.
Over time, this sheer inevitability had caused even the prison staff to grow complacent.
However, this jailbreaker was the sole exception to every rule. The powers of the Float-Float Fruit rendered every environmental restriction utterly meaningless before the Golden Lion.
It was only when secondary explosions shook the fortress and the agonizing screams of guards echoed up from below that the rest of the staff realized: This is no drill.
"Damn it! How on earth did he unlock those Seastone shackles?!"
"He didn't... The shackles were never unlocked. Shiki... he severed his own legs."
Inside the Warden's office, the current Warden of Impel Down received the chilling report. He never imagined that Shiki—bound by Seastone and stripped of his strength—would spend two years of silent endurance only to ruthlessly amputate his own limbs to break free.
What terrified them right now wasn't just Shiki himself, but the catastrophic possibility that the Golden Lion would release the other maximum-security prisoners, igniting a full-scale prison rebellion.
Fortunately, Shiki had no interest in playing liberator. He was simply searching for his weapons; he was fond of his two blades and had no intention of replacing them.
"Jihahaha! Has anyone seen my swords? Kogarashi and Oto—those are Meito, you know! Don't tell me you idiots threw them out!"
"Shi... Shi... I want a promotion so bad... Wait, I misspoke! ...Shiki!!"
With that encounter, Hannyabal's record was refreshed: he had confronted the escaping Shiki alone and survived completely unscathed. As for how he managed to walk away unharmed... it could only be attributed to Shiki being in an exceptionally good mood after regaining his freedom.
In a bureaucratic institution like Impel Down where major incidents rarely occurred, there were very few avenues to earn genuine military merit.
Promotions were typically secured through personal connections or by waiting for someone else to make a fatal mistake; accruing seniority through endless years of service was the norm.
Ironically, Shiki's escape accelerated Impel Down's internal personnel shifts. The former Warden was stripped of his post for gross negligence, Magellan was promoted to Warden, and Hannyabal stepped up to fill Magellan's vacated seat as Vice Warden.
The outside world remained largely ignorant of the entire affair. Morgans didn't have branch offices inside Impel Down, and the World Government certainly wasn't going to leak such a humiliating failure to the press themselves.
As for broadcasting a global warning that an apex threat had escaped and advising caution? They wouldn't dream of it.
Even within the Marines and the Cipher Pol agencies, very few individuals were briefed on the truth. Only a select few elite units were assigned the classified task of tracking Shiki's movements.
If at all possible, the Government wanted him re-arrested in absolute secrecy.
However, accomplishing that was a near-impossible feat. Even though Shiki's physical peak had begun a steady decline ever since a steering wheel lodged itself into his skull—and now he had lost both of his legs—he remained a terrifying, unmanageable monster.
With the flight capabilities of the Float-Float Fruit, unless Shiki actively chose to throw his life away, there were barely a handful of people on the sea capable of catching him.
While the World Government was secretly scouring the seas for his trail, Shiki had already embarked on a leisurely tour of visiting old rivals and friends.
He had already traveled to the New World to meet with Whitebeard. Just as he was preparing to locate a suitable island, levitate it into the sky, reunite with the remnants of his old armada, and slowly rebuild his empire, he crossed paths with a small boat in the first half of the Grand Line.
It was Nereus, returning from his trip to the West Blue. After inspecting the cultivation progress of the Sunlight Tree Eve seedlings, Nereus hadn't bothered swimming back underwater, nor had he taken to the skies.
Instead, he had simply harnessed a random Sea Beast to tow his boat, enjoying a relaxed, unhurried voyage home.
"Shiki, that new look of yours isn't very flattering," Nereus remarked casually from his boat. "After breaking out of prison, you didn't even bother getting proper prosthetics?"
For a Two-Sword Style swordsman to swap from wielding blades with his hands to strapping them to his leg stumps—claiming it had zero impact on his combat prowess would be an absolute lie. With countless winter and mechanical islands scattered across the sea, acquiring a basic pair of prosthetic legs without fancy gadgets wouldn't have been difficult.
"No need," Shiki grinned, hovering in the air. "I actually find this setup makes channeling my Devil Fruit powers much more convenient. But you... you don't seem the least bit surprised that I broke out of prison?"
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