Several months earlier—
It had started as nothing more than idle conversation during a fight.
Cain had jokingly asked Kuzan to compare the heat of his Bolo Breath with Sakazuki's magma, and before long the topic drifted naturally toward the duel between Kuzan and Sakazuki.
During the conversation, Kuzan mentioned the abandoned facilities on Punk Hazard and the island's still-toxic environment.
That immediately reminded Cain of the time he had gone there with his grandfather to hunt down Caesar.
Thinking about it now, he really did have an absurd number of connections to Punk Hazard.
Cain casually brought up Caesar's name, only for Kuzan to tell him that the scientist had escaped long ago.
That immediately made Cain nervous.
After all, Caesar knew what he looked like, and the fact that Cain's true identity still hadn't been exposed was already incredibly fortunate. Since Cain had no idea whether Sengoku had taken any precautions regarding Caesar, he asked Kuzan to make a trip to Punk Hazard and investigate.
The problem was that neither Cain nor Kuzan had received any detailed information from former Fleet Admiral Sengoku about the operations surrounding Caesar and Doflamingo.
They were almost completely in the dark.
Cain's presence in this world had already caused events to diverge wildly from the story he remembered. Many things that should have happened had changed so much that only faint similarities remained.
Unfortunately, Cain didn't stop to think about that.
He still chose to act according to the original storyline he remembered.
Better safe than sorry.
What if Caesar really was still on Punk Hazard?
That bastard had once experimented on kidnapped children. There was no way someone like him would casually abandon such a useful base.
So Cain asked Kuzan to go there and completely destroy the place.
The timing also happened to work perfectly. Cain himself needed to go after the More-More Fruit, and he didn't want anyone accompanying him for that particular job, so the two went their separate ways.
Only after Kuzan had already left did Cain contact Sengoku.
After all, stealing a Devil Fruit was the kind of thing best done without witnesses, which was why Cain deliberately waited until Kuzan was gone before making the call.
Unfortunately, by the time Sengoku told him that there was already an operation underway involving Caesar—
Kuzan had already reached the island.
…
At the time, Caesar was completely occupied with Big Mom's Ancient Giant cloning project.
As for the children previously used in the gigantification experiments—the group that had actually been secretly swapped out by the Marines and replaced with Zephyr and the others in disguise—they had already lost most of their usefulness nearly a year earlier.
Even so, Caesar had kept them around as convenient test subjects.
Unfortunately for him, the gigantification project had already been suspended, the cloning project had no use for them, and his Land of the Dead weapon was still nowhere near completion.
So in the end, Caesar simply kept putting off whatever he planned to do with them.
That continued right up until Kuzan arrived.
The moment Caesar saw through the island's surveillance Den Den Mushi that Kuzan had begun destroying the unmanned factories, he immediately contacted Doflamingo and fled.
And just like that, Zephyr and the others were inexplicably abandoned behind.
Kuzan continued destroying facility after facility until his Observation Haki eventually guided him toward the room where the "children" were staying.
"Ara ara. Relax, kids."
Kuzan pushed open the door wearing his usual lazy smile.
"Your uncle here is going to rescue you and take you home."
Unfortunately, the way he said it made him look far more like a kidnapper than a rescuer.
The Marines disguised as children were visibly shocked when they saw him.
The person who reacted most strongly was Zephyr.
Because Ain had been using her ability on them for such a long period, her control had become much more precise. She was no longer limited to reversing people by exactly twelve years.
Someone like Zephyr, whose age happened to be close to a multiple of twelve, could now be reduced all the way back to around eight years old.
So when the eight-year-old Zephyr saw Kuzan walk through the door, his childish voice came out carrying barely restrained fury.
"Kuzan, what the hell are you doing here?"
Zephyr had been about to add—
Didn't the Marines tell you we had an operation going on here?
—but Kuzan interrupted him first.
"Ara ara, even a kid this young knows who I am?"
Kuzan walked closer, looking amused.
"Looks like your uncle here is pretty popular with children too."
He glanced down at the unusually fearless little boy and casually ruffled his purple hair.
Then he noticed the enormous wooden post Zephyr was carrying over one shoulder.
"That outfit…"
Kuzan smiled with a hint of nostalgia.
"Are you supposed to be the Hero of Justice, Z?"
"That takes me back. My teacher used to have a phase like that too…"
"I am Z, you idiot!"
Zephyr's face went completely dark as Kuzan continued patting his head.
He immediately lifted the wooden post, coated it in Armament Haki, and smashed it straight toward Kuzan's skull.
"You chased Caesar away! What the hell are we supposed to do with the rest of the operation now?!"
As Zephyr roared, the overwhelming presence once associated with Black Arm suddenly erupted from the tiny body.
Kuzan reflexively raised an arm to block.
BAM!
The impact made him stare forward in disbelief.
The eight-year-old child was gone.
Standing in his place was the full-grown Zephyr—massive, stern-faced, and radiating murderous irritation.
The wooden post dropped to the floor.
Zephyr switched hands and grabbed Kuzan by the head while the former Admiral was still frozen in shock. Veins bulged across Zephyr's face as he snarled,
"If you don't capture a hundred pirates for me, there's no way I'm letting this go!"
Sengoku had spent a very long time persuading Zephyr to accept this undercover operation in the first place.
The two had even made a bet.
Zephyr insisted that the Seven Warlords of the Sea were fundamentally unreliable and would eventually cause a disaster serious enough to hurt everyone around them.
That was one of the reasons he had personally agreed to infiltrate Caesar's operation and investigate Doflamingo.
And now?
Kuzan had accidentally ruined the entire thing.
"Teacher Zephyr…!"
Kuzan stared at him in shock.
'There was actually a Marine operation here?! Why didn't anyone tell me?'
Then the realization hit him.
'Damn it. Cain screwed me.'
Unfortunately, Zephyr didn't give him time to explain.
His fist immediately came down.
"I actually had high hopes for you after you left the Marines!"
Another punch struck Kuzan's head.
"But if you're going to call yourself a pirate hunter, then go catch pirates properly!"
Zephyr's voice rose with every hit.
"You work for three days, disappear for two, and after an entire year you've only caught a little over nine hundred of them!"
BAM!
"You spend all your time following Garp's grandson around!"
BAM!
"What the hell have you even been doing?!"
Kuzan could only endure the beating in silence.
'How the hell does he remember the exact number?'
And honestly, more than nine hundred pirates in one year wasn't even bad.
It wasn't as if wanted criminals conveniently appeared in front of him every day.
Unfortunately, Kuzan was smart enough not to say any of that aloud.
…
Back in the present—
Punk Hazard had once again fallen under Marine control, and personnel were currently sorting through the remaining data.
Although Kuzan had destroyed many of the factories, a surprising amount of important material had survived.
Zephyr was now working with his own scientific team, using part of Caesar's abandoned research to prepare something new.
Kuzan watched for a while before finally speaking.
"Teacher Zephyr…"
"You're really going through with this?"
Zephyr's expression remained dark.
"Yeah."
His answer came without hesitation.
"I have to."
"So I can personally arrest that bastard."
While the two were talking, another person slowly entered through the doorway.
Trafalgar Law.
Because Sengoku knew exactly how Zephyr felt about pirates, he had deliberately withheld some information regarding Law.
Which led directly to the current situation.
Zephyr looked at the newcomer.
Law seemed vaguely familiar, but Zephyr didn't think too deeply about it.
Instead, he gave an approving nod.
"Oh. As expected of Sengoku's grandson."
He looked Law up and down.
"You've got an upright look about you. Good material for a Marine."
Zephyr sounded genuinely pleased.
"With the right training, you'll definitely catch plenty of pirates for the Marines someday."
Then his expression darkened again.
"Unlike Garp's damn grandson…!"
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