News of Uchiha Hikaru's return to the New World spread rapidly. In the blink of an eye, the entire New World knew what had happened on the abandoned Punk Hazard. Caesar, the deranged scientist wanted by the World Government, had been captured by Uchiha Hikaru. He then destroyed the dark research facility there and rescued many children.
However, former Marine admiral Aokiji had also appeared during this incident. He helped Uchiha Hikaru send the children who had been maliciously used for experiments to the Marines for treatment.
As for who stood behind the Punk Hazard research base, the Marines kept their mouths shut, and not a single scrap of information leaked out. What surprised people even more was that Uchiha Hikaru, who had always been quite obsessed with bounties, had not escorted Caesar in to claim the reward this time. Some perceptive people caught a whiff of something unusual.
Marine Headquarters.
"Is that what Kuzan said?" Akainu stood by the window with a cigar between his teeth, thick smoke billowing around him. Behind him stood Smoker, the White Hunter, also smoking a cigar. The entire room was shrouded in haze.
"I investigated it afterward, and it was basically true," Smoker said. "But the base had already been mostly destroyed. Even though Kuzan stopped the massive explosion, he couldn't preserve the facility. The records inside couldn't be restored, so we could only infer from the remaining traces that Kuzan was telling the truth."
Naturally, Aokiji could not bicycle across the ocean with a group of children to a Marine base. Instead, he called his old acquaintance Smoker and had him come pick them up. However, when the children's symptoms flared up during the trip, even Aokiji was startled. Still, it was nothing he couldn't handle, and he resolved it in minutes.