The Great Powers' representatives returned home with plenty to show for their efforts, under the Giant Spirit God's protection.
The seven Dragon Balls scattered in all directions, once again spreading across Blue Star.
Nick Fury had been agonizing over how to ask the Eastern Great Nation about the dark shape in the sky.
After all, the spot where it had landed was not far from the Great Powers' coastline.
Before long, however, he no longer needed to worry about that.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. Triskelion.
After considerable effort, Nick Fury had lured several "big snakes" out of hiding. His investigation revealed that more than two hundred people, including Level Eight Agent Castor, belonged to Hydra.
As Nick Fury checked the list, a chill of belated fear ran through him.
Those two hundred-plus people included forty-three support staff working in the Triskelion: two responsible for the surveillance room, two for the storerooms, and several who regularly worked shifts in the command center, among others.
Among the field personnel, two entire teams had been exposed, along with several undercover agents.
More than two hundred people in all.
S.H.I.E.L.D. only had a little over four thousand agents permanently stationed in New York.
Five percent of its agents belonged to the same outside faction, operating under a unified organization.
They had practically set up a separate operation inside S.H.I.E.L.D.
Nick Fury could not tolerate seeing the S.H.I.E.L.D. he had painstakingly built turn into something like this.
After discussing it with his former superior, Pierce,
Nick Fury launched a careful, covert screening operation targeting S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in New York City.
While Nick Fury sat in his office considering which department to screen next,
something happened that completely derailed his original plans.
Natasha and Barton, who had been out of sight for days, came to see Nick Fury