Demora clutched his face as he shakily rose to his feet.
"The... the Navy...?"
Smack!
He slammed into the ground again.
Sakazuki crouched down and patted Demora's face, each slap ringing out.
"What are you hesitating for?"
Demora lay on the ground and shouted:
"THE NAVY!"
Sakazuki stood and kicked him.
"Get up."
Demora hurriedly got up and stood at attention.
Sakazuki watched the blood mist gradually disperse.
"You've been stationed at Sabaody for twenty years, haven't you?"
Blood covered Demora's face, but he did not dare wipe it off. He lowered his head and replied respectfully:
"Twenty-four years."
Sakazuki chuckled.
"Twenty-four years..."
"What? Embezzled enough and ready to retire?"
With his head bowed, Demora's pupils constricted. His entire body went cold, and he trembled, not daring to speak.
Sakazuki said quietly:
"You dared do it, but you don't dare admit it?"
"The weekly protection money, plundering pirate crews, abducting and selling people-weren't those all your doing?"
"Do you need me to go into more detail?"
"Well?"
"Dividing the money late at night every week? Calling your subordinates idiots afterward? Bribing everyone up and down the chain?"
"You've been lining your pockets for over twenty years. Had enough?"
Thud-
Demora's strength drained away, and he collapsed onto the ground. His mind went blank, and he had no idea how to explain himself...
All along, the higher-ups had known everything he had done...
Sakazuki said coldly:
"Get the hell up."
Demora scrambled to his feet in a panic.
"I deserve death a thousand times over!"
Sakazuki stared at him impassively as cold sweat kept streaming down Demora's head.
Just as Demora was about to give out and collapse again, Sakazuki scoffed.
"If we wanted you dead, you'd have died twenty years ago."
"You wouldn't have lived this long."
"We kept you