Chapter 56: I'll Take the Blame, No Matter What
Detected piracy! Su Xiao sat on a rooftop, smoking a cigarette. On the opposite rooftop, the Straw Hat Pirates stood in a line. CP9's members escorted Robin and Franky onto a platform of the Judicial Tower, the two sides facing off.
Franky had already regained his freedom, but with several CP9 agents beside him, escape was impossible.
Given the current situation, it was only a matter of time before the blueprints for Pluton on Franky's person were discovered.
Franky hesitated. He was already trapped, and the chances of escape were slim.
"Mr. Tom, please forgive me."
Franky took a deep breath, pressed his hand to his lower back, and silently unlocked the combination lock there.
Just as he was about to retrieve the Pluton blueprints, the feel of the object in his hand was wrong. Franky's expression froze, his face filled with disbelief.
"This can't be. Absolutely impossible."
Forgetting about the risk of exposure, Franky leaned back. From the lock on his lower back slid out a book. Its cover was smooth, and on the front was a picture of a scantily clad woman—in color!
It was a magazine. The words on it were unrecognizable to Franky, but this was definitely not the Pluton blueprints.
On the magazine's cover, the title read: 'Playboy!'
This item was obtained by Su Xiao from opening a Scarlet Card. Earlier, he had considered leaving a bomb inside Franky, but on second thought, if an alchemy bomb were discovered before the decisive battle, the CP agency would surely guess that the Pluton blueprints were in his hands. That would be counterproductive.
Being discovered after the battle was fine—it was inevitable. The Straw Hat Pirates would hold off CP9. But before the decisive battle, it absolutely couldn't happen, or he'd be caught between two enemies.
Franky stared blankly at the 'Playboy' in his hands. He flipped through the magazine. Though the women had great figures and bold poses, Franky had no interest in looking.
"This isn't right. Where are the blueprints? Where are they?"
Franky kept repeating this sentence. The blueprints he had guarded for years had vanished without a trace.
His mind raced. Franky remembered the period of unconsciousness on the sea train. The blueprints must have been lost then. He had been under constant surveillance and couldn't check the blueprints, or he would have noticed earlier.
Franky's face turned ashen, his eyes vacant.
"Hey, what's that you're holding?"
Spandam strode forward. Seeing the magazine in Franky's hand, his eyes lit up, and he snatched it away.
After flipping through a few pages, Spandam grinned lecherously, his eyes narrowing. He rolled the magazine into a tube and tucked it into his coat, planning to 'critique' it after the war.
"The Pluton blueprints... are gone."
Franky muttered. Lucci, standing nearby, frowned. He had noticed the magazine when Franky pulled it out, but after seeing its content, he ignored it.
"What did you say?"
Lucci grabbed Franky's shoulder.
"The Pluton blueprints... are gone."
Franky repeated, his heart filled with fear. While the blueprints falling into the World Government's hands wasn't ideal, it wasn't the worst-case scenario.
If the Pluton blueprints fell into the hands of someone with malicious intent, the consequences would be dire—like a nuclear bomb falling into a terrorist organization's hands.
Hearing Franky's repeated words, Lucci's pupils contracted.
"Cutty Flam, even now, you're trying to bluff your way through?"
Clearly, Lucci didn't believe Franky's story.
"I'm not lying. The Pluton blueprints really are gone. I always carried them with me, right here."
Franky pointed to his lower back. Lucci and the others stepped forward to inspect.
"Kaku, is he telling the truth?"
Kaku focused intently on Franky's facial expressions.
"There's an eighty percent chance he's telling the truth."
Hearing Kaku's answer, the CP9 members' expressions darkened.
"You've been undercover for five years, and in the end, you lost the Pluton blueprints?"
Jabra of CP9 spoke. He was cunning, with a face resembling a jackal, and his ability was the Inu Inu no Mi, Model: Wolf.
Jabra's accusation left Lucci and the others speechless. It was indeed their fault. At the same time, Lucci and Kalifa thought of one person—the blueprints were likely in that person's hands.
"So, I'm not getting the Pluton blueprints?"
Spandam's expression twisted into a snarl. His chance for promotion and wealth was slipping away.
From the top of the Judicial Tower, Su Xiao watched the scene below. He knew the timing was right. He was already exposed, unless Lucci and Kalifa were idiots.
His gaze fell on Luffy. Whether the other would become the Pirate King was unclear, but he was about to become the scapegoat king.
Su Xiao raised his left arm, and the Realm Severing Thread shot out from beneath his wrist.
Clang. The hook embedded into a concrete post on the opposite rooftop. Su Xiao clamped Bubu Teni under one arm and retracted the thread, swinging across.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.
The thread's reel smoked. Mid-air, Su Xiao's heart raced. The hook might come loose under the weight—Bubu Teni had gained quite a bit of weight lately.
Landing safely on the concrete post, Su Xiao jumped onto the rooftop where the Straw Hat Pirates stood. They watched him warily.
"No need to be tense. I have no interest in fighting you for now. In fact, I'll give you a 'big gift.'"
Su Xiao pulled out an old, worn book and tossed it toward the Straw Hat Pirates.
Thud. The book landed on the rooftop. The Straw Hat Pirates didn't pick it up.
On the Judicial Tower, Franky's eyes went wide. Wasn't that the Pluton blueprints?
Noticing Franky's reaction, Lucci stared at the old book from afar.
"That must be the Pluton blueprints. So it was in his hands after all. Why would he give it to the Straw Hat Pirates?"
Lucci stared at Su Xiao's back, still unclear about his intentions.
Su Xiao picked up the Scarlet Card on the rooftop and looked up at Luffy and the others.
"What, you don't want the gift I gave you? This is something even the World Government covets."
Su Xiao chuckled, then leaped into a hole in the rooftop. There was still a Scarlet Card on the drawbridge below to collect.
The Pluton blueprints he had given to the Straw Hat Pirates were fake, but not entirely.
Su Xiao had torn off the pages from both sides of the real blueprints and counterfeited a new set of Pluton blueprints.
Unless it was a top-tier craftsman, no one would be able to tell these blueprints were fake. About sixty percent of the content was real; the remaining forty percent was his fabrication. These blueprints could never be used to build Pluton.
The Straw Hat Pirates looked baffled. The book in front of them seemed important, judging by the intense gazes from CP9.
"Straw Hat, you must protect those blueprints! Don't let them fall into the World Government's hands!"
Franky shouted. This time, CP9 was even more certain—those were the Pluton blueprints.
Luffy picked up the book from the ground and clutched it in his hands. His gaze turned to Robin.
"Robin, we're here to save you."
...
Leaving aside Luffy's rescue of Robin for now, Su Xiao collected the Scarlet Card from the drawbridge and headed straight for the front island.
The moment Franky discovered the blueprints were missing, it was already exposed that Su Xiao had them.
The CP9 members weren't fools. On the sea train, aside from Su Xiao, everyone else was from the CP agency. If anyone was to be suspected, it would be Su Xiao first.
Su Xiao was satisfied that he had managed to hide it until now. He decided to stop concealing it and directly 'pass the buck' to the Straw Hat Pirates.