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Chapter Text

The Web Unraveled
Chapter One: Caught in the Current

“Why the hell are we even keeping him?”

Sanji’s voice cut through the galley like a blade. Low. Sharp. Coiled tight with barely contained anger.

“Because I said so,” Luffy replied, arms folded as he leaned against the doorframe. His tone wasn’t loud, but it left no room for argument.

Zoro scoffed from where he sat, boot kicked up on the table. “We should’ve let the Marines have him. Or buried him under the rubble.”

Robin rested her chin on one hand, thoughtful. “He’s dangerous even without his powers. And people like him don’t usually stay down for long.”

Nami crossed her arms. “He doesn’t deserve to be here, Luffy. He’s not some lost soul you can reform. He’s a tyrant.”

Luffy looked down at the floor, his hat shadowing his eyes.

“He killed a lot of people,” Chopper said softly. “He’s not just a criminal—he’s a monster.”

Luffy didn’t argue.

“I know,” he said. “But something’s wrong with him.”

Brook tilted his skull. “Wrong how?”

“He’s not fighting,” Luffy said. “Not moving. Not even talking.”

Usopp frowned. “You don’t think he’s planning something?”

Luffy’s eyes narrowed.

“No.”

And with that, he turned and walked to the lower deck.
XXXXX

Below deck, the ship groaned softly with the movement of the sea. The air was damp. Still. The light barely reached the corners of the brig.

Doflamingo lay crumpled on the cold wooden floor, barely breathing.

His arms were wrenched behind his back in thick iron cuffs, raw at the wrists. Chains bound his arms behind him from his elbows down to his wrists. A seastone collar clung to his neck, bolted to the floor by a heavy chain that gave him just enough slack to shift a few inches at most. Another chain wrapped his ankles, tethering him against the far wall like an animal.

His body was wrecked.

Bruised ribs. A shattered leg. Gashes that hadn’t fully closed. Blood stained the floor beneath him. One eye swollen shut. The other dull and unfocused.

He hadn’t moved in hours.

He couldn’t.

Worse than the pain was the darkness.

He’d once seen through strings—an entire world drawn in invisible threads. The tension in walls, the tremor of footsteps, the shape of enemies before they struck. A god’s vision.

Now he was blind.

Truly blind.

The collar stole everything. His power. His map. His balance. He floated in blackness, utterly unmoored.

And beneath his ruined shirt, pressed against raw skin, the brand burned like fire.

The Celestial Dragon hoof.

Still hidden. Still untouched.

But for how long?

They’d stripped him of everything else. They’d seen his bones break. Seen him bleed. But if they saw that—

Doflamingo’s throat tightened. A cold dread sank into his chest.

If they saw that, they wouldn’t just fear him—or pity him.

They’d see him as property.

A slave.

Something to be bought and sold.

And that—was his worst nightmare.

Because he didn’t know what they would do with him.

The Straw Hats were pirates. Free souls.

But he was broken.

And broken things, in his world, were traded.

The thought twisted in his gut more sharply than pain ever could.

Then—footsteps.

He tensed.

He knew that step.

Light. Confident. Thoughtless.

The Straw Hat boy.

He didn’t look up. Couldn’t. His cheek pressed to the floor, breath shallow.

Luffy opened the cage door and knelt beside him.

“You haven’t eaten,” he said.

No answer.

“You haven’t said a word.”

Still nothing.

Then—

Fingers brushed against his arm.

Doflamingo recoiled.

A violent, animal response. His body snapped back on reflex, chains yanking tight with a clang. His shoulder cracked from the strain. He gasped, teeth grit, whole body locking up as if expecting a blow.

Luffy didn’t move.

Didn’t flinch.

He just watched.

“You didn’t see that coming,” Luffy said softly.

Doflamingo remained perfectly still. Frozen. Trembling.

“You’re not tracking my movement. Not my voice. Not anything.”

A pause.

“You can’t see.”

No answer.

Luffy leaned in slightly, studying the man in front of him. Not gloating. Just trying to understand.

“You used your strings to see, didn’t you?”

Doflamingo’s jaw tightened.

“You mapped everything. Felt everything. And now… you’re stuck in the dark.”

Still no reply.

But Luffy saw the way his fists clenched. The way his back arched just slightly—as if trying to hide something.

Something carved into skin.

Something terrifying.

Luffy didn’t say anything about it.

Not yet.

He just sat there.

Watching the way the king of Dressrosa lay helpless on the floor of his ship, bound, broken—and terrified.
XXXXX

The Web Unraveled
Chapter Two: Shadows Beneath the Surface

The morning fog clung thickly to the deck, muffling sounds and casting everything in a dull, gray light. The crew gathered in small pockets—silent or sparring quietly among themselves—while the ship sailed on toward uncertain horizons.

No one spoke of the man locked below.

Not yet.
XXXXX

Zoro leaned against the mast, eyes narrowed but restless. “He’s not the same. That’s clear.”

Sanji passed by, hands jammed in his pockets. “Damn right. Not a word. Not a move. It’s like he’s… dead inside.”

Robin approached quietly, her gaze lingering toward the hatch leading down. “He’s hiding something. I can feel it.”

Nami scoffed. “Or maybe he’s just scared. I don’t trust him. I don’t want to trust him.”

Usopp’s voice was low, almost hesitant. “He doesn’t even look at us when we go down there with food or water or anything. Not once.”

Chopper shifted nervously. “I’ve never seen anyone so quiet… or so still.”

Brook’s skull tilted as he listened. “There’s something… off. But I can’t put my finger on it.”

Below deck, Doflamingo remained motionless, curled against the cold floor. The chains bit into his wrists and ankles, the heavy collar a choking reminder of his power lost.

His mind flickered like a broken lantern, illuminating memories better left forgotten.

Flashback:

Golden halls overshadowed by fear.

A child branded against his will, the cruel mark searing his skin—a symbol of slavery and shame.

Whispers of servitude, bartering, and broken families.

A father’s broken spirit mirrored in the boy’s eyes.

The weight of chains heavier than iron.

XXXXX
Back in the present, a sudden creak from above pulled him briefly from his thoughts.

Instinct coiled tightly in his chest.

Every sound a threat.

Every shadow, a predator.

And beneath his shirt, the hidden brand throbbed with a pain far deeper than flesh.

He pressed his back tighter against the floor, desperate to conceal it from eyes that might judge him as property once again.

On deck, none dared to speak openly of what they suspected.

No one yet realized the full truth.

Only quiet doubts, fleeting glances, and the heavy silence between them.

Time stretched on.

The ship sailed steadily forward.

And the web slowly began to unravel.

The Web Unraveled
Chapter Three: Hunger and Heat

The ship groaned under the weight of wind and silence. Somewhere above, voices murmured, but in the brig below, all was still—thick with the heavy scent of sweat, salt, and dried blood.

Doflamingo lay where they’d left him, his long limbs curled awkwardly beneath the strain of iron shackles. The collar at his throat pinched the skin raw. Every breath rasped, shallow and weak, but still, he didn’t cry out. Didn’t move. Didn’t dare.

The wound in his side had reopened days ago. He could feel it—the sticky warmth of half-dried blood congealed beneath his shirt. Hunger gnawed at him now, sharp and hollow. His lips were cracked. His tongue, heavy. But he said nothing.

He couldn’t say anything. Not to them.

Not when every step above him might mean another voice. Another risk. Another pair of eyes that might see the brand he kept hidden beneath his tattered shirt.

Besides, he knew hunger. It was an old friend. And though they hadn’t met in some time, he knew hunger intimately.

Footsteps descended the stairs. Slow. Cautious. Doflamingo stiffened where he lay, ears trained on the pattern—heels first. Heavy. Zoro.

A metallic clatter followed: a plate, a cup.

“Sit up. Eat,” Zoro said gruffly.

No movement.

“I’m not asking.”

Still, nothing. Doflamingo’s body trembled, just faintly, but it wasn’t defiance. It was fear.

Zoro stared at him, eyes narrowing. “You really think starving yourself’s gonna help anything?”

Still no response.

“Suit yourself.” The swordsman’s voice sharpened. “But don’t expect anyone to care when you drop dead in those chains.”

The footsteps retreated. The door slammed shut.

The cup remained untouched.

Earlier—three days ago—Chopper had tried.

The little doctor had crept into the brig alone, medical kit tucked under his arm, trying to work quickly and quietly. Doflamingo had barely stirred, but the moment Chopper touched his shoulder—

A scream—raw, animal, terrified—ripped from Doflamingo’s throat. He thrashed violently, blinded by panic, kicking until his shackles clanged against the wall, breath ragged and uneven.

Chopper had stumbled back, wide-eyed. “I-I’m not trying to hurt you! I’m trying to help—!”

That was when Zoro stormed in. One look at the chaos and the swordsman had grabbed Chopper by the shoulder and yanked him back, away from the thrashing giant.

“No one touches him again,” Zoro growled. “If he wants to bleed out, let him.”

No one argued. Not even Luffy.

Now, Doflamingo lay limp again, gasping quietly through the pain in his ribs. He didn’t know if they were broken, but he knew they were close.

He could hear Sanji’s voice above, muffled through the boards. “He’s not eating. That’s not our fault.”

Nami’s colder tone followed: “He’d kill us all if he could. Don’t waste our food.”

Another laugh—Usopp, probably. “What’s he gonna do? Crawl at us in chains?”

He flinched. Even when they weren’t in the room, their voices scraped like razors through the fog in his skull.

They hated him. That was fine. That was safe.

What terrified him wasn’t their hatred.

It was the moment one of them might look a little too close.

See the ragged way he tracked sound, not sight.

See the stiffness with which he moved, too careful, too cautious.

Or worse—strip away his tattered shirt and find it. The scar burned into his back. A brand that whispered of chains long before these.

He pulled in a breath that rattled in his throat and pressed his face against the cool wood, willing himself smaller.

He hadn’t survived the Celestial Dragons just to be sold back into their hands.

If they got him back now, after clawing his way out of their Holy Land, they’d skin him alive. Make an example out of him. Humiliate him.

He hadn’t come this far to be seen for what he used to be. He’d rather be dead. Maybe then he’d see Rosinante again.

Above deck, Robin stood near the rail, arms folded.

She hadn’t said much. Not yet.

But she was watching.

She always watched.

The Web Unraveled
Chapter Four: Fractures

The muffled groans came first—low, ragged, barely human. Somewhere below deck, a sound that no one aboard the Thousand Sunny wanted to hear.

Luffy froze mid-step on the deck, his usual grin gone. The others halted around him, eyes narrowing, breaths catching.

“It’s him,” Sanji said quietly.

“Doflamingo,” Robin added, her voice calm but tight.

The man in chains was close to breaking.

Below deck, the air was thick with the stench of sweat, blood, and neglect. Doflamingo lay on the cold wooden floor, his body trembling violently, muscles taut with pain. His breath came in shallow gasps; each one a struggle.

His chains rattled as he shifted, unable to still himself.

A soft, desperate whimper escaped him, raw and pitiful.

On deck, the crew’s unease swelled into a tense argument.

“Let him die,” Zoro said bluntly, folding his arms. “He’s dangerous. We don’t owe him anything.”

“He’s not a pet,” Nami snapped. “But he’s bleeding out down there.”

Chopper’s voice was small but firm. “If we don’t help him, he’ll die.”

Luffy’s gaze darkened. He said nothing for a long moment—then nodded.

“Chopper,” he said, voice low. “Go help.”

Chopper descended with his medical bag, shoulders tight with worry. He opened the door to the dimly lit brig, heart sinking at the sight.

Doflamingo’s body was gaunt, bruised beyond healing, but it was the quiet—the helplessness—that struck him hardest.

As Chopper knelt, the man’s head shifted slightly—his thick hair shadowing his face.

Chopper reached out cautiously, fingers trembling as he tried to lift the tattered shirt covering Doflamingo’s shoulders.

A sudden jerk—a violent recoil—and a strangled hiss.

Chopper froze.

Zoro appeared silently behind him. His booted foot came down harshly on Doflamingo’s head, stilling his body as it lashed out towards the small doctor.

“Don’t touch him without warning,” Zoro warned, eyes sharp.

Chopper swallowed and settled for gentle, precise movements, carefully exposing wounds but never removing his clothes.

He worked methodically, cleaning torn flesh and binding torn skin. Bracing broken bones as best he could.

Something odd made Chopper glance up. Doflamingo’s eyes didn’t track the movements around him.

They never did.

When a stray light flickered across his face, there was no blink, no flinch.

Only a stillness.

Zoro noticed it too.

He stepped closer, watching.

“Hey,” Zoro said quietly, tapping the side of Doflamingo’s head gently.

No response besides a soft flinch.

He tried again, waving a hand in front of Doflamingo’s face.

Still nothing.

“Is he… blind?” Zoro muttered under his breath.

Chopper’s eyes widened.

They exchanged a look.

No one said the word aloud.

But the truth hung between them, heavier than the chains.

As the treatment ended, Chopper lingered, hands steady despite the tension.

Doflamingo lay still, exhausted, his breath softening.

His shirt remained firmly wrapped around him.

The brand on his back remained hidden.

Above deck, the crew continued their watch, uneasy and unsure.

The man they had defeated, captured, and hated was more fragile than they had imagined.

And the shadows around him were far from fully revealed.

The Web Unraveled
Chapter Five: Smoke and Silence

The man had refused food.

Again.

Now, Sanji stood just outside the brig door, fists clenched and jaw tight. The tray he held was simple—rice, broth, water. Nothing fancy. Nothing indulgent.

Just what someone needed to not die.

He kicked the door open without ceremony.

Inside, Doflamingo didn’t even flinch.

The man hadn’t moved much in days. He lay curled on the floor, still chained at the wrists and ankles, collar locked tight. Breathing. Barely.

“Still pretending you don’t need it?” Sanji snapped, stalking forward and setting the tray down with a hard clack beside him. “You’ll die. That’s not a threat, it’s math.”

No response.

Not a turn of the head. Not a twitch toward the sound.

Sanji scowled. “You’re not noble. You’re not mysterious. You’re starving.”

He stepped closer, expecting a flinch. A glare. Something.

Instead, Doflamingo gave a slow, shallow breath and turned his head slightly toward Sanji’s voice—but not toward him. His eyes stayed fixed somewhere just past the cook’s shoulder. Unfocused. Off.

Too off.

Sanji’s scowl deepened. “You can hear me, right?”

A pause.

Then a faint nod.

“Then drink,” Sanji snapped, picking up the cup and crouching down beside him. “Don’t make me shove it down your throat.”

He offered it once.

No movement.

He growled and reached forward—until Doflamingo recoiled violently, face twisting in panic, jerking away like the cup might burn him.

Water sloshed across the floor. The cup clattered.

Sanji froze, mid-movement.

That fear—raw and involuntary—wasn’t the reaction of a warlord playing games.

It was something else.

“Son of a…” Sanji whispered.

Eventually, Sanji forced the cup to Doflamingo’s lips, holding it carefully and tipping it slowly. The first few sips were instinctive—desperate—but then Doflamingo tried to turn away again, shame burning across his face.

“You’re really something,” Sanji muttered. “Laying there half-dead and still trying to act like you’ve got a choice.”

Later, when Chopper returned, he worked in silence.

Sanji lingered.

This time, when Chopper checked Doflamingo’s pupils with a flick of a light, Sanji watched closely.

There was no change.

Chopper didn’t comment—but his little face twisted with something like realization.

When he tried to move around the side of Doflamingo’s vision, Sanji watched again.

Nothing. No tracking. No reaction. Doflamingo only stiffened when Chopper spoke or touched him.

No sight. Just sound.

Sanji didn’t say anything as they left the room.

But his cigarette burned faster between his fingers that night.

Chapter Text

The Web Unraveled
Chapter Six: Stray Light

“Still won’t eat unless I make him,” Sanji muttered, lighting his cigarette. “And even then, barely. Doesn’t move unless he hears me. Doesn’t flinch when I wave a hand in his face.”

Chopper stood beside him, arms crossed tight against his chest. “His wounds are healing slowly, but if he keeps starving himself—if he keeps refusing care—we’ll lose him.”

They stood outside the galley, sunlight spilling across the deck like golden silence. Inside, Luffy sat at the table, expression unreadable.

He listened. Didn’t interrupt.

Chopper hesitated, then said, “We think… we think he might be blind.”

Luffy didn’t flinch, didn’t look surprised. Just leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“Okay,” he said after a long pause.

Sanji blinked. “Okay?”

“Let’s take him topside.”

Chopper stared. “What?”

“Sunlight’ll help the wounds. Being around the crew more often may make him less fearful,” Luffy said. “And if he’s dying, he’ll die slower up here.”

It wasn’t kindness. It wasn’t cruelty. It was just… Luffy.

Zoro didn’t like it.

“He lashes out again, I end him,” he said, voice low as they prepared.

“Fine,” Sanji muttered, gripping a length of chain. “But if he dies from rotting in a hole, that’s on us.”

They opened the brig door.

Doflamingo didn’t move, though his head tilted toward the creak of hinges. His body tensed at the sudden shift in the air.

He smelled the sea.

Felt the change.

Then they were on him—hands grabbing, lifting, dragging. The moment they touched him, he jerked wildly, limbs flailing with what little strength remained.

“No—!” he rasped, voice cracked from disuse and thirst.

“Calm the hell down,” Zoro growled.

He didn’t. Couldn’t. Panic erupted like instinct. Blind, disoriented, overwhelmed—he thrashed until his knees buckled beneath him.

But he was too weak.

The chains stayed.

They dragged him above deck.

The sunlight hit him like a strike. He recoiled on reflex, his hunched shoulders curling forward protectively, the gleam of the ocean all but meaningless to the man who couldn’t see it.

They led him to the mast.

Sanji tightened the shackles around the base, giving just enough slack for movement. They unlocked his arms from behind his back, relocking them in front of him. Zoro checked the chains twice.

He collapsed against the wood.

Breathing hard. Silent.

Above, Nami adjusted her sunglasses and arched an eyebrow. “Well. That’s new.”

Robin lowered her book, expression unreadable. “They brought him up.”

They watched from the sun deck as the once-feared Warlord curled on the deck like a broken beast.

“He didn’t fight,” Nami said softly.

Robin watched the subtle way Doflamingo moved—listening, not looking. His eyes, hidden by his ragged hair, stayed fixed straight ahead, unmoving, even as crew members passed.

Nami tilted her head.

“Does he even see them coming?”

Robin didn’t answer.

Doflamingo lay there, panting quietly.

The sun was warm on his face.

But it offered no comfort.

The Web Unraveled

Chapter Seven: Cracks in the Hull

The sun was warm.

Too warm.

Doflamingo’s body, gaunt and still healing, lay slumped against the mast, the length of chain slack enough to allow him to shift—but not stand. Not that he could. His limbs trembled too much for that now. His clothes clung to him, damp with sweat and dried blood, heavy with the effort of hiding what he couldn’t afford them to see.

The brand on his back pulsed like a second heartbeat.

He imagined it glowing. Radiating.

They’ll find it. They’ll know. They’ll sell me.

The thought was a fever dream that wouldn’t leave.

From the upper deck, Robin watched in silence.

Below her, Doflamingo flinched when Usopp shouted from the other side of the ship. Didn’t turn his head when Luffy passed just a few feet behind him. His head lifted when Sanji spoke from the galley door, calling out something flippant and annoyed.

His body responded to sound.

Not sight.

Nami leaned on the railing beside her, brow furrowed. “It’s weird,” she murmured. “I know he’s injured, but… he doesn’t look at things. Not really.”

Robin closed her book. “He sees with his ears.”

A beat of silence.

“You think he’s blind?” Nami asked, voice low.

“I think he doesn’t want anyone to know.”

Inside the galley, Chopper scrubbed at his hooves furiously.

“I told you he’d get worse,” he growled.

Luffy sat at the table again, expression unreadable. He said nothing.

“He’s going to die if this keeps up,” Chopper continued, voice shaking. “And I know he’s our prisoner, but… I took an oath. I heal people.”

Luffy looked up. “Then try again.”

Chopper blinked. “What?”

“Try again. If he freaks out, I’ll stop him.”

“But Zoro—”

“I’ll handle Zoro.”

The captain’s voice was quiet. Firm.

Absolute.

Later, Zoro stood near the railing, arms crossed.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t want to care.

But something about Doflamingo’s silence was bothering him.

It wasn’t arrogance. Not anymore. It was… defeat.

He glanced towards Chopper, who was approaching slowly, medkit in hand.

Doflamingo’s head snapped up at the sound of footsteps.

He didn’t speak. Just shrank back, back pressed against the mast.

Chopper knelt slowly, hands held out like approaching a wounded animal.

“I’m just going to check your bandages,” he said gently. “No needles. No pain.”

Doflamingo’s lips parted—but no words came.

Only a hoarse breath.

He didn’t move as Chopper worked, though every muscle in his body screamed with tension. When the medic reached for the cloth near his shoulder, Doflamingo flinched hard, twisting away.

“Don’t—!” he rasped.

Chopper froze.

The shirt shifted slightly—just slightly—and Doflamingo grabbed at it with panic.

Still hidden.

Still safe.

But only barely.

Chopper slowly pulled his hands back. “Okay. Okay. I won’t touch that.”

From the shadows, Zoro watched.

That night, the crew gathered for dinner.

Luffy ate quietly.

Zoro picked at his food.

Nami didn’t speak.

Sanji smoked more than usual.

Robin sipped her tea without turning a page.

Franky finally broke the silence.

“Say it,” he muttered.

Everyone looked at him.

Franky scowled. “We’re all thinking it. He’s not right. Not like before. Not like Dressrosa.”

“He’s blind,” Nami said quietly.

“And scared,” Chopper added. “Like really scared. Not faking it.”

Zoro’s jaw clenched.

Luffy didn’t look up.

“I don’t know what he’s done,” Chopper went on. “I know we all have our reasons to hate him. But whatever happened to him—it’s not nothing.”

“He’s hiding something,” Robin said, voice soft. “And not just his inability to see.”

They all looked toward the lower deck, where the mast loomed in shadow.

Where Doflamingo lay curled and silent.

Still chained.

Still watching nothing.

Below, in the dark, Doflamingo pressed his forehead against the wood, sweat slick on his brow.

They’re talking.

He couldn’t hear the words—but he knew.

The tone.

The silence that followed.

He tugged at his shirt.

They’ll see it. They’ll take it off. They’ll know.

And they’ll sell him. Probably back to the bastards he’d been enslaved by as a child.

He shivered.

Alone.

Afraid.

And, for the first time in years, utterly powerless.

Chapter Eight: Fractures in the Silk

The Thousand Sunny drifted under moonlight, sea lapping soft and steady against its hull. A hush had settled over the ship—one broken only by creaking wood and the quiet shift of the night wind.

Robin sat near the mast, her book open, unread. Her gaze occasionally drifted to the figure chained beneath the moon.

Doflamingo hadn’t moved in hours. Curled beneath the blanket she’d laid over him a few hours ago, limbs bound, collar glinting faintly under silver light.

She thought he was asleep.

But then he twitched.

Subtle at first. A shallow jerk of the shoulder. A stifled breath.

Robin lowered her book.

The twitching became tremors. Legs kicking slightly, fingers clenching. A strangled whimper caught in his throat—and suddenly he jerked, whole body lurching as though struck. A low, guttural sound rasped from his mouth.

“No—no, no, please—”

Robin stood slowly, her eyes narrowing.

“Don’t—don’t touch me—get your hands—get your hands off—”

He thrashed then. Violently. His knees struck the deck with a hollow thud, even while lying down. The chains clanked hard, jerking taut. The blanket fell askew, revealing torn bandages, blood-streaked wrists, and sweat-drenched hair plastered to his face.

She froze as the top of a very distinct brand was exposed on his back from his movement.

“Stop!” he choked out, voice cracking.

Robin approached carefully. No sudden movements.

“Doflamingo.”

He didn’t respond. His eyes were clenched shut. He was still asleep, somewhere far below the surface.

“No more—no more collars, no more fire, no more stairs—I’ll behave—”

His voice broke.

Robin crouched beside him, not touching, just close enough for her voice to reach his ragged consciousness.

“You’re on a ship,” she said softly. “You’re not there anymore.”

His breathing hitched.

He stilled.

“Go back to sleep,” she murmured. “You’re not alone.”

His brow twitched. A small sound escaped his throat—half sob, half gasp—but the tension in his limbs slowly unraveled.

Robin didn’t move for a long time.

Dawn broke in quiet gold.

The crew moved about their morning routines—Sanji in the galley, Franky tightening bolts, Nami checking charts.

Robin appeared on the lower deck, balancing a plate and a cup.

She knelt by the chained figure again, whose body was tucked into itself like a dying animal. His lips were cracked. His clothes clung to him, soaked in old sweat.

Robin didn’t speak.

She simply placed the cup of water by his bound hands. A slice of soft bread followed. Then she sat nearby, cross-legged, book reopened.

For minutes, nothing happened.

Then—

He shifted.

A soft scrape of metal against deck as he inched closer. Fingers, trembling, found the cup. Lifted it with both hands, shakily.

Robin didn’t look up.

He drank.

Slowly. Carefully. As though expecting it to vanish.

He ate the bread in ragged bites. Small, tentative.

When it was done, he slumped again. Not back into unconsciousness—but not fully present either.

Just… there.

Robin closed her book and stood.

Later that morning, Sanji froze in the galley doorway. “You’re telling me he ate?”

Chopper’s mouth dropped open. “And drank? Without a fight?”

Robin nodded once. “I didn’t ask. I just gave it to him.”

Nami blinked. “And he didn’t say anything?”

“No.”

Zoro snorted. “Not trust. Probably thought you poisoned it.”

Robin’s lips curled faintly. “Maybe. But he still drank.”

Luffy leaned against the mast, arms crossed. “Keep feeding him.”

Nobody argued.

But nobody quite looked at Doflamingo the same way again.

He remained silent, curled against the base of the mast, arms bound and clothes clinging to his ruined form.

But something in him had shifted.

Not healed. Not softened.

Just… cracked.

Enough for water to get in.

Enough for something to start growing.

Chapter Nine: Breaking Point

The day was calm.

Too calm.

The sea shimmered in soft, lazy swells, and the Thousand Sunny rocked with rhythmic ease. On the upper deck, the crew scattered about in their usual morning routines. Luffy napped in the sun, Sanji smoked quietly while prepping lunch, and Nami lounged with a map draped across her legs. Robin sat with a book, cross-legged, eyes not on the pages.

And down below, bound to the mast, Doflamingo lay still beneath his dark, weather-worn blanket.

He hadn’t moved much since the night before. The bruises lining his face were deepening, purple-black against too-pale skin. His wrists—still cuffed—were raw from straining, the skin chafed and broken beneath the metal. His breath came shallow. His strength was failing.

The only sign of life was the occasional twitch in his jaw. A shiver. A low murmur, half-formed, lost to memory.

It was peaceful.

Until the sound that broke it.

SNAP.

A heavy rope lashed against the railing with a sharp crack, loud and sudden—sounding far too much like a whip.

It wasn’t meant to scare anyone. Franky had only been adjusting a tied-down sail. But the noise cut through the calm like a blade.

And Doflamingo screamed.

Not words—just a scream.

A raw, panicked, feral sound.

Then chaos.

He thrashed, hard. Wrists jerked violently in their shackles. His body twisted as though he were trying to escape fire. His feet kicked out against the deck, blanket and shirt flying loose to reveal bloodied bandages and too many old scars.

“Don’t! Get it off—get it off—get it OFF ME—!”

Zoro was the first down the steps, sword halfway drawn before he stopped in stunned disbelief.

Doflamingo’s head snapped around, but his eyes didn’t focus. They stared through the crew, wide and white, unseeing—haunted.

He threw himself to the side, trying to yank free from the mast. The cuffs didn’t budge.

His wrists didn’t either.

Not without consequence.

There was a sickening pop as one of his shoulders buckled. Blood sprayed from reopened wounds where the metal bit into his arms.

“Chopper!” Zoro barked, suddenly alarmed.

The reindeer shot down from the upper deck in a blur of fur and hooves, skidding to a halt just short of the flailing warlord.

“No, no, no—stop—don’t—” Doflamingo’s voice cracked again, devolving into sobbing, breathless gasps. He threw himself again, harder, as though sheer desperation might make him incorporeal.

The crew stood frozen. Luffy stared, mouth half open, watching this man who had once ruled a country like a god degrade into a trembling, broken creature.

Nami took a step forward, then stopped. Sanji’s hand clenched the railing.

He’s blind, Zoro thought, the memory from the other day rising cold. And he thinks we’re someone else.

Another cry. Louder this time. The sound of someone falling back into hell.

That was when Robin moved.

She crossed the deck slowly, deliberately, and stopped just beside him—close enough to touch, but not yet doing so.

“Doflamingo.”

He flinched like he’d been hit.

“You’re on a ship,” she said, calm as silk. “Not in Mariejois. You’re not in chains like theirs.”

He didn’t stop shaking, but the desperate bucking slowed.

“You’re with pirates,” she went on, tone still neutral, but firm. “But not slavers.”

His breathing hitched. He didn’t respond. His hands flexed in the cuffs, blood dripping freely now.

Robin knelt.

“I’m going to remove the shackles on your wrists,” she said. “That’s all.”

He didn’t nod. He didn’t even attempt to look at her.

But he stopped resisting.

The crew watched as Robin reached out, hands steady, and with soft clicks, undid the cuffs from his ravaged wrists.

She caught one of his hands before it hit the deck. It was shaking uncontrollably.

She placed it gently down and tugged the thin blanket from where it had fallen earlier. She draped it over his bare shoulders again, slow and precise, shielding his torn back.

Then she stood, calmly dusting off her skirt.

No one spoke.

Doflamingo lay there, chest heaving, sweat pooling beneath him, face buried in the crook of one arm. Shaking. Silent. Broken.

The cuffs lay beside him like relics of a crucifixion.

Robin returned to her seat without a word. No one protested.

Not Luffy.

Not Zoro.

Not Sanji.

Not even Nami.

The rope above still swayed in the wind.
_________________________________________

Chopper approached him slowly. Zoro and Sanji both stood close, just in case.

The little reindeer sniffed as he took in the damage that had been done to Doflamingo’s hands and shoulders.

Knowing better now, he said softly, “I’m going to relocate your shoulder now, okay?”

He didn’t respond but also didn’t pull away when Chopper’s delicate touch prodded his shoulder. Using his muscle point, Chopper counted down before popping the shoulder back into place.

A shaky grunt was all the reaction he got from Doflamingo.

He returned to brain point and went about wrapping and bracing Doflamingo’s bloodied and broken hands.

When he was done, Sanji stepped over with some water. To everyone’s surprise, the man drank it without protest. Then again, he seemed basically dead to the world at the moment.

They left him after that. Slowly he curled in on himself, hands gripping his shoulders as well as he could now that they were free.

No one commented.

Chapter 10: Burned Into Bone

It began with the sound of chains.

They clinked faintly in the dark, echoing somewhere far behind his eyes. Cold metal on stone. Breath hitching in time with the rattle. Skin peeled from the back of his shoulders with each twitch of the collar. Doflamingo’s fingers curled against the deck, nails scraping as if searching for traction he no longer remembered.

He was on the Sunny’s main deck—he knew that. But in the moment between waking and memory, the lines blurred. He wasn’t here. He was there.

And he couldn’t stop it.

Robin had taken the night watch again. She sat nearby with a book balanced in her lap, the faint moonlight dancing across its pages. Chopper was curled up beside her, asleep in a loose sprawl, his hat tilted forward.

She almost didn’t hear it at first—the irregular thud of Doflamingo shifting, breath catching in shallow, desperate puffs. Then came the whimper. Not a cry. Not words. Just a sound—guttural, broken, terrified.

Robin looked up.

His head tossed weakly against the mast. The chain rattled as his shoulders strained. One of his legs kicked once, then trembled, going still again. The blanket she’d wrapped around him had slipped—his thin, bruised frame shivering violently beneath it.

“Doflamingo,” she said softly.

No answer.

She stood, walking over with slow, measured steps. He didn’t react until she stopped in front of him with a heavier footfall—and then he flinched, so hard his head cracked the mast behind him. His breath turned frantic, mouth working as if he couldn’t form words.

Robin reached for his arm gently.

The scream that tore from him wasn’t loud—it was deep, like something being torn loose from his ribs. He fought the chain locked to his throat. Not intelligently. Not with strength. Just panic—his fingers pulling against the sea stone collar hard enough that one hand began to bleed anew.

“Stop—” she tried, kneeling. “Doflamingo, you’re not—”

He didn’t hear her. He didn’t see her. She could see it now, fully—his eyes tracking nothing, unfocused, blank. The snarl on his lips wasn’t rage. It was raw fear. Animal.

Zoro burst from below deck, swords half-drawn. Nami’s voice echoed from above. More footsteps followed.

“What the hell is going on?” Zoro barked.

Robin didn’t answer. She reached again, this time wrapping her hands around his forearms as his body thrashed.

Chopper was suddenly there too, trying to calm him, calling his name.

It wasn’t until she whispered, “You’re safe,” that his body began to slow.

The words meant nothing, she thought—but maybe the tone did. Or maybe it was exhaustion. His strength fled all at once, and his head sagged forward, mouth hanging open, trembling. He shuddered with each breath, gasping like he’d drowned and resurfaced.

Zoro crouched beside them, eyes narrowed.

“He didn’t see you coming,” he said quietly.

Robin didn’t reply.

“You said he flinched before you even touched him?”

“Yes.”

Chopper nodded. “And earlier—he moved like he was expecting a blow. But only when someone got close.”

The three of them looked toward the man collapsed at the base of the mast.

Still breathing. But barely.

Robin didn’t tell the others to leave. They watched her quietly when she reached for the chain.

He didn’t fight her this time.

She undid it with slow, deliberate care, catching him before he fell to the deck. He was shaking violently. She set his trembling hands in his lap and adjusted the blanket, drawing it high over his shoulders again, gently shielding the lines of his spine and neck from view.

It was only when Chopper knelt to change the bandages on his side—moving the blanket to check the wounds—that the brand was seen.

The hoof mark.

Jagged. Raised. Scarred over. And unmistakable.

Chopper gasped.

Robin did not.

Zoro, standing behind them, said nothing for a long time. Then:

“…That’s why.”

No one said what that was.

They didn’t need to.

He didn’t speak for hours. Not when Chopper cleaned the cuts on his wrists. Not when Robin rewrapped his shoulder. Not when Zoro crouched in front of him and just watched in silence, his arms folded.

The Straw Hats left him there as dawn broke—untied now, but still slumped against the mast, cloak drawn up to his chin. The brand was hidden again.

But not forgotten.

Chapter Text

Chapter 11 — Quiet Fallout
Morning on the Sunny broke not with warmth, but with a quiet tension that hung in the salt air like storm clouds still gathering. No one spoke of what they had seen the day before. Word had spread through the crew in whispers and quick glances.

The brand.
Even hours later, it haunted them—etched into memory with grotesque clarity. A Celestial Dragon’s mark, burned deep into Doflamingo’s back, hidden for days under that tattered shirt. Not a scar from battle, not a tattoo of pride—but a sign of ownership. Of suffering. Of slavery.

None of them knew what to do with that knowledge.

Luffy sat on the lion-shaped prow, legs dangling, unusually still. His arms hung loose at his sides, and for once, he didn’t fidget. His straw hat shaded his face, but his expression was unreadable—jaw tight, brows drawn. Sanji had brought him breakfast earlier, and it remained untouched. Luffy had never turned away food.

On the lower deck, Doflamingo hadn’t moved much since the night before. His arms remained unshackled at the wrists—Robin had seen to that—but his ankles were still bound, the chain attached to his collar looped through the mast with more slack than he’d had before. His breathing was shallow, quiet. Awake, but silent.

He hadn’t spoken a word. Maybe if he didn’t draw attention to himself they’d forget he was there.

Sanji was the first to break the tension.

The clatter of pots in the galley seemed louder than usual, as if he were trying to drown out the silence. Eggs sizzled. Bread toasted. A pan slammed harder than necessary against the sink.

Nami entered without a word. She hovered near the table, arms folded tightly across her chest, not quite meeting his eyes.

“Breakfast,” Sanji said gruffly, not bothering with his usual charm. He slid a plate onto the counter and turned away before she could respond.

“Are you okay?” she asked, voice low.

Sanji’s shoulders tensed. “No. None of us are. That guy down there—he’s a monster. But he—” He paused, lips pressing into a thin line. “He’s also… not what we thought.”

Nami looked away, guilt twisting in her gut. She remembered his flinching, his panic, how he’d tried to curl away from them even as they forced him upright. His body had trembled—not in rage, but in fear. Real, visceral fear.

“Do you think it’s real?” she asked.

“You saw it.”

“Yeah, but… it doesn’t make sense.”

Robin’s voice cut in from the doorway, soft but sure. “It doesn’t have to make sense to us. It happened. That mark isn’t something anyone chooses.”

The three stood in silence for a beat, the weight of truth anchoring the air between them.

Down on the main deck, Chopper hesitated before approaching Doflamingo.

He’d been checking on him daily—monitoring his wounds, keeping him from getting infections, trying to coax him into eating. Every time, the same response: flinching, silence, refusal. Chopper hadn’t known why.

But now… after that episode… after the brand…

Chopper swallowed his nerves and stepped forward, clutching a clean bandage roll.

Doflamingo lay still, his face half-hidden by golden hair and the folds of the cloak. His skin was drawn taut over bone—he hadn’t eaten properly in days—and the bruises across his ribs looked darker than before.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Chopper said gently, pausing a few feet away. “I just need to check the wounds on your side. You’re not healing very fast.”

No response.

Chopper crouched lower, trying to meet his gaze—but Doflamingo’s eyes didn’t track him. They stared through him. Or… past him.

“You really are blind.”

Doflamingo’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak. Didn’t deny it.

He quickly and carefully examined the warlord, changing bandages as needed but avoiding Doflamingo’s back as best he could.

Later that day, the rest of the crew took their meals in tense silence.

Luffy didn’t come. Neither did Robin.

Zoro sat against the railing, one hand on his sword, watching the sea like it might jump up and bite him. Franky tinkered quietly with the cola tank. Brook didn’t hum.

The only sound was the creaking of the mast in the breeze.

And still, Doflamingo remained curled near its base, knees drawn in, body still and cloaked. No sound escaped him. But the image of his trembling, raw hands—of his panic the night before—had burned itself into each of their minds.

He wasn’t fighting them.

He hadn’t fought in days.

And that realization scared some of them more than the monster he used to be.

That night, Robin sat alone near the library door, book open but untouched.

The lamplight flickered, casting long shadows. She didn’t move when Nami joined her, arms wrapped tight around herself like armor.

“He’s not what I expected,” Nami said quietly.

Robin closed her book. “None of us are, when broken open.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then, softly: “Do you think he thought we’d sell him?”

Robin didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes drifted out the window, toward the sleeping sea. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone with that mark was betrayed. I think… he expected it. Still does.”

Nami’s throat tightened. She didn’t know what scared her more—that he had been right to expect cruelty, or that he still feared it from them.

And that fear, she realized, had kept him silent all along.

Below, the blanket shifted.

Doflamingo didn’t sleep. Not really. Not deeply.

The pain made sure of that. So did the fear.

But even if he had, no dream would have been kind.

He pressed his head against the mast, breathing slow and quiet, as if trying not to exist at all.

And above him, for the first time, no one turned away.

They didn’t understand.

But they were starting to see.

Chapter 12 – Shadows Beneath the Sun

The sun shone high over the Thousand Sunny, a rare warmth settling over the ship like a blessing. The winds were mild, the seas calm. It should have felt peaceful. For most of the Straw Hat crew, it was beginning to.

They were trying.

After the chaos, the violence, the revelations—there had been an unspoken agreement to return to some semblance of normalcy. Sanji cooked, Chopper organized supplies, Luffy and Usopp roughhoused with wild laughter. Even Zoro found quiet corners to nap, one eye lazily drifting toward the sea. Franky tinkered at the helm while Brooke’s soft music drifted across the deck like something from another world.

But beneath the stairs at the far end of the ship, in a low alcove barely big enough to sit up in, Doflamingo huddled in shadow.

He’d been unshackled days ago. The decision had been quiet, tentative. No announcement, no dramatic confrontation. Just the soft clink of keys in Robin’s hand, and then the chains had been disconnected from the collar.

The scars on his wrists were still there. Red, raw, ugly. The burns around his ankles hadn’t fully healed. But they let him roam freely now.

He didn’t.

Instead, he retreated. Beneath the stairs, back hunched, face turned toward the wall, wrapped in his blanket like a barrier against the world. The alcove was dark and tight, the kind of space where the noise of the ship dulled just enough to stop echoing in his skull. It was small, unassuming—safe. No eyes found him there unless they looked hard.

He didn’t speak. He barely moved. But he ate.

That alone was a shift.

It started the morning after his breakdown. Robin had left a bowl of soup near him without a word. He hadn’t touched it at first. Hours passed. Then, a quiet clatter of porcelain. When she returned later, the bowl was empty, scraped clean. The next day, it was the bread. Then fruit. Water.

He never ate in front of them. Never acknowledged the food. But the offerings were accepted in silence, and he stopped flinching when footsteps passed too close to his hiding spot.

Chopper checked on him daily. Gently, carefully. He never touched without warning now. He always announced his presence, voice soft and clear: “It’s me, Chopper. Just checking your bandages.” Doflamingo would stiffen, sometimes hiss through his teeth, but he didn’t lash out. Not anymore.

He was healing. Slowly.

The physical wounds responded first—flesh mending, bruises fading, the deep gouges from sea stone burns beginning to scar. But the tremors hadn’t stopped. Sometimes, at night, the whole ship seemed to fall quiet at the sound of a muffled gasp or a ragged breath from the lower deck.

No one said anything. Not yet.

Sanji brought meals more often now, pretending they were leftovers he had no use for. “Don’t waste my cooking,” he muttered the first time, placing the dish closer than usual. Doflamingo didn’t answer. But later, when the plate was empty and wiped spotless, Sanji’s eyes softened.

The others stayed wary. Luffy, in his strange simplicity, didn’t talk about it much. He watched. Zoro remained openly suspicious, often pausing on the stairs just long enough for Doflamingo to notice. Nami and Robin kept their distance, though Robin’s gaze lingered longest. And Franky, who had been most vocal about putting the ex-Warlord in the sea, now seemed distracted, unsure.

Even Brooke’s music shifted. Less lively now. More introspective.

Still, the world around Doflamingo moved on.

Luffy’s laughter rang out across the deck as he launched himself into Usopp’s latest invention. Chopper shrieked in joy as he was caught midair. Zoro dozed under the sun. Franky and Nami bickered about solar panels. Brooke sang something sad and sweet, and the sea breathed around them.

It unsettled Doflamingo.

The noise. The laughter. The absence of cruelty.

He couldn’t see it—his world remained dark, warped and vague—but he could hear everything. Feel it. And he didn’t understand it.

There were no threats. No commands. No snapping whips. No laughter at his expense. The cage was gone, but so were the bars. And that was worse, somehow. He didn’t trust it. Couldn’t.

Yet each day, the food disappeared faster. His breathing steadied. He stretched, once, when he thought no one was near. He turned his head toward the music when Brooke played. Small things. Fragile things.

Sanji noticed first. The tension in his shoulders had lessened. He no longer flinched at the rattle of a tray. When Sanji tried to talk, Doflamingo didn’t answer—but he didn’t snarl either. His silence was tired, not angry.

“Keep eating, asshole,” Sanji muttered one afternoon, adjusting the tray on the floor near the stairs. “You still look like hell.”

Doflamingo didn’t move. But after Sanji walked away, there was a faint rustle beneath the stairs. Then the slow clink of cutlery.

And for the first time, Sanji didn’t look back.

Chapter 13: The Storm Breaks

The weather turned fast.

One moment, the Thousand Sunny drifted in sunlit calm, and the next, the sky cracked open with a warning growl. Black clouds unfurled across the horizon like ink spilled over parchment, roiling and hungry. Franky barked orders to secure the sails. Usopp scrambled to tie down supplies. Nami gritted her teeth as she gripped the rail, already soaked through.

Below deck, Doflamingo stirred.

He’d sensed the change before the others—pressure dipping, the shifting rhythm of the waves echoing strangely against the hull. The cacophony of the storm was a disorienting blur to him: boots pounding on planks, wind howling through cracks, voices rising in alarm.

He remained huddled beneath the stairs, wrapped in his cloak. His ribs still ached from injuries half-healed. Though unshackled, he hadn’t strayed far from the shadows. The muffled sounds of the Straw Hats trying to ride out the weather scraped across his nerves like dull knives.

He was tense. His body knew what it meant when thunder cracked and men shouted. Somewhere deep inside, it remembered chains.

A violent lurch of the ship threw him forward. He hit the wall hard, pain blooming in his side. Rain began to leak through the boards above, cold and sharp against his face.

Then—another jolt.

A crash. Not thunder. Something else.

A cannon?

Screams from above confirmed it. Not just a storm. A ship. A raid.

“Boarders!” Usopp shouted.

Doflamingo forced himself to sit up. He couldn’t tell how many intruders there were—only that they were fast, and the chaos made it impossible to track them. He could feel their movement like ghosts brushing against the threads of his consciousness—ghosts he couldn’t grasp without his powers.

He backed farther into the alcove, clutching his cloak. Vulnerability burned hotter than fever in his chest. Even now, even after weeks of captivity, there was a part of him that wanted to fight.

But he couldn’t. Not without sight. Not without strength. Not like this.

Wood splintered somewhere nearby. Boots crashed down the stairs.

Too close.

Too fast.

A shape loomed in the darkness. Doflamingo’s pulse roared in his ears. He scrambled to his feet, groping for anything to steady himself. His breath came in shallow gasps.

A hand seized his arm.

He let out a strangled noise—part snarl, part terror. He thrashed, cloak slipping off one shoulder, panic surging as the hand tightened. He struck out blindly, but his limbs were weak, his coordination lost.

“Doffy!”

The voice—loud, familiar, bright with adrenaline.

Luffy.

Another jolt of movement, and the grip on him shifted. Not attacking—pulling. Doflamingo felt himself dragged out of the alcove and shoved behind something solid—Luffy’s body.

The pirate captain turned to face the intruder and delivered a punch so powerful it sent the attacker hurtling back through the stairwell.

Doflamingo collapsed against the wall, breath heaving. Rain now poured through the open hatch, soaking everything.

Luffy glanced back at him, panting. “You okay?”

He couldn’t answer.

He didn’t understand.

He had expected pain. Chains. Re-capture. Sale.

Not protection.

Not this.

The ship heaved again. Someone screamed above. Luffy gave him one more unreadable look and sprinted back up the stairs, barefoot and wild, leaving Doflamingo trembling in a puddle of rainwater, cloak askew.

The storm passed by morning.

The damage was light—some rigging snapped, a few cuts and bruises. Usopp would later call it the “greatest defense of the Sunny” in weeks.

But below deck, something quieter shifted.

Doflamingo sat curled in his usual spot. His cloak clung to his damp frame. The panic hadn’t returned—but neither had sleep.

He didn’t understand why Luffy had saved him. Didn’t trust it. But the gesture haunted him.

And something else—something smaller.

That afternoon, when no one was near, he slid a hand along the wall. Then again. Fingers trailing the grain of the wood, mapping the stair, the edges of the alcove, the bolts in the corner.

He moved slowly. Unsure.

He didn’t wander far. Not yet. But it was something.

He was learning the ship by touch.

And the crew let him.

No one spoke of it. Not even when Robin watched from above and saw his hand drift carefully, carefully across the wall. Not when Sanji delivered food and found him seated just outside the alcove instead of within it.

No one stopped him.

And that, somehow, unsettled him more than the raid.

Chapter 14: Blades in the Dark

The night was quiet.

A rare stillness had fallen over the Thousand Sunny, the ship rocking gently on calm waters under a dark, moonless sky. Most of the crew had turned in for the night. Only the soft sounds of waves lapping against the hull and the occasional creak of timber filled the air. Even the music from Brook’s violin had long faded.

From his place beneath the stairs, Doflamingo listened to it all. The hush, the subtle movements of people sleeping below deck, the distant heartbeat of the sea. He sat cross-legged in the shadows, half-wrapped in the blanket Robin had given him, his blond hair hanging limp and tangled over his face. He hadn’t slept. He never really did anymore.

He had no idea what time it was, only that he was alone, unchained but still a prisoner in all but name.

Then, movement.

A sudden shift in the atmosphere—a tension in the air, like the breath before a scream.

Doflamingo’s head twitched up. His senses, long dulled by pain and seastone, flickered to life.

There was someone on the ship who didn’t belong.

The sound came next—quiet footsteps, soft as ghosts. Then a thud. A stifled cry.

Chopper.

Doflamingo rose unsteadily to his feet, instinct pulling him toward the source. He felt more than saw the threat—a burst of aggression, killing intent slipping through the night like knives in the dark.

Then: steel.

It sang out as it left a scabbard. Doflamingo’s body tensed. His observation haki snapped awake, raw and wild. It flooded his senses, painting the scene in shapes and intent: six intruders, all trained, closing in on the reindeer doctor who had been on watch and taken by surprise.

He didn’t think.

He moved.

It was clumsy, uneven—his legs still half-useless, pain screaming in every muscle. But he got there. Just as the first blade arced toward Chopper, Doflamingo slammed into the space between them.

The sword cut across his shoulder.

Another slammed into his ribs. A sick squelching noise filled that air as the blades withdrew from his torso.

He didn’t cry out. He simply stood his ground, his body shielding Chopper. The pain was electric, but it was nothing compared to the sense that something—someone—was about to be taken again.

The Marines recoiled in confusion.

“That’s—! That’s Donquixote Doflamingo!”

“He’s still alive?”

“Get the net! The Admiral will pay double for him!”

He heard it—felt it—and dread curled cold and slick in his gut.

They knew him.

And they were going to take him. He wasn’t strong enough to fight them.

Something heavy flew through the air—ropes weighted with seastone. It hit him like a hammer. The strength left his limbs in an instant as the added sea stone covered him. He collapsed, gasping, his body twisting to stay between the net and Chopper unconsciously. The little doctor tried to fight, shouting, “Get off him!” but he was small and outnumbered.

They were dragging both of them now, toward the side of the ship where a smaller vessel waited. Doflamingo’s ears rang. He couldn’t breathe. The seastone burned against his skin, and his haki flickered out again in his intense fear, plunging him into the dark.

He would not go back.

He could not go back.

His hands scrabbled weakly at the net, bloodied fingers curling around rope. He tried to pull Chopper beneath him, protect him, but he was failing—slipping—fading—

A sudden gust of wind.

And then: steel, again—but not from the Marines.

Zoro’s blade tore through the net in a single arc.

Sanji appeared a heartbeat later, his kick snapping a Marine’s jaw. Luffy slammed into the crowd with the force of a cannonball, rubber limbs lashing through the air. Shouts erupted. The Marines never stood a chance.

In seconds, it was over.

Doflamingo lay limp in the ruins of the net, his chest rising and falling in shallow, wet gasps. He couldn’t move. Blood soaked the deck beneath him, and his hands trembled with exhaustion and cold. The pain had faded into something dull and far away.

Footsteps rushed toward him.

“Doflamingo!” Chopper’s voice was high and frantic. “Stay with me, you have to stay awake—!”

But he couldn’t.

He didn’t see Zoro sheath his sword or Luffy crouch beside him, frowning with something like confusion. He didn’t see the moment the crew hesitated—not angry anymore, but stunned.

Because Donquixote Doflamingo had just taken several blades for their doctor.

He had saved him.

And now he was bleeding out.

Later, in the Infirmary

Warmth. That was the first thing he felt.

Not fire. Not a brand. Just warmth—clean sheets, bandages tight against his skin. The pain was quieter now. His wounds had been treated. His fever had broken.

He opened his eyes—saw nothing—and for a moment, panicked.

Then Chopper’s voice came gently.

“You’re safe. We’re on the Sunny. You’re not… there.”

Doflamingo didn’t answer.

He didn’t know how.

From the doorway, Luffy stood silently. He looked at the man in the bed—the warlord, the enemy, the traitor—then glanced at Chopper.

“Is he gonna make it?”

Chopper nodded. “Barely. But yeah.”

Luffy stepped inside. His voice was softer than usual. “You saved Chopper.”

Doflamingo didn’t speak.

But his head turned slightly at the sound of Luffy’s voice.

Luffy stared at him for a long moment, then nodded once, quietly. “Thanks.”

He left after that.

And though no one said it aloud, the mood on the ship shifted.

A fracture in the hatred. A question where certainty had once been.

And for the first time in weeks, Donquixote Doflamingo slept.

Not peacefully.

But deeply.

Chapter 15: The Weight of What Wasn’t Said

Doflamingo woke slowly, pain thudding behind his eyes like a warning bell.

His body ached, skin split and bruised from blows he barely remembered taking. Everything was too loud—footsteps overhead, the creak of rope, the soft thump of Chopper’s hooves as he moved around the infirmary. But he didn’t flinch, didn’t recoil. That much he’d learned. Stillness was safer. Stillness didn’t provoke.

He kept his breathing shallow. Controlled.

You failed.

You exposed yourself. You endangered a child. You didn’t warn them in time.

He remembered the weight of Chopper’s small body slumping near him, the chaos blooming too close, the metallic scent of blades, and then—then the scream. Not his. The reindeer’s. Sharp and afraid and real.

And he’d moved.

Not from kindness. Not from loyalty. He’d acted on instinct.

Not duty. Just… a voice calling out. A body in danger.

He hadn’t thought—because if he had, he might’ve remembered what people like him were supposed to do in moments like that.

Nothing. They were supposed to do nothing. Let it happen. Be the example. Be the warning.

But he’d moved.

Now he was waiting for the price.

His wrists were bandaged, but not shackled. That was new.

He flinched as someone approached. The soft rustle of fabric. He could smell blood and sweat, metal oil—Zoro.

“Awake?” the swordsman asked.

Doflamingo didn’t answer.

Zoro didn’t push it. “You took a hit meant for Chopper. Just saying it out loud.”

Still, he said nothing.

“You’re expecting punishment.” Zoro didn’t ask—it was too matter-of-fact.

Doflamingo’s shoulders curled inward ever so slightly.

Zoro exhaled and left without another word.

—

Later, outside on the deck, the sky was darkening into the blue of late afternoon. Luffy sat on the rail, spinning slowly side to side. Sanji leaned against the mast, arms crossed, a cigarette barely lit between his fingers. Zoro stood nearby, arms loosely folded.

“He didn’t have to do that,” Luffy said finally. “Jump in like that.”

“No,” Sanji agreed, watching the smoke curl.

Zoro’s jaw ticked.

There was a pause.

“He thought we were gonna sell him,” Zoro said flatly. “He was shaking like someone was coming to collect.”

Sanji looked away.

“I hated him,” Luffy admitted. “I still kinda do. For Dressrosa. For everything.”

“Same,” Zoro said. “But I saw what I saw.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s our friend now,” Sanji muttered.

“No,” Luffy agreed. “But he’s not just what he was.”

They didn’t make any grand decisions then. No declarations or final judgments. Just quiet understanding—three men who’d seen something they couldn’t unsee.

—

In the infirmary, Doflamingo lay as still as death. The room had emptied, the ship settling into dusk routines. He’d eaten something earlier—Sanji had all but forced food into his hands with such crisp irritation Doflamingo hadn’t dared resist. Chopper had returned to rewrap some of the worst wounds, no longer asking permission.

They hadn’t punished him.

He didn’t understand it.

He didn’t trust it.

But for now, he lay quiet, mind turning over the truth like a blade:

They hadn’t shackled him again.

They hadn’t yelled.

They hadn’t sold him.

And they had seen him act. Really seen him.

Maybe that was the most terrifying part of all.

Chapter Text

Chapter 16

The days bled together.

Doflamingo no longer cowered beneath the stairs. At some point—quietly, without fanfare—he’d been given a proper room. Small, windowless, tucked away near the infirmary. It was private. Unlocked. The door was always left ajar.

He hadn’t tried to leave.

Not really.

It was easier to stay tucked in the quiet corner, waiting for the world to stop holding its breath. Letting his strength crawl back inch by inch. Letting the Straw Hats forget he was here—at least until the doctor brought water or checked his pulse.

He still couldn’t see.

The darkness had settled in like a second skin, clinging even now that the pain had dulled. His body had begun to recover. His mind… hadn’t. Not really.

And then, everything changed again.

The door to the infirmary creaked open, a voice echoing across the corridor: “Oi, Luffy? You on this damn ship or did you fall overboard?”

Doflamingo flinched.

That voice.

No.

Law.

He backed up fast, bumping into the cot as footsteps approached from the deck.

“You’re early,” Luffy’s voice rang from above. “You said another week.”

“I heard something I didn’t like,” Law said flatly. “Rumor is, the Marines know Doflamingo’s alive. If they’re sniffing around, it means someone’s talking. I wanted to—”

He cut off mid-sentence.

Because Doflamingo had stepped out into the passage, unsure where the voices were coming from, but trying to edge back toward his room without revealing his panic.

Law’s Observation Haki flared in warning. The aura was unmistakable.

He turned.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The voice was strangled. Low. Dangerous.

Doflamingo stilled.

He didn’t need to see. The heat of rage that spiked in Law’s presence was suffocating—old and raw and electric.

Law moved.

Before Doflamingo could get his bearings, Law shambled down the steps, drawing Kikoku without hesitation. “You’re not restrained. You’re walking free?” His voice was rising with every syllable. “You’re walking free?”

Doflamingo backed up blindly.

Too fast. He hit the wall behind him and stumbled, catching himself with his wrists.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t defend. Couldn’t.

He was shaking.

Law lunged, swinging downward in a sharp arc. The blade came fast, but didn’t strike—Zoro’s was faster. Steel met steel, and the clang of swords reverberated through the hull.

“Back off, Law,” Zoro growled. “Now.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Law snapped. “He’s supposed to be locked away—he’s not even—he’s just—standing there.”

“Yeah,” Sanji said, stepping up beside him. “He is. And he’s not fighting back.”

Doflamingo had dropped to his knees. Head down, one hand trembling on the floor.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t even seem to hear them anymore.

Law’s rage twisted into something else. Disbelief. Confusion.

“He’s blind, Law,” Sanji said at last, low and firm. “He can’t see you.”

That landed like a bomb.

Law stared, jaw clenched, fists white around Kikoku’s hilt.

“…What?”

“He’s blind,” Chopper echoed from the stairs. “We found out a while ago.”

Law blinked, once. Twice.

He looked at Doflamingo again—slumped, breathing hard, barely responsive.

“No. That’s… that’s not possible.”

“He hid it,” Robin said quietly, appearing on the railing above. “For years, probably. Used his Devil Fruit to compensate. Seastone took it away.”

“No,” Law repeated. He was shaking now too, but it was all in his eyes. “He took everything from me. Don’t—don’t say he was—he’s not—”

“None of us said he deserves sympathy,” Sanji said sharply.

Luffy stepped between them. His arms were loose at his sides, but his face had gone still.

“Law.”

Law’s breath hitched.

Luffy wasn’t smiling.

“He saved Chopper from Marines a few nights ago,” Luffy said. “Almost got taken with him. Hurt bad. We didn’t ask him to. He just did it.”

“I—what?” Law looked between them, utterly disoriented. “Why would he—”

“We don’t know,” Chopper murmured. “He didn’t talk much afterward. But… I don’t think it was a plan.”

Doflamingo was still hunched on the floor.

Waiting for the blow.

Waiting for someone to snap and finish it.

Law stared at him like the world had been tilted out from under him.

Then his gaze locked with Robin’s.

“What else aren’t you telling me?”

No one spoke.

Law’s eyes narrowed. “There’s something else.”

Sanji shifted. Reluctantly.

“…There’s a mark on his back.”

Law’s gaze cut to him.

“A mark?”

Robin nodded solemnly. “A brand.”

Law’s heart dropped.

“…No.”

“You can guess what kind,” she added softly.

“No,” Law said again, shaking his head. “No. That—he’s a Celestial Dragon. That’s what he was. They don’t get branded. They do the branding.”

Luffy was watching him carefully.

“He was a slave?” Law whispered. “How…?”

“He fell,” Nami’s voice drifted from above. “Harder than anyone.”

Law’s face had gone white.

He looked down again.

Doflamingo still hadn’t moved. Still hadn’t spoken.

Law opened his mouth.

Closed it again.

And then—turned away.

The deck was too bright. The air too thick.

Zoro exhaled quietly, stepping forward and touching Doflamingo’s arm. “Come on.”

He and Sanji flanked the former warlord, helping him stand. Not forcing. Just guiding. No chains. No rope.

Only quiet hands.

They led him below deck without a word.

The door to his room clicked shut behind them.

Unlocked.

Law remained alone on deck for a long time.

And Luffy stood beside him, silent.

The sea whispered against the hull, and the wind carried nothing but the sound of breath.

Chapter 17: Unsaid Things

The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, casting the Thousand Sunny in soft moonlight. Most of the crew had gone to their bunks after dinner. Only the occasional murmur of quiet voices or the low creak of wood broke the silence.

Law stood alone at the starboard rail, his arms braced on the wood, eyes on the sea. He hadn’t moved in over an hour.

Luffy found him there.

He didn’t announce himself. Just walked up beside him and leaned forward with his chin propped on the rail, staring out at the dark waters. For a long time, neither of them said anything.

“I didn’t know,” Law said at last. His voice was hoarse, like he’d been holding something in for too long. “About… any of it.”

Luffy glanced sideways at him. “I figured.”

“I thought you would’ve kept him in chains. Locked up. Not…” He trailed off.

“Not walking around,” Luffy finished quietly.

Law exhaled hard through his nose. “You should have told me. I wasn’t prepared to see him like that.”

Luffy shrugged. “I didn’t know it would matter.”

Law turned sharply. “You didn’t—Luffy, that man ruined entire countries.”

“I know.” Luffy’s voice didn’t change. “I was there. Remember?”

Law’s eyes darted over his face, trying to read something in the stillness. “Then why are you letting him walk free?”

“Because he’s not free,” Luffy said. “He’s broken. And he saved Chopper’s life.”

Law looked away.

“He’s blind, Law.”

That stopped him. Luffy watched the way Law’s jaw tensed. “I didn’t know that either,” he admitted after a moment. “When?”

“We’re not sure. Might’ve been a while. He was faking it somehow. Possibly with his Devil Fruit”

There was a pause. The waves slapped gently against the hull.

Luffy didn’t press. He let Law sit with the silence until the swordsman finally asked, “Why tell me now?”

“Because you saw him. The real him.”

Law’s fingers curled on the rail.

“You were right to be mad,” Luffy said, surprising him. “If I were you, I’d have punched him too.”

Law blinked, stunned.

“But you weren’t just mad. You were hurt. Scared. And I get that.”

“I wasn’t—” Law started, but Luffy tilted his head.

“You were.”

Another silence fell between them. Law didn’t argue this time.

The wind caught the edge of Law’s coat. He didn’t move.

“I don’t want to forgive him,” Law said eventually. It wasn’t a declaration. It was almost a whisper. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

“No,” Luffy agreed, to Law’s shock. “Maybe not.”

Law finally turned to face him. “Then why are you helping him?”

Luffy looked up at the moon. His expression was unreadable for a moment.

“Because he’s not the same. And because… I don’t think he even knows how to want forgiveness.”

That made Law pause. His mouth opened, then closed.

Luffy looked at him again. His eyes were steady, but there was something softer in them now. “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

Law looked away. “Too late.”

They stood there for a while. The silence between them wasn’t cold. It was weighty, but not unwelcome.

Eventually, Luffy reached out and nudged Law’s arm with his elbow. “You still mad at me?”

Law huffed quietly. “Idiot.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” Luffy grinned.

A beat.

“…No,” Law muttered. “Just—tired.”

“You should sleep.”

“So should you.”

They lingered a little longer, neither moving away. The space between them buzzed with something unspoken. Not tension, not anger—just something new.

“Hey,” Luffy said, voice quiet.

Law glanced at him.

“Thanks for not killing him.”

Law’s lips pressed into a thin line. But he nodded once.

They didn’t say goodnight. They didn’t need to.

The door had clicked behind him with a soft click. Not harsh. Not cruel. Just… final.

Doflamingo sat alone again.

His hands, bloodied and bandaged, trembled faintly in his lap. He didn’t feel the sting. Didn’t feel anything, really—except the ghost of Law’s voice still ringing in his ears. Still felt the sudden snap of pressure as a sword came down, the flash of pain across his ribs. He hadn’t even fought back. He didn’t know how to, not anymore. Not in a world that had gone pitch black.

There were no strings. No power. No laughter. Just the black and the soft clink of the seastone cuffs he imagined even when they weren’t there.

You should have died on that battlefield.

You think a room and pity makes you human again?

He didn’t know why those words struck deeper than fists.

The floor was cool under his legs. He’d sunk down there sometime after being brought back. Slumped like a discarded marionette, boneless and slack. The blanket Robin had given him remained draped around his shoulders. He didn’t touch it. Didn’t dare.

He should have spoken up. Should have explained. Should have… done something. But the second Law’s presence hit him—raw, familiar, powerful—he’d been thrown backward in time. Back into fire and blood and screaming. Back into the Dressrosa palace. Back into the cage. Back into Mariejois.

It was only instinct that had made him bolt. Only panic. But even that was half-hearted. The moment Law struck, Doflamingo had simply… folded. Let it happen.

And that was the truth of it, wasn’t it?

He wasn’t a warlord anymore. He wasn’t a king.

He was a blind, broken animal who’d learned not to flinch when the whip cracked.

He’d acted on instinct. Not kindness. Not duty. Just… a voice calling out. A body in danger. He hadn’t thought—because if he had, he might’ve remembered what people like him were supposed to do in moments like that.

He’d saved Chopper. And now Law hated him more than ever.

He didn’t blame him.

He touched his jaw, where Law’s fist had landed. His fingers came back sticky. He didn’t know if it was blood or spit or both.

“Should’ve stayed in the alcove,” he murmured hoarsely to no one. “Should’ve kept quiet.”

The silence answered him. Soft and endless.

He hated the quiet. It was where the memories lived.

He saw things in it, behind his dead eyes—phantoms of the past he couldn’t shut out. His father’s corpse swinging from a tree. His mother’s coughing fits. The firelight gleaming on polished boots. A blade. A laugh. Screams.

He curled tighter into himself, breath hitching. His whole body shivered—not from cold, but from the absence of control.

From helplessness.

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes even though it made no difference. They’d taken sight from him long before Law returned to strip him bare again.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat like that. An hour? Two? Time didn’t mean anything here.

What mattered was the sound of his own breath. What mattered was the fact that—for now—he wasn’t dead. Though he almost wished he were.

And still, part of him wanted to get up. Wanted to do something.

He hated that part.

Chapter 18: The Shatterpoint

The room was still. Too still.

Doflamingo sat on the floor beside the narrow bed they’d given him, his back to the wall, arms draped over his knees. He’d made a point not to touch anything. Not to ask for anything. He drank the water Chopper gave him. Ate the food, sometimes. Spoke only when spoken to. For days, he’d kept himself folded in a shell of silent compliance, not from peace, but from exhaustion.

The encounter with Law had gutted something he hadn’t even known was still alive inside him.

He had tried to believe there was a future in this—not freedom, never that—but something like safety. A quiet place to sit and waste away without fear. But Law’s voice had brought the past screaming back in ways he hadn’t prepared for. The sound of his voice. The cold precision in his strikes. The name—Corazon—spoken like a blade.

He should’ve known. He did know.

And now, the mask was slipping.

It began small. Subtle. A question asked twice. A tray pushed just a little too hard across the table, nearly upsetting the cup. When Nami came to check on him, he ignored her completely, blank-faced and tight-jawed. The silence became intentional.

Then, he started snapping. Words at first, sharp and dry like snapped bone.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Get out.”

“I’m not your fucking pet.”

Luffy didn’t seem fazed. Neither did Sanji, or Zoro, or even Chopper, who only gave him a sympathetic silence that stung worse than any insult—concern. Not fear. Not hatred.
Concern.

That made it worse.

It built. Slowly. A storm with no lightning yet. He started refusing food again. Pacing. Testing the walls. Standing too close to doors. He’d snap toward movement he couldn’t see, baring his teeth like a cornered animal.

And then one afternoon, he reached the edge.

He was in the hall outside the infirmary when he heard Law’s voice—low, dry, familiar in the way poison is. He turned before he could think better of it, following the sound like a wire had pulled him forward. He reached the main deck just in time to hear Law speaking to Robin, saying something about stability, trust, the importance of boundaries when dealing with violent prisoners.

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” Doflamingo said aloud.

Silence fell like a dropped curtain.

Law’s breath hitched. He turned—too slow.

Doflamingo lunged.

He didn’t make it far. The world was a blur of colorless shadows and instinct. He misjudged the angle, crashed into the rail, barely managing to right himself. His shoulder throbbed, still weak. His collar burned. Still, he moved toward the voice.

“You talk about monsters like you’ve never been one,” he snarled. “I taught you better than that.”

Law didn’t flinch. “You killed my father.”

Doflamingo stopped.

The words hit like cannonfire. Not shouted. Not thrown. Just… spoken. A cold truth dropped between them.

It cracked something inside him.

The world tilted. He reeled, took a step back—then forward again. His fists trembled.

“You think I don’t remember?” Law went on, louder now. “You laughed. He was dying, and you laughed.”

And then—finally—he said it.

“Rosinante died begging for your soul.”

Doflamingo screamed and charged.

He didn’t make it five steps.

Zoro was on him in an instant, sword drawn but turned flat, blocking his path. Sanji grabbed him from behind, pulling him back. Doflamingo thrashed between them, snarling, spit flying. His Observation Haki surged, panic-born and clumsy. It screamed with the shape of threats and motion but gave him no clarity.

He struck out. A wild fist grazed Sanji’s jaw. Another hit Zoro in the ribs.

He didn’t care.

“Kill me, then!” he roared. “Do it! End it like he wanted! You all want an excuse—take it!”

“Doflamingo!” Luffy’s voice rang out.

Doflamingo froze.

He hadn’t heard him approach. Hadn’t sensed him at all. He trembled where he stood, breath heaving.

“No one’s killing you,” Luffy said simply. “But if you keep hurting my crew—I’ll stop you.”

And Luffy stepped forward, placing himself directly between Law and Doflamingo.

That broke the spell. His knees buckled.

He didn’t fall, not quite, but only because Sanji and Zoro were still holding him. The rage had spent itself in one last desperate burst. Now, there was only the hollow aftermath—ashen, brittle.

He didn’t fight when they shackled him.

Didn’t speak as they moved him.

This time, it wasn’t the brig. It was the mast again. A quiet corner of the main deck where they could keep eyes on him, but not isolate him completely. Sanji fastened the cuffs carefully, no longer tight enough to bruise. He didn’t fight.

He didn’t speak at all.

The crew lingered afterward.

“He’s falling apart,” Chopper whispered, horrified.

“What the hell did Law say to him?” Usopp asked, looking pale.

“He said his brother died begging for Doflamingo’s soul,” Sanji answered flatly.

They all fell silent.

Brook gently plucked a single note from his violin. It faded into the gloom.

And then, from the shadows above, Law turned away and walked down the hall alone.

The door shut behind him with a finality that made Law’s skin crawl.

He didn’t stop walking until he reached the farthest edge of the ship—up near the crow’s nest stairs, where the wind whipped harder and the sea spread out like the mouth of a god. The quiet here wasn’t peaceful. It was cavernous. Every heartbeat echoed inside it.

He leaned against the railing, one hand braced tight, knuckles white.

He couldn’t breathe.

The image of Doflamingo’s face—wild, twisted, not just angry but unhinged—kept replaying in his mind. But it wasn’t the violence that shook him.

It was the moment after.

The way Doflamingo had crumpled when Luffy stepped between them. The sudden collapse. The awful, naked silence. Like someone had reached inside and snuffed out a fire that had been burning for too long.

And that scar.

He’d only caught a glimpse when the shirt had torn—just a flicker beneath the loose neckline before Doflamingo had twisted away—but it was impossible to miss.

A brand. Not a wound. Not a tattoo. A Celestial Dragon slave brand.

Law had felt something cold and ancient turn in his gut.

That couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be real.

Because if it was…

No. He couldn’t even begin to unpack that.

He pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut against the wind.

Doflamingo was blind. They’d told him that. Blind, branded, and not shackled until today. Luffy hadn’t been lying—they had let him walk freely. They’d treated him, fed him, spoken to him like a person. And somehow, that felt worse.

Because the Doflamingo in Law’s memory—the monster who’d torn Flevance apart, who’d strung a child’s body on wires and made him dance, who’d murdered Corazon with a bullet through the chest—that man didn’t get to be human.

He couldn’t be.

Law gripped the railing tighter.

Rosinante’s voice echoed faintly in his ears. There’s still good in him, somewhere…

“No,” Law whispered. “There isn’t.”

But the certainty he once held onto like a scalpel was starting to rust.

He should have killed him. There, on the deck. He’d had the shot. The rage. The reason. No one would have stopped him—not truly. Not if he’d tried hard enough.

But Luffy had stepped between them. Again.

“Why are you doing this?” Law muttered to the empty sea. “Why him?”

The wind didn’t answer.

He thought of the way Doflamingo had screamed—not with power, but desperation. The flinch when Law said Rosinante’s name. The bruises on his wrists, faded from an earlier time. The way he stopped fighting the moment he was chained.

That wasn’t control. That wasn’t the Doflamingo he remembered.

That was someone waiting to be punished.

Law stared down at his hands. Steady. Surgeon’s hands. Hands that had saved as many lives as they’d taken.

And once upon a time… hands that had trusted a man in a feathered coat.

He shook the thought off like blood off a blade.

He would talk to Luffy. He had to understand. Had to reclaim the story, the truth, the memory of what had been taken from him.

Because if Doflamingo had fallen this far—if this truly was all that remained—then what did that mean about Law?

What did it mean about vengeance?

About justice?

About the shape of the wound Rosinante died trying to heal?

Law’s jaw clenched. He turned back toward the deck.

The lights of the ship flickered like faint stars in the coming dark.

And in the belly of the Sunny, chained once more to a mast, the ghost of Donquixote Doflamingo waited for someone to decide what he was worth.

Chapter 19: Hush

The sun rose pale and uncertain over the Thousand Sunny, casting a wash of gold across the deck that did little to dispel the cold that had settled in the hearts of its crew.

The mast still bore the marks—splintered wood where Doflamingo had thrashed. Blood had been scrubbed away, but memory clung to the grain.

No one had spoken much since it happened.

They’d tied him there again.

Not with the old brutality, but with a grim, weary silence. Not because they wanted to—at least not all of them—but because no one could figure out what else to do. He’d lashed out. He’d snapped.

And now he was quiet again.

Locked in silence and seastone, shirt hanging loose and damp with sweat. His head rested low, shoulders curled in on themselves. Not in pain. Not in submission. Just… folded inward. As if trying to vanish into himself.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t ask. Didn’t even react to food or water being placed near him.

He was still blind. Still collared. Still wearing the bruises Law had left on him.

And the rest of the crew didn’t know what to make of it.

“Did he say anything?” Usopp asked Chopper under his breath, careful not to let his voice carry.

Chopper shook his head. “I don’t think he’s really… here right now.”

Franky muttered something about needing to reinforce the brig—just in case. Brook, unusually solemn, played nothing at all.

Robin said little, observing with a scholar’s quiet unease.

Even Zoro looked unsettled when his eyes drifted to the mast. “He’s not fighting anymore,” he muttered to Sanji at one point, “and that somehow makes it worse.”

Luffy hadn’t spoken much either.

Not since he’d dragged Doflamingo’s body back to the mast and watched Zoro and Sanji gently fasten the cuffs again. Not since Doflamingo had gone quiet, not out of surrender—but something colder. Emptier.

He sat on the figurehead most days, legs swinging, staring out into the sea. When Sanji brought him food, he barely noticed.

“He wasn’t trying to win,” Luffy said once, soft enough that only Sanji could hear him.

“What?”

“That fight. With Law. With us. He wasn’t trying to win.”

Sanji didn’t answer.

Because they all knew it.

Doflamingo had wanted to lose.

The strange thing was, it wasn’t Robin or Chopper who broke the silence first.

It was Nami.

She hadn’t said much after the fight. Hadn’t gone near him. Not when he’d been shackled. Not when he’d screamed. Not even when he’d stilled.

But she watched.

She saw how he flinched at sudden sounds, how he curled subtly from touch, how he kept his ears tuned to every footfall, tracking movement even when he seemed comatose.

And she saw something she recognized.

Not in his strength. But in his stillness.

It was near midnight when she approached.

She walked alone across the darkened deck, steps silent, soft—like she was trying not to spook a wounded animal. Moonlight spilled through the rigging, silvering her hair and casting the mast in pale shadow.

He didn’t look up.

Didn’t flinch.

Just sat there, breathing—quiet, even, like someone who no longer expected anything.

“You don’t sleep, do you?” she asked gently.

No response.

“You listen. All the time. Like you think someone’s going to sneak up on you.”

Still nothing.

Nami stood a moment in silence. Then, slowly, she sat down on the deck a few feet away—close enough to be heard, far enough not to be threatening.

“I know what that’s like,” she said. “Not the same. But close enough.”

He moved then.

Not much. Just a flicker of motion—like the faint tilt of his head, gauging where her voice had come from. He didn’t speak.

“I spent years pretending to be someone I wasn’t,” Nami went on. “Smiling. Lying. Trying to stay in control of something that was never mine to control.”

Still, he didn’t answer. But the silence had changed—less vacant. More listening.

“I used to think if I made myself useful, I’d be safe. That if I obeyed, I’d survive. I got good at lying to myself.”

A pause.

“I wonder if you ever had to do that. Lying to yourself. To them. To everyone.”

His head dipped slightly.

Something in her chest tightened.

“I hated myself for it,” she whispered. “For surviving. For not fighting. For every day I didn’t try to stop him.”

Still, he said nothing. But his jaw clenched—just once.

She saw it.

“I don’t forgive you,” she said quietly. “Not yet. Maybe not ever. But… I think I understand some of it. More than I want to.”

A long silence stretched between them.

Then—

“You shouldn’t.”

His voice was hoarse, low. Hardly audible.

She blinked.

“I don’t deserve understanding,” he said. “From anyone.”

She stared at him. “Maybe not. But you’re getting it anyway.”

He didn’t respond.

She stood slowly.

“I’ll bring you some water. Try to drink this time.”

She turned to go, but paused at the edge of the deck.

“You can keep trying to get us to hurt you,” she said over her shoulder. “But it’s not going to work. Not anymore.”

And then she was gone.

Behind her, the figure shackled to the mast didn’t move.

But for the first time in days, his head tilted up—not much, not fully. Just enough to feel the moonlight on his face.

And he stayed that way until morning.

Chapter 20

The mornings were quiet now.

Nami didn’t always speak when she brought food—sometimes she just placed the tray down and left him in peace. But on certain days, when the sun was gentler and the waves steadier, she lingered by the mast where he was chained.

“I used to pretend, too,” she’d said once, arms folded and voice low. “Smiled when I wanted to scream. Obeyed when I wanted to run. It’s not survival if you come out of it empty.”

He hadn’t responded. But he’d turned his head slightly in her direction—just enough to show he was listening.

They’d left the shackles in place this time. A compromise. His legs were free now, but his arms were shackled in front of him. Not cruelly, but securely. The collar remained. Ever present.

Still, it wasn’t quite the same prison as before. The deck was his to feel. The wind. The sun. The salt in the air. Not his strings—but it was something.

That day, Nami didn’t come.

It was Chopper instead, carrying a tray and a carefully wrapped cloth bundle. He approached slowly, not startled when he saw Doflamingo already awake.

The man didn’t speak. His expression was unreadable, face half-turned toward the distant horizon.

“I brought breakfast,” Chopper said gently. “And some clean bandages.”

No response. Not at first.

But then Doflamingo shifted, just slightly—adjusting the weight on his legs where they curled beneath him. The chains clinked.

Chopper hesitated, then set the tray down nearby and carefully unwrapped the cloth bundle—inside, a water bottle with a narrow spout, the kind meant for patients who couldn’t hold their own cup.

He held it up without a word.

Doflamingo didn’t move.

“I won’t force you,” Chopper said softly. “But you haven’t had anything since yesterday.”

Still nothing.

Then—barely audible—“…Water.”

The word cracked in his throat. Like it had cost him something to say.

Chopper blinked and moved closer, lifting the bottle. He was careful not to touch Doflamingo more than necessary—just enough to guide the spout to his lips. The man didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away. He drank.

It wasn’t much. A few swallows. But it was more than nothing.

When Chopper pulled the bottle away, Doflamingo didn’t speak again. But his breathing had evened out, just a little.

The silence between them held. And this time, it wasn’t heavy with fear.

It was a beginning.

He hadn’t meant to ask for it.

The word had slipped out before he could stop it—quiet, coarse, raw against his throat like something dug up from long-buried ash. Water.

Not an order. Not a threat. Not even a command disguised as need.

A plea.

And worse—it had been answered.

Doflamingo sat still after Chopper left, legs curled beneath him and wrists cuffed in front of him, weak. The mast at his back was a cold, familiar weight. Wood. Rope. Iron. It could’ve been any day from before.

He didn’t know how long he sat there. The taste of water lingered, metallic and clean. He hated how much it had helped. How the smallest act—being fed, being given something—had unraveled him more than another strike might have.

A laugh clawed at his throat, bitter and dry.

He hadn’t fought. Hadn’t lunged. Hadn’t sneered or snapped or sunk into silence the way he was supposed to. No teeth. No swagger. Just a dry mouth and the quiet desperation of a man who couldn’t even lift a cup to his own lips.

It was pathetic.

He was pathetic.

The emptiness inside him had shifted lately—no longer the clean, silent void he’d come to rely on, but something softer and more dangerous. Something that bent toward warmth. Weakness.

They were breaking him with kindness.

He knew the tactic. He’d used it himself before—on enemies, on subordinates, on people he wanted to mold into things. Give a little. Take a little. Offer a hand before striking with the other. But this wasn’t that. There was no threat behind their gestures. No demand. No catch.

Just… softness.

He hated it.

Because it made him feel real. And the second he felt real, everything else came rushing back.

The collar itched against his neck. He rolled his shoulders, testing the limits of the shackles—not to break free, but to remind himself they were still there. That the world hadn’t gone mad. That he had done terrible things. That these people had every reason to fear and loathe him.

And yet—

And yet they didn’t chain him in the dark anymore. He felt the sun and wind on his face.

And yet the little doctor had come back, again and again, undeterred.

And yet Nami had sat beside him, not with fire in her words, but understanding.

And yet—

“Monster.”

Law’s voice echoed in his skull, unshakable.

Doflamingo flinched—not outwardly, not enough for anyone to see, but inside. Deep and sharp. Law’s words had been like glass across skin—cutting, expected, and still somehow worse than he’d imagined. He knew that was what Law saw when he looked at him.

He wanted him to see that.

Didn’t he?

“You killed your own brother,” Law had said.

Doflamingo laughed then, remembering it, loud and guttural, like it was all a farce. Like it didn’t matter. Like it hadn’t mattered in years.

Now—alone again, wind pressing in through the rigging and salt stinging the corners of his eyes—he couldn’t summon the laughter anymore.

He didn’t feel like a warlord. Or a king. Or even a criminal.

He felt like a body someone had forgotten to bury.

And for the first time in decades, he didn’t know if he wanted to keep getting up.

The silence had settled thick over the deck since dinner. No laughter, no music, not even the usual low murmur of conversation. The night breeze stirred the sails gently, but it felt like everything on board the Sunny was holding its breath.

Zoro leaned against the rail, arms folded, eyes turned toward the mast where Doflamingo sat, motionless. His wrists were still shackled overhead, his head bowed low, white-gold hair tousled from the wind. He hadn’t moved since Chopper had offered him water—hadn’t spoken, hadn’t scoffed or threatened or even smiled that awful smile.

“He’s different,” Chopper said softly, approaching with slow steps. “He didn’t say anything afterward. Didn’t resist. He just… sat there.”

Usopp hovered nearby, looking uneasy. “Yeah, well, maybe it’s a trick. Maybe he’s just waiting for the right moment to bite someone’s face off again.”

Sanji exhaled smoke through his nose. “Or maybe he’s just… tired.”

“Monsters don’t get tired,” Law muttered.

The words were venom, but they lacked heat. He stood at the far end of the deck, arms folded tightly, as if bracing himself against the possibility of anything other than rage. His gaze didn’t waver from Doflamingo.

“You saw what he did,” Law said flatly. “He tried to kill all of us. He’s not some wounded dog.”

“I was there, you know,” Nami said, her voice sharper than usual. “None of us have forgotten.”

She looked over her shoulder, toward the mast. “But… I also know what it’s like to wear chains and be called someone’s property. To do terrible things because you were told it was the only way to survive.”

Law didn’t respond, but his jaw tightened.

Robin joined them, her voice calm and unreadable. “He hasn’t spoken since the outburst. Hasn’t tried to manipulate or mock anyone. It’s not silence in the way he used to use it—as a weapon. This feels… different.”

“You all think he’s changing,” Law said coldly. “That what? If you just feed him and talk to him like a person, he’ll become one?”

Chopper opened his mouth, then closed it.

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Nami said, more gently now. “But I think something’s breaking inside him. And not in the way he wants it to.”

Law’s hand twitched, just once. “You didn’t see what he did to people in Dressrosa. You didn’t grow up under him. He destroyed everything he touched.”

“No,” Luffy said suddenly, stepping down from the upper deck. “But he didn’t destroy you.”

Law blinked, startled. Luffy stood just a few feet away now, arms loose at his sides, gaze calm.

“You’re still here,” Luffy went on. “Still fighting. That means he didn’t win. And maybe that’s what’s killing him now. That he lost.”

Law stared at him, then at the man bound to the mast. Doflamingo hadn’t stirred. His shoulders remained slumped, breath shallow, head turned slightly to the side like he was listening. Or remembering.

“I don’t care if he’s sorry,” Law muttered. “It doesn’t undo anything.”

“No,” Luffy agreed. “But I think he’s learning what it feels like to be powerless. To be seen. That kind of pain changes people. Even monsters.”

Law looked away. “We’ll see.”

They all stood there a while longer, the ocean stretching black and endless around them.

And at the mast, Doflamingo didn’t move. But his fingers twitched—barely perceptible. A shift. A shiver. Like something waking in the dark.

The night stretched long.

Time blurred for him now. He couldn’t measure it without the rhythm of footsteps or the shift of the sun behind his closed eyelids. Blindness used to be something he compensated for—hid behind strings and arrogance, behind power. Now it was a cage.

He sat slumped forward. His muscles ached from the lack of movement, though less than they had before. Sanji had changed the tightness of the chains a few days ago—he remembered the fingers adjusting them, the scent of tobacco. No words had been exchanged. Just the small, subtle shift of treatment. Like he was an animal being handled, not punished.

He hated how his body was adjusting to captivity. How the seastone collar’s dulling hum was becoming part of him. How weakness felt normal.

But even more than that—he hated the silence.

They’d stopped talking around him.

Not to him. Around him.

They used to hurl threats, insults, suspicions. That had been easy to take. Comfortable, even. It fit the story he told himself about them. About himself. But now, they were quieter. Cautious. Some of them were even… trying.

He didn’t trust that. Not for a second.

Because now that Law was here, he knew exactly what came next. How long before Law convinced them to chain him tighter? Toss him overboard? Cut off his hands for good?

But they hadn’t.

And that—that was what made it unbearable.

Doflamingo shifted slightly, fingers clenching. His mouth was dry. His throat burned. He hadn’t drunk anything since the day before. Chopper had tried to bring him water again earlier, but he’d refused, jaw clenched tight, expression blank.

He hadn’t wanted kindness.

He’d wanted them to give up.

But they hadn’t.

He swallowed. Winced. His tongue felt like sandpaper.

The sound of footsteps reached him—quiet, careful, light.

He stiffened instinctively.

Not Law. Not the swordsman.

This was smaller. Softer.

He turned his head slightly toward the approaching presence, teeth bared without smiling. “Come to pet the beast again, little doctor?”

A pause.

Then Chopper’s voice, hesitant: “You’re still not drinking.”

Doflamingo’s laugh was a low, cracked thing. “And yet, somehow, I live.”

Another pause. No reply.

He wanted to push again—lash out, drive the reindeer away—but something stopped him. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was the way the straw-hat doctor didn’t retreat. Just stood there.

He could hear the clink of something being set down on the deck.

A cup.

Water.

Chopper said nothing more. Just stepped back, hooves retreating toward the interior.

Doflamingo’s throat burned. He turned his face away from the cup, furious at himself—for wanting it. For needing anything. For being this low.

But still… he waited.

Minutes passed. No one came back.

The cup remained.

He licked his cracked lips. Then lifted his head.

“Hey,” he rasped.

No answer.

Louder this time, though it scraped his throat raw: “Hey. Someone—”

There were footsteps again, faster this time.

It was Chopper. Not alone this time—Sanji came too. Someone else lingered at the doorway. Nami.

“What?” Sanji asked, his voice careful. Not mocking. Not kind. Just alert.

Doflamingo hesitated. The words felt like acid on his tongue.

“…I can’t lift it.”

Chopper blinked.

Then hurried forward, grabbing the cup, climbing onto a crate so he could reach Doflamingo’s level.

He held it to the warlord’s mouth.

Doflamingo drank.

Greedy gulps. Like shame didn’t exist. Like pride was a distant, dying thing.

When it was empty, he pulled back, chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.

He didn’t say thank you.

He didn’t have to.

The others stood in silence, watching.

It wasn’t a breakthrough.

It wasn’t redemption.

But it was something.

Chapter Text

Chapter 21 – Ghosts in the Wake
Night blanketed the Thousand Sunny, but sleep was a fragile thing aboard.

The sea rocked gently under the ship, but a storm brewed somewhere far off—too distant to hit, but close enough for the wind to taste of it. Most of the crew had gone to bed, their laughter dimming into silence, but Trafalgar Law remained awake, seated alone on the upper deck. He didn’t drink, didn’t eat. He sat with his elbows on his knees, head lowered, as the breeze pulled at the edges of his coat.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Doflamingo.

How he’d screamed.

Not from pain, but from something deeper. Something old.

Law’s hands curled into fists against his legs. He had seen the brand—seen the way the man had crumpled when the others restrained him again. It wasn’t the reaction of a warlord or a tyrant. It was the reaction of—

Thwap.

A sharp crack rang out from the mast—just a loose rope snapping back against the wood. But Law flinched, and so did someone else.

Below.

A low rustling followed—panicked, uncoordinated. Then a sound like breath catching in the throat, drawn too sharp, too sudden. Law stood immediately.

He descended the steps toward the main deck, eyes adjusting to the dim glow of the moon. The lantern swayed overhead, and at the base of the mast, Doflamingo was—

Thrashing.

Not wildly. Not with strength.

His legs kicked at the floor in short, desperate bursts, seastone cuffs still tight around his wrists. His back arched and fell. His head jerked to the side, face contorted, teeth bared in a soundless snarl.

“No—no, I didn’t—don’t burn it—stop—”

Law froze a few paces away. The voice wasn’t the Doflamingo he knew.

This voice cracked.

This voice pleaded.

Strings of sweat shone on the man’s pale forehead, and his hands—still bound—twitched with the reflex of someone long used to punishment.

“You’re not real,” Doflamingo whispered hoarsely. “You’re dead. He’s dead. He’s—”

A sharp intake of breath. He turned his head slightly, as if sensing someone.

“Who’s there?” he rasped.

Law didn’t answer.

The silence stretched between them like a noose.

Doflamingo curled in tighter on himself, then let out a ragged gasp and went still. Not calm. Not truly conscious either. He just… stopped.

When Law finally stepped forward, his boots creaked against the planks. That was enough—Doflamingo’s entire body flinched, violently. His head turned sharply toward the sound, though his eyes never focused. His voice was barely audible.

“Don’t touch me.”

Law stood over him, unsure what he’d intended to do. A part of him—the one that had held hatred like a blade for over a decade—wanted to sneer, to speak, to demand that the man acknowledge the scene he’d just witnessed.

But he couldn’t.

This wasn’t power. This wasn’t manipulation.

This was someone who had broken years ago and never found all the pieces again.

He left without a word.

Xxxxx
The sunlight was muted, the air still heavy with the storm that hadn’t come. The crew moved about the deck with subdued energy. They were trying to act normal.

Doflamingo remained lashed to the mast.

Eyes hidden behind longer hair. Shoulders slumped. Not asleep, but not fully there.

Law approached with slow, deliberate steps, the crew watching from a distance but saying nothing.

He stopped in front of the man. Doflamingo didn’t react.

“So,” Law said finally, voice low. “Last night.”

Nothing. No flicker of expression. No mocking grin.

“I asked you once if you had any shame left.” Law’s voice tightened. “Now I’m wondering if you ever had a choice.”

Doflamingo shifted—barely. A twitch in the corner of his mouth. Not a smile.

“You think I wanted you to see that?” he rasped.

Law’s breath caught.

“You think I wanted to remember it?”

The warlord’s voice cracked like dry earth.

“I was asleep. I was cold. I heard a sound I shouldn’t have. That’s all it takes, Law. That’s all it ever takes.”

“You killed him,” Law said, bitterness returning. “You killed Corazon.”

“Yes.” A pause. “Because I thought I had to.”

“You thought?”

“I thought I’d already lost him.” The words came slowly now, like old blood being forced from a wound. “I thought he hated me. I thought—if I didn’t end it, someone else would. And I couldn’t lose anything else. Not again.”

Law looked away.

Doflamingo turned his face slightly toward the sun. His lips were dry. His voice softer now.

“They told me I was born a god. Then they made me crawl. Then they left me in chains. And when I got free, I promised myself—I would never be weak again. Never be at someone’s mercy again.”

He smiled, and it was ugly. Sad.

“I didn’t keep that promise, did I.”

Law’s jaw clenched. “You could have been different.”

Doflamingo exhaled a bitter laugh. “I could have died a hundred times before I ever reached the surface. That’s what different would have looked like.”

Silence.

Then Doflamingo said, barely audible:

“Rosinante still hates me. So do you. That’s fine. But don’t pretend you understand.”

Law didn’t respond.

But when he turned to leave, he didn’t storm away. Didn’t curse.

He simply walked away, the weight of too much unsaid settling between them.

And Doflamingo, still tied to the mast, tilted his head back.

The clouds were gathering again.

Chapter 22 – “Quiet Things That No One Knows”

Morning came slowly.

The sun broke gently over the Thousand Sunny’s deck, warm and golden, but it did little to chase away the stillness hanging in the air. There were footsteps and voices, of course—Zoro’s low grumble as he stretched, Nami’s pointed sigh when Luffy took a third helping of rice, Chopper’s light scurry across the upper deck—but something vital had gone hollow.

Doflamingo remained tied to the mast.

No one spoke to him. No one dragged him below. No one so much as touched him.

It wasn’t like before—when they’d ask questions or left water waiting to see if he’d drink it. This was something colder. Something quieter. A silence built not of scorn, but uncertainty.

Every once in a while, someone glanced toward him.

Franky, adjusting the rigging, paused when he saw how slumped his posture was. Sanji, lighting a cigarette, held it a moment longer than usual, eyes narrowed in thought. Even Usopp, usually quick to avert his gaze, looked over with a kind of hesitant curiosity. A kind of sympathy.

He was still restrained at wrist and ankle—not tight enough to bite, but secure enough to hold. Chopper left a canteen near his feet. Robin, quiet as ever, refolded the blanket over his shoulders when the wind took it.

And he never moved. Not once.

Xxxxx
The shadows changed as the sun shifted. The ship creaked. The world drifted slowly around them.

But Doflamingo didn’t speak. He didn’t snarl, didn’t laugh, didn’t even twitch. He had retreated so far inward that even the sound of waves felt distant.

There was no telling how long it had been since he last slept. His head hung low—not bowed in submission, but heavy with a weight that went somewhere deeper. His hair hid most of his face, but not the hollowness. Not the fact that he hadn’t touched the water. That he hadn’t reacted to anything.

He wasn’t sulking. He wasn’t scheming. He was absent in a way that felt… wrong.
Xxxxx
He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there. His body had stopped hurting some time ago, but he wasn’t sure if that was a mercy or a warning sign.

He couldn’t feel his fingertips.

His thoughts weren’t sharp anymore. They were waterlogged, like soaked cloth dragging across skin. No more screams. No more anger. Just that moment—that split second when Law’s voice had cracked open the world.

“You think that brand gives you the right—”

No. Not here. Not now.

He couldn’t let himself remember the sound of his own voice. He couldn’t relive that moment—thrashing, useless, exposed. He’d begged without words. He’d let them hear it. Let him hear it.

And now?

Now, he sat like something discarded, an ornament of war no one wanted to touch.

They see you now.

He should feel rage. He should be planning something. A retort. A threat. A slow rebuild.

Instead…

Instead, he wanted the wood to split open beneath him and drop him into the sea.

But he didn’t deserve that mercy.
Xxxxx
Luffy sat cross-legged on the edge of the upper deck, chin in hand. His hat shaded his eyes, but he hadn’t been sleeping. He hadn’t moved in hours.

He just watched.

Watched the way Doflamingo leaned heavily on one side. The way the man’s fingers twitched sometimes, barely noticeable, like he wasn’t sure if they still worked. Watched how no one said his name anymore.

The others didn’t ask him what he thought. Not yet. Not after what had happened.

But Luffy had been thinking. Maybe more than anyone expected him to.

He remembered Ace once saying: “You can’t pull someone out of hell. But you can sit near the edge until they find a hand to reach for.”

This wasn’t about forgiveness. It wasn’t about making sense of it.

It was about choosing something. Standing there. Being the hand.

He stood up.
Xxxxx
The ship rocked gently as night fell. Stars blinked through soft clouds, and the moon scattered light across the deck.

Most of the crew had turned in.

Doflamingo hadn’t moved since morning.

A slight breeze caught the edge of his clothes. He didn’t notice. He’d stopped noticing things. The cold. The ache in his knees. The way every breath tasted like rust. He waited for someone to say something. To punish him. To ask why.

No one did.

So when the footsteps came—slow and deliberate—he flinched. Just barely.

He didn’t lift his head, but the tread was familiar. Light, but firm.

Straw Hat.

Luffy stopped a few feet in front of him, arms crossed. The silence lingered.

Then—

“I’m gonna help you.”

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t a question.

It was a fact.

Doflamingo didn’t react. Not outwardly.

“You heard me, right?” Luffy’s voice didn’t change. “I’m not gonna stop. So you better start thinking about what you wanna do next.”

The ropes creaked. The wind curled around them. Nothing more was said.

Luffy didn’t expect an answer. He didn’t need one. He just sat down near the mast, back to it, arms behind his head—on watch.

Doflamingo’s head remained bowed, but something inside his chest shifted. Not enough to call it hope. Not yet. But…

…he didn’t close his ears.

Chapter 23: Small Steps in the Dark

The night air was thick with the gentle creak of the ship’s timbers and the muted slap of waves against the hull. Somewhere below decks, a kettle hissed quietly, but up here near the mast, where Doflamingo sat, the world felt strangely still.

Luffy settled down on a coil of rope just a few feet away, his usual bright grin softened by the quiet night. “Hey,” he said, shifting so he faced the prisoner. “I brought you some food. Don’t gotta eat if you don’t want, but I’m gonna leave it here.”

Doflamingo’s eyes remained closed, the faint twitch of his lips the only sign he heard him. After a moment, a low, bitter murmur slipped out, barely audible over the wind.

“I don’t want it.”

Luffy’s grin didn’t fade. “Okay, okay. I get it. But I’m gonna keep trying.”

The blind man’s fingers clenched and unclenched against his thighs. Luffy watched quietly, then leaned back, letting the silence settle.

Hours passed. The moon climbed higher, and Doflamingo’s breathing slowed, shallow but uneven. Luffy kept his eyes on him, his hand resting lightly on the mast’s wood.

Suddenly, Doflamingo jerked, his whole body trembling as if waking from a nightmare. His lips moved soundlessly, whispering fragments that twisted the night—shouts, pain, the cruel brand burned into flesh.

Luffy reached out instinctively, steadying him. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered. “You’re safe here.”

The blind man’s fingers dug into the wood as if holding onto the only solid thing left in a storm. His breathing was ragged, his chest heaving, but he did not lash out. Instead, his shoulders sagged, exhaustion pulling him down like a tide.

From the shadowed quarterdeck, Law stood silently. His arms crossed, expression unreadable. He watched Luffy’s soft voice, the flicker of panic and the quiet that followed. The hatred that had once burned like wildfire inside him now mixed with something colder — a reluctant recognition of the man’s brokenness.

When dawn spread pale light over the deck, Chopper came quietly, a small bundle of fresh food and herbs in his hands. Luffy nodded at him, stepping aside to let the doctor approach.

Doflamingo’s first reaction was a low growl, suspicion thick in his voice. “I don’t need it.”

Chopper smiled gently, kneeling beside him. “I’m not forcing you. Just offering.”

For a long moment, the blind man said nothing. Then his trembling hand reached out slowly, fingers brushing against the cup of water Chopper held. He took it, hands shaking but steady enough to drink.

The smallest gesture—acceptance—hung in the air like fragile glass.

Nearby, Robin and Nami exchanged a glance.

Sanji appeared quietly, carrying a small plate of food, his eyes sharp but softer than usual. He placed it within reach of Doflamingo, stepping back with a nod.

Luffy grinned again, brighter this time, almost bursting with determination. “I’m gonna help you, Mingo. No matter what.”

The blind man said nothing. He just rested his head against the mast, exhausted but no longer entirely frozen.

As the morning sun climbed higher, the ship felt less like a prison and more like something fragile — something that might, with time, heal.

And somewhere in the quiet watch, Law’s eyes never left the two figures near the mast.
Xxxxx
Chapter 24: Echoes of What Was

The night wrapped the Thousand Sunny in a heavy, still silence. The stars were muted behind thin, drifting clouds, and the sea’s steady pulse barely disturbed the ship’s gentle sway. At the center of the deck, Doflamingo sat against the mast. His body sagged in exhaustion, but his face was a mask of brittle control, every muscle taut beneath the surface.

He could feel the eyes on him.

Not from the crew, who had mostly retired to their quarters, but from one shadow that lingered at the edge of the deck—Law.

Law stood a few paces away, arms crossed, expression unreadable but intense. He didn’t speak, just watched, as if waiting for something to unravel or ignite.

Finally, Doflamingo broke the silence with a voice rough and low, heavy with bitterness.

“Come to finish what you started?”

Law’s gaze didn’t waver. “Not tonight.”

“Then what?” Doflamingo’s tone was sardonic. “To gloat? To spy? To see how broken I’ve become?”

Law’s voice was calm but edged with something sharper. “I’m watching.”

There was something different in that word—a quiet patience that unsettled Doflamingo. He tensed, eyes narrowing despite the fatigue dragging at him.

“I heard what you did for Chopper,” Law said after a pause. “You protected him. You risked everything.”

Doflamingo’s head flicked toward him, his voice cold and distant. “Instinct. Nothing more.”

Law’s eyes burned with a complicated storm. “You’ve never done anything for anyone else at the risk of yourself. Not even your family. Why start now?”

A faint, bitter laugh escaped Doflamingo’s cracked lips. “Because sometimes… instinct is the only voice left when everything else is gone.”

Law’s jaw tightened. “Instinct isn’t enough. Not for me. Not for anyone.”

“Then what do you want?” Doflamingo challenged, voice raw. “Justice? Revenge? Redemption? You think cutting the brand from my back will undo what was done? That you can erase me?”

Law looked away, struggling with the tangled emotions inside. “I don’t know. Maybe I want all those things. Maybe I want none. But I know I’m tired of running this cycle of hate.”

For a moment, the two men were silent, locked in their fractured history, the space between them thick with past wounds and uncertain futures.

Without another word, Law turned and vanished into the shadows, leaving Doflamingo alone with his thoughts and the chains that bound him.
Xxxxx

Dawn crept slowly over the horizon, casting pale light over the ship. The crew stirred with the morning routine, soft footsteps and quiet conversations filling the air. On the deck in the early morning sun, Robin sat hunched over scattered pages of intercepted messages and coded notes, eyes sharp and restless. Nami was beside her, chewing on the end of her pen. They’d been discussing these codes for a day and a half now.

Suddenly, a voice broke the quiet—a voice rough from disuse but unmistakable.

“That’s not a cipher.”

Robin looked up sharply to see Doflamingo still chained to the mast, his posture straighter than last night.

She regarded him carefully. “What is it then?”

Doflamingo’s face darkened with a shadow from his past. “A Marine recall code. Old. Reused. That second symbol you’ve described means ‘urgent extraction.’”

The space seemed to grow colder. Eyes shifted uneasily between Robin and Doflamingo.

“How do you know that?” Robin asked gently, sensing the weight behind his words.

He hesitated, then answered quietly, “We used to send messages like that… cleaning up loose ends.”

Nami nodded in quiet acknowledgment. “Thank you,” she said softly.

The crew exchanged looks heavy with new understanding. This was no longer just about a prisoner or enemy. This was history they were only beginning to grasp—and the danger it still held.
Xxxxx
Later, as the sun dipped low, painting the sky with soft orange and pink hues, Luffy found Doflamingo again. The chains had left fresh abrasions, but the pirate’s posture was marginally less defeated.

Luffy stepped forward without hesitation, his usual grin tempered by seriousness. Crossing his arms, he looked Doflamingo in the eye.

“You don’t have to help us. But you can.”

Doflamingo’s jaw clenched. He didn’t speak, but something flickered in his face—something almost like hesitation.

Luffy’s voice softened, stripped of bravado.

“You’re part of the crew, right now. Whether you like it or not.”

Without waiting for a reply, Luffy turned and strode away, leaving Doflamingo to wrestle with the weight of that simple, bold statement.

The ship creaked quietly, the sea whispered its endless song, and somewhere deep inside, a faint pulse of something new stirred in Doflamingo’s chest.

Chapter Text

Chapter 25: Fragile Freedom
The thick chains that had bound Doflamingo to the mast for so many days had finally been removed. The metal links lay coiled like discarded snakes on the deck, still damp from the sea air, still stained from his skin. The cold iron shackles remained clamped tightly around his wrists—less a precaution now and more a symbol. The seastone collar still sat snuggly against his throat, repressing his Devil Fruit and with it his ability to see.

He sat still through the process, spine straight, legs folded neatly in front of him. He didn’t move. Not when the locks were opened. Not when Sanji pulled the final length away. Not even when the mast creaked as if in relief.

He could move now. But he didn’t.

Because freedom came with consequences. And after a childhood of being punished for standing without permission, he wasn’t quite sure what the cost would be this time.

Luffy stood nearby, Doflamingo could feel the boy’s presence like the sun on his face—unrelenting, direct, impossibly warm.

“You’re not tied up anymore,” Luffy said, his voice unceremonious and open as ever. “You can move around now.”

Doflamingo’s head tilted slightly. The words registered, but the meaning did not. Move around. As if that were a choice. As if he hadn’t spent every second of the past week measuring each breath in silence, afraid that even twitching wrong would snap the tenuous peace.

“Don’t go too far,” Nami added softly from across the deck. She didn’t sound afraid. Just watchful. Like someone who had been hurt before and learned to stay alert. He understood that.

Still, he finally moved.

Slowly, testing the boundaries. His long legs unfolded like rusted machinery. He stood on aching joints. The deck beneath his feet felt too wide, too open. His hands trembled as he reached out, searching—always searching—for something familiar.

He found it in the alcove beneath the stairs. It had become a sort of den—his den. Close to the main deck. Exposed, yes, but shielded from overhead sun and from too many curious eyes.

He retreated there instinctively, hands bracing the opening like a wounded animal returning to its den.

Law stood near the railing, silent and unreadable. Doflamingo didn’t need to look to know it. He could feel the surgeon’s stare like a blade between his shoulder blades—cold and deliberate. But there was no command to stop him. No barked threat. Just… silence.

It was worse, somehow.

Luffy crouched near the edge of the alcove, eyes wide and without fear. “I’m gonna help you,” he said with quiet conviction. “You’ll see. You don’t have to be alone.”

Doflamingo froze.

Those words twisted something in his gut this time. Help him? Not alone?

That wasn’t how this worked. People like him—monsters, tyrants, slaves who’d survived by becoming something else—didn’t get help. They didn’t deserve it. And they sure as hell didn’t get Luffy of all people kneeling at their feet like a friend.

His fingers dug into the wooden edge beneath him.

You don’t help people like me. You chain them. Kill them. Or you walk away and pretend we were never human to begin with.

He hadn’t asked for this. Not the ship, not the kindness, not the freedom that tasted like guilt in his throat.

“You don’t have to… help me,” he murmured, voice rough and low, more from disbelief than defiance. He meant it. He wasn’t trying to manipulate Luffy—he just… couldn’t understand.

But Luffy only smiled, like it was simple. Like the answer had never changed.

“Yes, I do.”

And that—that—was what finally broke something loose in him.

Not anger. Not hope. Just… fatigue.

So much of him wanted to scream, Why? Why help the man who destroyed cities? Who brought nations to their knees? Who crushed mercy under his boot just to prove he could?

But instead, he simply leaned back into the shadows of his alcove. His head dropped forward, and he let the darkness curl around his shoulders.

“You don’t understand,” he thought. “I’m not someone you save. I’m what you survive.”

But he didn’t say it.

Because a part of him—small and traitorous—wanted to believe Luffy anyway.

And that, more than anything, was what exhausted him.

Chapter 26 – The Devil You Know

Morning came quietly.

There was no fanfare, no sudden change in the wind, no dramatic declaration. Just the rhythmic sound of sails creaking and waves slapping gently against the Sunny’s hull. The kind of day that felt peaceful in the way only long stretches of ocean could.

Doflamingo sat beneath the stairs, hunched slightly, shackled wrists resting in his lap. The salt wind caught strands of his hair, brushing them against his face. He could feel it—pressure, direction, warmth. Not enough to chart anything, but enough to orient him. He didn’t need vision to tell the ship was steady.

He’d been listening.

Not actively. Not with intent. But words drifted, carried by motion and breath and presence. Voices moved in arcs. Weight shifted in patterns. He heard Nami muttering about shifting currents. Franky cursed about ballast angles. And something in Doflamingo—withered, not dead—remembered how ships worked.

“Your angle’s off,” he said without raising his voice.

Franky startled mid-sentence. “What?”

Doflamingo tilted his head slightly toward the noise. “The starboard ballast. If you’re using double-shock suspension instead of fluidic pressure, you’re going to lean too hard to port on the next wind shear.”

There was a beat of stunned silence.

Then, slowly, Franky leaned over the railing above the stairs. “…How the hell do you even know what system we use?”

“I don’t,” Doflamingo said. “But I can hear the tension difference when your boots cross that section of deck. And I remember the sound of a double-shock.” His tone was flat. “CP9 used it on their recon ships twenty years ago. The design creaks at a higher pitch when overloaded.”

Nami blinked. “That’s… actually accurate.”

He didn’t answer. He leaned back slightly and rested his shackled arms across his knees.

Chopper appeared a few minutes later with breakfast. Doflamingo took it without comment, fingers brushing fur briefly. Chopper didn’t flinch.
Xxxxx

By midday, the air had grown warmer and the crew’s mood had begun to thaw. Luffy snored in a hammock strung between the masts. Usopp and Franky wrestled with a faulty rigging knot. Nami stood at the rail, squinting at cloud formations.

Doflamingo could feel a headache building behind his temple. He’d been focusing too long. But something in the clouds bothered him.

“Storm’s going to curve,” he said, abruptly. “It won’t hit us directly.”

Nami turned. “You can’t even see it.”

“I don’t need to,” he said. “Wind pressure’s dropped. You’ve been checking it every six minutes. And someone adjusted course four degrees west to counter drift. If that’s still holding, the system will curve northward before it can cross our path.”

She stared at him. Not distrustful—just… puzzled. Then, slowly: “Thanks.”

Doflamingo nodded once. A small thing. But it left something jagged in his chest.
Xxxxx

Later that day, Sanji needed help carrying storage barrels from the hull. Luffy was still napping, Zoro had vanished, and Usopp had fake-sprained his wrist. Chopper volunteered first—but surprisingly, so did Doflamingo.

Sort of.

He didn’t offer, exactly. But when he stood up and started walking in that direction—slow, arms by his side, head tilted—it was clear he was trying.

Sanji raised a brow but didn’t stop him. “Fine. Just don’t drop anything. Or poison anything. Or make me regret this.”

Doflamingo grunted and followed him.

The storage deck was darker. More cramped. Sanji moved ahead without issue. Doflamingo followed, slower, tracing the wall with one hand. Each step was careful. Controlled.

Until—

Snap.

The sound was small. Rope against metal. A loop breaking tension.

But Doflamingo’s body reacted.

He stumbled back, heart thudding wildly. He slammed into the wall, chest heaving, shackled hands raised instinctively over his face.

It wasn’t rope. It wasn’t seastone. It wasn’t a whip. It wasn’t. It wasn’t.

Sanji turned sharply. “Hey—hey, what the hell—?”

But Doflamingo couldn’t hear him. Not over the rush of memory. Not over the phantom feeling of branding irons and collars and laughing Celestial scum. He braced himself as if expecting a blow that never came.

Sanji’s voice finally cut through. “Oi. Hey—stop. You’re not down there anymore.”

It was that that got through.

Down there.

He exhaled, chest still trembling, and let his hands fall. “I… heard something. It startled me.”

“You think?” Sanji muttered. “You looked ready to break the ship in half.”

“I’m not going to,” Doflamingo said tightly.

“No. I know.” And that surprised them both.

They didn’t speak again on the way up.
Xxxxx
That evening, he didn’t retreat beneath the stairs immediately.

He sat in the open. Wrists still bound, posture still hunched. But present.

Robin approached quietly, sitting beside him with a book in her lap. “You were right about the weather.”

“Of course I was.”

“Where did you learn to track storms by sound?”

His fingers twitched. “My father refused to let us have weather logs. Said the heavens would guide us.” A pause. “I learned to listen instead.”

Robin nodded. She didn’t ask more. She just opened her book.

A few feet away, Law leaned on the railing and said nothing. But he watched.
Xxxxx
Luffy’s shift began as the sun dipped below the sea. He wandered over with his usual bounce and plopped down cross-legged in front of Doflamingo.

“You helped a lot today,” he said.

Doflamingo scoffed. “Spare me.”

“No, really. You were cool. Even Sanji said so. Sorta.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“I am,” Luffy said cheerfully. “And I’m gonna keep helping you.”

Doflamingo stiffened. “Why?”

Luffy grinned. “Because you’re here. And you’re a person.”

Doflamingo stared in his direction for a long time. Something unspoken moved behind his tired eyes. Finally, he turned his head away.

“You’re exhausting,” he muttered.

“I get that a lot.”

Chapter 27: “Two Small Steps”

The day was warm and windless, the ship caught in one of those lazy midday lulls that lulled even the most energetic into a daze. Most of the Straw Hats had retreated to the shaded parts of the Sunny, sprawled out, dozing or tinkering. Only Usopp and Chopper remained by the sail rigging, grumbling quietly as they tried to adjust a tangled pulley rope.

“I swear Franky re-rigged this without labeling anything again,” Usopp muttered, standing on his toes to reach the high tie-off. “It’s like trying to guess the future with noodles!”

“I think you tied it wrong!” Chopper chirped. “The rope’s supposed to go over that beam, not under!”

“I’m not that dumb!” Usopp shot back.

Chopper squinted up, then admitted, “…Well, maybe I’m wrong?”

It was the kind of small, pointless argument that filled quiet afternoons at sea. Neither noticed the tall figure stepping silently from the shade beneath the stairs.

Doflamingo didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. In two long strides, he was beside them, moving with an eerie, fluid calm. With a practiced flick of his fingers, he grabbed the rope just above Usopp’s reach. His hands moved with precise control—no wasted energy, no hesitation. He unthreaded the tangle, hoisted the slack, and tied it off at the correct angle. A perfect sailing knot. Then he turned and walked away.

Usopp and Chopper stared up at the newly secured rigging, then back at the wide, retreating shoulders.

“…Did he—” Usopp blinked.

“He’s so tall,” Chopper whispered, ears tilted forward.

“Was he always that tall?”

Sanji, leaning nearby with a smoke half-finished, exhaled and muttered, “You lot keep forgetting he’s basically a tower in a shirt.”

Doflamingo didn’t return to his alcove. Not yet. He sat near the mast, wrists resting on his knees, quiet and still in the shifting light. There was no smugness in his posture—no sign he expected thanks. Just silence.
Xxxxx
Later, in the galley, the crew gathered around the main table, staring at a crude map Robin had copied from the logbook’s projected path.

“The next island is called Ryukuzan,” she said. “It has no official Navy presence. That’s… not a good sign.”

“It’s not lawless,” Franky added, “but the reports say the port’s surrounded by black rock reefs. Tough on the rudder if we don’t land clean.”

“I don’t like it,” Nami murmured, arms folded. “There’s something off about the weather patterns, too. It’s hard to read.”

They debated back and forth—adjustments, approach angles, the safest time to dock. The map became cluttered with notations and corrections. Robin’s voice remained calm, but there was tension in her brow.

Then, from the open doorway, a voice cut in:

“You’ll lose the rudder if you try to dock during high tide.”

Everyone turned. Doflamingo stood in the threshold, framed by sun and shadow. His expression was neutral. His tone was flat.

“The outer reefs flood twice daily. The second time, the water hides the sharpest rocks. They drag ships under. You dock then, you’ll tear through your keel.”

Silence fell over the room.

Robin blinked, then slowly looked down at her map. “…That wasn’t in any of the records.”

Doflamingo took a few slow steps inside. “Because the records were made by traders. And most of them don’t survive docking at night. They get picked clean before anyone can update the books.”

Zoro’s hand hovered near his sword hilt, out of habit more than suspicion. But he didn’t interrupt.

Franky’s eyebrows twitched. “How the hell do you know that?”

“I ran guns through Ryukuzan for five years,” Doflamingo said calmly. “And bought half the dockyard’s loyalty. The rest tried to stab me. They failed. The rocks didn’t.”

Robin’s pen stopped moving. She looked up again—searching his face.

“I’m not your navigator,” Doflamingo added. “But if you dock before sunset, you’ll be able to anchor past the reef. Use the eastern channel. The current there turns at dusk—it’ll slow you down, but it’ll keep the keel from dragging.”

Robin tilted her head. “Huh.”

Franky rubbed his chin. “…He’s not wrong. If we adjust for the current and angle the rudder manually—”

“He’s right,” Nami said, staring at the tide charts with wide eyes. “How the hell did I miss that?”

No one thanked him. But no one challenged him, either.

Doflamingo turned and walked away.
Xxxxx
Later, under the stars, he sat against the wall beneath the stairs, elbows resting on his knees, listening to the creak of wood and whisper of the sea. He felt it all, the shift in pressure through his keyed up senses, subtle vibrations—the way the ship breathed and groaned.

They were talking about him. He could tell. Soft voices. Careful ones.

They still didn’t trust him. They shouldn’t.

And yet…

“You don’t have to be kind to be useful,” he told himself.

But the weight in his chest argued otherwise. He had spoken. He had offered. Not out of instinct, not out of panic—but choice. He hated that it lingered inside him like heat after a burn.

Above, the deck creaked.

Luffy appeared beside him, quiet but unmistakable.

“You did good,” Luffy said bluntly.

Doflamingo didn’t answer.

“I’m still gonna help you,” Luffy added.

The warlord turned his head, jaw tight. “Why?”

Luffy grinned, unbothered. “Because I want to. And you didn’t have to help us either. But you did. So that means you’re changing.”

Doflamingo stared ahead.

“…You’re still exhausting,” he muttered, and leaned back against the wall like the conversation was done.

But he didn’t move away.

Chapter 26: The Shape of Shadows

The wind was steady, the sun hot and clear. From the deck, the island on the horizon looked deceptively peaceful—green jungle ridges rising behind a modest-looking port town. It had been weeks since they’d stopped anywhere with civilization. Longer still since they’d docked without incident.

Luffy was nearly vibrating with excitement.

“A town!” he shouted, one leg already hooked over the rail. “They’ll have food! And meat! And maybe even—”

“Hold it.” Zoro caught the back of his shirt like a leash. “We’re docking as a group.”

“We are?” Usopp frowned. “I thought we were splitting up.”

“We are,” Nami called from across the deck, adjusting her belt. “Me, Sanji, and Franky will head into town to get supplies. You guys can go explore once we’ve cleared the way.”

“You’re not taking Robin?” Brook asked.

“She’s staying back with Chopper,” Sanji said, his arms crossed. “And keeping an eye on our guest.”

Doflamingo sat, or rather leaned, by the mast. His arms were still wrapped in iron and the collar sat on his neck, but for days now he hadn’t been tied down. He didn’t move much—not out of fear, it seemed, but habit. He hadn’t tried anything. He just kept to himself, mostly in his dark alcove, rising when summoned or when the wind shifted too sharply.

But even in silence, his presence was a thread in the air—tension wrapped in silk.

“Don’t worry,” Luffy grinned. “Mingo’s not going anywhere.”

At the sound of his name, Doflamingo tilted his head. He didn’t smile.

Xxxxx

It was Franky who asked him to help.

They were loading barrels of spare gear onto the deck, and one of them had rolled into a hard-to-reach gap under the railing.

“Hey—Doflamingo,” Franky said, almost like he was testing the word. “Mind grabbing that?”

Doflamingo didn’t move for a moment. But then, slowly, he stepped forward. He reached down—and without crouching, without effort—plucked the barrel out and passed it up.

Franky blinked.

“Man, I forget how freakishly tall you are.”

A snort came from Usopp. “He’s like a scarecrow on stilts.”

Sanji added dryly, “A scarecrow that could kill you with a whisper.”

Doflamingo didn’t respond. But as he turned away, his breath hitched—just for a second. A tangle of ropes had gone taut, pulled against the wind, and the snap of one frayed line breaking jolted something in him. His head jerked. His hand spasmed.

He blinked rapidly, mouth tight.

Chopper noticed. “You okay?”

No answer. Just a faint shake of the head and retreat—back to the stairs, back to his shadowed corner beneath the deck. He pressed his hands together there, breath shallow. Tried to focus. Tried to stop remembering.
Xxxxx

The island shimmered in the heat haze—bright, bustling, and deceptively tame.

From the ship, it looked harmless. A sleepy port, tucked between jungle ridges and half-toppled walls from some long-forgotten war. Palm trees swayed along the edges of the harbor. Children ran barefoot near crates of dried fish. Music floated from the taverns.

But Doflamingo hadn’t survived this long by trusting appearances.

He stood by the railing, arms loose in front of him, head tilted slightly toward the distant town. His coat was gone—replaced now with a heavy, dark jacket that smelled like grease, leather, and something sharp he couldn’t name. Franky’s, apparently. The only one that remotely fit his massive frame.

The ship was quiet. Too quiet.

Two parties had gone ashore already. Zoro, Luffy, Brook, and Usopp had peeled off first, excited to explore. Sanji, Nami, and Franky followed not long after, intending to secure supplies and scout potential threats. Everyone else had remained behind—Robin, Chopper, and Law.

Too many missing. Too few here.

He didn’t feel vulnerable. Not exactly. But something in the air felt off.

And then it struck him—fast, cold, silent.

A flicker of pressure. Like a breath held too long.

He stiffened. His hands clenched without thinking.

Observation Haki. Uncontrolled, flickering, and raw—but unmistakably there. It lit up like a flare, and in the gaps of perception came the shape of something wrong.

Something waiting.

He turned on his heel.

“They’re walking into a trap.”

Robin looked up first. She was reading, of course—she always was—but her eyes were sharp beneath her lashes. “What did you say?”

“Nami’s group,” he growled. “They’re headed into something. I don’t know what. I can’t see it clearly. But it’s there.”

Chopper blinked. “Are you using… Haki?”

Doflamingo ignored the question. He stepped forward, unhurried but with unmistakable purpose. “You need to let me go.”

Law straightened from where he’d been leaning against the opposite rail. “Absolutely not.”

“You’ll change your mind in ten minutes—when the town goes up in smoke.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“I’m not,” Doflamingo snapped. “Do you think I’d risk coming to you like this if I weren’t sure?”

Law’s eyes narrowed. “You could be using this as a cover to escape.”

Doflamingo’s lip curled. “If I wanted to escape, I would’ve waited until everyone left.”

“Not without your strings.”

“I don’t need strings to vanish. Or do you think the man who ruled Dressrosa for ten years never learned how to disappear?”

“Then why are you here?”

That silenced him for a beat.

Doflamingo’s jaw worked. His voice, when it came, was lower.

“Because they’re going to get hurt.”

Robin studied him. The tension in his shoulders. The faint tremble in his jaw. The way he didn’t quite clench his fists. Because he couldn’t. He was holding back, and it was costing him.

She moved first.

“Chopper,” she said. “Keys.”

Law turned to her, incredulous. “You’re serious?”

“He’s not lying,” she said. “Not this time.”

Doflamingo almost flinched when Chopper unlocked the cuffs. Not from pain—but from the strange rush of freedom. His wrists felt loose. He flexed his fingers slowly.

The collar stayed on. He made no attempt to remove it.

“I’ll need to hide these,” he muttered, tugging the sleeves of Franky’s jacket down to cover the worst of the scars. He wrapped strips of canvas—torn from an old sail—around the base of the collar, tucking it into the coat’s lining.

Robin watched all of it silently.

“Do you plan on going as yourself?” she asked.

He paused.

“No,” he said. “I’m going as the Joker.”

Law’s mouth curled in disgust. “Of course you are.”

Doflamingo smiled, faint and bitter. “You don’t understand. If I walk in looking like a fugitive, I’m dead. Worse—they’re dead. If I walk in like I still own the place? They hesitate.”

“And if someone recognizes you?” Chopper asked.

“I’m counting on it.”

He turned to the gangplank. The disguise wasn’t perfect—but it didn’t need to be. Not if he played the role right. Not if he walked like a king and laughed like he’d never bled.

Robin called after him, “You’ll come back?”

He stopped at the edge of the ship.

And with his back to them, he admitted, “I could’ve run a hundred times. I didn’t.”

Then he stepped off the ship, long strides silent against the creaking dock. The coat flared behind him as he vanished into the town.

Robin watched the horizon a long time after he was gone.

“…I don’t think he even realizes,” she murmured.

Law glanced at her. “Realizes what?”

“That he’s scared for them.”

Chopper shivered.

And far ahead, in the twisted alleys and flickering heat of the town, the Joker returned to the stage.

Chapter 27

The alley was wrong.

It hadn’t started that way. Just a shortcut through the outer market. Nami knew the path—she’d picked it for speed, not cover. But somewhere between the fruit stalls and the back door of the apothecary, the laughter had stopped. The breeze died. And the street… hushed.

“Something’s off,” Franky muttered, voice low.

“Yeah,” Sanji said, eyes flicking upward. “Feels like we’re being watched.”

They were.

Not by bounty hunters.

By residents.

Windows slid open just an inch—slats of wood creaking. Doors cracked. Not enough to be noticed unless you were looking. But enough to reveal flickers of eyes.

Shutters were closing too slowly.

People weren’t hiding.

They were waiting.

Then the first thug stepped into view.

And the second.

And the third.

At first glance, they looked like scraps—skinny arms, patched clothes, mismatched weapons. Street rats. The kind the Straw Hats could brush off without a second glance.

But more followed.

And kept coming.

They weren’t random.

They moved with discipline—loose, relaxed, coiled. Their faces weren’t the mindless thugs of some coastal gang. Their eyes were trained. Sanji clocked the silent hand signals. Franky noticed the way they flanked the walls, sealing exits. Nami watched them form a half-moon formation and wait.

“They’re pros,” Sanji said quietly, cigarette shaking ever so slightly at his lips.

“And not local,” Nami added, jaw tight.

The tallest of them stepped forward. Gold teeth. Knotted braids. Voice like gravel.

“Well, well. Straw Hats, huh? Big names. Bad luck.”

Franky took a half-step forward. “You picked the wrong crew, pal.”

But the thug didn’t flinch. None of them did.

“We’re not here for you,” he said.

Another man, slightly older, added with a grin, “Just the message you carry.”

The tension twisted. That phrase—the message you carry—didn’t feel like a threat. It felt like a signal.

And just like that, something shifted.

Sanji felt it first. A heaviness in the air. Like a trap clicking shut.

He reached for his lighter—and froze.

Four of the gangsters mirrored the motion. Not with lighters. With blades.

This wasn’t a bluff. This was a containment.

Sanji clenched his jaw.

“We can handle them,” he muttered.

But Nami’s glance said otherwise. “Not if they’re stalling. Not if this is a distraction.”

That’s when the footsteps came.

One pair.

Unhurried.

Steel on stone.

And the gangsters—these hardened men—went rigid.

The leader’s voice dropped a full octave. “No…”

The Straw Hats turned.

And he stepped into view.

Tall. Towering. Black coat swirling around his boots. Blond hair wild and untamed. The air bent around him. His sunglasses glinted red.

Joker.

The name hit the street like a gunshot.

The thugs recoiled.

The townsfolk—who’d been watching from windows and doorways—saw him.

Truly saw him.

A man screamed from somewhere above. “It’s him—it’s the Warlord—he’s back—”

Shutters slammed. Doors locked in rapid succession. Crates dropped. Horses bolted.

The city remembered.

And Doflamingo—Joker—smiled.

But it wasn’t for the gangsters.

It wasn’t even for the Straw Hats.

It was for the audience he knew was watching from somewhere higher. Somewhere hidden. The ones who sent this test. The ones pulling strings of their own.

They wanted to see if Joker still had teeth.

He intended to show them blood.

One of the gangsters—dumb with fear—shouted, “He’s supposed to be locked up! You’re done, you’re finished—!”

Doflamingo appeared in front of him in a blink.

One hand closed around the man’s throat.

“Did someone send you?” he asked softly. “Or did you volunteer for the slaughter?”

The man barely had time to wheeze before he was hurled into a wall with bone-crunching force.

Another charged.

Doflamingo grabbed him mid-motion—one hand on the jaw, the other on the ankle—and folded him backward across a barrel. He didn’t even blink.

The leader, desperate, drew a gun.

Doflamingo kicked it apart mid-aim, sending shards into the man’s face. He screamed, stumbled, and was silenced by a punch so sharp it left him twitching.

The final two hesitated.

Doflamingo turned to them.

“Go,” he said. “Tell your master: Joker’s not dead. He’s here to play.”

They bolted like rats.

Silence.

The town stared.

In windows. From rooftops.

The show was for them.

And for whoever sat in the shadows, watching the performance unfold.

Doflamingo straightened his coat, rolled his shoulders, and turned to the Straw Hats.

“You three,” he said. “With me.”

He said it like they were his soldiers.

For a breathless moment, Nami wasn’t sure.

Neither was Sanji.

But Franky saw it—the slight tremor in Joker’s hand. The tension at his jaw. Not madness.

Calculation.

This was for someone.

A warning.

And a challenge.

The Joker had returned.

And the whole damn town had seen it.
Xxxxx

The dust hadn’t even settled.

Nami’s pulse thundered in her ears as Doflamingo stalked ahead, long strides purposeful, not looking back to see if they followed.

They did.

Of course they did.

Sanji was the first to speak.

“What… the hell was that?”

No one answered.

Not right away.

They walked through the stunned silence of the town—every eye watching them from cracks and corners. Not one dared speak his name. Not one dared stop him.

Franky broke the tension with a low whistle. “Didn’t think I’d ever see that again.”

“That wasn’t a rescue,” Nami said flatly. “That was a performance.”

Sanji lit his cigarette with shaking fingers. “For who?”

Doflamingo stopped.

They froze behind him.

He didn’t turn. Didn’t speak.

Just stood there—coat flaring slightly in the wind.

Finally, he said, “You were outmatched.”

Nami scowled. “We had it handled.”

“No,” he said. “You didn’t. They weren’t sent to kill you.”

He turned just enough for the red glint of his glasses to catch the fading sun.

“They were sent to see if I would let you get hurt, die. To see if Joker would still bite back after… everything”

Sanji took a step forward, tense. “So what—you saved us? For optics?”

Doflamingo didn’t answer. His silence was confirmation enough.

Franky folded his arms. “You knew someone was watching.”

“I felt it,” he muttered. “Higher than the rooftops. Farther than the town. Doesn’t matter if they were there in person or not. They’ll hear. They’ll see.”

“And who are they?” Nami asked.

His mouth twitched—almost a smile.

“The ones who are playing on the playground I built,” he said. “The ones who remember who Joker was… and want to know if he still goes for the throat.”

Nami stepped forward. “And do you?”

He didn’t look at her. Just started walking again.

Behind them, the last of the townsfolk dared to breathe. Murmurs rippled. Footsteps retreated. The story was already spreading.

Sanji’s voice, low and steady, broke the silence between them.

“So what’s your play now, Mingo? You gonna drag us into whatever’s coming next?”

For the first time, Doflamingo paused mid-step. His head tilted.

And then—quietly, without the bravado or theatrics—he said:

“You did that when you inserted yourself at Dressrosa.”

A beat.

“But I didn’t want them to kill you.”

That stopped them cold.

Nami exchanged a glance with Sanji. Franky’s jaw was tight.

None of them said what they were thinking:

That in that moment… it almost sounded like loyalty.

Like the Joker was choosing a side.

And they didn’t know if that made them safer…

Or made them targets.

Chapter 28: Flicker of Shadows

The narrow streets of the town stretched out before them, sunlit and deceptively peaceful. Nami, Sanji, and Franky trailed behind Doflamingo, their minds still trying to process the violent display they’d just witnessed. How had the Joker moved so decisively, so cruelly—and without his strings? Wait, he still had the sea stone on? Right?

Nami broke the silence first, slightly panicked, voice low but sharp. “How did you do that? What about the sea stone, you still have that, right…” she asked nervously. Beside her, Sanji and Franky tensed up.

Doflamingo didn’t turn. His voice was steady, the faintest trace of that familiar arrogance curling his words. “Confidence and observation haki. It came back—just long enough.” His hand brushed the collar concealed beneath his coat, tapping it softly. “Still wearing this, don’t worry. I haven’t been able to use my powers since you put it on.”

Sanji’s brows furrowed, disbelief flickering behind his usual bravado. “So… you were blind the whole time? And your haki? It only just kicked in?”

A slow smile spread beneath Doflamingo’s sunglasses. “I was on deck listening. The moment I sensed you were walking into a trap, I reached for it and it answered. That’s all.”

Franky folded his arms, impressed despite himself. “You fooled those thugs good… but how long can you keep that up?”

Doflamingo shrugged. “Not long.”

They continued down the winding streets, the shadows growing shorter as the sun climbed higher. For a time, Joker’s movements were fluid and sure—his trademark swagger returned, his coat flaring with every step. Nami watched him closely, noting how the others fell easily into formation behind him, as if following a commander.

But then, just as they reached the center of the town, something changed.

Doflamingo’s steps faltered ever so slightly. His head turned sharply—searching the surroundings with sudden intensity. His jaw tightened.

Franky’s voice cut through the moment. “Doffy? What’s wrong?”

The smile slipped from his face. “The haki… it’s gone.”

For a heartbeat, none of them moved. Then the truth settled, heavy and unmistakable. The haki that had allowed him to ‘see’ without sight flickered out, leaving him exposed—blind again. In the middle of a hostile town.

Nami stepped forward without hesitation. “Here,” she said, positioning herself just off his side. “Let me guide you.”

Doflamingo’s lips twitched—an expression caught somewhere between gratitude and the Joker’s usual cruel amusement. “Not bad. Like old times.”

They moved with caution, the group silent except for the soft clack of their footsteps on cobblestone. Behind the confident mask, Doflamingo relied on Nami’s steady presence as they slipped through alleys and side streets, avoiding attention. No one suspected his blindness—not now, not after the display.

An hour passed in tense silence.

At last, the familiar silhouette of the ship came into view, rocking gently at the dock.

Waiting on the deck were Robin, Chopper, and Law—the trio who had stayed behind, anxiously tending the ship and wondering if Doflamingo’s desperate plea for release was more than madness.

Chopper was the first to react, eyes wide as he saw the group approach with the infamous Joker at their lead—standing, whole, and alive. His legs carried him forward before his brain caught up, but he froze the instant Joker’s practiced façade flickered for the briefest second.

Robin’s eyes were sharper—observant as ever. She noticed the tightness in Doflamingo’s movements, the flicker of exhaustion beneath the bravado. His shoulders rolled back as if shrugging off an invisible weight, but there was no mistaking the strain.

Law remained silent, calculating. His gaze narrowed, dark and intense. “What the hell did you do in that town?” he asked quietly.

The group stepped aboard, and the tension thickened. It wasn’t just relief that Doflamingo was back—it was uncertainty, and an undercurrent of fear.

Joker’s mask cracked.

He let himself falter, staggering slightly before collapsing into a heap on the deck.

Chopper rushed forward, heart pounding.
“Mingo!”

The others gathered around, watching as his hands trembled, his breath came in shallow gasps. The confident savior of the alley was gone, replaced by something fragile and broken.

Robin laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Doflamingo…”

His voice was barely a whisper. “I’m fine. I just need a minute.”

Sanji’s eyes darkened. “You did all that… and now this?”

Nami’s gaze was fierce. “You’re not invincible, Doffy. Certainly not now.”

Doflamingo closed his eyes, the weight of everything crashing down—past, present, and the uncertain future. He wasn’t sure who he was, who he was supposed to be.

Who he wanted to be.

Chopper knelt beside him, voice soft but firm. “We’re here, Doffy. You don’t have to carry it alone.”

The ship rocked gently under the setting sun, shadows lengthening like fingers across the deck.

The Joker had returned—but at what cost?

Chapter 29: Ripples

The ship had gone quiet.

The kind of quiet that wasn’t just stillness, but tension. The kind that waited.

Doflamingo sat slouched in his alcove under the stairs, head tipped against the wood paneling. His coat had been discarded somewhere en route—draped over a crate, forgotten. The sunglasses he’d nabbed on the way to Nami hung from his collar, loose and unneeded. On this ship he didn’t need to be Joker. They already knew how weak he was.

He hadn’t spoken since they got back.

Not really.

Not beyond the few clipped words he used to dismiss Chopper’s concern, to push Robin gently away when she’d offered a hand, to wave off Franky’s awkward half-joke about “one hell of a show.”

He hadn’t answered when Law muttered something acidic about recklessness.

Everyone gave him space.

For now.

He listened to the faint creaks of the Sunny, the lull of the tide, the soft murmur of voices on the deck. His mind buzzed.

Katakuri had been there. He hadn’t seen him, couldn’t see anyone, but he had felt it. Just for a moment—observation haki brushing against that monstrous presence. Watching. Waiting. Judging.

Katakuri was a signal. Not an attack dog. Not yet.

Big Mom was sniffing. And if Katakuri was here, the rest weren’t far behind.

He’d bought the crew time—but at a price.

And the underworld would be swarming now.

Joker’s return wasn’t just rumor—it was confirmed. He had walked the streets, delivered violence with flair, and vanished again. And worse?

He wasn’t alone.

The world would start asking questions.

Why was he with the Straw Hats?

Why were they working together now? Hadn’t they been the one’s responsible for his downfall in Dressrosa.

And most dangerous of all: what game was he playing now? To the outside world, none of this would make any sense.

Footsteps approached, light and careful.

He didn’t need to see to know it was Nami.

“Feel like talking?” she asked, soft.

“No,” he said.

But he didn’t tell her to leave.

She came anyway, settling on a low barrel across from him. He could feel the heat of her stare.

“You scared the hell out of us,” she said.

A beat.

“You scared yourself too, didn’t you?”

His jaw tightened.

“Wasn’t supposed to go that far,” he murmured.

“But you did.”

He ran a hand through his hair, fingers trembling slightly. “Didn’t have a choice.”

“Sure you did,” she said. “You could’ve stayed here. You could’ve sent Law. You could’ve let us fight our way out.”

A bitter laugh escaped him. “You wouldn’t have made it without getting badly hurt.”

Silence.

“I felt them closing in. The coordination. The message.” He leaned back. “It wasn’t just a street brawl. It was a litmus test.”

“For Joker.”

“For me,” he corrected.

Nami crossed her arms. “So you gave them what they wanted?”

He hesitated. “I gave them what they feared.”

“And now?”

“They’ll want more.”

His tone shifted—colder, harder. The Joker voice flickering beneath the exhaustion. “I showed my teeth. That means every vulture with a grudge is going to come sniffing.”

He turned toward her, eyes blank and empty, but the weight of his stare was still there.

“You need to move. Fast.”

Nami frowned. “What?”

“The town won’t protect you. They’ll gossip. The word’s out. Joker’s back. And worse—he’s traveling with Straw Hats. That’s going to make waves.”

She swallowed hard. “You’re saying—”

“I’m saying get this ship moving. Now. There’s another island a day or two away. You can resupply there quickly. But you’ll need to figure out next steps. Big Mom is pissed, and Kaido won’t be far behind her.”

Footsteps echoed overhead—others gathering, shifting. The mood above was tense. The rest of the group had returned.

Nami stood slowly, absorbing it all. “What about you?”

“I’ll catch up.”

She scoffed. “No, you won’t.”

He didn’t argue.

“You’ll hole up in here until we’re halfway to the next disaster.”

Still, he didn’t argue.

She turned to leave—but paused at the threshold.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For choosing us.”

Doflamingo said nothing.

She left him there in the dark.
Xxxxx

Above deck, the Sunny was alive again.

Sanji, Franky, Robin, Chopper, Law, and now Brook and Usopp stood in a loose semicircle, tension thick in the air. They’d returned minutes ago, expressions grim. The townsfolk hadn’t dared stop them. Not after that show.

Brook was the first to break the silence. “So… we’re leaving?”

“Yes,” Nami said firmly. “Now.”

Robin raised a brow. “What about him?”

“He says the underworld is going to come looking. And Big Mom’s already sniffing around.”

A hush settled.

Sanji’s expression turned stormy. “Wait. You’re telling me Big Mom’s crew is here?”

Nami nodded slowly. She squared her shoulders. “We weigh anchor in twenty. If Doflamingo’s not on deck by then, I’m hauling him up myself. He caused this mess and he’s going to help me fix it. Or at the very least run away from it as fast as possible!”

Chopper, still rattled, quietly mumbled, “He pushed himself too hard.”

Robin agreed. “But he got results.”

Law didn’t speak.

His gaze lingered on the horizon.

He’d seen the way Doflamingo collapsed. The way the Joker fell apart once the mask wasn’t needed.

And the part that haunted him?

It wasn’t the fragility.

It was how easily the performance had come back.

Like it had never really left.

Chapter 30; Shadows Move

The Sunny cut across the sea in silence.

Not literal silence—waves still lapped at the hull, the sails still groaned under the wind, and somewhere below deck, Franky’s tools clanked against metal. But there was a quiet that settled in the spaces between. Between glances. Between unspoken fears.

It hadn’t even been an hour since they pulled anchor. The port town vanished into the horizon, but no one dared to feel relief. Not yet.

Robin sat on the edge of the crow’s nest, book open but unread. Nami leaned against the helm with furrowed brows, adjusting their heading for the third time. Chopper was still tucked in a corner of the lounge, surrounded by medical notes he wasn’t reading. Sanji smoked in agitated bursts at the bow, while Franky worked on reinforcing the outer hull—again.

Only Brook hummed quietly to himself. It was a soft sound, almost reverent, and made the quiet louder somehow.

On the lower deck, Law descended the stairs, jaw tight.

He found Doflamingo exactly where he’d left him—slumped in the alcove beneath the stairs he’d just descended. His coat still hadn’t been reclaimed. His new sunglasses remained untouched. He looked like a man who hadn’t moved in days. Just like he had when he’d first rejoined the straw hats.

Law didn’t speak right away. He just stared.

Finally, he said, “Was that your plan from the start?”

Doflamingo didn’t look up. “Which part?”

“Using the Straw Hats as bait. As a distraction. As cover for whatever you’re scheming now.”

A faint grin tugged at the corner of Doflamingo’s mouth, humorless and tired. “You think too small.”

Law stepped closer, voice low. “You used them. You used us.”

Doflamingo tilted his head back against the wall. “No. I played a card I didn’t want to play. And I paid for it. You think this is a win?”

“You brought the underworld down on us.”

“No Law,” he said sharply. “You did that when you took out my factories. When you dismantled my empire. Wasn’t your reason for aligning yourself with the Straw Hats to go after Kaido and Big Mom?”

Law sucked in a sharp breath. He truly hadn’t thought he’d live long enough to see the repercussions of that claim.

“Don’t change the subject! You wanted them to see you. To remember.”

Doflamingo’s voice dropped, colder now. “I wanted them to think twice.”

Law’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t do this for them.”

“No,” Doflamingo said, smile vanishing. “But they benefitted. So shut up and steer.”

The silence stretched.

Law didn’t respond. He turned and walked away without another word.
Xxxxx

Above deck, the tension shifted in small, strange ways.

Nami sat cross-legged near the helm, charting their next destination with Robin, who suggested a sparsely populated trade island two days’ sail to the northeast.

Sanji hovered nearby, arms folded, trying not to look like he was hovering.

“I don’t get why Big Mom was there,” he muttered. “Why?”

“She doesn’t move without a reason,” Robin said. “It was a warning.”

Sanji’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose Law did say from the beginning this was about taking out Kaido and Big Mom. I just didn’t expect that we’d be harboring the guy they’re pissed at.”

Before Nami or Robin could respond, Chopper walked up to them.

“He’s not okay. I mean, obviously, but—he’s not okay. He’s burned out. Whatever happened in that town exhausted him. I don't understand how he was able to get you guys out of there without a fight. ”

“Because he’s a monster,” Sanji snapped.

“Because he had to,” Robin countered gently.

Franky joined them, grease on his hands. “Ship’s good for now. But if Big Mom’s crew is nearby, we might wanna look into countermeasures. Fast.”

Brook plucked a few notes from his violin, then said softly, “He really scared them, didn’t he?”

No one answered.

They didn’t need to.
Xxxxx
Far away, back in the half-shadowed ruins of the town they’d fled, a tall figure stood on a rooftop.

Katakuri.

His scarf billowed faintly in the wind. Eyes half-lidded, he stared at the horizon long after the ship vanished.

A den den mushi crackled softly in his palm.

“They’ve moved,” he said. “I saw him.”

A pause.

“I’ll follow. Let mother know. In fact, let everyone know.”

The snail blinked once before the call ended.

Katakuri tucked it away.

Then he stepped down into the dark, vanishing into the waiting streets below.

Chapter Text

Chapter 31: Reckonings
The morning sun spilled across the deck of the Thousand Sunny, casting long, lazy shadows. The sea whispered softly against the hull, but beneath the calm, tension rippled through the crew.

Luffy dangled upside down from the railing, a mischievous grin lighting his face.

“Hey, Zoro! Think those fish know we’re coming?”

Zoro leaned against the mast, arms folded, scowling.

“You’re not worried at all?”

Luffy flipped upright, still grinning.

“Worried? Nah. Doffy helped us. The whole thing was like a big show! Pretty cool.”

Zoro’s eyes narrowed.

“Cool? That stunt almost got us killed. He left without warning, made himself the target. We’re lucky he got us out.”

Luffy shrugged, eyes gleaming with playful defiance.

“But we’re safe, right? Maybe he just wanted us to yell at him, or punch him, or feed him.”

Zoro snorted.

“You really think he’s on our side?”

Luffy shrugged again, carefree.

“I don’t know. But I’m not gonna worry about it.”
XXXXX

In the dim alcove beneath the stairs, Doflamingo sat slumped against the wooden wall. His coat was gone, folded somewhere out of reach. His new sunglasses rested on his lap—useless without sight—and his hands trembled slightly.

He couldn’t see Zoro or Luffy approaching, but he felt their presence slice the air like cold knives. The familiar weight of dread settled in his chest.

They’re here to punish me. To hurt me.

He knew it as surely as his pounding heart. But a darker thought gnawed deeper.

What if they reveal it—the slave brand, my blindness, that I’m broken? The world would see me for what I am: a freak, a failure.

His breath hitched. The brand was a curse, a death sentence in many eyes. If that came out, there’d be no hiding, no bargaining.

I’m as good as dead.

The door creaked. His muscles tightened involuntarily.

Zoro’s voice cut the silence, rough and sharp.

“You planning to run every time you pull a reckless stunt?”

Doflamingo kept his head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed or blinded—it didn’t matter.

“I didn’t run. I came back.”

“Yeah,” Zoro said, voice low and accusing, stepping closer, “to sulk.”

Luffy’s light chuckle floated down the stairs.

“He’s really good at sulking, huh?”

The smirk that hovered near Doflamingo’s lips vanished. His fingers clenched the edges of the alcove as his voice dropped to a murmur.

“You don’t understand. I was buying you time.”

“You scared the town. You scared the crew. You left us in the dark,” Zoro said, stepping even closer.

Luffy sat on a crate nearby, still grinning but thoughtful.

“But you were really flashy! The cape, the voice—bam! People ran everywhere!”

Doflamingo’s mind flashed dark images: whispers in the streets, cold eyes, the underworld buzzing. And always that fear beneath it all.

They’re going to hurt me. Maybe worse.

His voice low, almost desperate:

“I didn’t expect to come back. I didn’t want this.”

Zoro’s eyes hardened.

“Then stop acting surprised.”

Luffy waved a hand dismissively.

“Next time you do something crazy, just make sure we get front row seats, okay?”

A hollow laugh escaped Doflamingo. Inside, the paranoia twisted tighter. He was caught—blind, branded, hunted. But here, in the dark, he fought to keep the mask on. To not show how broken he felt.

Because if they saw that, he might as well give up entirely.
XXXXX

Doflamingo’s breath hitched again as footsteps lingered in the alcove’s narrow space. His fingers flexed and clenched, aching either to push them away—or maybe to beg for mercy. But pride kept him silent.

Luffy stretched, scratching the back of his head.

“Hey, you don’t have to act like we’re some kind of execution squad.”

Zoro’s sharp gaze didn’t waver.

“You don’t get to pretend you’re a victim here. You pulled a stunt that could’ve doomed us all.”

The blind man’s lips parted slightly, a slow, bitter smile tracing his face.

“You don’t know what it feels like… to be powerless.”

“Powerless?” Luffy echoed, eyes wide, tilting his head with honest curiosity.

“You? You’re never powerless.”

Zoro scoffed.

“You’re blind. You’ve been running on pure instinct and pride. That’s not strength. That’s desperation.”

The words hit like punches. Inside, Doflamingo felt the cracks widen. Blind. Broken. Branded.

His voice cracked as he whispered,

“You think this is weakness? Maybe it is. But it’s also survival.”

Luffy shrugged, still grinning.

“Well, I don’t wanna see you give up. Not now.”

Zoro leaned in, voice low and sharp.

“Then stop waiting for us to come and punish you. Stand up and fight—for yourself, not because we want you to.”

A long silence hung between them. Doflamingo’s chest heaved quietly, the weight of fear, regret, and desperate control pressing down.

Finally, he spoke, rough and hollow.

“I don’t know who I’m fighting anymore.”

Luffy stood and clapped his hands, breaking the tension.

“Well, maybe you just need a new team.”

Zoro shot Luffy a glare but said nothing.

Doflamingo’s lips twitched—hope? Defiance?—flickering faintly.

Maybe it’s not too late.
XXXXX

Luffy and Zoro stepped out onto the lower deck, where the rest of the crew gathered—Nami, Robin, Sanji, Chopper, Franky, and Law—all watching with guarded expressions.

Luffy stretched, giving a bright smile.

“He’s coming around. I think he’s really with us now.”

Zoro scoffed quietly.

“You’re too trusting.”

Nami crossed her arms tight, eyes narrowing.

“Did he say anything that made you believe that?”

Zoro shook his head.

“Not really. More like… he’s stuck in his own head. Paranoid. He thinks we’re here to punish him. He’s scared of what might happen if anyone finds out he’s blind or has that slave brand.”

Sanji’s brow furrowed.

“He’s acting like he’s waiting for us to put a bullet in his head.”

Law narrowed his eyes.

“I’m not convinced he’s truly on our side. His fear is eating him alive. If that paranoia wins, he won’t be help—he’ll be a liability.”

Robin added quietly,

“He hasn’t accepted who he is—or where he fits. Not yet.”

Chopper’s voice trembled.

“He’s burned out and afraid. I don’t know how long before that breaks him.”

Franky slammed a fist on the railing.

“We can’t afford to lose him. Not now, not when Big Mom’s crew is this close.”

Luffy frowned, stepping forward with determination.

“I know what I saw. He’s scared and messy, but he’s with us. For now.”
Nami’s voice was sharp.

“For now? That’s not much to go on.”

Luffy’s smile didn’t falter.

“Maybe not. But he chose to stay on the ship. That counts.”

Law’s gaze turned toward the horizon, grim.

“We’ll need to watch him closely. And be ready for whatever comes.”

Zoro shook his head.

“If he slips back into that darkness, it’s not just him who’s in danger.”

Luffy’s eyes flashed.

“Then we keep him in the light. That’s what crew’s for.”

A tense silence followed, the weight of uncertainty thick in the air.
XXXXX

Below deck, Doflamingo lay still in his alcove, mind swirling with shadows of doubt and fear. The weight of his blindness pressed on him heavier than ever.

They’re coming for me. Not just to fight. To expose the slave brand. To show the world what I really am—what I’ve been hiding. A blind, broken man.

The paranoia curled tighter, squeezing the last vestiges of calm.

I’m as good as dead if that happens.

Then voices drifted down the stairs—clear and bright.

Luffy’s voice floated through the quiet:

“I know what Doffy’s done. I know he’s made mistakes—big ones. But I trust him. He’s with us now. And I’m not gonna leave him behind.”

The words sliced through Doflamingo’s spiraling thoughts like a sudden shaft of light. He flinched inwardly, fingers tightening on the wooden slats beneath him.

He trusts me?

It was a shock to his system. The paranoia didn’t vanish, but it wavered—just for a moment.

Luffy’s simple, unwavering faith echoed in his ears—a fragile thread pulling at something buried deep beneath the darkness.

Doflamingo inhaled slowly, a fragile hope flickering inside the darkness. For the first time in a long while, the weight of his blindness felt a little lighter—because someone believed in him.

But the shadows lingered. The road ahead would test that trust every step of the way.
XXXXX

Chapter 31: A Name Worth 800 Million

The island appeared like a mirage on the horizon—quiet, green, and unassuming, with tidy wooden docks nestled between hills and thick coastal brush. It didn’t have the flashy bustle of a trade port or the looming threat of a Marine base. Just a sleepy, sunlit harbor where boats rocked in peace.

The Thousand Sunny coasted in easily, her lion figurehead beaming at the rising sun.

“Looks quiet,” Nami said, scanning the shoreline with a critical eye.

“Perfect for a supply stop,” Robin added, closing her book with a soft snap. “And no Marines. For now.”

Zoro leaned against the railing, arms folded. “I’ll stay on the ship. Someone’s gotta watch the jerk downstairs.”

No one argued. Everyone knew who he meant.

“Suit yourself,” Sanji muttered, already eyeing the shoreline for food stalls.

“Alright!” Luffy bounced on the balls of his feet, grinning. “Let’s go shopping!”

“Supplies, Luffy,” Nami corrected sharply. “Food, medicine, repair parts. Not fireworks. Not chickens.”

“Awwww,” he whined, but followed her all the same.

The crew disembarked in pairs—Nami and Robin in the market, Franky and Sanji off to secure provisions and metalwork, Law trailing silently with Chopper and Luffy.

Zoro watched them go, then turned and glanced toward the alcove where Doflamingo lay hidden in shadow.

Still there. Still silent.
XXXXX

The island was small but efficient, a known stop for passing merchant crews with no interest in bounties or questions. Most of the vendors barely spared a glance at the group that strolled through the square—though Chopper’s wide-eyed curiosity and Luffy’s hat drew a few stares.

They passed crates of fruit, fabrics, and spices until something caught Chopper’s eye: a corkboard plastered with local news and bounty posters.

Luffy skidded to a stop beside him.

“Hey! Let’s see if anyone cool’s here!”

Chopper scanned the posters, eyes going wide. “Luffy…”

There it was, unmistakable despite the curled edges and worn ink:

DONQUIXOTE DOFLAMINGO

His usual arrogant sneer, chin tilted, glasses dark.

But above the faded photograph, bold new ink declared:

WANTED – 800,000,000 BERRIES

A note in smaller type followed:
“Stripped of Warlord title. Tyrant. Confirmed underworld affiliations.”

Luffy stared at it for a beat—then whooped.

“Whoa! Eight hundred million?! That’s huge!”

Chopper squeaked. “That’s higher than anyone we’ve seen—besides the Emperors!”

Even Law paused, expression unreadable. “They really did it,” he murmured. “Stripped him of everything.”

Luffy grabbed the poster off the board, eyes shining. “He’s gonna want to see this! He can’t see, so I gotta read it to him!”

“Luffy—” Law tried, but the captain was already sprinting back toward the ship, laughter trailing behind him.

XXXXX

On the Sunny, Zoro sat cross-legged near the helm, sword resting across his knees. He looked up when he heard the thump of sandals hitting the deck.

“Back already?” he grunted.

Luffy held the bounty poster high. “Zoro! Look!”

Zoro glanced at it, then did a double-take. “Is that real?”

“Eight hundred million!” Luffy crowed. “That’s even more than Ace had!”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He turned and made his way down to the lower deck, to the alcove shrouded in dim light and quiet tension.

Doflamingo was resting against the wall, out of the sun. He didn’t stir until Luffy’s voice rang out.

“Hey, Doffy! Guess what? Your bounty got updated!”

There was a pause—one heartbeat, then two. Doflamingo didn’t respond, but Luffy barreled on.

“It’s eight hundred million berries! Can you believe that? That’s crazy!”

Still silence.

“Oh, and it’s your old photo. That one where you’re all smug and scary-lookin’. You know, like—” Luffy mimicked the pose, despite the man’s blindness.

Doflamingo slowly turned his head toward the sound of his voice. “Eight hundred,” he repeated, voice low.

Luffy nodded even though he couldn’t see it. “Yup! You’re famous again.”

For a long moment, Doflamingo didn’t speak. His fingers curled slowly into the fabric beneath him.

Famous again.

The words echoed in his skull, louder than the bounty amount, louder than the threat that followed. No more title. No more protection and the government turning a blind eye to his more unsavory practices. The whole world would be watching again—and not for the reasons he once commanded.

And Luffy… he sounded happy about it.

“I thought you’d be mad,” Doflamingo muttered.

Luffy laughed. “Why? That’s a great bounty! It means you’re strong! Really strong.”

Doflamingo’s breath caught. That was what Luffy saw? Not the danger. Not the criminal. Not the broken man. Just another fighter worth something.

The paper crinkled softly as Luffy handed it to him, though he couldn’t see it. “Here, anyway. You should hold it.”

Doflamingo’s fingers brushed the brittle paper, feeling the worn edges, the uneven texture of the ink. He’d never actually see. His own sneering face etched into this sheet—but he knew it was an echo of the man he’d once been. The warlord. The monster. The king of Dressrosa.

He held it like it might catch fire in his hands.

“Why are you showing me this?” he asked finally.

Luffy squatted beside him, grinning. “Because it’s yours. You earned it.”

Doflamingo turned his face away slightly. “You know what this means. They’re going to come for me now. Everyone—bounty hunters, Marines, the Underworld. No more protections. No more secrets.”

Luffy tilted his head. “So?”

Doflamingo let out a bitter laugh. “You’re insane.”

“Nah,” Luffy said simply. “Just used to it.”

He stood, stretched, and made for the stairs again, leaving the bounty crumpled gently in Doflamingo’s lap like an absurd medal.

XXXXX

Above deck, the crew was starting to return from the village, arms laden with bags and crates. Sanji was grumbling about the quality of the produce, Franky was boasting about a new tool he’d bargained for, and Chopper was proudly showing off a stockpile of new bandages and medicine.

Law arrived last, silent as always.

Zoro was waiting. “Luffy told him.”

Robin raised a brow. “And?”

“Didn’t freak out,” Zoro said. “Didn’t smile either.”

Nami walked over, holding the last poster they’d taken from the board. “Eight hundred million… I didn’t believe it at first. It’s more than any of us. That’s higher than any pirate we’ve come across so far.”

“Which means we’re being watched,” Law said quietly. “Someone submitted that update fast. The World Government’s moving quicker than I expected.”

Franky whistled. “They really tossed him out with the trash, huh?”

“It’s not just the number,” Robin said. “It’s what it says about him. No photo update. Just the same old face with new ink. They want the world to know he’s vulnerable now. A threat again, yes—but an exposed one.”

Chopper hugged his medical bag a little closer. “You think he knows what that means?”

“Of course he does,” Nami muttered. “He’s not stupid.”

Sanji lit a cigarette, the tip flaring red. “He’s dangerous. Even now. But it’s like he’s…faded.”

Zoro leaned against the railing. “He’s not sure who he is without power. Without a title. He’s hanging on, but barely.”

Robin nodded. “And yet… Luffy trusts him.”

Law’s voice cut in, sharp and skeptical. “Luffy trusts everyone.”

Brook chuckled. “Yes, but somehow he’s usually right. He trusted you after all.”

Just then, Luffy burst from the hatch, hands behind his head, still beaming. “Hey! He thought it was cool! Kinda.”

“He said that?” Nami asked flatly.

“Nope. But he didn’t throw it away.”

“That’s a low bar,” Sanji muttered.

“He kept it,” Luffy insisted. “Means something.”

They exchanged glances, each of them measuring Luffy’s blind faith against the weight of what they knew—and what they feared.

Robin broke the silence first. “It does mean something. Not everything. But something.”

Zoro sighed. “We’ll keep watch.”

Nami crossed her arms. “We always do.”

Luffy grinned. “Then let’s get moving! Next island’s not gonna wait for us!”

The Sunny began to stir again, sails loosening, the anchor hauled up. Supplies were stowed, and the ocean breeze welcomed them back into the currents of the New World.

XXXXX

Below deck, Doflamingo sat in the shadows, the poster still clutched in his hands. His fingers lingered over the bold black numbers like they were a mark of exile.

Eight hundred million.

He could already feel the weight of it sinking in—like the crosshairs of the world settling on his back.

But strangely, in that moment, he didn’t feel alone in it.

And that unsettled him most of all.
XXXXX

Night settled over the Thousand Sunny, blanketing the ship in a soft hush. The crew had gone quiet—some already asleep, others scattered across the deck under the stars, lost in their own thoughts.

In the alcove on the lower deck, Doflamingo remained awake.

The bounty poster rested beside him now, the edges curled, the paper a little torn from how tightly he’d held it. He hadn’t asked for this. Hadn’t expected it, either. He’d known he was done being a Warlord—but this… this was a death sentence dressed up like a reward.

He leaned his head back against the wall, listening to the creak of the wood, the distant rhythm of the sea. Somewhere above, Luffy was laughing softly—maybe talking to Sanji, or Chopper, or no one at all. That boy never needed an audience.

Doflamingo closed his eyes.

He trusts me.

It still didn’t make sense. He hadn’t earned it. He’d done nothing but threaten, intimidate, manipulate. Yet Luffy treated him like a person that might one day sit by the fire with him if given a warm enough place to rest.

It terrified him.

Because if they trusted him—really trusted him—then they’d expect something in return. Something he wasn’t sure he had left.

His fingers drifted to the slave brand, hidden beneath layers of bandages and fabric at his back. A mark that had defined too much of him. And yet… not the whole of him. Not anymore.

He let out a slow breath.

Not quite safe. Not quite saved.

But not alone, either.

For now, that was enough.

XXXXX

Chapter 32: Echoes from the Deep

The Thousand Sunny sailed quietly through calm seas, the water sparkling under a bright, late afternoon sun. After the uneventful resupply on the last island—successful, if unusually quiet—the crew had resumed their rhythm. Luffy snored peacefully on the lion’s head figurehead. Usopp and Chopper tinkered with something explosive. Nami had retreated into her maps. The silence wasn’t tense. But it wasn’t relaxed either.

In the middle of the deck, Luffy flipped upright with a grin. In his hands was a crumpled bounty poster he had folded and unfolded a dozen times.

“Hey, hey, Doffy!” he called over his shoulder, waving the paper. “They used your old creepy picture! You look like you want to strangle the cameraman!”

No answer.

Luffy peered over the edge of the deck, toward the alcove beneath the stairs. “Still mad in this one! And you had that pink feathery thing! You look like a pineapple got possessed.”

Still no response. Doflamingo was there, barely a silhouette in the dimness, head bowed slightly. Not asleep. Just quiet.

“Eight hundred million berries!” Luffy crowed, spinning the poster like a prize wheel. “That’s more than any of us! Except me, obviously.” He paused. “Oh wait, even more than mine, huh?”

Nami called from her chair. “Don’t encourage him!”

Luffy stuck out his tongue and shouted back, “I’m not! I’m just saying—he’s got a bounty again! That’s good, right?”

“It’s not good,” Nami muttered. “It means people are looking. And they’ll find us if we’re not careful.”

Down in the shadows, Doflamingo said nothing. His fingers shifted slightly against the grain of the wood. Eight hundred million. It sounded meaningless until you remembered what that kind of number did. It called attention. It stirred ghosts.

XXXXX

A few days passed without incident. The wind was fair. The weather held. And slowly, unnoticed at first, something changed.

Doflamingo began to move.

Not much. Not far. But just enough to be noticed. A loose coil of rope near the railing was wound and hooked before Sanji came back from the galley. A spilled mop bucket left out too long was already cleaned up. One morning, a loose halyard was caught before it slapped hard against the mast—just a muttered “starboard” from the alcove had warned them a moment before it happened.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t explain.

He just started helping.

Not actively. Not obviously. But present. Like before.

Chopper was the first to say anything.

“Um… thanks,” the reindeer mumbled, cheeks puffing. “For the rope. I saw you fix it.”

Doflamingo only nodded once, barely moving. No sarcasm. No smugness.

Robin, leaning over the railing above, folded her hands in silence. Sanji kept an eye on him in the galley window but said nothing. Zoro, from the upper deck, never took his eyes off him for long.

XXXXX

That morning, Robin found the newspaper tucked into the new delivery bag. Nothing unusual—until she flipped to the back.

There, nestled between a tea shop advertisement and shipping schedules, was a small column of plain text.

No picture. No name.

But it hit hard.

“The Joker stirs. His shadow has returned to the world. The underworld watches—cautious, curious, waiting. Sightings remain unconfirmed, but already whispers swirl. The kingdom he once held is gone, but debts remain. And rumors say the dead don’t sleep quietly.”

Robin’s brow creased. She said nothing at first—just slid the paper to Law, who had just joined her with coffee.

He scanned it quickly, eyes going cold.

“They didn’t name him,” he said flatly.

“They didn’t need to,” Robin replied. “Anyone who mattered already knows.”

Nami leaned in from her perch on the railing. “What is it?”

Robin turned the paper and let her read.

Nami’s expression twisted. “So… they’re talking. He’s out, and they’re saying it.”

Sanji walked up, towel over his shoulder. “What kind of talking?”

“Underworld chatter,” Law said. “It’s a warning. Not to him. To the rest of them.”

“Which means they’ll come sniffing,” Sanji muttered.

Chopper poked his head up from the deck below. “Does that mean someone might come for him?”

“Or us,” Nami muttered darkly. “We’re harboring him. That poster’s out there. It won’t take long before someone connects the dots.”

Zoro, leaning on the mast above, finally spoke. “Let ‘em come. I’ll deal with them.”

Then, more quietly, almost as an afterthought, he added, “If he turns… I’ll handle that too.”

The deck went quiet for a moment.

Below, in the alcove, Doflamingo sat motionless. But his head tilted just slightly. Listening.

XXXXX

That night, the ship was quiet.

Dinner had been calm. Franky had started a story about sea kings and promptly fallen asleep mid-tale. Brook had played a lullaby on the deck while Chopper curled up near the helm. Nami was charting the stars. Robin sipped tea. Luffy stretched out on the upper railing like a cat, arms hanging loose over the edge.

In the corner of the alcove, Doflamingo lay staring at the ceiling. The ship creaked around him. Water slapped gently against the hull. Far above, laughter drifted down from the others.

He didn’t understand it. Not really.

Trust had always been a currency to him—traded, used, broken. The idea of being protected was foreign. Unfamiliar. He didn’t trust them, not entirely. He didn’t expect them to trust him either.

But they hadn’t thrown him overboard.

They hadn’t abandoned him.

And Luffy… Luffy had grinned when he saw the bounty. Called it impressive. Told him outright, “You’re with us.”

Not “you belong here.” Not “we forgive you.”

Just you’re with us.

It didn’t erase anything. Didn’t make him safe. But the words settled like a stone inside him—dense and unfamiliar.

He lay there a long time after the laughter faded, staring into the darkness.

And for the first time in a long while, he didn’t imagine strings tightening around his throat.

Just the sound of the ship, and the sense that—for now—he was still aboard.

XXXXX

Chapter 33: Shadows With Teeth

Midday on the Sunny felt too quiet.

After days of sailing through calm waters, the crew had started to relax—just a little. The mood had lifted, even if caution lingered in the air like fog that hadn’t burned off. The last island had gone smoothly, the weather was fair, and the sea shimmered with almost unnatural stillness.

But Zoro didn’t like it.

He leaned on the railing, arms folded, one eye scanning the horizon. The air tasted wrong. There was no smell of rain or ozone—but there was pressure. Like the air before a thunderclap.

“She’s comin’,” he muttered. “Whatever it is.”

Down below, in the shadowed nook where Doflamingo had made his den, the former Warlord stirred. He’d sensed it, too. A predator’s intuition honed from a lifetime of betrayal and blood.

He tilted his head, listening. No footsteps. No shouts. Not yet.

He sat still and waited, breath slow.

XXXXX

Above deck, Luffy was poking the wanted poster again.

“Eight hundred million! One day my bounty’s gonna be even higher!”

Brook hovered behind him, sweating. “But Captain… it’s his bounty, not ours.”

Luffy beamed anyway. “Yeah, but he’s here, right? So it’s kinda like ours.”

Robin raised an eyebrow, flipping through the latest newspaper. She didn’t comment on Luffy’s logic. Instead, her eyes landed on a small, ominous paragraph buried near the back.

“Trouble,” she said aloud.

Law crossed the deck. “What is it?”

She held the paper out, tapping the column. “‘Joker’s shadow reappears on the sea. Whispers from the underworld confirm new movements—alliances forming, old debts remembered.’”

Franky grimaced. “Sounds like someone just lit a signal fire in the dark.”

Nami’s lips pressed into a line. “We’ve got a giant, expensive target chained to our deck. Every bounty hunter worth their salt is going to come sniffing.”

“And a few who aren’t worth their salt,” Sanji added, flicking his lighter shut.

They didn’t know how soon they’d be proven right.

XXXXX

It happened fast.

A strange screech pierced the air—like metal screaming through flesh. Then a shadow blurred past the crow’s nest, faster than eyes could follow.

Zoro was already moving. “Starboard! Someone’s—!”

Too late. Something dropped from the sky like a bird of prey.

She landed lightly on the deck, her boots not making a sound. Tall, thin, hooded in black and wrapped in layers of fabric that fluttered even when the wind didn’t blow. She had no weapons drawn. Yet. Her eyes were dark and dead, like burned-out coals. Her voice cut through the sea air like a knife.

“Joker,” she said. “You’ve done it now.”

Karasu Grimm.

An elite bounty hunter, whispered of but rarely seen. Known not for brutality, but for precision. She didn’t collect corpses—she collected proof. She’d built a reputation by disappearing entire pirate crews without a trace.

And now she stood before them, eying the crew with disdain, assessing them like objects.

Luffy stepped forward, fists raised. “If you want him, you’re gonna have to fight all of us!”

Karasu didn’t flinch. “Not all of you. Just whoever gets in the way.”

With that, she moved.

XXXXX

Chaos erupted.

Zoro’s sword met her blade—only to slide through it like mist. She twisted and vanished, reappearing behind him with a swipe that nearly caught his back. He pivoted in time, clashing steel against obsidian-like claws that scraped sparks off his katana.

Robin tried to ensnare her with arms blooming from the deck—only for them to miss, catching nothing but a flickering afterimage. “She’s… not solid!” Robin called.

“No, she’s phasing,” Law growled. “Her body isn’t fully in one plane of movement. She’s passing through shadows. Dammit, she’s a nightmare.”

Karasu’s voice echoed around the ship, as though she was speaking from every shadow. “I do like a challenge… But I came for one head. Not a war.”

She blurred, faster than even Sanji could track—and then Franky took a hit, a blade slicing into his shoulder. He staggered back with a shout, gears sparking.

“Franky!” Chopper rushed to him, pulling supplies from his bag.

Karasu turned—and zeroed in on Chopper.

He froze. He was exposed. Unarmed. His hooves scrambled backward.

She lunged.

And then Doflamingo moved.

XXXXX

He appeared suddenly. One minute he was hiding in the shadows and the next, he was in front of the little doctor.

Still blind. Still bound in seastone. Still weakened.

But he moved like instinct had gripped him by the throat.

He stepped between Karasu and Chopper, catching her blade across the shoulder. The slash tore through skin, slicing deep into muscle. Blood sprayed across the deck.

Chopper screamed. “No!”

Doflamingo didn’t fall. Not yet.

“You wanted me,” he gritted out. “Here I am.” His signature laugh echoed ominously around the deck.

Karasu’s eyes narrowed. She hadn’t expected him to be this fast or to jump in the way at his own detriment—She lashed out again—

But this time, Luffy was there.

Gear Second hissed into life. Steam poured off his body.

His fist met her chest with a roar.

“Jet Pistol!”

She flew back, cracking against the main mast, then spun through the air inhumanly, cape tearing like wings.

He followed. Another blow. Another. Her body flickered with distortion—sometimes smoke, sometimes solid—but Luffy didn’t stop. Rage was in every hit. Rage that she came for his crew. Rage that she made Chopper scream.

And when she tried to vanish—

He caught her wrist.

“You don’t get to disappear after hurting my family.”

And he punched her straight into the sea.

XXXXX

Silence.

Water splashed below. The surface bubbled. Then stilled.

Zoro lowered his sword. Sanji cracked his neck. Robin exhaled.

They turned—to Doflamingo, who was now on the deck, collapsed in a puddle of blood.

Chopper was already at his side, trembling, pressing gauze against the wound.

“You idiot! You might bleed out—why did you do that?!”

Doflamingo groaned faintly. “Didn’t think. Just moved.”

Zoro crouched nearby, expression unreadable. “You protected Chopper. Why?”

Doflamingo didn’t answer. Not with words.

But the tremble in his fingers wasn’t from fear—it was adrenaline. Something had broken through the numbness. Something had snapped. Not the Joker. Not the warlord.

Just a man, making a choice in a split second.

Luffy walked over, arms crossed. “You saved Chopper. You’re part of the crew now. So you don’t get to die that easy.”

Doflamingo coughed once—might’ve been a laugh. “Didn’t realize I joined.”

“You didn’t,” Luffy said. “I did. And you’re here. That means something.”

XXXXX

The sun had long since slipped beneath the horizon by the time Chopper finally managed to coax Doflamingo as far as the infirmary. The little doctor’s hooves were sticky with drying blood; Sanji’s jacket was ruined, pressed against the gash to staunch the bleeding while they half-carried, half-dragged the giant through the galley corridor.

Inside, the ship’s medical bay smelled of antiseptic and sea salt. Lantern-light flickered against polished metal and glass jars, throwing tall, crooked shadows across the walls. Robin had already set out gauze, sutures, and fresh water; Law stood behind her, silent, arms folded, eyes sharp and clinical.

“Up—easy—sit,” Chopper huffed, guiding Doflamingo onto the exam table. The former Warlord’s breathing hitched when his back touched the wood; crimson seeped through the makeshift bandage and dripped onto the floorboards in soft, unnerving pats.

Sanji tossed the ruined jacket aside and hovered near the doorway, jaw clenched. “Tell me what you need, Doctor.”

“Clean towels. Boiling water.” Chopper’s voice quavered, but his hooves were steady. “And someone keep Luffy out until I’m done.”

“I heard that!” Luffy shouted from the hall. “I’m not leaving—”

Zoro’s growl cut him off. “You’ll get in the way. Give Chopper room.”

A beat of silence—then Luffy’s footsteps retreated, reluctantly.

Robin slipped off Doflamingo’s ragged shirt with gentle fingers. When she pulled the fabric aside, everyone in the room stilled. The scythe strike had laid open flesh from collarbone to shoulder blade—a gruesome, jagged wound that pulsed with each heartbeat.

Law exhaled through his nose. “She missed the subclavian artery by a centimeter.”

“Luck,” Robin murmured.

“No,” Law corrected quietly, “instinct. He twisted at the last second.”

Chopper pressed a rolled cloth between Doflamingo’s teeth. “Bite down. This is going to sting.”

The antiseptic hissed as it met raw muscle; Doflamingo’s jaw flexed, but he stayed silent. Blind eyes stared at nothing, sweat pearling on his temples. The Sea-Prism collar clinked against the tabletop when he jolted and then went still.

Sanji returned with steaming bowls, setting them within reach. “If he passes out—”

“He won’t,” Chopper said, threading a needle. “He’s too stubborn.”

A corner of Doflamingo’s mouth twitched—almost amusement, almost pain.

For the next twenty minutes there was only the scrape of metal, the soft rip of gauze, Chopper’s muttered counts as he placed sutures. Robin dabbed away blood, voice low, steady, offering instructions as though she’d done this a hundred times. Law handed over instruments in silence. The teamwork was seamless—practiced battlefield medicine, executed on a man who not long ago had been their sworn enemy.

When the final stitch cinched tight, Chopper sat back on his stool, shoulders sagging. “That should hold if you don’t move like an idiot.”

Doflamingo exhaled slowly, spit the cloth aside. His voice was hoarse. “Define ‘idiot’.”

“Anything that rips those stitches,” Chopper snapped, then softened. “You… saved me.”

The reindeer’s ears drooped. “Th-thanks.”

Doflamingo didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be listening—to the hush, the creak of timbers, the strange absence of malice in the room.

“I didn’t think,” he murmured. “Just… moved. No need to thank me. Simply returning the favor.”

Sanji handed him a cup of water, holding it while he drank. “Next time, try moving before she slices you open, yeah?”

Robin slipped a fresh blanket over his shoulders, careful of the bandage. “Rest. The sedative will make you drowsy.”

As they turned to clean up, Doflamingo’s hands tightened around the edge of the blanket. “She’s just the first.”

Law met his gaze—even sightless, it felt like an unspoken conversation passed. “The Hollow Syndicate finishes every contract,” he said. “Tonight you’re still breathing. That means this was Chapter One.”

Doflamingo’s fingers relaxed. He let his head tip back against the bed, eyes closing. “Luffy won’t always be there. And I don’t deserve his protection anyway.”

Robin’s voice was gentle but firm. “Too late. You’ll have to learn to stand with the crew—before the next shadow arrives. Once Luffy’s made up his mind, that’s it.”

For a heartbeat, no one spoke. Outside, the ship’s bell clanged softly as the night watch changed; distant waves kissed the hull.

Doflamingo let the blanket settle across his lap. The pain throbbed, sharp and real—but another sensation lingered just beneath it, unfamiliar and unsettling.

Warmth.

Protection.

He didn’t trust it. Yet, as exhaustion pulled him under, he found himself hoping the lanterns above would still be lit when he woke—hoping the footsteps he heard on the deck would remain friendly, or at least predictable.

For now, in the belly of a ship helmed by the most unpredictable captain in the world, Doflamingo allowed himself to sleep.

XXXXX

Chapter 34: Fracture Lines

The Sunny rocked gently on the water, the creak of the mast and the flutter of sails the only sound. In the days since the first attack, the crew had been on edge, but no further incidents had broken the horizon—until now.

Below deck, Doflamingo remained in the infirmary, recovering slowly. His breath still came shallow from broken ribs, and the dull ache of the seastone never faded. He couldn’t use his powers. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t even walk unaided for long stretches.

He’d never felt this useless in his life.

Chopper checked his bandages and left the room briefly to grab more gauze.

That was the opening.

A shape moved silently through the shadows—small quick, precise. In a blur of motion, Doflamingo was seized, a cloth jammed in his mouth to silence him as gloved hands lifted and dragged him bodily from the cot. He was pinned down and leather straps were twisted quickly around his arms, tearing the stitches in his shoulder open. They tied a blindfold around his eyes next, useless but they didn’t know that.

He tried to fight, thrashing weakly. But without his powers, without his vision, with one leg still damaged and both arms pinned, he was little more than dead weight.

By the time Chopper returned, the door was swinging gently and the bed was empty, the evidence of the fight spilled all over the floor in blood and tools.

“MINGO!”

The cry tore through the Sunny like cannon fire.

The attacker hauled Doflamingo up to the deck and flung him down. He landed hard, coughing blood. Before he could move, a boot slammed into his back and pinned him there. He heard voices—two of them. Then more footsteps.

Not one attacker.

Three.

The first was masked, thin, agile—the one who’d taken him. The second was heavyset, dressed in rags and rusted armor, carrying a brutal chain whip. The third was tall, hooded, with narrow eyes and a sniper’s rifle slung across their back.

They didn’t speak. They were professionals. They took the extra second to sever his Achilles tendons in both legs.

Doflamingo couldn’t help the cry of pain as the blades slashed through his ankles.

The crew burst onto the deck seconds later.

Doflamingo didn’t say a word—he couldn’t. One of the bounty hunters had a blade to his throat, a pin prick of blood welling up where the blade met his skin.

“Back off,” the sniper warned. “We only want him. Make it easy, and maybe we’ll let the rest of you live.”

“Wrong crew,” Zoro said flatly.

The agile attacker lunged at Sanji, blades flashing. Sanji countered with fire and fury, pushing them back. Zoro took the armored one, clashing steel with chain, and sparks filled the air.

The sniper moved to take a shot—only to be intercepted by Usopp’s explosive shot from the crow’s nest. It rocked the attacker off balance, giving Nami enough time to summon a lightning strike that cracked across the deck.

Amid the chaos, the masked attacker returned to Doflamingo, blade raised.

He couldn’t see. He couldn’t summon strings. But when that blade came down, something in him moved.

His leg shot out, barely connecting. It was enough to buy a second.

Then he heard it: a scream—not his.

The sniper had gotten behind Nami, rifle raised. She was too close.

His Observation Haki flared to life, and Doflamingo, battered and bleeding, moved.

The shot went off.

Doflamingo took it in the side.

He dropped instantly.

The sniper swore. Usopp fired another shot, forcing them to duck. Nami cried out, not sure if she was more angry or stunned. Chopper ran for him, screaming his name.

Zoro’s swords glinted in the light as he disarmed the armored hunter and drove him back. Sanji’s flaming kick sent the agile one flying into the mast with a sickening crack.

Robin finally stepped in, blooming arms across the deck to trap the sniper in a web of hands.

“We’re done here,” she said coldly. “You’ve lost.”

And with that, the last attacker went silent as she broke his spine.

XXXXX

Doflamingo was bleeding badly, the bullet having grazed a vital artery. Chopper worked frantically to stop the bleeding, hands slick with blood.

“Why did he do that?” Nami whispered. “He’s… he’s not supposed to care.”

Even Law looked haunted, eyes wide as he watched blood pump out of Doflamingo’s side.

Luffy stood over them, solemn. “He’s part of the crew now. Doesn’t matter if it’s for a while or forever. He chose us today.”

XXXXX

They were in the infirmary again, Robin sitting nearby on guard. Doflamingo was unconscious again, bandaged, pale. His breath rattled.

Robin watched him. “They’re escalating. Not just bounty hunters anymore. These were ex-enforcers. He’s drawing out old ghosts.”

Luffy, who stood at the doorway with Law, nodded slowly. “And if the world thinks he’s weak… they’ll keep coming.”

No one spoke after that. But the crew moved with a new kind of awareness.

The world was watching. And the Joker’s fracture line was bleeding through their journey.

Chapter Text

Chapter 35: Waves Against the Sunny

The Thousand Sunny cut through the sparkling ocean with a graceful ease, its sails billowing in the soft sea breeze. On the surface, everything looked peaceful—but beneath the calm, tension coiled like a spring, ready to snap.

Luffy stood at the prow, his usual wide grin in place, but his eyes were sharp, scanning the horizon with unwavering focus. “If anyone tries to touch Doffy,” he said fiercely, “they’ll have to go through me first.”

Beside him, Zoro tightened the bandana around his head, his gaze fixed on the ship’s entrances. His swords hung quietly at his side, ready to be drawn in an instant. “Trouble’s coming,” he muttered.

Without warning, a small, ragtag group of bounty hunters surged toward the Sunny from the water. They were clumsy, ill-prepared — more noise than threat.

Up in the crow’s nest, Usopp adjusted his scope and smirked. “You guys really picked the wrong ship.”

His fingers flexed, releasing a precise volley of slugs. Each shot found its mark, knocking bounty hunters off balance and over the ship’s side with little effort.

“Bullseye!” Usopp called out triumphantly.

Down on deck, Sanji moved like a flame, his kicks swift and devastating. “Stay away from my friends!” he growled, sending attackers tumbling into the sea.

Nami’s hands sparked with crackling lightning, arcs of electricity dancing across the deck, forcing the intruders to scatter in panic.

“Too easy,” Luffy laughed, watching the fleeing hunters with amusement.

Suddenly, Franky stormed onto the deck, his mechanical arms whirring and glowing. “This is my ship! Anyone tries to step foot here, I’ll blast ‘em to the next island!”

Brook’s violin began to sing eerie, haunting melodies, the notes threading through the air and unsettling the attackers. “Yohohoho! Should’ve stayed on dry land!”

Law moved like a ghost between the chaos, his sword flashing as he created small “rooms” that trapped and disabled attackers with ruthless precision. “They don’t know what they’re up against.”

In mere minutes, the first wave was crushed.

But the respite was short-lived.

Soon, two far more dangerous bounty hunters slipped aboard — shadows melting into the corridors, weapons drawn and deadly.

Robin’s arms unfurled like a dark flower, silently capturing one attacker in a cage of hands. “Not today,” she whispered.

Zoro met the other in a clash of steel, their blades ringing sharply through the narrow hallway. Chopper and Usopp reinforced the crew’s defenses, shouting warnings and patching wounds swiftly.

Franky’s fists smashed into bone and metal alike as he stepped into the fight. “You picked the wrong ship to mess with!”

Brook’s sword danced with elegant precision, cutting off escape routes. “Predictable foes are the easiest to send away. Yohohoho!”

Despite their skill, the two attackers were quickly overwhelmed — neither reaching Doflamingo’s room.

Then came the worst moment.

Two silent, deadly attackers slipped past defenses, their steps careful and quiet as they made their way to the infirmary.

The muffled groans of the injured Doflamingo seeped through the door.

But Zoro was waiting.

His swords gleamed sharply in the dim light as he stepped forward, stance steady and fierce.

The hallway became a deadly dance of steel — slashes, parries, and strikes echoed off the wooden walls.

The attackers fought with skill, but Zoro’s ferocity and precision were unmatched.

One lunged forward—Zoro disarmed him with a brutal slash, the blade clattering to the floor.

The last attacker fell with a decisive strike.

Zoro stood panting, sheathing his swords as the silence returned.

On deck, the crew gathered, breathless but undeterred.

“We protect our own,” Luffy said loudly, fists clenched. “No matter what.”

Law nodded grimly. “They’re testing us, trying to find a weakness.”

Robin’s eyes darkened. “This isn’t just bounty hunters anymore. Professionals—and worse—are watching.”

Nami’s brow furrowed with worry. “If they want Doffy, they won’t stop coming.”

Franky stepped forward, fists raised. “Not on my ship. I’ll make sure of that.”

Brook’s violin rang out softly, a haunting melody of resolve. “The Sunny’s crew will play their tune through any storm. Yohohoho!”

In the infirmary, Doflamingo lay pale and battered, breathing shallowly under heavy bandages. From the faint sounds above—the voices, the determination—something flickered inside him.

A fragile spark of hope.

The storm was coming.

And they were ready.

XXXXX

Chapter 36

Rain lashed the windows. Wind howled in the rigging above. Down in the galley, the atmosphere was tense—everyone soaked, bruised, or recovering from watch duty. Robin stirred tea that had gone cold. Law leaned on the wall, arms crossed, quiet and unreadable.

Luffy stared out the porthole. “It’s not enough anymore,” he said at last. “Us just guarding him. We can’t protect him like this forever.”

“He’s still dangerous,” Law said flatly.

“He’s helpless right now,” Nami countered, glancing toward the infirmary. “He nearly died. Twice.”

Zoro’s voice was low. “He’s not helpless. Not really. Not if we give him a fighting chance.”

“Which means taking off the collar.” Sanji tapped ash into the sink. “Which means trusting a warlord, a tyrant, a man who used to turn cities into meat puppets. We sure we’re ready for that?”

Silence stretched.

Robin looked up. “Then let’s ask him.”

The storm outside had finally passed, but tension still hung thick in the air. Doflamingo lay propped against the infirmary wall, his injuries freshly wrapped, hair damp with sweat. His breath was labored but steady now.

Most of the crew was gathered around him—Luffy, Zoro, Robin, Nami, Sanji, Law, Franky, and Brook. Usopp was in the crowd nest currently on watch. Chopper stood nearby, arms crossed tightly, guarding his patient like a bulldog.

Luffy was the first to speak.

“We can’t keep you like this,” he said. “You’re gonna die if we do. And if you die like this, it’s our fault.”

Doflamingo's expression tightened. Was this it? Were they finally going to dump him somewhere?

Robin’s voice cut through gently but firmly. “We’ve kept you collared, but alive. Now we’re asking you to live like someone who values that. Are you ready for that kind of responsibility, Doflamingo?”

There was a long silence. Then Doflamingo exhaled shakily. They couldn’t be saying what he thought they were.

“I don’t know what I am to you people,” he muttered. “A prisoner, a crewmate, a dead man waiting. But if you’re offering trust… I’ll try not to waste it.”

Luffy grinned. “That’s good enough.”

Brook raised a hand nervously. “Just to be clear… if he tries anything, we do have a backup plan, right?”

“I’ll cut him in half,” Zoro said flatly.

“I’d prefer you didn’t,” Chopper muttered, adjusting the bandage on Doflamingo’s chest.

Franky stepped forward, hands transforming into tools. “Then let’s make this official.”

He crouched beside Doflamingo, tools clicking into place as he worked. The seastone collar sparked, resisted, and finally released with a click.

The collar hit the floor with a dull metallic thud. Everyone held their breath. This was their moment of reckoning.

Doflamingo didn’t move at first. Then his fingers twitched—his powers sparking faintly, like muscle memory returning. Thin threads of string shimmered and vanished again.

But he made no attempt to stand, no show of force. He simply exhaled slowly and lowered his head.

Brook stepped forward and gently placed a cup of tea beside him.

“To new terms,” he said, voice quiet and kind.

And for the first time, Doflamingo didn’t look like a warlord, or a monster, or a fallen king.

He just looked tired. And human.

XXXXX

Doflamingo lay still in the infirmary, his head tilted slightly to the side, listening.

For days, for weeks, the world had been a blur of pain and heat and voices he couldn’t always place. Blindness had long since become his constant, but it was the powerlessness that had nearly broken him—no strings, no control, no defenses. He hadn’t realized how much he relied on the Ito Ito no Mi until it had been stripped from him completely. No devil fruit, no vision, no ability to defend himself.

Now, for the first time in weeks, the collar was gone.

And slowly, like sunlight leaking through storm clouds, his senses began to return.

It started as a tingling in his fingertips. Then, the familiar hum of threads vibrating in space. He could feel the threads catching on the floorboards beneath him, curling up the walls like vines, stretching outward like veins feeding back into his nervous system. With each line of contact, the world came into shape—not with color or light, but with structure, with presence.

The infirmary breathed around him. The subtle shift of the wood underfoot. The curve of the bed frame. The delicate flutter of paper against the desk, disturbed by someone passing too close. The soft clink of a teacup being set down, the rustle of cloth as someone adjusted their weight. The world was still dark—but it was no longer empty.

He could feel them now. Chopper, moving lightly but never far. Robin’s composed stillness near the door. The calm presence of Brook beyond the wall, humming faintly to himself. Luffy’s unmistakable heartbeat just outside, wild and bright like a caged sun.

It made his heart clench.

The sudden clarity—after so long adrift in helplessness—made him feel dizzy. For a moment, Doflamingo felt almost giddy. Not from any desire to act, but from relief. His strings were back. His world was back. He hadn’t realized how much of himself he’d lost until he’d tasted the return.

Then the euphoria passed.

And in its wake came something far heavier.

Because despite everything—despite being a monster, a war criminal, and a broken relic of a violent age—they hadn’t killed him. They hadn’t abandoned him. They’d defended him. Nursed him back from the edge. Risked their lives, again and again, when they had no reason to.

No one had even breathed a word about the Celestial Dragon brand once they’d seen it. Not once. He had expected revulsion, mockery, maybe even hatred. Instead, they’d given him privacy. Dignity.

Respect.

He hadn’t known what to do with that. Still didn’t.

For so long, trust had been a currency he manipulated, twisted, crushed. People didn’t trust Doflamingo. They feared him, served him, obeyed him. That was how the world worked. And yet—here he was. Trusted. Unshackled. Alive.

The strings around him tightened instinctively, reaching out like phantom limbs. Not to strike. Not to defend. Just to anchor. To feel. To be. The ship creaked under a passing wave, and he could feel the whole thing—its bones, its weight, the people moving within it.

He could have left. Could have crushed the infirmary in a moment of raw power. Could have exacted revenge or control or fear.

But he didn’t want that.

He wanted—for the first time in years—to deserve something better.

A flicker of thought passed through him: Donquixote Doflamingo, warlord of the sea… sitting quietly, blind and broken, wrapped in bandages, on a ship full of people who should hate him—and yet don’t.

He exhaled, slow and ragged.

Don’t waste this, he told himself. Don’t break what they’ve given you.

He let the strings fall slack, retracting gently into nothing. Not out of weakness, but restraint. He folded his hands over the bandages on his lap and turned his head toward the faintest shift of warmth that must have been the sun beyond the hull.

He was still blind. Still scarred. But for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t lost.

XXXXX
Chapter 37: Quiet Gravity

The change was immediate.

Once the seastone collar was gone, Doflamingo’s healing surged forward like a tide breaking loose.

Bruises drained from purple to yellow in hours. Gashes crusted and closed. The pallor in his skin warmed slightly, and the fever that had lingered finally broke. Chopper fussed with clinical skepticism, muttering about metabolic spikes and Devil Fruit reintegration. But even he couldn’t deny what was happening.

The former warlord was mending—fast.

It wasn’t just physical.

For the first time in weeks, Doflamingo saw.

Not with eyes. Those were gone, destroyed beyond hope. The world was still pitch-black to his human senses.

But to the Ito Ito no Mi, the world was a field of tension and weight. Every structure vibrated with invisible threads. Air pressure, sound, wind, resistance—he could feel the ship’s shape, its heartbeat. The gentle tension in the Sunny’s mast, the groan of the wood beneath shifting crew weight, the flutter of sails cutting wind.

He mapped everything.

Zoro near the stern, training with rhythmic, punishing swings. Nami pacing below deck, swearing softly over charts. Luffy sprawled across the figurehead like a sun-warmed cat, humming something tuneless. Brook’s light-footed shuffle. Franky hammering under the deck. Law, still as a statue near the rail.

Every vibration, every footstep—they made sense again.

It should have thrilled him.

And it did—for a moment.

The first time his threads snapped taut and fed him the full shape of the ship, he felt a sharp, giddy thrill—not power, not ambition. Just orientation. The kind of relief that made his chest ache. He hadn’t realized how lost he’d felt, wandering blind in foreign spaces, moving by memory and mercy.

Now, he had reach again. Awareness.

But the giddiness died almost instantly.

Because this power—this sense—wasn’t a weapon anymore. It was a lifeline. And the only reason he had it back was because these people—these pirates he once would’ve called enemies or prey—had given it to him freely.

They hadn’t made him grovel.

They hadn’t asked for favors.

They hadn’t even thrown his past in his face.

Ex-slave. No one had said it aloud since Robin’s calm mention weeks ago. No one had spat it like an insult or whispered it like pity. They just… hadn’t brought it up.

And that silence weighed more than any accusation ever could.

He owed them restraint.

So he moved carefully.

He stayed out of the way. Out of locked rooms. Out of arguments and loud spaces. When Chopper asked him to help disinfect tools, he did so without question, washing gauze and sorting bandages by texture.

When Luffy casually asked if he could “fix that squeaky door if he felt like it,” Doflamingo used the threads to nudge the loose hinge into place before vanishing below deck again.

He didn’t press.

He sat by the rails during calm hours and folded Franky’s spare wiring like puzzle pieces. He helped tie down barrels during storms, his touch light, precise, never showy. He used threads only to stabilize his movements—one at a time, discreet and quiet.

He didn’t call anyone by name unless they’d called him first.

But the crew noticed.

Brook stopped flinching when Doflamingo passed him. Franky began leaving minor repairs half-done in the same corner of the deck, as if trusting him to finish. Chopper started muttering his way through treatments aloud, no longer hiding the patient’s condition from him.

Even Sanji, ever watchful, had stopped glaring quite so hard, though the tension never fully left his spine.

Usopp still kept his distance. Zoro kept him in his periphery. Law—Law was a razor blade left in a glass of water: silent, sharp, and waiting.

But no one had thrown him overboard.

Not yet.

It was after a quiet lunch, with a half-drizzle misting the sea and everything feeling unusually still, that it happened.

Doflamingo was sitting on a coil of rope near the main mast, loosely listening to Brook strum a calming tune. Most of the crew was either napping or cleaning. Law stood above, at the upper deck, watching.

Watching him.

The tension spiked before the first word.

“You look comfortable.”

Doflamingo didn’t respond.

Law jumped down to the deck. His steps were clipped, precise. Controlled.

“You planning to play nice forever?” Law said. “Or just until you get your strength back?”

Still, Doflamingo said nothing.

Law’s voice darkened. “I’ve seen what you do when people lower their guard. I was there. Dressrosa. Flevance. My family.”

The names hit hard. But Doflamingo didn’t flinch.

“You could kill half of us with a thought now. You feel it, don’t you? That power under your skin?”

He did.

But he didn’t answer.

Law stepped closer. “Then do it. Come on. Prove everyone wrong. Prove me right. Just one thread. Try it.”

For a second, the air felt split.

Doflamingo felt Law’s intent like a blade under his chin. His own fingers twitched. Threads tightened. Just one motion, and—

He didn’t.

Instead, he moved slowly. Deliberately.

And then, in full view of the deck, Doflamingo knelt.

The world didn’t stop.

But the ship seemed to hold its breath.

He bowed his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

It wasn’t weak. It wasn’t hollow.

“For Flevance. For Corazon. For the things you’ll never believe I regret. I won’t blame you if you don’t forgive me. I don’t expect it.”

He tilted his chin slightly toward Law—just enough to track him by string.

“But I’m not kneeling because I’m afraid of you. I’m not kneeling to manipulate you. I’m kneeling because I don’t know any other way to say that I know what I did was unforgivable. And I’m still sorry.”

Silence.

Law’s fists were clenched white.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just stared.

Then he turned and walked away, slow and taut with fury. But he didn’t draw his blade.

And Doflamingo stayed kneeling long after he was gone.
XXXXX

Luffy had seen. So had Robin. So had Zoro and Nami and Chopper, quietly pausing their work in the shadows.

No one said anything.

But something shifted.

Not trust. Not yet.

But a thread had been tied.

And on a ship like the Sunny, threads had a habit of holding fast.
XXXXX

Chapter 38: Strings of God

The sea was calm.

It had been days since the last attack—quiet ones, almost eerily so. Doflamingo could feel the tension thinning like stretched thread, unraveling in the spaces between wary glances and half-suspicious silences. For the first time in what felt like years, he could breathe without bracing for impact.

He was healing—quickly now, thanks to the removal of the collar. The Ito Ito no Mi flowed through him again, rich and familiar, like a muscle long dormant and newly remembered. He still couldn’t see—he never would—but with his strings stretched delicately across the Sunny, he knew the shape of the ship. The way the railing curved. The creak of the mast. The way the wind moved around the crow’s nest. He could feel the vibrations of footsteps, recognize each crew member by their weight and cadence. A sonar of tension and movement and memory.

It wasn’t true vision. It was something more honest.

He spent most of his days in the shaded corner near the mast, rarely speaking unless spoken to. When he moved, he did so slowly, deliberately, with the sort of quiet deference none of them had ever expected from him. He never reached for anything too suddenly. Never loomed. Never raised his voice. He was always aware of how much space he took up.

And yet he wasn’t diminished.

If anything, he was terrifyingly calm.

Usopp and Nami had stopped flinching when he passed by. Chopper still kept a close eye on him, but no longer hovered like a cornered cat. Brook had taken to leaving tea out nearby, and Franky had even offered him a scrap of sunglasses to replace the ones he’d lost, a gesture Doflamingo had accepted with a silent nod.

They didn’t trust him. Not entirely.

But they no longer expected him to turn on them either.

Luffy was the only one who treated him like nothing had changed at all.

Sometimes, the captain would plop down next to him and start rambling about meat or the sea or his plans for when they reached the next island. Doflamingo never responded to any of it. But he listened. Always.

It was mid-morning when it happened.

Doflamingo was resting with his head tipped back, strings laced delicately through the waves. The presence hit him like a hammer. Vibrations—too many, too close together.

His head snapped forward.

They were still far—miles away, but closing fast. An armada. Big. Organized. Too many cannons. Too many voices.

He rose without a word and turned toward the bow.

The crew noticed instantly.

Luffy blinked. “What’s up, Mingo?”

Doflamingo didn’t answer for a long beat. Then he spoke quietly—seriously.

“Ships. A lot of them.”

Robin stood, voice cautious. “How many?”

His strings stretched farther. “More than twenty. Maybe more than thirty. Flagged with a sigil that’ll be familiar to some of you.”

“What sigil?” Zoro asked.

“Big Mom.”

That name brought the silence like a blade.

Even the wind seemed to stop.

Nami blanched, stepping back instinctively. Brook gripped the railing. Usopp’s voice rose a full octave. “An armada?! That’s not fair—there’s no way—! We can’t handle that many ships!”

“Pulling up the sails!” Franky shouted. “We can’t outpace an armada, but I can make us a storm wall—maybe—”

“We don’t have time,” Robin said. “They’re too close.”

Sanji stood beside Luffy, smoke curling from his mouth. “How the hell did they find us this fast?”

Luffy’s face was unreadable. Calm. “Guess they’ve been looking.”

But Zoro’s eyes were sharp, his voice low. “We’re not getting out of this without a fight.”

Doflamingo turned toward the edge of the ship. Strings coiled faintly beneath his heels.

“You won’t have to fight,” he said.

They all turned toward him.

Luffy blinked. “Huh?”

“You’ve already risked more for me than anyone should,” Doflamingo said, voice quiet but resonant. “This isn’t your fight.”

He stepped forward, strings blooming beneath his feet like a spiderweb on the air.

“I’ll handle it.”

Zoro moved fast, stepping in front of him. “Don’t be stupid. Even you can’t take on a full fleet like that.”

Doflamingo didn’t flinch. “Trust me, and you’ll see why “Joker” is the most feared name in the underworld.”

Luffy looked at him. Really looked at him. Then gave a small grin.

“Alright. Go nuts.”

“Luffy—!” Nami started, incredulous.

“He’s got this,” Luffy said, as if it were obvious.

And then Doflamingo stepped off the ship.

The wind roared around him. Strings bloomed beneath his feet, shimmering with impossible tension. He moved like a ghost over the waves, out a hundred feet. Two hundred. Five. The crew watched, breath held, as he stopped nearly a thousand feet from the Sunny.

The first ship in the armada was visible now, hulking and bristling with cannons. The others fanned out behind it in a half-moon, sails blazoned with Big Mom’s symbol. The ocean churned with their weight.

Doflamingo raised his hands.

There was no fanfare. No declarations.

Only movement.

And then—

Chaos.

Strings split the air with invisible velocity, carving through wood, metal, and cannon alike. One ship buckled mid-frame and shattered like glass. Another exploded outward, beams torn free and flung skyward. Sailcloth ripped in unnatural arcs, masts toppled, and decks splintered beneath sudden, surgical strikes.

It was silent for only a second.

Then came the screams.

The ocean was littered with debris and men flung into the water. Panic erupted across the formation. Half the fleet tried to turn. The other half fired wildly into the empty sky.

It made no difference.

Doflamingo moved like a conductor, his arms directing the death of twenty vessels at once. Strings danced and cut and sang.

From the deck of the Sunny, the crew could do nothing but watch.

Even Zoro looked stunned.

Franky whispered, “That’s… not a warlord. That’s a weapon.”

Robin’s voice was barely audible. “That’s why the world feared him. He has a fully awakened Paramecia Devil Fruit”

The last two ships tried to flee. Doflamingo let them. It was a message.

When he finally turned and walked back across the air, he was staggering.

Each step was heavier than the last. His coat was torn, his shirt bloodstained at the edges where his injuries had pulled. He was winded. Shaky.

But his head was high.

And when he landed on the Sunny’s deck again, he did not collapse. He simply let out a long breath and sat with his back against the mast, strings fading back into his fingertips.

No one said anything at first.

Then Luffy laughed.

“Man,” he said. “Remind me never to fight you again.”

Brook stepped forward and handed Doflamingo another cup of tea.

“On the house,” he said gently.

Doflamingo didn’t speak.

But his hands were steady as he took the cup.

And the sea, at last, was still.
XXXXX

Chapter 39: The Calm After

The Straw Hat crew stared. Sanji’s cigarette had gone out between his fingers. Usopp was slack-jawed, gripping the railing. Nami’s hands trembled slightly as she pulled her gaze from the water to Doflamingo’s bowed head.

And then Luffy laughed.

“See? I told you he’s on our side.”

Sanji turned toward him, incredulous. “He just sank a whole fleet.”

“Exactly,” Luffy said, grinning.

Zoro crossed his arms, eyeing Doflamingo with a kind of wary respect. “That was a lot of power to spend on someone else’s fight.”

Robin stepped forward. “It wasn’t someone else’s. Not anymore.”

Still leaning on the rail, Law said nothing.

Doflamingo didn’t reply. He simply straightened, swaying slightly. His mouth was a grim line, and though his strings still glimmered faintly around him, they twitched without direction, like a spider too tired to rebuild its web.

He turned and walked away from the deck without a word.

Chopper found him hours later, sitting on the floor of the empty observation room beneath the mast. The wide windows overlooked the moonlit sea, casting ghost-pale reflections across the floor.

Doflamingo hadn’t taken a proper breath since returning. His arms rested limp over his knees, his head tilted back, sweat slicking his skin like he’d just stepped out of battle—and in truth, he had.

Chopper entered quietly and started his usual checks. Pulse: thready but present. Skin temperature: too low. Muscles: spasming from overuse. He had bled from the seams where his bandages pulled loose in the fight.

“You idiot,” Chopper whispered. “You’re supposed to be recovering.”

“I am recovered,” Doflamingo said, but the strength in his voice was a lie.

Chopper said nothing. He rewrapped the worst of the damage and handed him a flask of water. Doflamingo accepted it with hands that trembled just enough for Chopper to pretend he didn’t notice.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Chopper admitted at last.

Doflamingo laughed weakly. “I have.”

He meant himself. He always had this kind of power. But this time he had used it differently—not for conquest or terror or control—but for protection. And it hadn’t been easy.

“Why?” Chopper asked.

Doflamingo paused, fingers tightening on the flask.

“I don’t think I could stand it,” he said at last, “if they looked at me like they used to. Like I was just waiting to slit their throats.”

Chopper tilted his head. “You care what we think?”

There was a long pause. Doflamingo didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

Later, Nami sat at the kitchen table with Robin and Sanji, the three of them quietly drinking in the darkened galley.

“He didn’t gloat,” Sanji said. “That’s what’s bothering me.”

“He had every right to,” Robin replied.

“I know, that’s what’s bothering me.”

Robin smiled faintly and took a sip of her tea.

“He’s changed,” Nami said softly. “Or maybe… he’s trying.”

Robin nodded. “And he’s already paid for some of what he did. Maybe not enough. Maybe never enough. But that’s not our call anymore.”

“He still scares me,” Nami said, and Robin reached over to touch her hand.

“That just means you’re sane.”
XXXXX

Zoro found Luffy asleep on the deck, arms behind his head, snoring beneath the stars like nothing had happened.

“You’re very calm about this,” Zoro muttered.

Luffy opened one eye. “I trust him.”

Zoro stared down at him. Then he laughed. “Typical”

Luffy nodded. “I saw the way he fought. That wasn’t power to hurt people. That was power to protect us.”

Zoro didn’t reply. He sat beside his captain and watched the sea.

And far below, alone in his quarters, Doflamingo lay awake.

He could feel the ship. Every board, every nail, every creak of the mast or sway of the sea—all of it mapped in string. His strings extended gently through the hull and rigging, not to manipulate, but to understand. It was a kind of seeing he had never appreciated until he lost it.

He could feel the Straw Hats, too. The rhythmic beat of their steps. The sway of their bodies as they moved. Their laughter. Their silence.

He listened. He watched.

And somewhere inside, a truth settled like a stone in his chest.

He didn’t want to leave.

Not yet.

Not ever, if he could help it.

Because for the first time since he was a child, someone had seen him fall—and reached out anyway. Not to punish. Not to destroy. Just… to help him stand again.

And he wasn’t going to waste that. Not this time.

He closed his eyes, and let the ship rock him to sleep.

Chapter Text

_____________________________________
Chapter 40: Unspoken Things

The island was small—barely a green smudge on the horizon until they were almost upon it. No navy outpost, no criminal presence, not even a name anyone could recall. Just a quiet strip of jungle and sand, with freshwater springs and trees heavy with fruit. The kind of place that let people breathe for a little while.

They docked without incident.

The Sunny swayed gently at anchor, her sails furled and crew scattered to shore. Luffy had already gone bounding into the trees with Usopp and Chopper trailing behind. Sanji stalked after them with a basket and a warning to not eat anything weird. Nami and Robin had headed off together in the opposite direction, discussing shopping routes and cartography. Brook followed with guitar in hand, humming a lazy tune.

Zoro stayed aboard to nap in the sun.

And Doflamingo… walked the deck.

He moved slowly, barefoot, blind—but graceful. Strings shimmered faintly around him, brushing against the planks, the railings, the sails above. They mapped the space for him in a silent, intricate net. It wasn’t quite like sight—he couldn’t read or see colors—but it was more than sound or feeling. A kind of living awareness. A sixth sense, honed to sharpness over years of necessity.

It was eerie, yes. But it was also beautiful.

And for the first time, he walked the ship not as a prisoner or threat, but as something else entirely.

Franky was the first to approach.

“Yo, Pinky!” he shouted from the dock, arms full of lumber. “You’re gonna trip over your own long legs walking like that!”

Doflamingo tilted his head and offered the faintest smirk. “And yet, I haven’t.”

Franky snorted. “Fair. Just don’t cut the Sunny with those spooky threads of yours. She’s got feelings, you know.”

“I’m being gentle,” Doflamingo said. “Believe me, I know how to break things. This isn’t that.”

Franky gave him a long look. “You really ain’t the same guy from Dressrosa, huh.”

“I am,” Doflamingo replied. “But I don’t want to be.”

Franky nodded slowly, then turned back to his supplies. “Super enough for me.”

Later, Usopp lingered near the mast while Doflamingo sat on the deck, repairing the frayed edge of a hammock with thin, glimmering string.

“You’re still creepy,” Usopp said bluntly.

“I know.”

“But… less scary. More like haunted-house scary than going-to-kill-me scary.”

“I’ll take that as progress.”

Usopp hesitated. “You don’t scare Chopper anymore either. And Nami said she thought about throwing a bucket of water at you yesterday and didn’t.”

“A high honor.”

“She didn’t do it,” Usopp clarified.

Doflamingo smiled faintly. “I noticed.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Why are you being nice?” Usopp asked.

“I’m not,” Doflamingo said. “I’m being careful. That’s different.”

Usopp nodded. “But you’re not lying about it. That’s something too.”

And then he wandered off, humming to himself, as if he hadn’t just peeled back something honest in the space between them.

Robin sat beside Doflamingo that evening on the bow of the ship, both watching the sunset—or rather, one watching, and the other listening to the subtle change in light through the heat of the wind and sound of the waves.

“I used to believe people like you couldn’t change,” she said softly.

“And now?”

“Now I think it’s more complicated than that.”

He was silent a long moment. “I used to believe survival meant control. That fear was safer than trust. I was wrong.”

Robin studied his profile. “You sound like a man carrying a lot of ghosts.”

“I am,” Doflamingo said. “But I’m trying not to let them steer anymore.”

Robin nodded. “Then maybe you’re not beyond redemption after all.”

Night fell. The island grew quiet, except for the distant sound of laughter from the campfire the crew had made onshore.

Law stood on the deck, arms crossed, watching the stars.

He didn’t hear Doflamingo approach until the strings shifted faintly through the air between them.

“I’m not here to fight,” Doflamingo said.

“Then why are you here?”

Doflamingo stepped closer and stopped a few feet away. “Because I owe you a conversation. You deserve that much.”

Law turned to face him. The tension in his shoulders was steel-tight, but he didn’t draw his sword.

“You’re not forgiven,” Law said coldly.

“I know.”

“You’re not welcome.”

“I know that too.”

“Then why haven’t you left?”

Doflamingo exhaled. The sea wind tousled his hair, and the faint sheen of string flickered around his hands.

“Because I don’t want to go back to who I was,” he said. “And I don’t know how to be anyone else, except… here. Now.”

Law’s eyes narrowed. “You’re just clinging to power.”

“No,” Doflamingo said. “I’ve had power. I want purpose.”

There was a pause.

“I ruined your life,” Doflamingo said. “I destroyed your family. I made you a killer. There’s nothing I can say that undoes that.”

“So don’t say anything,” Law said.

Doflamingo hesitated. And then, slowly—deliberately—said,

“I’m sorry.”

Law stared at him for a long time.

He nodded almost imperceptibly, and used Shambles get to shore.

Doflamingo joined shortly after.
XXXXX

That night, the crew slept soundly. A rare peace settled over the Sunny, broken only by the lull of waves.

And high on the crow’s nest, Doflamingo sat alone, face lifted toward the stars he could no longer see.

But he didn’t need to.

He felt the ship beneath him. The voices around him. The slow, quiet rhythm of people who were starting to trust again.

And in the silence, he realized the truth:

He didn’t want to leave.

Not this ship. Not this crew. Not this strange, ragtag, impossible family.

Not now.

Not ever.

XXXXX

Chapter 41: Kingmaker

The day began with the smell of salt, the creak of the Sunny’s timbers, and Luffy shouting something about breakfast while dangling upside down from the mast. A few gulls wheeled overhead. Sanji cursed as a pot boiled over in the kitchen. Brook sang softly as he strummed his guitar on the deck, filling the warm morning air with music.

It almost felt like peace.

And then the news came.

Robin was the one who read it aloud—an underworld report buried inside a seemingly innocent travel gazette. Lines of encoded names and movements, rumors whispered between factions, alerts passed quietly between brokers and warlords.

“Big Mom and Kaido,” she said slowly, “are planning to meet.”

Silence dropped over the table like a stone.

“They’re gathering forces on an island in the New World. Something big is happening. Some think it’s a temporary alliance. Others say it’s a trap. No one knows the full truth yet.”

Luffy leaned back, arms behind his head. “Then let’s go crash the party.”

Sanji sighed. “Of course that’s your first reaction.”

Zoro grinned. “Wouldn’t be a bad time to take them down while they’re distracted.”

“But it could be a trap,” Nami pointed out, brows drawn. “They could be waiting for us. Luffy, if we sail into this blind—”

“We won’t,” Luffy said simply.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“We’ve got someone who knows how the old world thinks. Someone who helped make it.”

And just like that, all eyes shifted toward the far end of the deck—where Doflamingo stood quietly, strings humming faintly in the air around him like spider silk catching morning light.

He didn’t move. Didn’t smile. He merely tilted his head, as if listening to some deep vibration beneath the world.

After a long pause, he spoke.

“I know what they’re planning,” he said. “Or close enough. If those two are meeting, it means they’re either carving up territory or building something bigger. Neither ends well for anyone who’s not already at their table.”

He stepped forward.

“They want to rule the New World by fear. Control the seas through force and lineage. Kaido’s strength, Big Mom’s bloodlines. The old systems—power by birthright and brutality. The kind of world I spent years helping uphold.”

He stopped near the helm, turning his head toward the crew.

“I’m not that man anymore. I burned my bridges. I broke the system. But if you’re going to tear down the emperors—if you want to end that world—then let me help you light the match.”

The crew was silent.

Then Luffy stood up, grinning from ear to ear. “That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time.”

Zoro gave a faint smirk. “Guess it’s settled.”

Sanji lit a cigarette with a sigh. “I still don’t like it. But… fine. Just don’t make me regret it.”

Nami exchanged a look with Robin. “You think we can really trust him?”

Robin answered, quietly but surely: “I think we already have.”

And with that, the Sunny adjusted course—turning toward the place where the old world was gathering for one last convulsion of power.
XXXXX

The skies darkened over the horizon.

Storm clouds rolled in. The sea surged with the taste of coming war.

At the bow of the ship stood Doflamingo, coat flaring behind him, threads flickering at his fingertips like the edge of lightning. He was no longer bound. No longer caged. No longer a king perched on a dead throne.

He was something else now.

Not a Warlord. Not a tyrant. Not a broken thing pretending to be whole.

He was a weapon turned willingly toward the future.

He didn’t know if he could be redeemed. Didn’t know if the crew would always trust him.
But he knew this:

He wanted to see it. All of it.

He wanted to be there when Luffy became King of the Pirates.

And he would fight, burn, and bleed to make it happen.

The wind howled.

The ship surged forward.

And the former king, blind but unflinching, stood at the bow with his threads ready—smiling not with cruelty, but with purpose.

Whatever came next…

He was ready.

THE END