[4900 words]
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Weathered face with a stubble. dium-length black hair with red streaks. Scarred body standing at around 11 and a half feet (~3.5 m). One eye claid in battle, the other radiating the familiar red hue of conviction.
"I was hoping I'd find you rotting down here, Einar D. Ares."
The young pirate's words left a smile on the older man's face.
"Ruhahahah–!" Ares' laugh was imdiately cut short as a series of violent coughs returned. Blood dribbled from the sides of his mouth as he wiped it on his sleeve.
"The least you could do," he said while wiping his lips on his sleeve, "is call dad, kiddo."
Damien's face warped into a frown while a heavy breath escaped his mouth. Still, he did not reply. With a light thud, he rested his head on the cold wall, his eyes shut in thought.
He had three main reasons for coming to this hellhole, and one of them was sitting across his cell.
"..."
Ares deadpanned at his actions. "Hey, hey, I waited twenty years for this kind of reception? At least say sothing, you brat!" Though his annoyed voice turned into that of curiosity, "At least tell how you knew I'd be here."
Damien opened an eye to glance down to Ares. "Patrick Redfield, he's a tough guy. He told about your tales."
"All about your lone wolf persona… up until you disappeared and the World News Agency confird your fall. So it got thinking: why wouldn't they celebrate the death of this evil pirate to further establish their authority?"
"Plus, I read through the archives at Ohara. They had a feat of Endou that was scrubbed away… a threat Endou 'vanquished.' Last I checked, that ans the person got their ass kicked, not killed."
"Aside from Mors, you were the only big-na pirate then," Damien gestured to the darkness around him, admiring its erasing nature. "Where else would they send a forgotten and beaten man."
Ares humd, scratching away at his scruffy chin. "Redfield? You an that 'Pato' brat? I didn't think he'd be the one to give away."
He also didn't deny getting 'vanquished.' It was a fact, and there was no sha in how he went out.
Ares let out a few coughs once more, sighing at his condition. "Anyways, how's your mother?" he asked with a tinge of longing.
His eye returned to Damien, wondering, "I read the papers the jailers brought in for their entertainnt… don't tell you got yourself caught just on the small chance you'd find here? They've been celebrating your loss all across the seas. You're fine with giving up your pride for this?"
"Rahahaha!" Damien broke out in dull laughter.
Shaking his head, he stood up from the back of his cell, walked to the front, and sat down.
The father and son, face-to-face with thick seastone bars separating them.
"Do you honestly believe I ca here because of you?"
Ares subconsciously gulped under the dreaded thought that nagged his mind. There was only one thing soone like Damien could be driven by like such, and enduring being plastered as one who failed to subvert the world as a pirate should.
"Realized dawned on the rugged man as he cautiously asked, "...Is she alright?"
Damien's Empathy picked up on the longing and yearning in his father's question. The hopeful tone with underlying concern… it only angered Damien even more.
"Alright?"
While gnashing his teeth, he spat out, "You left her alone in a sea riddled with Mafia and conflict. What do you think beca of her?"
Ares felt his mouth dry up as he took a cold breath. His eye widened, and his heartbeat spiked. He knew it; he could feel it—the reason for his own son's rage toward him.
.
Damien smirked in disbelief, shaking his head.
Suddenly, the cold and decrepit Eternal Hell was warping into the mory of that night. The darkness of the well at Renaissance…
"No matter what happens, no matter what troubles you face, no matter who stands against you, just rember that your mom will always stand on your side."
"It will be very hard after tonight. But no matter what, the sun will rise in the morning, and things will get better."
"Mom will say goodbye now… but do a favour, please."
"I only want one thing from you, my treasured child."
"Gather those who you can trust with your life. Marry a beautiful girl. Treasure them deeply, for they will be your greatest strength."
"Live on for yourself, for , for your father."
"Live, my child. Live."
*Thung!* Damien slamd his forehead into the seastone bar, feeling the raw helplessness from thirteen years ago resurface. His fingers twitched with restrained rage, his mother's voice still lingering in his mind like a haunting lody that kept him chained to reason.
"Do you know how painfully similar it is being here right now?" His voice was calm, almost unnaturally so, as he t Ares's gaze. "Locked away, unable to change anything that happened…only the dark, her final words echoing. And the only one left to share it with… is the man who abandoned her to face that broken world alone."
"..."
The silence was deafening, but Ares' mind was throbbing. His single eye was stuck to the floor while his scarred hands quivered.
"Who did it?"
Damien looked at the shaken man with narrowed eyes. Sparks of black lightning crackled in the air, leaking a dreadful weight in the surrounding air.
"I already killed the ones imdiately responsible," he answered, only for his words to end heavy near the end.
Ares picked up the doubt in his son's tone. Looking up to et his eyes once more, he asked, "Soone pulled the strings from behind?"
Damien's jaw tightened at the question. He straightened his back, his gaze growing unsure.
A miserable voice ca to mind from a mory six and a half years ago:
"It happened eight years ago, t-this man ca to our family and almost killed us all! H-He gave us a chance to live by raiding a small, no-na island, and so we did!" (chapter 9).
Such were the final words of Gambino Delago, who ordered the strike on Renaissance. The sa man whose entire Mafia Family Damien slaughtered.
"There was indeed soone," he answered, glaring at Ares. "Which is one of the reasons why I ca here, old man."
The son's gaze settled aside the rage and changed into expectation. "You're the only person who may have a clue on who this unknown variable is. And the only reason why I haven't ended your miserable life yet."
"..."
Ares reined in the grief in his heart. Clearing the whirlwind in his mind, he began to speak candidly, "I don't mind if you put out of my misery for what happened, kiddo. But I want you to know that I loved your mother… I only left to protect her… and our unborn child."
He heard the dull breath escape the younger pirate's clenched jaw and continued. "So I'll give you exactly what you want, Damien. I'll tell you everything I know."
"But before all that… you should know who your father was."
Ares' solemn voice continued, lacking the joking deanour from earlier. His remaining eye was heavy in mourning but shone brightly through Eternal Hell's darkness.
"My life as a pirate started on a small ship with a respectable captain. We would just sail in Paradise, enjoying our adventure."
A rare smile ca to the weathered man's face, only to quickly be replaced with lancholy. "That was until his right-hand man stabbed him in the back and sold us out to a Cipher Pol. Only because my stupid captain had gotten a Devil Fruit the Governnt wanted."
The tired Ares raised his two arms, still shackled with seastone from decades earlier. However, the chain that should have anchored the cuffs was hanging in the air, ripped open.
"The good old man left the fruit with to escape. A power that those geezers feared… A power that they would do anything to keep from respawning."
With nostalgia glowing in his eye, he went on to say, "I cast aside everyone else, going solo for my journeys. So with no chains to bring down, I spent the next few years causing hell for the Governnt…"
…
[Thirty Nine Years Ago (1447)]
BOOOOM!
A majestic vessel cut through the cloudy waters in a region of Paradise. Its thick mast and impressive build showed the importance of the cargo it transported.
"Sir," a dark-clothed agent addressed his commander. "The Commissioner of the RTB is on the line."
The Cipher Pol lead agent narrowed his eyes. He saw the receiver in his subordinate's hand and cautiously took it.
"This is Agent Angstrom of CP-9."
The phone didn't waste ti on salutations: "Agent. I will keep my words short: your transport is in danger. We've already lost six Heavenly Tributes in the past few days."
The woman's voice grew furious, "I have sent a fleet from Marineford. Admiral Endou is en route. Do your best to keep him distracted."
Angstrom's stern attitude washed away into fright. His quivering hand shook the receiver, much like his tone, "T-That pirate is coming here? Intel suggested him to be in the New W–"
"The intel was wrong. Good luck, Agent."
"Katcha~!"
Panic flooded Angstrom's body, but it didn't last long.
BOOOOOOOM!
The mighty ship exploded with force, sending the agents to the deck.
They looked up to see giant tides raging as their transport was caving into the sea—soone had fallen from above!
Angstrom's breath hitched as the shirtless pirate strode across the deck, his presence radiating raw intimidation.
His bronzed skin, mapped with faded scars, spoke of battles fought and survived, each mark a silent testant to his resilience. Jet-black hair streaked with crimson frad two piercing red eyes, both alight with a fierce, almost unnatural ambition. A faint aura of smoke and embers swirled around him as if he carried the remnants of countless fires. Angstrom swallowed hard—this was no re pirate but a force shaped by chaos itself.
"Ruhahaha! Just how many of these transports do I have to sink to get their attention? The previous three Marine Bases I raided didn't seem to do the trick."
The Cipher Pol Agent rose to his feet, shaking in every way possible.
"E-Einar D. Ares… bounty of 1,987,600,000!"
The pirate was all but in his pri—at twenty-seven with a prize shy of two billion.
[Young Ares Image (in Discord)]
"A-Admiral Endou is on his way… Don't think you'll get away with this!!!"
The bloodthirsty Ares chuckled at the threat, welcoming it with open arms. "The Pirate Butcher coming for little ol' ? Ruhahaha! You just made my day!"
…
[Present Ti]
"Three Marine Bases and seven Heavenly Tributes," Damien echoed the feats with doubt.
Although he didn't think Ares was lying, it did spark so curiosity in the Sin Incarnate. "You did all that and still found a way to remain alive alone?"
Ares grinned at his son's questioning eyes.
"My Devil Fruit power is a little special… it has no active abilities, no way to make stronger, no way to release so magma or summon earthquakes."
The seastone shackles snapped in the air as the escapee raised both arms. "I ate the War-War Fruit and beca a Warmongering Human. The only power of this ability was that it allowed to siphon energy through combat."
Realization dawned on Damien's face while the older man finished explaining, "For as long as I struck with my fists, I would remain standing. I fought for days to even weeks on end. The enemies kept coming, but I kept standing. I didn't need sleep, I didn't need to eat, and I didn't need to rest during my battle."
"Every battle I walked out alive from grew my Haki without end. And before I knew it, they started calling the God of War!"
God. This word was used only to describe the World Nobles as the overbearing authority that they were. For a human, let alone a pirate, to be declared as such was a slap in the face of Mariejois.
Ares rolled his one eye, his voice filled with scorn. "Those pigheads began pointing their fingers at ."
.
Damien cupped his chin, recalling the few details he knew of Endou.
The ss at Extinction Valley made his destructive capabilities evident—a power that could terraform terrain after monts of eating it.
"Let guess, he was also set for a promotion."
Ares' brows furrowed, looking at his son with surprise. "That's right! He would be promoted to Fleet Admiral in 1450. The one condition the Celestial Dragons gave him to keep his esteed position was to ensure my capture."
"We would butt heads for the next five years. I continued to wreak havoc with all things Navy while the Pirate Butcher chased down."
A flash of disdain flashed in the man's eye, "Too bad his position as Fleet Admiral also needed him manning Marineford. Lucky for him, the only other big pirate then was the Bloodspawn Mors."
However, the joyful mories took a dark turn as Ares admitted the one obstacle on his path, "It was also at this ti where I felt this damning sickness building inside …"
…
[Thirty Years Ago (1456)]
"Damn it!"
The towering pirate went from island to island, going from hospital to hospital.
"How can you call yourself a veteran doctor if you can't even cure a little cough!?" he thundered at an old man, lifting him by the throat.
"S-Sir, please, I-I really have never seen your kind of sickness; it's incurable, much like the Amber Lead Syndro!"
…
[Twenty-Nine Years Ago (1457)]
"Not even you, the Ope-Ope Fruit User, can do anything about it?" Ares questioned the bespeckled young man.
"I apologize, but your sickness is beyond human anatomy. It isn't born from a weak immune system, rather, from sothing within."
…
[Twenty-Seven Year Ago (1459)]
A tired Ares left an island with a massive tree that dominated the horizon.
"Not even Ohara has any answer. Just what the hell is this?"
*Cough* *Cough* A few droplets of blood dribbled from the side of his mouth, much to his chagrin.
…
The old man sighed, massaging his forehead.
The shock of Nadia's death was still weighing him down, and the pain in his body was growing by the second.
'Don't fall apart now,' he inwardly yelled at himself. One look at the quiet Damien was all he needed to keep going.
"Although it was weakening my punches, it didn't eat my Haki in any way. I could still push back the Navy at that ti. But then it happened…"
Ares peaked to the faraway corner and sighed before returning his attention to Damien. "The Bloodspawn Mors, a Warborn of Polemos Island, was vanquished by Endou. Which ant that they could put more effort into taking down."
…
[Twenty-Three Years Ago (1463)]
"Humble human, I-I demand you to end your life!"
Ares picked at his ears, wiping so blood off his hands.
Thud!
A white-clothed body fell to the ground from the pirate's grip, a broken mask near his feet. Ares stood on a prestigious ship, a sole pig-faced man before him.
"D-Don't you know who I am!? I'll enslave your entire island!"
The warmongering pirate gave out a grin and shot his hand out, wrapping his thick digit around the babbling fool's throat.
"Ahhh! L-L-Let go!!!" The pathetic cries were from an ugly, much smaller man donning an astronaut-like suit. The fishbowl helt didn't add any charm, either.
"H-How dare a mortal touch ! I-It's unforgivable!"
*Crack* The World Noble's anger turned into pure dread. "Auughhhh! M-My finger!" An ear-rattling yell exploded from the Dragon's mouth, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"Ain't nothing like a little fear to make a paper man crumble," Ares scoffed after breaking Noble's pinky finger.
.
He then shook the Saint in the air, snapping him back to reality. "Speak, you know who I am?"
The Noble shook his head, crying.
"My na is Einar D. Ares." The statent shocked the Dragon as he visibly shrank, his arms trembling. "Hmm? What does that an to you?"
The Celestial Dragon shiveringly replied, "T-The D are our sworn enemies! Sworn enemies of the Gods!"
"Sworn enemy, huh? Even with all your guys' authority, you don't go on so crusade to wipe the Ds out?"
The Saint, nad Jaygarcia Dietlind, began to hyperventilate. The pain from before and the fear from now was forcing him into shock.
"Talk, or I'll feed you to the fish," the pirate threatened with smouldering eyes. "At least that way, your life will have so purpose."
Dietlind was instantly released from his state and began tweeting like a bird.
"I-I don't know much, b-but my grandfather always talked to about the D! H-He said that most of them will die out before reaching a level of strength that could challenge the status quo!"
"Then why fear so much from my na?"
Dietlind looked into Ares' eyes and saw death looking back at him. "T-Throughout the centuries, the Ds have been known to defy all odds. M- My grandfather was killed by one of them fifteen years ago!"
"Although they are damned, they still bring nothing but catastrophe!"
…
[Present Ti]
Damien thought over the information and aired his thoughts, "Do you think it was the Dragons who put so kind of curse on the D?"
Ares shrugged, his helplessness evident in the creases across his forehead. "What else could it be? Enemy of your entire existence… instead of hunting down every last one of them, it's easier to find a way to let them die off before they grow too strong, no?"
The War God also picked up on the speculative look in his son's eyes.
"Heh, what's wrong? Is my kid fearing death?"
An unamused glare flashed in Damien's eyes, his tone growing with disdain, "I've already lost a good fifteen years of my life pushing my body too far. So curse or sickness is supposed to scare ? Plus, I'm not too far tossing aside the chains of age."
Ares squinted at the words that went from bold to unbelievable: "I set my eyes on finding a way to keep forever young. With my Awakening in hand, it's only a few steps away."
"Forever young?" the older Einar murmured, seeing nothing but confidence in his son's eyes. "Ruhahahaha! You'll be a greater threat to the Gods than your old man ever was!"
[A/N: See Chapter 43 for Damien's initial plans for his eternal youth.]
.
"But that side," the Sin Incarnate spoke, his mind eyes growing heavy once more. "It's about ti you give your excuse for leaving her alone."
A sigh escaped Ares' dry lips as he firmly nodded.
"The next two years were a little embarrassing. Although I was finding ways out of my battles and still breathing, my sickness only got worse. Endou realized it right away and had the balls to use to sharpen his pupil!"
Damien connected the dots from details he unearthed from God Valley to what he learned now. "I take it that you crossed paths with Kong around this ti."
The War God's weathered face stretched into a toothy grin. Considering the image he saw in the newspaper of the one-ard Kong was all the more amusing.
The conversation from decades ago surfaced right away:
"Hehe, that's so tough skin you'd find on a Zoan!"
Unfortunately, he was interrupted rather rudely:
"Dammit, Endou! I almost took the head of your precious successor!"
Ares shook his head in mischief while his left arm rose up to press the missing right eye. "I fought them off for forty days at G-1. But with Endou coming in person for the last ten, well, it was not a fight anyone could win."
"The Fleet Admiral, an Admiral and the Chief of Cipher Pol alongside their endless armies."
Damien's question woke Ares from rembering the mont of his loss: "Was he really that strong?"
The tired pirate chuckled, looking at the floor—he could still rember the Fleet Admiral swelling with a power to spawn pure chaos.
"Endou ate the Havoc-Havoc Fruit, making him a Chaotic Human. With his power, he could induce disorder and unpredictability in the environnt. Every battlefield was his to rend and ruin—a power he used to sentence entire fleets to extinction."
He looked at his curious son and warned, "Much like the power you have, kiddo. But where yours tends toward breaking and fixing from what I saw in the papers, his is purely the first half."
"The Havoc-Havoc Fruit," Damien murmured. An image of Solomon ca to mind—the Wendigo from Extinction Valley dead-set on killing Endou with his bare hands.
"So you lost to them, but how'd you escape?"
"Hehe," Ares smirk made it obvious that he took great pleasure in his escape. "They wanted to capture, hah! Instead, I jumped into the sea and got a Sea King to devour . I spent a few weeks in its stomach till I could tell the beast had swam through the Calm Belt into an Outer Sea and ripped out from its belly… Before I knew it, I was at a small island in the West Blue called–"
"Renaissance," Damien finished the sentence.
.
Ares closed his eyes, inhaling a long and deep breath. It was as if he was trying to rember his ti on the peaceful island. The endless green and the simplicity of an ignorant land.
"When I woke up, I found this incredibly graceful young woman tending to my wounds…" he looked up to see his son's face, unable to hide the smile coming to his face. "Her na was Nadia."
"You know, kiddo. My only purpose in life was to constantly bring hell to the Navy. But I would always wonder how life would be if I could do sothing else… I wanted to no longer be a slave to my title as the War God."
"Your mother…" the man lost his words montarily, "...it was the first ti in decades I had soone look after ."
An honest smile stretched across Ares' wartorn face, running from ear to ear. "The single month I spent with her gave purpose beyond any war I fought in. More than forty years of a life filled with fire and blood and four weeks of nothing but an ordinary life on a small island… How could I ever escape her charm?"
"Just skip to how you ended up leaving the supposed love of your life to fend for herself," Damien sharply interjected, his voice laced with budding wrath.
Ares ignored the churning Haki and continued, "The mont I realized your mother was pregnant, I knew I could no longer stay; it was like being hit with ice-cold water."
He squeezed a blooded rag in his left fist, squeezing the red out from the gaps of his fingers. "My body would have fallen apart within a year. As much as I wanted to spend my final monts with her, to be with her when she gave birth to my own flesh and blood… I couldn't!"
The War God gnashed his teeth, angry at his own weakness, while Damien silently listened. "They would leave no stone unturned to find ." He stared directly into the younger pirate's eyes, "I had to make sure that, at the very least, the child could grow up with a loving mother on a safe island… I had to keep them from finding her… and finding you…"
Damien crossed his arms, his chains clanking wildly. "So you left her."
A defeated smile stretched across the man's face. "They would have slaughtered the island in the West Blue if it ant keeping my blood from blooming. I may have been damned to death… but I couldn't let Renaissance share the sa fate."
"Did the thought that maybe, just maybe, you should have never gotten involved with her in the first place ever co to you?" Damien questioned, his tone thunderous. With a crunch, he crumpled the seastone bar with his left hand, squeezing it into a thin strand.
Ares sensed the buried rage of his own child. The sizzling Haki was secondary; his eyes, however, were those of hatred.
"..." Ares had no answer to his selfishness.
Damien, no matter how badly he wanted to reach past the bars and rip the old man's head off, there a nagging voice told him not to.
"I still don't get it… You left her all alone, but why, in the seven years she looked after , never did she hold anything against you."
The Sin Incarnate sighed, turning away; Ares had his head down and eyes shut. Tears dripped down his scarred face, dripping onto Eternal Hell's cold floors.
"She asked to keep living, and if I couldn't live for myself… then I should live for her… and you."
He looked at his father from bottom to top and spoke without emotion, "I'd upset her if I were to kill you in her na."
"..."
Damien's latest words woke up sothing inside Ares. He looked up with a calm face, even ignoring the pain burning in his lungs. "You're right. She had every reason to hate , a selfish and detestable pirate. But your mother… was the kindest person I've ever t," he recounted in a low voice.
"Which is why the day after learning of the pregnancy, I knew I had to make the World Governnt never question what I was doing for the past month. So I took a small ship right through the Calm Belt and Fishman Island and alone raided Marineford."
The God of War clenched his scarred fists, his words glowing with self-confidence. "Four weeks was pushing it, but I hoped they would link my disappearance to recovering from my injuries at G-1. And on that day in Marineford, I wrecked so much havoc, killed so many good marines and even an Admiral."
"I thought it worked… they never brought up my whereabouts during my interrogation." He continued candidly, looking Damien straight into his eyes. Despair ran down his tearful face as he admitted, "But I guess I only bought you seven years…"
"..."
A few quiet monts passed Impel Down while 99% of the prisoners were still knocked out cold.
"No," Damien said with a sigh, earning Ares' confusion. "Whoever ordered the hit on Renaissance was not with the World Governnt. If they wanted to have dead, they would just Buster Call the island and get it done with."
"The World News Agency at the ti was under their umbrella, and no one would have questioned them about whether they deed a small island worthy of destruction."
Damien scooted back to his cell again, leaning back on the ice-cold wall.
"Then there's soone else out there all along. Soone who wanted my boy dead," Ares concluded, his single eye narrowing dangerously.
No pirate ca to mind.
.
"So they locked you up to keep your fruit from reappearing."
Ares nodded, raising his arms once more to show off the seastone chains dangling from his cuffs. "They threw in this hellhole, knowing I'd die sooner or later. They even tried to pump with dicine to delay my death… all in hopes to keep my fruit out of reincarnation for at least so years."
"But it begs the question," Damien said, looking at the distant escapee. "How did you break out, and how are you still alive?"
"Ruhahaha! When I was thrown down here, I had at most a year to survive. It took nearly ten months to break free of those blasted Seastone chains." The man showed off the chains while Damien's eyes fell on the last link, which was brown in colour.
"You rusted them off…"
Ares smirked in victory, "Seastone itself doesn't rust, but thankfully, the chains they used decades ago were only twenty percent purity, the rest was a tal alloy… and well, the weakest link breaks the chain, right?"
"It was too cold in here to sweat, so I used my blood to rust off the chains. It took almost a year, but I got it done," he offhandedly said—his chest below the shroud was covered in claw marks.
"It took everything out of to drag myself to the fifth floor, Freezing Hell, where I found a cave made by so tunnelling fruit user around sixty years ago. I froze myself there, only coming out every two or so years to hear the news from the passing jailors, hoping to catch wind of my kid!"
Ares sighed with a smile, glancing at his son with a broad and proud smile.
"It was an empty wish, but sixteen years later, I got news of a striking young man who was awfully familiar, and that gave the strength I needed to hold on so that I could see you face-to-face before my life ran out, or at least, be alive to hear news of my boy kicking the Governnt's ass."
The pirate raised his hands in victory, clenching them in triumph. "It seems that wish ca true!"
To Be Continued…
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Author's Corner.
This chapter isn't for Damien to "forgive" Ares but more for him to explain why he left. He did live 40 years as a pirate, and his thoughts are biased toward the selfishness of pirates, doing what they think is right—flawed but not unnatural. Do you think it's enough for Damien to let him go, or does Ares need to do more?
Images are available on Discord alongside other niche details: sdiscord.gg/aJHHHPvb6q
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