"You agree, Excellency?" Tsuru asked, her smile warm as spring. Paired with the predatory stares of the Marines circling him, it sent a shiver up the high-ranking World Governnt official’s spine; his legs wouldn’t stop shaking.
His eyes flicked to the headless body still pumping blood into the dirt. His expression changed at once. Righteous fury flared across his face. "That’s exactly what happened!"
He cut the air with his hand. "Doflamingo is a brutal tyrant—a monster steeped in evil! How dare he attack a representative of the World Governnt?!"
"If Vice Admiral Darren hadn’t arrived in ti, I might have died at Doflamingo’s hands!"
"Rest assured, Staff Officer Tsuru," he vowed, chest swelling. "Once this is resolved, I’ll report everything truthfully to the Five Elders and recomnd Vice Admiral Darren for comndation!"
Tsuru’s smile softened until it was genuine. She lifted her gaze to the island’s horizon.
There, air currents tore at one another beneath pillars of black-red lightning. Trees toppled like dominoes; mountain slopes gave way, avalanches thundering into the ravines. The scale of ruin was terrifying.
Tsuru’s brow creased. Don’t push too hard, Young Darren...
---
Deep in the mountains, Darren and Doflamingo tore up the world. Power howled between them, dragging clouds low and dimming the sky.
"Godfather, are you sure those five fossils will accept my terms?" Doflamingo’s face darkened. With a casual sweep, he sent invisible threads singing across a far ridge.
They hissed through dozens of towering trunks, leaving only mirror-smooth stumps, then bit into a cliff and sheared it clean. The sundered face slid free and roared into the abyss.
BOOM.
The earth shook; dust geysered skyward.
"They’ll agree," Darren said with a grin, sparking a cigar. He tapped his toe.
CRACK—
From that touch, a hundred-ter fissure spidered away, swallowing brush and trees as the ground shuddered.
"Even if the Five Elders despise you, they have to weigh the other Celestial Dragons’ opinions. They don’t care about the title. They care about their Heavenly Tribute."
Reassured, Doflamingo’s laugh turned low and an; his body trembled with excitent as he licked at cracked lips. To jerk the Celestial Dragons—and even the Five Elders—like puppets was intoxicating.
He knew he’d never have reached this point without Darren. His look turned complicated.
"Oh, right, Godfather," he added, masking his flicker of surprise with a cough. "Sothing odd happened recently. You’ll want to know."
"Speak," Darren said.
They kept fighting while they talked, each exchange a controlled catastrophe.
"Queen Stussy of the Pleasure District contacted ," Doflamingo said. "She offered to help secure a Shichibukai title."
Darren’s expression went very strange; the corner of his mouth twitched. "...Such good fortune?"
Missing the undertone, Doflamingo frowned. "I found it puzzling. I suspected a trap at first—"
"Accept it," Darren said at once.
Doflamingo blinked. The speed of the answer made him glance over, curious.
"Why turn down free help?" Darren’s smile tilted.
Looks like that foolish woman’s truly desperate—resorting to this kind of gamble.
He couldn’t help the flicker of amusent. Stussy wanted to hand-raise a Shichibukai herself to win their bet. A neat idea, but her read was a little off.
Then again, who would imagine that Donquixote Doflamingo—scion of the Celestial Dragons—was a Marine’s godson?
Doflamingo paused, then nodded slowly. "Yes, Godfather."
"Ti’s up," Darren said abruptly.
Doflamingo blinked—and the Vice Admiral vanished. A killing chill surged from his soles up his spine. Breath hitched; his heart misfired.
In his blown pupils, a fist, crackling with black lightning, fell like a teor. The air warped around it; the world blurred.
He couldn’t move.
No escape.
No defense.
Doflamingo’s eyes went wide with horror.
In that heartbeat, he finally understood the abyss between him and the Godfather—a gulf as high as the sky.
"Sorry, Doffy."
Boom!!
The blast peeled the island’s silence back. Marines and Tsuru flinched; the official shuddered uncontrollably.
They stared toward the ranges. Peaks split along jagged seams, as if a star had struck them. Fissures ripped through the crowns; thunder rolled until the sky itself felt fragile.
The mountains fell.
A plu of dust climbed into the blue. A figure streaked from the haze, crossing the distance in a blink.
The Vice Admiral dropped the blood-sared, limp Doflamingo like discarded freight. He exhaled a dragon’s plu of smoke and smiled at the ash-faced official.
"Well then, Your Excellency, I’ve brought you the criminal Doflamingo."
"He’s all yours to dispose of."
The official rattled apart under that devil’s smile and the echoes of the collapse. He forced a laugh that hurt to hear.
"N-no, Vice Admiral Darren! Please, you handle this."
"Oh? Are you certain?"
"Absolutely! Absolutely!"
To be continued...
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