The Marine Detention Prison sat on a wind-scoured, unforgiving island. Around its jagged shores, several Marine warships lay anchored like silent sentries.
Inside the prison walls, Navy sentries posted every few paces watched for even the faintest sound. It was not Impel Down, but the place was still an unbreachable fortress. Countless violent pirates and hardened criminals were held here, and so who should have been sent to Impel Down were temporarily detained in this remote lockup.
Deep within the Detention Prison, in the lowest section, a large iron cage held dozens of n cramd together.
Bang.
A towering prisoner, easily four ters tall and bound with iron manacles, had been thrown to the floor. Blood stread from his nose. He groaned and twitched on the stone slab.
"It hurts… it hurts so much…"
Around him, the other inmates closed in with predatory interest.
"Kid," one sneered.
These were hardened n, faces carved by violence. They crowded the fallen man with contempt.
"I heard you killed a lot outside?"
"Get lost, trash! I'm Nathan, the 'Gourt Killer,' bounty twenty million Berries!"
The giant tried to roll over with effort, every movent marked by pain.
"Twenty million Berries? That's so strength," the prisoners scoffed. In this cell the lowest bounty already sat around twenty million; they treated it as normal.
"Who did this? Who hit
when I just ca in?" Nathan roared, flailing his chained arms.
"He dared to challenge our cell boss," one growled.
"Another show for us," muttered soone else, eager for the spectacle.
The inmates parted and made way. Two figures stepped forward into Nathan's view. One sat against the wall, head lowered and wrapped in shadow—his face unreadable. The other stood like a guard, loose and unimpressed as he scanned the room.
"Did I hit you?" the shaved-headed man said coolly to Nathan, his voice flat.
The giant narrowed his eyes. He noticed two heavy chains binding the shaved man. One chain in particular was unusual—Sea-Stone links, the kind used to restrain Devil Fruit users in Marine prisons.
"A Devil Fruit user?" Nathan's bravado faltered for a heartbeat. Rumor had it such chains nullified Devil Fruit powers. He smirked again. "No matter. They're useless with Sea-Stone on."
"Kid, you're a Devil Fruit user, aren't you?" Nathan asked, licking his lips in a grotesque display of hunger. He appraised the shaved man as if he weighed like a cut of at.
Around them, people recoiled.
"You actually eat people?" soone whispered, horrified.
The shaved-head man stepped out of the dim and answered slowly, "Human flesh tastes ordinary. I don't care for it."
Nathan's face lit with ravenous enthusiasm. His voice took on a manic edge: "I've eaten hundreds. If it weren't for
eating—well, one woman who'd swallowed sedatives, those fools would never have caught ."
"Why would she take sedatives?" the man who had been leaning against the wall murmured as he rose. His presence was quiet but heavy. A horizontal scar cut across his face, and his slicked-back hair caught the torchlight. When he walked forward the cell fell still.
"Oh no, the prison boss is up," soone hissed, and the others pressed themselves against the iron wall, trying to disappear.
Nathan grinned and offered his own grotesque theory. "Maybe she ca for revenge. Maybe I ate her daughter or lover. I don't bother with the old—they're tough."
The scarred man stopped before Nathan and looked up at him without haste.
"Have you ever eaten your own flesh?" he asked.
Nathan bared his teeth in answer. "Do you an you want to taste mine? I have the blood of a piranha—strength beyond n!"
He raised his chained arms and swung at the scarred man with brutal intent.
The scarred man stood his ground.
Wham.
The cell shuddered under the force. The other prisoners felt each impact in their bones.
Out on the prison compound six Marine jailers who had been talking nearby felt the tremor and looked toward the cells.
"They're fighting," one said, trading a glance with another. "Will the new guy die?"
"Not likely," another replied. "A pirate with a twenty-million bounty shouldn't die on his first day—unless these beasts go too far." Soone suggested they might place a bet, voices hushed and eager. "I'll bet a thousand Berries he's dead." "Three thousand he's alive, barely." They laughed without sha.
Back in the cage, Nathan lay broken. His spine had been snapped—his body collapsed in a grotesque tangle, blood pooling beneath him. Prisoners gagged at the sight.
"So he was part fish, part human?" the scarred man asked casually, kneeling to kick the corpse's head so it rolled away.
"Let's add the head to our al later," another joked, though their laughter turned to retching at the image.
Only the shaved-head man crouched near the corpse and examined it with a critical eye, shaking his head. "No, this head is still mostly human. Not ideal."
Then ca a voice, low and wicked, breaking the brief silence.
After a stunned pause the forr Shichibukai, Sir Crocodile—known as the "Desert King"—let a grin curl into a laugh. He threw his head back and let the sound rumble through the cell.
"Shirogai San, you finally rembered . I thought you'd forgotten." Crocodile's amusent was raw and dangerous, and it hung in the stale air like a challenge.
The words cut through the cage—an acknowledgent of soone unseen, or perhaps of past deeds that lingered in mory. The assembled prisoners shifted uneasily, the mont stretched tight as a drawn wire.
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