monstrum, monstrum - "monster, monster"
At dawn on the ninth day, Vergo called.
"I'm sorry, Doffy, there's been a mistake."
xxx
The fruit wasn't here.
Rosinante searched every inch of the cave, shining the sickly column of lantern-light across uneven walls. Though it was a relatively spacious area, the tip of Rosinante's hair brushed the ceiling and the air sat stale and soupy. His hands skittered across damp soil and limestone. He re-checked the map at least six times and dug two giant holes, striking bedrock twice, before dropping his shovel.
Something was wrong.
He fought against the dread trying to pool inside his mind, roping it off, and told himself it was an old map, subject to inaccuracies and maybe...maybe his brother had gotten tricked. Maybe there'd been a mistake.
Rosinante rummaged for his smokes in hopes of silencing his nerves, but only turned up the lint in his pockets. Forget it forget it, he thought and exited the cave at a clip, leaving the shovel behind. So the fruit wasn't here, they would find it again. He should just focus on returning to the ship as quickly as possible. The sooner they departed the better.
He'd walked for about half a mile, still wishing he at least had a stick to chew on when he smelled the smoke. Saw the black pluming clouds piling and belching into the sky in the far-off distance, where the messily tiled path he was on wound back into town.
Rosinante went cold. His vision tunneled. He broke into a sprint even though he couldn't feel his legs, flying back to his feet when he fell and skinned the flesh off his knees. He didn't think about cigarettes again. He didn't think about anything again. No thoughts, save a handful of words on a single infernal loop.
no no no
Doffy you promised
no
xxx
A new garden had been planted in the square - a modest hexagonal plot, smelling sweet of petrichor, where jade leaves shadowed the delicate faces of peonies, orchids and gladioli. White rose bushes rimmed the perimeter, all the stems pruned and the petals beaded with morning dew. It was a dainty centerpiece, jarring against the derelict condition of the buildings, and was kept with obvious and utmost care - as if every dreg of nourishment and tenderness in this town had been poured into this fragile little spot.
Somewhere behind Doflamingo there were whimpers. Beseechings from huddled women ("please leave it alone, sir please please"), muffled by the sharp crack of surrounding fire, the sharper crack of Diamante's sword as he struck the ground and drew half-swallowed screams.
"Nene, watch this, Doffy," Trebol whispered and uncapped the head of his cane to reveal a long, fat wick. He dragged it against the ground, lighting it ablaze. Gray slime exuded from his arms, dribbled forward in viscous tendrils and flowed into the garden, weighing down thin branches, forming airless prisons over beautiful fields of color.
With a swipe of Trebol's arm, the mucous was ablaze. Flames blossomed in the reflection of Doflamingo's glasses, billowing across grass, erupting like weeds. It consumed the entire plot within three and a half seconds and rocketed up and up and up.
Someone began to wail.
"Bet you didn't know I could do that," Trebol said, "Surprised you, didn't I, Doffy? Didn't I?"
"I want it higher," Doflamingo said softly and Trebol preened as if this were the pinnacle of praise.
"Of course, of course, consider it done."
Doflamingo looked away, towards the winding path out of town. He readjusted his grip on the body that hung from his hand. The old man was still making a feeble attempt at struggling, cursing him with shaky gulps of breath ("bastard, demon, devil devil, you won't get away with this, never, just wait, you'll pay what yer due...")
Within seconds, Trebol was fuming. Doflamingo halted his cane before it could cave in the man's head.
He lifted the body by the collar, stared into the baffled, sunken eyes. Such righteous fury, such fucking principle. Paper tigers guarding pasty-white terror. Doflamingo's hand shook, though his voice remained deathly still.
"You're the only ones," he said, "paying dues today."
xxx
There were corpses at the entrance of the town. A man that had been shielding two women. All three were covered in ash and riddled with bullet holes. Gladius was reloading, lead slugs plinking as they tumbled across his gloves. He looked up, saw Rosinante and froze.
"Corazón," he said after a moment, eyes concealed by opaque goggles, "Did you find the fruit?"
A few feet further down, Machvise floated over a hut and smashed into it from on high, bellowing "In-NNNNN-coming!" The roof collapsed like paper-mache and the windows exploded in a shelling of glass. The entire house vanished under mushrooms of dust and whether it had been inhabited or not, no one ever crawled from the wreckage. They could hear Machvise chortle and ask Gladius if he'd caught his pun. He called out a second time when Gladius didn't answer and finally trudged out of the cloud, arms and legs pin-cushioned with wood chips. His grin evaporated when he saw them.
"...Corazón?"
"Where is he?" Rosinante said, "Tell me where he is. Now."
They exchanged glances, stared at him and who knew if they were going to answer or not, when another voice did.
"In the square, last we saw."
Senor Pink walked out of the scrubby thickets, ejecting a magazine into the dirt. "Brats went back to the ship," he added out of nowhere, "Restocking ammunition."
Gladius and Machvise gave him odd looks. Rosinante glanced down the road, where distant screams punched through the air. Flickering patches of fire writhed and danced, eating a gleeful course through the dilapidated town. Another narrower, sandier path jutted off from the main one and led to the seashore. To Law.
"How could you do this?" Rosinante whispered, and Gladius, with the blank assumption that the question was directed their way, crossed his arms and shrugged.
"It's what the Young Master wants."
Rosinante didn't respond. He stood there a moment, utterly frozen, torn two separate ways, before hurrying down the path.
xxx
"Mistake? What mistake?"
"One of the second-rates managed to survive. Got found and treated on site before I was notified, and then escaped after killing the medic. I had a squad track him down, but it seems he'd already gotten in contact with the crew they were originally planning to sell the map to."
Doflamingo stared at the wall. "...And which crew would that be?"
xxx
Lao G and Pica were on the beach, the latter's fists splattered with blood, the former just finishing snapping a man's neck and letting the body tumble into the sand. Their backs were turned and Rosinante slid past them without a word, before almost colliding full tilt into Jora.
"Corazón," she murmured and the name was starting to make him sick, spinning like a carousel in his head.
The pastels and neons of her Devil Fruit power swirled in the surrounding tide, abstracts of sharks and sea kings and tentacles. Things with too many eyes sliced through the water, finishing off whatever had not suffocated under the Ato Ato no Mi's blazoning mural. Dismantled rowboats and drowned animals floated on the surface. Some people too. All of them had attempted to swim from the island.
He looked at her and she did not look back.
"No one leaves," she said, "The Young Master forbids it."
"You'll kill them all?"
"No one leaves."
"Even the kids?"
Jora flinched. Her mouth, red and waxen with too much lipstick, opened and shut.
She didn't care a whit for men and had a venomous spite for mothers old and young - the majority of women in such an impoverished town. Such people she murdered with ease, without a wink of lost sleep. She was a pile of splinters inside as well, just like the rest of the Family and it was not men or mothers that could move her, but-
"You don't understand. He's never been so..." Her hands gestured wildly, meaninglessly. "He's very angry. Something about this place. You don't understand."
"Believe me," Rosinante said, "I do."
And he walked past her towards the ship, steps numb, not halting even as Jora called after his retreating back.
"It's different this time. We can all feel it. You'll never talk him out of this one."
But he had. He had though. And he didn't know why this was...
The ice in Rosinante was closing into a noose in his chest, clenching around his heart.
Down it fell.
Down and down and down.
xxx
"Barrels. After their captain, Diez. Might ring a bell for you. He was trying to carve a spot for himself on the seas around the same time we were."
Doflamingo arched a brow, bridging his hands. The name was familiar and, after rifling through his head a moment, summoned a ruddy face and grizzled beard to mind-brash voice, slightly slurred and jumbled from whiskey. Dull, arrogant eyes.
"Yes, that old bastard," Doflamingo muttered, lip curling, "What has he done?"
xxx
The ship was utterly deserted, all bodies having departed for the island and no one daring to straggle. Rosinante careened down the hall, clearing the stairs to the storage level in two long strides.
Guns clicked in the weapons gallery, full grenades being gathered into small, clumsy hands. Buffalo and Baby Five chittered at each other like birds, marveling at the butterflies they'd seen, and the former speculating on what grand, unspeakable treasure was buried here that their young master wanted to kill everyone within range.
"I bet it's a new kind of rock," he said, "Y'know, like the stuff Law's town got rich off of. I caught part of the map Young Master showed Cora-san and there was this huge cave on it, y'know, with this weird ruby-looking thing drawn in. And I heard them talking a little (did you know Pica-san made a hole in the prow last time he was torturing someone around there? You can hear everything through it) and they kept mentioning Law. I bet it's just like Amber Lead, don't you?"
"I guess," Baby Five murmured, sounding distracted, "Buffalo...do you think the Young Master's okay?"
"Huh? Why wouldn't he be? He's the Young Master."
"No," Baby Five said, softly, and there was the muted creak of wood, as if she'd leaned her side against a crate. "His face...before everything started. It was scary. And so...mad. Like it wasn't him at all."
And never would be again.
Rosinante slammed the hatch shut, ignoring the surprised yelps from inside as the auto-locks slid into place. He ran, despite the frantic ramming and shotgun blasts that ensued from inside the gallery.
"Fuck," he whispered, almost blankly, "Fuck."
xxx
"Seems he was already in the North Blue at the time. Combed the island and got to the fruit first. He's recently contacted the Marines offering to sell it for five billion Beris."
Doflamingo's eye twitched. "Shit."
"Doffy, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"
"It's alright," he said, not looking at the snail, "Mistakes happen."
"Mistakes," Vergo muttered, as though the word left a rancid taste behind, "What would you like me to do?"
He went quiet a moment, turning over the question.
"...Accept the offer. I imagine he'll want to meet somewhere near for a trade-off. We'll just have our own little interception."
"Understood."
Another pause ensued. A question was hovering through the line, left on the cusp of unspoken. He twisted his strings, watched them snake and intersect, knotting closer and closer together, transforming into nooses and nets. Cages. Pain stabbed at his temples and he knew there was no point now with the fruit gone, that he ought to walk away at last. Ought to...have some pity and let the past go.
Just as Rosi had asked of him.
Poor, ill-fated thing.
The Den Den Mushi looked at him closely, as if it could see the color draining out of his face.
"What's wrong, Doffy?"
xxx
He searched the ship almost top to bottom, before he'd gotten his head on straight enough to even think of checking the barracks. Law was curled up in his bunk, blinking awake weakly when Rosinante stumbled inside. He was pale again, fever blush on his cheeks, and clearly hadn't been anywhere beyond the room for a good while.
"Who's there...?" Law croaked and rubbed his eyes. The bleary expression cleared as he recognized Rosinante and he sat up in bed, smiling a little, probably without even realizing it.
"Cora-"
"Law, I need you to listen."
The child froze, face muddling, as Rosinante knelt beside the bed, large hands enveloping the small, frail shoulders.
"Stay here. Don't look outside, no matter what you hear."
Now the boy was awake.
"Wha-why? What's going on?"
He almost said 'nothing,' before pursing his lips. Kid didn't deserve a lie like that.
"...Just listen to me, okay? "
He moved to stand, but Law grabbed his sleeve, almost toppling off the bed. "Where are you going? Something happened, didn't it? Where's Doflamingo?"
"Law-"
"You can't just say something like that and leave." A tinge of fear was spreading into Law's voice, inching like shadows across a wall. He tried to stand up. "Where are you going? I want to come too."
Rosinante cursed himself out for the lack of tact and steadied Law before he could fall, softening his voice as much as he could.
"It's fine. Everything's...it'll be fine. Really. I just need you to stay here, kid. Away from the island. I can't explain."
Maybe something in his words got through, because Law hesitated, grip slacking slightly. His eyes were so wide that the overhead lights shined like discs inside them and Rosinante bit his lip. After a moment, he reached up for his coat, slinging it off his shoulders and draped it down around the child, wrapping him in the dark, glossy feathers.
"Stay here, Law. Alright?"
The boy stared at him, forehead wrinkled, as if there were a million thoughts in his head that he wasn't shaping into words. But gradually, the tiny hands released his sleeve, bunching around the coat instead.
"...okay."
Rosinante smiled. It was too bright, too empty and didn't fool either of them. He stood.
xxx
Vergo listened in silence as Doflamingo told him everything. There was a point in which he almost thought a vein pulse along the snail's face, something flashing in its bulbous eyes.
"I won't tell you what to think, Doffy. Or what you should do," Vergo said, when he'd finished, "But Rosinante...in my opinion, Rosinante hasn't had the vaguest idea of what's important in a long, long time. And the simple proof isn't in his presumptions or his weakness or even the trite he's requesting of you now."
"Then what?" Doflamingo hissed, heart beating against his ribs, something sharp trapped in his gut. His little Rosi. Poor, ill-fated thing...
"Tell me."
And, as if it were the most indisputable fact of the world, Vergo did.
"He left you. All those years ago. Without a word. Without looking back. He ran away and he gave you up."
xxx
Rosinante had had plans too. He thought that if they could've just left the island intact, just let this one piece of the past go, then he could've taken Doffy out of here. He could've distanced him from the executives, weaned him off the poison of their words, eventually brought in the marines and finally, finally got his brother the help he needed.
Hopeful, hysterical, stupid, stupid plans.
xxx
"You know the eye still, uh, tickles sometimes. Not sure why, since the tissue's essentially dead, but it does. Down in the core. Somewhere in the nerve ends. Feels like fire, sir, fufu, yes it does."
The pistol twirled around a bony and bandaged finger. Doflamingo's free hand rose, knuckles popping. The slice of his strings hissed through smoggy air. There was a whimper, a sob.
"Please..."
"Oh, don't beg. Look at your boy. Quit setting such a terrible example." The gun went still, held like a flimsy toy in Doflamingo's grip. The barrel clicked, his thumb caressing the safety for a moment, before unlocking it.
Another panicked cry was heard, silenced in the next second when Doflamingo shushed him.
"Eight years old, hm? I watched my mother die at eight years old," he said, "And chopped off my father's head at ten. My brother wouldn't look at me. I did it for us, but Mariejois would not accept the return of a renegade family and my little brother wouldn't look at me. Just...sat there on the ground and cried. Cried and cried and cried, and then ran. He left me, the last of my blood. He ran, as if I was..."
A pause. Doflamingo's expression rippled, the mist of a scowl bursting into a razor grin. He spun around suddenly, gaze skimming across the grand expanse of the wall.
"Families," he said, "they can fall apart so easily, can't they? No matter what you do, how you try, even if it's the one thing in the world that shouldn't. And all of you would know, wouldn't you? You would know so very well."
The strings shifted. Trebol and Diamante observed him with glee. With something approaching awe.
A voice said, "God, why are you doing this?" and Doflamingo laughed, because the irony was too much.
"Eye..." he told them.
xxx
"...for an eye."
"Doffy!"
After sprinting the near two miles back to town and with his lungs in shreds, Rosinante wasn't sure where his voice came from, but it clawed out of his throat anyway, as sudden and desperate as a dying thing. Doffy's coat swayed in the molten haze, a handful of feathers coming loose to crumble in the surrounding fires.
His brother turned around.
xxx
It took him a minute to discern if what he was seeing was a mirage. Rosi had, after all, spent a good portion of Doflamingo's life as a mirage. It'd been years since, but he'd never forgotten. A person didn't forget things like that.
But it was his brother, panting and bedraggled and coat missing, looking like he could crumple from a strong breeze.
Doflamingo smiled.
"Rosi."
He walked to him, ignoring the odd spasm of fear that crossed Rosi's face as he drew near, or the outright flinch when he clapped his brother by the shoulders. What a silly little creature he could act sometimes, startling like a fawn.
"Doffy, you-"
"You're back I see, faster than expected."
"You-"
"Oh, yes, you're probably a tad puzzled at the moment, I know. But it's really what's best for you. Here, come with me. Come, come." Doflamingo drew an arm around his brother, whisked him forward towards the wall where the bodies hung and moaned.
xxx
"Remember this? Remember it, Rosi? Can you believe it's still here?"
His brother chuckled, as if they were taking a fond little stroll down an old neighborhood and Rosinante stared up at the cinderblock wall, weathered with age, smeared and pockmarked from ash and bolts. He registered in some distant part of himself, that it shouldn't look as giant as it once had, but it did. Never wouldn't.
Townfolk dangled in a long row, blindfolded, strung together by coarse ropes. Most of the faces were lined and gray, and they were whimpering and bloodied, some of them stuttering out prayers and several with crusted wounds across their torsos or limbs. Doffy rambled, gesturing intermittently, like he was expecting Rosinante to recognize them, or have even the faintest idea of who they were ("A lot are already dead. I guess it has been twenty years. But there's this one with the balding top, that one with moles...")
Bile lurked at the back of Rosinante's mouth.
"You pro-"
"No, no we haven't gotten to the best part yet." Doffy dragged him right beneath the many bare and swinging feet, now towards Diamante and Trebol, who Rosinante hadn't even noticed until then. The latter watched him, grin threatening to touch the corners of his eyes, flapping a hand cheerily.
"Welcome back, Corazón."
Rosinante decided to kill him. It was not an accord that took even a second to reach. One bullet plugged straight between those evil, beady eyes, that repulsive face, and ten seconds of death rattles to follow. He would've done it. Would've relished it, soul and conscience be damned, if Doffy hadn't waved them aside and revealed the man.
He was old and on his knees, nose broken, a giant bruise purpling over his left brow. Bloody snot ran from his nose and tears soaked his face. Doffy's strings trapped him to the spot like a web.
"See, I was waiting for you on the beach. And I was waiting for you, Rosi. I was. But then, fufu, but then due to some marvelous coincidence, this gentleman decided to inquire upon our presence here."
The man yelped as his hair was grabbed, Doffy's cruel fingers digging into scalp. Wrenched into the light, his face came into clear view and Rosinante was struck with the sudden inexplicable revelation that he recognized it.
Remembered it.
For Rosinante had been the one who'd guided his brother through the square of collapsed bodies that day, picking through the strewn arms and legs, searching for the same arrowhead their father had managed to pull from Doffy's eye. He'd been nauseous and quivering with fear, but biting his tongue, because Doffy had wanted to know. He'd wanted to know and he'd been so quiet and strange that Rosinante would've agreed to anything he'd asked.
It was the only face he hadn't forgotten.
"Do you know what he asked me, Rosi?" Doffy said, and suddenly dropped the man, voice pitched to a mocking croon.
"God, son, your eye. What happened to your eye?"
"I keep telling you I don't know what yer talking about!" the old man rasped, chest heaving. He craned his gaze at Rosinante now without a flicker of recognition. "Listen, please, you've got the wrong guy. I never...I don't know nothin' about yer family. The things yer sayin' I did, I would...I would never..."
Doffy's face turned thundering black within a second.
"Don't you lie to my brother!"
His foot flew up and whatever he was going to do, punt the man's face in, stomp on his skull, Rosinante didn't wait to find out. He'd wedged himself in between before his own brain could process it, baring the brunt of impact against a leg that felt like ninety-percent iron.
Doffy barely stumbled. Surprise flooded his expression, before smoothing over abruptly. Fire and the yellow, suffocated sky reflected in his lenses. Diamante swore a blue streak. Trebol crowed 'treason, treason.' They stopped existing to Rosinante in one very short beat.
Everything did.
xxx
"You promised," his brother said, "You promised."
Doflamingo lowered his foot back to the ground. He felt very calm somehow, perhaps because he'd been expecting Rosi's distress. His brother didn't understand and that was a thing as predictable as the tides. It was becoming clear now that Rosi had just never understood anything at all to begin with. He was all weakness, standing there over this piece of shit who had tortured them, all distraught over a steaming pile of manure, shielding it, letting it cower behind his legs.
He was blind.
"Rosi," Doflamingo cooed and reached out, resting hands upon sweat-stiff arms. "Relax now. It's okay."
His brother jerked out of his grip as if burnt, almost shoving him back a step.
"No, it's not. How can you even...? What's happened to you? You lied."
Doflamingo's mouth flattened. He smothered out the black spark of impatience trying to ignite in his chest and smiled again, hands sliding into his pockets.
"Still getting hung up over details," he said, and looked at his brother serenely, "Nothing's happened to me. I've just...come to an epiphany is all."
Rosi shook his head, back and forth, back and forth. His face was crumpled and white.
"Doffy..."
"You get in my way. You're always getting in my way and for a long, long time, I couldn't figure out why, but now I realize it wasn't your fault," he reached out again, hand curled loose in his brother's hair and the shell of his ear. "We can't help who we are. Not ever. A man's real chains are in the nature of his blood."
There were tears now. Strange tears swimming in the pools of his brother's eyes. Rosi looked at him like...the world was ending and Doflamingo's smile softened, grew gentler.
"But don't you worry."
xxx
Bandaged fingers grazed the surface of his skin, caught the droplet that had wobbled free and begun a burning trail down Rosinante's cheek.
"I can set you free."
There was a reverberating 'snap.' His gun was tugged out of its clasp and slid delicately into his hand. His brother was still smiling that quiet, unfettered smile, even as he wrapped Rosinante's fingers around the narrow grip and switched off the safety.
Doffy turned him around with a tender touch. He pointed at the shaking old man and said, "Shoot him."
xxx
"No."
His brother's face was pale as bone, jaw set in a ridged line. Doflamingo said again, "Shoot him, Rosi."
"No."
"You'll feel better. Just let go."
"You didn't."
Doflamingo's expression flickered and went out like a candle.
"Don't test my patience."
"You promised," Rosi said softly, "and you lied."
"It was for you."
Silence. There wasn't victory in it or concession, and Doflamingo's fists began to clench. He hadn't wanted to do this, not truly, but locking Rosi up was no solution, was it? He needed to at least try and reeducate him (and it felt like all he ever did was try), so for the sake of that alone it would need to be done.
xxx
Doffy's hand rose, thin and crooked, as if tapping out an invisible song.
Rosinante had the blank thought that he was about to see the old man's head go spraying and bouncing across the gravel, when the footsteps pattered close instead. Small and slow, the staggering gait forced by Parasite. A child's feet.
He turned, even though he knew already what he saw would be sitting in his dreams for the rest of his life.
The boy walked from behind a clump of trees. Untouched, save for the sheer grooves that tears had carved down his cheeks. His pupils were dots. The whites of his eyes stark.
"Daddy...?" he said and the old man started to beg.
(No, please, no, leave him alone. Leave him alone, he's just a boy. I'll do anything. Give you anything. Please, what is it that you want?)
Doffy curled his index finger. The boy gasped in terror as his trembling arms rose. The gold plates of Doffy's flintlock shined between his tiny hands. Rosinante reached for his brother's arm, groped for it senselessly.
"Doffy..."
"You'll do as I say."
"Doffy, no..."
His brother whirled at him, veins sprouting on his forehead.
"It's time to grow up, Rosi," he hissed, "It's time to open your eyes. The world is cruel and cold and we're the fucking examples of what it does to fools. Don't you realize yet that it doesn't care what you want? All you can do is survive, living each day desperately, desperately, crossing every line, remembering every second. And then once you've gathered enough power, you dish back what was done to you tenfold."
"That isn't right!" Rosinante shouted, and the voice was raw, cracking at the end, sounding as much the foolish child his brother thought he was, "That isn't...that's not the world I've known..."
But he trailed off, words frayed, because he was on the border of something dangerous and instinct still made him shy away. Silence languished and after another beat, Doffy shook his head.
"I've really failed you, haven't I?" He looked so sorry. For the first time in all their lives. "Do as I say."
"I can't," Rosinante breathed and Doffy sighed. His hand lifted.
"You'll do as I say, Rosi, and blast the brains right out of his skull." The boy screamed as the gun's muzzle rested against the back of his father's crown. "Or you'll watch his son do it instead."
xxx
The boy was sobbing, crying out 'stop, stop it, no, no, Daddy!'
"Let him go! Let him go please! Please, god, where is your soul?"
Doflamingo watched his brother. He waited, but Rosi just stood there and stood there. Not able to move.
"Don't do it like this," he whispered finally, "Not here and like this. No one should die like this."
So that was his answer. It occurred to Doflamingo that he stood on the cusp of something. That perhaps there really was no going back after this one. It occurred to him that a piece of himself had still been waiting-as he'd first been on the Red Line at ten years old before a makeshift grave-to feel something. Anything. Horror. Guilt. Shame.
But it never came.
Nothing ever came.
xxx
"The weak," Doffy said, "don't choose how they die."
And the child's finger slid against the trigger.
xxx
"I curse you," the old man said at the very end, "I curse you and I lied. I remember. The wicked spawn of Celestial Dragons. You deserved every minute of it, every second, I wish we'd killed all three of you!"
Doflamingo relaxed his pointer finger, and the boy began squeezing the trigger, shrieking incoherently the whole time. The man screamed too, eyes wild and black with hatred as he gazed upon Doflamingo.
"Monster! You monster!"
xxx
Monster.
xxx
A shot rang through the fire. The old man with sunken eyes folded up, fell sideways onto the ground, blood spreading in the dirt.
Doflamingo stared. He turned to his side.
Smoke still coiled from the mouth of Rosi's gun, even as his brother lowered his arm, tucked the weapon back into his belt. He didn't look at Doflamingo. Or speak to him.
And he never really would again.
xxx
Monster.