decipula - "cage"
(The strings emerged in scattering white.
On their dilapidated ship, the Family gaped at the sky, mirroring the marines on the island's opposite shore. Diez Barrels and his remaining men craned their heads, standing amongst the ruins of their manor.
Long, sizzling lines speared open the night, hard and bright as diamonds. They plunged down paths that were straight and cruel.
Minion quaked when they struck the frozen ground. Waves unfurling against the ships, bursting apart along sterns and reefs.
Without a rail, half the Family clung onto Machvise's bulk to stay on board, while Senor Pink tore for the wheel. Out in open water, Mio and Hoshi ordered their respective teams low, wary of capsizing.
Frenzied voices carved the air.
The world began to splinter, crushed between sky and sea.)
xxx
(A cage.
In the reflection of Tsuru's steely eyes, the strings stretched taut and arched into gleaming blades and wire. Her lips pursed, the length of her coat ruffling as the deckhands yelled and rushed about behind her.
The Den Den Mushis rang.
"Vice Admiral!" Mio and Hoshi shouted over each other, "Did you see—!"
"Hard to miss," Tsuru answered tightly. The dark body of the isle hunched beneath the cage. Though it resembled a wild animal only hours before, now it looked wizened and diminished. The leeched color of something imprisoned.
Doflamingo. It had to be.
Tsuru's hands curled into fists. She had planned on dealing with that boy personally after Mio and Hoshi returned. It hadn't occurred to her that he would seal off the island, or even possess the capability.
"Did either of you get caught?"
"No, ma'am, we—"
"Get back to the ship then."
The snails nodded and hung up. Tsuru folded her arms and tried to puzzle out why Doflamingo was here. The most obvious explanation was Barrels. Leaving the Ope Ope aside, the man had taken over certain islands of North Blue in the past few years—an ambitious project to topple the Family.
No doubt Doflamingo found him irritating, but…the whole maneuver seemed overkill. He already knew he outclassed Barrels. The man was no threat. Tsuru hadn't a doubt Doflamingo would've killed him ages ago otherwise.
It wasn't Barrels who could hurt him. Barrels was nothing to him.
Unease grew in the pit of Tsuru's stomach. She reached for the Den Den Mushi again.)
xxx
(Behind an outcropping bordering Minion's northern beach, the Family slowly picked themselves up.
"Is that," Jora said, "the Young Master's…?"
Senor Pink climbed down from the quarterdeck.
The handful of crewmen they'd brought along scampered about like trapped mice. Diamante and Pica ignored their questions about dropping anchor, both of them still gawking.
Trebol had vanished from the deck altogether. Had he fallen overboard? Pink considered the possibility with idle ambivalence.
"We're fine for now," he told the crewmen, "Just keep her even.")
xxx
(When the cage appeared, Sengoku was two-hundred kilometers from the triangle. His eyes were on a scroll of parchment, ink brush brandished over the page.
To avoid turning circles, he had set to penning a sound explanation to Kong and the Gorosei for his recent actions. Preferably one where he could convince them his riveted attention to this deal was actually disguised genius. At least so it didn't stink entirely of personal reasons.
Crumpled balls had filled the room to about half-mast.
When the Den Den Mushi rang, he was nearly relieved.
"Tsuru, have you—"
"Doflamingo is on Minion."
Sengoku's elbow jarred the ink tray. An ugly blot splashed onto a quarter-built sentence. The black seeped wide as Tsuru told him about the spiraling strings. How they'd woven themselves into an island-sized cage.
"What? When could he—"
"But only half of why I called." The Den Den's mouth was grim. "Rosinante. Did he ever receive your message in the end?
Sengoku stiffened. "I'm assuming so. He was patched into the comm."
"And you're sure he's avoiding the triangle?"
"I'm sure he's avoiding me and that's about it," Sengoku said and pulled off his glasses to massage his eyes, "But he knows what I meant by it. The place will be overrun with pirates and there's that child to think about. What else would he have done?"
"Maybe seek it out anyway, old man," Tsuru snapped, "Because of the child."
Sengoku paused, glasses a quarter of the way on, before shaking his head. Certainly, he'd wrung his hands all morning over the same thought, but...
"No, he said he was looking for a plant."
"...A plant?"
"It only grew on the island. It's why they returned."
"For a plant?" The Den Den watched him, a measure of disbelief. "Sengoku, you realize their old island is where the Ope Ope had been buried."
Sengoku had not realized that. He ingested this new tidbit slowly. The spreading ink touched his knuckles. Some of it beaded off the desk corner.
"He's not on Minion, Tsuru."
"Are you telling me that or yourself?"
His hands curled. "Rosinante is reckless and stubborn and far, far too hard on himself. Always been stuck on this notion that he has something to atone for and it's led him down an unwise path at times." Sengoku cast a glance at the porthole, moonless and veiled by clouds. "But if there's one thing he isn't, it's a suicidal fool. He knows what I wanted him to do."
"And Doflamingo?"
"Must be after Barrels."
The snail frowned. "I wonder if you'd still conclude that so easily if you were here."
"What?"
"If you saw this cage," she said, "If you felt this air. How...furious he is."
Silence. Sengoku rolled the brush in his hand. The tips of his fingers were numb.
He was still collecting the courage to ask for elaboration when sudden voices rose on Tsuru's end. The announcement of boats. Young Mio and Hoshi crackled over the line. The Den Den's eyes slid sideways.
"The cage needs to come down," it said, "Hurry, Sengoku."
She hung up, before he could reply.)
xxx
(The damn bars were everywhere.
Diez Barrels growled as another pair of blades shattered against them without success. Hammering at them with bullets and axes hadn't accomplished a thing either. He wanted to try an attack from the outside, but neither Isaac, Sid or Rotgut were answering his calls.
Were they still on Rubeck? They must've seen the cage appear, how could they still be fucking around?
"Where's Dory?" he said, swiveling around again to his original and most favored option. The Ryu Ryu no Mi in full form would surely knock the bars down...
All he got were head shakes and shrugs.
Barrels sawed his teeth back and forth. He'd murder that boy later.
An anxious wave of murmuring rose around the men. Barrels told them to shut up. They asked for what to do. He told them to shut up again. Someone wondered if it was the marines and Barrels scoffed, because that was impossible. Someone wondered if it was the Donquixote Family.
Barrels scoffed a little less.
It was a subdued night. The winds had settled into a taciturn lull. Snow crunched underfoot like shards of china. One man, Horace, kept fidgeting with his gun and shifting his weight until Barrels barked at him to stop.
He glared at the other men in warning too, before it struck him how dwindled the crowd had become.
Where were the rest of these bastards anyway?
Barrels tried to take stock of who'd gone where. There was Isaac's group of three to Rubeck. The ten men squad who'd been patrolling near Minion's quarry town prior to the explosion. Big Chacko and twenty others they'd found in smithereens after the blast.
Then finally the forty who'd gone searching for the rat bastard that'd been responsible. They'd disappeared down the hill almost an hour ago. Isaac's cousin had been among them. Barrels still couldn't recall the name.
He hadn't heard from them either, now that he was thinking on it.
The ones he had with him were Horace, Alfie, Crust, Gimp, Pedro and Roach. Six members out of his original eighty.
And where the fuck was Dory?
A trickle of fear tried to worm its path through Barrels' gut. His arm tightened around the Ope Ope's box.
"Do you smell blood?" Crust said suddenly, as if it was possible to smell anything.
The air was a quagmire of melted linens and paste. The stenches had shambled out of the charred warehouse and gone on to permeate the hill. Everything stunk. He couldn't have detected in it something as distinct as blood.
Which is why he almost dropped the box and smashed his foot when he turned around, towards the glade at the manor's rear.
Where Doflamingo stood thirty feet away on the ice-slicked path.
"Oh..." said Crust.)
xxx
(When the cage appeared, Vergo turned towards the sky for 6.2 seconds and knew it was Doffy. His wrath permeated the air. It sang through the bars. The Family had stalled him for even less time than Vergo had anticipated.
"Stop it, stop it!" Tiny hands thudded against his arm, yanking at his sleeves. "No, no, let him go! Cora-san!"
Wild, tear-streaked eyes bore into Vergo's. The child, Law. He'd forgotten about him. Per recent turn of events, it was deducible he was the successor Doffy had spoken of. Corazon the Third.
And to think he'd been preparing to kill him.
No particular strength behind it, Vergo swung his arm. The child went flying into a hut wall and crumpled into the snow.
"Behave yourself," Vergo said, and made a belated note to switch around those two actions in the future.
He blinked when a far larger hand seized his wrist. The blaze in the eyes that looked up at him nearly gave him pause, alive and murderous and foreign. Rosinante's grip tightened and Vergo's mouth went flat at the pain, his bones crackling against each other.
"Still awake, are we?" He nodded at Law. "Do not fret. Boy's merely stunned."
He rammed his knee into Rosinante's chest again and made those eyes fly wide. There was a wheezing croak of a sound. Agony warped Rosinante's face and the hand released him, hanging limp in the air. His eyes rolled.
Blacking out from a mere love-tap? How curious. Up close, Rosinante's pallor was sallow, with deep exhausted circles beneath his eyes. He'd lost visible weight and though Vergo hadn't struck him in the face, blood ran thick and profusely from his nose, showing no signs of slowing.
Law had said his "father" was ill, hadn't he?
"Seems this past year's been a bit rough with you." Vergo dragged the body closer and Rosinante's head lolled as he resurfaced, blinking sluggishly. "Doffy always mentioned you were atrocious at taking care of yourself." He sighed. "Not that he actually has room to talk."
A dirty sill ghosted out of his memories then. His own hands wrapping welted fingertips. The messy slosh of that first bottle.
I need to find my brother and Where is my brother? and Was it me, Vergo? Was I wrong?
He punched Rosinante. Red spittle flecked the side of his jaw. Rosinante hacked, as his frame convulsed. Bloody saliva strung down his chin and Vergo marveled at why Doffy had never been able to let go of this pathetic, half-dead shadow when it had so easily let go of him.
"You had such nerve swanning back here."
Rosinante's head snapped to the left as he was punched again. Vergo yanked him close.
His anger, unlike his king's, came in the more insipid form of a hangnail. It irritated and appalled. It remained persistently infected.
"North Blue, the Underworld, Punk Hazard, deals with Yonkou, five-hundred crewmen, the Family." His fists clenched, the stained leather taut. "For fourteen years, he got whatever pleased him, no matter how big or small or great or terrible. Were you, his so-called blood, ever able to offer him the things that we could?"
He was raising his voice. With a conscious effort, Vergo lowered it, perturbed by how loud he had gotten.
Rosinante lifted his head weakly. His gaze, blue-black and swelling shut, peered into Vergo with loathing.
This spineless leech that had spread in Doffy like a tumor. Vergo wanted to cut him out, but restrained the urge. It was not his place to kill Rosinante. It was not his right. Doffy would never be free of him if he didn't shuck off this chain himself.
So.
Vergo pulled aside his coat and slid out the bamboo staff that'd been strapped to his belt. Armored haki swept across his torso, shiny and black.
"I'll prep the knife instead," he said and raised the staff up.
The Den Den Mushi rang.)
xxx
(Dangerous things wore red. The thought scuttled across Barrels's skull as something wet and clumpy slid past his ear.
In the snow, Alfie and Horace lay with their brains blown out, smoke still twisting from their guns.
Gashes flayed the ground where they had been standing only a minute ago, before they'd suddenly lifted their magnums and exchanged potshots. The other three men had scrabbled backwards, bits of brain matter stuck to their beards and scarves.
Barrels looked at Doflamingo.
Thirty feet away still, Doflamingo looked back.
The strings slung out from his body at every angle, crimson beads collecting in them like water in a cobweb. He crooked his right hand.
Barrels' four remaining men lifted their guns.
"What?" Gimp whispered, as Pedro and Crust yelped.
"Captain," Roach said, "W-We're not…"
"Wait!" Barrels said, as four muzzles pressed towards his face, arranged like spokes in a wheel, "wait, wait, wait…" He held out the Ope Ope chest. "T-This is about the fruit right? This here? 'S what you came for?"
Roach made a startled noise in his throat. "Diez—"
"I'll give it to you." Barrels forced on a shaky grin. "I-It's yours, alright? You win this time."
Doflamingo glanced at the chest without recognition or interest. His face was blank and white, wreathed in veins, strikingly inhuman.
If anyone's a monster in these fucking waves, Barrels's own voice squeaked at him, it's me.
Sweat rolled down his neck. In the dire interest of preserving patience, he opted to skip the spiel and fumbled at the box instead.
The latches were rusted and failed twice to unlock. When Barrels bent to check them, the mouth of Crust's gun held parallel to his eyeball. Barrels did not breath, releasing it all at once when the locks finally clicked open.
"Diez," Roach said again, "the fruit isn't—"
"We'll clear out of North Blue," Barrels said, as he lifted the lid, "T-This was just a mistake, an entire mistake. No hard feelings right? Between captains…"
The chest was empty.
Diez Barrels went still. He surveyed the four corners blankly, waiting for the Ope Ope to re-materialize.
Roach said, "The intruder after the explosion...h-he took...we were gonna tell ya..."
Barrels raised his head. Spidery fingers stretched in the dark.
The gentle bray of unsheathed daggers and swords filled the silence, tugged from the scabbards of corpses. They rose into the air, twinkling blades hung on twinkling threads, pointed at the throats of Diez Barrels' men.
Gimp whispered a prayer. Crust and Pedro wept.
"Diez, you son of a bitch," the latter said, "what the fuck did you get us into?"
Four hammer blocks were pulled back.
Stars flooded the surface of Doflamingo's glasses. Long slavering teeth swam between the lights.
He had never spoken a word to them. Not one, even as the strings fell.
And yet his fury.
How it echoed.)
xxx
(Law regained consciousness in dribbling increments. The field of searing white around him returned to snow. The black dome above became the sky. There were bars dragging through it now, like scratch marks down a chalkboard.
Two blurry figures shifted in his vision a few feet away. Law stared dully at them, a clump of snow weighing down his hat, a fractal melting on his eyelash. One body dangled listless in the grip of the other. Golden. Tall.
The present rammed into place. Law flew upright and almost crashed back onto his face. He squeezed his eyes shut, impatiently waiting for his skull to stop pounding, before he opened them again.
Cora-san hung like a ragdoll, head tilted back, hood about to slide loose. His nose was bleeding again. His whole face and neck was mottled with bruises.
Something giant and metallic held the front of his coat. It had a black bob cut and shades and made even Cora-san look frail. The issued coat of a marine fluttered around its burly waist.
Law planted his palms on the frozen ground. The chill bit into his skin.
He would've ran at them again without another thought (another minute, another second), if the string hadn't sped towards him then. Almost flying in its urgency, it zipped across the snow and encircled him.
A soft blue glow enveloped his body and Law's eyes widened as the world shimmered, wobbling and liquid as if he were peering through a waterfall. When he stood, his feet were soundless upon the snow, draped beneath the Nagi Nagi's cloak.
The string retracted into Cora-san's hand, vanishing. The staff in Vergo's whooshed above him. "I'll prep the knife instead."
Law tried to scream.
And jumped one bare second later, when the Den Den Mushi rang.
Vergo came to a violent halt. For a moment, the ridiculous call of the snail blathered into the silence as he stood there, muscles rippling, before he slowly reached into his pocket. His mouth became a terse line after glancing at the number and his thumb hovered an extra beat over the speakers, before he pressed down.
"Corazoooooooon."
Trebol's voice wormed through the quarry town. Through the bony trees. Through the hideous dark.
Vergo tossed Cora-san abruptly into the snow. He gasped at the rough landing and a hand twisted the fabric over his chest. His breaths came out strangled. Hard, wheezing pants.
The sound terrified Law more than Vergo ever could.
"Behehe, it has been ages. Taking off like that out of the blue, big brother is a bit vexed with you."
Beneath a fringe of blood-stained hair, a single brick-dust eye met Law's, bleary with pain.
Find a weapon, it said.
Or maybe it was actually, Run.
Law decided on the first one. It made Cora-san sound less like an idiot. He hurried back into the hut.)
xxx
From the gore-slathered rubble of Barrels's manor, Doflamingo advanced down the hill. The spine of the island curled and crimped beneath his feet.
One flickering lantern pooled on the ground. In it stretched the contorted remains of Diez Barrels and his six-manned crew.
"And you still wonder why I was finished with you."
Doflamingo breathed, gripping his shattered left arm.
"You're horrible, because you're furious. You're furious, because you're horrible." The ghost rocked on its heels. "Do you ever plan to be more than a broken wheel spinning?"
Doflamingo walked past it.
"Has it gotten you anywhere, brother?"
He staggered his way through the trees.
xxx
(Four miles offshore, Tsuru made Sid the Deserter repeat his experience on Rubeck in fine detail.
Admittedly, the description sounded like Doflamingo to anyone who didn't know better—titanic height, long hard hands, golden hair.
Red eyes too, though that didn't sway the needle one way or the other. She'd never seen the boy without his glasses. And even more unhelpfully, the feathered coat had been too dark to discern in the twilight.
The strings did throw her off for a while. Rosinante's Nagi Nagi was a sphere last she recalled, shimmery and blue. Certainly though, it was possible to reshape one's Devil Fruit with enough practice and inclination.
Tsuru paced the deck, the rest of the marines paying puzzled audience. The cage bars warped upon the polished lengths of cannons and rifles. Mio and Hoshi offered suggestions that she was overthinking and quickly buttoned their lips when she scowled at them.
It wasn't that she didn't hope so, but the Donquixote boys were two fingers shy of identical. Was it such an improbable thing the deserter had confused them?
"Is that all?" she demanded, "Anything else about him you can remember?"
Manacled and draped in a blanket, Sid shrank beneath her gaze. A tangible anxiety exuded from him as he watched her pace and his eyes had occasionally flitted to Minion, ruddy features growing nauseous.
"You can't leave me here," he said instead of answering, and Hoshi glared.
"Watch your tone."
"I can't be left here."
"I said—"
"There was also a kid."
Tsuru whipped around.
Hastily, Sid described how his other crewmate, Rotgut, had brutalized the child and got himself killed for it. That the last he'd seen of Doflamingo had been two hours ago, child tucked in one arm as he drove their dinghy into the cold heart of Minion.
"Funny," he said, with a nervous chuckle, "That he bothered, y'know. I heard he could fly."
Then he trailed off and stared up at her with great tentativeness. Like he wondered if the detail had been relevant.
"I want a boat in that water," said Tsuru, "in the next ten seconds."
Mio and Hoshi scrambled.)
xxx
(They waited for him.
Gladius hovered at the gunwale, scanning the beach and hills, while Machvise and Lao G stood uncomfortably against the mastings. Near the starboard side, Jora wrung her gloved hands, surveying the dunes with their winding trails.
The gale of the ocean snapped and howled, but none of them moved, fashioned to their spots with the undying devotion of hounds.
Thirty minutes had past, entering a quarter to midnight, when Gladius suddenly turned to the Family, perturbed.
"That's not a marine boat, is it?"
Jora paled. Machvise and Lao immediately began squinting towards the horizon, as though their eyesight could be any better than Gladius's. Pink swung over the spyglass and swore.
Five hundred meters out and coming from open sea, a white skiff boat slid through the waters, rounding the edge of the cage. Emblazoned on the flank and sails was the marine insignia in navy blue paint.
The vessel glided along the perimeter, perhaps testing for weak points of entry. A pair of steely eyes were narrowed upon the bars.
"It's Tsuru," Pink said, and a collective stiffening lurched over the deck.
"Fucking great," said Diamante and plopped onto a crate.
"What will we do?" Lao G demanded at him, "Did Corazon set us up?"
"That traitor," Gladius said, bristling at the name. His knuckles tightened over his holster, while Jora and Machvise's shoulders fell and Pink tossed his cigarette over the side. Trebol had shown them the file of Marine 01746. Heavily redacted. Each page stamped full of confidential warnings. If the truth had existed anywhere...
Pink sighed. Though finding Baby on that marine ship had all but settled the question for most of them, a small part of Pink had remained hopeful.
He had liked Corazon. His sap and his sarcasm and his mercy. He'd been the only one to let Pink ramble on for an hour once about Russian and Gimlet, considering the photos with his strange thoughtful eyes.
It was disappointing.
"They stopped," Lao said, "Pink, what are they doing?"
The prow of the marine boat had drifted the barest few meters into firing range. Tsuru had turned sharply towards the rockier end of the coast, one hand tight on the boat's rim. The rest of the marines clutched unstrapped rifles, some of them white-knuckled.
Confused, Pink swung the spyglass towards the cage once more.
And startled Machvise a minute later as he rushed past, climbing onto the bench for a better view.
"Pink?"
He ignored him, attention glued to the beach.
Among the protruding rocks stood a silhouette, staggering slightly in the snow-dusted sand. Spilled feathers dotted its wake, getting swallowed up in foam. It moved with noticeable difficulty.
"The Young Master's on the beach."
In a swarm, the Family gathered around him. Jora covered her mouth. "I think he's injured."
Gladius clambered onto the bench as well, almost knocking against his shoulder. Without preamble, he switched off his safeties and aimed at the boat. Pink shoved his arms back down.
"Hold on."
"They hurt him."
"No, they didn't. They're outside the cage just like us," Pink's hands tightened. "Wait. Don't give away our position."
An incredulous glare was shot at him. Pink didn't relent.
"The best way we can help him is to stay out of sight and have the ship ready for a quick getaway if he needs it." He pushed the guns further down. "And that won't be possible, if you signal them right over, capiche?"
Gladius looked disgruntled. He didn't holster his guns nor did his fingers relax against the grips. For the moment though, he remained still.
Silently, the Family watched.)
xxx
(There was no escape from the cage.
They had gone down a third of the island's north side, checking along crevices and tidepools for any gaps. Around the obsidian crown of a cliffside, the strings had even extended into the surrounding water, hooked deep into the seabed.
Tsuru grit her teeth, brows almost knotted together. She ordered the boat turned around for the south side. The wind from the mountain swept down, carrying the salt and stone of the hills, the algae-tinged snows of the dunes. Simple, muted smells like dust mites in a butterfly net.
Maybe it was what made his appearance all the more prominent—that sudden waft of wine and storms smothering beneath iron.
Doflamingo stalked down the beachside, pale and spindly as a wraith. His fine clothes were torn and stained. Blood dotted the corners of his jaw. He bore such savage resemblance to a starving beast that Mio and the cadets sucked in frightened breaths.
But he passed them without a look, moving as if possessed through the rocks. Tsuru's lips thinned. Where he was going, she could only guess.
"Doflamingo, wait."
He did not. Tsuru raised a brow. She gestured at the rowers to align with his stride.
"I said wait."
Still nothing, as if he'd hardly noticed them. Tsuru rested a hand on the rim of the boat, knuckles tightening.
"Look at me when I speak to you, boy."
And finally he stopped. Another feather slipped from his coat, drifting off into the tide. Doflamingo turned around, staring at her through the cage.
There were no questions or anger over why she was here. No alarm that he'd been caught. His expression was so deeply calm that it was outright transparent.
"Tsuru-san," he said after a long while, voice scraping the silence. He cradled his arm.
Tsuru slid into the seat of the prow. "Stay there," she said, sternly and powerlessly in turn.
But he listened, waiting there as white shudders skittered past his lips on every exhale. A jolt of concern rushed through Tsuru's veins.
She motioned for the girls to push closer, as close as could be dared to the alien-white bars. Intuition warned her not to touch them and on closer inspection, she saw them glint like long thin blades. Each one trembled on a minute level, brimming with raw Emperor's Haki. It certainly explained the heaviness in the air.
"You are injured," she said softly, observing his ravaged suit, "Open the cage. Let me help you."
He didn't move. Blood drizzled patterns in the snow around his shoes.
"Like you helped Corazon."
Tsuru's eyes widened a fraction. He knew.
She took in the fact quickly, pushing aside the immediate urge to interrogate him. Looking at the veins in his cheeks, there was no time for questions of how.
"Doflamingo, it isn't what you think."
He shook his head.
"No, listen to me. Your brother—"
"Brother?" Doflamingo said, with the air of someone half-dazed, "I don't have a brother. I have an abhorrent traitor who fucked around with me for four and a half years. Played me like his fiddle. Made me into his fool."
A vein jumped beneath his eye. Rocks cracked around his feet.
"Is that what you refer to," he asked, "when you say 'brother?'"
And his wrath was so scalding black that it quivered in the night like a trapped animal. Snarling and frenzied and wounded. For a moment, Tsuru could only stare at him, unable to think of anything to say.
"That isn't true," she finally managed, "Rosinante gave up everything to come back for you. He had a whole file, he was going to—"
"I've heard enough about his file." A click rang stark in the air. "And him in general."
Tsuru's eyes flashed downward at the gleam of gold, the serpentine handle and antique frame. Carefully, she lifted her head back up.
"Child, you are making a mistake."
Doflamingo said nothing. The flintlock hung at his side.
"Ma'am," Mio whispered, newly alarmed by the sight of the gun. The cadets shifted, hands moving to their weapons.
"No." Tsuru halted them. "Do not.")
xxx
("They have rifles," Gladius said and Lao G wheeled the cannon around, Jora hesitantly helping him.
"Stop," Pink snapped, "Look at that thing he just dropped from the sky. Do you really think he needs our help?"
"Injured?" Machvise wondered, as if he thought he was being helpful, "Against old Tsuru?"
Pink threw him an exasperated look.)
xxx
("Think for a moment," Tsuru said, "Please think, boy." Her nails dug into the boat's side. "I know this cannot be what you want."
Doflamingo's lip curled, his teeth appearing. "You presume to know much."
He took a sudden step forward.)
xxx
("They're too close," Gladius snarled, "They'll shoot him."
He tried to yank his arms free, but Pink remained firm. "Nobody's shooting anybody."
"Pink," Jora said, "He might be right. Maybe we should send out a warning." Machvise and Lao G nodded.
Behind them, Diamante and Pica watched the beach blankly, the latter mired in a swill of horror and realization.
"Diamante," he said, "what will happen once Corazon's gone?"
Diamante shifted, wood groaning beneath his weight. He was gray-skinned and still vaguely in shock. "To...us, you mean?"
"To Doffy."
A pause. "Why? What do you think is gonna happen?"
"I don't know. Will he still be Doffy?"
Pink froze. For a single moment, his grip loosened as he turned to glance at them.)
xxx
(In hindsight, Tsuru did not believe he had intended anything by it. Perhaps he had only meant to shout, god knowing he likely needed it. Or perhaps a part of him had been wanting to be talked down.
Tsuru did not flinch either way. She wasn't afraid of him. She knew him. And in a way, she was here for him too.
So it was Mio in the end, whose sole previous encounter had been tempered by the company of Rosinante and children and moonlight, that lost her nerve and raised her gun.
The barrel pointed between his eyes.
"Step back—")
xxx
("Young Master!" Jora and Machvise shouted. Gladius wrenched out of Pink's hold in a burst of aggression. He pulled his gun.
"Get the fuck away from my captain."
He fired.)
xxx
(Tsuru yanked Mio forward by the collar, barely in time as the shot whizzed past her scalp. It hit the water, popping like a firecracker. A rain of bullets followed.
Down the coastline, a colossal ship groaned out from behind an outcropping.
"The Family!" a cadet screamed and the rifles flew up.
Gunfire snapped the air, violently rocking the vessel. One girl yelped as she was struck in the shoulder, thrown into another girl behind her. They almost toppled into the sea, before Tsuru managed to snatch them. The boat was an open target. They would be peppered in another minute or two.
"Go!" Mio yelled at the rowers, taking up a position herself, "Back to the ship! We'll give 'em something to be excited about!"
The cadets flew to obey, the boat pulling from the rocks. Tsuru twisted around and locked gazes with Doflamingo one final time. A million words flooded her head, tumbling out like keys from a drawer. She scrambled through them for the right one, something that could hope to sway him, even if a little—the addenda, the children, if you had met him in Vale, if you had seen him those fourteen years before, you would not, you would never—
He needed to know it all and yet not one of them was singularly important enough. None of them held the gravity she wished to convey. None of them illustrated the consequence.
Tsuru leaned forward and looked upon the face of a monster. Of a boy she had failed to find in the North Blue.
"You will regret it," she said, "for the rest of your life. That I can promise you."
He stared at her through the bars. Then beyond at his ship and his crew.
"Goodbye, Tsuru-san," he said and disappeared into the hills.)
xxx
When the cage appeared, Rosinante was the only one in the entire triangle that hadn't been looking. He was too busy riding the carousel of agony.
At least a couple of his ribs were cracked and his right eye was almost swollen shut. His whole face felt like a broken window from how hard Vergo had punched him, one tooth dangerously close to wiggling loose.
And his chest was on fire, a knife of pressure embedding deeper with each gasp. The snow was barely there beneath his spine. His senses sieved the world through in fragments.
Vergo's look swirling full of hatred.
Trebol's leer bleeding through a snail.
Law rushing into a hut, instead of running for his life (god, that brat, Rosinante didn't know why he tried).
A distant crash fizzled through the speaker, several more following in succession. Trebol gave a low snigger. "Appears we've been found."
"The marines?" Vergo said, sneering at Rosinante again upon the word.
"The crone, I'm hearing." The Den Den grinned at him. "Nene, did you think she'd come and save you?" Its eye stalks curled. "Just look at this cage, big enough to swallow an island. Feel that scorch in the air, like fire against our throats. Minion will soak in the blood of Diez Barrels."
Trebol sniggered. "Have I not made a magnificent creature out of your brother?"
Rosinante struggled to lift his head, face rolling to the side to glare all the wells of his despisal at him.
"Behehe, I see that family resemblance showing through. Still feeling sour at us for all those years ago then. You ran away of your own choosing, Corazon, and you're perfectly aware of it. Don't waste everyone's time."
Rosinante faltered. "I…" His voice was hoarse, a blood bubble popping. "No...you tricked me…"
"Tricked? Did we move your legs? Did we compel you from that stoop and into the arms of marines? Poor, ill-fated thing, you know well why you ran."
Run away, Rosinante.
He doesn't need you.
He doesn't love you.
Run away.
Rosinante's eyes dimmed. He coughed again, body rattling slightly, and said no more.
The snail laughed. "Now don't make such a pathetic face either. It'll tug at my heartstrings!" It grinned at Vergo like they were participating together in a marvelous joke. Vergo looked back in disgust.
"Well, you mustn't choke too hard on your guilt. You were playing against the House after all." Trebol's voice lowered, something menacing with glee. "And you're so, so easy to bluff, let me tell you. Again and again. The island. Little Law. Your father."
Rosinante looked back up.
"What?"