vox duo - "two voices"
"Ne, Corazon. Wanna hear something ironic though? The real kicker at the end of all this? The punchline?"
xxx
Doflamingo caught the grenade in his strings. Sent it flying towards another clump of trees. Snow exploded. Sawdust rose in a plume.
Rosinante took that extra second's lead and rushed him.
"I'm going to stop you," he swore to the stars and the gods and the sky and the sea.
Doflamingo whipped around.
"You can try."
xxx
"First time I saw you two, I knew immediately that your brother was meant to crush this world into pieces. That you'd be the only thing holding him back."
Trebol grinned.
"Contrary to what you may believe, Doffy is actually fond of plenty of things. Wine, clearly. Sex, money, lobster, the Family, those brats. Not something people give him enough credit for, that. How much he can care sometimes."
The snail cocked its head.
"But you. When it came to you, it was a whole different story. Stubborn little brother who he tried to dismiss for dead. How you've haunted our poor, wretched master. You have no idea."
Vergo shifted, a glimpse of irritation down at him. Rosinante did not see it, eyes only on the Den Den Mushi.
"All these years, I watched you two wandering through the dark together, passing each other by over and over again. As though it never occurred to either of you to simply retrace your steps."
Trebol grinned. His voice fragmented, swooping low and high in Rosinante's unsteady vision.
"...and you spent all these years thinking...deep down...that he didn't…that he never..."
"...foolish, blind, stupid boy..."
"...of course..."
"...he..."
Trebol laughed.
"Funny, no?"
xxx
He slammed into a wall of Conqueror's Haki. Rosinante's eyes widened as he was thrown backwards, barely catching himself in an awkward somersault. Doffy cracked his fingers. He slid the messenger's tube into his suit's front pocket, the top sticking out like a piece of unhewn bone.
For a moment, Rosinante was crouched and frozen, a reflexive hand over his heart. The pain from the haki never came though. It was a distant pressure, the Isshi-20's serum scorching through his veins, muddling nerve signals, supporting the collapsing walls of muscle.
It's a small dosage, Law had said, Another half day if you're careful and take it easy.
Rosinante stood back up. The distance between them had been regained. He eyed the subtle cautiousness in his brother's position, his refusal to approach even when he'd had the opening.
With one working arm, Doffy knew he stood little chance in hand-to-hand. He'd always been so practical after all. So cognizant of everything except what mattered.
Rosinante unclasped the launcher and stuffed another grenade in. He had to move them away from this field. There was too much space for his brother's haki and strings to batter him around. Best to lure him somewhere with more cover, where there'd be another chance to get up close again.
Doffy watched him lift the barrel, his face veined and expressionless. Strings rose around his body, glinting and tensed in preparation. They waited for him. Rosinante shook his head.
"You really believe I'd shoot you, asshole?" he said and fired at the ground.
xxx
(She jumped at the crash, a furtive glance over her shoulder. Far away, a trail of smoke peeked over the black mass of the land. Maybe it was the marines? She turned back to the fallen tree, heart pattering.
Another feather was snagged on a half-twisted branch, fluttering between a slit in the grain. She worked it gently free and tucked it beneath her jacket, cradling it there with the handful she had found.
Most of them were ruined, tufts ripped out, rims dotted in burgundy. The sight of them comforted her anyway. They were what she knew. She wasn't going to let the island have them.
Snow leaked into her shoes. Bit through her stockings and into her toes. How long had she been walking? Hours. Ages. The Family ship couldn't be seen anymore. Fear was an uneven lump in her throat.
She kept going. Thought of his silhouette as it flew from the deck and tore off inland, Trebol-san shouting after him. Remembered his face in the air for that split second and oh, she had to help him. She wasn't sure how yet, but she had to. If only he wasn't always so quick to disappear into these empty, awful places...
The wind shuddered through. It nibbled at her elbows and heels. Its scent was red and cruel.
Get out of here, Baby, a memory whispered, It's getting cold.
Baby Five's eyes scrunched up. She headed onwards, hugging the feathers close.)
xxx
The grenade had been small. It didn't blow his brother's feet out from under him (an irrational little part of Rosinante still thought that Doffy couldn't be knocked down by anything), but at least it forced him back. Distracted him.
Rosinante turned before the snow-dust had cleared and sprinted into the woods. For a second, he was afraid Doffy wasn't going to follow him.
But then the roar shook the trees, streaked across the rocks and Rosinante knew that he would.
"Still think you can run?"
A pile of deadwood clattered and spilled. Rosinante jumped over them and managed not to fall on his face.
Where did you think I was running? He thought, as he raced down the hill, his brother swooping after like wildfire. Only way I ever knew was back.
xxx
Corazon vanished into an old mining town—a dilapidated ring of thatched roofs and stone walls. Doflamingo skidded to a halt at the entrance, eyes narrowed at the scraggly pain blazing up his arm. He squeezed the limb a moment and checked the stitches to make sure they hadn't pulled again. All mobility in his palm and fingers had fled. The whole arm dangled, useless.
Doflamingo examined the town. Odd mounds sloped the blanketed square, some with the dark tip of an ancient trolley or coal pile jutted out, others so thoroughly buried they were indistinguishable from the snow-drifts.
He advanced, the Ito Ito trailing in his wake like extra eyes. Reckless move, his own mind hissed, walking into a pathetic little trap. You know better than that.
Doflamingo stormed through the entrance. The wooden posts splintered as he passed.
"Come out."
Behind a collapsed wall, Rosinante stiffened, a wayward chill skittering down his nape. Footsteps crunched slowly across the path of the quarry town, drawing closer.
"You can't hide anymore."
He flattened his shoulder against the wall, stones digging into skin. The sphere of the Nagi Nagi hung invisible over him as he reloaded the grenade launcher. Doffy drifted past, coat tips wavering, strings dragging from his fingertips. He reached the center of the square, before coming to a quiet stop.
For a moment, the air was still. Rosinante watched the back of his brother's head. Saw it crane towards the stars.
"I should've looked into you," he said, admitted like a confession, "The very second you came back, I knew you were lying to me."
Rosinante swallowed, pushing down the tight sensation trying to bunch in his throat. He peered around the wall. Doffy's back was still turned, the feathers still ruffling. A quick tackle, Rosinante thought, a strike to the carotid vein if he moved fast enough. He tensed, muscles coiling to charge.
"Were you contacting Sengoku from my ship, Corazon?" A voice appeared behind him. "Did you laugh?"
Rosinante swung around, ice in his veins. Fuck—
Overheat blasted through the dark.
xxx
(The world was shaking. Along the highest hill of Minion Island, Dory Barrels crept out of a fir tree, landing on the balls of his feet.
Vibrations strummed through his shoes, the same subtle humming he'd felt creeping along the branches. The Donquixotes. It had to be. Dory knew they'd come for revenge as soon as the warehouse had blown up. Was sure of it once the dining hall blew up too.
His father had dropped him like a lump of meat, hurdling profanities as he charged out of the courtyard. Dory lay curled in a ball until he was sure the man was gone. Then he'd gotten up and fled. He couldn't fight the Family, let alone Doflamingo. He wasn't his father. Wasn't remotely delusional enough.
From the woods, he'd heard the shouts of an intruder, the pails slopping over the fires, the shifting of debris once the flames had cleared and the bodies were pulled out. His father barked for him. Dory didn't dare to answer.
He scaled into the tree copses instead, beyond the tunnels of rancid smoke. Got a clear view of the sky cage when it materialized, smashing through the earth. Dory felt the world tremble then as well. He heard bullets and swords strike at the cage bars. His father yelled for him a second time, louder, shoving some of the men to go look for him. In a surge of fear, Dory had scrambled to other branches, delving further into the trees until he was out of earshot. He heard rifles go off twice, before everything went quiet.
It had stayed quiet ever since.
Now Dory fidgeted at the base of the hill. The brown roof gables fringed the peak, the rest of the mansion obscured but hushed. Chilly reluctance filled his blood. He was ready to run away again and forget the mild semblance of duty that had persuaded him to this point, when something collided into him.
Dory lashed outward on reflex, hand flying to shield himself.
She landed abruptly on her bottom, a threadbare jacket flaring around her. Dory blinked. Wet snow soaked her woolen stockings and buckled shoes. In her stiff black hair nestled the finest gold ribbon he'd ever seen, braided into a gentle bow.
A little kid. On Minion Island.
"What the…"
Wind buffeted across the snow, whistling through the boughs. A gasp escaped the girl, her voice scratchy as sandpaper. Pink feathers spilled out of her arms and whirled towards the manor.
Dory had barely registered them, before she had pushed past him without a glance, clambering up the slippery trail.
"Hey, wait!" He pivoted. "I wouldn't—"
Something exploded in the distance. He jumped, feet unsteady. The sound was closer than before, downhill in the direction of that ancient quarry town. The cage bars quaked. Was it possible for them to collapse inward?
Dory decided he didn't need to find out.
Without more thought, he ran up the hill after the girl.)
xxx
In the quarry town, the remnants of a trolley bubbled in the snow around a haze of coal dust. Behind it lay the steaming wreckage of a hut.
Rosinante steadied himself against the ground, too cognizant of the fact that it'd been the same one he'd left Law sleeping in mere hours ago. The singed stench of his coat crowded his nostrils. He cast a glance at the clone still standing in the square, its head now unravelling like a spool.
A few feet opposite him, Doffy used the wall for balance, his teeth sawing in frustration as he gripped his bad arm. Blood seeped down from his shoulder. It was the only reason Rosinante wasn't a pile of smolders himself—that half-second stumble of pain that had given him enough time to dodge.
He breathed and stood up.
"You've got me wrong."
Doffy's laugh was a harsh sound.
"I know how desperate Law was to save his beloved Cora-san." He released his arm and stood up too. "Children can say anything."
"They're not the only ones."
A molten pause went by.
"Easy words from a snake," Doffy said, brow twitching, "They gave me power and a choice. Stayed with me all these years in this shithole. A solid track record as far as I'm concerned." His fingers crooked. "Trebol always did warn me about you."
"Trebol has you dancing."
The veins surfaced. Doffy's palm began to glow.
"Silence."
"He knew where to push." Rosinante raised the grenade launcher. "And he made fools of us both."
He fired at the wall before Overheat could spear towards him again, taking down the last hut too.
Stone and mortar toppled and collapsed onto his brother. Buried him, buried him.
The town had no more cover. Rosinante ditched the original plan and ran for the woods, smoke pellets in hand. They were on the precipice of another slope, leading down to the bluffs. The trees were going to make the smoke impossible to see through. This wouldn't be ideal at all.
A part of him was still balking at the futility of the whole endeavor. Doffy didn't need the intel in that message tube. He was easily capable of letting Rosinante destroy the information and invading the kingdom on a different plan anyway.
Somehow though, Rosinante knew he wouldn't.
It wasn't about Dressrosa for his brother. Any more than it'd been about the Ope Ope. Or Law.
xxx
(There were strings hanging in the night, wiry and shimmering, as if behind glass.
They reached past the height of the mansion, curving into an untraceable spiral. Dory saw Roach first. Crust an arms-length beside him. Gimp, Pedro, two bodies without heads that must've been Alfie and Horace.
And at the top, spread-eagle, mouth gaping and eternal, his father was…
Dory vomited into the snow. He wiped his mouth, and felt the gurgling of horror and shock and something beneath it so potent it made him lightheaded. It'd take Dory some months to acknowledge it as relief. Another year entirely to accept it.
"Don't look," he told the girl, but she was already looking.
Her hands were cradled against her chest, expression bleached white. The strings reflected in her liquid-dark eyes and her lips parted.
For a moment, he thought she'd scream, but the girl didn't make a sound. The fear drained out of her the longer she gazed at the strings. Dory didn't know if he'd imagined the familiarity she regarded them with.
She ran off towards the courtyard, ribbon bouncing. Not knowing what else to do, he followed.)
xxx
Doflamingo smashed out of the rubble, gravel tumbling from his coat. With a silent stride, he stepped from the ruins of the collapsed wall, dust and cinder trailing after him.
The square was empty once more, footprints winding into the woods. Doflamingo followed them. The trees created a lattice of shadows, the smell of cinder and wood dust from the town swept the area. He raised his hand, strings summoned to be sent out as feelers for a second time, when Corazon spoke.
"You can't believe him, Doffy."
Doflamingo lowered his hand. The voice floated over the area, difficult to pinpoint. Flakes of coal dust twirled across his shades. They formed a smile of missing and rotted teeth. There was a dribbling sound in his ear, viscous and heavy like mud.
Something in him shook itself loose and made a wobbly attempt at suspicion, before collapsing, no ground to stand on.
Doflamingo's shoulders fell slightly, his jaw tight.
xxx
"It was for us."
Rosinante blinked, hand halfway to a smoke pellet. He chanced a glance around the tree trunk.
"When we were children." Doffy turned and Rosinante retracted his head in a panic. He didn't hear his brother move though. Only heard him keep speaking, tone almost wooden. "Maybe you don't even remember anymore. How hard you used to cry. You were always cold. You wanted real food. You were sick of running. There was nothing about me that could make you happy."
A step. A shoe sole depressing on the trail.
"So what was I supposed to do? I tried to take you home. I walked three hundred miles with our father's head in a sack and you wouldn't even look at me before I went." Doffy laughed, incredulous, echoing.
"Are you going to tell me that was Trebol too?"
Rosinante swallowed, his eyes lowering to the snow. The truth surfaced like a breath then, dark and terrible between them.
That fourteen years ago, Rosinante hadn't looked at his brother, because he'd been ashamed of him. Had wished for Doffy to disappear out of his life forever and to become someone else's problem.
Of course it'd been the segment of a thought. Of course he'd regretted it wholly and deeply afterwards. It had still been true.
Would it have helped his case, denying all this? He wasn't sure. It's what he wanted to do. Maybe it was even what his brother wanted to hear.
But that'd been the root of everything too, hadn't it? The lies and the denial. Equating silence with peace, pretending things only existed when they were spoken. This was why Minion Island had always waited on the path ahead of them.
"No," Rosinante said quietly, "it was not."
He depressed the pellets and tossed them through the trees.
xxx
Doflamingo bristled when the milky smoke unfurled, smelling of vapor and shalestone. It leaked everywhere, from the branches and the polished leaves, lifted like swell from the ground until even his knees were covered.
"You always tried hard." Corazon's voice drifted closer. "You took care of me and you deserved more honesty than you got."
There was a pause. Ragged and short of breath.
"But Doffy...it really wasn't easy for me either. The things you'd say about Father and the townspeople. How you'd get swallowed up by your anger. You weren't able to think about anything by the end but how to get even. It was just..."
Something ruffled along the corner of his eye. Doflamingo spun left. Only smoke greeted him.
"I've always felt responsible, you know. Tortured myself for years over every terrible thing you did, every life you took. There was that constant question in my head. Whether I'd have been able to change things if I'd stayed."
The tangle of shadows and foliage conjured shapes out of nothing. His strings retreated to him, a glinting reflection of his own uncertainty.
"You messed me up for so long," Corazon said, "But North Blue and the old island—in the end, these were your own choices. We'll never know if it would've turned out any differently. Sengoku-san was right. It's not my fault who you decided to become."
Movement stirred on his left again. His bad eye and bad arm were crippling his left flank. Get out of the smoke, his mind whispered, Out of the woods. Go up, hurry, stop letting this traitor distract you.
Doflamingo didn't move.
"What I've become," he said, rolling the words on his tongue, "How sanctimonious."
"You disagree?"
The ghost flashed through his mind, butterflies sprouting from its dirt-smudged palms. Look at you, what have you become? Anger heated his gut.
There was a low sigh though, before Doflamingo could respond.
"I don't understand you at all. She used to say everything deserved its chance, remember? Why're you so set on believing otherwise?"
Sweat beaded on Doflamingo's temple. He brushed away the tender, washed-out face.
"Don't bring her into it."
"Then tell me. What on earth makes you hate like this?" Frustration opened bright in his tone. "How long are we going to play this shit game of 'grin and bare it'?"
Doflamingo's vision went red. It was a skill Corazon was intrinsically adept at, as all younger siblings were.
xxx
"You mock me now?"
Rosinante was twenty feet away, Doffy's silhouette discernible through the smoke.
"...when you decided to take off without a backwards glance..."
Fifteen feet.
"...or a single word…"
Ten.
"...when you couldn't even wait until I got back first..."
Five and here was the thing.
He didn't particularly care anymore what Doffy's grudge was against the world. Hatred and pain distorted eventually into whims and pleasure, such things were obvious enough to him by this point. On the world, they'd made their positions clear. There were no festering, unhealed secrets between them.
No thoughts to be pried from the dark. Not about the world at least.
"...it fucking killed me…"
Rosinante stumbled. Barely caught himself with a pursed mouth.
"...fourteen years pissed away…"
Two.
"...AND YOU DARE RETURN TO PASS JUDGMENT? I'LL MAKE YOU WISH YOU NEVER STEPPED NORTH AGAIN—"
xxx
Corazon slammed into him. Every facet of weight, bone and muscle driving in from his left with unstoppable force. The breath smashed out of Doflamingo's lungs. His feet left the ground.
"Why..." Clammy hands cinched around his wrists. "...didn't you say anything?"
They fell down the hill.
xxx
In zero gravity, limbs snarled with his brother's, Rosinante's head spun and shuttered.
Why didn't you say anything?
Hypocrite. A boy in sunglasses drawled. Why didn't you?
xxx
(The girl was squatting amongst the courtyard's debris, recollecting the pink feathers and stuffing them into her jacket. Dory exhaled through his nose, finding her a peculiar and impromptu handful. He moved to stand near her (it was important to him somehow, that she didn't hurt herself), when he heard the singing. Jittering and high-pitched.
"With his gun of hefty iron...his blade of godly gold…
Dory spun around. There was a man on the other side of the yard, near the partially destroyed stucco wall, where the cage bars hung like a witch's nails. He was kneeling between the husks of ill-grown palmettos. Gale had deposited mounds of snow on his shoulders and head.
"There you are, Dory."
Dory's brows lifted in recognition as he caught the thinning hair, a noticeably greasy brown even in the distance. It was the newest recruit. Isaac's cousin. No other name was coming to him.
"Look," Isaac's cousin said, pointing with a giggle at the floating corpses, "See that? It did that. The Monster."
Dory didn't reply.
"Old Isaac must be dead too." He swiped his hand shut, making a mashing noise with his mouth. "The Monster stretched its rank claws off the island and grinded him into talc. Poor cuz never knew."
The man leapt to his feet. The coney alertness of his eyes was gone, replaced by a damp mass of fog.
"I saw it personally too, Dory. It was spreading evil down in the hills. I shot it twice close range, but it got away." Isaac's cousin tapped his fist against his left shoulder and arm. "Pow. Pow."
He laughed again.
"Which hero will bear arms against this devil? Think of the women, the children, the crew formerly known as the Barrels Pirates."
He paused suddenly, twisting his stringy neck towards the clouds. Squinted very carefully. Snot dripped from his nose.
"So quiet now, isn't it?"
Dory walked away. There was nothing he could say to Isaac's cousin now.)
xxx
They landed in another damn clearing. The impact jounced Rosinante loose from his brother and sent him tumbling several feet across the snow, before he landed on his back, breathless and groaning, icy flakes down his coat. He thought he heard Doffy groan too.
With effort, Rosinante flipped onto his stomach, coughing up snow. A black rippling film crowded his vision, the same words echoing in each fold.
killed me it killed me
His brother staggered back up, glasses cracked. Fresh blood had bloomed over his right torso. Clipped on a rock probably, not that Doffy gave even the remotest indication he felt it beyond a minor graze.
A surge of delirium-infused fondness washed over Rosinante, flooding into his exasperation. Doffy's pain tolerance was always so goddamn unnerving.
He'd lost count of how many times his brother had taken advantage of it to shield him from the abuse of the mob, huddling over him without a sound, barely a breath. Walking home with his back torn to shreds and reassuring Rosinante he was fine each of the thirty times he asked.
It was starting to hurt his chest to think about, so Rosinante stopped. Then he tried to rise as well, almost fell over from all the spots and realized his chest was just hurting in general.
A tight, blistering pinch. Rosinante's lips went white.
Not yet. Not yet not yet not yet.
The flare cooled again, after another second. It wouldn't keep waiting for him though, this he knew. The Isshi-20 could only do so much. He had to keep talking. Let it all out now while he had the chance. While he could.
Rosinante forced himself to stand.
xxx
"I did leave you here." Corazon swayed. "I did run. But it wasn't my intention to cause you pain, not ever." Bemusement creased Corazon's expression, his bruise-ringed eyes flickering. The crown of his head tilted at a faint angle.
"I suppose...I had no real concept that it'd hurt you like this."
Doflamingo stared, silent. A muscle in his cheek jumped, livid. Mocking him. He was still mocking him.
"No concept?" His hand lifted from his wound. "You little…"
They both froze.
Somewhere close came the distinct plink of acrylic, an object bouncing and falling across rocks. Doflamingo's hand flew to his front pocket, where he had stuffed the message tube with all of Dressrosa's unknown vulnerabilities. In its place was a torn and empty hole.
Doflamingo sprinted past without a word.
Heard Corazon swear and give chase.
xxx
Doffy with his fucking head-start reached the container first. Didn't matter since Rosinante tripped him. Or tripped himself and clawed his brother down too. They half-rolled, coats flying.
They scarcely noticed the ground they were on, narrow and jutted, that same obsidian bluff Rosinante had found the lone marine boat under. That one he had arrived beneath the shadow of, carrying a dying child.
Matching scar-riddled fists and steel legs flashed beneath the stars, broad titan forms of gold and feathers colliding together. Hands scrabbled after the message tube, limbs shoving and elbowing each other.
Rosinante came close several times, the cold, acrylic curve skimming his fingertips.
It was in the moment when his hand actually closed around the tube that he made the mistake of punching his brother in the gut. Doffy punched him almost straight in the chest in return. A shout escaped Rosinante, sharp and uncontrollable. His brother jerked in surprise beneath him.
There was a rush of color, a gush of black like a spurted artery. Rosinante's hand went weak and loose. His vision didn't return until he had almost face-planted into the ground, managing to brace himself on an elbow.
Coughs bubbled out. Wretched, strangled, a slimy stickiness clinging to his throat.
Please. His hand dragged down his burning shirtfront. Please not yet.
He wiped his mouth and turned to see Doffy watching him.
xxx
He had clambered to his feet for the thousandth time, teeth beared in sizzling contempt, when Corazon started to cough. Almost bowled over, loose feathers falling. Maintaining his little show of-
An arc of sputum sprayed the snow, frothy and pink. Doflamingo's glare vanished like mist.
Corazon made a disgusted noise as he scrubbed his mouth. His eyes flashed to Doflamingo for a second, before looking away and righting himself.
"So big of you to wait," he said, wryness scraping his voice like a shard of brittle metal. Doflamingo didn't respond. Corazon's brow rose tiredly. "Wha-" he began and coughed hard a second time. It was like a gate hinge, the wheeze and drag of his lungs. Rang in Doflamingo's ears, sudden as a bell. The stained snow shined in his frames.
His mouth opened on its own.
"The boy...he said you were..."
Corazon glanced at the message tube, clutched again in Doflamingo's gloved hand. He tossed aside the launcher and unbuckled the empty grenade belt.
"Never mind what the kid said."
Corazon stumbled towards him, weaving like a drunken man. His eyes were glazing, his lips stained and ocean blue.
"Trebol told me," he slurred, "that our paths were already set. Our story already written." He lifted his hand, palm open. "Was he right, brother?"
His shivering fingers crooked, summoning the Nagi Nagi.
Too slow, a voice crowed, Kill him.
End him finish him you win. Doesn't matter if it's right, wrong, what you wanted.
You made him pay.
You win.
Doflamingo hesitated and took a step back.
Blue threads spiraled from Corazon's fingertips. They leapt across the space and towards his chest. It was like a specter phasing through glass. No pain, no sensation of any sort, but the threads began to glow and he saw his own heartbeat pulsating alive in their lengths.
Just like that, he knew he was dead.
It was in front of him, unfurling in his splintered lenses, black with retribution.
DeathDeathdeatH
Its gaze was wine-red and brick-dust. It had abandoned him and betrayed him and tucked small cold feet against him in the winter. It had smiled at him. Loved him. They were blood. One half of each other. They were supposed to be together. He'd have done anything for it, anything, anything, anything—
Death fell over.
Limp and stringless. Doflamingo felt the 'thwump' more than heard it. A jolt like thunder, solid and universal. A vibration through his limbs.
Corazon was face-down in the snow. His arms were still splayed, his coat still settling around him. His profile, curtained in gold sweat-soaked hair, was dim with resignation.
Silence.
Doflamingo stared. He touched his chest and the threads detached and came apart in his hand. Dissolved as though dust. He looked back up.
Beneath the bluff, the waves were a slow gray whisper.
xxx
It was a long while, before he heard his brother approaching. Felt his footsteps beneath the ice and the earth and the stone. The leather wingtips of shoes appeared in his peripherals. Rosinante breathed shallowly. It was all he could do. Perhaps Doffy would even make it quick.
This is fine, he thought, The Family will be caught. Baby, Buffalo and Dellinger are safe. Law's going to live. He's free. It's enough. I tried and I won't blame myself for Dressrosa.
The message tube landed near his nose. Rosinante stared. Then he shifted to peer at the shadow eclipsing him. The cage beyond hummed a slow gray song.
Doffy clutched his bad arm. Crimson shards fell from his left lens, revealing a clouded disc.
"You should've just stayed away," he said, "And lived your life the way you wanted." He teetered on a heel. "Spared us all this."
He limped away.