"Fufufufu… you let them walk, little brother."
Doffy's mocking laughter slithered through the silence as he strolled toward me, his coat singed and ragged, his body carved with burns and gashes that spoke of the carnage he had endured. Yet his smile remained, cruel and unyielding. My eyes, however, never left the distant horizon—the direction where Rocks and Linlin had vanished into the storm. The air still trembled faintly from their departure, like reality itself feared their lingering presence.
My gaze drifted toward Doffy, just for a heartbeat, enough to register the strain in his posture, the subtle hitch in his breath. His battered form was living proof of how brutal his clash with Linlin had been. And yet… that was not what unsettled me.
"We need to be cautious about this one, Doffy," I said quietly, my voice carrying a weight he rarely heard from me. "There is something… fundamentally wrong with him. Rocks is not just alive—he's fractured, torn between himself and something else entirely. Whatever he is now, whoever he has become… he's dangerous. More dangerous than when he shook the seas decades ago. This is not the time we make him our enemy—not yet."
Doffy snorted sharply, waving a hand dismissively, though I saw the flicker of unease in his eyes.
"Fufufu… cautious, are we? Since when did my little brother start quaking in his boots? It's Rocks, Rosinante. Rocks! We already speculated there was a chance he'd crawled back from whatever grave he disappeared into. Now we've confirmed it. Good. It doesn't change a damn thing. Our plan stays the same."
But then he stopped.
The grin faltered, ever so slightly, as his eyes narrowed at me. The playfulness that usually cloaked him in arrogance peeled away, leaving only the calculating predator beneath. He had seen it—my expression hadn't shifted, hadn't softened, even after his bravado. There was no relief in me, no smirk, no confidence. Just the same grim, unwavering seriousness.
His voice lowered, all trace of laughter gone.
"…Is there something you're not telling me, Rosinante?"
The tension between us thickened, heavier than the smoke still rising from the shattered islands around us. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Doffy wasn't laughing. He wasn't wearing that cruel smirk of a king mocking the world. No—he was watching me with sharp eyes, like an elder brother realizing his younger sibling was carrying a burden that should have been his to shoulder.
I let out a sharp exhale, forcing the heaviness from my chest.
"I'm not sure yet, Doffy… but we'll know sooner or later."
Then I turned my full attention to him, my expression shifting—melting from grim steel into something else entirely. My lips curled into a teasing grin, the kind I hadn't worn in years, and my voice dripped with playful disapproval.
"Look at you. You fought her for just a couple of hours and you're already battered like an old warhorse. And what was that black flame I saw? Hm? Don't tell me… have you crossed the threshold already, Doffy?"
Doffy clicked his tongue, his sulk so exaggerated it almost felt comical. His massive frame slumped as if I'd just punctured his pride with a needle.
"Fufufufu… most of the world would drop to their knees in awe at what I just did—clashing with that undead hag Linlin head-to-head for so long, and even managing to make her retreat. And yet here's my own little brother, disappointed."
He threw his hands up dramatically, tilting his head back as though wounded by betrayal, but the act cracked almost immediately. His eyes gleamed with pride as he straightened, the very air rippling when black flames suddenly licked along his fingertips. They twisted and hissed, hungry and unnatural, their glow casting his grin in a demonic light.
"I'm not there yet… but I am standing at the threshold. And soon, Rosinante, my devil fruit will surpass mere awakening. This flame—" he held up his burning hand, eyes glittering with unholy delight, "—this is my Hell Flame. A fire that cannot be extinguished. Not by water, not by wind… not by any—"
Snuff.
Before he could finish, I casually pinched the black fire between my fingers like one would snuff a candlewick. The inferno sputtered out instantly, leaving only a wisp of smoke that curled lazily in the air.
Doffy froze. His jaw tightened as he stared at the spot where his so-called eternal flame had just been extinguished as if it were nothing. I smirked.
"Maybe others won't know how to deal with your fancy hellfire, Doffy. But me? All it takes is a stronger will to smother it. But I have to admit infusing your haki into the flame sure is amazing."
I stepped closer, my grin sharp and mischievous—an expression I had stolen from him long ago.
"Heh… it seems you still have a lot of training left, brother. And now that I'm back home, I'll personally make sure you get it. Maybe Ishho has been going easy on you…"
The words made Doffy stiffen ever so slightly. The bravado slipped for just a heartbeat, replaced with the faintest flicker of dread. His lips curved into a plain, flat line as he gave me a long, knowing stare. He understood exactly what kind of "training" I meant. To call it training would be a joke—it was nothing short of hell.
"…Rosinante," he muttered, his voice stripped of mockery for once. His tone was half-pleading, half-exasperated. "Not that again."
I chuckled darkly, patting his shoulder with mock sympathy.
"Exactly that, brother. Time to pay back all those 'lessons' that you have missed while I was away."
"Well, that aside…" Doffy finally broke the silence, his tone shifting back to business as the ruined island groaned beneath us, crumbling apart and sinking into the sea piece by piece. The fractured earth bled into the waves, each collapse echoing like the heartbeat of a dying titan. His eyes, sharp and calculating even through exhaustion, flicked toward me.
"We have many things to discuss, Rosinante; quite a few things happened while you were away. What about the information we were looking for? Did you find it in Elbaf?"
I nodded slowly, my gaze drifting to the horizon where the smoke of battle still lingered like scars across the sky.
"I did. I managed to uncover everything we needed regarding the Gallelia tribe. If the giants unearthed beneath Punk Hazard are truly them… then we've struck a jackpot, Doffy. Especially if we can revive even a handful of them."
My words hung heavy between us, the sea hissing around the sinking rubble. I hadn't yet laid eyes on the frozen colossi myself—their forms locked in eternal slumber, entombed beneath Punk Hazard's cursed ice. But the records, the tales etched in Elbaf's forgotten libraries, painted the picture vividly enough.
The Gallelia weren't just any tribe of giants—they were the master builders of the ancient world. The ones who shaped kingdoms from mountains, who carved fortresses into the bones of the earth. If the legends were true, they alone had the knowledge and hands capable of birthing a new ancient weapon.
For years, our ambition had been shackled by this very hurdle. Plans, fragments, and theories were nothing without craftsmen of their caliber. But if fate had truly placed the frozen Gallelia into our grasp… then one of our greatest obstacles had just been obliterated.
Doffy's grin spread slowly, that predator's smile that could chill gods. He tilted his head back, the fire of obsession glinting in his eyes even as the island died beneath us.
"Well… from the way Einstein bragged, I've no doubt he'll manage to revive at least a few. Out of the hundreds we've harvested from Punk Hazard, all it takes is one tribe, one builder, to bring the blueprint to life…"
He chuckled, low and dangerous, his voice blending with the sound of the sea swallowing stone.
****
Room of Authority, Mary Geoise
"Are you absolutely certain about this… Mjosgard?" Elder Mars' ancient brow arched, surprise flickering across features usually carved in stone. Of all the Celestial Dragons, of all the pawns in play, it was the one they had overlooked most—the timid, broken aristocrat—who was proving to be one of their sharpest blades against the Donquixote brothers.
"Yes, Gorosei-sama. I am absolutely certain." Mjosgard's voice was steady, his back ramrod straight as he stood before them. The arrogance, the entitlement of his heritage—those traits were gone. In their place was the poise of a servant who had devoted his very existence to the will of the Elders. His one empty sleeve hung loose, swaying with the faint draft in the chamber. The right hand that once bore a Celestial Dragon's signet had been ripped away long ago—torn from him during Doflamingo's attack on Mary Geoise.
And yet, here he stood, stripped of pride, stripped of privilege, a loyal husk. Or so they believed.
"Doflamingo himself reached out to me in secret," Mjosgard continued crisply, each word measured like a soldier's march. "He wished to know if the World Government had orchestrated the recent attack on Dressrosa. From his tone, I can surmise that whoever their enemy was… rattled them. And more importantly—Rosinante has returned to Dressrosa."
The room stilled. Even among the Gorosei, that name carried weight.
"What else did he share?" Elder Saturn's gravelly voice rumbled, testing for cracks in Mjosgard's composure.
Unflinching, Mjosgard relayed the details—clear, concise, never stumbling. He spoke for several minutes, his tone unwavering, while the elders' minds sharpened, filtering truths from irrelevancies. His empty sleeve twitched once, but his face remained cold, his deference flawless.
"You are doing well, Mjosgard," Elder Nusjuro finally declared, eyes narrowing as they lingered on the man's missing arm. "Continue to deceive those brothers. Gain their full trust. When the time comes, you shall be the dagger we drive into their hearts."
Then, almost indulgent, Nusjuro leaned forward. "We do possess a few Logia fruits in our collection—powers befitting a true Dragon. One might cure your… inconvenience. What say you, Mjosgard? Shall we restore what you've lost?"
The other Elders did not object. For once, they agreed: he had earned the gesture. Once dismissed as weak, perhaps even suspect after his father's death during the Native Hunting Competitions, Mjosgard had proven himself through years of service. Their doubts had eroded under the weight of his apparent loyalty.
Mjosgard bowed, his remaining hand curling tightly around the limp, empty sleeve where his arm had once been. His jaw tightened; his face twisted, a flicker of rage threatening to surface—rage he buried instantly in the presence of the Elders.
"I thank you for your consideration, Elder-sama," he said softly, reverently. "But I must decline. I will gladly accept such a gift… once my vengeance is fulfilled. Until then, this wound will serve as my reminder—my compass pointing to who my true enemy is."
The Elders exchanged approving glances. His words reeked of resolve, of hatred sharpened into loyalty. They nodded, pleased.
But what they could not see was the truth buried beneath Mjosgard's measured mask. His "enemy" was not the Donquixote brothers. No—his true allegiance, his true devotion, had been carved in blood long ago. The years of carefully offered morsels of intelligence, the whispers he fed them—all were orchestrated. Doflamingo's hand had guided every word, every truth, every lie.
Mjosgard was their loyal pawn only in the theater of illusion. In reality, he was Doflamingo's man through and through, a loyalist who wore chains of deception like armor.
"Fine," Elder Mars finally said, his voice dismissive as his hand flicked lazily through the air. "We look forward to that day. Continue your work. You may leave."
And just like that, their most prized double agent was waved away like dust on the wind. To them, he was only a tool. A pawn. A crippled servant fortunate enough to be allowed to serve.
Mjosgard bowed low, reverence in every movement. He left the chamber with silent steps, his head lowered in obedience. Only once the heavy doors closed behind him did his lips curl into the faintest of smiles—cold, knowing, dangerous.
The Elders believed they commanded his soul. But his soul had long since been sold to Doflamingo.
"So…?" Elder Warcury broke the silence once Mjosgard's footsteps had faded beyond the threshold. His sharp gaze slid across the chamber toward Elder JuPeter, who had been watching every flicker of Mjosgard's expression during the report, as though dissecting him with his eyes.
JuPeter leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. "The information he provided is consistent with what we received from Cipher Pol operatives embedded near Dressrosa," he admitted, his voice low and measured.
"In fact… his details surpass what our agents managed to acquire. He spoke with clarity, precision, and insight. Honestly, the scope of his intelligence forces me to reconsider our earlier doubts. Perhaps our caution toward him has been misplaced. If only more of the Celestial Nobles carried such… utility."
The rare praise lingered in the chamber like smoke.
Warcury's lips curved into a thin smile. "Utility indeed. Perhaps we should exploit that loyalty further—use Mjosgard to deliver the decisive blow against the Donquixote brothers. Imagine the irony of watching their trusted dog turn on them."
But before his words could gather momentum, Saturn's staff cracked gently against the marble floor. The sound echoed, silencing the room. His aged eyes glimmered with a calculating darkness.
"No." His voice was iron, unyielding. "Mjosgard may appear insignificant to us, but in Doflamingo's eyes he is indispensable. The boy relies on him as a mouthpiece within the Holy Land. That makes him far more valuable alive, and unsuspected. We should not burn that card prematurely." Saturn's grip tightened on his staff as he continued.
"Instead, we will keep him in play. Feed him truths laced with lies. Let him carry our words into Doflamingo's ears. And when the time is right, when the stage demands it, Mjosgard will be the dagger we drive into his master's heart. Even someone like Doflamingo would never realize it then before it's too late…"
The others considered this in silence. For all Warcury's hunger for blood, even he could not deny the wisdom in Saturn's words. As long as Mjosgard's loyalty was with them, they could manipulate Doflamingo the way they wanted, feeding him false information, and for that to happen, Mjosgard needed to gain the absolute trust of Doflamingo.
Yet, Saturn's gaze grew distant, heavy with darker thoughts. His mind was not on Mjosgard but on the greater unknown—the shadow that had dared strike Dressrosa. For the Donquixote brothers had grown into monsters, creatures feared even in the New World, and yet some unseen hand had crossed into their dominion and made them falter. That truth gnawed at him more than any play of pawns.
Even the Gorosei could not ignore the question: Who was bold enough, strong enough, to challenge those two in their own nest?
"And the Marines?" Saturn asked suddenly, dragging his attention back into the chamber. His eyes locked onto Nusjuro.
The elder with the long blade gave a small nod. "Sengoku has already mobilized a marine fleet. He dispatched Garp and Aokiji into Donquixote territory. Their mission is to confirm the credibility of the reports and assess the scale of Dressrosa's devastation."
"Garp…" Warcury spat the name like poison on his tongue, the syllables rolling with distaste.
"Perhaps he alone possesses the strength to enter Dressrosa and walk back out alive without sparking an all-out war with the Donquixote brothers. The dog of the Marines may be reckless, but even those brothers tread carefully around him."
"True, and if any other ships from our side try to cross into their territory, they are sure to be shot down,"" Saturn murmured, though the thought seemed to trouble him.
Nusjuro's voice cut through the heaviness, cold and deliberate. "Do we have any commissioned officers among the fleet accompanying Garp? If so, instruct them to pass a message discreetly to Agana."
The chamber stirred at the name. Nusjuro's eyes narrowed to slits. "It is time to test where her loyalty truly lies. She has been adrift in the Donquixote's cage for too long. A discarded piece, yes, but a piece nonetheless. If she responds, then perhaps she may still be turned into a thread worth weaving back into our tapestry."
The marble chamber seemed to shrink with the weight of his words. The elders' expressions were masks, but the implication was clear: to them, Agana's survival under Doflamingo was less a miracle and more a test of fate. If she still breathed, it was because she served some unseen purpose. And now, they would decide whether that purpose served them—or ended with her blood.
****
The grand plaza stretched like a gilded artery from the gates of Pangea Castle, paved in white marble that gleamed beneath the eternal sun. Every slab of stone had been cut and polished by slave hands, every column lining the path carved from treasures stolen from fallen kingdoms. This was the heart of the Celestial Dragons' power — the pathway of gods, reserved for those who fancied themselves rulers of the world.
And down this hallowed road walked Donquixote Mjosgard.
He kept his head bowed slightly, the very picture of humility and devotion, yet carrying the dignity of a dragon. His right sleeve hung empty, pinned neatly at the shoulder where his arm had once been.
At his flanks walked two soldiers clad in immaculate white armor, their steps in perfect rhythm with his own. They were not mere guards. They were his most loyal shadows, the same men who had followed him when the Land of the Gods was thrown into chaos during Doflamingo's rampage. It had been the one to his right who, at Mjosgard's whispered order, had severed his hand cleanly — a sacrifice made not in desperation, but in strategy. A mark of loyalty, a price paid for deception.
And one that, years later, still burned in his mind as the day his true mask was born.
The pathway was alive with noise, though none of it joyous. The shrieks of slaves, the crack of whips, the drunken laughter of nobles. The plaza was a theater of cruelty where the Celestial Dragons flaunted their power.
Mjosgard's eyes, calm on the surface, swept across the plaza, and with the subtle reach of his observation haki he absorbed everything. Every cry. Every tremor of pain. Every flicker of life fading under chains. His chest tightened, but his steps did not falter. He had long since mastered the art of swallowing his rage.
The first sight cut into him like a blade. A Celestial Dragon's carriage — a gaudy monstrosity inlaid with gold and pulled by six half-starved men shackled to the harness — rolled slowly across the plaza. Inside, a bloated noble draped in silks and pearls sipped wine, his face flushed with excess.
He held a parasol over his head not to shield himself from the sun, but because the trembling woman kneeling beside him, chained at the neck, held it poorly. Each time the angle slipped and the light touched his face, he lashed her with a jeweled cane, laughing as she cried out and struggled to correct herself.
The crowd of world nobles cheered the display.
Mjosgard's fists clenched in his sleeves. He could feel the heat of his own blood rushing to his face, the urge to step forward, to cut through the carriage, to slaughter the parasite within. His haki pulsed with the reflex, yearning for release.
But he inhaled slowly, letting the rage fold into a cold, sharp blade inside his heart. Not yet. Killing one piglet did nothing. He was not here for scraps of vengeance. He was here to gut the entire herd.
They walked on.
The second sight was worse. At the fountain of the plaza — a towering sculpture of a Celestial Dragon trampling faceless humans under his feet — a crowd had gathered. At its center, a slave lay broken on the cobblestones. His skin was blistered, flesh burned by molten gold poured over his back as punishment for daring to resist. A child, no more than seven, sobbed at his side, reaching for his charred arm, begging in a voice that cracked with desperation.
"Papa… wake up… papa…"
The boy's cry was cut short when a noblewoman snapped her fingers. A hulking armored guard struck him down with the butt of his spear. The child collapsed in silence, blood pooling beneath his tiny head. The nobles clapped, amused, and the woman cooed, "So fragile… they break so easily. Maybe I should get myself a giant slave…"
Mjosgard felt his teeth grind. His vision trembled with red. He wanted nothing more than to unleash his haki, to turn this plaza into a graveyard, and to take down as many of these vermin as he could before the soldiers got to him. His observation haki picked up the final flicker of the child's life as it sputtered out — and something inside him screamed.
But his expression remained placid. He gave no sign, not even to his guards, of the storm raging in his chest.
Because vengeance demanded patience.
His cousin — Doflamingo, the man he owed everything to — had shown him the path. It was not through reckless rebellion, not through noble self-sacrifice that the so-called gods of Mary Geoise would be purged. No, it would be through infiltration. Through deception. Through striking at the root when the time was right.
So Mjosgard swallowed his rage and walked on.
Every step across the plaza was agony. Every scream was a reminder. Every lash, every sob, every body broken beneath the "gods" burned itself into his memory, feeding the fire within. He carried that fire like a second heart — beating, pulsing, waiting.
His two soldiers glanced at him, as they often did when the cruelty around them grew unbearable. They were men forged in blood beside him, men who knew the truth of his path. They had seen him sacrifice his own flesh to maintain the illusion of loyalty. They had sworn themselves to his vengeance, not to the Celestial Dragons he pretended to serve.
And so, when their hands twitched toward their weapons in barely contained rage, it was Mjosgard who stilled them with the smallest shake of his head. Not yet. Not here.
The grand avenue curved, leading toward the edge of Donquixote family estate — a palace that stood apart from the rest, its architecture humble compared to the rest of the Donquixote estate, marked with the remnants of a family that had once walked away from the Celestial Dragons and yet still lingered like a stain upon them. To most, Mjosgard was nothing more than a failed scion, a cripple clinging to relevance by serving the Elders. That was the mask he wore.
But beneath it burned something else. As the marble beneath his feet gleamed, as the laughter of nobles rattled through the air, Mjosgard's mind whispered the vow that had carried him through years of deception, through endless humiliation, through the hollow charade of loyalty.
One day, this false heaven will burn.
One day, I will tear these gilded streets apart stone by stone. I will end this "divinity," root and stem. I will do it not for myself, not for the hollow pride of my bloodline, but for the screams I hear every day in these streets, for the dead who cannot cry out anymore, for the cousin who gave me a path and the brotherhood I now serve in truth.
He walked on, his face serene, his sleeve empty, his patience unbroken. But deep inside, the fire roared louder. The Land of the Gods did not know it yet. The Elders did not suspect it. The nobles laughed unaware.
But Donquixote Mjosgard — their obedient pawn, their loyal cripple — was waiting for the day when his two hands, one of flesh and one of vengeance, would ignite the pyre that turned Mary Geoise into ash.