A deathly silence filled the council hall.
Doflamingo knelt on one knee with his head lowered. His pink feather coat lay in a messy heap behind him. Drops of blood slid from the corner of his mouth and fell onto the scattered white threads beneath him, staining them red.
The palm resting on his shoulder was not heavy, yet it felt like the weight of an entire island. He could not move an inch.
The String-String Fruit he took such pride in was a complete joke in the face of that unreasonable, brute-force Haki, like a child playing cat's cradle.
Humiliation. Rage. And a sliver of fear he refused to admit even to himself churned violently in his chest.
Suddenly, a suppressed laugh broke the silence.
"...Fuffuffuff...!"
Doflamingo slowly lifted his head. Between harsh, ragged breaths, he actually forced a grin onto his face, a grin so manic it bordered on madness.
Blood ran down his mouth, making the expression on his face look especially vicious.
"You can't kill me!" His voice was hoarse, yet brimming with a confidence that came from having something to lean on. "I'm a Celestial Dragon! Even if I'm not in the Holy Land, it doesn't change the fact that I'm a World Noble!"
That was his final shield, a privilege carved into his blood.
Kael's expression did not change at all. He bent slightly and leaned close to Doflamingo's ear, warm breath stirring Doflamingo's short blond hair.
"Do you remember God Valley, Doffy?"
The grin on Doflamingo's face froze instantly. Sealed memories were ripped open by force.
Back then, he had only been a child, following that naive father of his. Their family of four went to that island as "guests," Celestial Dragons there to watch.
And then chaos erupted.
The Rocks Pirates' attack.
A battle that tore the sky apart.
Cannon fire that blotted out the sun, pirates' laughter, slaves' furious roars, and those silhouettes, so powerful they made despair feel inevitable.
When it ended, the surviving Celestial Dragons fled in panic.
Afterward, there had been a report, crushed and buried by the upper ranks, vaguely mentioning three "sea beasts" with bizarre forms attacking scattered Celestial Dragons across the island, causing heavy casualties.
An absurd, yet terrifyingly real possibility exploded in his mind.
Behind the cracked lenses of his sunglasses, Doflamingo's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
No way.
Kael's whisper came like a devil's murmur, confirming the nightmare.
"It's exactly what you think."
"Celestial Dragons? The ones I kill are Celestial Dragons."
Boom.
Doflamingo's entire worldview collapsed.
The highest rule he relied on, the bloodline protection he worshipped, became a joke in front of this man.
Fear flooded up his spine like ice-cold tidewater, rushing straight to the crown of his skull.
For the first time, he felt how close death really was.
"W...why?" His voice trembled beyond his control. "How dare you?!"
Kael slowly straightened, returning to that lofty, superior stance.
His golden eyes held a near-divine indifference as he looked down on the flamingo trapped in shock at his feet.
"To destroy you... what's that to you?"
Doflamingo stared up in horror through the fractured lens.
This man's actions did not require reasons.
Killing Celestial Dragons did not require reasons.
Destroying the Donquixote Family did not require reasons.
Just like when a human crushes an ant, they do not stop to wonder what the ant did wrong.
It was simply because he wanted to, he could, and he did.
Doflamingo had no doubt the man before him truly would kill him.
In strength, and in motive.
The arrogance Kael displayed was not a bluff. It was born from absolute power, power sufficient to sneer at the rules of the entire world.
Doflamingo's mind spiraled into chaos as childhood nightmares and present reality intertwined.
The fire of being beaten and hunted by commoners, his father's weak tears, the Holy Land's cold steps, and the blood-soaked slaughter at God Valley that had been covered up.
Everything, all of it, finally converged into the same thing.
That gentle smile.
Kael looked at the man whose mental defenses had already shattered, and slowly raised his left hand.
Fingers together.
A knife-hand.
Doflamingo's pupils contracted violently. He wanted to dodge, to resist, to use anything at all to survive, but his body would not obey.
As that hand descended, he could even feel the path it carved through the air.
Death was that close.
Yet the blade of the hand stopped, grazing past his upright blond hair by the narrowest margin.
The next instant.
BOOM!!!
The space behind Doflamingo, along with the castle of rock and steel, was split by a smooth, enormous gouge.
Half the castle, and the mountain behind it, looked as if a god had erased it with an eraser. It slid, collapsed, and crumbled downward.
Sunlight poured through the massive gap, dragging Doflamingo's shadow long across the floor.
He sat there in a daze, sweat soaking his pink feather coat, his body shaking like a sieve.
If that knife-hand had shifted down just one centimeter, his head would already be separated from his body.
Kael withdrew his hand as if he had done something insignificant.
He slowly crouched down and met Doflamingo's eye level. That warm, gentle smile returned to his face.
"Doffy. You're good."
The sudden compliment made Doflamingo's brain seize up again.
"You're pure evil. That's what I like about you. But evil without power is just a child's tantrum, isn't it?"
Kael leaned in a little closer. His golden eyes reflected the cracked lenses of Doflamingo's sunglasses.
"Do you know why you were nailed to the wall in humiliation back then?"
Doflamingo's body jerked hard.
"Was it because your father, Donquixote Homing, was naive? Because the Celestial Dragons had committed evil for so long that people's rage finally exploded?
"No."
"Neither."
Kael extended a finger and tapped Doflamingo lightly in the chest.
"It was because you were weak."
"On this sea, weakness is the original sin! Your father was weak, so he couldn't protect his family. You were weak back then, so you could only watch your mother die of illness, watch yourself get nailed to a wall and humiliated to the bone! Every ounce of your pain, every ounce of your unwillingness, comes down to one thing. You weren't strong enough!"
Kael's voice was not loud, but every word stabbed straight into the heart, tearing open the truth Doflamingo had always avoided and laying it out dripping with blood.
Doflamingo's breathing turned ragged. His chest heaved violently. Behind those lenses, his eyes were surely bloodshot.
Kael watched him, and his smile grew more sincere.
"Be my right hand, Doffy."
He extended an invitation to the man whose will he had nearly crushed.
"You, the discarded Celestial Dragon who has seen hell. Follow me, and launch a grand revenge against those pigs who don't deserve their status!"
Kael rose to his feet, returning to that stance of looking down on all living things. He spread his arms as if to embrace the whole world.
"In this world, only I can fulfill your ambition!"
"Only I can take you back to Mary Geoise and let you nail those Celestial Dragons, one by one, onto the wall with your own hands!"
A brief silence fell across the hall.
Sunlight streamed through the enormous gap in the castle, illuminating dust motes drifting in the air.
Doflamingo remained collapsed on the ground, head lowered. No one could see his expression.
His body no longer trembled.
"Fuffuffuff..."
A laugh, long suppressed, finally unleashed.
Manic.
Unrestrained.
It echoed through the ruined palace and pierced the sky.
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