-Broadcast-
The revelation of his family's eternal damnation did not simply shatter Senior Pink's spirit; it eviscerated it, leaving behind a hollowed-out husk of the man he once was. The hardened executive, a man who had navigated the treacherous currents of the underworld and stood unflinching in the face of death, now found himself utterly broken before the crushing weight of a justice that transcended life and death. His unwavering loyalty to Doflamingo, the very cornerstone of his existence, began to fracture, the cracks spreading like a spiderweb across a frozen lake.
"I'm sorry, Russian... I am a creature beneath contempt," he rasped, the words catching in his throat like shards of glass. He struck himself, not with the performative flair of a troubled man, but with the brutal, self-loathing force of a soul truly lost. The blow echoed in the cavernous factory, a sickening crunch of bone and flesh that split his lip and sent a spray of crimson across the cold floor.
"I have failed you both in every way. The lives I have taken, the blood that stains my hands... it was all for nothing," Senior continued his grim penance, each savage blow a desperate, futile attempt to exorcise the torment that consumed him. But no amount of physical agony could touch the profound devastation that Russian's spectral words had unleashed. The sins of his past now clung to him like a shroud, their weight dragging him down into an abyss of despair.
For the gilded ambitions of the Donquixote Family, he had willingly sacrificed everything of true worth. His son, Gimlet, had succumbed to a fever while he was away on a mission, his small life extinguished in his absence. Russian, his beloved wife, had slipped into a vegetative state, her mind lost to the darkness while he secured yet another lucrative arms deal. And now, even in the cold embrace of death, the two souls he cherished most were being forced to pay the gruesome price for his choices.
From the ethereal plane, Russian watched her husband's violent self-flagellation. A flicker of her former tenderness, a ghost of the love they once shared, surfaced for a fleeting moment before being brutally extinguished by the searing flames of her renewed resentment. His suffering, however profound, was but a pale imitation of the years of hellish torment she had endured. What was this grotesque display truly meant to accomplish? Who was this desperate performance for? The universe? Or the tattered remnants of his own conscience?
Through the fog of his guilt and the suffocating grip of his desperation, the tactical mind of Senior Pink, honed by years of navigating the treacherous underworld, began to stir. There had to be a way, some desperate gambit to deliver his family from their eternal punishment. In a gesture of raw sincerity, he activated his Sui Sui no Mi, the Swim-Swim Fruit, and dove into the unforgiving earth. He returned moments later, bearing the skeletal remains of Brook, placing them with a reverent and trembling hand before the Soul King.
Brook's emerald spirit regarded the scene with a detached curiosity. The man was clearly desperate, and desperation, as he well knew, had a way of making even the most resolute individuals... negotiable. The musician seamlessly re-inhabited his physical form, the click and clack of his bones echoing in the tense silence. He flexed his joints, a flicker of satisfaction in his hollow eye sockets as he noted his subterranean sojourn had caused no lasting harm.
"If you have questions, I suggest you ask them. My time is a commodity in short supply."
Without a moment's hesitation, Senior Pink fell to his knees, his forehead striking the factory floor with a force that left a bloody imprint. When he finally raised his head, his eyes were those of a man who had stared into the abyss and seen it stare back. His voice, when it came, was a ragged whisper, heavy with the weight of a broken man's plea.
"My lord... if I were to die now, and allow those I have wronged to claim their vengeance upon my soul, would my wife and child be spared their torment?"
Brook stroked his bony chin, the gesture a parody of thoughtful contemplation. He weighed the cosmic scales, the implications of such a transaction echoing through the unseen realms. After what felt like an eternity, he delivered his chilling verdict.
"An exchange of your soul for theirs is... possible," the Soul King confirmed, his voice devoid of warmth or pity. "But you must comprehend the totality of the consequences. Tainted as they are by the shadow of your karmic sins, they will be cast back into the relentless cycle of reincarnation. Most likely, their new existence will be within one of the three lower realms."
In a single, terrifying conversation, Senior Pink had learned more about the horrifying machinations of the afterlife than in his entire criminal existence. The concept of reincarnation was a foreign, terrifying notion to the inhabitants of the Grand Line.
Witnessing her husband's confusion, a confusion that mirrored her own past ignorance, Russian's spectral form shimmered, and she provided the grim education he so desperately needed. "The Six Paths of Reincarnation are the potential destinations for all souls: Heaven, the realm of the divine; Asura, the realm of warring demigods; Human, the realm of earthly existence; Animal, the realm of instinct and survival; Ghost, the realm of eternal hunger and servitude; and Hell, the realm of unending torment. It is the fundamental, inescapable mechanism of spiritual circulation throughout all of existence."
The three lower paths – Animal, Ghost, and Hell – offered no solace, no glimmer of hope. Senior's face, already a mask of despair, darkened further as he envisioned his beloved wife and child trapped in a new, even more horrific cycle of suffering.
Sensing his mounting terror, Russian, in a final, desperate act of maternal love, made her own heart-wrenching proposal. "Lord Brook... is it possible for me to transfer the merit of my own good deeds to my child?"
A flicker of surprise, a rare crack in his stoic facade, registered on Brook's skeletal features. "You grasp the full weight of such a sacrifice, do you not, Russian? The positive karma you have accumulated in your sheltered existence is meager at best. To bestow it all upon Gimlet might grant him the chance of a human rebirth... but you, in turn, would be cast into the ghost realm, a slave to the underworld for countless, agonizing eons."
The alternative was a vision of damnation that chilled them both to the core. Without intervention, both mother and child were destined for rebirth as livestock, their existence a brutal, unending cycle of being raised for slaughter, consumed, and reborn only to suffer the same fate again and again.
As the grim trio deliberated the cold, unfeeling calculus of cosmic justice, their somber council was shattered by the intrusion of two familiar, unwelcome voices.
"Senior Pink, do not be swayed by the lies of that bag of bones!" Gladius's voice, laced with a desperate urgency, boomed through the factory entrance as he and Machvise burst onto the scene. "There is no hell, no reincarnation. To take your own life now is to play directly into their hands!"
Machvise, his massive frame trembling with a mixture of fear and bravado, nodded in vigorous agreement. "And even if such a place exists, what of it? We have lived as kings under the Young Master's banner in this life. Why should we trouble ourselves with what comes after?"
A sigh, like the rustling of dry leaves, escaped Brook's skeletal frame. He shook his head, a gesture of pity for their willful ignorance. Whether they chose to believe in the unyielding laws of cosmic justice or not, the final accounting would proceed, indifferent to their disbelief.
Senior Pink had heard enough. His years of unwavering loyalty to Doflamingo had been repaid, in his own mind, by his silent protection of Elsa and Anna, the Young Master's daughters with Violet. He had been the one to save them when their own mother would have seen them discarded, the one who had raised them when Doflamingo was consumed by his own ambition. His debt to the family was paid in full.
Now, a different, more profound responsibility called to him – a duty to the child he had so tragically failed in life.
"Machvise, Gladius... convey my apologies to the Young Master. Tell him I regret that I could not see his mission through to its conclusion." Senior's voice, though quiet, held a chilling finality. "I am going to hell, to stand as a shield for my woman and my child."
He turned his gaze to Russian's ethereal form, and for the first time since her terrifying appearance, a genuine smile touched his lips. It was not the forced, performative grin of his ridiculous baby costume, but the warm, loving expression he had reserved for their most cherished moments together.
"Do not stray too far, my love. I am coming to join you."
With a resolve as hard as the Armament Haki that now coated his hands, Senior Pink struck his own skull with a devastating, final blow. The sickening crunch of shattering bone was the last sound he would ever hear, his final, whispered words a testament to the man he truly was:
"Anna... Elsa... live well..."
The user of the Sui Sui no Mi, the man who could swim through the very earth, collapsed in a heap, his spirit finally free to face the judgment that awaited him in the shadowy depths of the underworld
-Real World-
Around the world, those who bore witness to these events through the enigmatic Sky Screen watched in stunned, horrified silence. In another, perhaps kinder, timeline, the subordinates of Senior Pink, overcome with a desperate fear, physically restrained their beloved boss, terrified that he might succumb to the same cosmic despair.
"Unhand me!" the present-day Senior Pink roared, his voice thick with a mixture of anger and desperation as his crew pinned his arms to his sides. "I have no intention of dying just yet! You are obstructing my view of the Sky Screen!"
But his men, who knew the depths of their captain's capacity for self-sacrifice all too well, were taking no chances. They would not lose him to the cold, indifferent machinations of a cruel and unforgiving cosmos.