-Broadcast: Pure Land-
One moment, Doflamingo was dying on the King's Plateau, his final words to Elsa cut short by death.
The next moment, he stood in an endless white void.
No ground beneath his feet—yet he didn't fall. No sky above—yet light came from everywhere and nowhere. No horizon, no buildings, no plants, no anything. Just infinite, silent whiteness stretching in all directions.
The silence itself was torture. No wind. No distant sounds. Just the deafening quiet of absolute nothingness.
"So this is what death looks like." Doflamingo raised his hands before his face, studying them with detached curiosity.
They were transparent. Translucent, like colored glass. He could see through his own palms, watch his fingers flex with a slight delay, as if movement itself had become uncertain here.
He reached for the Ito Ito no Mi's power—the strings that had defined him for decades.
Nothing responded.
He called upon his Haki—Conqueror's, Armament, Observation.
Silence.
I'm a ghost, he realized with cold finality. A spirit. Powerless. No threat to anyone anymore.
It was almost funny. The Heavenly Demon, reduced to a transparent shade in an empty void.
"Long time no see, brother."
The voice came from behind him—familiar, gentle, tinged with sadness.
Doflamingo spun around, eyes widening in recognition and disbelief.
Corazon stood there, looking exactly as he had the day Doflamingo killed him. Blonde hair. Kind eyes. That stupid heart-pattern shirt. The bullet wounds were gone, but the essence of him remained—that infuriating gentleness that had gotten him killed.
"No." Doflamingo's voice came out harsher than intended. "I am not happy to see you again, traitor. Is this my punishment? Eternity spent with the brother who betrayed me?"
Corazon's expression didn't change. No anger. No hurt. Just calm acceptance.
He's been here for years, Doflamingo realized. Cultivating that insufferable serenity. Of course death didn't teach him anything—he was already a saint when I shot him.
"I stayed in the Pure Land for one reason," Corazon said quietly. "To deliver a message. I met Father and Mother when I first arrived here, twenty years ago."
Doflamingo stiffened.
"They wanted me to tell you something, when you eventually came." Corazon's voice was impossibly gentle. "They've forgiven you. For everything. Father's death. Mother's suffering. All of it."
"Stop—"
"They blame themselves, not you. Said they failed to raise you properly. That your actions were their responsibility, not yours." Corazon smiled sadly. "I tried to tell them that wasn't true, that you made your own choices, but they wouldn't hear it. Parents never do."
"I said stop—"
"They love you, Doffy. Even now. Even after everything. They just wish..." Corazon's form began to shimmer, as if he was fading. "They wish they could have understood you better. Reached you before the pain made you into what you became."
"ENOUGH!"
Doflamingo's spirit flickered violently, his emotional turmoil manifesting as visual distortion. Cracks appeared across his transparent form like lightning through glass.
Don't talk about them. Don't you DARE talk about Father and Mother like they were saints. Father's idealism killed Mother. His principles murdered her as surely as any disease. And they forgive ME? They blame THEMSELVES?
The unfairness of it—the sheer wrongness—made him want to scream until his throat bled. But he had no throat anymore. No blood. Just rage with nowhere to go.
Corazon felt the pull then. An invisible rope around his waist, tugging upward with gentle but inexorable force. His time in the Pure Land was over. The cycle of reincarnation was calling him back.
"Goodbye, Donquixote Doflamingo." Corazon's voice was fading now, his form becoming more transparent by the second. "I hope... I hope we don't meet again in the next life. I hope you find peace in whatever comes next."
No blame. No accusations. No curses.
Just goodbye and a wish for peace.
Doflamingo watched his brother ascend—literally rise into the white void, dissolving into particles of light that drifted upward like reverse snow. Within moments, Corazon was gone completely.
He didn't blame me. Not once. Not even at the end.
The realization was worse than any punishment. Worse than torture. Worse than an eternity of suffering.
Because it meant Corazon had truly forgiven him. And Doflamingo didn't know how to process that.
"Fools," he muttered, voice cracking. "You're all fools. Father was a fool. Corazon was a fool. Mother was a fool for believing in Father's dreams. And I'm the biggest fool of all for caring about any of it."
But the self-deprecation rang hollow in the endless white void.
And then the ground beneath him turned black.
Doflamingo looked down just as countless hands—rotted, skeletal, dripping with ichor—erupted from the darkness. They grabbed his ankles, his legs, his waist, his arms. Cold, dead fingers digging into his spiritual flesh with crushing strength.
"What—?! Let go! LET GO OF ME!"
The hands pulled.
Doflamingo fell—or was dragged—into the abyss that had opened beneath him. The white void gave way to churning darkness, and the silence was replaced by screaming. Thousands of voices, all crying out in agony, in rage, in despair.
"No! I don't belong here! I'm—I was—"
A Celestial Dragon? a voice whispered from the darkness. The Pure Land has judged you, Donquixote Doflamingo. You do not deserve peace.
More hands grabbed him. Pulled him deeper. The faces of his victims flashed past—everyone he'd killed, enslaved, destroyed over decades of cruelty.
The Dressrosa citizens he'd turned into toys. The children he'd sold into slavery. The kingdoms he'd destabilized. The lives he'd ruined for profit and entertainment.
They were all waiting for him in Hell.
"This isn't fair! I was owed this! The world took everything from me first! I was just—"
Taking it back? Another voice, mocking. You're not the first to use that excuse. And you won't be the last.
The last thing Doflamingo saw before the darkness swallowed him completely was his brother's fading light—ascending to rebirth while he fell to eternal torment.
Even in death, Corazon gets the better ending.
Then the screaming began in earnest.
-Real World: Across the Seas-
The Pure Land's judgment of Doflamingo's soul was fascinating, but ultimately irrelevant to the living.
What mattered—what had every major power in the world scrambling to reassess their strategies—was the secret Elsa had casually revealed:
Someone has lived for eight hundred years.
The revelation spread across the seas like wildfire. Den Den Mushi networks buzzed with frantic communication. Intelligence agencies worked overtime analyzing the implications. Power brokers held emergency meetings.
An immortal Celestial Dragon. Someone who'd witnessed the Void Century firsthand. A being who'd existed since the World Government's founding.
The ramifications were staggering.
-Somewhere in the New World: Kaido's Ship-
Kaido stood on the deck of Doflamingo's merchant vessel—commandeered for his journey—staring at the Sky Screen with uncharacteristic stillness.
His first mate, King, stood beside him in equal silence. Neither had noticed their ship drifting off course, the helmsman too terrified to interrupt their thoughts.
Finally, Kaido spoke: "From the moment the World Government was established... one Celestial Dragon has lived until now. Over eight hundred years. Am I understanding that correctly, King?"
"That appears to be the case." King's voice was measured, but his eyes burned with intensity behind his mask. "Unfortunately, Elsa didn't reveal the name. We have confirmation of existence, but no identity."
Kaido's grip tightened on the ship's railing, the wood groaning under the pressure. "How strong would someone who's lived eight hundred years be?"
The question hung in the air like a challenge.
The strongest creature in the world, people called Kaido. But that title suddenly felt hollow. Meaningless. If someone had been perfecting their power for eight centuries—accumulating Haki mastery, Devil Fruit mastery, combat experience beyond mortal comprehension...
"Perhaps," Kaido said slowly, a manic grin spreading across his face, "that title belongs to them instead."
King remained silent, watching his captain's mood shift from shock to excitement.
"I need to challenge them." Kaido's grin widened, revealing sharp teeth. "I need to fight someone who's lived that long. See if their power matches their age. Test myself against eight hundred years of experience!"
This was what he'd been missing. This hunger. This burning need to find an opponent worthy of his full strength.
For years, Kaido had felt stagnant. He'd attempted suicide in every way imaginable, seeking death as the ultimate challenge. He'd picked fights with Whitebeard, only for that old monster to refuse serious combat. The lack of worthy opponents had left him hollow.
But now...
"I don't just want to be a Yonko," Kaido declared, his Conqueror's Haki leaking out in waves that made the ship's crew collapse unconscious. "I want to be the Pirate King. The world's king. The strongest being in existence. And to do that, I need to surpass someone who's ruled for eight centuries!"
King nodded slowly. "But how do you force them to reveal themselves? An immortal Celestial Dragon would have significant motivation to remain hidden."
Kaido's grin became absolutely feral. "That's where Buggy comes in."
"The Clown?"
"Think about it, King. Why would Buggy attack Mary Geoise in the future? What would motivate him to assault the Celestial Dragons' stronghold?" Kaido's eyes gleamed with manic intelligence. "He must know their secret. Must know about the immortal. And his attack might be designed to draw them out!"
The pieces fell into place in Kaido's mind, forming a beautiful, violent picture.
"If Buggy makes trouble in the front..." Kaido's laugh echoed across the ocean. "Then I'll make trouble in the back! We'll squeeze the World Government from both sides! Force that ancient monster to show their face!"
The future is getting interesting, Kaido thought with savage delight. For the first time in years, I'm actually looking forward to what comes next.
The seas had been boring for too long. It was time to shake things up.
As for Kaido's so-called closest ally, Doflamingo had just finished breeding with a group of engineered females. The entire process had left him with no opportunity to check the sky screen. The moment he stepped out of the breeding chamber, he found every scientist in the facility staring directly at him.
He couldn't make sense of their expressions. The researchers' eyes were cold and calculating, while the God's Knights assigned to monitor him radiated unmistakable killing intent. The atmosphere was suffocating, as if the air itself had thickened.
He still didn't know what had appeared on the sky. But whatever it was, it clearly spelled trouble for him. Doflamingo had the distinct feeling that a giant, flashing DANGER sign was hanging over his head.
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