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The deceptive calm of Dressrosa's palace was shattered by the sound of hurried boots. A soldier, his face twisted with terror and exertion,
The deceptive calm of Dressrosa's palace was shattered by the sound of hurried boots. A soldier, his face twisted with terror and exertion, burst into the throne room, gasping. "Lord Doflamingo!" he panted, pointing a trembling hand toward the bay window overlooking the sea. "Your Birdcage! It's… it's been… cut! A massive breach! Dracule Mihawk…!"
Doflamingo, slouched on his throne, didn't stir. His frozen smile, hidden behind tinted glasses, didn't waver an inch. Only his fingers twitched slightly.
"Fufufu…" His low, guttural laugh echoed in the sudden silence. "You run like a frightened rabbit, soldier."
Before the man could utter another word, spectral white threads, thin as needles, erupted from the floor. They coiled around the messenger's neck with surgical precision. A choked gurgle, a brief spasm, and his head rolled across the polished marble with a dull thud as his body collapsed like a ragdoll. A spray of crimson splattered the base of the throne.
"Of course I know, fool," Doflamingo murmured, not sparing the corpse a glance. His unseen eyes turned to the frozen figures around him: Gladius, still stinging from his recent humiliation; Pica, chuckling nervously; Sugar, impassive on her seat; and the other officers, pale as death. "It's no surprise."
He rose slowly, his pink cape sweeping the floor. The air grew heavy with electric tension. "Listen well, my magnificent fools," his voice, stripped of all amusement, cut like a blade. "Dracule Mihawk thinks he's come to claim victory. He's mistaken. He's come to sign his death warrant. Kaido… is coming. All we have to do is hold."
A cruel smile curled his lips. "And to hold, the people…" His gesture encompassed the sleeping city beyond the windows. "…are our cannon fodder. Let them throw themselves into the wolf's jaws, slow him down, wear him out. Make them believe he's the butcher, slaughtering without distinction. Our friends in the media already know the script to spin. Fufufu… Let 'Hawk-Eye' be cursed as Dressrosa's plague."
His gaze sharpened, menacing. "But above all… protect the SMILE factories. Their destruction would be… unacceptable. Pica, Gladius!" The two giants stiffened. "You're with me. It's time to greet our honored guest. The rest of you…" His final order cracked like a whip. "…unleash chaos."
Without another word, Doflamingo strode across the room, nearly stepping on the messenger's corpse. Pica and Gladius fell in step behind him.
---
Dressrosa's port, usually bustling even at night, was a field of smoldering ruins. Dracule Mihawk advanced with the relentless precision of a metronome.
Around him, hell.
Yoru, unsheathed, carved arcs of black light through the darkness. A single flick of his wrist, horizontal, and a dozen gunpowder barrels lined up near a warehouse erupted in a blaze of fire and splintered wood, igniting nearby buildings. Another flick, vertical, and a giant loading crane was sliced clean at its base, crashing into the harbor waters with a deafening metallic roar, crushing two small coastguard ships. The docks themselves split under the gashes of his test swings, gaping crevices swallowing piles of cargo and stranded cannons.
Donquixote soldiers, brave or fanatic, tried to form barricades. Volleys of musket fire crackled, small-caliber cannonballs whistled through the air.
Mihawk didn't bother dodging. His Armament Haki, invisible but tangible like a steel shroud, deflected projectiles or reduced them to dust before they could reach him. Those who dared charge, screaming, with swords or axes raised, were cut down before covering half the distance, their bisected bodies falling without a sound, victims of strikes so swift they were barely visible.
He entered the lower city. The night's calm had given way to a cacophony of terror. Piercing screams tore through the darkness—women, children, men, and toys caught in the trap. Lamps flickered on at windows, revealing pale, horrified faces. Confusion reigned.
Contradictory orders from Donquixote officers were lost in the panic. Some soldiers, following Doflamingo's instructions, shoved civilians toward the main streets, using them as living shields, shouting, "It's him! The hawk-eyed demon! He's massacring everyone!"
Mihawk didn't deviate. He moved in a straight line, a silent whirlwind of death amid the chaos. He didn't seek to kill civilians, but he didn't spare those who stood in his path or brandished weapons in a desperate attempt at defense.
A group of young men, armed with sticks and inflamed by an officer's shouted propaganda ("He killed my sister! Death to the assassin!"), rushed him from a side alley. A single circular sweep of Yoru. A sharp whistle. Their sticks were sliced, along with the arms holding them. Cries of rage turned to screams of agony.
Mihawk passed through them like a cold breeze, indifferent to the collapsing bodies, his golden gaze fixed on the SMILE factory, glowing with a frigid light.
Tougher Devil Fruit-wielding officers tried to stop him.
A man who could harden his skin like granite threw himself in Mihawk's path. Yoru cut through him like butter, leaving two perfectly halved pieces sliding across the pavement. Another, controlling giant venomous snakes, sent them hissing forward. Black flashes streaked the air, reducing the reptiles to harmless segments before they could get close.
---
Then they appeared, blocking the end of the wide avenue leading to the central plaza and the SMILE factory beyond.
Doflamingo, flanked by Pica and Gladius, stood in the middle of the road, lit by the flickering glow of fires spreading through the outer districts.
A wide, false grin split his face.
"Dracule Mihawk!" His voice rolled like thunder down the street, briefly drowning out the screams and crackling flames. Terrified civilians hid in doorways or tried to flee through side alleys, blocked by soldiers. "What horror! You've come to destroy my poor kingdom! Fufufufu…"
Mihawk stopped twenty meters away. His expression was ice. He raised Yoru, pointing the black blade at the trio.
"You still think you control anything, Doflamingo? Your kingdom. Your cannon fodder…" His gaze briefly swept the trembling civilians held back by soldiers. "…only feeds the ground. Is it Kaido who makes you so confident? Let him come. He'll find Dressrosa… and you… already fallen."
Rage briefly twisted Doflamingo's smile. "Insolent! You'll—"
He didn't finish. Gladius, eyes bloodshot, leapt forward with a roar. His arms morphed into a mass of pulsing pink explosive bubbles. "CHAIN EXPLOSION!"
He slammed both fists into the ground. A series of violent blasts erupted from the pavement, racing toward Mihawk like a powder trail, hurling stone blocks and deadly shrapnel.
Mihawk dodged effortlessly, gliding aside like a shadow as the explosion tore through where he'd stood a second ago. But the sidestep placed him exactly where Pica waited.
The stone giant, who seemed to have melted into a nearby building's wall, erupted from the ground beneath Mihawk's feet. The entire street seemed to liquefy and rise in a monstrous wave of rock and earth. Not to strike. To engulf.
"GLOUP!" Pica's guttural roar resounded like an earthquake.
Before Mihawk could leap or slash, walls of raw stone, meters thick, shot up on either side of him, while the ground closed like a massive jaw above his head.
In less than a second, Dracule Mihawk was entombed in a monolithic stone dome, as tall as a three-story house, rising abruptly in the middle of the avenue. The dull vibration of its formation shook nearby windows and sent a shower of rubble flying.
Gladius leapt in front of the stone dome. His right arm swelled grotesquely, becoming a pulsating sphere of sickly pink explosive bubbles, brimming with devastating energy. "THIS IS GONNA HURT, HAWK-EYE!" he screamed, froth at the corners of his lips. "GIANT BOMB!"
He smashed his transformed arm against the dome's surface, right where Mihawk should have been.
The explosion that followed was apocalyptic. A blinding fireball, tinged pink, engulfed the dome, soaring into the night sky with a roar that shattered eardrums and shook buildings blocks away. The shockwave threw Gladius back, sending him tumbling across the pavement, while Doflamingo and Pica (partially sunk into the ground) raised arms to shield themselves from the scorching blast and the hail of glowing debris that rained down like an infernal storm. Molten stone and twisted metal flew in all directions, crushing roofs, smashing walls, and sowing fresh terror and destruction among the nearby civilians.
The explosion's light illuminated Doflamingo's face, frozen in a savage grin of victory. Dust and smoke rose in a massive mushroom cloud, obscuring the moon. At the heart of the cataclysm, where Pica's impenetrable stone prison had stood, there was now only a smoking crater, a gaping void surrounded by melted, fractured rock.
Doflamingo slowly lowered the arm he'd raised to shield himself, his laugh fading into a hoarse rasp. Gladius struggled to his feet, his arm back to normal but slightly smoking, a predatory smile on his lips. Pica fully emerged from the ground, his stone form intact, impassive.
"Fufu…" The sound from Doflamingo's throat was more a satisfied growl than a laugh. "That… that should've shaken him up. Even he can't…"