-Real World-
Gecko Moria and Crocodile could afford jealousy. As fellow Shichibukai, they'd merely stagnated rather than been utterly crushed. But for the pirates who held genuine grudges against Doflamingo—those who'd suffered under the Heavenly Yaksha's cruelty—the Sky Screen broadcast inspired only crushing despair.
Trafalgar Law felt it most acutely.
The young surgeon sat in his submarine's control room, still drifting through Paradise's relatively calm waters. Like Luffy, he was a rookie who'd set sail only recently. The Polar Tang's armored hull provided far more safety than conventional pirate ships—but no amount of steel could protect him from the revelations flooding through the Sky Screen.
Watching the Straw Hat Boy—a stranger he'd never met—challenge Doflamingo with such reckless courage triggered something complicated in Law's chest. Admiration mixed with bitter envy. Monkey D. Luffy could still swing his fists at invincible enemies without hesitation. Could still believe he might win.
Law had lost that capability years ago.
The Birdcage...
Even the miniaturized version shown on screen made Law's hands tremble involuntarily. That technique could seal entire islands, block all Den Den Mushi signals, and execute populations through slow strangulation. It was a broken, nightmarish ability—and the cage where Corazon had died still haunted Law's dreams.
His benefactor's final moments. Blood on snow. That gentle smile as life faded. All trapped within Doflamingo's inescapable web.
"Mr. Corazon..." Law's voice came out barely above a whisper. "Can I really never avenge you?"
Five years in the future, he'd been beaten like a dog. No chance to fight back. No hope of victory. The gap between himself and the Heavenly Yaksha wasn't just wide—it was absolute. Different weight classes. Different worlds entirely.
What presumption had made him think he could ever challenge a monster like that?
The past few days of Sky Screen broadcasts had been relentless psychological torture. Bad news piling atop bad news in an avalanche of unwanted revelations. His sister Lami. Eren. Ada. The truth about Flevance's destruction. Each new piece of information had stolen more sleep, carved deeper shadows under his eyes.
The nightmare of the White Town enveloped him completely now—no longer a traumatic memory but an ongoing, inescapable reality.
His crew had tried offering comfort. Bepo's clumsy attempts at encouragement. Penguin and Shachi's awkward jokes meant to lighten the mood. But Law refused to engage. Some problems couldn't be solved through talking. Some wounds were too deep for words to reach.
So he sat in silence, staring at the Sky Screen, watching his future self fail again and again.
Even in the Holy Land of Mary Geoise, the Five Elders found themselves troubled by the same question that plagued Law.
If Gear Fourth Luffy cannot defeat him... who can?
The answer had significant implications for their long-term strategies regarding the Shichibukai system and its inevitable collapse.
-Broadcast-
Luffy had tried everything his creative mind could conceive.
He'd inflated his body with massive gulps of air, attempting to stretch the Birdcage from the inside through sheer expansion. The cage had compressed his swollen form without budging a millimeter.
He'd wrapped both arms in maximum-density Armament Haki and tried prying the threads apart with techniques that could bend steel bars. The white lines hadn't even trembled.
He'd activated Kensei, channeling its power through devastating kicks aimed at the cage's structural weak points. The impacts had accomplished exactly nothing.
Every trick in his arsenal. Every technique Rayleigh had taught him.
None of it mattered. Not even a meteorite falling from the sky could break this cage.
Outside the prison, Doflamingo watched his prey struggle with obvious satisfaction. This was the Birdcage's true beauty—not just trapping victims, but forcing them to experience prolonged despair as hope gradually evaporated. Watching someone realize, minute by minute, that escape was impossible.
It aligned perfectly with the Heavenly Yaksha's sadistic preferences.
"Fuffuffuffuffu! Look at you, Straw Hat Boy." Doflamingo's grin widened as he circled the suspended cage like a predator examining caught prey. "Still the same as five years ago at Marineford. Struggling desperately but unable to change anything. Last time you had Fire Fist Ace to save you. But this time?" He spread his arms theatrically. "No good brother to take the hit."
The words struck deeper than any physical attack.
Luffy could only glare through the cage's gaps, his Gear Fourth body still pushing uselessly against the contracting threads. "If you're so tough, let me out!" he snarled, voice raw with frustration. "Fight me head-on like a real man!"
Doflamingo actually laughed at that—a genuine sound of amusement rather than his usual theatrical cackle. "Oh, Straw Hat Boy. That's almost adorable in its naivety." He shook his head with exaggerated pity. "I'm a pirate, not some honorable samurai. Why would I give up a winning position just to satisfy your sense of fair play?"
His expression shifted—the mockery draining away to reveal something colder underneath.
"Besides, I have bad news for you." He gestured at the cage with casual cruelty. "As time passes, the Birdcage will slowly tighten. Gradually. Inevitably. The space inside will shrink until it's smaller than a clenched fist." His grin returned, sharper now. "You'll just have to sit there and watch it happen. Wait for death while contemplating all your failures."
A white thread extended from the cage's apex. Doflamingo grabbed it and hauled upward, lifting the entire prison—Luffy and all—to dangle several meters above the Founding Titan's spine like a grotesque ornament.
Inside, Luffy felt the pressure increase immediately. The Birdcage was already contracting—not rapidly, but with inexorable certainty. Each second brought the threads fractionally closer.
He braced his Gear Fourth body against the encroaching walls, muscles straining to resist the inward force. He managed to slow the compression slightly—maybe bought himself a few extra minutes of life—but that was all. Even with everything he had, he was only delaying the inevitable.
"Doflamingo!" Luffy screamed as the Heavenly Yaksha turned to leave. "Don't you walk away! I'm your opponent! Your fight is with ME! I'm Monkey D. Luffy, and I'm going to—"
The tirade cut off abruptly as a white net materialized in Doflamingo's right hand. With practiced precision, he flicked it toward the dangling cage.
THWAP.
The net struck Luffy's face with perfect accuracy, spreading across his mouth and jaw before contracting. The threads sealed his lips together completely—upper and lower pressed into an unbreakable seal.
"Mmph! MMMPH!" Luffy's voice became muffled grunts—furious but incomprehensible.
"Ah, much better." Doflamingo's smile radiated sadistic satisfaction. "The world is so much quieter now."
He turned away from his caged victim without another glance, attention shifting to the blue-haired figure who'd been watching the entire exchange in silence.
Admiral Gin. The mysterious twelfth Admiral whose background remained frustratingly obscure even to Doflamingo's extensive intelligence network.
"Gin," the Heavenly Yaksha said conversationally as he approached. "A former pirate wearing an Admiral's coat. Tell me—how does that even happen? Did Acting Fleet Admiral Artoria convince the entire Marine high command through blackmail? Bribery? Or does she simply possess that much political capital?"
Doflamingo had done his research through Celestial Dragon channels—the few connections he still maintained from his childhood in Mary Geoise. He'd found an old wanted poster buried in Marine archives. Gin the "Demon," former combat commander of Don Krieg's pirate fleet in the East Blue. A nobody from a crew that hadn't even broken the 100 million berry threshold.
Many years later, that same nobody had supposedly achieved Admiral-level strength.
The timeline doesn't make sense, Doflamingo thought, studying his opponent carefully. Either his power was exaggerated for political purposes, or something else is going on here.
Admiral Gin stared back with eyes shadowed by permanent dark circles—the mark of someone who rarely slept properly. He'd been summoned into the Marine system by Acting Fleet Admiral Artoria Pendragon herself. Among the twelve Admirals, only Smoker treated him as a genuine friend—both being East Blue natives who'd bonded over shared origins.
Before departing for Dressrosa, Smoker had explained the mission's true nature with characteristic bluntness.
"Listen, Gin. Your background makes you perfect for this assignment. You can do what the rest of us can't without triggering a political incident. The high command wants Doflamingo's head. Literally—bring it back in a box. If the Five Elders complain afterward, we'll handle the fallout. Worst case? You get demoted or dismissed to satisfy their pride. But the entire Marine Corps will know you took the hit to test the Celestial Dragons' limits."
It was a test. A calculated provocation designed to establish how independent the New Marines could truly be.
"I met with Former Fleet Admiral Sengoku before leaving," Gin said, his plain words carrying undertones of lethal intent. "I accepted the responsibility of avenging his adopted son. You have no opportunity to surrender today, Doflamingo. I'm bringing your head back to Marine Headquarters."
The casualness with which he discussed decapitation was almost disturbing. Admiral Artoria had truly reshaped Marine culture—the practice of collecting enemy heads as trophies had become standard procedure for proving successful missions.
Doflamingo's eyebrows rose behind his sunglasses. "Wait. Sengoku is still alive?" Genuine surprise colored his voice. "That decrepit Buddha had his Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Daibutsu (Human-Human Fruit, Model: Great Buddha) stolen during Marineford. I assumed he'd died in that battle. An eighty-year-old man reduced to powerless mortality... I'd have thought death was the merciful outcome."
Better to die preserving one's dignity than survive as a shadow of former greatness. That was Doflamingo's philosophy, at least.
But apparently, the old man clung to life despite everything.