Impel Down – Level 1
It wasn't an attack.There were no alarms. No riots. No warships tailing me.
I arrived with the World Government's blessing.
An official visit.An observation.A favor to the Five Elders.
At least… that was the excuse I gave them.
In truth, I came because I was bored.
And Impel Down?It was filled with my kind of people.
Murderers. Traitors. Fallen kings. Broken pirates.
People who had seen the bottom of the world and clawed to breathe.
The Warden
Magellan stood over seven feet tall, wrapped in black and leaking venom with every breath. He stank of acid and justice.
He bowed—only slightly—when I stepped off my marine-escorted vessel.
"Lord Lucien," he said, eyes narrow. "This facility is not designed for guests."
I smiled, gliding past him. "Then it's overdue for change."
He didn't like me. I could see it in the way his knuckles cracked as he walked beside me. But he didn't stop me.
Because I outranked him.Because I was worse than him.
Because in the eyes of the World… I was necessary.
Level 2 – The Wild Beasts
Screams echoed down the spiral.
Massive man-eating beasts roamed here—Basilisks, Sphinxes, and worse. Most snarled at me. One tried to lunge.
Raisa shot it through the eye.
The beast crashed to the ground, and silence returned.
Magellan raised a brow. "She shouldn't be armed."
"She's mine," I answered, unbothered.
Mireille smiled sweetly and threw scraps of meat to another monster, who recoiled from her as if she were more terrifying than its cell.
She probably was.
Level 3 – The Starvation Hell
Emaciated corpses with eyes still blinking reached for me through rusted bars. They mumbled nonsense. Some wept. Some begged.
I didn't stop walking.
I never did.
But one voice called to me from the dark.
A voice I recognized.
"You're not real," the man whispered. "Lucien's dead. No one escapes the throne."
I stepped into the shadows, facing the cell.
Inside was a former noble. One who had insulted me in court years ago.
He didn't remember his own name anymore.
I knelt and smiled at him.
"Of course I'm not real," I whispered. "I'm your punishment."
He screamed until his throat bled.
Level 4 – The Blazing Hell
Even my boots began to hiss in the heat.
Flames licked the walls. The air was fire itself.
In the heart of it all—stripped, shackled, and still grinning like a lunatic—was a man I'd been dying to meet.
Donquixote Doflamingo.
He looked up as I entered. Even bound, he gave a theatrical laugh.
"Well, well. If it isn't the boy king. Come to visit your uncle, brat?"
"You're no uncle of mine," I said.
"But we're the same," he said, eyes glinting. "You know we are."
He wasn't wrong.
Doffy was chaos. A rejected Celestial Dragon. I was still in the system—but barely.
He broke it to rule from outside.
I would rot it from the inside out.
Two different poisons.
Still, I liked him.
The Conversation
I ordered a private cell opened. Magellan nearly threw a fit, but a Den Den Mushi rang from above. Headquarters. Authorization confirmed.
I stepped inside.
Doflamingo didn't move.
"You're not here to kill me," he said.
"No."
"Not here to release me."
"Not yet."
He smirked. "Then what?"
I crouched beside him, letting the fire cast long shadows across my face.
"I want to offer you a gift."
"What kind of gift?"
"Patience."
His smile cracked.
"What do you really want?" he asked.
I leaned in.
"To see what your smile looks like when you lose control."
He stared. For a moment—just a heartbeat—his grin wavered.
Then he laughed.
He laughed until blood sprayed from his lips.
I left him there. Burning and broken.
But amused.
Level 5 – The Freezing Hell
Icicles the size of ships. Snow like razors.
Raisa shivered, but Mireille danced barefoot through the frost.
They were perfect.
I found a few interesting prisoners down here too—an old Marine who'd questioned Fleet Admiral Sakazuki too many times. A Fishman pirate whose crime was mercy.
But the one that caught my eye?
A woman.
Tall. White hair like powdered ash. Eyes like dying stars.
She didn't speak.
Didn't beg.
Just stared at me like she knew.
I didn't open her cell.
Not yet.
Leaving Impel Down
As we sailed away, Magellan watched from the dock, leaking poison with contempt.
"I don't understand you," he admitted.
I looked back at the prison towering above the sea.
"You don't need to," I said. "You only need to survive me."
He didn't answer.
He just turned, and disappeared back into the mouth of Hell.
Epilogue – The Letter
In Mariejois, a Den Den Mushi clicked to life in a sealed room.
A voice whispered across the wire.
"It's done. He's made contact with Doflamingo. Next target unknown."
A long pause.
Then a deeper voice: "Keep watching. He's not ready yet."
"But—"
"He doesn't know we've already chosen him."
Click.