Chapter 240: Chapter 240: Five Elders? Shut up! Let your God talk!

Chapter 240: Five Elders? Shut Up! Let Your God Talk!

Baby 5’s memories of her real family had long since blurred.

Or, to be precise—

“You are useless except for wasting food.”

“I’m sorry, but useless mouths have no place in a family like ours.”

The only memories she had ever held of them were those parting words, and the back of her mother as she walked away without looking back.

She had never known the warmth of a family. She had spent her whole life aching for it.

And then she found the Donquixote Family.

As long as you were loyal enough, powerful enough, you could be family.

For that, she had pushed herself harder than she’d ever thought possible. She’d clawed her way through brutal training, covered in bruises and scars. She’d become an assassin, even though killing never sat right with her. She had earned her place, won recognition, been welcomed as one of them—and that had been a happiness so complete she hadn’t known what to do with it.

As long as she stayed useful, the bond would hold. She would never be abandoned again.

Until the day she was captured by that fairy girl.

During the dull stretch of her imprisonment, the girl had said something that stuck in Baby 5’s skin like a splinter.

“Family have to be ’useful’ to belong? That’s utterly absurd.”

The usually gentle girl had been almost fierce when she said it.

“Real family is someone who comes running when you’re in danger, no matter where you are. Someone who walks into whatever fire you’ve decided to walk into, just to walk beside you. Your so-called Young Master was never your family—or rather, you made him family and he never made you anything. What you had wasn’t family. It wasn’t even friendship. It was mutual use.”

Baby 5 had been furious. She’d argued until her voice was raw.

But now—

“Wuwuwuwu…”

The tears came freely.

The dull throb at the center of her brow told her everything she needed to know. The girl had been right.

She had believed she was family. She had built her whole life around that belief.

And that home had never existed.

She had never truly bonded with anyone. She had always been completely alone.

But halfway through her tears, her gaze dropped to the chess piece in her hand.

“Everyone’s having a banquet. Come join us—you can always leave after.”

“Don’t keep helping your Young Master. If you do, you’ll die.”

“I think we’re friends.”

That girl’s voice drifted through her memory, soft and strangely clear.

Baby 5 hadn’t passed a single piece of intelligence to her. She had offered nothing of value to the girl’s organization. There was no reason for any of it.

“…”

Baby 5 went still.

But just then—

“Ne—Nezumi! There’s more than one Zodiac member on this island!”

“Did Violet betray us?”

“Doffy… be careful…”

“Young Master… save us…”

The Donquixote Family executives lay scattered across the floor, teeth gritted, forcing their broken bodies to move.

They stared at the figure before them in disbelief.

The Zodiac. Nezumi—the Rat.

They had never fought him directly. But that single strike, combined with the terrifying display of power Saru had put on at the Corrida Colosseum, was more than enough. They understood exactly how bad things were.

“Doffy… the Den Den Mushi… take it… get out of here…”

Trebol dragged his bisected body across the floor and pressed the special Den Den Mushi into what he hoped was Doflamingo’s reach.

“Lord… Nezumi…”

Viola stared at the executives—once so fearsome and seemingly untouchable in her memory—now crumpled and dying.

One strike. A single strike, and it was over.

She hadn’t even seen how he’d moved.

But this wasn’t the time to stand in awe of his power.

“This Doflamingo… he’s—”

Viola curled her right fingers into a telescope and looked through them, her Giro Giro no Mi cutting through every wall and surface between her and the truth.

“I know.”

Nezumi’s answer was calm. He raised his hand.

“Air Slash—Eight!”

Sslash!

Trebol watched in horror as both the Den Den Mushi in his outstretched hand and the head of the Doflamingo standing before him were severed cleanly in the same instant.

“Doffy!”

“Young Master!”

Trebol coughed up blood. The other executives went white.

Then their cries died in their throats.

Because—

“Fuffuffuffuffu…”

Even with the top of his head sheared off, Doflamingo was laughing.

And then the severed upper half, along with the Den Den Mushi still clutched in its hand, quietly dissolved into white threads and vanished.

RUMBLE!

RUMBLE!

The walls of the Royal Palace shook, then collapsed inward. From within the rubble, a prison of Sea Prism Stone rose in their place.

The real Doflamingo stepped out of the shadows, already smiling.

“I expected as much.” He surveyed the room with satisfaction. “Of course there’s more than one of you. You’re collecting that kind of thing—which means you’ve already made up your mind to make enemies of the entire world. You can’t be too careful.”

“Do… Doffy?”

The faces of Trebol and every Donquixote Family executive froze.

The Doflamingo inside the palace—the one they had been guarding, grieving for, sacrificing themselves to protect—had been a String Clone the entire time. Even the special Den Den Mushi Trebol had been clutching like it was his life’s purpose.

“For a gamble this big, one set of chips was never going to be enough.”

Doflamingo looked at his family members without any particular expression. “I’m sorry, Trebol. Your luck ran out.”

The meaning was clear.

He had started this gamble. As the dealer, he had prepared for every outcome.

The three God’s Knights. The Corrida Colosseum. The Birdcage. If his plan had concluded there, Trebol and the others would have shared in the glory.

But more than one Zodiac member had come to Dressrosa, and Nezumi had found his way into this very room.

So the table demanded more chips.

“Do… Doffy!”

Trebol looked up at the man he had watched grow from a boy into a king—the man he had devoted his entire life to, believed in from the very beginning.

“Ah… ah…”

His already-severed body gave out beneath him. He sank to the floor. “If this is what you’ve chosen, then I… I…”

He went still.

One by one, as his voice faded, the other executives followed.

“…”

The String Clone of Doflamingo watched in silence as the people who had stood beside him for so many years went quiet for the last time. It said nothing. It simply looked at Nezumi.

Then—

“Looks like my luck held.”

“I won this gamble.”

The clone dissolved into threads and drifted apart on the air.

“…”

Nezumi didn’t speak.

He stood with those words turning over in his mind.

“Of course there’s more than one of you. You’re collecting that kind of thing—which means you’ve already made up your mind to make enemies of the entire world.”

The information packed into that sentence was staggering.

He knows I’m collecting the tree roots.

That was the first critical point.

But beyond that—

“No…”

Something clicked into place.

In the original story, Doflamingo had always been surrounded by a question that never quite got answered: how had he, an expelled Celestial Dragon, managed to hold onto such extraordinary privileges? His father and mother had lost everything when they renounced their status—they’d been treated no better than common people. So why was Doflamingo different?

He had said it himself. He had seen the Celestial Dragons’ National Treasure. He knew the World Government’s deepest secret.

Nezumi turned this over quietly.

The deepest secret of the World Government was self-evident: Lord Imu.

So then—

He doesn’t just know we’re collecting the tree roots. He likely knows where the tree roots come from.

Only now did the shape of Doflamingo’s true design begin to emerge.

He wants to use that tree root to accomplish something.

And then another piece fell into place—Doflamingo ordering his pirates to massacre his own citizens, deliberately allowing Sugar’s power to release, making sure every person gathered outside the Corrida Colosseum witnessed the full, unvarnished truth of what their country had been.

Could that man be—

The conjecture that formed in Nezumi’s mind was almost too large to hold.

“Miss Viola.” His voice came out sharper than usual. “Can you find him?”

Viola heard the urgency in it immediately. She didn’t know what Nezumi had figured out, but the gravity in his voice made it clear this was serious.

She shook her head, expression strained. “I can’t. My ability can find anyone, see through any wall or object—but I need a direction to start from. Without at least a rough idea of where he is, in a city this large, I wouldn’t even know where to look.”

Nezumi’s eyes narrowed.

His mind had already made its decision: if his guess was right, he would pay whatever it cost to stop this, even if that cost hadn’t been part of his plans.

At worst, I sink Dressrosa.

But before he could settle on it—

“Lord Nezumi!”

Baby 5’s voice came from behind him.

He turned. She had pushed herself upright. The tear tracks on her face hadn’t dried. But her eyes, as she looked at the bodies of the Donquixote Family executives around her, held something new.

Resolve.

“I think I know where Doflamingo is.”

She raised her head and met his gaze without flinching.

“I can help you find him. But when you do—” She paused. “I want you to pass along a message from me.”

“Good grief…”

Elsewhere in Dressrosa, Doflamingo was adjusting his glasses.

He was a monster. He always had been.

He had killed his father. He had killed his brother. He had killed everything and everyone who had ever stood between him and what he wanted.

Partners, family—they were chips. They had always been chips. That was the only way to see them.

So why, then, were the corners of his eyes inexplicably wet?

Why did his mind keep pulling up memories—growing up, crowded around a table, those voices calling him Young Master, calling him Doffy—?

“So this pathetic little ember is still alive in me somewhere.”

His tone was one of mild dissatisfaction.

But it didn’t slow him down for even a moment. Without hesitation, he took out the Den Den Mushi he had secured long ago—the real one, the one no one else knew about—and dialed.

It connected almost immediately.

“Hello. It’s me.”

His smile was the same as always. Wide. A little unhinged. Utterly calm.

“Feel like talking?”

“Doflamingo—you’re alive!”

“We’ve already heard about what happened in Dressrosa.”

“Where are you? Tell us your location!”

“Support is already on its way—stall The Zodiac’s Saru, whatever terms you want, we can settle them right now, we can reinstate your Celestial Dragon status this very moment—”

“You have to buy time! You have to find that monster!”

Several voices tumbled over each other from the other end of the line.

Old voices. Commanding voices.

The Five Elders.

And yet—for the first time Doflamingo could remember—those voices carried something unmistakable beneath the authority.

Panic.

The complete destruction of three God’s Knights was a piece of news without precedent, and it had shaken even them. It had confirmed things they had spent years hoping not to confirm, and stripped away whatever composure they’d been holding onto.

“Quiet.”

Doflamingo’s voice was flat. Bored, almost.

“I wasn’t talking to you five.”

Silence.

The Five Elders processed this for one long, stunned moment.

Then the fury came.

“Doflamingo!”

“Do you have any idea who you are speaking to?!”

“How dare you address the highest authority in this world with—”

The sound of teeth grinding carried clearly through the Den Den Mushi.

It was the kind of rage that had toppled kings, broken nations, and sent the mightiest factions in the world scrambling to their knees.

Doflamingo listened to it without moving.

“Fuffuffuffu…”

He looked at the Den Den Mushi with the patient, amused expression of a man who had already won.

“I said—you five old relics can all shut up. I’m in a terrible mood right now, and I am not talking to servants.”

His gaze seemed to push straight through the device, through every layer of distance between them, past the Five Elders themselves, and settle on the figure standing behind them.

“You understand, don’t you.”

“I’m negotiating with you.”

“Great Abyss.”

“Great God.”

☆☆☆

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