Chapter 104: Dressrosa's PastSoutheast Coast of Green Bit
The black flames cut across the sky like a wound.
Itachi swept low over the churning sea, his Wood Black Crow trailing embers that hissed and died as they touched the waves. Below him, the Thousand Sunny bobbed in the water, its lion figurehead pointed toward escape, its crew scrambling across the deck.
He descended, the crow's wings folding as he hovered alongside the ship.
"Nami." His voice cut through the salt spray and wind. "Where is Law?"
Nami spun around, her orange hair whipping across her face. Her expression shifted from relief to confusion in the span of a heartbeat.
"Law? Didn't he go to find you? He said—"
"He said he would distract Doflamingo!" Brook finished, his skeletal hands gripping the ship's railing. "Trafalgar-san volunteered to lead him away from us!"
"Of course."
Itachi's crimson eyes drifted toward the southeast coast, where a Marine warship had just unfurled its sails. The vessel was already pulling away from the shore, its bow pointed unerringly toward Dressrosa's distant silhouette.
Law was not on that ship.
Which meant only one thing.
"He lost." Itachi's voice remained flat, analytical. "Doflamingo has taken him."
He remained hovering above the Sunny, making no move to land on the deck. His gaze found Sanji among the crew, the cook's visible eye sharp and alert despite the chaos.
"Sanji."
"Yeah?"
"I leave the ship in your hands."
Sanji exhaled a stream of smoke, his jaw tightening with understanding. "Don't worry about us. Go."
Just minutes ago, they had all watched the distant flashes of Law's clash with Doflamingo—the shimmer of Room techniques, the lash of string, the desperate dance of two men who knew each other far too well. Now the sea was empty. Silent.
Whatever had happened, it was already over.
"Itachi!" Sanji called out as the crow's wings began to spread. "Bring that idiot back safe—"
"I'm going to find Robin and Usopp first."
The words stopped Sanji cold.
"Wait—what?!"
But the Wood Black Crow was already rising, banking toward the dense forest that covered Green Bit's interior. Within seconds, Itachi had become a distant speck of flame against the green canopy.
Sanji stood frozen at the railing, a trail of smoke drifting from his forgotten cigarette.
A full ten seconds passed.
Then—
"WAIT A MINUTE! ROBIN-CHWAN IS STILL ON THIS ISLAND?! SHE COULD BE IN DANGER!"
He whirled toward Nami, his visible eye blazing with sudden panic. "We have to dock! Right now! No matter how dangerous this island is, we can't just leave Robin-chwan and Usopp behind!"
Nami was already reaching for the helm—
"Sanji! Wait!"
Chopper's small hoof shot up, clutching a ringing Den Den Mushi. The tiny snail's face had twisted into an expression of urgency, its eyes wide and mouth set in a familiar frown.
"There's a call coming in!"
Sanji snatched the receiver.
"Who is this?!"
"Is that you, Sanji-kun?!"
Kin'emon's voice burst through the speaker, crackling with static but unmistakably his—formal, slightly panicked, entirely too loud.
"Yeah, it's me." Sanji's grip tightened on the receiver. "What's happening over there?"
The Corrida Colosseum — Rest Area
On the other end of the connection, Zoro stood with his arms crossed, one eyebrow raised as he watched Kin'emon shout into the Den Den Mushi.
"Why're you suddenly calling that cook?"
Kin'emon covered the receiver with his hand, turning to face the swordsman. "Sanji-kun gave me specific instructions when we met in the city. We were to locate Luffy-dono first, then contact him so we could coordinate the search for our missing companions together."
Zoro grunted. It sounded like something the shitty cook would plan.
They had found Luffy, at least. Bartolomeo—the weeping, green-haired fanatic who had recognized Zoro on sight—had guided them through the colosseum's winding corridors with the fervent dedication of a pilgrim leading holy men to a shrine. Within minutes, they had located Luffy in the gladiators' rest area, surrounded by the very prisoners who had tried to ambush him earlier.
Now the three of them—four, counting Bartolomeo, who refused to leave—stood in a loose circle while Kin'emon handled the call.
"Oh, right." Zoro's eye flickered toward Luffy, who was crouched on a bench, picking at his teeth with a fishbone. "Luffy. The navy's surrounded this arena."
Luffy tilted his head, chewing thoughtfully on the fishbone.
"Okay."
"THAT'S IT?!" Kin'emon's composure finally cracked. "How can both of you react so casually to such dire news?!"
Zoro shrugged. Luffy kept chewing.
The Den Den Mushi in Kin'emon's hand squawked with Sanji's voice.
"Wait—you've got three people over there? That means..."
Sanji's voice trailed off, then sharpened with sudden realization.
"That's right! Usopp still has a Den Den Mushi! Chopper—quick, get the other snail and call him! This way we won't need Itachi to search the whole island blind!"
Chopper's hooves scrambled across the deck, already digging through their communication supplies.
On Kin'emon's end, Luffy suddenly straightened, his eyes going wide with the particular intensity that meant he had just remembered something important.
"OH! I JUST REMEMBERED SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT!"
He grabbed the receiver from Kin'emon without asking.
"This country—it's completely different from how it looked at first!"
The Gladiators' Confession
Just minutes earlier, Luffy had been sitting in the rest area, his belly full of Rebecca's bento, his curiosity finally catching up to him.
The prisoners in the iron cage—the ones who had tried to attack him from behind—weren't bad people. He could tell that much just by looking at them. Their bodies were covered in scars, old and new, layered over each other like the rings of a tree. These were men who had been fighting for a very long time.
Not because they wanted to.
Because they had no choice.
"That Doflamingo guy..." one of the older gladiators had said, his voice rough as gravel. "He ain't the real king of this country. Not the one who was supposed to rule."
Luffy had tilted his head. "Huh?"
"Before him... there was the Riku Royal Family. King Riku was the true ruler of Dressrosa."
"King Riku?" Luffy had scratched his cheek, already losing interest. His attention kept drifting toward the arena outside, where Rebecca's voice echoed through the corridors as she fought for her life. "What's the story there?"
He hadn't really cared about the answer.
But he'd listened anyway, picking at his teeth while the gladiators spoke of a kingdom that had existed before Doflamingo's shadow fell across it.
And gradually, through the fragmented stories and bitter recollections, a picture had formed in Luffy's mind.
Rebecca wasn't just some gladiator.
She was the granddaughter of King Riku. The last remnant of the true royal family, forced to fight in the very arena where her ancestors had once sat in honor.
And Doflamingo—he hadn't just defeated the Riku family. He had destroyed them. Humiliated them. Twisted everything they had built into something cruel and unrecognizable.
Luffy didn't understand all the details. Politics, history, royal lineages—none of that really stuck in his head.
But he understood one thing perfectly.
Doflamingo was the bad guy. Rebecca and her family were the ones who had been hurt.
That was enough.
The Thousand Sunny — Simultaneously
Sanji nodded slowly as Luffy's voice spilled through the Den Den Mushi, his own expression darkening.
"I already know some of it."
His mind drifted back to the city, to the dancing girl named Violet. She had told him things—fragments of truth wrapped in seduction and danger. Enough to confirm that the bright, festive surface of Dressrosa hid something rotten beneath.
"Hey! Cook!"
Zoro's voice cut through the speaker, sharp and impatient.
"Are you listening? Luffy's trying to tell you something important!"
"I'm listening, idiot marimo—"
Buru buru buru. Buru buru—
The second Den Den Mushi in Chopper's hooves suddenly activated, its features shifting into a familiar long-nosed configuration.
"IT'S USOPP!" Chopper cried, shoving the snail toward Sanji. "The call went through!"
Sanji grabbed the second receiver with his free hand. "Usopp! Is Robin-chwan with you?!"
"Oh—Sanji! Yeah, yeah, we're all together here!"
Sanji's entire body sagged with relief. "Thank goodness. Where on Green Bit are you? Itachi's already flying over the island—his fire crow should be visible from anywhere. He'll find you soon!"
On the other end of the connection, Usopp and Robin exchanged a long, confused look.
Beside them, Franky—currently in his smaller, post-battle form—scratched his metal chin with one miniature hand.
"Green Bit?" The cyborg's voice was flat with disbelief. "We ain't on Green Bit. We're in the middle of Dressrosa."
Sanji's cigarette fell from his lips.
"...What?"
The Underground Base — Flower Field
Robin took the receiver from Usopp's frozen hand, her voice calm despite the absurdity of the situation.
"Sanji. We're currently in a secret underground base beneath Dressrosa. The toys and the Tontatta Tribe brought us here through a hidden passage from Green Bit."
The pieces clicked together in Sanji's mind with horrifying clarity.
The toys—the living toys that populated Dressrosa's streets. The Tontatta Tribe—the "fairies" that supposedly stole from the city's inhabitants. And the hidden factory where Doflamingo manufactured his SMILE fruits...
Usopp's face had gone pale. His knees were visibly shaking.
"Robin..." he whispered, his voice cracking. "Did we... did we forget something important?"
Robin's expression remained serene, but there was a dangerous edge to her smile. "It does seem that way. Law-san wouldn't have been captured by Doflamingo already, would he?"
"GYAAAAH!!!"
Usopp grabbed his head with both hands, his entire body twisting into a posture of pure despair.
"HOW COULD I FORGET SOMETHING SO IMPORTANT?!"
"Oi! Usopp!" Sanji's voice crackled through the receiver. "What's going on?! You said you were on Green Bit!"
Usopp snatched the Den Den Mushi back, his words tumbling out in a frantic rush.
"Okay okay okay—listen! The Tontatta told us everything! But there's more!"
He took a shuddering breath.
"Before the Riku family ruled Dressrosa... this country was controlled by the Donquixote Family. The original Donquixote Family, from centuries ago!"
Robin's eyes sharpened. This was new information.
"Back then," Usopp continued, his voice gaining a storyteller's momentum despite his panic, "the Donquixote Family kept the Tontatta Tribe as slaves. For generations. It was King Riku who finally freed them. He let them take whatever they needed from the city—food, supplies, anything. That's where the legend of 'fairies stealing things' comes from!"
Sanji's voice came back flat and controlled.
"So... you abandoned Law."
"WE DIDN'T ABANDON HIM!"
"We absolutely did," Robin said pleasantly.
"ROBIN!"
"You could have mentioned this earlier," Sanji growled. "Now Itachi's searching an empty island while Doflamingo does whatever he wants with Trafalgar."
The silence that followed was damning.
Somewhere above Dressrosa, a crow of black fire streaked across the sky, searching for companions who were never there.
End of Chapter
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