[ THE UPPER FLOORS ]
While the basement was being conquered, Light Yagami ascended the grand, velvet-lined staircase of the Auction House. His boots made no sound, his presence completely masked to anyone without elite Observation Haki.
He could hear the frantic, pathetic weeping emanating from the VIP counting room at the end of the hall.
Light's Level 2 Observation Haki easily penetrated the wooden walls, reading the panicked aura inside.
[ Disco — Auction House Manager ][ Good: 654 / Bad: 480,000 ]
Nearly half a million Karma points. A staggering number for a man who didn't even swing a sword, but perfectly logical for the accountant of human suffering. Every collar placed, every slave beaten, every family torn apart and sold under his gavel contributed to his ledger. He was the bureaucratic heart of the archipelago's filth.
Light approached the heavy oak door.
Inside the counting room, Disco was weeping hysterically. The extravagant, star-shaped glasses he wore were askew on his sweaty face. He was frantically shoving stacks of Beli and ledgers into a heavy leather briefcase. Tucked between his ear and his shoulder was a golden Den Den Mushi, uniquely customized with a pair of pink, flamingo-feathered sunglasses.
"I'm telling you, the Marines have gone completely insane!" Disco screamed into the snail, his voice cracking with terror. "It's Yagami! The Smiling Reaper! He killed Saint Valerius! He crushed him into a ball of meat right in the street! They're burning the grove! My guards are dead!"
"Fuffuffuffu..." A low, dark, incredibly dangerous laugh emanated from the snail. The voice was smooth, arrogant, and dripping with manic, barely restrained violence. "Yagami, you say? The prodigy who purged the South Blue? How fascinating. And what are the Admirals doing, Disco? Surely Sengoku isn't just letting a rogue dog off its leash?"
"I don't know! They're coming! They have to be coming! But they won't get here in time! Boss, you have to send help! I'm your top earner! I run the Sabaody branch! You can't just let me die!"
Light stopped outside the door. He didn't reach for the handle. He didn't draw his sword.
He simply raised his right hand and pressed his palm flat against the solid oak.
Repulsion.
The heavy oak door didn't just break; it splintered into a thousand jagged pieces of shrapnel, blown violently inward by an invisible, hyper-dense wave of kinetic force.
Disco shrieked, dropping the briefcase. Stacks of high-denomination Beli notes fluttered into the air like a grotesque snowfall, blanketing the mahogany floor.
Light Yagami stood in the doorway, the dust settling around his pristine white coat. The coat was miraculously clean, a stark contrast to the bloodbath outside. He looked at the trembling manager, and then his dark eyes drifted to the golden Den Den Mushi resting on the desk.
"Ah," Light said pleasantly, his voice a sterile, chilling calm. "The Donquixote Family. I wondered how long it would take to trace the puppet strings back to the Joker."
Disco scrambled backward, pressing himself desperately against the back wall. He drew a double-barreled flintlock pistol with shaking hands. "Stay back! Stay back, you psycho! Do you have any idea who owns this place?! He's a Warlord of the Sea! He's an untouchable! He'll slaughter your entire family!"
Light didn't blink. He didn't even acknowledge the gun. He simply looked at Disco, his god-complex radiating in absolute, freezing waves.
"There are no untouchables" Light whispered.
Disco had no answer for it.
'This madman... '
He saw Light close his left hand into a fist.
'...fuck it I'm not dying silent!'
Compress.
Disco didn't even have time to pull the trigger. A hyper-localized gravity well materialized entirely within his chest cavity. His ribs violently imploded, collapsing inward to crush his heart and lungs simultaneously. Disco's eyes rolled back into his head, a choked gasp escaping his lips as he slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor, dead.
[ Target Neutralized. Bad Karma Assessed: 480,000. ][ Transferring to Host... ][ Total KP Reserve: 8,550,500 ]
Light ignored the blue text fading from his vision. He walked slowly across the room, his boots stepping over the scattered Beli, until he stood over the mahogany desk.
He looked down at the golden Den Den Mushi.
The snail was perfectly silent. It was staring up at Light, mimicking the absolute, focused attention of the listener on the other end of the Grand Line.
For a long, tense moment, the God of the New World and the Joker of the Underworld simply breathed on opposite ends of the line. Two apex predators, measuring each other across the void.
"You just cost me a very lucrative business, Marine," Doflamingo's voice finally purred from the speaker. The manic amusement was gone. It was replaced by a cold, venomous promise.
"Your business relied on the protection of false gods, Donquixote," Light replied, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. "The gods are dead. The protection is void. Consider your lease on this island terminated."
"Fuffuffu... FUAHAHAHAHA!" Doflamingo's laughter suddenly erupted from the snail, harsh and echoing off the walls of the counting room. It was genuine, psychotic amusement. "You cut off a Celestial Dragon's head, you burn my house down, and now you're telling me some bullshit?! You are completely out of your mind, Yagami! Do you have any idea what you've just broken?! You didn't just kill a Noble! You broke the fundamental rule of the world!"
"yeah, I know." Light replied simply, his dark eyes sterile and calculating. "The era of criminals running around is over. Enjoy the chaos while you can, Joker. Because when I finally enter the New World, I will not tolerate your filth. And you know it."
Before Doflamingo could respond, Light raised a single finger.
Stasis.Compression.
The golden Den Den Mushi was violently crushed into a flat, unrecognizable disc of gold and machinery, completely severing the connection.
Light turned his back on the desk and walked out of the room, leaving the money to rot with the corpse.
⬛ ⬛ ⬛
[ THE NEW WORLD — DRESSROSA ]
High above the vibrant, toy-filled streets of Dressrosa, in the opulent King's palace, a stained-glass window shattered outward.
Donquixote Doflamingo stood on the balcony, his massive, feathered pink coat whipping violently in the wind. The receiver of his personal Den Den Mushi had just been crushed in his grip, the plastic and wiring digging painfully into his palm. He didn't feel it.
A prominent, thick vein throbbed violently on his forehead, a stark contrast to the massive, manic grin stretching widely across his face.
"Doffy?"
Trebol, the gross, mucus-covered executive of the Donquixote Family, slithered into the throne room, his snot dripping onto the carpet. "Ne ne, Doffy, what happened? Why did the connection to the Sabaody branch drop?"
Doflamingo leaned back, spreading his arms wide as if trying to embrace the entire chaotic sky.
"The era of smiles is over, Trebol!" Doflamingo laughed, a terrifying, unhinged sound that made even the hardened executive flinch. "The absolute justice of the World Government was just decapitated in the streets of Sabaody!"
"Eeeh?! Who did it? Eustass Kid? Straw Hat?"
"A Marine!" Doflamingo turned around, his trademark sunglasses glinting in the bright Dressrosa sunlight. "The golden boy! Rear Admiral Light Yagami! He butchered Saint Valerius and burned our auction house to the ground!"
Trebol gasped, his eyes bulging out of his head. "A Marine killed a Celestial Dragon?! But... but the Admirals! Marineford will send the hounds! He's a dead man!"
"Perhaps" Doflamingo mused, walking back into the heavy shadows of his throne room, his fingers twitching as if manipulating invisible strings. "But a man doesn't break the ultimate taboo unless he mathematically believes he can survive the consequences. The Smiling Reaper just flipped the entire geopolitical table."
Doflamingo sat heavily on his massive throne, resting his chin on his fist. The manic grin remained plastered on his face, but his eyes behind the red-tinted glasses were entirely cold, calculating the shifting weights of the global balance of power.
A rogue Marine with the power to crush an Auction House without drawing his sword. A sociopath who viewed the Celestial Dragons as meat.
"Watch the papers closely, Trebol," Doflamingo ordered, his voice dropping to a dangerous, deadly whisper that echoed through the empty palace. "That madman, he doesn't sound like he's running. If Yagami survives today... if he escapes the wrath of the Admiral... the New World is going to become a very, very interesting place. We must prepare the Family, Trebol. After all- "
"Fufufu..FUAHAHAHAHAHA! THE NEW ERA IS HERE!!!"