The Donquixote Family estate.
Doflamingo was being hauled out of the house, dragged along by two members of the Holy Knights, one on each side gripping him like he weighed nothing.
At this moment, Doflamingo was completely stunned. Panic filled his face as he shouted,
"What are you doing?! I'm the young master of the Donquixote Family! What do you think you're doing?!"
Meanwhile, at the gates of the Donquixote residence, Homing was negotiating with Figarland Garling.
"Is there really no room for leniency? Doflamingo is still just a child…" Homing said, his expression troubled.
Garling had never liked Homing to begin with. But the man had been born into the right bloodline—the head of the Donquixote Family—so basic courtesy still had to be maintained on the surface.
"Saint Homing, the victim is third in line of succession in the Nerona Family. Your son's elbow strike has effectively robbed him of his ability to have children. His father, Saint Cadro, even demanded Doflamingo's life. Sentencing him to five years in prison and expelling him from the Holy Land is already leniency on the part of the Holy Knights," Garling said, shaking his head.
Right then, Doflamingo was dragged out, struggling as he yelled,
"I only hit him once! It's not like I meant to cripple him like that! And besides, he insulted me first!!!"
"Regardless of who started it, raising your hand against one of our own is already a grave crime. The divine laws of us Celestial Dragons are few, are they not?" Garling replied calmly.
Doflamingo shot back indignantly,
"Then what about when I got slapped twice before? Your Holy Knights didn't arrest anyone for that!"
Garling paused, slightly surprised.
"You were slapped twice? By whom?"
With Doflamingo's "Demon Seed" personality, he was slapped twice and didn't retaliate?
Wait... could it be a Nerona? Is there more to this?
Doflamingo immediately answered,
"It was Valthior! Jaygarcia Valthior! I ran into him at the Sabaody Archipelago not long ago, and he walked up and slapped me twice without a word! I want to report him—lock him up too! You should strip him of his Celestial Dragon status as well!!!"
The moment Garling heard the name "Valthior," his teeth started to ache.
What status do you have, and what status does he have?
He's the heir of one of the Five Elders' families—his position is higher than mine as Commander of the Holy Knights. If he had joined us, I could at least restrain him a little, like I do with Sommers. I might even be able to lecture him.
But he didn't join us.
Do I look like I have the standing to provoke him?
More importantly, Garling had a strong suspicion that Valthior's descent to the lower world to become a pirate had been done under Saint Saturn's will. That alone made him even less willing to cross him.
"Ahem… you claim you were slapped twice. Do you have any evidence?" Garling asked lightly.
Doflamingo froze.
Evidence? He had none. Even the witnesses had been wiped out. Some Marines at Sabaody had seen it, but he didn't even know their names.
"The Marines! The Marines at Sabaody saw it!" Doflamingo shouted.
"Is that so? We will verify this with the Marines. If it is true, we will certainly not tolerate it," Garling replied perfunctorily.
Verify, my ass.
Even if Valthior had slapped you twice—or even slapped your father—no one in Mary Geoise would stand up for your Donquixote Family.
Especially since the Holy Knights had recently gathered intelligence on the events at Linderland Island. Garling had a growing sense that he might no longer be a match for Valthior.
That man had awakened Conqueror's Haki on Linderland Island and even clashed head-on with that monster, Garp. Though the reports said Garp held the upper hand, in the end, he still failed to capture him.
At the thought of Garp, Garling couldn't help but recall what happened over three years ago at God Valley.
Back then, he had been brimming with confidence, eager to display his might and kingly presence. And what happened?
He got flattened into the ground like a speed bump.
Even now, recalling that day sent a faint chill through his heart.
Most people in the world didn't know the truth, but as someone who had been there, Garling knew very well—Garp had been the true main force at God Valley.
He had seen with his own eyes how Garp fought against those monstrous pirates of the seas. The man's strength was terrifying.
And now, intelligence from Linderland Island told him that Valthior—who once wasn't even his equal—could now contend with Garp on the open sea.
How could that not shock him?
"Conqueror's Haki…" Garling murmured inwardly.
He had always been proud, believing himself to possess the qualities of a king—that he simply hadn't awakened it yet.
But now, Valthior's awakening made something feel off.
So many elites had been selected into the Holy Knights from among the Celestial Dragons… yet not a single one had awakened Conqueror's Haki.
Was it because they had all signed contracts with Imu-sama?
By submitting themselves to another's will, had they lost the ability to awaken it?
That didn't seem right.
Plenty of second-in-command figures and top officers across the seas served under others, yet they still awakened Conqueror's Haki.
Take Marine Admiral Sengoku, for example—he was even more restrained than Garling in daily life, yet he still possessed it.
To say something borderline blasphemous—even the Five Elders, like himself, were essentially watchdogs for Imu-sama, yet every one of them possessed Conqueror's Haki.
So why was it that not a single member of the Holy Knights had it?
Did that make any sense?
Fortunately for Garling, he didn't yet know that the very Doflamingo before him—soon to be a prisoner—would one day awaken Conqueror's Haki as well. Otherwise, his mentality might have completely shattered.
As for why the Holy Knights could not awaken Conqueror's Haki, Valthior had his own suspicions.
There was no concrete evidence, but considering that Doflamingo and even the Five Elders possessed it, the possibility that Celestial Dragons themselves couldn't awaken it could be ruled out.
The Holy Knights had a long history, yet none had ever awakened it. That was too strange.
If something was strange, then someone was behind it.
Valthior's theory was that through these contracts, Imu might be siphoning away the potential for Conqueror's Haki from the members of the Holy Knights, using it to strengthen his own.
Only those who reached the level of the Five Elders—true figureheads—could reclaim and wield their own Conqueror's Haki.
It was even possible that Imu could gather the Conqueror's Haki of many and channel it into a single contractor, allowing them to unleash an overwhelming burst of power in a short period of time.
The exact truth didn't require overthinking. If, in the original storyline, Garling—now the newest of the Five Elders—ever displayed Conqueror's Haki, it would confirm many things.
Unfortunately, Valthior would never get to see it.
Just as Garling was about to take Doflamingo away to the Divine Prison, Homing finally stepped forward.
"Please wait, Saint Garling!"
"If you're here to plead for mercy, save it. Rather than me, you should go to the Nerona Family…" Garling waved dismissively.
"No," Homing said, his expression resolute. "I believe this is my failure as a father for not raising Doflamingo properly. This is not solely his fault—it is our shared responsibility. And if it is a shared responsibility, then we should bear it together."
He paused, then continued firmly:
"If I renounce my status as a Celestial Dragon and take my family down to the lower world with Doflamingo, would that exempt him from imprisonment?"
Garling was completely dumbfounded.
What the hell are you talking about!?
I gave you five years—five whole years to maneuver this situation! If you handled it well, and with Saint Cassitof the Nerona Family smoothing things over, this matter could have passed. In the best case, Doflamingo wouldn't even need to serve the full sentence before returning to his life of privilege.
Wasn't that obvious enough!?
And now you're saying you want to renounce your Celestial Dragon status and take the blame for him?
Are you insane!?
The Donquixote Family… really are all lunatics!
Garling, who had initially intended to use this opportunity to curry favor with the Donquixote Family, completely lost all interest in Homing's bizarre way of thinking.
...
The next day, the Holy Knights announced a revised sentence for Doflamingo.
The original punishment—five years of imprisonment, stripping of Celestial Dragon status, and exile to the lower world—was changed to:
The entire family of Donquixote Homing would be stripped of their Celestial Dragon status, exiled to the lower world, and permanently forbidden from returning to the Holy Land, Mary Geoise.
This decision stunned many Celestial Dragons in Mary Geoise.
Had the Donquixote Family offended Garling somehow?
How did the punishment suddenly become so severe?
Just how much had the Nerona Family offered? Were they really this vindictive?
From then on, a story began circulating throughout Mary Geoise:
Donquixote Doflamingo struck a member of the Nerona Family with an elbow—resulting in the exile of his entire family.
Because of this, many Celestial Dragons began re-educating their children:
If you've got nothing better to do, never provoke the Nerona Family.
This only made the already mysterious Nerona Family seem even more terrifying.
Originally, in the year 1489 of the Sea Circle Calendar, Doflamingo's family would have descended to the lower world due to Homing's "madness."
But now, influenced by the idea that "a real man should dare to strike a Celestial Dragon," the Donquixote Family's fate came more than two years earlier.
In early 1487 of the Sea Circle Calendar, after Doflamingo struck a member of the Nerona Family—
The entire family was exiled to the lower world.
...
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