Chapter 91: The Uprising and the Cage

The cool night air of the royal courtyard was a sharp contrast to the suffocating, blood-soaked heat of the ballroom behind us.

Through the heavy, shattered golden doors, the sounds of gunfire, clashing steel, and Queen’s enraged, dinosaur-amplified roars echoed into the sky.

Robin and I walked down the marble steps, completely untouched.

Marco the Phoenix walked beside us, his hands casually tucked into the pockets of his slacks.

He didn’t look back at the chaos.

He didn’t seem the least bit upset that the Celestial Elixir was a fake.

Halfway down the stairs, Marco stopped.

He turned his head, his sharp, half-lidded eyes locking onto me.

“You played him, didn’t you?” Marco stated.

It wasn’t a question.

It was the absolute, respectful recognition of one veteran recognizing another’s game.

“The leak.

The auction.

The fake vials.

You didn’t want to fight Joker.

You wanted to completely shatter his crown in front of the entire underworld.”

I stopped on the steps, turning to face the First Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates.

I didn’t confirm or deny it.

I just gave him a faint, knowing smile.

“The Joker is a parasite,” I replied smoothly.

“He thought he held the strings to the era.

I just showed the world that his strings were made of cheap yarn.”

Marco chuckled, a genuine, warm sound.

The blue flames of his Devil Fruit flickered briefly around his shoulders.

“Pops respects a man who fights with his brain just as much as his fists,” Marco said, extending a hand.

“You may be a Warlord, Victor, but you don’t act like a Government dog.

When this mess is over, and you find yourself sailing near our territory…

the Moby Dick has an open invitation for you and your crew.

Come share a drink with me and the old man.”

I looked at his extended hand, recognizing the sheer weight of the offer.

An open invitation to the flagship of the Strongest Man in the World was a hell of a diplomatic golden ticket.

I reached out and firmly shook his hand.

“I’ll take you up on that, Marco.

Give Whitebeard my regards.”

Marco gave a sharp nod.

He turned, shifting his arms into brilliant wings of blue and yellow flames, and launched himself into the night sky, flying back toward his ship to leave Doflamingo to his self-made apocalypse.

I looked at my pocket watch.

“It’s about time.”

Deep beneath our feet, the absolute, catastrophic failure of the SMILE factory reached critical mass.

BOOOOOOOOM.

The earth violently shuddered.

It wasn’t a standard explosion, it was a subterranean, concussive shockwave of highly volatile, pressurized chemicals detonating all at once.

The marble stairs beneath our boots cracked.

Massive plumes of black smoke and green chemical fire erupted from the ventilation shafts dotting the palace grounds.

The sheer force of the blast shook the entire kingdom, vibrating the glasses right off the tables in the surrounding towns.

Law and the infiltration team had done their job.

Kaido’s supply line was now permanently reduced to molten slag.

High above us, in the luxurious Executive Tower of the palace, the shockwave rattled the windows.

Sitting on a plush sofa surrounded by toys, a small girl wearing a polka-dot dress and a monocle was aggressively eating grapes from her fingertips.

This was Sugar.

The linchpin.

The Donquixote Executive whose Hobi Hobi no Mi Devil Fruit powers kept the entire dark secret of Dressrosa intact.

“What was that noise?” Sugar whined, chewing loudly.

“Trebol is supposed to keep it quiet when I’m eating my grapes.

These grapes are too sour anyway.”

“I know something even more sour!” a cheerful, echoing voice giggled from the shadows.

Sugar paused, her eyes widening.

She looked toward the stone wall.

Phasing directly through the solid masonry, completely bypassing the locked doors and heavy guards, was Perona.

The Ghost Princess twirled her parasol, a wicked, gothic smile on her face.

Before Sugar could even raise a hand to use her terrifying, curse-inducing touch, Perona pointed her parasol forward.

“Negative Hollow!”

A translucent, wailing white ghost shot across the room, passing directly through Sugar’s chest.

The little girl froze.

Her eyes rolled back in her head.

The grapes slipped from her fingers, bouncing across the floor.

Sugar slowly dropped to her knees, an aura of absolute, crushing despair settling heavily over her small shoulders.

“I’m worthless,” Sugar sobbed uncontrollably, slamming her fists onto the carpet.

“I’m worse than a bruised grape.

I shouldn’t even exist.

I want to be a worm…”

The sheer, overwhelming wave of profound depression completely short-circuited her consciousness.

Sugar’s eyes rolled up, and she collapsed face-first onto the floor, completely unconscious.

Breaking the curse all across the entire island of Dressrosa, the effects of the Hobi Hobi no Mi instantaneously reversed.

Down in the subterranean trading port, a small toy soldier hauling a massive crate suddenly stopped.

A burst of white smoke enveloped him, and in his place stood a towering, hardened gladiator, gasping for air as a decade of lost memories flooded his brain.

Up on the surface, a stuffed dog barking at a pirate suddenly erupted into smoke, transforming into a furious Marine captain who had been trapped for years.

In the town squares, the citizens who had been cheering and dancing suddenly stopped.

Husbands remembered wives they had forgotten.

Mothers remembered children who had been erased from existence.

And then, they remembered who did it to them.

The forced cheerfulness of Dressrosa violently shaken to its core, replaced by an ocean of pure, unadulterated, blinding rage.

“The Donquixote Family!” a citizen screamed, tears of fury streaming down his face.

“Where did I put the rifle that green-haired girl gave me last month?!”

All across the kingdom, citizens rushed to hidden cellars and floorboards, pulling out the massive caches of weapons, ammunition, and armor the Verdant Abyss crew had secretly smuggled to them during the hidden Month Two.

The Tontatta dwarves burst from the ground, wielding their tiny, lethal spears.

The gladiators roared, taking up arms.

The revolution had already begun.

And it exploded instantaneously.

Back in the ruined ballroom, Donquixote Doflamingo was already drowning.

His executives were desperately fighting off the furious pirate captains.

The Emperor Envoys were tearing the room to pieces.

But when the massive subterranean explosion rocked the palace, and the deafening, collective roar of millions of people regaining their memories echoed through the windows, Doflamingo completely froze.

He walked slowly to the shattered balcony, looking out over his kingdom.

He saw the thick black smoke rising from the underground port.

He saw the toys transforming back into humans in the streets below.

He saw the citizens, armed to the teeth, charging his Family’s outposts.

The Elixir hadn’t just been a scam.

It had been a massive, golden distraction.

Someone had leaked the rumor, fed him the fake vials in Mystoria, gathered his enemies in one room, blown up his factory, and broken Sugar’s curse, all in a perfectly synchronized, flawless sequence.

But he had absolutely no idea who it was.

Was it the Revolutionaries?

A rival underworld boss?

Did the Emperor Envoys orchestrate this to steal his territory?

The sheer, terrifying reality of fighting an invisible mastermind broke his sanity.

He had lost his underworld empire.

He had lost his factory.

He had lost his kingdom.

If he was going down, he was going to take every single living soul on this island down with him.

“I’LL KILL YOU ALL!” Doflamingo’s scream was an inarticulate, jagged sound of absolute, mind-shattering rage.

He leaped from the balcony, soaring high into the night sky above the palace.

He threw his hands out, his fingers spread wide.

“BIRD CAGE!”

A massive, incredibly dense volley of razor-sharp strings shot from his fingertips, flying high into the clouds before raining back down in a massive, expanding dome.

The strings plunged deep into the bedrock of the ocean floor, completely enclosing the entire island of Dressrosa.

The strings were coated in invisible Haki.

They severed the communication lines of all outgoing Den-Den Mushis.

They sliced through the masts of the pirate ships anchored in the harbor that tried to flee.

The island was completely, entirely sealed.

Floating in the center of the sky, surrounded by the impenetrable dome of his own making, Doflamingo pulled out a massive, broadcast Den-Den Mushi.

His voice echoed across the entire trapped kingdom, dripping with pure, unhinged malice.

“Listen to me, you miserable rats!” Doflamingo’s voice boomed.

“You want my head?!

You want to tear down my Family?!

Fine!

But nobody leaves this island alive!”

The citizens, the pirates, and the Marines all stopped, looking up at the sky in terror.

“I have activated the Birdcage and it is shrinking,” Doflamingo laughed, a sickening, desperate sound.

“In one hour, these strings will reach the center of the island and slice everything, and everyone, into ribbons.

But I will offer you a game!

A battle royale!

I am placing bounties on the heads of the people tearing down my kingdom!”

Doflamingo pointed a finger down at the chaotic streets and the ruined palace below.

“Bring me the heads of the Emperor Envoys!

Bring me Queen the Plague!

Bring me Charlotte Katakuri and Marco the Phoenix!

Bring me the head of the traitorous King Riku and his revolting gladiators!

Kill the invaders, kill the rebels, and I will let the survivors out of the cage!

Let the slaughter begin!”

The broadcast clicked off.

Down in the courtyard, I looked up at the massive, razor-sharp strings enclosing the sky.

Doflamingo was completely blind to the true threat, lashing out at the visible ghosts while my crew remained entirely in the shadows.

The Joker had drawn his last card.

It was time to put him in the ground.

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Curtis Branscum, Vince, Eric