Chapter 4: The Red String of Fate
The next day Diamante reported that the shack was empty, and no one in town had seen any of the escaped mob victims. There was little talk of hunting them down– the townies seemed frightened of witchcraft, and retaliation after they’d all passed out and woken up to find their prey vanished.
It served them right as far as Trebol was concerned. He was disappointed to have lost track of the boy-king, but life went on. Business went on.
They took the shack as their hideout and set up operations. As was becoming customary, Diamante and Pica posed as out of work guardsmen looking for hire while they probed the workmen of the town for gossip, while Trebol took in work as a scribe with Corazon as his young assistant– a position which brought him in contact with the business folk of the town and their web of connections. Trebol didn’t want to hang around the town long. It was dirty, and poor, and they already knew the people there were hostile and suspicious. They’d stay just long enough to gather information and be on to better things.
Just long enough for Trebol to satisfy himself that the mysterious young boy-king wasn’t coming back.
Just long enough for Trebol to create an elaborate fantasy of what might happen if he did.
Doffy reappeared on the third night, after the moon had risen, and Trebol’s heart skipped a beat. He’d already shared some of his plans with Diamante for if the scenario came to pass, so when Doffy appeared, Dia just shrugged, and opened the door.
Trebol couldn’t help himself from immediately fussing over the young man as they ushered him inside. Were his wounds healing alright? Did he have any feeling of fever? He opened a bottle of wine.
Anticipation hummed like drunkenness through Trebol’s blood.
“We heard you cleared off– Doffy, isn’t it? Why come back?”
There was the same intense and angry expression in the boy’s eyes as there had been that night.
“We didn’t get to finish our talk,” he said boldly. “I’m Donquixote Doflamingo, by the way. My father forbid me from speaking to you.”
“But you didn’t listen, eh, Doflamingo?”
Three nights. It’d been three whole nights since they’d rescued that family from the mob and fled into the night to hide. Three nights and Vergo still couldn’t forget the other young man’s defiant face, even in the face of torture and injury.
Even when he forgot other things– even where they were– he still remembered the young man’s stare before he passed out, and the look in his eyes before he was dragged away by the old man.
He hadn’t expected to ever see him again, but to his surprise he’d shown up. He’d shown up and been ushered in with Trebol, who’d been taken with powerful curiosity for the past few days that even Vergo couldn’t help but notice. The fascinated, revenant way with which Trebol talked about Doffy every time that he mentioned him piqued Vergo’s curiosity too.
Trebol had been guessing about what the reason the mob had passed out might be, and had passed his guess onto Vergo. The legendary haki of kings, coming from someone Vergo’s own age.
He couldn’t keep himself from slipping into the room to listen to them talk, leaned against the wall with his sunglasses half fallen down his nose.
Doffy snorted. “My father doesn’t know anything. He’s the reason we’re in this mess to start with.”
“Hey, hey, tell me a little more about that,” Trebol urged. “We heard that awful mob was after your family. But you set them to rights, didn’t you? You were shouting at them, you said?”
“That’s right,” Doffy said, his mouth a hard line. “I was shouting at them, and they all passed out.”
“When you shouted, they passed out?” Trebol perked up at that, and glanced down at Vergo. “That’s haki. Conqueror’s haki.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Doffy said.
But Vergo knew. Trebol had told him all about it from the books he’d been reading to train him. There were legends about it. And there was the confirmation.
Vergo blinked behind his glasses, before he looked down at the boy with the ghost of a smile, offering his hand to the other boy as it coated with the strange darkness of ‘Armament’.
“It’s the strongest haki there is. Almost a legend.”
According to the book that Trebol was helping him learn to read from, conqueror’s haki belonged only to the strongest and most worthy. It was a sign not just of kingship, but of the true right to rule. A man with conqueror’s haki was of indomitable will and spirit, who would wrap the world around his shoulders like a cloak and stride across the sea as if he owned it.
Doffy looked entranced by Vergo’s dark armament, reaching out to touch his hand, but hesitating as Trebol spoke.
“It’s a sign that you’ve got the quality of a king, Doflamingo,” Trebol explained, “That you’re one of heaven’s chosen few.”
“According to legend, anyway,” Diamante added from where he was lounging against the wall.
Doffy’s chin tilted upward imperiously toward Dia, his hand still not quite touching Vergo’s.
Something seemed to pass between the two of them. Dia shrugged, but Vergo noticed him looking Doffy over with a keen eye and curiosity.
Doffy turned his gaze back to Vergo and his arm. “What are you doing with your arm? Is that ‘haki’, too?”
Vergo nodded as he flexed his fingers.
“Uh huh. It’s arm haki.” He blinked before hurriedly correcting himself. “Armament haki. Got a talent for it, it lets me make things harder than iron— make myself harder than iron too. It even lets me hurt devil fruit users…right Trebol?”
“That’s right, that’s right,” Trebol nodded. “Haki of any kind is a rare gift bestowed on those who can best make use of it.”
Doffy’s fingers finally touched Vergo’s– and he pushed on them curiously. “That’s impressive.”
His skin refused to yield, curiously smooth and hardened by the power of his haki, and Vergo grinned at him widely.
“Thanks. Wish I’d picked it up earlier, of course, but Trebol thinks it’s pretty useful. There’s also one that lets ya see attacks coming… I’ve got a little talent in that one too.”
An especially dark and speculative look passed over Doffy’s face as he wrapped his fingers around Vergo’s. “That sounds like a really useful power.”
“Yeah, we’ve got a few interesting powers between us,” Diamante chuckled.
“Is power something you want, Doffy?” Trebol asked, obviously also catching the dark look on the boy’s face. “You want to test yourself? …. is there someone you want to kill?”
As Trebol’s smile widened sinisterly, the memory of the deck of the fishing vessel flashed in Vergo’s mind.
“There’s lots of people I want to kill,” Doffy said. The dark intensity in his face seemed to increase like a gathering thunderhead.
Vergo felt the memory of his foot stomping repeatedly into the skull of the already dead captain and the dark thought that he wished the man had been alive…just a little longer…so he could have killed him himself.
“Then you should do it.” Vergo’s fingers squeezed Doffy’s, the armament cool between them. “You’ve got the power to.”
Doffy squeezed Vergo’s fingers back, and looked up at them. “How do I use it?”
Trebol shook his head. “Only you can harness the power of the conqueror’s haki, Doffy. It’s too rare for us to teach you. But… there is another kind of power that I can give you, if you want it.”
“Devil fruit?” Pica asked softly. Vergo had forgotten he was even in the room.
“Devil fruit,” Doflamingo repeated. “I’ve heard of that.”
Vergo nodded as he looked him in the eyes.
“It’s a test from the sea. You get all sorts of power, but the sea wants to eatcha. It’s real power, even with a price.” He flashed a grin at him. “We’ve all got one here…I just ate mine a little bit ago, and it still feels weird to use.”
The next little while was spent showing off their abilities, each of which Doflamingo praised and complimented with increasing glee.
Vergo even got to get his going, his body starting to heat as he began absorbing metal through his mouth and into his skin. It culminated in a heavy flare of heat as he smelted it inside his own body and expelled a crude sword from his chest with a triumphant grin. He’d excitedly told Doffy that he was a ‘Smelting Man’, and that he could coat his body with burning metal to make himself even stronger.
He was delighted when Doffy looked excited, the other young man awakening something inside him that was eager to delight.
“I want one,” Doffy declared firmly. “The sea won’t stop me.”
Vergo punched his hand with the clang of metal , grinning from ear to ear.
“I’m sure it won’t, Doffy! If you want a Devil Fruit, we’ve got one! We just got it, too!”
Trebol brought out the fruit that they’d gotten from the pirates in the basement bloodbath— and the pistol he’d taken from the same pirate.
“For you, young master,” Trebol said with reverence as he laid them on the table before Doffy. “To test your mettle, eh?”
Vergo had heard Trebol and Diamante talking about it before— Trebol had been talking about it for days. If Doffy came back– if he really had conquerors haki– then they’d give him the fruit as a gift, if he wanted it. But Vergo still didn’t know what the fruit did. If Trebol knew from his encyclopedia, he hadn’t said anything about it that Vergo could remember.
Doffy took the fruit greedily and lifted it to his lips.
“Careful,” Pica said quietly. “It tastes awful.”
Doflamingo made a rough noise at the back of his throat. “I’m sure I’ve tasted worse.”
When he bit into it, Vergo watched the pink juice of it dribble down the boy’s chin.
His head tilted to the side. “…well. D’ya feel anything? Took around ten minutes for me to feel anything.”
“Hmm… maybe?” Doffy raised his other hand, and wiggled his fingers.
Vergo felt something tug on his arm. A tug so sharp and sudden that he jolted forward, and so did Trebol. And Pic . And Diamante.
“What the hell?” Dia cursed under his breath.
Vergo blinked slowly as he stumbled to a stop and let armament haki flow over his body, his eyes turned towards his arm. “…mmm?”
“Well now,” Trebol murmured, raising his hand. Vergo saw that there was a red thread wrapped around his arm— and one from his own, and each of the others.
They shimmered crimson in the dim light of the shack, and their lengths culminated at Doflamingo’s hand.
“Strings…?” Vergo reached over and flicked it with his finger. “…that’s useful.”
Doffy tugged his hand gently and watched the strings respond. His grin sliced his face like moonlight.
“Well well,” Trebol murmured, looking between his hand, and Doflamingo with a look of sheer delight. “The red string of fate.”
Doflamingo had a dozen different trains of thought and a thousand different questions running through his head at once. His thoughts were such a myriad looping roar that it was almost like calm— it came out the other side as calm— as he sat in the little shack looping strings around his fingers with curiosity as he tested his control over his new powers.
While he did that, the big, fur coat wearing man called Trebol fussed over him— peeling off his dirty bandages and cleaning his wounds with cool water. It made Doffy feel shy and vulnerable to let him do it— to let this stranger see that he was hurting, and care for him. But he let him do it happily– these were the people who had saved him and his brother’s lives. He was hesitant to admit how nervously pleased he was to be so tenderly attended to.
The way Trebol clucked and tutted and cooed as he washed down Doffy’s painful wounds reminded him of his departed mother. So too did Trebol’s soft, careful hands as they stroked the unbroken parts of his flesh comfortingly. No one had been so kind and gentle with him since his mother had died.
“Easy there, young master,” Trebol said, unbandaging Doffy’s eye. “We’re almost done. Have these been changed before?”
“No,” Doffy admitted, kicking his feet. He felt a knot growing in his stomach.
“Your father couldn’t change them?” he asked carefully.
“I didn’t want him to touch me,” Doffy admitted, his throat feeling tight. “And Rosi’s too little to do it properly.”
“Not exactly on good terms with your old man, eh?” Diamante asked. The lankier man was lounging against the wall of the shack, halfway through an apple that was making Doffy salivate. They’d promised him something to eat after his bandages were changed.
“No. I hate him. All of this is his fault. Leaving home. Mom dying. The mobs. E-everything.” He felt his breath shake as he thought about it all, and fought down a sting of tears.
“Poor Doffy!” Trebol cooed, cupping his chin. The big man leaned down to inspect Doffy’s now uncovered face. “You’ve been through so much. It just shows how amazing you are— but how terribly unfair!”
He bit his lip softly. It did show how amazing he was, didn’t it? The fact that Doflamingo had survived at all showed that he was better than the horrible, cruel people who tormented him. Better than his weak father who couldn’t protect his own children. All the pain that he and Rosi had suffered due to that man’s foolishness and weakness made him feel sick.
“How’s it look?” he asked under his breath, as Trebol peered at him. “My eye. Is it going to scar?”
“It… may, young master,” Trebol murmured. “The arrow missed your eye properly– it caught just the edge beside your poor nose. But the fire, Doffy…”
Doffy winced and leaned into Trebol’s hands. He knew in his heart he’d never see out of that eye again, and it made him shake with heartbreak and with rage. How dare they take something like that away from him?
“There there, young master,” Trebol cooed, petting his cheek with soft fingers. His big, moonish face filled Doffy’s vision. “You said you’d make them pay, didn’t you? That you’d kill all of them? Well, when you do, we’d be happy to help you.”
“Yeah, why not,” Diamante agreed, crunching on his apple. “What the hell did your old man do, anyway, Doffy? I heard rumors, but hell if I trust anything out of the mouths of the rabble around here.”
“He threw away our whole lives,” Doffy spat, leaning into Trebol’s touch skittishly. “He forced us to live in secret with people who hated us, and ever since they found out who we were, they’ve been trying to kill us. It’s his fault mom died. They chased us out of our home and she starved and got sick, and Rosi and I had to eat garbage!”
He felt the tears sting his eyes again, and he tightened the strings around his fingers just to focus on the pain outside instead of the pain inside.
He looked up at Trebol and Diamante pleadingly. “Why the hell do they hate us so much? I never did anything to them!”
Diamante came up behind him and put a steadying hand on his shoulder, as Trebol wiped something wet from Doffy’s blind eye. He saw on the cloth that it was blood.
“They’re jealous of you, Doffy,” Trebol told him, carefully starting to bandage his face again. “They’re jealous of the gifts that you were born with. You have qualities they can’t even dream about, and it makes them angry. You’re a god descended to earth, and they’re mere humans living in muck and squalor. They can’t hope to reach your wonder, so they’d rather destroy it.”
“But you guys don’t hate me?” It came out like a question but he was almost sure of it. After two years of starving and living on the run, Trebol and Diamante and Vergo and Pica were the first people who had been kind to him. He couldn’t think they hated him.
Diamante’s hand squeezed his shoulder. “We’re not like that lot. Bunch of stupid, worthless sheep who only take their anger out on people who think they’re weaker. Not like us. We may have been dealt a shitty hand in life, but we’ll fight with everything we got for what we want. If you want something, Doffy? You take it. That’s the way the world works. If you just wait to be handed everything, you’ll always be miserable. And that’s what makes the weak so pissed off.”
“Hey, hey, that’s why they hate us too,” Trebol chuckled, nodding approvingly. “We could never touch your level of glory, young master, but we understand you.”
That seemed to make sense in Doffy’s mind. The mob hated him because they knew he was better than them. That even living in trash and squalor and half-dead he would always, always be better than them.
“I guess you do,” Doffy said, managing a little smile. “I’m lucky to have run into people who can see me for what I really am.”
“I feel like we’re lucky to have run into you, Doffy,” Trebol said, letting him up as he finished with the bandages. “Blessed, even. To have the opportunity to assist a little god in distress.”
Doffy flushed with embarrassment at the praise as he got up. “Well. I’m happy to bless you, then. … You said I could eat something?”
“Of course, of course! Dia, would you?”
“You got it, Tre,” Diamante nodded, getting some food out from their stores and putting it on the table. Dried meat, cheese, more fruit. “So, Doffy…”
“Yeah?” He asked. He tried not to salivate. If he was a god, like they said, he ought to act like one.
Diamante put the food in front of him, and poured wine into a glass. “What is it you want, huh? If you could take anything.”
Doffy had never had wine before. He picked up the glass and sniffed it curiously. “I want to go home. I want to take my brother, and make them take us back. But they won’t let my father back. I heard them laughing at him on the transponder one night.”
“They won’t take your father back, eh?” Trebol said, stroking his chin. “I’d wager that they consider him a traitor. Hey, hey, I’ve got an idea!”
As Doflamingo tucked into the wine, and the food– better food than he’d had in months, he’d have to bring some back to Rosi– he found himself very keen to listen to whatever advice it was that Trebol had.
Vergo and Darger had gone outside while Trebol redid Doffy’s bandages, and they talked privately. Probably Trebol had wanted to tell him more about haki, or devil fruits.
Darger was shuffling his feet through the dirt, kicking up stones and examining them in the pale moonlight. Every now and then, Vergo would watch him nod, and the stone he was turning over would vanish into the palm of his hand.
“Findin’ good ones?” Vergo asked as he shuffled through the dirt and kicked a rock of his own. Every now and again, he’d do the same. If he found some old scrap metal, if he found a little ore buried in the rock. Trebol had told him all about ore and the things you could do with different types when he’d eaten the fruit.
There were still a lot of things he didn’t quite get.
“Mmmhmm. A couple,” he murmured. “The stones around here aren’t very good.”
He squatted down near the wall of the shack, folding his arms over his knees.
Vergo tossed a discarded fork in the air as he plopped down next to him.
“I can’t wait to leave this place.” he admitted quietly. “…so hey, Pica. Whatta you think of Doffy? Trebol’s taken a shine to him, I’d say.”
“Seems like,” Pica nodded, drawing quietly in the dirt with the end of a stick. “Do you think…”
He didn’t finish what he was saying, but Vergo knew what it was anyway. He was wondering if Trebol was going to have Doffy stay with them.
“I think he’s gonna try to convince him, yeah.” Vergo nodded. “…he seemed real taken with him. And he gave him that fruit we’d killed those guys for…that has to count for somethin’ right?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
The door of the shack opened slowly, and Doffy came out of it. His bandages were fresh now, now and he was wearing a pair of sunglasses that Vergo recognized as one of several of his own spares.
Vergo looked up, his glasses bouncing on the bridge of his nose with the force of his moving head. “Hey! Doffy, how went things with Trebol?”
Doffy shrugged fluidly. “It went alright. He said these were yours, but you wouldn’t mind if I had them.”
He pointed at the glasses. There was some trace of a question there, and some expectation of an answer.
“Yeah, I need ‘em to see because the old bastard captain screwed my eyes up.” He leaned forward towards him again with a grin, letting the fork melt between his fingers in his distraction, absorbing the metal into the ‘furnace’ of his body. “I don’t mind if you take that pair at all. They look good.”
Doffy nodded watching as he absorbed the metal. “I guess we both have screwed up eyes. Trebol said mine’s going to scar.”
“Probably…it was a shitty wound,” Vergo looked him in the eyes. “But you’re alive. Which means you can stab back at the people who scarred ya.”
“You get it,” Doffy nodded, lifting his chin. “But I have something I have to do before that.”
Vergo tilted his head. “…eat?” He asked with genuine curiosity.
He shook his head, though Vergo noticed he had a bag in his hands.
“Not that. I had some food… It’s something… heavier. It’s not safe for me to be here though. I’m going back now.” Doffy took a step, and turned his head. “You can walk with me some, if you want to.”
Vergo nodded and hurried to follow him with a curious tilt of his head. “Sure. You want the company?”
He looked over his shoulder as he walked. “I don’t feel like being alone right now.”
Vergo fell into step beside him, glancing back at Darger with a tilt of his head.
“Well I like ya. So I’m coming with.”
Darger lingered behind. “I’ll tell Trebol where you went, okay, Corazon?”
He gave the other boy a thumbs up, before he followed Doffy down the dark street with his hands in his coat pockets.
They walked quietly to where the already rough street turned into dirt, and trailed through gnarled old trees, and piles of garbage.
Finally Doffy asked, “Why did he call you that?”
Vergo glanced at him with a slight smile. “Because we’re a gang, and it’s got a theme. Trebol, Diamante, Pica, and Corazon. The four suits in cards. I’m the heart— there’s the spade, the clubs and the diamond.”
He was quiet for another moment. “What’s being in a gang like?”
“It’s better than being a slave, or indentured to a fishin’ boat…or the orphanage.” Vergo murmured as he walked, looking out at the scrap metal and detritus of the world around them. “It’s a family. But one you actually find for yourself. You look out for one another…they teach you stuff that you never woulda gotten to learn before…”
“You were a slave?” Doffy turned toward him curiously, a frown on his face. He was walking carefully in the dim light, over the twisted and rough rough ground, with, Vergo suddenly remembered, one eye.
He remembered it just as Doflamingo stumbled. Or maybe a split second before.
It was enough of a lead for him to lurch forward and grab him before he could fall, in both arms to protect him from the sharp trash and stone below.
Doffy’s body fell against his with a rush of breath. He was light— almost as light as Vergo had been while he was on the fishing boat. He seemed embarrassed to have stumbled, as he looked up at him, his mouth drawn.
“Sorry.” Vergo murmured as he helped him right himself. “…didn’t wanna see you hurt worse than you already are.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Doffy murmured, standing up again. His hand lingered on Vergo’s arm. “Thank you… I can’t— it’s hard to see.”
Vergo reached over to pat the top of his hand with a nod.
“I get it….it’s pretty hard for me to see too. So us blind bastards can look out for one another. Least for a bit, right?” He gave him a smile, thin and quiet, before he looked down. “And because you asked, yeah. I was a slave, basically, anyway. They called it ‘indentured labor’ but they didn’t pay us.”
Doffy’s fingers found Vergo’s and closed around them. He held his hand as they started to walk again.
“Oh.”
He’d held his hand throughout the conversation, as he told Doffy all about the orphanage and its brutal Madame. How he and Darger had survived by being quieter, sturdier than the others…only to be sold off to the fishing ship to be worked to the bone.
As they worked their way through the fringes, his hand tightened when he talked about the captain and the bo’sun, and the backbreaking labor of the ship. He even told him about the bottle that had shattered across his skull and stolen his perfect eyesight and ‘knocked something loose’, as Trebol said.
Doffy was quiet throughout, but his hand tightened on Vergo’s in return every time. And after he was done, he told Vergo about his own troubles. About his father’s decision for them to leave their home. And the mob– another mob– that had come after his family almost two years earlier, forcing them to flee, and live in squalor eating garbage. How it had killed his mother. How even now the people who were hunting them wouldn’t leave them alone. What Vergo had seen— had rescued him from— was when they’d caught them.
Vergo found himself walking closer to him with his hand linked tightly in his. Doffy had come from the complete opposite circumstances, a vastly different life…
And people had still screwed him over. Just like him. A life marked by tragedy and loss.
“I should go by myself now,” Doffy said quietly as they reached a clearing. Despite that, he made no move to let go of Vergo’s hand. “We’re almost there.”
Vergo remembered that Doffy had never said what exactly it was that he had to do.
He squeezed his hand. “…is it something you have to do alone?” he asked as his eyes lowered to the bag.
Doffy was quiet for a moment. “I’m going to kill my father.”
Vergo squeezed his hand tighter, his expression serious and sober as the grave. “…I’ll be right there when you’re done.Is that alright with you?”
His gaze snapped up to Vergo’s as they stood in the dim moonlight.
“What?” He looked confused, like he didn’t understand what Vergo was offering– but he didn’t pull away.
“I mean I understand if you gotta do it alone, Doffy.” Vergo gripped his hand tighter. “But I’m offerin’ to be there for you afterwards. Right nearby. Like you were an honorary member of the gang or something.”
“You’d just… wait here for me? You barely know me.” His voice had gotten quiet. Hesitant.
Vergo nodded seriously. He looked Doffy in the eye with a lopsided smile.
“I like you. You seem like the sort of person I’d like if I got to know you better, too…and I’m not gonna leave someone to face this kinda choice alone if I like ‘em.”
It was simple, even to his addled mind. Doffy was someone he’d liked. He liked his strength, his grit, he felt sympathy for him, he liked talking haki with him. So why would he leave?
Doffy’s fingers were tight on his and for a minute he didn’t answer. Then he nodded. “Thank you. I don’t know how long this will take.”
“Take as long as you need, Doffy.” Vergo squeezed his hand in return “You’ll find me right here. I won’t even forget.”
It was hard to tell the time in the moonlight, sitting in the junk filled woods with nothing much to do. It might have been a half hour later. It might have been an hour. It might have been much later than that.
Vergo heard a gunshot ring out through the quiet of the evening, momentarily smothering the song of the crickets and the frogs.
For a brief moment he’d forgotten…not that he had to wait, no, that was burned right in there as a promise.
But that the cue he’d been waiting for was the report of a gun. Small nuggets of iron fell out of his burning chest as he jolted in surprise, and he looked up towards the sound.
Doffy must have done it.
The song of frogs and insects came back a moment after that. And for a few minutes, again, Vergo was alone with them, and the moonlight, and his own sometimes stuttering thoughts.
It was a pleasant song, one of those songs that reminded him of sneaking out to sit on the roof of the orphanage.
The stutter of his thoughts rose a little louder as fragments of conversations and thoughts played out in his mind, drifting ever further away from the gunshot and the moment at hand.
The next sound that split the silence of the night, who knew how much longer– was someone distantly screaming his name.
“Vergo!! Corazon!”
That snapped him back to attention, and he shot up and looked around for the source. “Doffy?”
He couldn’t see the source, but it had come from more distantly into the underbrush, further down the ragged dirt road. It had absolutely been Doffy’s voice. The same voice he’d heard screaming less than a week ago.
Vergo shot up, and shook off liquid metal to splatter and burn on the ground below before he took off running towards the voice intent on making sure he was alright.