Chapter 106: The Greed of Blood and the Fire of Vengeance

[Victor’s POV]

The silence in Shakky’s backroom was suffocating. I sat leaning forward on my wooden chair, my hands clasped together, my eyes locked onto my three cousins. I had fought Emperors and Warlords, but nothing could have prepared me for the sickening dread pooling in my stomach as I waited for them to explain how they had died.

Jacob took a ragged, shuddering breath. He looked down at his double-jointed Longarm hands, clenching and unclenching them as if trying to remind himself that he was still alive.

It was Peter who finally broke the silence. The intimidating, gruff aura of the Spinosaurus hybrid completely melted away, leaving behind the vulnerable voice of a seventeen-year-old kid.

“It was fourteen months ago,” Peter started, his voice barely above a whisper. “For us, I mean. It was a Tuesday. I had just finished my college classes, and I had this massive video editing project due. I couldn’t figure out the software. I tried calling you, bhai. I called you three times, but you weren’t picking up.”

I felt a cold knife twist in my gut. I remembered that Tuesday.

It was the exact day I had finally crashed and gone to sleep after a grueling thirty-five-hour editing binge for my company. I remembered falling into my bed, completely exhausted, my phone silenced on the nightstand. When I closed my eyes that afternoon, it was the last time I existed in the old world. The next time I woke up, I was here.

“When you didn’t answer,” Peter continued, rubbing his arms defensively, “I called Jacob. He told me it was probably better to just go to your house and bother you in person. Maria was free, so she drove us. We just… we just wanted to hang out and get some help with a stupid school project.”

Maria swallowed hard, a tear tracing down her cheek. “When we pulled up to your street… We saw Aliester’s car parked half a block away. We knew how much trouble he had been causing you and Jas over the property. We thought he was there to start another fight.”

“So we decided to back you up,” Jacob said, his voice tightening. “We got out of the car. We walked up the driveway. We were maybe… ten feet from the front door.”

Jacob stopped. His breathing hitched, his eyes widening as the phantom memory of the trauma hit him all over again.

“There was no warning,” Jacob whispered, his voice trembling. “No shouting. Just… fire. The whole world just turned into blinding, deafening white fire. The shockwave threw us back into the street. The explosion was so big it blew out the windows of every house on the block.”

I stopped breathing. Jasmine let out a choked sob, covering her mouth with both hands.

“We didn’t die right away,” Maria said, her voice hollow and detached. “I remember waking up in the hospital a few days later. Everything hurt. It was an agony I can’t even describe. The doctors told me that when the blast hit… I had turned and thrown myself over Peter. My entire back… it was covered in severe, third-degree burns. My skin was just… gone.”

“Jacob tried to grab us,” Peter wept, tears freely falling down his face now. “He tried to shield us. The shrapnel from the house… it tore his left hand completely off. Even with Maria protecting me, the heat of the flash burned me down to the muscle. We were mangled, bhai. We were just laying in those hospital beds, strapped to machines, slowly dying for weeks because our bodies couldn’t fight off the infections.”

A heavy, oppressive darkness began to leak from my aura. My Conqueror’s Haki was bleeding into the room, fracturing the wooden floorboards beneath my boots.

“During those weeks in the ICU,” Jacob said, his eyes locking onto mine, “the police investigation concluded. The detectives came to our rooms to take our statements. That’s when they told us. They told us that you, Jas, and Aliester were all dead.”

Jasmine let out another sob, gripping Maria’s hand.

“There were other casualties,” Jacob continued, his voice hardening with bitter resentment. “But Jasmine’s friend, Priya, survived. The police said Priya only lived because Jas physically threw herself in front of her right before the bomb went off.”

“A bomb,” I repeated, the word tasting like ash in my mouth.

“A homemade explosive,” Peter nodded, wiping his eyes. “The biggest one ever recorded in a domestic case. And because it was classified as a terrorist attack, the feds found the culprits fast.”

Peter looked at me, his eyes burning with a deep, furious hatred. “It was his family, Victor. Aliester’s older brother and his parents. They built the bomb.”

The revelation hit the room like a physical shockwave.

“Why?” Ace demanded, stepping forward, his voice tight with disbelief. “Why would your own family try to blow you up?!”

“Greed,” Maria spat, her voice dripping with absolute venom. “Pure, pathetic greed. You know the land Victor and Jas lived on? A major commercial builder wanted it. They were offering massively above-market prices for the acreage. Aliester’s family wanted that money. But the deed was in Victor’s name. They tried to intimidate them into signing it over, but Victor wouldn’t budge. So they decided to kill them.”

“They built a bomb to murder you so they could inherit the land and sell it,” Jacob sneered, disgust contorting his features. “But Aliester or his idiot brother botched the wiring. It went off prematurely. The yield was way bigger than they planned. It destroyed the whole house and killed their own son in the process.”

I sat completely frozen.

My uncle. My aunt. My older cousin. They had built a bomb over a real estate payout. They had murdered me in my sleep. They had murdered my sister, and inadvertently slaughtered their own son. But worse, far, far worse, they had caught three innocent kids in the crossfire. Kids who had just come over to ask for help with a school project.

“We held on for as long as we could,” Peter whispered, his voice fading. “But our bodies just gave out. We died in that hospital.”

“And then… we met him,” Jacob said. “Damine. The Planeswalker.”

“He appeared right as the monitors flatlined,” Maria explained. “He collected our souls. He told us that our time was cut tragically short, but he could offer us a second chance. He said he could take us to the exact same world where our brother and sister were waiting.”

“We thought he meant heaven,” Peter admitted, a sad, self-deprecating smile crossing his face. “We thought you guys were dead, and he was an angel taking us to the afterlife to be with you. We said yes instantly.”

“But we didn’t wake up in heaven,” Jacob sighed. “We woke up fourteen months ago, in the bodies of Ideo, Ulti, and Page One. Damine gave us a brief rundown of this world. He told us we would have to survive on our own for a while. And he promised that we would receive our ‘newbie packages’ only when we finally reunited with you or Jasmine.”

The story ended, leaving a crushing, devastating silence in its wake.

Then, the Verdant Abyss reacted.

“They killed their own family over a piece of dirt?!” Ace roared. The sheer, unadulterated fury radiating from the Fire Fist caused the flames on his shoulders to violently ignite, catching the edge of the leather couch on fire before Law casually swatted it out with a wave of his hand. Ace’s eyes were wild with rage. “What kind of absolute, irredeemable scum does that?!”

Snikt. The metallic sound echoed sharply through the room as Laura’s adamantium claws slid out of her knuckles. She wasn’t smiling. The feral, predatory instinct of the mutant was fully unleashed, her eyes locked onto me. “Point me at him, Victor. Just give me the word, and I will take that Commodore apart piece by bloody piece.”

“That is so tragic!” Baby 5 wailed, sobbing openly. Tears streamed down her face as both of her arms seamlessly transformed into heavy Gatling cannons, the barrels spinning with a lethal hum. “Those poor kids! I’m going to blow his stupid silver head clean off his shoulders!”

Palmon, who had been sitting quietly beside Jasmine’s feet, suddenly stood up. The large pink flower on her head flared open aggressively, her root-like fingers extending into sharp, dangerous vines. “No one hurts Jasmine’s family!” she squeaked, though her usually cute voice carried a terrifying, venomous edge. “I’ll use my Poison Ivy to squeeze the life right out of him!”

Robin stood near the back of the room. Her usual serene smile was completely gone, replaced by a gaze so cold and dark it could freeze the ocean. “To slaughter your own bloodline for a financial gain… it is a uniquely pathetic, disgusting brand of human rot.”

“Yohoho…” Brook murmured, his skeletal hands gripping his cane tightly. His voice lacked any trace of its usual mirth, delivering the words with a chilling, hollow resonance. “I have sailed the darkest seas and seen the absolute depths of the underworld… but this chills me to the bone. And I do not even have skin.”

Standing in the doorway connecting the backroom to the main bar, Shakky set her polishing rag down with a heavy, deliberate thud.

“I’ve served cutthroats, assassins, and the most ruthless pirates of the Old Era for decades,” Shakky scoffed, her voice dripping with pure, unadulterated disgust. “Pirates kill for dreams, for power, or for freedom. But murdering your own family in cold blood over a real estate payout? That isn’t villainy. That is the cowardly, pathetic greed of a street-rat. He doesn’t deserve the uniform he wears.”

The room was buzzing with a lethal, violent energy. Every single member of my crew was ready to tear Marineford to the ground.

Then, Gammamon moved.

He had been sitting quietly on the rug the entire time, listening to the story. The usually cheerful, innocent face of my partner was completely, terrifyingly blank.

Gammamon stood up. He turned his back to the room and began walking toward the exit with slow, deliberate steps.

“I have to go find a Commodore to cook,” Gammamon stated. The sheer, deadpan simplicity of his statement, delivered with the absolute certainty of an apex predator, sent a shiver down my spine.

Before the little triceratops could reach the door, Jasmine reached out and grabbed his tail.

Gammamon stopped, looking back over his shoulder.

Jasmine was looking down at him. Her face was streaked with tears, but her eyes were burning with a terrifying, apocalyptic fury. The kind of fury that could only be forged by a sister realizing her family had been slaughtered.

“Get in line, Gamma,” Jasmine said, her voice dropping to a deadly, venomous whisper. “Me first.”

“No one is rushing blindly into the streets,” a calm, clinical voice cut through the chaos.

Law adjusted his spotted hat, pushing himself off the wall. His tactical, surgical mind was already slicing through the emotion, finding the most efficient route to our goal.

“We are currently sitting in the Sabaody Archipelago,” Law stated, his eyes locking onto mine. “If we launch a frontal assault on a Marine Commodore right now, we will draw an Admiral. It will be a messy, chaotic war, and we risk losing our family again.”

Law drew his Nodachi slightly, the steel gleaming in the dim light. “I can do this quietly, Victor. I can track his haki signature. I will cast a Room over his barracks tonight, and I will cleanly remove his heart without him or anyone else ever knowing. He just won’t wake up tomorrow.”

The offer was efficient. It was smart. It was exactly why I had forged an alliance with the Surgeon of Death.

But it wasn’t enough.

I looked up. I let my Warlord aura flare, entirely uncontained. The air in the room grew heavy, the atmospheric pressure dropping so rapidly that the glass vials on the medical shelves cracked. My eyes burned with a bright, terrifying arcane light.

“No,” I said, my voice resonating with an absolute, world-ending finality.

Law frowned. “Victor, tactically….”

“I said no, Law.”

I stood up. I looked at Jacob, Maria, and Peter. I looked at the ghosts of the kids who had suffered in a hospital bed because of a coward’s greed.

“Aliester doesn’t get a quiet death in the shadows,” I declared, my voice echoing with the unbreakable decree of a King of the Sea. “He doesn’t get to die peacefully in his sleep without knowing why. He is going to answer for every second of pain he caused our family.”

I stepped past the table, looking out toward the door, toward the lights of the Navy bases across the archipelago.

“He will be executed openly,” I promised, the kinetic energy of the Fa-Jin crackling around my fists. “In the light. For the entire world to see exactly what happens to those who touch my blood.”

I took a deep breath, reigning in the destructive aura before it tore the bar apart.

“But not today,” I finished, looking back at my exhausted, battered cousins. “Today, we heal. Tomorrow, we plan for war.”