Prison

Drought, scorching heat, and even the wind carried coarse grains of sand.

Those were the first sensations Rain felt when he regained consciousness. He struggled to open his eyes, but the blinding sunlight made him squint. It felt as though he had swallowed a handful of blades, his throat so parched it was about to split apart.

With the sound of waves crashing against the shore, Rain gradually made out his surroundings. This was a remote stretch of coast outside Nanolohana, the port city of Alabasta. Not far out at sea, only a few broken planks from his single-masted sailboat remained, drifting with the waves.

As for "Brute Force" Otto, the twenty-two-million-Beli captive, he was nowhere to be found.

"Still not dead..." Rain gave a bitter smile and tried to push himself up. But the backlash from exhausting both his stamina and Devil Fruit powers left him barely able to move a finger.

Just then, a jumble of footsteps and crude laughter came from behind the dunes.

"Hahaha! Captain Gore, we've struck it rich today! We picked up a pirate captain with a twenty-two-million-Beli bounty for free!"

Several soldiers in Alabasta security force uniforms approached with muskets in hand, dragging the still-unconscious Otto along. At their head was Gore, a security force captain with a huge belly, a fleshy face, and a handlebar mustache.

"Keep it down! This is a pirate I took down after a life-and-death battle! Is that other guy with no bounty still alive?" Gore boasted smugly, casually sweeping his gaze over Rain lying on the beach and the black waterproof backpack Rain held tightly against his chest.

Gore's eyes lit up. He strode over, planted a foot on the back of Rain's hand without ceremony, and roughly yanked the backpack away.

"Riiip—"

The bag was pulled open. When Gore saw the stacks of crisp, large-denomination Beli inside, along with the Eternal Pose in an exquisite wooden box, his breathing immediately quickened.

More than forty million Beli! That was more money than he could skim in ten lifetimes as a security officer in this miserable port!

"You..." Rain's voice was hoarse as he tried to summon his Devil Fruit powers. But to his horror, he discovered that his stamina was completely depleted. His body could no longer turn into an element at all.

"What? You got something to say?" Gore quickly hugged the backpack tightly to his chest, then drew the sword at his waist and pointed it at Rain's nose. With righteous indignation, he shouted, "Shut up! You vicious pirate accomplice who tried to attack Nanolohana! This money is clearly stolen loot you plundered, and it is now all confiscated by the Alabasta security force!"

"Captain, this guy can barely even stand. Should we just kill him?" a soldier asked as he leaned closer to look at the weakened Rain.

"Idiot! A guy carrying that much money could be a Devil Fruit user. What if he suddenly lashes out?" Gore was greedy, but he was also exceptionally cunning. His eyes shifted as he pulled out a pair of strange, heavy gray-black handcuffs from behind his waist.

"Use the ones we confiscated from that black-market smuggling ship last month! This is the legendary Seastone that can restrain all ability users!"

"Click!"

The cold, heavy handcuffs locked tightly around Rain's wrists.

The instant the Seastone touched his skin, an unprecedented weakness drained the last trace of strength from Rain's body. He felt his Devil Fruit powers vanish at once, leaving his body even heavier and weaker than an ordinary person's.

Two soldiers dragged him across the sand like a dead dog, and his vision gradually blurred. But before he lost consciousness, Rain fixed his gaze on Gore's wildly laughing fat face and etched it deep into his mind.

Cold, damp, and reeking of excrement and rotten flesh.

When Rain woke again, he had already been thrown into the prison for serious criminals beneath Nanolohana.

"Hey, newcomer."

A monkey-thin guard stood before the iron bars outside the cell. He held a rusty iron rod and idly struck the bars with it, producing a shrill clang.

"Since you're a fresh face, I'll give you a friendly reminder. In Alabasta, as long as you pay enough, even a death-row convict can become a law-abiding citizen." The guard lowered his voice, greed gleaming in his eyes.

"Outside, they've pinned the serious charge of 'pirate accomplice with intent to rebel' on you. But if you hand over five hundred thousand Beli in protection money, I can put in a good word with the warden and say we arrested the wrong person. What do you say?"

Rain leaned against the cold, damp wall, his hands suspended in the air by the heavy Seastone cuffs. He raised his head, his eyes as calm as a stagnant pool.

"My money, forty-five million Beli, was already taken by your security force captain. Go ask him for it."

The guard froze for a moment, then his expression turned extremely ugly, as if he had been played.

"Pah! What are you acting like such a big shot for, you poor bastard?" The guard spat a thick wad of phlegm at Rain. "Trash that can't even pay to save his own life, get ready to rot to death in this dungeon!"

When it was time to eat, the guard came over carrying a broken wooden bucket. Using a chipped bowl, he scooped out half a bowl of murky water floating with unknown impurities, along with a rock-hard piece of black bread covered in green mold, and kicked them through the gap beneath the iron bars.

"Food's here, trash."

Just as Rain painfully shifted his body, preparing to take the water that could keep him alive—

The guard suddenly sneered and lashed out with his filthy leather boot, kicking the bowl over.

The murky water splashed across the foul, sour mud and was quickly absorbed into the earth.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. My foot slipped." The guard let out an exaggerated cackle as he looked down at Rain. "But it's fine. Lowlifes like you are probably used to crawling on the ground and licking muddy water, right? Lick it clean! Otherwise, you won't even get this moldy bread tomorrow!"

Rain stared silently at the water soaking into the dirt.

He did not rage. He did not curse the guard like some hot-blooded idiot, shouting about how fortunes would reverse in thirty years. He knew all too well that while wearing Seastone and being this weak, anger was the cheapest and deadliest poison.

He slowly stretched out his bloodstained hand and picked up the mold-covered black bread. Then, under the guard's stunned gaze, he took a bite.

The sour taste of mold spread through his mouth, but he forced himself to chew and swallow. He needed calories. He needed energy.

Even in hell, a stubborn stone would lie dormant, waiting for the day it broke through the earth.

"Tch, what a spineless coward." Seeing that Rain did not fight back, the guard immediately lost interest and walked away cursing.

Yet the moment the guard left, several hair-raising chuckles sounded from the shadows deep within the cell.

"Hehehe... Did you hear that? A pathetic wimp even a guard dares to shit on was thrown into our Cell Number Four."

Three vicious prisoners, broad and powerful, their bodies covered in scars and tattoos, slowly emerged from the darkness.

The leader was a bald brute with an eyepatch over his left eye. He clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking loudly as he approached Rain with a savage grin.

"Pretty boy, do you know the rules of this cell?" The bald man suddenly drove a foot into Rain's stomach.

Bang!

The weakened Rain slammed heavily into the wall, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. But he immediately curled up, shielding his head with his arms and protecting his abdomen with his legs.

"Oh? You can take a hit?" Another prisoner with a face full of flesh stepped forward, planted a foot on Rain's back, and ground down hard. "My name is Zack, the 'Skinner.' Know why I got locked up? That merchant who refused to pay protection money was too noisy, so I used a little knife to peel off his skin inch by inch. His screams sounded better than a Wind Wolf in the desert!"

"Hahaha! Zack, what's so impressive about that?" The third prisoner kicked Rain in the ribs and proudly flaunted his own cruelty. "Last time I robbed a village, I tied all the men who resisted to cacti and watched them die of thirst, baked into mummies by the sun! This kid's skin is so soft and tender. Wonder how many days he'll last?"

Fists and leather boots rained down upon Rain.

Without the protection of his rock armor, unable to turn into an element to evade damage, and bound in Seastone, Rain now experienced the most primal agony this fleshly body could feel.

It felt as though at least two of his ribs had broken, and blood kept spilling from the corner of his mouth.

Yet throughout Cell Number Four, aside from the three prisoners' crazed, perverted laughter and the dull thuds of fists striking flesh, not a single scream could be heard.

Rain was like a stone that truly could not feel pain. He protected his vital areas with all his strength, allowing these scum to vent their violent urges on him.

His eyes remained open in the darkness.

He calculated the rate at which his strength was returning. He studied the structure of the Seastone handcuffs' lock. In his mind, he arranged the order in which these people would be executed.

Gore, the security force captain who had stolen his money and framed him. The monkey-thin guard who had kicked over his life-saving water and demanded a bribe. And the three deranged death-row prisoners who were beating him and bragging about their methods of murder.

Five people in all.

Hit me... Hit me as much as you want...

Rain swallowed the metallic sweetness in his throat and murmured silently to himself.