South Blue, Taya Kingdom, Royal Capital Prison.
It was dark and damp here, the air thick with the stench of mold, bloodstains, and despair.
Sunlight filtered through the narrow iron windows high above, barely casting a few dim beams that illuminated the dust drifting through the air.
In a solitary cell at the very end, a man leaned against the icy wall, his gaze unfocused.
He had high-set eyebrows, and his heavy eyelids made him look perpetually half-asleep. A long-extinguished cigarette butt hung from his slightly thick lips.
His dark green curls were a complete mess. Even in such an environment, he stubbornly wore a pair of sunglasses, their lenses covered in grime.
Leaning against the cold wall, his eyes remained unfocused as memories surged like a tide, uncontrollably eroding his numb nerves.
His name was Aramaki. He had once been the peace officer of a district in this country.
The district under his charge was the only gray area in the Taya Kingdom—a seemingly glamorous member nation of the World Government.
There, no clear royal law held sway. Pirates, down-and-out merchants, and local gangs all mingled together, maintaining a fragile, brutal balance written in blood and Beli.
Aramaki was a pawn the kingdom had half-abandoned, tossed there to fend for himself.
Yet he had maintained "order" there in his own unique and effective way.
Not through justice or law—those things were no better than scrap paper in the gray area—but through an almost instinctive grasp of the balance of power, along with the unfathomable strength hidden beneath his slovenly appearance.
Before gang clashes broke out, he would appear between them at just the right moment, saying the most cowardly things in the most listless voice:
"Hey, hey, what's the point of all this fighting and killing? Cleaning up afterward