What Kept You Alive

Hancock wore a spiked steel helmet that completely sealed her face inside. Its surface contained Seastone; once a Devil Fruit user touched it, they would go limp. Neither Hancock nor any other ability user could destroy the helmet. The Seastone concealed Hancock's face and sealed away her Devil Fruit powers.

Hancock was no stranger to Fisher Tiger, but this was the first time she had seen him face-to-face.

The tall, red-skinned Fish-Man had been tightly bound in chains in this sunless place for over two years. Even after enduring such torture for so long, he remained strong—not because Fish-Men possessed such tenacious vitality, but because of the Celestial Dragons' cruelty.

When the Celestial Dragons refused to let you die, even wanting to die was difficult.

"Fisher Tiger!" Miming asked. "What kept you alive?"

Fisher Tiger lowered his head and looked at the Celestial Dragon before him, then at Hancock, whose head was covered by an iron helmet. He realized this was Saint Jalmack's Son, the one who had shocked the entire Holy Land. Perhaps such news could not spread beyond the Holy Land, but it had no trouble reaching the slave pens. Even the slave guards had been discussing it nonstop. With his sharp hearing, he had heard the entire story again and again over the past two days.

So why had Saint Jalmack's Son, whom the Gorosei favored, come to see him?

Fisher Tiger remembered seeing him once before. Back when Saint Jalmack's Son had still been a pathetic young Celestial Dragon, Tiger had already sensed that there was something different about him.

He seemed quite pleased whenever his father, Saint Ni, suffered a setback.

It was not hard to understand a rebellious youth taking pleasure in his father's misfortunes, but Saint Jalmack's Son had made it rather obvious. He had deliberately refused to give his father an out.

Still, there was no opportunity to be found in this. Fisher Tiger did not believe the other man would simply set him free.

With difficulty, Fisher Tiger looked toward the depths of the prison. "For them."

Miming walked to the far side of the prison and saw several iron cages in the flooded cells. Inside were several Fish-Man children, all tightly covering their mouths as they stared at him in terror, as if making a single sound would get them executed. At first glance, these Fish-Man children looked like ordinary humans, but a closer look revealed webbing between their fingers, gills on their necks, fins on some of their backs, and faces that were somewhat grotesque.

A Fish-Man boy with a high ponytail and a mouth full of sharp teeth hung from a hook. His body bore a foul-smelling slave brand, and he stared weakly at Miming as tears streamed endlessly from his eyes. Another boy, shaped like an octopus, had an iron chain around his neck. He silently scrubbed the floor with his damaged, sucker-lined arms. Slave blood had seeped into every crack between the tiles; wherever water had been splashed, bloody water would bubble up, filling the prison with the stench of blood. Two of his tentacles were missing, and judging by the grill rack and seasoning jars beside the furnace, they had likely been sliced up, roasted, and eaten.

"What is your name?" Miming asked the Fish-Man boy hanging from the hook.

"Aladdin," he answered weakly. "I'm a sea catfish Fish-Man. I'm delicious. If you want grilled fish, eat me. The others taste terrible."

"Aladdin!" The Fish-Man children covered their mouths and wept, trembling all over with fear.

"I see," Miming said.

This was how Saint Ni had subdued Fisher Tiger. Since Tiger had no family or friends who could be used to threaten him, Saint Ni had needed to give him a bond. Those who did not care about their own lives often cared deeply about the lives of others, especially the lives of their benefactors. These Fish-Man children were an invisible yet heavy chain, one that had finally forced down Tiger's neck, harder than granite.

Hancock covered her mouth with a hand, only to touch the iron-forged helmet instead. A wave of dizziness and weakness immediately washed over her. This was the condition Xia Luqianqian had ultimately accepted in exchange for allowing her to live. The key was in Miming's possession, though he had immediately had another one made and secretly placed it in her hands.

Miming returned to Tiger and tugged on the rope beneath a pulley. A bucket hung from the rope, dumping a bucket of water over Tiger's head.

"Are you planning to set me free?" Fisher Tiger seemed a little more alert as he said coldly, "If you free me, then what I can do for you is—tear your whole family to pieces!"

Miming gave a faint snort. "Stop boasting. With your strength, you simply cannot do it."

"Tell me, great Saint Jalmack's Son, what do you want from me?" Pain showed on Tiger's face. "If you do not intend to use me as a horse, I do not know what use I could possibly have for you." The young Celestial Dragon before him differed somewhat from his father in how he used slaves. He had little interest in using Tiger as a mount, and Tiger knew that much.

Miming said seriously, "You can try escaping from this Mary Geoise, and then come back."

Tiger froze, then burst into laughter.

Leaving the Holy Land of Mary Geoise was already an utterly impossible feat; no slave had ever accomplished it. Even more absurdly, who would return after escaping?

"Impossible," Tiger sneered. "Even if you let me go, I could never escape. It is not that I refuse—it is that I lack the ability. And even if I could escape, why would I come back? Ah, I understand now."

Tiger said viciously, "You want to use these children from the Fish-Man District to threaten me too, do you not? This is a game, a game like walking a dog! Is that not right?"

Only, the place for walking the dog had been changed to Mary Geoise. They would let him out to see whether he could return alive; if he failed to return, they would kill these Fish-Man children. That had to be the sort of despicable, cruel game this was!

"You insolent man!" Hancock could not help saying. "Lord Miming truly wants to help you!"

"No. It is not that I am helping you." Miming stopped Hancock and spoke to Tiger with utter seriousness. "I need your help to burn this place—and this entire Holy Land of Mary Geoise—to the ground. Fisher Tiger, please. For the liberation of every slave in this Holy Land!"

Fisher Tiger felt as though he had just heard the most absurd thing in the world. He was utterly stunned. A Celestial Dragon was begging a slave from his own household to do something like this? What kind of joke was this? What scheme were these despicable humans playing, using Fish-Men to achieve their own ends?

Tiger roared uncontrollably, "How much longer are you humans going to toy with us Fish-Men?!"

"Tiger, this is your only chance, and the only chance these Fish-Man children have." Miming waited until Tiger had calmed down slightly, then asked patiently, "Since you understand so clearly how slim your chances of survival are, think carefully. If I set you free, where would you escape from?"