"How do you know about Im?" Finn asked.
It was the question that mattered most. Sengoku didn't know. Kong had heard rumors but couldn't confirm them. Both men had spent decades at the highest levels of the World Government's power structure, and neither had managed to penetrate that particular secret. Doflamingo had left Mary Geoise when he was less than eight years old.
The arithmetic didn't work.
Doflamingo's expression shifted into something complicated. Not quite grief, not quite nostalgia. Something between the two that suggested old wounds that hadn't healed cleanly. "I was quite famous back then," he said, in a tone that made it clear the fame had come at a cost.
Finn thought about what it must have been like: being a Celestial Dragon child, having that status, and then losing it. He wouldn't have wanted it himself, not with what came attached to the position, but he could understand why someone who'd had it and lost it would carry that loss differently than someone who'd never had it at all.
"You were a Celestial Dragon," Finn said. "I know that. But you were six years old when you left. How does a six-year-old learn secrets that the Fleet Admiral doesn't know? Is security in Mary Geoise that poor?"
"I was almost seven," Doflamingo said, with the particular pedantry of someone correcting a detail that mattered to them even if it didn't matter objectively. "And my status was considerably higher than an ordinary Celestial Dragon's."
Finn knew this was true. The Celestial Dragons had internal hierarchies that weren't visible to outsiders. The Five Elders occupied the top tier, at least formally. Below them were the heads of the nineteen families descended from the original Twenty Kings. Below them were their direct descendants. Below them were the broader family membership, the ones who came to places like Gran Tesoro to gamble and cause problems and generally represent the public image of Celestial Dragon incompetence.
To the outside world, these distinctions didn't matter. Even the lowest-ranking Celestial Dragon had the status of a living god compared to anyone else. But within Mary Geoise, the hierarchy was real and the access it provided was stratified accordingly.
"My father," Doflamingo continued, his voice flattening slightly, "was Donquixote Homing. Head of the Donquixote family before he made the decision to leave Mary Geoise. He was one of the nineteen high-ranking patriarchs, and he was qualified to become one of the Five Elders."
Finn hadn't known that detail specifically, though it tracked with what he knew about how the Five Elders were selected. "The Five Elders come from the family heads."
"Yes. When a position opens, the remaining families select a replacement from among the qualified patriarchs. Becoming a Five Elder elevates you to the highest tier of Celestial Dragon authority. In theory, you hold all the power." Doflamingo paused. "In theory."
"But your father's position gave you access."
"It gave me some access," Doflamingo said. "More than most children would have had. And my father's personality..." He made a gesture that encompassed something too complicated to express in words. "The man who chose to leave Mary Geoise and live as a normal human had a unique worldview, let's say that. He didn't restrict my access to information the way other patriarchs might have restricted their children's. I learned things I shouldn't have learned."
"Im is a Five Elders-level secret," Finn said. "Your father wouldn't have had that access unless he was already a Five Elder, which he wasn't."
"Correct," Doflamingo said. "But there are always exceptions. Have you heard of Saint Donquixote Claudius?"
Finn had. The demon sword at his waist had once belonged to a member of that lineage. "Your family's ancestor from two centuries ago. He led Mary Geoise to its peak during his time. Some called him the King of the World, informally."
"Not informally," Doflamingo said. There was something in his voice that might have been pride if it wasn't also threaded with bitterness. "He was the King of the World. Officially, in everything but the title itself."
Finn decided not to argue the distinction. "Continue."
"My family retained records from that era. Claudius's achievements, his methods, his secrets. The kind of things that get passed down through direct lineage but don't make it into public histories." Doflamingo's expression was difficult to read. "It was through those records that I first encountered references to Lord Im. And it's very likely..." He stopped.
"What's very likely?"
"That Lord Im and Saint Donquixote Claudius are the same person."
Finn stared at him.
The implications of that were considerable. If Im had been alive for two hundred years, possibly longer, the entire structure of Mary Geoise's power took on a different character. The Five Elders weren't just administrators under a hidden king; they were administrators under an immortal hidden king, which raised questions about the Ope Ope no Mi's immortality surgery and whether it had been used and by whom.
"It's only a theory," Doflamingo added quickly. "Based on what I found in the family records. But the timeline fits. The references fit. And it would explain why the Donquixote family retained certain privileges even after Claudius's era ended."
Finn processed this. Then he set it aside. Whether Im was Claudius or not, the strategic value of the information was the same: proof of Im's existence would shatter Mary Geoise's authority. The rest was historical curiosity.
"Do you know anything else about Mary Geoise's secrets?" Finn asked. "Something from eight hundred years ago, for instance. Have you heard of Joy Boy?"
He asked it partly because he was curious and partly because Doflamingo had already demonstrated that his knowledge extended considerably further than Finn had expected. If there was a chance Doflamingo knew something useful, it was worth asking.
Doflamingo blinked. "Yes. I know about Joy Boy."
Finn's face went very still. "Of course you do."
"Where did you hear that name?" Doflamingo asked, with genuine curiosity. "That's not common knowledge."
"O'Hara," Finn said, after a brief pause. "Consider it related to the scholars' research."
Doflamingo accepted this without pressing. His expression shifted slightly, as if he was recalibrating something about Finn's access to information. "Joy Boy was a significant figure from eight hundred years ago. He started as an adventurer. Traveled the world, freed slaves wherever he found them. Over time, his thinking evolved. He went from adventurer to revolutionary."
Finn listened without interrupting.
"The slaves he freed called him the Sun God," Doflamingo continued. "The title spread. Stories about the Sun God became part of slave culture across the world. The idea that one day, the Sun God would return and free everyone." A pause. "It's similar to what Fisher Tiger did, actually. Though Joy Boy's reach was considerably larger."
"And then?" Finn prompted.
"Joy Boy realized that freeing individual slaves wasn't enough. The system itself had to change. So he found allies, people who shared his vision, and together they built a kingdom." Doflamingo's voice had settled into something like a recitation, the tone of someone repeating a story they'd learned long ago. "That kingdom became powerful. Powerful enough to threaten the existing order."
Finn felt a click of recognition. This was the kingdom O'Hara's scholars had uncovered. The one whose history had been erased. "And the existing order didn't appreciate that."
"No. The kingdom's ideas spread too quickly. It challenged the foundations of how the world worked at the time. So the rulers of that era united against it." Doflamingo looked at Finn. "Twenty kings formed an alliance. They defeated the kingdom and established what would become Mary Geoise and the World Government."
"And erased a hundred years of history to cover it up," Finn said.
Doflamingo's expression suggested he was mildly impressed that Finn knew this much. "Yes. But the war itself had consequences. The ideas Joy Boy's kingdom spread didn't disappear just because the kingdom fell. The Twenty Kings were intelligent enough to understand that. They couldn't simply restore the old order. So they adapted."
"They stole the progress," Finn said.
"In a sense. They created a new world order that incorporated some of what Joy Boy's kingdom had advocated for, but under their control. It was... pragmatic. Also hypocritical. The war was fundamentally unjust, fought to preserve power and privilege. But the world that came after was genuinely different from the world before, even if it fell short of what Joy Boy had envisioned." Doflamingo paused. "That's why the history was erased. Not just to hide the war, but to hide the fact that the World Government's founding principles were stolen from the people they'd destroyed."
Finn absorbed this. It tracked with what he knew from the original timeline, but hearing it stated plainly by someone who had learned it from within Mary Geoise gave it a different weight.
"What about the Will of D?" he asked.
Doflamingo looked at him for a long moment. "Where are you getting all of this?"
"Assume I've done my research. Answer the question."
"The Will of D..." Doflamingo exhaled slowly. "The Celestial Dragons have their own interpretation. They call it the Will of the Enemy of God. But the original meaning, the one Joy Boy and his allies intended, was different. Deliver. Fulfill promises. Live up to expectations. Realize the future. That was the will they passed down. The promise that what they started wouldn't end with them."
"And your people turned it into 'enemy of God,'" Finn said.
"My people needed an enemy," Doflamingo said. "Defining the Will of D as opposition to the Celestial Dragons served that purpose. Whether it was accurate or not mattered less than whether it was useful."
Finn looked at him with an expression that was somewhere between respect and concern. "You know an incredible amount of information that most people would kill you for knowing."
"Yes," Doflamingo said simply. "That's why the Five Elders wanted me dead the moment I lost my Celestial Dragon status. I'm a security risk that knows too much and has every reason to use what I know against them."
"Heavenly Yaksha," Finn said. "That's your epithet. Personally, I think Encyclopedia would suit you better. Or maybe Know-It-All."
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