5 Part 1.5

I force myself to smile. "It's good to see you too Warden! I missed you!"

He raises a single eyebrow. "Did you really?"

I stop smiling. "Sometimes I did. Other times I didn't. You're my friend, but you're also my Warden."

He just looks at me blankly for a few moments before he steps into the cell. I'm sitting on its bench, and he takes a seat himself. He leans against on of the walls and slowly slides down until he's sitting against it. The parts of the wall his coat rubbed against are beginning to hiss and boil. Looks like he's still slightly acidic from whatever he has been doing.

We don't talk for a few minutes. I try my best to not look at Magellan while he looks me up and down. Eventually, he speaks.

"I'm sorry."

That makes me pause. "What for?"

He shifts uncontrollably. "I made a few mistakes... I want to apologize for them."

"What are they?" I ask him genuinely curious.

"I only spend a few hours every day patroling the prison. One of my duties is to maintain containment cells for high profile prisoners. I spent a lot of time visiting you, and because of that, a high profile prisoner died."

"What does that have to do with me?"

He continues. "That prisoner's name was Byrnndi World. He was the captain of the World Pirates with a bounty of 500,000,000 beli when he was captured by Cipher Pol agents. He was the user of the Moa Moa fruit before you."

Wait, how did I get his Devil Fruit then?

"He died sometime between me giving you your birthday meal, and you eating the pear I gave you. When a Devil Fruit user dies, their Fruit is reborn in a nearby fruit. In this case, the pear I gave you..." He looks away uncontrollably. "Because of my actions you were deemed to strong for Level One and sent to Level Two. Which makes me apologize for the next thing."

"What is that Warden?"

He looks straight at me, then at my arms and legs. "Before that, did you know it is Impel Down policy to put seastone shackles on Devil Fruit users who arrive? It makes it so they can not use their abilities to escape."

"No sir, I didn't know that." Wait a second. "Why don't I wear those shackles then?"

"I argued a loophole. The rule, word for word states: 'All prisoners with Devil Fruit abilities who arrive at Impel Down must be outfitted with seastone shackles.' When you arrived, or were born in your case, you did not have Devil Fruit abilities. Instead, you acquired them while you were here. So you will not be forced to wear seastone shackles unless you need to be restrained."

"That's good!"

"Which brings me to the bad news, and why I must apologize again."

I frown. "That's bad."

He reaches into a pocket on his great black coat and withdraws some regular iron shackles. I can tell they are iron because seastone doesn't rust. He hands them to me and I look at them confused. They're not real shackles. There are four shackles, one for each of my limbs, with a length of chain attached. None of the chains connect to each other however.

"Prisoner 10013. I order you to restrain yourself."

I don't hesitate to snap each shackle on me. One on each wrist and on each ankle. They're rather loose, and slide up and down my limbs slightly. But they are still too tight for me to take off again.

Magellan stands up, looming over me. I get the image in my mind of the devil himself looking right through me, seeing my soul, and seeing me wanting.

"Prisoner 10013. By the power vested in me by the World Government in the name of 'Absolute Justice' you are to be immediately transferred to Level Three of Impel Down. Surveillance footage and a court of 'randomly' selected civilians and Marine officers have deemed you too strong for the trials of Level Two."

I feel my mouth drop. "That's not fair."

Magellan frowns. "Life is not fair. I'm sorry."

Then he moves, and despite his size, the Warden can move fast. Very fast. He grabs each one of the four chains I'm attached to and picks me up.

I'm now dangling by my limbs upside down.

He begins walking with me hanging like a sack by his side. I've gotten bigger since I last saw him, but Magellan is still massive compared to me. I don't bother trying to fight it. Instead I just dangle there, thinking about the unfairness of it all.

I ate a Devil Fruit and was deemed too strong for Level One. Then when I arrived at Level Two I was too weak. Now I'm too strong, and I'm being sent to Level Three! There's no happy medium, is there? I'm just going to keep on falling further into the depths of hell until I reach the bottom.

How funny is that? At least if I do reach the bottom, it can't possibly get worse.

Magellan has kept on walking, and prisoners and beasts alike scramble like roaches to get out of his way. I don't blame them. He's a very intimidating guy.

He speaks when all the prisoners are gone and have spread the word the Warden is on their Level and gone back to their cells to ride it out.

"When I was young, I did not want to be a Warden. Did you know that?"

I crane my neck so I can look at his face. He's looking ahead and not at me.

"No sir. I didn't know that. What did you want to be?"

One corner of his mouth quirks up into a half smile. "I wanted to be a gardener. Like my mother. I loved growing things. I guess you could say I had a green thumb. One day, I was in the garden of the nobleman my mother worked for. I was playing in his fruit trees with his son and daughter. I found a odd looking peach, and took a bite. It was the Doku Doku fruit. From that moment on, I became a poison-man. My green thumb turned black that day as well. Eventually the plants I took care of would always die when they came in contact with me. My dream to be a gardener died."

That's kinda sad. But I honestly have a hard time sympathizing. I've never even seen a garden before, and my situation is much worse.

"I didn't know what to do with myself. Then I had a new dream given to me by my teacher. He told me about how his family was killed by pirates. I was outraged, and told him it isn't fair. I told him his family deserved justice. He then taught me about the Marine's 'Absolute Justice' and how I could help their ideology to keep the world safe with my power. By myself, if I needed to, I could use the Doku Doku fruit to kill every single living thing in this prison by drowning them in the deadliest poison known to man."

I breakout in a cold sweat. That's terrifying.

"As long as I am here, I can keep people safe from the pirates and criminals captured here. These men and women can no longer go out and ruin the dreams of others. So, I am satisfied. I can no longer achieve my dream, but I can stop these pirates from crushing others."

He stops speaking, then he looks at me. "Do you have a dream Prisoner 10013?"

Should I tell him? Well, no harm in it. "I do. I want to see the sky."

He frowns. "Why?"

I look up at the ceiling, which isn't hard because Magellan is still holding me upside down by my chains. "All my life, before going to bed, I look up. Above me is the ceiling. It never changes, like my life. As time goes on, things get worse and worse. But, maybe, if I lived outside under the sky, where things change all the time, a miracle can happen."

"A miracle?"

I smile honestly and openly. "Yup. A miracle. Outside, under the sky, things change. Unlike Impel Down where nothing changes. If I was under the sky, maybe the miracale would happen. Life could stop getting worse, and I hope, things would change for the better. If I lived under the sky, do you think I could maybe be happy?"

Magellan looks away, but I see him wiping his face. He flicks his hand and drops of liquid splatter against the wall sizzleling.

He looks back. "Maybe."

He stops walking and holds me in front of him. I look down and see that he is holding me above a pit in the floor. I didn't even know this was here.

"Welcome to Level Three."

He drops me, and I fall once more.