Everyone waited with bated breath.
For long minutes, not a single sound came from behind the door. No screams. No movement. Nothing.
The silence began to wear down everyone's patience.
Some okamas whispered that it might be better to remove the chains and break in, when suddenly...
Clang.
The chains rattled on their own.
Clang. Clang.
And then they simply fell to the floor, as if they had given up on existing.
The door opened slowly, creaking, and everyone held their breath.
Jason came out first, calm, imposing, unshakable, as if he had just taken a walk and not just entered the world's worst chemical nightmare.
Everyone's eyes devoured him, wanting answers, but Jason passed them like a living wall, impassive.
Then they heard other footsteps.
Heavy. Firm. Recognizable.
When Luffy appeared behind Jason, completely healed, without injuries, without fatigue, without pain, the cave exploded with joy.
"MUGI-CHAAAAN!! Are you okay!? How do you feel!? Does anything hurt!?"
Bon Clay grabbed Luffy in a dramatic hug, full of tears, exaggeration, and sincere happiness, and Luffy responded with a bright smile.
"I'm fine, Bon-chan! Jason healed me! Now I'm 100% ready to save Ace!"
His voice was firm, determined, and filled with his typical purity.
Bon Clay, still hugging Luffy, noticed the new clothes:
— a tight red shirt,
— loose white pants,
— a black belt tied around the waist,
— black sandals.
He blinked... and then looked at Jason, talking to Ivankov further ahead.
Same aesthetic.
Same style.
Except that on Jason, the tight black shirt molded to his devastatingly defined body.
Bon Clay even swallowed hard.
...Luffy looks like a mini-Jason. Like a little brother who wants to copy his older brother.
Meanwhile, Jason updated Ivankov:
"Thank you for saving him, Jason," said Ivankov, already visibly calmer.
"It was nothing. Besides, he is the captain of two of my future Women... and he is also the son of a temporary ally."
Jason said. Ivankov's eyes widened immediately. If Jason had an ally, that completely changed the game.
As for the two women, Ivankov was no fool. That man hadn't shown him the list of names for nothing. It wasn't exhibitionism, nor was it a whim.
It was a message.
A silent warning, yet clear as day:
"If you like any of these women... you'd better dislike them."
And coming from Jason, it didn't sound like a threat.
It sounded like fact.
Ivankov froze.
"...Ally?"
Ivankov asked, leaning in closer as if he were about to hear the gossip of the century.
"Yes. Your leader. Dragon. We are allies. He will begin to move in the next few hours. I advise you to leave here and join the Revolutionary Army."
Ivankov's mind went into a tailspin.
"D-Dragon's son!? ALLIANCE!? MOVEMENT!?"
He fell back again, his eyes bulging as usual.
Jason didn't even bother to look.
He had already noticed something else.
Luffy was coming towards him...
...with a shy smile, scratching his head, his face slightly flushed.
Jason sighed, seeing the post-crying embarrassment still clinging to the boy, but remained silent.
When Luffy stopped in front of him, he finally spoke:
"Jason... you came because of Ace, right?"
The question was simple.
Naive.
Sincere.
But loaded with something greater: absolute confidence.
Luffy had no doubt.
For him, Jason could only be there for one reason.
Seeing the conviction in Luffy's eyes, Jason chuckled softly.
"You're too late, Luffy. Ace is no longer in Impel Down. He's already been taken to Marineford... and that's where I'm headed."
The news hit him like a punch. Luffy's eyes widened, his fists clenching tightly—angry at the delay, not knowing how close he had come to dying at Sommers' hands if he had met Ace.
"I'm going to Marineford too. Take me with you, Jason."
Jason saw no reason to refuse. He just nodded.
"Jason-san... what will the Revolutionary Army do?"
Ivankov finally recovered from the shock, becoming serious. "Are they going to enter the War of the Best?"
Jason stared back at him. Ivankov was a commander of the Army, therefore, at that moment, a temporary ally.
"Dragon will free the slaves on the three bridges of the seas. Then... I will destroy them."
Ivankov frowned. Freeing all the bridges meant a gigantic move against the World Government. He wanted to ask more, but this was not the time. His eyes then went to Luffy, his leader's son, and seeing him determined to go to Marineford, Ivankov made his decision.
"Jason-san, take me and Inazuma too."
Jason glanced quickly at Ivankov, understanding effortlessly that he wanted to accompany Luffy.
Jason nodded again.
"I want to go with Mugi-chan too!"
Bon Clay raised his arm as if in a play. "I'll help save his brother!"
And so, Jason now had Luffy... and three okamas by his side. An interesting group, to say the least.
"I have something to take care of first. We'll leave after that."
He walked a few steps ahead, made a portal appear, and entered without hesitation, leaving everyone frozen for a moment.
Luffy followed him immediately, smiling.
"That's how I got here," Luffy commented as he disappeared into the portal.
Bon Clay hesitated for a few seconds, then ran after him.
Ivankov and Inazuma followed right behind him.
==
6th Floor – Eternal Hell
The place had been plunged into an almost deathly silence since Ace had been taken away, escorted by some sadist from the World Government.
Jinbe lay in what remained of the cell he had shared with Ace — wounded, pierced, and bleeding. All courtesy of Sommers, who had forced him to fight, mocking Whitebeard until both men raised their heads only to defend their father's honor.
Sommers loved it. He stuck thorns into them, beat them, twisted them... just enough to keep Ace breathing. Nothing more.
While the prisoners tried to occupy their minds, perhaps waiting for the famous big screen to distract them, a portal opened at the entrance to the floor.
Anyone with even the slightest observation haki sensed several presences emerging from within it.
"Where are we? Is this still the prison?"
"This must be the sixth floor... eternal hell."
"And what are we doing here?"
But it was the prisoners who exploded in shouts:
"Who the hell are you?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Hey, let me go and I'll swear allegiance to you, hahahaha!"
The cacophony irritated Jason. His brow furrowed slightly.
"Shut up... vermin."
The ensuing Haoshoku blast crushed the air.
The souls of the prisoners trembled. Several were thrown to the ground like insects crushed under a divine boot.
"Much better."
Jason withdrew his haki as if he were simply turning off a faucet.
Luffy, Ivankov, Bon Clay, and Inazuma were left speechless.
Luffy and Bon Clay didn't even know exactly what it was—they just knew that Jason was a monster.
Ivankov and Inazuma knew exactly what they had just witnessed: Conqueror's Haki at an absurdly higher level.
Jason opened his mouth to speak, but then felt a vital energy plummeting from the upper floors, coming at him at full speed.
"So fast..."
He muttered seconds before a figure plummeted into the elevator shaft, causing a shockwave and smoke.
Luffy and Bon Clay felt a chill. A déjà vu of when they fell to the lower floors.
"JAAAAASON!!!"
The smoke dispersed to reveal Magellan—completely red, his eyes shining with pure rage.
"You... EVERYTHING that is happening in this prison is your fault and those damn screens from hell!"
He took a step forward. "The audacity to come here! But don't worry... I'll reserve a special cell just for you."
Luffy and the others hid behind Jason as if he were a living shield.
"Magellan, warden of Impel Down."
Jason spoke with absolute calm, staring down the fury in human form.
"How about joining me and destroying the World Government?"
It was so unexpected that even the silence became static.
"Heh..."
Magellan smiled contemptuously.
"You're crazier than I thought."
"So that's a no," Jason concluded, stepping forward.
As they talked, Magellan spread his poison in the form of a purple gas between them, a lethal cloud. If Jason took just one more step forward, the poison would disorient him, perhaps even knock him out.
"Watch out, Jason!"
Ivankov warned immediately.
"His poison, if inhaled in large quantities, can disorient and even cause monsters to faint!"
Jason watched the curtain of purple poison spreading through the air... and let out a low, almost mocking laugh.
It was the laugh of someone who saw no threat there.
Then, before the horrified gaze of everyone, including Magellan, Jason simply leaned forward, bringing his face close to the toxic smoke as if he were smelling flowers.
And before anyone could react, he took a deep breath through his nose, inhaling a colossal puff of that lethal gas.
The dry sound of his breathing echoed through the sixth floor.
Luffy's eyes widened. Bon Clay put his hand to his mouth. Ivankov was speechless.
And Magellan turned pale; it was the first time in his life that someone had done that.
Jason raised his face, his lungs completely full...
And then he expelled everything through his mouth in a wide, dense, dominating cloud.
The purple smoke came out like a dragon's breath, as he said, with a smile on his face:
"Today I'm going to fuck a pussy."
"..."
The sheer audacity and boldness of Jason's words left everyone on the 6th floor speechless, especially with what he said.
"Kitty? What did Jason say he was going to do with a kitty today?"
Luffy asked with his head tilted, staring at Ivankov and Bon Clay like a confused puppy.
The two looked away immediately.
That boy's innocence was too strong for what Jason really wanted to do with "a kitty."
Magellan, however, was in another world.
He was the only person there who knew exactly what it meant for Jason to have inhaled that gas.
That wasn't ordinary poison.
It was his ultimate poison, created when Magellan was in his Demon form, condensed into the highest possible concentration, something that should have killed any living creature.
But Jason was still there. Standing. Calm. Breathing normally.
"Y-you... how are you still standing?"
The question escaped Magellan's mouth before he even realized it.
Jason smiled provocatively:
"Guess."
Magellan's blood ran cold, and heated with hatred at the same time.
"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU RIGHT HERE, JASON!"
He lost his patience. Rivers of crimson poison began to pour from his body, accumulating, boiling, corroding the metal of the cells, melting the floor itself.
Ivankov and Inazuma took a step back out of pure instinct.
"VENOM..."
Magellan raised his arm, and everyone held their breath.
"DEMON."
The venom recoiled as if it had a life of its own.
Then it exploded outward, engulfing Magellan's body and causing him to grow into a gigantic creature, an abomination of living venom.
A demonic skull emerged at the top, with empty eyes and a mouth dripping acid.
The creature's presence suffocated the air.
Even the most hardened criminals on the sixth floor trembled in their cells.
"It's useless," the monstrous voice echoed, distorted. "In that form, you cannot hurt me. Surrender, Jason. And perhaps I will spare your life."
Jason kept his eyes fixed on the monster. His expression?
Calm. Unshakeable.
Almost... bored.
"I will never surrender to anyone, Magellan."
"Then die."
The monster advanced, spewing rivers of poison that flowed like a deadly tsunami toward Jason.
"Jason!!" Ivankov shouted. "You can't touch that poison, we have to get out of here!"
Jason turned his face toward him and smiled.
"That's where you're wrong, Ivankov. In my entire life, I..."
He took a step forward.
The ground shook.
"Jason D. Winchester... has never run away from a fight."
Luffy saw this and his eyes sparkled like stars.
"Amazing!!!"
Magellan's gigantic attack was about to swallow Jason, but he kept walking, completely unconcerned.
"You're too arrogant, Magellan."
His voice echoed, deep, powerful, unquestionable.
"You think you've won just because my body can't touch your poison..."
He closed his hand.
"...but there are battles that aren't won with blows."
The reddish-black aura began to swirl around Jason like an invisible gale.
"They are overcome with will."
Jason's eyes flashed red.
"And mine is greater than yours."
A concentrated, directed, precise beam of Haoshoku exploded from Jason's body like a spiritual cannon shot.
The impact was instantaneous.
Magellan's poison attack, which seemed like an unstoppable avalanche, was destroyed in an instant, torn apart by the pressure of Jason's will.
The bolt struck the Venom Demon's central body like a divine hammer—and Magellan's demonic form collapsed, torn apart and scattered until nothing remained.
"AAAAAAAHHH!"
Magellan returned to his normal form with an agonizing scream, his hands on his chest, his body shaking.
It wasn't physical pain.
It was his soul being crushed, pressed, dominated.
Jason just took a deep breath, calmly gathering his Haki, while the director of Impel Down collapsed unconscious on the floor, defeated by pure willpower.
As Jason looked down at the unconscious Magellan, Luffy, who had been frozen during the entire battle, finally began to breathe again.
Luffy's eyes were so wide that they looked like they were about to pop out of his face.
Then, unable to contain his excitement, he took two quick steps forward, pointed at Jason with a huge smile, and yelled:
"THAT'S SO COOL, JASON!!!"
He began circling Jason like a child who had just seen a magic trick for the first time.
"You looked at it and POOF, a giant lightning bolt came out of nowhere and destroyed everything! It was amazing! You didn't even have to move!"
Luffy then stopped right in front of Jason, his head tilted upward, pure admiration shining on his face.
"Jason, you're SO strong!!"
The innocent sincerity almost made Jason laugh. He just raised his hand and ruffled Luffy's hair.
"That was basic. And you'll learn it too, if you really want to be the Pirate King."
With that, Jason turned his attention back to the prisoners.
Looks of fear, respect, greed, and pure excitement shone throughout the floor.
Unlike Luffy, they knew exactly what they had just witnessed:
an absurdly refined Haoshoku, at a level that few in the world would dream of achieving.
And there, on the floor, lay Magellan, the monster of Impel Down, unconscious, defenseless, ready to die with a single blow to the back of the head.
"Kill him, Jason! Finish him off before he wakes up!"
"Or free us... and I'll finish the job myself!"
The crowd began to stir again, but it was only for a moment.
A sharp chill ran down every spine in the room.
It wasn't Haki. It wasn't spiritual energy.
It was pure murderous intent, heavy, icy, absolute, making every throat gulp dryly.
Jason stepped forward with the authority of someone who knows he only needs to speak once.
"As some of you may have already realized... I've come to free you, losers who were caught by the Navy and the World Government."
Many growled, but none dared to speak.
"But I'm no saint. I'm not going to free everyone. Only the strong. Only the worthy. Only those who truly deserve to return to the world and breathe the same air as me."
The murmurs began, Jason ignored them.
"So here's the deal: a tournament. Everyone against everyone. To the death. When only the best remain alive, you will be set free. And you will owe me some favors."
Before they could react, the Haoshoku exploded from Jason like a black storm.
The Kairoseki chains burst into pieces.
And right behind it came a healing wave, warm, vibrant, restoring atrophied muscles, healing old wounds, restoring strength, vigor, and bloodlust.
The cell doors opened with metallic bangs.
Prisoners came out one by one, cracking their necks, bending their knees, rotating their shoulders, experiencing physical freedom for the first time in years.
Ivankov, Inazuma, and Bon Clay looked at each other, pale.
So that was it. That had been Jason's plan all along.
More than 250 monsters now walked across the cracked floor of Level 6.
Some cellmates exchanged knowing glances and sadistic smiles.
"And what's stopping us from—"
The sentence was left unfinished.
Jason merely moved a finger.
A cut as thin as silk opened up reality.
Five heads fell before their bodies even realized they had been severed.
Silence fell over the floor.
"Nothing is stopping you... except a pointless death."
He withdrew his finger.
"Remember: ...I'm not stuck with you, you're stuck with me."
Jason said, maintaining his cold stare, and everyone on the sixth floor took an involuntary step back.
"Any questions?"
No one answered.
"Good. Then begin."
The carnage erupted instantly.