Water dripped from the ceiling with the maddening regularity of a ticking clock. Somewhere far below, a scream was cut short. Doflamingo didn’t move, the heavy chains around his wrists and ankles holding him fast against the damp stone wall. He’d been counting the drips. He’d lost count hours ago.

Then, a new sound. The heavy, grinding clang of multiple locks disengaging down the corridor. The sound grew closer, stopping directly outside his cell. A sliver of blinding white light sliced the darkness as the door was hauled open.

Doflamingo remained perfectly still in his corner, a predator in the deep. His long silence, his solitary confinement, had been broken. And he was… intrigued.