One Piece: Path to Power

Chapter 159: [159] Blood and Bonds

[4900 words]

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Weathered face with a stubble. Medium-length black hair with red streaks. Scarred body standing at around 11 and a half feet (~3.5 m). One eye claimed in battle, the other radiating the familiar red hue of conviction.

"I was hoping I'd find you rotting down here, Einar D. Ares."

The young pirate's words left a smile on the older man's face. 

"Ruhahahah–!" Ares' laugh was immediately cut short as a series of violent coughs returned. Blood dribbled from the sides of his mouth as he wiped it on his sleeve.

"The least you could do," he said while wiping his lips on his sleeve, "is call me dad, kiddo."

Damien's face warped into a frown while a heavy breath escaped his mouth. Still, he did not reply. With a light thud, he rested his head on the cold wall, his eyes shut in thought.

He had three main reasons for coming to this hellhole, and one of them was sitting across his cell.

Ares deadpanned at his actions. "Hey, hey, I waited twenty years for this kind of reception? At least say something, you brat!" Though his annoyed voice turned into that of curiosity, "At least tell me how you knew I'd be here."

Damien opened an eye to glance down to Ares. "Patrick Redfield, he's a tough guy. He told me about your tales."

"All about your lone wolf persona… up until you disappeared and the World News Agency confirmed your fall. So it got me thinking: why wouldn't they celebrate the death of this evil pirate to further establish their authority?"

"Plus, I read through the archives at Ohara. They had a feat of Endou that was scrubbed away… a threat Endou 'vanquished.' Last I checked, that means the person got their ass kicked, not killed."

"Aside from Mors, you were the only big-name pirate then," Damien gestured to the darkness around him, admiring its erasing nature. "Where else would they send a forgotten and beaten man."

Ares hummed, scratching away at his scruffy chin. "Redfield? You mean that 'Pato' brat? I didn't think he'd be the one to give me away."

He also didn't deny getting 'vanquished.' It was a fact, and there was no shame in how he went out.

Ares let out a few coughs once more, sighing at his condition. "Anyways, how's your mother?" he asked with a tinge of longing.

His eye returned to Damien, wondering, "I read the papers the jailers brought in for their entertainment… don't tell me you got yourself caught just on the small chance you'd find me here? They've been celebrating your loss all across the seas. You're fine with giving up your pride for this?"

"Rahahaha!" Damien broke out in dull laughter. 

Shaking his head, he stood up from the back of his cell, walked to the front, and sat down.

The father and son, face-to-face with thick seastone bars separating them.

"Do you honestly believe I came here because of you?"

Ares subconsciously gulped under the dreaded thought that nagged his mind. There was only one thing someone like Damien could be driven by like such, and enduring being plastered as one who failed to subvert the world as a pirate should.

"Realized dawned on the rugged man as he cautiously asked, "...Is she alright?"

Damien's Empathy picked up on the longing and yearning in his father's question. The hopeful tone with underlying concern… it only angered Damien even more.

"Alright?"

While gnashing his teeth, he spat out, "You left her alone in a sea riddled with Mafia and conflict. What do you think became of her?"

Ares felt his mouth dry up as he took a cold breath. His eye widened, and his heartbeat spiked. He knew it; he could feel it—the reason for his own son's rage toward him.

.

Damien smirked in disbelief, shaking his head. 

Suddenly, the cold and decrepit Eternal Hell was warping into the memory of that night. The darkness of the well at Renaissance…

"No matter what happens, no matter what troubles you face, no matter who stands against you, just remember that your mom will always stand on your side."

"It will be very hard after tonight. But no matter what, the sun will rise in the morning, and things will get better."

"Mom will say goodbye now… but do me a favour, please."

"I only want one thing from you, my treasured child."

"Gather those who you can trust with your life. Marry a beautiful girl. Treasure them deeply, for they will be your greatest strength."

"Live on for yourself, for me, for your father."

"Live, my child. Live."

*Thung!* Damien slammed his forehead into the seastone bar, feeling the raw helplessness from thirteen years ago resurface. His fingers twitched with restrained rage, his mother's voice still lingering in his mind like a haunting melody that kept him chained to reason.

"Do you know how painfully similar it is being here right now?" His voice was calm, almost unnaturally so, as he met Ares's gaze. "Locked away, unable to change anything that happened…only the dark, her final words echoing. And the only one left to share it with… is the man who abandoned her to face that broken world alone."

"..."

The silence was deafening, but Ares' mind was throbbing. His single eye was stuck to the floor while his scarred hands quivered.

"Who did it?"

Damien looked at the shaken man with narrowed eyes. Sparks of black lightning crackled in the air, leaking a dreadful weight in the surrounding air.

"I already killed the ones immediately responsible," he answered, only for his words to end heavy near the end.

Ares picked up the doubt in his son's tone. Looking up to meet his eyes once more, he asked, "Someone pulled the strings from behind?"

Damien's jaw tightened at the question. He straightened his back, his gaze growing unsure.

A miserable voice came to mind from a memory six and a half years ago:

"It happened eight years ago, t-this man came to our family and almost killed us all! H-He gave us a chance to live by raiding a small, no-name island, and so we did!" (chapter 9).

Such were the final words of Gambino Delago, who ordered the strike on Renaissance. The same man whose entire Mafia Family Damien slaughtered.

"There was indeed someone," he answered, glaring at Ares. "Which is one of the reasons why I came here, old man."

The son's gaze settled aside the rage and changed into expectation. "You're the only person who may have a clue on who this unknown variable is. And the only reason why I haven't ended your miserable life yet."

"..."

Ares reined in the grief in his heart. Clearing the whirlwind in his mind, he began to speak candidly, "I don't mind if you put me out of my misery for what happened, kiddo. But I want you to know that I loved your mother… I only left to protect her… and our unborn child."

He heard the dull breath escape the younger pirate's clenched jaw and continued. "So I'll give you exactly what you want, Damien. I'll tell you everything I know."

"But before all that… you should know who your father was."

Ares' solemn voice continued, lacking the joking demeanour from earlier. His remaining eye was heavy in mourning but shone brightly through Eternal Hell's darkness.

"My life as a pirate started on a small ship with a respectable captain. We would just sail in Paradise, enjoying our adventure."

A rare smile came to the weathered man's face, only to quickly be replaced with melancholy. "That was until his right-hand man stabbed him in the back and sold us out to a Cipher Pol. Only because my stupid captain had gotten a Devil Fruit the Government wanted."

The tired Ares raised his two arms, still shackled with seastone from decades earlier. However, the chain that should have anchored the cuffs was hanging in the air, ripped open.

"The good old man left the fruit with me to escape. A power that those geezers feared… A power that they would do anything to keep from respawning."

With nostalgia glowing in his eye, he went on to say, "I cast aside everyone else, going solo for my journeys. So with no chains to bring me down, I spent the next few years causing hell for the Government…"

…

[Thirty Nine Years Ago (1447)]

BOOOOM!

A majestic vessel cut through the cloudy waters in a region of Paradise. Its thick mast and impressive build showed the importance of the cargo it transported.

"Sir," a dark-clothed agent addressed his commander. "The Commissioner of the RTB is on the line."

The Cipher Pol lead agent narrowed his eyes. He saw the receiver in his subordinate's hand and cautiously took it.

"This is Agent Angstrom of CP-9."

The phone didn't waste time on salutations: "Agent. I will keep my words short: your transport is in danger. We've already lost six Heavenly Tributes in the past few days."

The woman's voice grew furious, "I have sent a fleet from Marineford. Admiral Endou is en route. Do your best to keep him distracted."

Angstrom's stern attitude washed away into fright. His quivering hand shook the receiver, much like his tone, "T-That pirate is coming here? Intel suggested him to be in the New W–"

"The intel was wrong. Good luck, Agent."

"Katcha~!"

Panic flooded Angstrom's body, but it didn't last long.

BOOOOOOOM!

The mighty ship exploded with force, sending the agents to the deck. 

They looked up to see giant tides raging as their transport was caving into the sea—someone had fallen from above!

Angstrom's breath hitched as the shirtless pirate strode across the deck, his presence radiating raw intimidation.

His bronzed skin, mapped with faded scars, spoke of battles fought and survived, each mark a silent testament to his resilience. Jet-black hair streaked with crimson framed two piercing red eyes, both alight with a fierce, almost unnatural ambition. A faint aura of smoke and embers swirled around him as if he carried the remnants of countless fires. Angstrom swallowed hard—this was no mere pirate but a force shaped by chaos itself.

"Ruhahaha! Just how many of these transports do I have to sink to get their attention? The previous three Marine Bases I raided didn't seem to do the trick."

The Cipher Pol Agent rose to his feet, shaking in every way possible.

"E-Einar D. Ares… bounty of 1,987,600,000!"

The pirate was all but in his prime—at twenty-seven with a prize shy of two billion.

[Young Ares Image (in Discord)]

"A-Admiral Endou is on his way… Don't think you'll get away with this!!!"

The bloodthirsty Ares chuckled at the threat, welcoming it with open arms. "The Pirate Butcher coming for little ol' me? Ruhahaha! You just made my day!"

…

[Present Time]

"Three Marine Bases and seven Heavenly Tributes," Damien echoed the feats with doubt.

Although he didn't think Ares was lying, it did spark some curiosity in the Sin Incarnate. "You did all that and still found a way to remain alive alone?"

Ares grinned at his son's questioning eyes. 

"My Devil Fruit power is a little special… it has no active abilities, no way to make me stronger, no way to release some magma or summon earthquakes."

The seastone shackles snapped in the air as the escapee raised both arms. "I ate the War-War Fruit and became a Warmongering Human. The only power of this ability was that it allowed me to siphon energy through combat."

Realization dawned on Damien's face while the older man finished explaining, "For as long as I struck with my fists, I would remain standing. I fought for days to even weeks on end. The enemies kept coming, but I kept standing. I didn't need sleep, I didn't need to eat, and I didn't need to rest during my battle."

"Every battle I walked out alive from grew my Haki without end. And before I knew it, they started calling me the God of War!"

God. This word was used only to describe the World Nobles as the overbearing authority that they were. For a human, let alone a pirate, to be declared as such was a slap in the face of Mariejois.

Ares rolled his one eye, his voice filled with scorn. "Those pigheads began pointing their fingers at me."

.

Damien cupped his chin, recalling the few details he knew of Endou.

The mess at Extinction Valley made his destructive capabilities evident—a power that could terraform terrain after moments of eating it.

"Let me guess, he was also set for a promotion."

Ares' brows furrowed, looking at his son with surprise. "That's right! He would be promoted to Fleet Admiral in 1450. The one condition the Celestial Dragons gave him to keep his esteemed position was to ensure my capture."

"We would butt heads for the next five years. I continued to wreak havoc with all things Navy while the Pirate Butcher chased me down."

A flash of disdain flashed in the man's eye, "Too bad his position as Fleet Admiral also needed him manning Marineford. Lucky for him, the only other big pirate then was the Bloodspawn Mors."

However, the joyful memories took a dark turn as Ares admitted the one obstacle on his path, "It was also at this time where I felt this damning sickness building inside me…"

…

[Thirty Years Ago (1456)]

"Damn it!"

The towering pirate went from island to island, going from hospital to hospital.

"How can you call yourself a veteran doctor if you can't even cure a little cough!?" he thundered at an old man, lifting him by the throat.

"S-Sir, please, I-I really have never seen your kind of sickness; it's incurable, much like the Amber Lead Syndrome!"

…

[Twenty-Nine Years Ago (1457)]

"Not even you, the Ope-Ope Fruit User, can do anything about it?" Ares questioned the bespeckled young man.

"I apologize, but your sickness is beyond human anatomy. It isn't born from a weak immune system, rather, from something within."

…

[Twenty-Seven Year Ago (1459)]

A tired Ares left an island with a massive tree that dominated the horizon.

"Not even Ohara has any answer. Just what the hell is this?" 

*Cough* *Cough* A few droplets of blood dribbled from the side of his mouth, much to his chagrin.

…

The old man sighed, massaging his forehead.

The shock of Nadia's death was still weighing him down, and the pain in his body was growing by the second.

'Don't fall apart now,' he inwardly yelled at himself. One look at the quiet Damien was all he needed to keep going.

"Although it was weakening my punches, it didn't eat my Haki in any way. I could still push back the Navy at that time. But then it happened…"

Ares peaked to the faraway corner and sighed before returning his attention to Damien. "The Bloodspawn Mors, a Warborn of Polemos Island, was vanquished by Endou. Which meant that they could put more effort into taking me down."

…

[Twenty-Three Years Ago (1463)]

"Humble human, I-I demand you to end your life!"

Ares picked at his ears, wiping some blood off his hands.

Thud!

A white-clothed body fell to the ground from the pirate's grip, a broken mask near his feet. Ares stood on a prestigious ship, a sole pig-faced man before him.

"D-Don't you know who I am!? I'll enslave your entire island!"

The warmongering pirate gave out a grin and shot his hand out, wrapping his thick digit around the babbling fool's throat.

"Ahhh! L-L-Let me go!!!" The pathetic cries were from an ugly, much smaller man donning an astronaut-like suit. The fishbowl helmet didn't add any charm, either.

"H-How dare a mortal touch me! I-It's unforgivable!"

*Crack* The World Noble's anger turned into pure dread. "Auughhhh! M-My finger!" An ear-rattling yell exploded from the Dragon's mouth, tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Ain't nothing like a little fear to make a paper man crumble," Ares scoffed after breaking Noble's pinky finger.

.

He then shook the Saint in the air, snapping him back to reality. "Speak, you know who I am?"

The Noble shook his head, crying. 

"My name is Einar D. Ares." The statement shocked the Dragon as he visibly shrank, his arms trembling. "Hmm? What does that mean to you?"

The Celestial Dragon shiveringly replied, "T-The D are our sworn enemies! Sworn enemies of the Gods!"

"Sworn enemy, huh? Even with all your guys' authority, you don't go on some crusade to wipe the Ds out?"

The Saint, named Jaygarcia Dietlind, began to hyperventilate. The pain from before and the fear from now was forcing him into shock.

"Talk, or I'll feed you to the fish," the pirate threatened with smouldering eyes. "At least that way, your life will have some purpose."

Dietlind was instantly released from his state and began tweeting like a bird.

"I-I don't know much, b-but my grandfather always talked to me about the D! H-He said that most of them will die out before reaching a level of strength that could challenge the status quo!"

"Then why fear me so much from my name?"

Dietlind looked into Ares' eyes and saw death looking back at him. "T-Throughout the centuries, the Ds have been known to defy all odds. M- My grandfather was killed by one of them fifteen years ago!"

"Although they are damned, they still bring nothing but catastrophe!"

…

[Present Time]

Damien thought over the information and aired his thoughts, "Do you think it was the Dragons who put some kind of curse on the D?"

Ares shrugged, his helplessness evident in the creases across his forehead. "What else could it be? Enemy of your entire existence… instead of hunting down every last one of them, it's easier to find a way to let them die off before they grow too strong, no?"

The War God also picked up on the speculative look in his son's eyes.

"Heh, what's wrong? Is my kid fearing death?"

An unamused glare flashed in Damien's eyes, his tone growing with disdain, "I've already lost a good fifteen years of my life pushing my body too far. Some curse or sickness is supposed to scare me? Plus, I'm not too far tossing aside the chains of age."

Ares squinted at the words that went from bold to unbelievable: "I set my eyes on finding a way to keep me forever young. With my Awakening in hand, it's only a few steps away."

"Forever young?" the older Einar murmured, seeing nothing but confidence in his son's eyes. "Ruhahahaha! You'll be a greater threat to the Gods than your old man ever was!"

[A/N: See Chapter 43 for Damien's initial plans for his eternal youth.]

.

"But that side," the Sin Incarnate spoke, his mind eyes growing heavy once more. "It's about time you give me your excuse for leaving her alone."

A sigh escaped Ares' dry lips as he firmly nodded.

"The next two years were a little embarrassing. Although I was finding ways out of my battles and still breathing, my sickness only got worse. Endou realized it right away and had the balls to use me to sharpen his pupil!"

Damien connected the dots from details he unearthed from God Valley to what he learned now. "I take it that you crossed paths with Kong around this time."

The War God's weathered face stretched into a toothy grin. Considering the image he saw in the newspaper of the one-armed Kong was all the more amusing.

The conversation from decades ago surfaced right away:

"Hehe, that's some tough skin you'd find on a Zoan!"

Unfortunately, he was interrupted rather rudely:

"Dammit, Endou! I almost took the head of your precious successor!"

Ares shook his head in mischief while his left arm rose up to press the missing right eye. "I fought them off for forty days at G-1. But with Endou coming in person for the last ten, well, it was not a fight anyone could win."

"The Fleet Admiral, an Admiral and the Chief of Cipher Pol alongside their endless armies."

Damien's question woke Ares from remembering the moment of his loss: "Was he really that strong?"

The tired pirate chuckled, looking at the floor—he could still remember the Fleet Admiral swelling with a power to spawn pure chaos.

"Endou ate the Havoc-Havoc Fruit, making him a Chaotic Human. With his power, he could induce disorder and unpredictability in the environment. Every battlefield was his to rend and ruin—a power he used to sentence entire fleets to extinction."

He looked at his curious son and warned, "Much like the power you have, kiddo. But where yours tends toward breaking and fixing from what I saw in the papers, his is purely the first half."

"The Havoc-Havoc Fruit," Damien murmured. An image of Solomon came to mind—the Wendigo from Extinction Valley dead-set on killing Endou with his bare hands.

"So you lost to them, but how'd you escape?"

"Hehe," Ares smirk made it obvious that he took great pleasure in his escape. "They wanted to capture, hah! Instead, I jumped into the sea and got a Sea King to devour me. I spent a few weeks in its stomach till I could tell the beast had swam through the Calm Belt into an Outer Sea and ripped out from its belly… Before I knew it, I was at a small island in the West Blue called–"

"Renaissance," Damien finished the sentence.

.

Ares closed his eyes, inhaling a long and deep breath. It was as if he was trying to remember his time on the peaceful island. The endless green and the simplicity of an ignorant land.

"When I woke up, I found this incredibly graceful young woman tending to my wounds…" he looked up to see his son's face, unable to hide the smile coming to his face. "Her name was Nadia."

"You know, kiddo. My only purpose in life was to constantly bring hell to the Navy. But I would always wonder how life would be if I could do something else… I wanted to no longer be a slave to my title as the War God."

"Your mother…" the man lost his words momentarily, "...it was the first time in decades I had someone look after me."

An honest smile stretched across Ares' wartorn face, running from ear to ear. "The single month I spent with her gave me purpose beyond any war I fought in. More than forty years of a life filled with fire and blood and four weeks of nothing but an ordinary life on a small island… How could I ever escape her charm?"

"Just skip to how you ended up leaving the supposed love of your life to fend for herself," Damien sharply interjected, his voice laced with budding wrath.

Ares ignored the churning Haki and continued, "The moment I realized your mother was pregnant, I knew I could no longer stay; it was like being hit with ice-cold water."

He squeezed a blooded rag in his left fist, squeezing the red out from the gaps of his fingers. "My body would have fallen apart within a year. As much as I wanted to spend my final moments with her, to be with her when she gave birth to my own flesh and blood… I couldn't!"

The War God gnashed his teeth, angry at his own weakness, while Damien silently listened. "They would leave no stone unturned to find me." He stared directly into the younger pirate's eyes, "I had to make sure that, at the very least, the child could grow up with a loving mother on a safe island… I had to keep them from finding her… and finding you…"

Damien crossed his arms, his chains clanking wildly. "So you left her."

A defeated smile stretched across the man's face. "They would have slaughtered the island in the West Blue if it meant keeping my blood from blooming. I may have been damned to death… but I couldn't let Renaissance share the same fate." 

"Did the thought that maybe, just maybe, you should have never gotten involved with her in the first place ever come to you?" Damien questioned, his tone thunderous. With a crunch, he crumpled the seastone bar with his left hand, squeezing it into a thin strand.

Ares sensed the buried rage of his own child. The sizzling Haki was secondary; his eyes, however, were those of hatred.

"..." Ares had no answer to his selfishness.

Damien, no matter how badly he wanted to reach past the bars and rip the old man's head off, there a nagging voice told him not to.

"I still don't get it… You left her all alone, but why, in the seven years she looked after me, never did she hold anything against you."

The Sin Incarnate sighed, turning away; Ares had his head down and eyes shut. Tears dripped down his scarred face, dripping onto Eternal Hell's cold floors.

"She asked me to keep living, and if I couldn't live for myself… then I should live for her… and you."

He looked at his father from bottom to top and spoke without emotion, "I'd upset her if I were to kill you in her name."

"..."

Damien's latest words woke up something inside Ares. He looked up with a calm face, even ignoring the pain burning in his lungs. "You're right. She had every reason to hate me, a selfish and detestable pirate. But your mother… was the kindest person I've ever met," he recounted in a low voice.

"Which is why the day after learning of the pregnancy, I knew I had to make the World Government never question what I was doing for the past month. So I took a small ship right through the Calm Belt and Fishman Island and alone raided Marineford."

The God of War clenched his scarred fists, his words glowing with self-confidence. "Four weeks was pushing it, but I hoped they would link my disappearance to recovering from my injuries at G-1. And on that day in Marineford, I wrecked so much havoc, killed so many good marines and even an Admiral."

"I thought it worked… they never brought up my whereabouts during my interrogation." He continued candidly, looking Damien straight into his eyes. Despair ran down his tearful face as he admitted, "But I guess I only bought you seven years…"

"..."

A few quiet moments passed Impel Down while 99% of the prisoners were still knocked out cold.

"No," Damien said with a sigh, earning Ares' confusion. "Whoever ordered the hit on Renaissance was not with the World Government. If they wanted to have me dead, they would just Buster Call the island and get it done with."

"The World News Agency at the time was under their umbrella, and no one would have questioned them about whether they deemed a small island worthy of destruction."

Damien scooted back to his cell again, leaning back on the ice-cold wall.

"Then there's someone else out there all along. Someone who wanted my boy dead," Ares concluded, his single eye narrowing dangerously.

No pirate came to mind. 

.

"So they locked you up to keep your fruit from reappearing."

Ares nodded, raising his arms once more to show off the seastone chains dangling from his cuffs. "They threw me in this hellhole, knowing I'd die sooner or later. They even tried to pump me with medicine to delay my death… all in hopes to keep my fruit out of reincarnation for at least some years."

"But it begs the question," Damien said, looking at the distant escapee. "How did you break out, and how are you still alive?" 

"Ruhahaha! When I was thrown down here, I had at most a year to survive. It took me nearly ten months to break free of those blasted Seastone chains." The man showed off the chains while Damien's eyes fell on the last link, which was brown in colour.

"You rusted them off…"

Ares smirked in victory, "Seastone itself doesn't rust, but thankfully, the chains they used decades ago were only twenty percent purity, the rest was a metal alloy… and well, the weakest link breaks the chain, right?"

"It was too cold in here to sweat, so I used my blood to rust off the chains. It took almost a year, but I got it done," he offhandedly said—his chest below the shroud was covered in claw marks.

"It took everything out of me to drag myself to the fifth floor, Freezing Hell, where I found a cave made by some tunnelling fruit user around sixty years ago. I froze myself there, only coming out every two or so years to hear the news from the passing jailors, hoping to catch wind of my kid!"

Ares sighed with a smile, glancing at his son with a broad and proud smile.

"It was an empty wish, but sixteen years later, I got news of a striking young man who was awfully familiar, and that gave me the strength I needed to hold on so that I could see you face-to-face before my life ran out, or at least, be alive to hear news of my boy kicking the Government's ass."

The pirate raised his hands in victory, clenching them in triumph. "It seems that wish came true!"

To Be Continued…

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Author's Corner.

This chapter isn't for Damien to "forgive" Ares but more for him to explain why he left. He did live 40+ years as a pirate, and his thoughts are biased toward the selfishness of pirates, doing what they think is right—flawed but not unnatural. Do you think it's enough for Damien to let him go, or does Ares need to do more?

Images are available on Discord alongside other niche details: https://discord.gg/aJHHHPvb6q