My dagger dug deep inside his chest.
I could feel his heartbeat vibrate through the hilt, a faint, shuddering rhythm that told me he was still alive, still trying. There was a resistance in his body, a refusal to accept the truth his blood already knew. I watched his eyes shift, not in rage or hatred, but in disbelief. As if even now, standing at the edge of death, he hadn't quite accepted that it was real.
I pulled the blade free in a long, slow motion, and with it came the heat of his life. His hand rose to my face, trembling, bloody fingers trailing across my cheek in a final, helpless gesture. It wasn't a push. Not really. More like a whisper of defiance. But there was no strength left in it. Just blood, warm and sticky, painting a crimson trail down my jaw.
I laughed. Not out of joy, not even out of madness—just release. I wiped the blood away.
Then came the rifle.
A sharp boom cracked through the chaos, and a heartbeat later, my leg vanished beneath me. The pain was instant, electric. Bone shattered, flesh torn, the impact hurling me sideways onto the deck. I crashed down hard, shoulder-first, and the wood splintered beneath me.
Another shot. Then another.
Bullets tore through my chest, my neck, even my eye. A storm of steel and fire. My body twitched and jerked as each one struck. A sword plunged into my ribcage. Another into my thigh. I lay there, peppered with death.
And I giggled.
The laugh came low and guttural, bubbling up from a place far past pain. I reached up, fingers trembling only slightly, and pulled the sword from my chest. It came free with a wet sound, followed by a pulse of dark, thick blood. Then another. One by one, I removed the metal from my flesh, dropping each to the deck with a heavy thud.
My eye began to stitch itself shut. The bone of my leg cracked back into place. Muscles reknit. Skin tightened. I sat up slowly, dragging my hand down my face to wipe away the blood and saw them.
The crew. What was left of them.
Cowering.
"Akuma no Mi," someone whispered.
Devil Fruit.
Let them talk. Let them name me.
I stood.
They watched the wounds vanish. Watched me return from the brink with nothing but a smile. Their disbelief turned to terror. And I let it.
They were cowering. I let them.
I sheathed my dagger. There was no need for it now. The hunt had changed. They were no longer opponents.
They were prey the moment they had failed to kill me with the rifle. They were prey the moment they started to fear me.
I raised a hand. Fingers curled. A come-on gesture, simple and slow.
Let them gather themselves. Let them build the illusion of a second wind, of courage. Let them try.
They did. Swords lifted again. Stances firmed. Eyes narrowed through tears of pain and panic.
And I leapt.
Steel met flesh. My fists slammed against blades. Blood sprayed as steel bit into my sides. I didn't care. I welcomed it.
When my fists didn't work, I kicked. When my legs failed, I threw myself at them. Elbows, knees, my shoulder—every inch of me became a weapon.
And when that wasn't enough, I bit.
Teeth tore through skin and sinew. My mouth clamped down on a throat, and with a twist of my head, I ripped a piece free. The flesh was warm. Too warm. It squirmed in my mouth like it still wanted to be alive.
I grinned.
The man choked on his own blood, eyes wide with horror as he fell. The others froze, watching the crimson foam from my lips, watching me chew. My laugh came out wrong, muffled and wet, distorted by the meat in my mouth.
Some of them flinched.
I spat it out.
Not because I felt guilt. Because I still had my limits.
I wasn't a cannibal.
Even now, there were lines. Even now, I had a code. Maybe it was thin, maybe it was fragile, but it existed. And it meant something to me.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, still smiling. Then I turned.
There were more. A few still clinging to life, to the idea of survival. I saw it in their eyes. Hope. Rage. Terror. All wrapped together like bad rope.
I ran.
My feet hit the deck hard. My breath came in short bursts, not from exhaustion, but excitement. Adrenaline surged through me. Every cut I had taken was already healing. Every blow I had suffered was meaningless.
This was my moment.
Not because I was winning. Not because I was strong.
But because I was free.
The pressure I had buried deep, the mask I had worn for so long, the peaceful face I showed the village, the laugh I gave the kids—it all peeled away here.
What remained was raw.
Twisted.
Real.
And I loved it.
I struck with no rhythm. No form. A flurry of madness. My fists crushed bone. My knees shattered ribs. My laughter never stopped. It rose above the screams, above the crash of metal and wood.
They tried to fight. They tried to stab, to shoot, to swing. But it didn't matter.
Pain was just another rhythm in the music.
I bled. I healed. I bled again.
And all the while, I laughed.
Not to intimidate. Not even to mock.
I laughed because I couldn't hold it in.
Because after months of silence and control and masks and duties, this was the truth I had hidden. This was the storm I had kept at bay.
Here, in the chaos and blood and madness, I found peace.
A perverse kind of balance.
And when I reached the final man—a wide-eyed, trembling youth with a blade too large for his shaking hands—I smiled one last time.
He didn't run.
He screamed.
I welcomed it.
-----------
I shot the kid that was hiding in the cabin. Maybe he was hiding. Maybe he was waiting to ambush me. It didn't matter anymore. The shot was clean. Final. A sharp echo in the confined wooden walls, followed by silence. His body slumped forward, knees folding in, head bouncing once against the wooden floor with a hollow sound that reminded me of dropped tools.
This was the last room.
The rest of the ship had been swept. The lower deck was a graveyard of fast stabs and quiet deaths. I had moved from room to room like a ghost with bloodied hands, finding fear curled in corners, tucked into crates, or hiding behind doors. My dagger had spoken louder than words ever could.
One had tried to make a run for it. Young. Maybe fifteen. Maybe younger. He'd made it to the edge of the ship, his eyes locked on my vessel. Freedom was a leap away. But I didn't give him that. My dagger flew clean, practiced. The tip struck his eye, buried itself deep, the motion so smooth it felt inevitable.
The Aim practice with Usopp showed results.
He dropped onto my boat like a sack of soaked grain, his full weight crushing the supply bag. I heard the crack of something snapping beneath him. The sound set something off inside me. Annoyance. Not guilt. Not regret.
I had to climb down, roll his body to the side, and sort through what remained. He'd crushed two of the water jugs. A bag of dried fruit had burst open. Rice had scattered everywhere. It was irritating in a way that violence never was. A knife in the side was nothing. But watching my dwindling supplies bleed into the salt air? That was aggravating.
I salvaged what I could, bound it tight again, and threw the kid's corpse overboard without ceremony. The sea took him with a splash and silence.
Then I climbed back.
The captain's quarters loomed at the rear of the upper deck. Bigger than the others. The door was heavy, reinforced. I stepped in.
It was what I expected.
The scent of sweat, unwashed clothes, cheap tobacco and rum hung in the air like a curtain. A desk dominated the room, covered in maps that had been roughly inked with routes, ports, and symbols. A single, well-worn log pose sat beside a compass with a cracked glass face. Rum bottles littered the corners, some half-full, most dry.
And on the wall—bounty posters. Dozens.
Each one had the same face.
The man in the hat. The one who tackled me. The one who got my dagger and my laughter and my fists.
The bounties began small. 300,000 berries. The photo was young, eager. He looked like a man who still thought piracy would save him. Then the amounts climbed. 1.1 million. 2.9. 3.6. The final one—5,310,000. The poster was recent. Scarred face. The same hat. But the eyes were different. Not young anymore. Not hopeful.
I tore the poster from the wall.
Back on deck, I found his body where I left it. Burned, battered, beaten. But the face was intact. Identifiable.
Not the bounty I wanted. Not one of the Seven. Not someone I recognized. But a bounty was a bounty. I would take it.
I moved through the rest of the ship with a more practiced eye now. Less blood. More value. Most of the crew had stashed their treasures in stupid, obvious places. Gold and berry pouches under beds. In locked drawers. One had hidden a sack behind a false panel in the galley. I took it all. Not greed. Just necessity.
Food stores were next. I checked the barrels, the sacks, the jars. Most of it was trash. Molded bread. Sour beans. Rice that had gone to dust from humidity. One crate held fish jerky so old it cracked when bent. Useless.
I kept what I could. Dried grains that still had form. Salt blocks. A few sealed tins of something I couldn't name but didn't smell awful. Some bottles of drinking water—stale, but not dangerous. Good enough.
Gunpowder, though. That was different.
They had a lot. More than I expected for a merchant ship. But then again, they weren't merchants. The powder was stored in barrels and satchels. I opened each with care, checked for moisture. Only two were compromised. The rest I transferred into smaller pouches and containers I could carry.
Then came the cannon.
It sat on the port side. Medium-sized. Steel. Clean barrel. Greased gears. Whoever manned this ship, they had at least cared for their weapon.
I ran my hand along its barrel. The cold steel warmed beneath my palm as if responding to attention. I had no other option to leave it behind. It was to heavy and ill suited for my vessel.
My eyes found itself on the deck. The wood bracing it to the deck was dark oak, same as the rest of the ship.
Oak.
The entire ship was solid oak. A fortune just floating here. Ten of million of berries easy, maybe more depending on the buyer. The hull alone was worth more than most people saw in a lifetime.
But I couldn't sail her. Not alone. Not with my size. The ship was built for a crew. Two masts. Multiple sails. Rigging that needed hands and coordination. I could maybe steer it into a dock. But not through sea.
Still, it hurt to leave it.
I let my eyes wander across the deck one last time. Blood smeared across the planks. Bullet holes still warm. A few of the bodies twitched occasionally. Not alive. Just nerves letting go.
I took my time. Moved every useful item to my boat. Stacked it neatly. Ropes. Clean cloth. Ammo. Powder. The extra log pose. A flint and steel set I found in a drawer. Even a few books. The kind of worthless weight you ignored in life but reached for in solitude.
I placed them all in a corner.
And gave the cannon a glance.
It would be a shame not to use it.