The sea route of Devil's Current Dead Run had turned ugly.
The further the race pushed away from Racket Ring Island's crescent bay, the more obvious it became that the course had not been built for fairness. It had been built for spectacle.
And, more importantly, built for people who already knew its lies.
The Marauder Claw Pirates were ahead by nearly a full boat length.
Their race crew didn't hesitate at false openings.
They didn't get caught by reverse currents.
They didn't lose time in the fog.
Their navigator, Vera Hook, called the route with the confidence of someone who had raced these waters until the hidden hazards felt like furniture in her own house.
From the race tower, the bribed referee pretended not to notice anything unusual.
From the shore and broken stands, the crowd screamed for blood.
And from the Red-Haired Pirates' boat—
Beckman finally stopped pretending this was an ordinary game.
He looked up once, through the moving fog and drifting spray, and his eyes narrowed.
"Enough," he said.
Shanks, still at the front of the boat, grinned without looking back.
"Yeah."
Building Snake's hands tightened on the tiller.
Lucky Roo adjusted his grip on the support rail.
Bonk Punch rolled his shoulders once.
The mood on the boat changed.
The kind of shift that happened when pirates stopped playing around and decided to simply win.
Ahead of them, the Marauder Claw boat cut through another "safe" corridor between two rock spires.
Only it wasn't a real corridor at all.
Not for anyone else.
The water there bent inward in a half-hidden current shift that should have shoved a boat broadside into the stone.
But the Jackals timed it perfectly, riding the push instead of fighting it.
Building Snake saw it now.
He understood it.
And now that he understood it, he smiled.
"They've been using the reverse drift as an accelerator."
Beckman gave a small nod. "Can you do it too?"
Snake's expression sharpened.
"Yes."
Shanks laughed.
"There we go."
At the same time, on the Red-Haired Pirates' vessel, Beckman's Observation Haki spread outward.
The shifting drift lines.
The pattern beneath the fog.
The false paths.
The real ones.
Lucky Roo, too, stopped rowing like a brute and started rowing like a monster. His breathing steadied. His body found rhythm. His presence, calm until now, tightened around the oar like coiled force. Even without announcing it, his Haki was there, in the precision of his grip, in the impossible consistency of his power strokes.
The boat surged.
The hull cut harder through the route, spray exploding off both sides as it accelerated.
The crowd noticed immediately.
"THE RED-HAIREDS ARE PICKING UP SPEED!"
"WHAT CHANGED?!"
Giovanni, watching from the race overlook with both hands gripping the rail, grinned fiercely.
"That's more like it."
Limejuice, beside him, folded his arms and watched with sharp eyes.
"They're using Haki."
Out on the water, the Marauder Claw navigator called the next turn.
"Starboard! Safe pass between the debris!"
Her crew obeyed instantly.
A field of shattered planks, broken masts, and floating barrels drifted ahead in what looked like random chaos.
But now Beckman saw through it.
"Don't follow them," he said.
Building Snake didn't even question it. "I know."
He yanked the tiller.
The Red-Haired boat cut a completely different angle through the debris field—
A dangerous angle.
An angle that looked wrong.
Until the hidden current beneath it revealed itself.
The sea grabbed the underside of their hull and threw them forward like a slingshot.
Shanks barked a laugh.
"That's insane!"
Lucky Roo shouted over the wind, "We're gaining!"
Bonk Punch said nothing. He just rowed harder.
The Red-Haired boat shot between two floating wreck sections, one clipping so close to the hull that splinters scraped along the side. Another vessel would have panicked and corrected too late.
Building Snake didn't.
He was in it now.
Every current line that had looked like chaos moments ago now felt readable.
Ahead, the Marauder Claws entered the geyser stretch.
Columns of seawater blasted unpredictably from the route, exploding upward from beneath the surface like underwater artillery.
Vera Hook called the pattern.
"Three left! Then center! Then cut right!"
Their boat weaved through it with tight, practiced control.
But the Red-Haired Pirates didn't weave.
Not fully.
Shanks narrowed his eyes, one hand on the bowline.
"Second burst is late," he said.
Beckman trusted him instantly.
"Snake."
"I heard."
Instead of following the visible rhythm of the geysers, Building Snake angled directly toward a point that looked suicidal.
Then the geyser beneath that point erupted—
Late, just as Shanks predicted.
The blast shot up behind them instead of under them, and the spray drove the Red-Haired boat even harder forward with a free burst of speed.
The crowd exploded.
"THEY USED THE GEYSER!"
"THAT'S INSANE!"
Dorga, back at the central viewing stand, stopped smiling.
His jaw tightened.
The one-length lead had shrunk to half.
Then to less.
The final stretch approached.
The finish route bent around a jagged reef cluster before returning to the bay markers and cutting back toward the line.
Vera Hook called one last dirty route line.
"Hidden right current! Through the false calm!"
The Marauder Claw boat cut for it.
They still knew the course better.
They still had the cleaner line.
But this time, the Red-Haired Pirates had stopped caring about whose route was cleaner.
Beckman stood up slightly in the moving boat, eyes on the finish line.
"Roo. Bonk."
Both men answered with one final synchronized pull.
Haki surged through the movement.
The oars dug into the sea.
And the boat leapt.
It was no longer a race between crews.
It was a burst between monsters.
Their hull sliced past the Marauder Claws in the final approach so abruptly that the other crew didn't even seem to process it until Shanks shouted over his shoulder:
"Too slow!"
Then the Red-Haired Pirates crossed the line.
First.
The island lost its mind.
"THEY DID IT!"
"THE RED-HAIREDS WIN ROUND THREE!"
"THEY STOLE IT AT THE LAST SECOND!"
Giovanni slammed both fists onto the railing and laughed.
"THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!"
Limejuice clicked his tongue, but there was no heat in it this time.
"…That was disgusting."
Below, the boats slowed at last.
Shanks jumped up onto the front of theirs and raised one fist into the air.
Lucky Roo laughed. Bonk Punch gave one satisfied grunt. Building Snake exhaled like he had been holding his breath for the past ten minutes. Beckman lit another cigarette immediately, because of course he did.
When both teams returned to the central arena, the momentum had fully shifted.
The Marauder Claw Pirates no longer looked amused.
They looked threatened.
The announcer, meanwhile, had somehow found even more energy.
"THREE ROUNDS! THREE WINS FOR THE RED-HAIRED PIRATES!"
He pointed wildly at Dorga's side.
"MARAUDER CLAWS, STATE YOUR LOSSES!"
Dorga's eye twitched, but rules were rules.
He growled through clenched teeth, "What do you want?"
Shanks didn't hesitate.
"Monster."
Giovanni pointed too.
"Definitely Monster."
Lucky Roo nodded like this was a solemn matter of state. "No monkey left behind."
Bonk Punch stood up straighter on the Red-Haired side, eyes already fixed on his partner.
Across the arena, Monster screeched and bounced anxiously on the shoulders of another Marauder Claw pirate who clearly did not appreciate the situation.
Dorga looked like he wanted to bite someone's face off.
Then the monkey was brought forward.
The moment Monster reached Bonk Punch, he launched himself bodily at the huge musician and clung to him like he'd survived a war.
Bonk Punch actually smiled.
Giovanni noticed immediately.
"…Aw."
Shanks laughed.
"Told you."
The crowd, despite being pirates, collectively approved of the reunion with the emotional maturity of a rowdy sports audience pretending they weren't touched.
Then the announcer leapt back onto the platform once more.
The crowd quieted.
Because now there was only one round left.
He raised both hands to the sky.
"PIRATES OF RACKET RING ISLAND!"
The silence sharpened.
Then his voice dropped into something dramatic.
"WE NOW ARRIVE AT THE FOURTH AND FINAL ROUND!"
The crowd exploded.
He spun, nearly dislocating his own shoulder from enthusiasm, and pointed toward the old arena harbor.
There, suspended above the water and connected by chains and old scaffolding, was a broken mast platform jutting out from the remains of a shipwreck tower.
High.
Narrow.
Precarious.
Perfect.
The announcer screamed the final event name:
"CAPTAIN'S FINAL CLAIM — BLACK MAST DUEL!"
The island erupted again.
He pointed at the suspended platform.
"A CAPTAIN VS CAPTAIN DUEL!"
Then he raised his fingers one by one.
"Victory by knockout!"
A second finger.
"Victory by ring-out!"
A third.
"Victory by surrender!"
He dropped his hand and pointed warningly at both crews.
"NO CREW INTERFERENCE!"
The crowd stomped and roared.
This was what they had really been waiting for.
This was the finish.
Dorga stepped forward first, face thunderous, one hand wrapping around the hilt of his massive curved saber.
Shanks walked out opposite him, smile easy, one hand resting on his saber.
The two captains climbed the broken scaffolding from opposite sides until they stood atop the old mast platform, suspended above the harbor like two gladiators on a beam built by drunk shipwrights.
The wind moved between them.
Below, the sea crashed softly against the wrecked pilings.
The referee scrambled up to a safe side perch, raised the brass bell—
And rang it.
CLANG.
Dorga roared and lunged.
He never got his second step.
Shanks moved.
His hand touched his saber.
Then the sword was already out.
A black-red arc of monstrous Haki tore across the platform in a single instant.
"Kamusari."
Dorga's eyes widened.
Then his body left the mast.
He was gone.
Blasted clear off the platform before his brain had even caught up to what was happening, the force of the strike sending him spinning through the air like a broken cannon shell before he crashed into the harbor below in an explosion of spray.
Silence followed.
Complete silence.
Shanks stood alone on the mast with his saber extended.
Then, calmly—
He slid it back into its sheath.
Click.
The crowd stared.
The referee stared.
The Marauder Claw Pirates stared.
Giovanni's mouth hung open.
Then he screamed, "THAT'S MY BEST FRIEND!"
And only then did the island remember how to make noise again.
---
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