He wanted to turn his head, but his neck felt rusted in place and would not move.
He wanted to scream, but only a leaking "hah... hah..." came from his throat.
What was he seeing?
A pitch-black line had appeared in the air before him, racing toward him with a speed that made distance feel meaningless.
From Odd's collapsing perception, it looked almost like a crack drawn through space itself, yet the truth was even more terrifyingly simple.
It was Reiatsu compressed into a line so thin and heavy that everything directly in its path was parted before the impact could properly explode.
Stone slabs split.
Broken signboards fell apart.
Abandoned carts along the street were carved open in silence.
Odd's pupils reflected the black line drawing closer and closer, his face full of absurdity.
'What... is this...?'
In the next instant, the black line passed through his body.
He felt nothing.
Odd froze.
Joy rose in his heart, and he thought he had dodged it!
He was just about to laugh when his vision suddenly began to tilt and separate.
He saw his lower body still maintaining its running posture, carried forward by its massive momentum for over ten meters before collapsing to the ground with a thud.
As for his upper body...
It was slowly sliding down.
Warm, fishy liquid sprayed from his waist and abdomen like a fountain.
One second later, the pain finally swept through his remaining nerves.
"Ah—"
He let out the last short scream of his life.
The final image fixed in his eyes was the direction of that tavern.
Across several hundred meters, he seemed to still see that man's calm side profile as he sheathed his blade.
Thud.
His two halves fell heavily to the ground, blood and organs spilling everywhere.
After cutting through Odd, that black-gold slash continued forward without losing force.
It tore a narrow scar through the street, crossed the harbor road, and only began to disperse after carving a long, dark line across the surface of the distant sea.
Several pirates unlucky enough to stand too close to its path were thrown aside by the pressure and collapsed screaming, while the rest broke down completely at the sight, crying and fleeing in every direction.
Inside the tavern.
Through Observation Haki, Gion felt Jackal Odd's presence vanish in an instant.
She watched Zaraki slowly slide the long blade back into the sheath at his waist.
Click.
With a soft sound, the guard and scabbard locked perfectly together.
That terrifying aura vanished along with it, as if it had never appeared.
Zaraki once again became that lazy young man with a faint weariness in his eyes.
He turned around, ignoring the wreckage on the floor and Sally, who had gone completely blank behind the bar. He walked straight up to Gion with a playful smile.
"What's wrong? Scared?"
Gion's lips moved, only for her to realize her throat was so dry that she could not say a word.
In her mind, that compressed slash that had crossed hundreds of meters with terrifying precision was still replaying over and over again.
What was that?
Swordsmanship?
A Devil Fruit ability?
Or some other power she could not understand at all?
The swordsmanship she had always been proud of seemed unbearably fragile before that strike.
"You..."
After a long while, she finally forced a few words through her teeth. The way she looked at Zaraki was filled with disbelief and shock.
"What kind of monster are you?"
"A monster? Maybe."
Zaraki shrugged, then walked around her and returned to the bar.
Sally's body trembled violently, shrinking back like a frightened rabbit.
Zaraki ignored her fear.
He merely extended his hand and lightly tapped his knuckles against the counter.
"The information."
"Ah... yes!"
Sally snapped awake as if from a dream.
She hurriedly pulled a waterproof kraft envelope from under the bar and respectfully handed it over with trembling hands.
Zaraki took the envelope, weighed it in his hand, then glanced toward the street where Odd's body had fallen.
"Odd's head is your payment for the information. You run this kind of place, so don't tell me you don't have channels to turn a pirate's head into money."
Then he casually pulled a gold coin from his pocket and flicked it onto the bar.
The gold coin spun with a crisp ring before finally coming to a steady stop on the wine-stained wood.
"This is for the liquor... and the cleanup."
After saying that, he turned and walked outside, waving casually to Gion, who was still frozen in place.
"Let's go, Vice Admiral Momousagi. There's still plenty to do."
Gion took a deep breath and forced down the waves in her heart before following him with a complicated expression.
When they reached the doorway, Zaraki paused and turned his head slightly.
Looking at her beautiful face, which still carried traces of shock, he suddenly laughed softly.
"Your hand was shaking pretty badly just now. I thought you might not be able to stop yourself from drawing your sword on me."
"You—!"
Gion's face flushed all at once, the redness spreading from her cheeks to the tips of her ears.
Her loss of composure just now had actually been seen clearly by this bastard!
"That was... that was a swordsman's normal reaction!" she retorted in embarrassment, raising her voice despite herself.
Seeing her like that, Zaraki's smile deepened.
He said nothing more and stepped out of the tavern.
Sunlight fell over him again, driving away the blood and chill inside the room.
Behind him, only wreckage remained, along with the gold coin shining on the bar.
Only after Zaraki and Gion's figures had completely disappeared at the end of the street was the oppressive silence in the tavern broken by violent coughing.
A bartender who had been lucky enough to hide in a corner behind the bar shakily poked his head out.
Looking at the mess everywhere and the two halves of the corpse still bleeding in the distance, his stomach churned, and he leaned against the wall to vomit violently.
His retching seemed to flip a switch.
The other survivors finally came back to themselves one after another.
Some collapsed to the ground, while others gasped for breath, their faces filled with a mixture of relief and terror.
"Sally... Sister Sally..."
The bearded man supported himself on half of a broken table and shakily stood up, asking in a hoarse voice.
"What do we... do now?"
Everyone's eyes gathered on Sally behind the bar.
Sally took a deep breath, and the thick stench of blood choked her until her chest felt tight.
She did not look at the horrific scene outside.
She only stared fixedly at the gold coin still shining on the counter, her gaze shifting unpredictably.
Only after a long while did she slowly exhale. A trace of color returned to her pale face, along with the calmness of the person in charge here.
"What else can we do?"
Her voice was not loud, but it clearly reached everyone's ears.
"Clean up the mess."
She raised her hand and pointed at Odd's miserable corpse outside, her tone icy.
"Go cut off Odd's head and preserve it with ice. That's ninety-three million berries, We can't waste it."
Everyone froze when they heard that.
Then a spark of greed appeared in their eyes.
"But... Sister," the bartender from earlier wiped his mouth and asked worriedly, "what about the Beasts Pirates...?"
"The Beasts Pirates?"
Sally sneered.
"What does that have to do with small fry like us? We simply... picked up an ownerless wallet."
Her words calmed their chaotic hearts somewhat.
Sally paused, her gaze sweeping over every face present as her tone grew heavier.
"Remember this. No one is allowed to run their mouth about what happened today. A Marine monster from the papers was only passing by and happened to kill a blind pirate. That is all. As for that information... he already paid with Odd's bounty. The deal is settled, and it has nothing to do with us anymore."
"Yes, Sister!" everyone answered together.
"All right, move!" Sally slapped the bar and began giving orders. "Dispose of the bodies and clean everything up! Before tonight, I want this place back to normal!"
Everyone obeyed immediately and started moving.
Some went to cut off the head, some dragged away bodies, and others began cleaning the bloodstains.
The tavern regained its "vitality," though that vitality was now soaked in the heavy smell of blood.
Sally watched all of this, and only then did her tense nerves ease slightly.
She walked to one corner of the bar and took out a strangely shaped Den Den Mushi from a hidden compartment.
The shell of the Den Den Mushi was bright pink, and an exaggerated pink feather coat was draped over its back.
It seemed to be sleeping.
Sally reached out, her fingertips lightly brushing over that cold feather coat.
A Beasts Pirates officer had died here, and the Marine monster from the papers had also been here.
Either one of those incidents was enough to turn this island upside down.
This matter had already exceeded what Sally could handle.
She had to report it to the Family as quickly as possible.
Let that guy make the decision!
Sally closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her finger pressed firmly on the dial.
"Purupurupuru... purupurupuru..."
The Den Den Mushi woke from sleep. Its ringing was very distinctive, carrying a slightly teasing rhythm.
"...Kacha."
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