"Fish Man Karate"
"He even knows that"
Seeing Ozz settle into a textbook stance, Roger's crew felt their brains short out. At this point they half believed he could use every technique any of them had ever taught.
Which was exactly his plan.
He drew his fist to his waist. The air rippled like water. Ozz drove his punch straight into Sunbell's Arabesque Tile True Punch.
Knuckles kissed. Bloodshot veins crawled across Sunbell's eyes.
That power
Is this guy really human
Among fish men, whose raw strength runs five times a human's, Sunbell was a standout. On straight frontal fights he was one of the crew's anchors. Yet facing Ozz he felt like he was squaring up to a Sea King.
Not the kind you glare into retreat.
The kind that stretches for kilometers and turns the weather with a twitch.
Fish Man Karate's clean mechanics plus Ozz's monster strength made Sunbell's metacarpals scream like they were splintering.
Bang.
Ozz's mouth ticked upward. He shifted his hips for a second-stage release. In a blink, one clean punch blasted Sunbell off his feet and hurled him into the sea.
Good thing he was a fish man. The splash did not hurt him much.
By the time he broke the surface, Ozz was already trading with the next set of crewmates.
And without exception, short of those one of a kind gifts you cannot imitate, Ozz used their own schools against them and beat them at home field.
That is the power of copying.
Roger and the others could only stare. Seeing that Ozz was careful not to cripple anyone, they curbed the urge to jump in, though their eyes kept widening.
"You have got to be kidding me"
"You know that too"
Rayleigh, blood at the corner of his mouth, finally staggered back from the distant crater. He did not waste breath scolding the two blockheads beside him. One hand on his ribs, he studied Ozz.
"Ace on his hip, no killing intent toward us, knows all our moves, black hair, Conqueror's that does not lose to Roger's. What kind of youngster is this"
In the space of a few blinks most of the deck had fallen short against him. The only one still unfazed in his lane was Betam.
Ozz's true teacher with a rifle stood on the watch platform, cheek welded to the stock, breath level.
"You hand fighters still lost to the kid," he drawled. "Let a sniper show you. I refuse to believe you know this too"
From his read, Ozz was absurd in hand and blade both. That made the others despondent and him smug.
Observation locked hard, crosshairs flowing with Ozz's weave, Betam tracked and tightened.
Ozz turned in the scope and snapped his fingers.
Click.
A matte black sniper rifle formed in his hands.
""
For a beat Betam forgot to breathe. Ozz shouldered the weapon with posture so perfect it hurt to look at.
"Come on," Betam told his own pulse, sweat slipping from his brow. Calm breath is a sniper's first skill. He let it settle.
He fired first.
Crack.
Armament-coated round lanced the air, a thread of killing speed. To Observation like Ozz's, it left a clean stitch to follow.
Crack.
Ozz answered without a hair of delay, as if human reflex could tag a bullet midflight.
Betam's pupils bit down hard. His newly calmed cadence went to pieces.
What did I just see
My round got shot
"Not going to work"
Scarlet flashed in Ozz's eyes. Every follow-up Betam sent was answered. More than once Ozz got cute. When Betam doubled up, Ozz clipped the first round so that it caromed into the second.
That is called skill.
You did not think the title World's Best Sniper was only Observation and a Devil Fruit, did you
In the end Betam quit shooting.
Too cruel.
After he had dismantled the crew's confidence one discipline at a time, Ozz sat cross-legged on the Oro Jackson with Ace and the black rifle leaned at his side. He smiled down at the gold silver bronze trio on the shore.
"My name is Ozz. Do we keep going"
"Ozz, huh. Of course we do"
What followed was a storm of Conqueror's coating and sky-splitting slashes. Half of Water Fairy Star Island became ruins. Ozz held out against the three for seven days and seven nights.
Later
"Party time"
"Yeah"
Throughout the brawl both sides had, almost on instinct, kept the Oro Jackson safe. Now the deck thrummed with music and laughter.
Sitting there, Ozz watched a scene he knew by heart. Memory washed over him until his vision blurred.
Drip.
Drip.
"Hey. You are the one who beat us black and blue, so why are you crying"
Roger's face was a map of bruises and bandages. Ozz, nearly unscathed aside from pallor, only rubbed his eyes and said nothing.
He tried to stop it and could not. He finally resorted to teleporting the tears away.
Roger's gaze lingered, puzzled, then dropped to Ace at Ozz's hip. He could tell at a glance the blade was real, so on instinct he opened the Voice of All Things to listen.
Ace stammered. It gave no details, only a tangle of nostalgia and warmth and reunion.
Roger blinked. He watched the noisy banquet and the young man sitting quietly in it. A strange ache rose in his chest too.
After a while he grinned big and dumb, said nothing sappy, and clapped Ozz on the shoulder.
Just like back when a kid named Ozz gnawed meat on a bone, listening to tall tales, and a captain named Roger slung an arm around him with that same toothy grin.
"Ozz. Out on the sea, a man does not cry for nothing."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The tides are shifting, and secrets linger in the dark... Step into the shadows early on P@treon, where the next chapter awaits before the world sees it.
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"