Night draped itself over Risco City like a funeral shroud.
The fortress at its heart—Tada Castle—loomed against the clouds, its torches spitting angry light into the black sky.
The streets, however, had turned into rivers of terror.
"Demon!"
"Run, the demon is here!"
The soldiers of the so-called Demon Army threw down their spears and shields as if they were made of fire. Their boots slammed the cobblestones in panic, shouts echoing into the night. For years they had been the hunters, terrorizing villagers, bleeding the kingdom dry in the name of a corrupt regent. Yet now, with corpses piling around them, they finally screamed the word that belonged to them—demon.
Jin Akasa stood on the shattered remains of a stone monument in the castle plaza. His sword rested lazily on his shoulder, his black hair plastered to his cheeks from the mist of blood. A small smile tugged at his lips, but his eyes were cold, violet like a blade catching moonlight.
"Running?" His voice cut sharper than steel. "Do you think you'll escape?"
He lifted his right leg.
"Rankyaku—Storm of Blades."
His foot flicked. To the naked eye, nothing. To trained senses, a hundred whispers of death. Thin blades of compressed air, needle-sized but razor-sharp, screamed downward in a curtain.
The fleeing soldiers collapsed without even realizing it. Throats slit, hearts pierced, spines severed. Bodies hit the cobbles in perfect silence until the plaza looked like a harvest field after the reaper passed. Blood trickled into cracks, steaming in the cold night.
Jin exhaled.
The air stank of copper. His skin tingled with the familiar aftertaste of slaughter.
From within the fortress came a howl.
Stone doors banged open.
"Enough!" A voice shrilled, sharp as shattered glass.
The figure who stepped out was almost laughable at first glance—short, rail-thin, a long horse face stretched beneath a ridiculous ducal hat. But the moment he moved, the air warped.
"Rabbit Smash!"
The little man blurred. He leapt high, ears twitching, teeth bared. His legs lashed down like battering rams. The air shrieked as his heel aimed straight for Jin's head.
Jin twisted, intercepting with a whip-like kick of his own.
"Bang!"
The impact cracked the stone monument beneath him. Jin slid back, legs numbed. His violet eyes narrowed. That kick carried real weight. Stronger than most Vice Admirals I've faced.
The horse-faced general landed in a crouch, dust curling around him. His breath steamed like smoke. Rage poured from him in waves, the rage of a man who had built his power on cruelty, now watching it collapse.
"You dare massacre my army?!" he shrieked. "I'll tear you apart!"
Jin smiled faintly. "So, this is the great General Tada."
The general's body convulsed. Fur sprouted along his thighs, ears lengthened, legs bulged into cords of steel. A Zoan fruit—Rabbit type, but twisted by years of training until every tendon screamed violence.
He charged.
Their legs met again and again. Each strike boomed like cannon fire, shaking the plaza. Flags ripped from their poles, cobblestones shattered. Soldiers hiding behind battlements peeked out, only to cower again as the shockwaves tore roof tiles loose.
"Rabbit Whip!"
Both his legs lashed in a blur, black blurs cutting the air like twin scythes.
Jin parried with his shins, his calves singing with pain. He felt the weight behind each blow—this wasn't a sloppy thug. Tada had refined his Zoan, drawing out monstrous force in bursts. Every strike pushed Jin to answer with more.
This bastard… his combat sense isn't bad either.
Then Tada twisted midair, back to Jin.
"Rabbit Cannon!"
His legs coiled, then detonated outward. Jin crossed his arms just in time. The blast hurled him thirty meters, smashing him through a wall. Rubble buried him.
For a heartbeat the plaza stilled. The general straightened, chest heaving, convinced it was over.
Then rocks shifted. A hand swept them aside.
Jin spat dust, his lip bleeding. His violet eyes gleamed in the torchlight. "Not bad. I didn't expect East Blue to hide someone like you."
He dusted his shoulders, voice calm as if discussing the weather. "With training, you'd rival a Warlord."
Tada's fury spiked. "You won't live to say that twice!"
He bounded again, legs cocked.
But Jin moved first. His body blurred, light as silk. He slipped past the kick, danced through the rubble, and whispered:
"Playtime's over."
His outline fractured—one into two, two into four, until eight shadows encircled the general. Phantom afterimages spun in a deadly wheel.
"Phantom Break—Sever the Head."
Tada's scream ended with a wet snap. His world spun. For a second, he saw his own body, headless, swaying on its legs.
Then nothing.
The plaza fell silent, broken only by the drip of blood from Jin's blade.
He exhaled, watching the corpse slump. "Still not perfect," he murmured. "Eight shadows only. And the cut wasn't clean enough. Too many flaws."
He flicked his sword. Crimson droplets fanned across the stones.
Turning from the corpse, he strode to the castle gates. The terrified servants had already fled. Jin didn't bother chasing. He had no quarrel with them. Tonight's message had been carved deep enough into the city's bones.
By the time he reached the harbor, the storm had thinned to drizzle. The sea shimmered with ghostly light, waves lapping at the pier where his hired ship waited. Jin perched atop a wooden mast, the wind tugging at his cloak.
Below, the town lay silent, half in ruins. Smoke rose from shattered barracks. The once-feared Demon Army was nothing but carrion for crows.
Jin gazed at the horizon. His thoughts, for once, were not on the slaughter but on what it meant.
That man… a mere general of a backwater kingdom. And yet his strength was at the level of a Vice Admiral, maybe higher. What if he'd been born under the Navy, with resources, discipline, proper haki training? He could have been a Warlord. Maybe even an Admiral.
Jin's lips tightened. The world stretched larger before his eyes. For all the maps and rumors he had studied, reality still found ways to dwarf imagination. The seas weren't just ruled by the Marines or pirates. Power lurked everywhere—in villages, forgotten kingdoms, in beasts whispered about and generals dismissed by history.
"The world is bigger than I thought," he muttered. His violet eyes hardened. "Stronger than I thought. If I slow down, I'll be nothing but another corpse under someone else's legend."
Rain slid down his cheek, mingling with blood not his own.
For a long moment he stood there, balanced between sea and sky. Then he smiled—sharp, hungry.
"Good," he whispered. "That just means I'll have more to cut down."
The night swallowed his laughter as he vanished into the dark, the scent of blood still clinging to him.
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T/N :
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