"It's all your fault! You tried to take us all down with you!"
Pagaya's face twisted in fury as he unloaded on Conis. "I told you not to stand up! If you hadn't played the hero, you fool, none of this would've happened!"
"Traitor! You're dragging me into the mud with you! How could you be so heartless? So low?"
His words flew like bullets from a gatling gun, each one sharper than the last.
Conis's face drained of color. The barbs from her childhood friend stabbed deep, reopening old wounds. She'd only guided them to the Upper Yard, chasing whispers of the gods. A simple act she'd seen as her duty, but Pagaya twisted it into high treason against Skypiea.
Why?
What had she done wrong?
Did he really believe Ross and his crew were the forgiving type? That huddling in fear would save them from pirates like these?
Conis turned away, her eyes drifting over the crowd like a ghost in the fog. The faces she'd known her whole life now stared back as cold masks. They averted their gazes, heads bowed low, saying nothing.
Their silence screamed agreement with Pagaya. She was the villain here, the bad luck charm who'd invited doom.
They wouldn't dare blame the real monsters. No, they'd pile it all on her—the one who'd dared to act.
Despair clawed at her chest, a hollow ache of betrayal.
But then she spotted Ross, watching the drama unfold with cool amusement. It snapped her back. She had to try.
"Pagaya, please—calm down!" Her voice shook as she begged him to lower his pistol. "Just put the gun down. Everything will be okay."
If he dropped it, maybe they could salvage this. "The captain promised—"
An invisible force clamped her throat mid-sentence, silencing her. She couldn't breathe, couldn't speak.
No. Don't mention the bet. It'll ruin everything.
Ross's voice echoed in her mind, soft yet commanding, like a whisper from the shadows. No one else reacted—they hadn't heard a thing.
What kind of devilish power was this? It chilled her. If he could do that, Skypiea had no chance.
She gasped, the pressure easing just enough. Free now, she tried again. "Pagaya..."
Too late.
"You're the scourge of Skypiea!" Pagaya bellowed, planting himself as the righteous avenger. This wasn't murder of kin or bowing to pirates—it was justice against a betrayer. He was the hero here.
"Die, traitor!"
He leveled the gleaming pistol at her heart and fired without a second thought.
BANG!
The shot cracked through the square like thunder, shattering the tense hush.
Time froze for Conis. The world hung suspended.
She saw Pagaya's face twist into a smug grin of relief—no regret, just sweet release.
She watched the brass bullet erupt from the barrel, slicing the air in a deadly arc straight for her chest.
She saw her "fellow" Skypieans flinch, not in horror or to intervene, but to shrink further into themselves, heads down, as if erasing their presence.
This was her home? The island she'd called hers for twenty-four years? A nest of cowards.
In that heartbeat, calm washed over her. Death meant escape—no more suffocating fear, no shattered future, no broken people.
But fate had other plans.
Clink.
The bullet halted inches from her chest, momentum snuffed out like a candle in the wind. It dangled there, frozen.
Ross stepped forward casually and plucked it from the air, the metal warm in his palm.
He'd orchestrated the whole thing from the start.
Seawater—his to command—had slowed the shot to a crawl, stretching one second into ten. It gave her time to think, to feel every betrayal. Even to awaken a flicker of Observation Haki in the crisis.
Ross had seen it all: the shift in her eyes, her newfound clarity on her people. He'd nudged her thoughts along the way.
Pagaya's move was predictable. In chaos, don't count on the average joe to rise up. Heroes aren't born from the crowd—they're forged elsewhere.
Pagaya was average to the core. If he'd had any fire, he wouldn't have crumbled back into the huddle after his first brave stand.
Ross had hoped otherwise. A spark of potential in Pagaya would've earned respect, maybe even training. Talent could be honed, skills built from scratch. But personality? That was etched in stone.
Life's upheavals might crack it, sure. But how many storms could one soul weather? And even then, would they have the guts to charge into the gale?
Ross pocketed the bullet, his gaze lingering on the stunned crowd. The farce had run its course. Time to wrap this up.
—
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