"Hmph, spare me the pity."
"I lost—simple as that."
Yasopp gripped his sniper rifle tightly with his remaining left hand.
"If only I had better aim… if only my Armament Haki were stronger…"
"Even if you're a legendary Lunarian, Flame Disaster... you wouldn't have walked away unscathed."
His eyes, once sharp and commanding, were now dull and clouded—filled with regret, resentment, and a quiet, crushing despair.
For a sniper…
Losing the dominant hand is losing everything.
Unlike Red-Haired Shanks—who lost his dominant left arm but still wielded Haki like a king—Yasopp was no swordsman.
He was the gun.
And now, that weapon was broken.
"But the Grand Line has everything… except 'what ifs'."
King (Flame Disaster) pushed back his rain-soaked hair, no longer hiding behind a mask.
There was no need—Yasopp had recognized him at a glance.
Once, King might've silenced the sniper to preserve his secret.
But now, with more and more Red Hair pirates beginning to realize the truth, King's expression remained unreadably calm.
"Hahaha… You're right…"
"The Grand Line has everything—except 'what ifs'."
Yasopp laughed skyward. The sound was sharp, bitter… hollow.
The man who had once been praised as the world's strongest sniper had nothing left but the wind and the rain.
"You win, Flame Disaster!"
He raised the rifle with his only remaining hand—pointed it at King.
This wasn't a duel anymore.
It was a final act of defiance.
Even crippled, even broken—he would deny King the luxury of leaving unscathed.
One final bullet. One final contribution to the war.
King's blade rose in turn.
"You didn't lose to me," he said, eyes gleaming beneath the storm.
"You lost to the True Lord."
"Ragnar?!" Yasopp snapped.
The name echoed like thunder.
"What the hell do you mean?!"
The Red Hair pirates stirred, exchanging confused glances. Even Shanks, still engaged in battle nearby, turned slightly—tense, alert.
King's voice was calm:
"Before you even pulled the trigger, Ragnar Sama already knew…"
"…that your bullet would be aimed at my heart."
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Some stood frozen, others clenched their weapons tighter.
"Innate Observation Haki…"
"Mind-reading level?"
Yasopp and Shanks—two veterans of the New World—spoke almost simultaneously, dread flickering in their voices.
They both knew what it meant.
Yes, Observation Haki could be trained—even honed to predict brief futures.
But the highest tier—true precognitive Haki—wasn't learned.
It was born.
Rarer than Conqueror's Haki.
Rarer, even, than the Yonko.
"Red Hair."
"Yasopp."
Just as Red-Haired Shanks and Yasopp both shouted in unison, a sharp voice pierced the downpour.
"Haaaaa!!"
Ben Beckman's anxious roar cut through the chaos like lightning.
At the same moment, King the Wildfire—who had just solemnly recounted the events of the battle, seemingly giving Yasopp a final moment of dignity—suddenly exuded a murderous aura so intense it felt suffocating.
Taking advantage of Yasopp's momentary daze, King bent his neck backward like a taut bowstring. Having already shifted into his human-beast hybrid form, he let loose—
His neck snapped forward with a whip-like crack, sending out a shockwave embedded with Armament Haki, visible to the naked eye as shimmering ripples in the rain-soaked air.
Like a sniper's bullet forged of pure destruction, the Haki-laced shockwave carved through the short distance between them and—
Pierced Yasopp's heart.
"You… King…"
Yasopp's eyes widened in disbelief, his pupils trembling.
His face drained of all color.
A mouthful of blood sprayed from his mouth like a red geyser, staining the ruined deck in a violent splash of crimson.
He clutched his chest, staggering back several steps before collapsing onto the blood-slick wood. His breath was shallow—his strength, fading.
His left arm fell limply to the ground, trembling fingers unable even to stem the gushing wound.
Still, his eyes—burning with anger, grief, and regret—locked onto King one last time.
Then, his broken body tipped over and rolled helplessly toward the edge, finally slipping into the stormy sea below.
Splash!
The surface erupted in a crash of white foam, quickly swallowed by waves dyed with his blood.
"YASOPP!!"
The Red Hair Pirates finally reacted.
Their eyes snapped wide open, and all voices converged into a single, anguished uproar.
"You bastard!!"
"Damn you, Fire Calamity!!"
"You really killed Yasopp!!"
Their hysterical roars shook the heavens, even overpowering the deafening thunder and pounding rain.
"How the hell could this happen?!"
"Yasopp— he was the strongest sniper in the world! The man whose Observation Haki never let anyone escape!"
Lucky Roux's eyes turned bloodshot. His face twisted into a mask of fury and grief, veins bulging as he screamed:
"You always boasted about your Observation Haki—how no one could hide from you!
How the hell did you not see this coming?!"
Even though they had all seen it with their own eyes...
None of them could believe it.
None of them could accept it.
That Yasopp—
Their comrade of over a decade, the third pillar of the Red Hair Pirates—
Had just died, right before them... powerless and broken.
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