A light breeze drifted through.
The stench of blood filled the ruined hall, mixing into the air until it drowned out every other smell.
Bodies lay scattered everywhere—on the floor, against the walls, piled in corners. Blood seeped from them and soaked into the ground like a river.
And in the middle of that chaotic corpse heap—
A boy.
White clothes.
Not a speck of dust.
Not a stain.
The contrast was so violent it felt unreal.
Transcendent.
Unreachable.
Stepping across bodies as if they were nothing more than stones, Ryukawa carried his wooden sword and walked straight toward the broken doorway.
The floor beneath his steps cracked again.
Crack—crack!
A harsh sound echoed across the hall.
Rumble—!
A nearby wall—already cracked to its limit—couldn't hold. It collapsed with a roar, rubble pouring down and kicking up clouds of dust.
There was no intact place left here.
Only destruction.
Debris.
Cracks.
The ground looked ready to cave in.
The walls were webbed with fractures like spider silk burned into stone.
The entire building felt like it might collapse any second.
"This is done for now," Ryukawa murmured.
"It's time for me to go."
He glanced back.
And the moment he paused—
The marines in the corner tightened like terrified animals. The lieutenant and the others shrank into themselves, shaking, lips trembling, faces pale.
"W-what… what does he want now?"
"Is he going to change his mind?"
"Is he going to kill us after all?!"
Their minds spiraled into panic.
Every tiny movement he made dragged their emotions with it like a chain.
Because they understood something with brutal clarity:
Their lives were in his hands.
If he wanted them dead, it would be easier than stepping on ants.
Smoker—a Logia user—had been taken out in a single exchange.
Not even by a direct hit.
By aftershock alone.
So what were they?
Nothing.
Less than nothing.
Ryukawa was too strong.
Strong enough to make them feel despair just by existing.
They had fought pirates in Loguetown before—strong ones, too.
But none of them had ever made the marines feel what they felt today.
This was different.
This wasn't fear.
This was hopelessness.
Ryukawa was the most terrifying existence they'd ever encountered.
Ryukawa's eyes swept the wreckage around him, taking in the ruins.
A quiet sigh escaped him.
Before he came here, he hadn't expected things to get this big.
But the outcome was still within his expectations.
At the very least—
The CP organization's East Blue base had been wiped out by him alone.
The only disappointment was obvious.
His identity had been exposed.
He could already sense it: it wouldn't be long before stories spread across East Blue, his name becoming something people whispered about with excitement and fear.
And one thing was now carved into his mind:
CP's intelligence network was terrifying.
Only a few days—
And they had traced the Octagon Town incident to this extent.
That part… he hadn't anticipated.
If he hadn't walked into Loguetown's CP base and fallen into their trap—
He might've stayed in the dark.
The efficiency of CP's information-gathering had forced him to re-evaluate them.
"Coming to Loguetown changed everything," Ryukawa thought.
"I thought destroying this base would end it."
"But things went sideways… and my identity still got exposed."
"I planned carefully. I believed I left no holes."
"Yet I still underestimated how fast they collect information."
"So… was all of this pointless?"
He almost laughed at himself.
Because whether he killed the marines here or not—
It wouldn't change the fact that the world would learn who he was.
At this point, killing them wouldn't "fix" anything.
Unless… he simply felt like it.
But Ryukawa's expression remained calm.
"Forget it."
"When soldiers come, we block them. When water comes, we dam it."
"If I'm exposed, then I'm exposed."
"I can't change what already happened."
"So I'll move forward."
With that thought—
He left.
He stepped through the doorway and vanished from the ruined hall.
But even after he was gone, the atmosphere didn't recover.
It stayed silent.
Oppressive.
As if his shadow still lingered.
"H-he left… right?" one marine whispered.
His voice shook.
The fear Ryukawa had carved into them was too deep—too heavy to disappear just because he walked away.
"I… I think so…" another answered, with no confidence at all.
Then the lieutenant forced his trembling legs to move.
"Quick!"
"Go check Captain Smoker!"
They rushed toward the rubble pile where Smoker had been buried.
No one knew if he could survive the aftershock of that monstrous slash.
But their hearts begged for it.
They needed him alive.
They needed hope.
"Help me—move these stones!"
Hands grabbed rubble and threw it aside.
And then—
They saw him.
Smoker.
It was so bad the lieutenant almost didn't recognize him.
"Is… is that really Captain Smoker?" he whispered, horrified.
Smoker lay at the bottom of a sunken pit, half-embedded in broken stone, like someone had been hammered into the ground.
His coat was drenched in blood until it looked entirely red.
The fabric was shredded.
Through the tears, they could see his body covered in wounds—countless cuts as if he'd been carved by blades.
Blood was still flowing.
Everywhere.
The most shocking injury was on his chest—an ugly, torn cavity that looked close to being a full puncture. Bone was crushed inward.
Looking at him, one conclusion was unavoidable:
There wasn't a single uninjured place on his body.
The aftershock alone had done this.
The gusts and slicing force released by that single slash had shredded him.
The pit beneath him had filled with blood, turning into a small lake.
A lake of red.
The smell rose into the air like poison.
Cough—cough!
Smoker suddenly jolted awake, eyes snapping open.
His pale face flushed in a brief burst of color as he Hacked violently—
Spit!
Blood sprayed from his mouth.
"Captain Smoker!" the lieutenant cried, scrambling.
Panic turned into frantic relief.
He was alive.
But the injuries…
They were so severe none of them could guarantee he'd stay alive.
Smoker's eyelids looked heavy, as if lead weights were pulling them down. His bloodshot eyes struggled to focus.
"This place…" he rasped.
His mind felt incomplete, like pieces were missing—
Then the memory hit him like a wave.
"I remember…"
"I… got one-shot."
"That monster's slash—its aftershock—hit me."
"I flew back… crashed into the wall…"
"And then the stones buried me."
Smoker's lips trembled. Blood and cuts covered his face, making him look almost inhuman.
"I lost."
Not just lost—
He had been humiliated.
Crushed.
And the worst part?
He hadn't even been hit directly.
"If that slash had struck me head-on…" he whispered, voice hollow.
"I'd be dead."
"No…"
"I wouldn't even leave a body."
The thought alone made his scalp go cold.
Aftershock damage had already erased his ability to fight.
A direct hit would've erased him.
He clenched his jaw, trembling.
"That boy…"
"What kind of monster is he?!"
"And how… how could East Blue produce something like that?"
Smoker had fought countless times in his life.
But no battle had ever left a mark like this.
Today, he finally learned what the word despair truly meant.
Not as a concept.
Not as a story.
But as a physical sensation—something that crushed your heart, froze your blood, and hollowed out your courage.
The memory was burned into him.
Even now, he couldn't shake the fear.
That hopeless feeling had shattered his mental defenses—
And became a permanent shadow in his mind.
A psychological scar he would never forget.
He swore it silently, with every ragged breath:
He never wanted to experience that kind of despair again.
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