Rain is loud when you're trying to kill someone.
Most people don't realize that. They think it's dramatic—makes things feel cinematic, moody. But all it does is screw with acoustics, and drown out the sound of boots that might be sneaking up behind you.
I like silence. Silence doesn't lie.
But here I was, stomach down on rusted metal forty feet above a smuggler dock on Minion Island, soaked to the bone, heartbeat steady as stone.
In my scope: a fat bastard named Jango the Slab. Seven feet tall. Axe like a church bell. Bounty: 38 million. Apparently earned it by turning an entire village into furniture.
Yeah. Furniture.
He laughed like he hadn't just walked into a ghost town. The docks were empty. The wind screamed. His men were shouting over each other, trying to unload crates. None of them looked up.
Amateurs.
Fellas like him don't really deserve the joy of life. An entire village... tsk, tsk, tsk.
This fat bastard weighs like a ton. A giant monster made up of fat and some cheap rum.
He barked something about "burning the next idiot who calls him fat"—bold talk from a man whose belt looked like it was planning a prison break.
I steadied the rifle against the rusted railing. Flintlock, single-shot. Old world steel, customized sights. No dial enhancements this time—just raw skill.
I exhaled. Felt the moment balance.
Then I pulled the trigger.
CRACK.
The shot echoed through the cliffs like a thunderclap. Smoke curled from the barrel, hot and sharp.
Jango's head snapped back, a neat, bloody hole between the eyes. He hit the dock with the kind of weight that makes wood scream.
The men around him stood there blinking, like their brains hadn't caught up yet.
Then: screaming. Panic. Shouts for cover, too late.
I was already gone.
So, part one of the plan is completed, now for the sequel, the very infamous part two.
Extraction.
Which meant getting up close and personal with the corpse I just perforated. Not exactly glamorous, but nobody pays you for dramatic exits. They pay for heads with names attached.
I slid through the backstreets like rainwater, looping around the docks while Jango's men flailed around like headless chickens. I counted eight of them—three were too panicked to be a threat. Two had drawn blades but no direction. The others were shouting at shadows and firing pistols at the sky.
I crouched behind a barrel, peeking through a busted crate. Jango was still lying where I dropped him. No one's touched him yet—superstition, probably. Big boss gets sniped from nowhere, most men think twice before rushing in. Maybe they thought his killer was still watching.
They were right.
I waited a beat, then made my move. Low and fast, boots silent against the soaked planks. I slipped between crates and ducked under the pier, then climbed up the opposite side. Every step felt like it echoed, but the storm was loud and the pirates louder.
When I reached him, I grabbed the collar of his drenched coat.
"Time to go, fatass," I muttered.
He didn't argue.
I braced my feet and heaved. The man was built like a refrigerator filled with sandbags, but adrenaline and spite are great motivators. I dragged him inch by inch toward the boat launch at the far end of the dock. One of his men turned and caught a glimpse of movement.
"Oi, who's—"
I dropped him.
Drew my sidearm.
CRACK.
The flintlock pistol barked once, and the pirate's chest lit up red. He toppled backward into the water, dead before his brain knew what hit him.
The rest hesitated. That was enough.
I went back to hauling Jango's body, one boot dragging behind the other, leaving a thick red smear on the planks. His head lolled like a broken melon. Face intact, though—important detail. The government doesn't pay for corpses that it can't identify.
I reached the skiff I'd stashed earlier—half-covered with a tarp and tied to the dock like a forgotten dinghy. I rolled him in like a sack of wet flour.
He landed with a satisfying thud.
I untied the boat, shoved off with one foot, and let the current carry us out into the storm. The pirates screamed behind me, firing wildly into the rain, but none of them hit.
They never do.
I sat in the skiff, breathing heavily, soaked to the bone and shivering.
Jango's body rocked with the waves beside me. Eyes wide. Mouth open. Still smug. Still dead.
I reached into my coat, pulled out a deck of cards, and flicked one onto his chest.
King of Spades.
"Next time, don't redecorate a village."
This one's done.
Time to get paid.
Holy hell, that son of a biscuit eater is heavy, not gonna lie. My arms are aching like crazy.
The skiff bobbed and groaned as it cut across the dark waters. Every wave slapped the hull like it owed the ocean money, but I kept one hand on the tiller and the other on my flintlock, just in case Jango's boys grew a collective spine.
They didn't.
Minion Island shrank behind me, just another shadow swallowed by the storm. Ahead, like a bad habit I couldn't kick, lay my least favorite kind of place—a Marine base.
Specifically, G-81, one of the outer outposts of the North Blue. Not too important, not too well-staffed, which made it the perfect drop-off point for unsavory types like me. Bounty hunters don't exactly get salutes from the Navy, but they like our work when it saves them theirs.
The gates were shut by the time I arrived, the dock patrolled by a couple of sleepy seamen with muskets held like fishing rods. One of them spotted me and squinted.
"Oi! The dock's closed! Get outta here!" He shouted.
I stood up, soaking wet, arms aching, and dropped Jango's bloated carcass right onto the dock with a wet thump.
"Not for me, it ain't." I responded.
The soldier stared at the body, blinked once, then twice. He turned, hollering back into the base like his trousers had just grown teeth.
"We got the slab! THE Slab's dead!" He shouted.
A blur of boots and brass buttons followed. Lanterns flared behind the gates. Shouting echoed across the dock as more Marines spilled out like ants whose anthill just got kicked.
Then came the officer—stiff spine, clean shave, coat too white for anyone who's ever seen a real fight. Lieutenant Juro. I knew him. Prick with a clipboard and a superiority complex polished to a shine.
He looked at the body, then at me. I probably looked like a wet rat with a death wish.
"You get him here?" He asked me.
"No, he fell out of the sky and landed here." I told him.
"Really?" He looked at the other marines.
"Oh, I brought him here, okay?" I told him.
Lieutenant Juro gave me the kind of look you usually reserve for something stuck to your boot. Then he knelt beside the body, poked Jango's neck with the tip of his pen like he was checking if it might still be contagious.
"Clean shot," he muttered. "Right between the eyes. Brutal."
"Accurate," I corrected. "Brutally accurate."
He ignored me, which was honestly a relief. I hate small talk with men who starch their socks.
"Identification?" he asked, holding out his hand without looking.
I reached into my coat again and pulled out the bounty slip—creased, waterlogged, still legible. The rain had smudged the ink, but Jango's ugly mug was unmistakable.
Juro took it like he was afraid it might bite. "We'll verify the body," he said.
"You do that," I replied, trying not to sound as tired as I felt.
Juro nodded to his men. They dragged the body off the dock like they were hauling in the morning catch. One of them gagged when the head flopped sideways and leaked something awful.
I leaned against a piling and caught my breath. The rain was letting up now, down to a drizzle that couldn't decide if it was fog or guilt.
"Payment will be processed in two days," Juro said, flipping his clipboard closed. "Standard protocol."
"Two days?" I echoed, voice flat. "I haul that walking disaster across half the North Blue in a leaky boat, in the middle of a damn storm, and you want me to wait?"
He gave me a look like I'd just tracked mud into a ballroom.
"Protocol exists for a reason," he said. "Verification takes time. Paperwork. Chains of command."
I stepped closer, boots squelching on the dock. "You want to check if he's really Jango the Slab? Be my guest. Maybe he turned someone else's village into chairs. But I'm not waiting around while your paper-pushers take tea breaks."
He stared at me a moment too long, then sighed—deep, pained, like honor itself was bleeding.
He reached into his coat and tossed over a stamped voucher. I caught it midair.
"Claim it at Loguetown," he muttered. "They'll pay out once they see my seal."
"Now that, Lieutenant," I said, tucking the slip into my coat, "sounds like something useful finally came out of your mouth."
"Thanks, Lieutenant, I will be forever in your mercy," I told him.
I trudged back to the skiff, legs sore, boots squishing with every step. My muscles were shot, my coat smelled like wet dog and burnt gunpowder, and I was running on nothing but spite and salted fish jerky.
A seaman tried to offer me a towel. I stared at him till he walked away. Smart kid, y'know, kids are evolving nowadays.
Loguetown, well, that's terribly far.
The sea was calmer now. The kind of quiet that makes you nervous after too much noise. No thunder, no pirates, no fat bastards with oversized axes. Just me, my aching arms, and a long, miserable ride to Loguetown.
Great.
I slumped into the skiff and kicked off, letting the tide pull me away from G-81 before I even thought about rowing. The voucher felt like it weighed ten pounds in my coat pocket—not because of the paper, but because of the promise. Money.
Also, probably some jackass Marine clerk with an attitude and a pen that doesn't work. Because nothing's ever easy.
The North Blue stretched around me, endless and gray. Clouds still clung low like they were too lazy to leave. I rowed with one hand, pistol within reach. On the other hand... yeah, that one was just trying not to fall off. Thanks, Jango.
I swear he gained weight after dying.
The skiff rocked gently as I left G-81 behind—lighter now, both in cargo and spirit. Jango's body was their problem. Mine was the slip in my coat, stamped and signed, promising a payout in Loguetown.
Probably.
If some clipboard-clutching clerk didn't decide my signature looked too smug or the ink was the wrong shade of black.
I leaned back against the hull, muscles aching, boots soaked, and brain running on fumes. The storm had wandered off somewhere else to ruin someone else's day. Now it was just drizzle and silence and me—alone, alive, and technically unemployed until the money hit my hand.
The voucher felt heavier than a corpse.
"Two days," I muttered, mimicking Juro's voice under my breath. "'Standard protocol.' Yeah, so's mediocrity."
The sea stretched ahead like a bad idea that just kept going. The kind of endless gray that makes you question every decision that led to this exact moment. Like becoming a bounty hunter. Like shooting a man the size of a barn during a storm on a rusted rooftop. Like eating that questionable fish jerky two nights ago.
My stomach hated me. My back hated me. And if the Marines stiffed me on the bounty, I was gonna start hating back.
The sun finally shoved its way through the clouds like a drunk looking for a fight, casting golden light across the horizon. In the distance: sails. Buildings. The scent of salt and sewage.
Loguetown.
Civilization, if you squinted.
I grabbed the tiller and steered toward the harbor, the voucher still tucked in my coat. It was time to get paid. Or punch someone through a counter, trying.
At the dock, I was greeted with strange looks. I responded with an awkward smile.
"Hey, fellas. You know where I can cash a bounty around here?" I asked the nearest human to me.
The nearest human—a squat guy in a soggy blue cap chewing something suspicious—gave me a look like I'd just asked him for directions to heaven.
"You look like you crawled outta a fish's armpit," he said.
"And yet somehow, I'm still prettier than your mother," I replied.
He blinked. Then, to his credit, chuckled and jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward a squat stone building marked MARINE PAYROLL OFFICE in paint that looked like it had lost the will to live.
The Marine payroll office in Loguetown wasn't hard to find—mostly because of the noise. Not the kind you'd expect. No shouting. Just the ominous thud of boots, the clink of chains, and the occasional blast of cigar smoke that drifted out like a threat wrapped in tar.
And then he stepped out.
Vice Admiral Smoker.
White coat, open-chested. Twin cigars burning like he was trying to kill the air itself. Jitte strapped to his back like he meant to end someone's entire week with it. The man walked like he owned the place and had personally body-slammed it into submission the day he arrived.
He spotted me halfway across the square.
And frowned.
"You're the bounty hunter from G-81," he said, like I was a suspicious stain on his paperwork.
"Depends. Am I about to get paid or arrested?"
"That depends. Are you stupid enough to hand me a forged voucher?"
I pulled it from my coat, held it up. The seal shimmered under the light, stamped proper by Juro and smelling faintly of rain and regret. "Straight from Lieutenant Juro. Shot through the forehead, as requested."
Smoker snatched the slip like it owed him money. Eyes scanned it, jaw clenched.
"Jango the Slab," he muttered. "Ugly bastard."
"You should've seen him before I redecorated his face."
Smoker's eyes narrowed. He didn't laugh. Smoker doesn't laugh. Closest he gets is a low grunt when someone bleeds out politely in front of him.
"You left a hell of a mess back on Minion Island."
"You're welcome."
"I wasn't thanking you."
He turned, waved a hand, and a Marine clerk bolted out of the door behind him, nearly tripping over himself. Smoker handed him the slip with all the warmth of a death sentence.
"Verify this. Process his bounty. Full amount—if it checks out."
The clerk scurried back inside. I stood awkwardly in the smoke cloud. Smoker just stared at me, arms crossed, twin cigars flaring like they were trying to ignite my sins.
"You always this charming?" he asked.
"Only when I've been soaked, starved, and lied to by three separate Marines."
"Then you'll love what comes next," he said. "You've got a meeting. With me."
"...Is that before or after I get paid?"
He didn't answer.
Just turned, coat flapping, smoke trailing behind him like a cape woven from factory fumes.
I sighed. "I really need to start doing freelance."
And followed him inside.
Inside the payroll office, the air was worse than outside—stifling, cramped, and filled with that uniquely Marine blend of wet paper, gun oil, and institutional disappointment. The walls were lined with filing cabinets that hadn't been opened since the Pirate King's last breath, and the floor creaked like it regretted existing.
Smoker didn't sit. He didn't need to. He loomed. Gestured toward a metal chair that looked like it had survived more interrogations than a Grand Line captain.
I sat. Slowly. Wet clothes squelched in protest.
"Let's cut to it," Smoker said, jitte clunking against the wall as he leaned. "You're not just some lucky bastard with a good eye. You ghosted a known crew, nailed a high-value target with a flintlock, and disappeared before anyone could even shoot back."
"Noticed that, huh?" I said, rubbing the ache in my shoulder. "I'm efficient like that."
"You're dangerous," Smoker replied. "And smart enough not to brag about it—until just now."
"Takes one to know one," I muttered, eyeing his cigars. "You trying to kill the entire room with those or just me specifically?"
His mouth twitched. A flicker. Not quite a smile—more like a predatory twitch before the bite.
"You know what I hate?" he said. "Loose cannons. Wild cards. Mercenaries with no leash."
"You know what I hate?" I replied. "Being lectured before I get paid."
That earned me a slow exhale. Smoke poured from his nostrils like a disappointed dragon.
"You've got potential," he said. "But you're wasting it shooting small fry and cashing vouchers like you're saving up for a funeral."
"Considering the line of work? Not a bad idea."
Smoker paced once, boots heavy on the wooden floor. The clerk came back, offered a thumbs-up like his life depended on it. Smoker grunted.
"Your bounty's cleared. Full 38 million. It'll be deposited by the end of the day."
"See? Already worth your time."