One Piece: Madness of Regret-Chapter 57: The girl with red hair(20)

I pointed to the middle-aged man again. No words. Just the motion. Just the stare.

The message was clear: aim the cannon at the cabin.

He understood. Of course he did. His eyes flicked between me and the captain's door, calculating. Weighing. Trying to decide which devil he feared more.

Wrong question.

This wasn't just about fear anymore.

This was about obedience.

And hesitation? That was treason.

So I smiled. Slowly. And turned.

The man closest to me hadn't even flinched yet when I grabbed his sword—cheap steel, dull at the tip, but still sharp enough to cut. That's all I needed. I raised my healed arm.

And I hacked.

Once.

Twice.

Thick, wet thunks filled the air. Meat and sinew split. Tendons popped like overstretched rope. I carved a chunk of my own flesh from my arm and held it.

Then I dropped the sword. It clattered against the wood, ringing once, then silence.

Useless now.

I raised my ruined hand—muscle twitching, blood running down to my fingertips in a steady, glistening stream—and pointed. First to the cannon. Then to the cabin.

A slow, deliberate gesture with a mangled hand.

No room for interpretation.

And that... finally got the message across.

The middle-aged man's face changed. Acceptance. Like a man who's realized the water's already in his lungs and there's no more air left to find. He looked away from the door. Away from the captain's memory. And turned the cannon.

The others moved with him this time.

Not out of courage.

Out of the silent, collective understanding that there were no choices left.

Just commands.

The cannon creaked as it rotated, heavy iron groaning like a sleeping beast disturbed. The muzzle lined up directly towards the cabin. No more games.

Only destruction.

And in that moment, the deck was dead quiet.

Not a breath. Not a cough. Not even the wind dared to interrupt.

They remembered the shooter. They remembered the so-called tyrant. They remembered what I did when people didn't listen.

And now, with blood dripping from my fingertips and a grin stitched across my face, they understood.

There was no rebellion. Not anymore. Not against me.

That illusion had long since bled out on the deck.

All I needed now was the final piece—gunpowder, a cannonball, and a spark. I didn't wave. I didn't shout. I just looked at him—the middle-aged man with shaking knees and breath that never quite came right anymore.

One stare.

That's all it took.

He scrambled like a kicked dog, shouting in a voice too cracked for command. His words didn't matter. The crew heard his tone, not his orders. And they obeyed.

Barrels were cracked open. Metal clanged. Sweat poured. They moved like prisoners digging their own graves—fast, sloppy, afraid of being noticed.

The middle-aged man returned with a tin can clutched to his chest like a newborn. Even from where I stood, the stench of it clawed at the air—gunpowder. Thick, gritty, black death packed in a can. His hands trembled as he opened it, careful not to spill. Not out of fear for the powder, but fear of me watching him fumble.

He crouched at the muzzle, measuring it out like a priest pouring oil before the burn.

Behind him, another crewman approached with a cannonball, cradled like it was a gift to a god. Heavy, iron, and perfectly round. They slid it into the mouth of the cannon, and the hollow thud echoed across the deck like a coffin being sealed.

Then came the ramming.

Wood and muscle forced the charge deep into the barrel's belly, packing it tight—tight enough to kill, tight enough to shatter.

They didn't speak.

Didn't ask what they were doing. Didn't question who the real enemy was.

Because they knew.

The real war was already lost.

And then... he returned.

The middle-aged man. Same shaking hands. Same hollow eyes.

Only this time, he held something small.

A match.

A simple match.

He stepped toward me like a man approaching his executioner—slow, reverent, and terrified. His hand extended, matchstick held between his thumb and forefinger like an offering to something ancient. Something that could end him for the insult of flinching.

The tip of the match was red. Dry. Full of promise.

He said nothing.

He didn't need to.

The wind held its breath. The waves quieted. Even the ship seemed to still beneath our feet.

All eyes were on me.

All lungs held closed.

Waiting.

For fire.

I placed my hand on the muzzle—cold now, almost reverent, like the iron itself was holding its breath. But I could feel it. The hunger.

The kind that sleeps just long enough to make the explosion sweeter.

The iron beast... it had waited. It had watched. And now it would serve. Oh yes, it would serve again—not as a tool, but as a weapon. As a messenger. This wasn't a cannon anymore. It was a god with a throat full of fire, and I was its prophet.

"You want to see destruction, don't you?" I whispered, pressing my palm against its dark mouth. "You want to scream again. Burn again. Tear again."

And I grinned.

"Then feast, iron beast. Feast your eyes on the ruin you bring."

The match flared in my fingers, a little flicker of defiance against the gloom. Its flame danced—nervous, flickering, desperate to live. But I held it steady. Held it still. The air grew tense, like even the wind was too afraid to move.

I leaned forward, whispering to the fuse like a lover.

"Wake up."

And I kissed it with fire.

The primer sizzled—snapping and crackling in frantic sparks, tiny panicked screams of what was to come. The metal beneath my hand began to quiver. Not shake. Vibrate. Like something inside was already trying to claw its way out.

The fuse burned fast.

Faster.

And then—

BOOM.

The ship convulsed. Wood screamed. The deck kicked beneath our feet like it was trying to throw us into the sky. The roar didn't echo—it consumed. A thunderclap so thick it carved silence in its wake.

Splinters flew like shrapnel. Smoke erupted from the muzzle like the iron beast had howled out its soul. The cannon leapt back on its wheels, screeching like it had been wounded by its own glory.

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And yet—

My laugh dwarfed it all.

It didn't follow the blast. It rode it. Rose above it. Twisted through the smoke like something unnatural. Something wrong. A sound no throat should make—sharp, giddy, endless. Like a child discovering how to kill for the first time and realizing how fun it was.

The crew didn't speak. Didn't move.

They just stood there, wrapped in ringing ears and wide-eyed stares. Watching the smoke bleed from the hole now carved into their captain's sanctuary.

Behind it, darkness.

Darkness that saw light for the first time in forever.

And I?

I just smiled and whispered to the smoke:

"Knock, knock. May I come in?"