"Triple sixes."
The blind swordsman spoke quietly, but his answer brought the surrounding chatter to a halt.
Ten million Berries on the least likely result was hardly an ordinary wager; he seemed prepared to risk his entire fortune just to insult probability.
Pirates drew sharp breaths around the table.
Even Ace stopped tearing meat from the enormous roasted leg and stared at the man in purple as though wondering whether he had lost his mind.
Beneath his hood, Zaraki narrowed his golden eyes.
'He's not crazy.'
There had been neither hesitation nor excitement in the answer.
The man had spoken with something close to absolute certainty, leaving Zaraki to wonder where that confidence came from.
"Kahahahaha! You've got guts!"
Bear King's initial stare gave way to thunderous laughter.
He slapped the table hard enough to make the coins, chips, and dice cup jump.
"I've run games on this island for years, and you're the first blind bastard I've seen crazy enough to bet like that!"
His eyes flicked toward the sickly gambler beside him.
Mushus caught the signal, a sinister smile crossing his bluish face as he pushed his remaining chips onto low.
The exchange was subtle and deliberate, and Zaraki watched it without a word.
Bear King surveyed the crowd with a vicious grin, enjoying the fear and respect on their faces.
He settled his huge, bloodstained hand over the dice cup and lingered there, drawing out the reveal.
"Well then... let's see just how good this gentleman's luck really is."
More than a hundred pairs of eyes followed his hand as the seconds dragged past.
The blind swordsman alone seemed entirely at ease, his cane sword resting across his knees and his expression no more troubled than if he were waiting for tomorrow's weather forecast.
"Open!" Bear King snatched away the cup, exposing three ivory-white dice on the scarred wood. Every one showed six.
Startled cries rose from the spectators, and the pirate nearest the table blurted out, "Holy shit, it really is three—"
Bear King struck before he could finish.
Without leaving his chair, he punched across the table and sent the man flying sideways through two gambling tables.
The pirate disappeared beneath overturned chairs and shattered dishes, and the room fell silent.
"What the hell are you yelling about?" Bear King withdrew his smoking fist and glared around the casino like a starving predator.
"Can't you see I'm still revealing the dice?"
As though nothing had happened, he turned back to the table and swept his hand over the third die, leaving the other two exposed.
"Tch. What a shame. Two sixes and a five."
False regret spread across his face.
"Missed it by just a little. Looks like this gentleman's luck isn't quite as good as he thought."
His free hand reached for the mountain of Berries in the center of the table, but before he touched the first coin, Zaraki spoke from beneath his hood.
"Your hand is covering the third die."
Bear King froze, and every head turned toward Zaraki.
The room's tension sharpened as the blind swordsman nodded, his faint smile unchanged.
"I see. Then it appears I did choose correctly." He inclined his head toward Zaraki. "My thanks for speaking up, sir."
That polite acknowledgment only made Bear King angrier.
A stranger had exposed his cheating before the entire casino, undermining an authority he had spent years enforcing through violence.
His face turned dark red as he sprang from his chair.
"You son of a bitch... YOU WANT TO DIE?!" He lunged across the table, bringing a gust of foul air with him.
Muscles bulged along an arm thicker than Zaraki's thigh, veins twisting over the skin as he drove his fist toward the shadow beneath the hood with enough force to crush a skull like rotten fruit.
Flames sprang to life across Ace's body, but before he could intervene, the fist stopped less than half an inch from Zaraki's hood.
Zaraki hadn't moved from his place.
He had simply raised his right hand and set the tip of one finger against the center of Bear King's fist.
In the sudden quiet, the contrast looked absurd. Bear King had put his whole body into the punch, and Zaraki was holding it back with a finger.
Disbelief replaced the outlaw's rage; he might as well have struck an ancient slab of metal anchored beneath a mountain.
He pushed harder, committing every ounce of strength he possessed, without gaining the slightest ground.
'Pathetic.'
Zaraki barely spared him a glance as his other hand settled on his sword hilt.
He had only needed a reason to act, and Bear King had finally supplied one.
Steel clicked against the mouth of the sheath, the small sound carrying clearly through the silent casino.
The alcohol and anger clouding Bear King's mind vanished beneath a chill that ran up his spine.
He tried to withdraw his fist as a silver flash crossed the dim room, cold as moonlight and too fast for anyone to follow.
By the time they heard the blade, it was already sheathed.
Bear King remained bent forward in the posture of his attack, confusion and horror fixed on his face.
A red line opened around his neck, and his enormous head dropped from his shoulders and rolled across the floor.
His body toppled backward a heartbeat later, blood spilling over the gambling table and soaking the Berries before the corpse hit the floor hard enough to shake the furniture.
The impact broke the spectators' stupor.
An outlaw worth eighty million Berries had been killed in a single stroke, and none of them had even seen the sword leave its sheath.
Mushus stared at the body until his legs gave way.
He collapsed onto the floor, a dark stain spreading across his trousers as the smell of urine joined the blood and alcohol.
From near the back of the room, a pirate screamed in recognition, his voice cracking.
"W-War Demon! That's War Demon Zaraki! The former Marine Headquarters special envoy! I saw his wanted poster!"
Panic swept through the casino.
Cries of "RUN!" and "GET OUT!" mingled with demands to know what Zaraki was doing there as pirates shoved and trampled one another to reach the entrance.
Tables overturned, chairs splintered, and coins and chips scattered across the floor without anyone stopping to collect them.
Mushus crawled away from Bear King's corpse until he found the strength to get up, then fled after the others without looking back.
In little more than a dozen breaths, the establishment had emptied, leaving wrecked furniture, scattered money, the still-bleeding corpse, and three men.
The blind swordsman rose from his chair and bowed toward Zaraki.
A short distance away, Ace remained half-crouched as though ready to intervene, though the flames had vanished from his body.
The roasted bone slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.
He stared at Zaraki, all his earlier amusement gone beneath open disbelief.