Jack was the only one left standing.
Jack kept his face calm.
Inside, his mind was screaming.
Instantly. They'd all fallen instantly.
The power Bege described hadn't conveyed reality. It hadn't conveyed this—this overwhelming gap, the way a real monster moved.
Chinjao studied Jack, then smirked. "A hundred million bounty."
His gaze flicked briefly to the bodies. "Your crew doesn't look worth much."
Jack's smile twitched. "They're… having a nap."
Chinjao snorted. "A nap... Perhaps you'll also like to have a nap. A permanent nap."
Jack adjusted his grip. "I am not feeling the need."
He moved first.
He darted forward, blade flicking in a quick, angled slash aimed at Chinjao's ribs.
Chinjao shifted his stance and blocked with an arm which didn't even budge under Jack's strike.
Jack's eyes widened.
He spun, using momentum, cutting low, then high—rapid, agile strikes, like waves snapping at rock.
Chinjao kept stepping through them, taking barely any distance, his movements efficient and contemptuous.
Jack's Observation—still raw—screamed at him in fragments. Left. Down. Back. Now.
Jack obeyed instinct more than thought.
Chinjao's fist passed where Jack's head had been a blink earlier. The wind from it still slammed into Jack's face.
Jack stumbled, recovered, slashed again.
Chinjao's counter came like judgment.
Jack saw it a fraction before it happened, and that fraction saved him from dying outright. He twisted. The punch clipped his shoulder instead of his chest.
Pain burst through him. He skidded, boots scraping ice.
His arm went numb.
Chinjao frowned slightly, then smiled wider. "You're dodging."
Jack smiled painfully, "What else am I supposed to do?"
Chinjao kept smiling, "I don't mean that. You are special, aren't you? Not everyone in the Blues can dodge like that."
Jack spat blood. "I'm… talented."
Chinjao stepped forward, still casual. Jack struck again, the sword a blur—more speed than power. But power met him anyway.
Chinjao's palm caught the blade.
Jack's breath caught. His eyes widened in disbelief.
Chinjao pushed.
Jack's feet slid backward several meters, snow spraying.
He gritted his teeth, trembling with strain.
Chinjao's expression shifted from mockery to faint surprise.
He released the sword and stepped back half a pace. "You've awakened Observation Haki at this stage?"
Jack blinked, blood running down his brow. "Obser- Observation… what?"
Chinjao stared at him.
"…You don't know? The special feeling of your instincts screaming at you. You feel the attacks before they come."
Jack shook his head slowly. "I just… feel things."
Chinjao's laugh was low, almost delighted. "The seas are ridiculous."
He looked toward the horizon as if recalling other monsters. "First that blond brat from the North Blue. Then those crazy three Marine vice admirals. And now you."
He looked back at Jack, eyes narrowing.
"Listen," Chinjao said, voice suddenly instructional, almost bored by it. "There are three powers that separate the strong from the dead. Haki is will. It is spirit made real."
Jack's breath came hard. He forced himself upright despite the pain.
Chinjao continued, unhurried. "Observation Haki. The ability to sense presence, emotion, intent. To see what your eyes can't. That's why you keep dodging just before I hit you."
Jack swallowed, stunned.
Chinjao lifted a fist. "Armament Haki. The ability to coat yourself in invisible armor. To strike harder, to defend better. To touch things you shouldn't be able to touch. It is the best counter for Logia devil fruits."
Jack's gaze flicked to Chinjao's hands, recalling the way his sword had been caught like it was dull.
"And then—" Chinjao's smile turned sharp, "the one you can't learn through practice alone."
Jack's body tensed.
Chinjao's voice dropped into something heavy. "Conqueror's Haki."
The air changed.
The ice itself seemed to creak.
A pressure slammed down on Jack like the sea had become a hand and pushed him beneath it. His knees buckled instantly. He struggled to breathe. His vision blurred at the edges. It felt like every instinct in his body screamed submit.
Jack's sword trembled.
His hand shook.
He looked at Chinjao through the crushing weight.
"It is not what you are supposed to get through training. You either have it, or you don't. It is the Will of Kings. Only one in million have Conqueror's Haki."
His crew lay scattered—Gibbs, who'd stood by him through storms and hunger and madness. Robin, small and stubborn, reading books as if the world couldn't burn her again. Ragetti, ridiculous and strangely durable. Pintel… probably being beaten somewhere else at this very moment, because Jack had acknowledged it so casually.
A sour laugh almost rose in Jack's throat, but the pressure strangled it.
Was he going to die here?
On ice.
In a plan full of holes.
He thought of Shimotsuki Village. Koushiro's calm eyes.
The sacred sword entrusted to him.
His own stupid vow—strongest swordsman, best meat, best women, best rum.
It sounded foolish now.
Then he heard his father's voice, as if it had been locked inside him all these years and the pressure had cracked the door.
Live. Be free.
Something inside Jack snapped.
The part of him that had always laughed to avoid feeling.
It broke open.
Jack's eyes widened.
The air around him—his own spirit—flared outward.
A shockwave rolled through the ice like an invisible blast.
Chinjao's Conqueror's pressure met it—
—and for the first time, it shifted.
Chinjao's eyes widened.
Jack Sparrow, bloody and shaking, forced himself upright beneath the weight.
His grin returned, but it wasn't playful now.
It was fierce.
Chinjao stared at him, genuinely shocked.
"…Conqueror's...." Chinjao breathed.
Jack didn't know the word.
He only knew that he refused.
He refused to die here.
He refused to kneel.