"Monica!"
"Monica!"
Michellea's eyes went wide with horror as she watched her twin sister topple from her reindeer's saddle, struck clean by a sniper's bullet.
She barely had time to scream before her instincts screamed louder, a lethal sense of danger surged up her spine. In that instant, she knew: the sniper who shot Monica was now aiming at her.
Without hesitation, she drew the heavy shield strapped to her back and swung it before her.
Clang!
A deafening metallic ring echoed across the snowfield.
But her relief froze in an instant. The bullet fired from that unseen marksman tore straight through her shield as if it were paper.
This was no ordinary shield. It had been forged from prime Jing-steel, strong enough to deflect musket fire and even some lower-tier cannon shots. Yet, impossibly, it failed to stop a single bullet.
The shot punched through and struck her left shoulder, the impact sending her crashing from her mount, just like her sister.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Sharp cracks of air followed, a flurry of supersonic rounds slicing through the storm.
Michellea, lying dazed in the snow, watched in horror as her soldiers were cut down one after another.
Within seconds, more than thirty reindeer cavalrymen had fallen, their blood staining the once-pristine snow.
"There's a sniper! Take cover!" she shouted through the pain.
But even without her command, her well-trained soldiers knew what to do, the problem was, there was nowhere to hide. The surrounding tundra was flat and barren, not a single rock or ridge for cover. The nearest forest line was hundreds of meters away.
The enemy had chosen the perfect sniping ground.
War, after all, is merciless.
Before the rebels could react, the second volley came another thirty cavalrymen fell, screaming.
Gritting her teeth through the pain, Michellea forced herself up. She pressed her right hand to the ground and activated her Devil Fruit power.
Chunks of frozen earth began to rise, shaping themselves into square blocks.
Within moments, she had stacked them together to form a solid wall of ice and soil between her and the invisible sniper.
Michellea was the "Block-Block Fruit" user, a Block Human who could construct any shape from inanimate materials.
It was thanks to this power that the rebels had once infiltrated Snowstorm City, breaching its impregnable walls. She could disassemble walls into blocks, rearrange them, and build structures at will, the power of architecture itself turned into a weapon.
With the makeshift wall erected, she finally caught her breath. But just as she began shaping another for Monica's protection
Crack!
A dark bullet pierced through the block wall as though it were nothing, tearing through her other arm.
"AAAHHH—!"
A scream ripped from her throat as agony overwhelmed her senses. The world went black, and she collapsed into the snow, blood gushing freely from both wounds.
"Sister!"
Monica, who had taken a bullet to her arm as well, screamed furiously. Her face twisted with rage; golden curls whipped upward despite the still air, veins pulsing visibly beneath her pale skin.
Fury consumed her.
She thrust out her hand toward the corpse of a fallen soldier nearby and at once, streams of blood poured from the man's wounds, swirling into the air to form a floating crimson sphere.
The blood orb pulsed once, and two thin veins of blood shot from it, one into Monica's wound, the other into Michellea's.
Instantly, the flow of blood from their injuries slowed, then stopped altogether. The wounds began closing before their eyes.
"The Blood-Blood Fruit, huh? What a fine ability," murmured Arik from his perch half a kilometer away, watching through the scope of his rifle. "Not only can she heal herself, she can heal others too. On a battlefield, that kind of power is priceless."
He couldn't help but sound a little envious.
As he spoke, he mentally recalled what he knew about her:
Monica Christian. Age 21. Blood-Blood Fruit user. Officer of the Rebel Army. Member of the fallen Christian family.
Most notable record: Defeated a force of 500 soldiers single-handedly.
Arik's rule, a creed inherited from Aaron's memory echoed in his mind:
"Never give the enemy time to breathe or counterattack."
Seeing Monica attempt to turn the battle with her healing powers, Arik didn't hesitate. He squeezed the trigger again.
Bang!
The shot struck Monica's arm mid-gesture, blasting her back into the snow.
"AAHH—!"
The blood orb collapsed instantly, splattering across the ground. The healing process was violently interrupted.
Before she could even recover, Arik fired three more times in rapid succession
Two bullets shattered her legs, leaving her unable to move.
The fourth round hit the snow just beside her head then another, on her sister's other side.
Warning shots.
He was telling them clearly: Don't move. Don't resist.
Through the scope, he exhaled slowly. His form barely shifted between shots every movement fluid, disciplined, lethal.
Arik had mastered Intermediate Marksman's Technique, and coupled it with both Observation Haki (Kenbunshoku) and Armament Haki (Busoshoku).
Within 500 meters, he could land every shot with perfect precision. With his bullets infused in Haki, even Devil Fruit users were no exception unless they possessed stronger Armament than his, they wouldn't survive a direct hit.
Had he not chosen to spare them, the twin sisters' heads would already be gone.
The last time he'd fought them, when he was still new to the Royal Army, untrained in Haki and lacking proper weapons they'd forced him to retreat.
But that was then.
Now, things were different.
The sisters were indeed formidable perfectly complementary.
Michellea, the Block-Block Fruit user, was a shield-and-sword fighter. A master of defense who manipulated the battlefield itself.
Monica, the Blood-Blood Fruit user, was a lancer aggressive, fast, and deadly. She could enhance her strength, heal her wounds, and make her enemies bleed endlessly.
Their synchronization was flawless, the natural harmony of twins.
That was how they had once accomplished the impossible: defeating a thousand-man unit together.
Arik smirked behind the scope. "Once a sniper wields both Observation and Armament Haki… and a weapon worth its weight, the battlefield becomes theirs to rule."
Through his sights, he watched Monica and Michellea lying still playing dead, afraid to move.
Satisfied, he turned his aim back to the rebel ranks, calmly picking off soldiers one by one.
Why…?
Monica's thoughts spiraled as she lay in the snow, drenched in blood.
Why does Meysfield's army have so many snipers this skilled? They're supposed to be green recruits, hastily trained. And according to intelligence, they don't even possess sniper rifles like this… So where did he get them?
Every gunshot, every scream drove the truth deeper into her heart
That unseen marksman was a monster.
If he'd wanted to kill her and her sister, they'd both already be dead. The fact that they weren't meant he was toying with them or had other plans.
Realizing that, Monica stopped struggling. She focused only on using her Blood-Blood powers to stop her own bleeding not to heal her sister or anyone else.
She knew better than to test the sniper's patience again.
On the battlefield, only one rule truly mattered:
The best kind of enemy is a dead one.
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