From the recent Vivre Card info, Oda revealed that he was going to have Mihawk’s Epithet as “Clairvoyant”. I think he chose otherwise because it would draw too much attention to Mihawk’s Observation Haki abilities which he was planning on revealing possibly in the last fight with Zoro.
So far of course we’ve seen all manners of Observation Haki abilities so this new one that Mihawk has, has to be first of all, foreshadowed and secondly explained in order to prevent it from seeming like a random power Oda is creating at the very end of the series to raise stakes.
This theory therefore is going to describe this unique ability, how it’s been already foreshadowed and why possibly only Mihawk might have it(unless Zoro picks it up as well at the end of the series).
Description: This Observation Haki allows someone not only to pick up on an incoming attack like every other Observation Haki, but also allows them to pin point the weaknesses in the attack.
Foreshadowing: During the Zoro and Mihawk fight, Zoro’s Oni Giri Attack is stopped in a way no other attack in One Piece has ever been stopped. Mihawk didn’t dodge, parry, or block the attack which are the main uses of all Observation Haki in the series, Mihawk completely stopped the attack from working. This is somewhat equivalent to Katakuri stopping Luffy from using gear 4 that one time but we know for fact that he was seeing the future to see how gear 4 is activated. But in this case Mihawk finding the exact point in the Oni Giri Attack that dismantles it can’t be obtained from seeing the future alone, that would require one to have seen the attack a number of times in order to see a fraction of a second where the weakness exists.
Explanation: The most obvious explanation for this when it happened was that this was Mihawk being skilled. But then considering we’re this far into the story and none of the skilled swordsmen has even attempted to do something similar, then I think this could go into the realm of Haki. What’s left is to explain why Mihawk is the only one with this specific brand of Haki. We’ve seen Haki being combined to Devil Fruits to create additional effects like Block Mochi and Enel’s Mantra and Haki has also been combined with non Devil Fruit abilities to similar effect like Big Mom’s wailing. So the reason Mihawk could have this added ability on top of normal Observation Haki is simply because he is a very skilled swordsman. The combination of his sword skills and Observation Haki could allow him to almost intuitively find the weakness in any sword technique used against him.
World’s Greatest Swordsman: This title can even be easily explained if you consider this ability. This ability automatically puts him above all swordsmen because he doesn’t need to have higher destructive capabilities or added Devil Fruit effects, or have to have fought every swordsman ever. All Mihawk has to do is exploit the weaknesses inherent in every sword technique used against him, even if it’s the first time he’s seen it. Every sword technique has universal patterns(such as swinging) and Mihawk is so good at Swordsmanship that he just picks up on the weaknesses, even in new techniques, using his Advanced Observation Haki.
*Theory by ImmaIvanoM
