New World.
The sea wind howled over the turbulent Blue Sea. Sephiroth lay on the deck of a special alloy speedboat, dressed in a blue floral shirt, white beach shorts, and sunglasses, lazily soaking up the sun.
Through the shared perception of his thousands of scattered black Bat Clones, he felt it—one clone, positioned to the northeast, vaporized in an instant by a bolt of white lightning.
"Finally," Sephiroth murmured, a slow smile touching his lips. "Vafflard."
He picked up the two sabers beside him, rose from the deck, and strapped them on. Then he drew the Nether Flame Blade.
The fiery red sword slid from its sheath, heat waves shimmering from the steel and warping the air.
He drove the blade directly into the gear handbrake slot on the speedboat's control panel. The engine began to preheat with a deep, building whir.
This vessel was a custom build from Gilm. It could hit three hundred kilometers per hour, powered solely by the flames of the Nether Flame Blade. Flame Shells and Breath Dials provided emergency power, good for another hundred kilometers of travel.
In a worst-case scenario, it could even rely on Breath Dials to slowly accumulate wind for a sluggish crawl forward.
This boat surpassed every other watercraft in the One Piece world. It was a product of the Umbrella Corporation, built after analyzing salvaged spaceship technology.
Sephiroth's original ambition had been a full spaceship, using the Nether Flame Blade for propulsion.
Technical limitations crushed that idea, for now. Gilm could only deliver this phased product, along with his earnest report:
*Your subordinates are researching tirelessly, Boss, but some things are simply impossible with our current technical foundation.*
Sephiroth hadn't criticized the research department. He understood. Knowing something could be done was one thing. Actually doing it, with material and equipment constraints, was another.
*Boom!*
He pressed a sequence on the control panel. The Nether Flame Blade erupted, and the speedboat shot from a dead stop into violent motion. It sliced through the waves, howling wind in its wake, racing toward Vafflard's last known location and churning a path of white spray.
The thrill of speeding across the open sea was addictive.
Taking the boat was far less efficient than simply opening a door with his butcher knife and arriving instantly.
But a man needed hobbies.
When he wasn't in a hurry, he didn't mind using different methods to reach a destination. It made the experience fuller.
Elsewhere, his scattered black Bat Clones began to fly back toward him. They merged into his shadow one by one, returning their unconsumed life energy.
Roughly half an hour later, Sephiroth reached the patch of sea where his clone had been destroyed. He killed the engine, and the speedboat glided to a stop.
Dense black mist erupted from his body.
He directed it skyward. The mist coiled into the high air, forming a vast black cloud that blotted out the sun for kilometers.
*Rumble!*
Crimson lightning churned within the darkness—blood-red serpents, vicious and terrifying.
The sight inspired pure dread.
This technique of the black thundercloud was a skill Sephiroth had secretly developed by imitating Kaido's control over wind and thunder, adapted to his own black mist.
For years, he had honed the power of the Vampire Fruit, refining and elevating his old black mist ability.
Before, he could only summon the mist and move it in broad strokes. He couldn't control its minute details, nor could he reshape it back into bats.
But as his strength grew, so did his mastery. Now, his control was meticulous.
The black clouds he conjured could now strike with precise lightning. They could condense from mist into liquid, falling as blood rain. And from that rain, he could reconstruct his black Bat Clones.
Now, for the facts.
Expecting Sephiroth to stretch his Observation Haki to twenty kilometers—to match the range of the ancient weapon, Breaths of the Gods—was absurd.
The Vampire Fruit did sharpen his Haki, letting him sense emotional shifts and even skim surface thoughts. Absorbing blood could trigger memory regression, pulling out the information he needed.
Yet its effect on raw *range* was minimal, far less potent than Marigold's Rumble-Rumble Fruit.
After a year of relentless training, he'd only pushed his twelve-kilometer range to twelve and a half. Twenty kilometers was a distant shore.
He knew it clearly: this clumsy method would never uncover the Breaths of the Gods hidden on Vafflard Island. Not in any time he could afford.
And even if he had all the time in the world, would it even work?
He didn't know the upper limit of his own perception.
So, after turning it over in his mind, he settled on an even clumsier method. One that might actually succeed. Power makes miracles.
Soon, the black thundercloud above Sephiroth's head swelled to over ten kilometers in radius.
The ancient weapon hidden on Vafflard seemed to sense the unnatural weather.
The next moment, the Breaths of the Gods stirred a fierce wind across a twenty-kilometer radius, shredding the black thundercloud and constructing a storm barrier to seal the island off from the outside world.
"So even abnormal weather triggers its defense," Sephiroth murmured.
Then his gaze sharpened. He looked up at the invisible barrier in the sky, and the corner of his mouth curled into a wild grin.
"It's not over yet.
Let's see what you've got, Breaths of the Gods!"
He drew the butcher knife from his waist and slashed open a spatial fold in the void.
On the other side, rows of expressionless Bat Clones began to split and merge into his body. He kept creating more black thunderclouds, feeding them into the sky.
Time passed. Layers of black clouds covered hundreds of miles, blotting out the sun. Dark red lightning slithered through the gloom like serpents, a vision of the world's end.
Yet the storm barrier held. Wrapped in suffocating darkness, it carved out a perfect vacuum, repelling every tendril of cloud and lightning.
In the distance, aboard a large sailboat flying the World Government's flag, CP agents stared at the sky.
"This thundercloud is unnatural.
We've patrolled these waters for years and never seen weather like this…"
Could it be that that thing has gone berserk?
No, I have to report this immediately.
A CP agent in a black suit and sunglasses frowned at the thick layer of black clouds overhead. He reached for his den den mushi to contact his superiors.
A web of crimson lightning flashed across the black clouds.
Then—
*Rumble!*
A pillar of lightning, forty meters wide, speared down from the clouds. It struck the large sailboat, shattering the hull into flaming debris that sank into the sea.
Sephiroth used the lightning without hesitation, destroying any World Government ship that entered the storm's range. No intelligence would leave this place.
Almost there.
Sephiroth tightened his grip on the butcher knife. He took a deep breath, and the Armament and Conqueror's Haki within him surged to the surface. The black clouds above began to rotate slowly around him, forming a pitch-dark vortex. They contracted, squeezed, and condensed into a massive, blade-shaped storm.
His aura climbed steadily to its peak. After a long moment, he raised his hands, gathering all his strength into the blade, and roared.
"Open!"
A red beam shot from the butcher knife into the sky, driving the colossal black blade—and all the thunderclouds gathered around it.
*Swish!*
As Sephiroth brought the knife down, a gigantic spatial rift tore open above. The black storm-blade followed the rift, carrying every cloud with unstoppable force. It vanished, then reappeared twelve kilometers away, racing directly toward Vafflard Island.
The ancient weapon, Breaths of the Gods, seemed caught off guard. The storm barrier protecting Vafflard paused for a moment, its outermost layer dispersing.
Immediately after.
Pitch-black clouds gathered violently above the island. Winds shrieked and spun, constructing a huge thundercloud vortex in the sky.
Boundless lightning, woven with violent hurricanes, flew from the island and slammed into the oncoming black blade.
*Boom!*
Two terrifying forces crushed against each other, each trying to annihilate the other. At the point of collision, large black crystals rained from the sky, crashing into the sea and onto the land.
Breaths of the Gods was using its freezing power to turn Sephiroth's storm into ice.
But no matter how hard it tried, a portion of the black clouds broke through and rushed into the sky above the island.
*Splash.*
On Vafflard's outskirts, a fierce wind struck the beach first.
Then a drizzling red rain fell from the black clouds, dripping onto the sand.
The blood-like rain seemed alive, rapidly gathering and forming into black bat clones.
*Swish.*
A crimson line cut the air. A spatial fold door opened silently. Sephiroth stepped through, butcher knife in hand, and landed steadily on the beach.
He looked up. The black clouds that had broken through were already being driven back, pushed twenty kilometers out to sea by the re-established storm barrier.
Anyway, I'm finally in.
Sephiroth shook his head and walked towards the distance.
That last charged strike had emptied his Haoshoku reserves entirely. If he couldn't breach their defenses now, it would mean a retreat.
Even though he used the method of constantly replenishing energy with Bat Clones to break his limits and unleash that terrifying strike, his mental energy consumption was considerable. When it was over, his entire spirit felt dull and listless.