"It always feels like something is wrong..."
The gloomy sky, the pitch-black, murky sea, the giant island-like derelict ships, the cold, eerie cemetery, and the bats—in such a bleak and terrifying scene, a stunningly beautiful young woman appeared.
However, the young woman was frowning, her face filled with confusion, clutching the two long swords in her hands tightly, as if contemplating some difficult problem.
"Hiyori-nee, Hiyori-nee!"
Just as Kozuki Hiyori was thinking, a crisp female voice from the sky interrupted her thoughts. Kozuki Hiyori lifted her head helplessly.
"Perona, what happened again? Did Absalom go peek at you bathing, or did you lose your bear doll again?"
"That's not it, Hiyori-nee! Look at this newspaper, there's big news!"
A girl with pink hair and pitch-black pupils that took up most of the whites of her eyes, looking like a strange and exquisite doll, descended from the sky, waving a newspaper in her hand.
Kozuki Hiyori lazily reached out, took the newspaper Perona handed her, and didn't forget to compliment Perona:
"Perona, your progress is quite fast. You can even pick up physical objects now while in your spiritual form!"
"Horo horo horo horo, of course! Thanks to your guidance, Hiyori-nee! By the way, Hiyori-nee, are you really unwilling to become the fourth Monster of our Ghost Ship? Then you would be the leader of our Monsters!"
"I don't think of myself as a Monster... Besides, Gekko Moriah can't even beat me. If I really wanted to stay here, I should be the Captain!"
Kozuki Hiyori retorted, opened the newspaper, and her gaze narrowed slightly.
On the front page of the newspaper, what appeared was the Red Line, which had collapsed by more than half!
"The Red Line experiences a once-in-ten-thousand-years massive earthquake, Holy Land Mary Geoise suffers heavy losses?"
"Ugh, the ones who died were all common slaves; no Celestial Dragons died! That makes sense. Even if Celestial Dragons really had died, the newspaper probably wouldn't dare to report it!"
"But is this really a natural disaster? Could it be that some Devil Fruit User with earthquake powers wants to destroy the World Government?"
Although the World Government always implemented a cover-up strategy regarding its various losses and mistakes, never reporting them in the newspapers.
However, this time, nearly half of the entire Red Line had collapsed. As long as anyone with normal eyes came to the Red Line, they could see the damage, so naturally, the World Government couldn't cover it up.
Even so, the World Government still claimed it was a natural disaster to the outside world, and even more so, did not report the losses of the Celestial Dragons. In reality, with earthquakes, meteorites, and sudden bombs, even if the World Government were stupid, they would know it was a surprise attack.
It was just that even the World Government couldn't find any clues about the attacker. Therefore, the World Government wouldn't report such a matter—where they couldn't find the culprit and which would lead to a great loss of prestige—and instead reported it entirely as a natural disaster.
Of course, ordinary citizens might be fooled, but those pirates with some level of skill, the Shichibukai, the Revolutionary Army, or high-ranking figures in countries, wouldn't believe the World Government's propaganda.
Not to mention that while the World Government was busy preaching about a once-in-ten-thousand-years natural disaster, in reality, the agents of the CP organizations under them were investigating everywhere like madmen, not doing any covering up at all.
Although Kozuki Hiyori didn't have any subordinates or influence, she had at least seen a bit of the world and didn't believe the World Government's propaganda much either. However, she didn't pay too much attention to it; the World Government and such had very little to do with her.
Handing the newspaper back to Perona, who was flying in the sky, Kozuki Hiyori reached out, gripped her two great swords, and prepared to carry out her daily routine of swordsmanship training.
The two swords in her hands were, one, the ama no habakiri, and the other, the Black Blade Shusui. As for the Enma, which was the hardest to subdue, even now, Kozuki Hiyori couldn't fully use it.
Although Kozuki Hiyori's current combat power and swordsmanship were perhaps already no less than Zoro's during the Wano Country period, one had to admit that in terms of persistent pursuit of the way of the sword, and her own spirit and temperament, Kozuki Hiyori was far inferior to that future Moss Head Great Swordsman.
This was precisely the biggest reason she couldn't subdue Enma. Fortunately, she had found the Black Blade Shusui here, replacing the other sword for her two-sword style.
Originally, it was to find another sword worthy of her two-sword style that Kozuki Hiyori had sought trouble with Gekko Moriah and found the zombie named Ryuma, which had been stolen by Gekko Moriah.
Naturally, upon discovering that the national treasure and the body of the national hero had been stolen, Kozuki Hiyori gave the now decadent Gekko Moriah a good beating. It wasn't until she later discovered the hatred between Gekko Moriah and Kaido that Kozuki Hiyori didn't directly slash Gekko Moriah.
Learning that Kozuki Hiyori also had a deep hatred for Kaido, Gekko Moriah and Kozuki Hiyori soon reached a truce. Although the two of them combined probably couldn't withstand three strikes from Kaido, it didn't prevent them from training constantly with Kaido as their hypothetical enemy.
Gekko Moriah's Shadow-Shadow Fruit had amazing effects, and he could even rely on the shadows of other sword masters to help Kozuki Hiyori with training. This was precisely the reason why Kozuki Hiyori had been staying here.
Thinking of this, Kozuki Hiyori felt the urge to shake her head and sigh. A fruit like the Shadow-Shadow Fruit, which had a heaven-defying bonus to cultivation, was actually used by Gekko Moriah as a support-type ability. While one couldn't say Gekko Moriah didn't develop it well, it was clearly a huge waste of potential.
However, Kozuki Hiyori was relatively understanding of Gekko Moriah. After all... he had been defeated by that man!
"Beast Kaido..."
Although she had only seen that terrifying man once when she was very young, and subsequently, she and her mother were sent to Vegapunk's experimental base, that terrifying Monster still left a deep impression on her!
That was the terrifying beast that had even defeated her father, who was like a Kami; even now, it was still the evil dragon ravaging all of Wano Country.
Even she, who had never fought him, would feel her heart surge and find it hard to calm down whenever she thought of that figure like a Demon King.
And for Gekko Moriah, who had once suffered a crushing defeat at Kaido's hands and even had all his companions die, it was completely normal that he no longer believed his own training could defeat Kaido.
However, Kozuki Hiyori knew very well that relying solely on a so-called army of shadows would never be enough to defeat that Demon King Kaido. This was precisely the reason why, even though she possessed a fruit with such powerful troop-generating capabilities as the Soul-Soul Fruit, she still chose the path of self-cultivation.
"ama no habakiri, Shusui, let's go, we're going to train!"
"Alright, Miss Hiyori, let's go!"
Kozuki Hiyori spoke to her two swords. Surprisingly, the two swords actually replied to her directly.
This was naturally because she had used the Soul-Soul Fruit to give these two famous swords their own consciousness.
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