The New World, in the waters near Karai Bari Island.
Inside the captain's cabin of the Red Tears, Sephiroth raised an eyebrow.
As they approached the island, his Mantra issued a warning, detecting several powerful life signs onshore.
A few belonged to old acquaintances.
Shanks, you actually "dared" to come face Uta?
When Sephiroth attacked the Red Hair Pirates as Shining, he had memorized the life signs of their main members.
[Intelligence center, has the Red Hair Pirates' ship docked at Karai Bari Island?]
Through Satellite, Sephiroth contacted the Babylon Mainland.
[High God! The Red Force is moored two islands away from Karai Bari Island.]
Within seconds, the intelligence center's duty officer replied.
[Continue monitoring.]
[As you command.]
"..."
After a moment's consideration, Sephiroth figured Shanks had probably brought only the early members who knew Uta, slipping onto Karai Bari Island incognito aboard another ship.
After all, the Red Hair Pirates had fairly "normal" builds. Wearing hooded cloaks and covering their faces would genuinely make them hard to recognize.
"...Hmm."
Sephiroth thought this might be a good opportunity to untangle the knot in Uta's heart.
But he couldn't go in unprepared. As for getting close to Shanks...
There was nothing to worry about there. His close-combat abilities were no longer weak.
Mythical Zoan Physiology + big-data techniques + Decomposition and Transmutation + Mind Reading + Precognition.
And Haki strong enough to trade blows with Kaido for nearly half a day.
From what Sephiroth remembered of his previous life, Red-Haired was only about Kaido's equal. At least, that was how the setting described him.
(Even if later updates change things, surely they won't retcon it so hard that Red-Haired can easily beat Kaido, right?)
The main problem was all the excessive hype, along with people treating fanon as canon. They had