Only a single survivor remained of the Thriller Bark Pirates: Perona.
At this moment, because electricity had disrupted her nerve signals, she was curled up on a spiderweb-patterned round bed and had fallen into a deep sleep, not because she was injured.
Although Sephiroth had seen what she looked like through Mantra, this was their first time actually facing each other.
Her eyes were tightly shut, and beneath her long eyelashes lay black goth-style eyeshadow.
She wore a white fitted crop top, black-and-white striped thigh-highs, paired with a red gothic lolita dress and a small shawl, and a tiny crown perched upon her head. Her pink twin tails draped gently against the pillow, resembling an exquisite doll.
To put it plainly and without concealment, the moment Sephiroth laid eyes on Perona, a certain auditory hallucination involuntarily echoed in his ear: Is that even liking her?! You just want her... cough, cough.
Sometimes, if you didn't bring it up, you always forgot; if you did bring it up, you found it tedious.
Sephiroth stated that he was simply true to his personal desires, with zero excuses. This would also be his last bit of rambling.
Only, before waking her up, this guy wanted to continue appreciating the sleeping face of the Ghost Princess. It was very cute, looking quite capable of triggering one's protective and possessive instincts.
After taking a few photos with an Image Dial, faint electric currents sparked from his silver-armored fingertips.
Perona's eyelashes fluttered like startled butterfly wings, and the moment she opened her eyes, her pupils suddenly constricted as they adjusted to the light.
Hovering at the head of her bed was by no means human-pulsing blue-and-white electric arcs outlined a slender humanoid shape. The surface of his silver-gray cyberpunk hooded trench coat flowed with pale purple lightning, and broken currents circulated within his translucent body like stained glass fragments from a gothic cathedral.
"Horo... horo? Ka..."
She instinctively clutched the lace bedsheet, yet a fine, tingling sensation pricked at her fingertips. A faint, refreshing scent appeared in the air, reminiscent of being in a forest after a rain-something extremely rare in this gloomy sea.
"Ka-kawaii-!"
A freshly awakened Perona suddenly lunged at Sephiroth.
"-Wait a second."
Sephiroth, who had been tackled... though based on Emotion Absorption he knew the other party harbored zero malice and was thus quite happy to be pounced on, so he simply didn't dodge. The tremor caused the air to ripple with a purple spark halo.
Perona fiercely wrapped her arms around Sephiroth's waist, and his elemental body, constrained within the magnetic field, even suffered a slight deformation.
The reason his elementalized body didn't shock her was because the Satellite Shining form ultimately had to interact normally with other people; he couldn't just accidentally electrocuted others.
Blue Star occasionally saw people struck by lightning emerge completely unharmed, which provided inspiration alongside the bio-force field supplied by Superman works from his past life.
Utilizing the rigidity and stability inherent to the electromagnetic field, coupled with exhaustive human experimentation, Sephiroth had finally completed his own version of a bio-force field.
Under the standard of Emotion Absorption while in his elementalized state, he could avoid passively electrocuting people who harbored no malice.
Yet Perona, meeting him for the very first time, certainly knew nothing of this. Was she really this bold?
Perona, draped over Sephiroth, finally raised her head to size up this "elemental humanoid creature" before her.
His elementalized hair seemed to be lifted by an invisible force, every single strand sparkling with stardust-like specks of light. On a face constructed of Dark Inazuma, only a pair of eyes formed purely from electric light remained.
"As expected! Kawaii!"
"Young lady, is your aesthetic sense really alright?!"
Calling him handsome was understandable, but how was Satellite Shining cute? Though admittedly, there were plenty of cute Shining cards in this deck...
"Anyway. Good morning, Sleeping Beauty."
Sephiroth's voice carried the graininess characteristic of electromagnetic interference, and his silver-gray mechanical knuckles suddenly brushed past the corner of her mouth.
"It wouldn't do for drool to stain the Ghost Princess's image."
"Ah! Right! Enemy attack!"
Only then did Perona snap to her senses, but before she could make any effective move, Sephiroth had already grabbed her in a bridal carry.
With her true body caught, using a Ghost Bomb would hurt herself too; she had no choice but to use Negative Hollows!
"Negative Hollow-!"
Ghosts materialized on Perona's hands-or more precisely, right before the ghosts could even materialize, Sephiroth had already understood her intentions through emotion sensing.
Possessing a vast Mantra range and Emotion Absorption, Sephiroth was, to put it in gaming terms, essentially permanently immune to ambushes and surprise attacks.
Transforming into a bolt of lightning to widen the distance, Perona fell from mid-air back onto the bed and bounced. Her true body couldn't fly just yet.
Facing the incoming Negative Hollows, though Sephiroth wouldn't be hit, constantly letting these things stir up trouble on the field was still quite annoying.
"-Psychic Suppression Wave."
Call it a psychic wave, but it was not psychokinesis. It was merely Sephiroth's brain waves generating harmonic resonance with the electromagnetic waves he radiated.
It inflicted dual oppression upon the opponent's bioelectric field and brain waves, creating an effect that someone unaware would mistakenly identify as Conqueror's Haki.
Originally a Devil Fruit ability technique that served as a lower-substitute for Conqueror's Haki, it amplified willpower through the Devil Fruit ability. Once again, it belonged to the energy-cost-ignoring prince combat style.
In the original work, Negative Hollows were instead rendered negative by Usopp's negative heart, so even if these ghosts were immune to energy attacks, they should logically still be vulnerable to mental assaults.
Invisible ripples spread, and the Negative Hollows shattered and vanished as if they had been struck by a truck.
Seeing Sephiroth run so far away just to dodge the Negative Hollows, Perona, who had just been about to sneer, watched as the ghosts were all pulverized and forgot to stand there dumbfounded.
At this rate, she wouldn't last until Lord Moria arrived to reinforce them... Besides, not a single member of the Zombie Army was anywhere to be seen.
Gritting her teeth, she immediately unleashed her strongest attack move.
"-Giant Hollow: Kamikaze Bomb"
A spherical ghost roughly three meters in diameter flew toward Sephiroth like a missile. The moment they made contact, she snapped her fingers.
"Boom-"
Sephiroth's entire body burst apart like shattered neon tubing, blue-and-white electric sparks scattering in all directions, only to whip up a whirlwind reeking of air freshener as he reassembled. He continuously released micro-lightning, ionizing the surrounding air into a dreamy pale purple.
"-Still so cute!"
Along with the electric current meandering through the fluctuations of his elementalized body, and the nebula-like blue-and-white plasma constantly collapsing and reassembling deep within his Dark Inazuma head-it was practically like wearing the entire cyberpunk-style Heaven and Hell upon his person.
"...Hey, little princess."
Sephiroth materialized instantly before Perona, flicking her on the forehead and sending her tumbling back to sit on the bed.
"Now you understand that I am a Rumble-Rumble Fruit User of the Logia class, right? Do you really think you stand a chance?!"
Seeing Sephiroth's cute face up close (to Perona, at least), she abruptly snatched up her Ghost Umbrella to shield her burning face, then peered out from behind half of it, as though remembering she needed to act tough.
"Horo horo horo~ As long as we hold out until Lord Moria arrives, everything will be fine."
"...Allow me to deliver a piece of unfortunate news, if I may. Moria... is dead."
"...Eh...?"
Before you continue