Sephiroth brought Perona to the castle's central courtyard, briefly explaining the current situation to her along the way.
"So... Lord Shining, are you that perverted skeleton's companion?"
Her new boss had killed her former boss to retrieve his friend's shadow. Perona sighed at that.
But that skeleton had hardly left a good impression on her, asking such a rude question the moment they met.
"Not yet. I do intend to invite him to join me, though."
Hearing Perona's question, Sephiroth knew what foolish thing Brook had done without needing an explanation.
As for wanting to meet the Pirate King's ship doctor through Brook, there was no need to give Perona that much detail just yet.
She seemed to have misunderstood and thought everyone else was dead, but Absalom, the Clear-Clear Fruit user, was still alive. He wasn't particularly strong himself, so keeping him securely imprisoned was quite manageable.
The original story had explicitly established that his invisibility only concealed his physical form, not his sounds or scent. It was therefore of little use against the mechanical soldiers' various detection capabilities.
After electrocuting him unconscious, Sephiroth had packed him up and sent him skyward. What awaited him was the Lunar Base's prison and a seastone collar.
...Before long, the two arrived before the Metal Obelisk.
"This is Moria's grave," Sephiroth told Perona. "You can say goodbye to your former captain."
Perona looked at the metal tombstone towering over ten meters high before her-Moria's name was etched into its face.
...It was more dignified than she had expected.
She had thought Lord Shining would simply bury Moria somewhere and leave it at that.
Of course she felt some grief, especially after discovering that her new boss seemed to treat her well too, while she herself couldn't help liking how "cute" he looked.
This situation left Perona feeling somewhat guilty toward Moria.
At this point, although she didn't quite consider this man, who was effectively her adoptive father, her "actual dad,"
she saw him more as an elder she lived with, who happened to share her interests and also be her boss.
"...Here."
Sensing Perona's emotions, Sephiroth raised his hand and drew over some metal parts. They melted in the palm of his silver gauntlet, then took shape as a metal bouquet.
Perona accepted the wrought-iron bouquet and gazed at its intricate openwork designs. Letting out a deep breath, she approached the monument and placed the bouquet on a platform that seemed to have been deliberately left for that purpose.
"...Thank you, Lord Shining."
After laying down the flowers, Perona had, to some extent, come to terms with things.
Ordinary people rarely came to the Florian Triangle. Those who entered this region were generally pirates heading for the New World.
Perona had seen pirate crews fall apart more than once. She simply hadn't expected it to happen to her one day.
Looking at Perona standing prettily before him, Sephiroth felt as though he were bullying the young lady of a fallen crime family.
"You're welcome."
According to certain conventions, this was where he ought to deploy the three-part routine: raise an eyebrow, rub his nose, and smile wryly, then emphatically explain that he had done it all for justice and peace.
Although Perona knew nothing of those conventions, her guesses had been heading in that direction too.
"I won't present myself as the righteous party in this matter."
"...Lord Shining."
After all, she had never heard of anyone called Satellite Shining before, so he most likely wasn't a pirate.
Add in his explanation about retrieving a friend's shadow, and Perona had wondered whether her new boss might be that sort of person.
"I only did this for personal reasons."
It wasn't just Moria. Everything Sephiroth had been doing, from exterminating pirates to traveling around offering free medical care and helping build infrastructure, had strongly pragmatic motives behind it.
While his identity as the "Great Angel" involved more or less playing the good guy in public,
he had no intention of exhausting himself like that as Satellite Shining. He planned to let himself loose to a certain extent.
"I understand, Lord Shining."
Perona seemed to have regained some of her energy and ordered the teddy bear to carry her on its back. Her former boss had indeed treated her well, but things had already come to this... and her new boss was pretty appealing too.
"Then let's go find Brook."
Through Mantra, Sephiroth could clearly sense Brook's location, and he floated forward. Riding her teddy bear, Perona followed behind, watching him thoughtfully.
...The path outside the castle gardens.
Brook ran nimbly between the flower beds. He really was light on his feet; his truly bare-bones weight reduction even allowed him to run on water.
Without muscles or any other organs and tissues, he could do everything he had done in life with nothing but his skeleton. Devil Fruits really did defy reason.
Scorch marks lay scattered around him, along with the remains of zombies that had lost the force animating them. Every crack bore the melted damage characteristic of a lightning strike.
Suddenly, the sound of something running with heavy thudding steps came from around the corner ahead.
Brook grew a little nervous. After all, it sounded much like those large zombies. Yet all the signs he had seen suggested that Gecko Moria should have been defeated.
Then two figures... three figures appeared ahead.
"Yohohoho! If it isn't the beautiful ghost lady!" Brook leaped out of the shadows, his afro bobbing. "To celebrate our reunion, might I admire your..."
Perona jumped off the teddy bear and planted the tip of her umbrella squarely against his cervical vertebrae. "Finish that sentence and I'll turn you into a skeleton wind chime!"
"Brook, your shadow has returned, hasn't it?"
Sephiroth, who had been hovering a few centimeters above the ground, set his feet down. Perona made a face at Brook and hopped behind Sephiroth.
"Yes! Mr. Shining—" Tears suddenly glimmered in Brook's empty eye sockets. "Tears of gratitude have flooded my eyes—though I have no eyeballs... Yohohoho!"
For the first time in forty-six years, he felt free.
"This truly is..." His violin slid from his back into his bony hand on its own. "...worth singing about~!"
"Speaking of which, how about we form a band?"
Sephiroth surveyed the lineup before him and suddenly became a fountain of ideas.
Except that, of these four members, one was a skeleton, one was a stuffed toy, and one was an elemental being. And the only human member was something of a half-ghost?
"But Lord Shining, I don't know anything about music."
Perona herself was very fond of gothic music, and other styles from the post-punk movement were also among her favorites.
Those dark, cold, sorrowful tones, together with early punk guitar sounds and the ominous, melancholy atmosphere they created, were exactly her thing.
But she couldn't sing or play an instrument herself.
"That's fine. I have another way to handle that."
"Yohohoho! What a wonderful idea! What shall we call the band?"
"...Horohoro. How about Kessoku Band?"
Perhaps taking the members' particular characteristics into account, Perona offered a suggestion.
...Are you here to bring this band to an end too?
Sephiroth was genuinely feeling a little PTSD, even though "Kessoku Band" sounded perfectly harmonious.
"We can discuss that in a moment. But before that, could I trouble you to take us to the loot?"
Then, with Perona guiding him, Sephiroth found Moria's treasury. From Moria's perspective, this really was a tragedy.
The three of them and the stuffed toy didn't inspect things too closely. They took everything except the fragile items. With Sephiroth there, all they needed was to make a "big box" out of metal and dump everything inside.
"Lord Shining, with only three of us, I don't think there's a suitable ship."
Perona knew where the dock was, but they had always relied on zombie sailors to operate the ships before.
"...Don't worry."
Sephiroth pointed at the sky.
Perona and Brook couldn't help looking up.
"-Horohorohoro! Is this Lord Shining's ship?"
"Yohohoho! Mr. Shining—this is truly astounding!"
A strange gothic aircraft descended from the sky, crackling with lightning. The ship's core was practically identical to that of the Ark Maxim; Sephiroth had barely altered it.
The greatest changes were to the ship's outer hull.
"Welcome aboard-the Thunderhawk."
The bastard had remodeled the ship's exterior to look like a Thunderhawk Gunship from "Warhammer 40K."
Before you continue