Are You Kidding Me!

The golden cross-shaped star gathering at Kizaru's fingertip suddenly split into hundreds of shafts of light. The sea beneath Sephiroth churned, instantly carved into countless boiling whirlpools.

Crackling with lightning, Sephiroth used his high-precision Mantra, coupled with Emotion Absorption, to anticipate attacks and dodge.

The Marine Admiral's figure refracted through the Yata no Kagami array, tracing a path of light as he instantly caught up.

Sephiroth had finally figured something out.

Kizaru really could move at the speed of light, but he could not control himself in that state. One careless slip might send him thousands of kilometers away.

He could only make "controlled" light-speed movements within a prearranged Yata no Kagami array.

Lightning and lasers crisscrossed. This was a battle between two speedsters.

-Only a speedster could defeat another speedster.

Barring plot-induced deaths or getting themselves killed, an overwhelming mobility advantage was just that unfair.

No matter how powerful an attack was, it meant nothing if it could not hit.

"Blue Starters!"

A blue glow flashed past. Streaks of lightning less than twenty kilometers long flashed repeatedly at an extremely high frequency.

They were brighter than ordinary Blue Jets, but also shorter.

The latter were somewhat more powerful, but took longer to wind up and probably could not hit Kizaru.

To put it simply, Blue Starters were like Blue Jets that had yet to grow up.

They seemed to form over a thousand blue lasers,

engaging the rain of light cannons created by Kizaru's Yasakani no Magatama in a barrage battle.

As the battle continued...

Kizaru gradually began turning up the pressure on Sephiroth.

He added Haki to his laser beams.

Haki did not counter Devil Fruits. No matter how powerful it was, it could not nullify their abilities.

In fact, Haki served only two purposes against Devil Fruits.

First, it could make contact with the "substantial body," directly harming intangible or fluid enemies. This applied not only to Logia users, but also to Paramecia Devil Fruit Users whose bodies had been transformed.

Second, it could defend against most damage or effects caused by Devil Fruits by "insulating" the user from them, though the precise results depended on the circumstances.

Coating bullets in Haki for ranged attacks was a technique only the New World's top marksmen possessed.

Admiral Kizaru, whom Zephyr had criticized for "relying too heavily on his fruit ability," actually possessed this top-tier Armament Haki technique—and could use it to directly injure other Logia Devil Fruit Users.

-Getting hit by that would be absolute hell. I need to restrict his mobility.

Countless dancing currents erupted from Sephiroth's body, combining with water molecules in the atmosphere to construct a three-dimensional web.

The particle stream produced by Kizaru's light-speed movement collided with the lightning web, and a brilliant aurora suddenly appeared across the entire stretch of sea.

-What a terrifying brat.

Kizaru's body suddenly curled into a vortex of light particles, then became an enormous light source. A sky-filling barrage shot toward Sephiroth.

After exchanging blows, Kizaru realized that this Rumble-Rumble Fruit brat had already reached an Admiral's level through fruit mastery alone. His Observation Haki was even better than Kizaru's.

But... his physique and Armament Haki were far too weak.

He could not help remembering how Zephyr always said he focused too much on his fruit... surely the boy in front of him was the real example.

Sephiroth did not know this advanced application of Armament Haki-coating ranged attacks with it.

So even when his lightning attacks landed, they merely chipped away at Kizaru's stamina.

Logia users were indeed immune to ordinary physical attacks, but aside from Haki and seastone, there were two other ways to deal with them.

The first was elemental advantage or opposition. Ice and fire, for instance, could harm each other even without Haki.

The second was energy attacks. When a Logia Devil Fruit User was struck by energy that neither countered nor opposed their element, it depleted their stamina without directly injuring them.

If they relied solely on their fruit abilities, the battle between Sephiroth and Kizaru fell into the second category.

But Kizaru could coat his lasers in Haki, putting Sephiroth at a disadvantage.

Just as Kizaru was deciding that Shining was nothing special, a moderate sense of danger rose in his mind.

"...?"

Dark lightning gathered in Sephiroth's right hand.

Like a divine spear tearing through the atmosphere, it pierced the core of the vortex of light.

Kizaru's pupils contracted slightly behind his lenses-that was a type of lightning attack he had never seen before.

"Dark Inazuma!"

Active particles formed by solar radiation, cosmic rays, and electric fields in the atmosphere gathered together through electromagnetic reactions.

This "heavier" lightning, produced by molecular aerosols...

actually began wearing away the photon energy that constituted Kizaru's elemental form. Although he was not injured, he could feel his stamina draining at a relatively rapid rate.

"Your fruit mastery really is something else~"

Kizaru's astonished voice came from every direction. His true body appeared several thousand meters overhead, his hands overlapping to form a prism. "Yasakani no Magatama!"

Countless golden light bullets produced successive explosive shock waves as they fell.

During their brief battle, their practical speeds were evenly matched, even though the speed of light was far greater than the speed of lightning.

Neither light speed nor lightning speed could be controlled through human reactions alone. When it came to combat experience, however, Kizaru still held the advantage.

"-!"

He had dodged it. Mostly, at least.

Kizaru's Armament Haki-infused beam had only grazed his arm, and the pain was not particularly severe.

Sephiroth knew exactly how strong his fighting will was. If it really hurt too much, he feared he would be unable to keep fighting.

That was why he routinely dulled his pain response in battle. Drawing on his medical knowledge, he also kept Life Return constantly active.

He was injured, but recovered quickly, expending some stamina in the process. In practice, it was like a certain Mr. 2.5 keeping Reverse Cursed Technique running constantly.

But...

-Are you kidding me! Are you kidding me! You bastard!

Inside, he had completely fallen apart, much like Kiritsugu Emiya on Mother's Day.

His reason was nowhere near as deeply scarring, though. He was simply being an embarrassment.

It was not entirely unexpected. Across both of Sephiroth's lives, this was the first time he had suffered an injury on the level of a broken bone.

Even though it barely hurt, even though he recovered quickly, he still lost it.

He even knew how embarrassing he was being.

But this was not something he could avoid simply by consciously trying.

What made him feel even more embarrassed was...

"-! How scary~ Rumble-Rumble Fruit brat."

Kizaru sensed an aura erupting from Sephiroth, completely different from the strange "presence" he had displayed earlier.

In fact, this aura was something Kizaru knew well-Conqueror's Haki!

Each person's Conqueror's Haki possessed a different strength and "will," shaped by their inner ambitions.

The Conqueror's Haki erupting from the Rumble-Rumble Fruit boy was unlike anything Kizaru had ever sensed. It was extremely peculiar.

Its strength was merely average, but its nature was strange. It carried an air of "lofty superiority." In theory, a will of this kind should have been stronger, shouldn't it?

...Meanwhile, faced with his own "sudden" awakening of Conqueror's Haki, Sephiroth felt too ashamed to show his face.

Who awakened Conqueror's Haki because "I got hurt for the first time, and an NPC actually hit me"?

He could not lie to himself about this. Even he thought he was an embarrassment.