The blade reflected his own eyes-something deep within his pupils was rapidly contracting, like a shellfish closing its shell in the light.
"The method is simple."
He slid the blade back into its sheath, the scrape of metal dry and grating. "Imagine you're a **."
Diamante's sword tip trembled.
"Not actually dead."
Rossi added, "You make your brain believe your body has stopped functioning.
Your heartbeat slows, your blood flows more slowly, your nerves' electrical signals weaken... until you become part of the background noise to Observation Haki."
Trebol licked his lips.
Slime stretched into fine threads between his fingertips. "Sounds like ** practice."
"It's diving."
The Red Count suddenly spoke.
For the first time, he showed something resembling a smile. The curve of his lips recalled the compassionate expressions of saints in an old church's stained glass. "Diving into the deep sea of your own consciousness.
But most people suffocate halfway down-because they can't bear to throw away their memories as ballast."
Doffy's glasses slipped halfway down his nose.
He looked over the lenses. "Can you teach us... how not to suffocate?"
"I can teach you how to make oxygen tanks."
The Red Count traced a circle in the air with the tip of his umbrella. "Oxygen tanks woven from lies."
The wind suddenly picked up.
Clouds completely obscured the moon, plunging the battlefield into ink-black darkness.
A few seconds later, the rotating beam of a distant lighthouse swept past, illuminating their faces in turn: Rossi's lips pressed into a straight line, Doffy's raised brow, Diamante's white knuckles clenched around his sword hilt, and the flickering pupils beneath Trebol's hat brim.
The beam moved away, and darkness closed in again.
The Red Count's final words sounded in the darkness:
"Lessons begin tomorrow night.
You choose the location.
Now-"
The