Sabaody Archipelago, Island 33, Bubble Theme Park.
The six of them—Tokikake, Gion, Smoker, Maynard, Tina, and Sephiroth—bought tickets at the counter and stepped inside. Everywhere their eyes looked, there were various amusement park facilities highlighting bubble elements: winding bubble roller coasters, towering bubble Ferris wheels, adrenaline-pumping bubble drop towers, and even bubble pedal cars floating in the air. The diverse array of attractions truly made their eyes spin in awe.
People came and went in the amusement park, with laughter and cheerful sounds constantly filling the air. Several shops selling snacks and toys attracted many children, adding to the lively atmosphere.
"Come on! Let's have some fun today!" Tokikake waved cheerfully to his friends behind him. At his strong recommendation, everyone was dragged by him to ride the bubble drop tower.
After everyone was seated in the drop tower and had fastened their seatbelts, the tower began to rise slowly. Smoker, with two cigars puffing in his mouth, muttered somewhat dismissively, "What's so fun about this ride? Wow, it's so slow..."
However...
When the drop tower reached its peak, a height of one hundred fifty meters, it suddenly began to descend at an incredible speed!
"Ahhhh!!!"
...
"Ahhhh!!!"
The people seated in the drop tower seats immediately screamed loudly from the intense contrast between extreme stillness and extreme motion. Their hearts felt as if they were soaring and then freefalling. Only when it was about to reach the ground did the drop tower begin to cushion and slow down, then gradually stopped.
Just then, the pink-haired girl Tina turned and glanced at the empty seat beside her, her face instantly filled with surprise as she said, "Huh?! Tina feels really strange, where did Smoker go?"
Maynard gently rubbed his chin and murmured, "Could it be that he wasn't properly buckled in and flew out?"
As if thinking of something, everyone simultaneously looked up and saw that Smoker had indeed used his elementalization ability, transforming himself into a cloud of white smoke. He was slowly drifting down in the air, his face still showing a lingering expression of fear, even a little pale.
"Oh dear!" Gion was the first who couldn't hold back, quietly covering her mouth and chuckling, which immediately made everyone burst into laughter at Smoker's comical expression.
Soon after, Smoker, with a sour face, dropped and stood on the ground again. However, the others didn't continue to mock him, but instead immediately moved on to the next attraction, leaving Smoker with a lingering sense of embarrassment.
After playing for a while, Sephiroth rented a large bubble pedal car. He sat leaning back in the bubble seat, holding a five-scoop ice cream in his right hand, occasionally taking unconscious bites. He enjoyed the quiet moment amidst the crowd.
A moment later, Gion also walked over with an ice cream in her hand and sat down beside him.
"Little Sephiroth, why don't you want to play with them? What are you thinking about here alone?" she asked, her voice soft.
Hearing this, the silver-haired youth turned to look at the long-legged adult woman beside him and said indifferently, "It's nothing, I'm just not interested!"
"Goodness! My little brother is still so young, but he's not interested in such things. How embarrassing!" As she spoke, Gion even winked at him, her expression full of teasing intent.
Seeing this, Sephiroth's eyes twitched slightly, and he muttered to himself, This woman is truly skilled at seduction! Come to think of it, for a woman skilled in various alluring geisha arts, expecting her to be as pure as a little white flower is basically wishful thinking.
Thinking this, Sephiroth unconsciously said, "Are you poisonous...?"
Seeing him so bewildered, Gion was immediately amused, covering her mouth and chuckling, "Hehehe...! If you like me, if you confess 100 times, I might agree!"
"Heh heh!" Sephiroth didn't want to bother with this vulgar woman anymore. He jumped from the bubble pedal car floating in the air and walked towards the haunted house not far away. He intended to calm himself down and clear his mind of those distracting thoughts.
The six of them played from morning until afternoon before preparing to take the boat back to Marineford. However, Sephiroth said he had other matters to attend to, bid farewell to everyone, and left alone, his steps steady towards his secret destination.
Sabaody Archipelago, Island 52, inside a bustling shipyard.
A burly man, two meters tall, with long gray hair and a severe scar on his left cheek, led more than twenty pirates into the shipyard. Many of them carried bags and wooden boxes, clearly ready to depart.
The scarred-faced man first glanced at the three-masted sailboat docked in the inner bay of the shipyard before turning to the six shipbuilders in the workshop and saying, "Hey! It's been two days, have you finished coating our ship?"
Hearing that, among the six shipwrights, a burly man with short brown hair and a thick beard nodded slowly and said, "The coating is now completely finished. You can directly sail towards Fish-Man Island."
"Is that so!..." The scarred-faced man grinned, a cruel smirk gracing his face. He pulled out the Python revolver tucked into his waist and aimed it at the brown-haired man. "Please cooperate a little... Sir, Gray Wolf Bello, will rob you now! Hand over all your money to me!"
As the scarred-faced man's words fell, more than twenty pirates behind him raised their weapons and swords, staring at the six men with sneering smiles and covetous gazes.
However...
What no one noticed was that inside the shipyard's roof, a black bat hung upside down from the rafters, silently observing everything below. This bat was a product Sephiroth created using his Vampire Fruit ability. Even before going to play with Gion and the others, he had separated many such bats, patrolling back and forth across Islands 50 to 59, in the area where shipyards and coating shops gathered, searching for traces of pirates.
Through the development of his fruit, the bats whose abilities he had separated not only possessed ultrasonic abilities like normal bats but also had vision very close to that of humans and could share vision and hearing with him. Devil Fruit abilities would continue to grow stronger with the user's development and application. Recently, he had even developed a laryngeal ultrasonic vocal organ, which he could only possess when transforming into a bat, in his vampire state.
Sephiroth's current approach to developing his Devil Fruit was actually the same as other Zoan Devil Fruit users: trying to combine and complement the advantages of the Beast form, Hybrid form, and Human form, leveraging strengths and offsetting weaknesses. Therefore, some Zoan Devil Fruit users who had developed their fruits to a very high degree could even exhibit characteristics of animal organs in their Human form. This was a partial body change they made to use animal traits to compensate for the shortcomings of their human form. Zoan users who could reach this level had essentially touched the realm of Devil Fruit Awakening.
Under the threat of the pirate crowd, the shipbuilders could only obediently raise their hands. The brown-haired man said with an ugly expression, "Mr. Pirate... We just finished work for you, and now you're being hostile like this, isn't that a bit much?"
"Bah! How dare you demand 500,000 Berries just to coat a ship, you profiteer!" Gray Wolf Bello snapped, his patience wearing thin.
"Your ship is a medium-sized sailboat, the price for coating is the same wherever you go..." the shipbuilder tried to explain.
"Enough, just hand over all your money to me! Otherwise, you'll all die!" Bello threatened, his eyes cold.
"We usually earn money through hard work, and there aren't many savings in the shipyard..."
Wham!
Before the brown-haired man could finish speaking, Gray Wolf Bello immediately pulled the trigger of his revolver. The bullet hit the man's thigh, instantly gushing blood.
"Ahhhh...!" The brown-haired man fell to the ground with a 'thud!', covering the gunshot wound on his thigh with both hands, his body writhing in pain.
"I'm a great Pirate with a bounty of 76 million Berries, I'm not in the mood to listen to your lectures! My advice, if you don't want to die, just hand over all the money!" Bello roared, his voice booming.
"Ha ha ha!"
"Hahaha! That's right! That's right!"
...
"These troublesome shipwrights deserve it!"
The more than twenty pirates burst into laughter, their faces looking extremely grotesque and sinister, like devils crawling out of hell. Their laughter echoed in the shipyard, adding to the horror of the scene.
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