For the first time in the battle, Kizaru couldn't track his opponent.
Light flickered across the battlefield as the Admiral's golden form shimmered, his keen eyes darting around.
But Hiro had disappeared.
Not just into the shadows.
Not just out of sight.
Gone.
Kizaru exhaled, his usually carefree expression slightly stiffening.
No, he's not gone. He's here.
"Nightmare Form..."
The words echoed in the Admiral's mind.
Kizaru felt something. It wasn't a sound or movement—just an unnatural weight in the air.
Darkness… is consuming the battlefield.
The debris, the broken mast, the bodies of unconscious marines, all cast shadows.
And in those shadows... Hiro lurked.
---
On the Night Guild's ship.
Hikari's hands clenched.
"He's forcing himself again," she muttered.
Demetrius grunted. "You mean he's dying. That form eats him alive."
Celeste's silver eyes sharpened. "If he loses control…"
Soruto adjusted his rifle, eyeing the battlefield. "Then we move."
The tension among the crew was suffocating.
They all knew—Nightmare Form wasn't stable.
It wasn't just an evolution of his Night Night no Mi.
It was Hiro becoming the darkness.
If he stayed in that form for too long... there wouldn't be a Hiro to save.
---
Marine Warship - Vice Admiral Onigumo's Perspective
The Vice Admiral's fingers twitched. His instincts screamed—something was wrong.
He had fought Yonko Commanders. He had clashed with the worst of the worst.
But this?
This felt different.
It wasn't Conqueror's Haki. It wasn't brute strength.
It was fear.
The marines surrounding him felt it too. Their hands trembled over their rifles, and their eyes darted wildly, as if they expected monsters to crawl out from the dark.
One marine collapsed, unconscious.
Another dropped his rifle, gasping for air.
Onigumo's expression twisted.
"This isn't just a Devil Fruit…"
His voice was quiet.
"…It's something worse."
---
Back to the Battlefield.
Kizaru's eyes narrowed.
Then—
A whisper.
"Behind you."
Kizaru turned—too slow.
A black fist struck his side.
For the first time, Kizaru felt pain.
The force of the impact didn't just send him flying—
It distorted his light.
He crashed through the ruins of a marine warship, golden sparks flickering violently around him.
Kizaru blinked. Impossible… That… hurt?
He coughed. His body wasn't reforming instantly.
Haki? No…
It was something else.
Something that ignored his very existence as light.
"Tsk, tsk…"
He turned.
Hiro stood above him.
But… was that Hiro?
His entire form was shadow. His eyes glowed a deep crimson. His body shifted unnaturally, flickering between existence and nothingness.
Kizaru wiped blood from his lip.
"Ohhh? How terrifying…"
Hiro tilted his head.
Then he spoke.
"You talk too much."
Then the darkness surged.
And Kizaru realized—
He was fighting something far worse than a pirate.
Marine Warship – Onigumo's Perspective
"Vice Admiral!"
Onigumo barely acknowledged the marine's desperate cry. His focus was locked onto the battlefield—onto that thing standing over Kizaru.
That's not Monkey D. Hiro anymore.
It wasn't human.
The darkness writhed around him, flickering like shadows cast by a thousand unseen fires. His crimson eyes—void of emotion—held something Onigumo had only seen once before.
True monsters don't rage. They don't shout. They don't boast.
They simply erase.
Even Kizaru—one of the fastest men in the world—had been hit.
That shouldn't be possible.
How? How did he land a hit on light itself?
"Vice Admiral, should we engage?!"
Onigumo opened his mouth to order a retreat—
But then Kizaru laughed.
---
The Battlefield
The Admiral wiped a streak of blood from his lip, golden light crackling across his fingertips.
"Ohhh… that was quite painful, you know?"
Hiro didn't respond.
Kizaru stretched his arms lazily. "But… you see, pain isn't enough to slow me down."
The next instant—
The entire battlefield was flooded with golden light.
"Yata no Kagami."
Kizaru's body vanished, refracting through beams of light in an instant.
The attack was coming.
Hiro didn't move.
Foolish.
Kizaru's kicks came faster than bullets, faster than thought itself. A rain of golden light obliterated everything in their path—
The ground exploded. The surrounding wreckage vaporized. Even the sea beneath them hissed under the sheer heat.
Kizaru smirked.
He didn't miss.
No one was faster than light.
Except—
A hand gripped his ankle.
Kizaru's entire body froze.
"...Impossible."
Hiro was right in front of him.
His hand—pitch-black with writhing shadows—held Kizaru's leg as if catching a mere insect.
Kizaru hadn't even seen him move.
Then Hiro's voice came. Low. Hollow.
"You're predictable."
The grip tightened.
For the first time in his life—Borsalino felt something faster than light.
A fist.
It buried into his stomach.
And the world went black.
---
Night Guild's Ship
Celeste's fingers gripped the ship's railing. "Did you see that?"
Demetrius exhaled sharply. "No."
None of them had.
One moment, Kizaru was untouchable—moving like a god of war. The next, Hiro caught him like a child.
Soruto adjusted his rifle, peering through his scope. "...Is that really Hiro?"
Hikari didn't answer.
Because she wasn't sure.
---
Marine Warship – Onigumo's Perspective
The Vice Admiral barely stopped himself from taking a step back.
Kizaru—an Admiral—was kneeling in the shattered remains of a ship. His entire body trembled. Blood dripped from his mouth.
And Hiro…
Hiro stood over him, untouched.
The darkness around him was spreading.
This… this isn't just a Devil Fruit power.
Onigumo realized something in that moment.
They had underestimated Hiro.
The Marines had assumed he was just another ambitious pirate, another arrogant fool with a strong Devil Fruit.
They were wrong.
This man—no, this thing—stood on a level that should not exist.
Even Yonko hesitated to fight Admirals.
But Hiro?
He wasn't hesitating.
He was hunting.
And Kizaru?
For the first time in decades—
Borsalino looked afraid.