“My ambition! My dream!”
Even Teach himself could no longer tell whether what came from his mouth was a howl of anguish or a furious roar.
He didn’t even have time to wonder why this kid, who was supposedly already an Ability User, could eat another Devil Fruit.
As he watched the dark-purple juice trickle down from the corner of the young man’s mouth, there was only one thought in his mind.
If he killed this kid, the Yami Yami no Mi would eventually reappear somewhere on this sea!
As the person chosen by the Yami Yami no Mi, he was absolutely certain that he would encounter this fruit again.
Therefore, this kid named Shiranui had to die here today!!
“Teach, you’re wrong!”
Shiranui Rei turned his head.
His eyes glittered with confidence and determination no less intense than Teach’s, his dark eyes shining like stars in the darkness.
Behind him, around his arms, and beneath his feet, an aura of darkness that seemed capable of devouring everything rose into the air like some kind of demon god.
He stared deeply at Teach, as though he could see straight through his thoughts, then declared loudly:
“The Yami Yami no Mi chose me, not you!!!”
“You…”
When Teach saw the light in the young man’s eyes, even he, who had been driven nearly insane with rage by those words, couldn’t help but feel shaken.
That look.
He knew it far too well.
Rocks.
Roger.
Shiki the Golden Lion.
Whitebeard.
Garp.
Sengoku.
Kaido.
Big Mom.
Shanks…
Heroes and legends were as numerous as carp crossing a river on the vast sea, but these names undoubtedly stood at the very peak of their era!
Even Teach himself.
Their positions were different and their personalities varied, but whenever they pursued their convictions, none of them would waver in the slightest.
There were times when they were weaker than others.
Some knew how to bide their time, while others were reckless.
But they all believed that they would be the ones laughing last!
That was the spirit of those who ruled over the sea!
“How can a weak little brat like you possibly have that kind of spirit?!”
The last thread of reason in Teach’s mind snapped.
He refused to accept this reality because it meant that obtaining the Yami Yami no Mi would become exponentially more difficult.
Someone who possessed such an indomitable spirit would never easily fall before reaching the end of their path!
Even if they didn’t become the ultimate victor, the storm they unleashed when they fell would still be enough to overturn an entire stretch of sea.
“Die!!!”
A blood-red light surged in Blackbeard’s eyes.
Like a crazed beast, he only wanted to tear the prey in front of him apart.
“See you~”
In contrast, Shiranui Rei looked completely relaxed, as though the pressure didn’t affect him in the slightest.
He even smiled and waved goodbye to Teach.
In the next instant, black light flashed.
The dark-purple-haired youth with a faint smile on his face disappeared from where he stood as though he had never existed.
It was exactly the same as what had happened outside the cabins earlier.
The only difference was that this time, there was no cloud of smoke from a Shadow Clone dispersing.
Teach’s full-powered attack slammed heavily into empty air.
The resulting waves of force overturned the bed and table inside the room.
The stack of recipe notebooks that Thatch had treasured dearly was sent flying through the air before scattering messily across the floor.
One of the pages happened to land beside Teach’s brown leather shoes.
It clearly and meticulously recorded the recipe for cherry pie.
Near the middle of the recipe, where the sweetness was listed, Thatch had even added a line in neat handwriting:
Extra sweet — Teach.
“…”
Teach’s chest heaved violently.
The viciousness in his eyes faded, and his rationality returned.
Looking at the completely vanished Shiranui Rei and Thatch’s nearly destroyed room, he temporarily put the matter of the Yami Yami no Mi aside and placed his own survival first.
“Blame that kid for everything? No. That won’t work! That kid left behind too little evidence, while I left behind too much!”
“I have to leave the Moby Dick!!!”
Teach’s brows furrowed tightly.
He was a pirate, not a professional assassin.
The evidence left at the scene of Thatch’s murder would only need a brief investigation to point directly toward him.
By then, he wouldn’t even need Pops to punish him.
His “companions” aboard the ship would make sure he died in the most brutal way possible.
With that thought, he burst out of Thatch’s room and fled toward the escape boat he had prepared in advance.
By now, countless crew members had already been awakened by the alarm sounded by the lookout.
Highly disciplined, they forced themselves awake, grabbed their weapons, rushed out of their rooms, and began searching the deck for any possible intruders.
Some crew members saw Teach running away, but they simply assumed he was also searching for the intruder.
After years of living together, they all knew his personality.
Honest.
Simple.
Gluttonous.
He was just a harmless fat man.
No one imagined that he was actually the culprit who had triggered the alarm.
Inside the most spacious room aboard the Moby Dick…
“Hm?”
A tall man with a crescent-shaped, upward-curving mustache above his lips was likewise disturbed by the alarm.
When he stood up, he looked like a giant among men.
He frowned slightly.
His Observation Haki swept across the Moby Dick.
In the next instant, his pupils contracted violently.
Grief and fury intertwined in his eyes.
“THATCH!!!”
A deep howl of grief, like the roar of a whale, exploded across the ship.
A vast and violent aura, powerful enough to seem capable of destroying everything, erupted from his towering body and shook throughout the Moby Dick.
Some of the weaker crew members even went completely blank before collapsing to the floor.
…
Inside the cozy but relatively small living room, Minato Namikaze was sitting at the dining table, eating his steaming breakfast.
As he ate, he couldn’t help worrying about his good brother Rei, who had brought him the meal.
“Back then, both the Third Hokage and Teacher Jiraiya said that learning the Flying Thunder God Technique carried the risk of becoming lost in another dimension and never returning.
“They even said that there was a chance someone might come back missing an arm or a leg…”
Minato sucked in a cold breath.
Would his good brother actually make it back?
And if he did, would there still be a complete corpse?
“No, I have to tell Teacher Jiraiya about this!”
Minato suddenly found that even the breakfast he had eaten halfway through no longer tasted good.
He hurriedly put it down on the dining table, slipped on the shinobi vest hanging by the entrance, and prepared to leave.
At that exact moment, black light flashed from the spot on the wall where Shiranui Rei had left his Flying Thunder God mark.
The blond youth who had been preparing to leave for help turned around in astonishment.
Before he could even see who had appeared, an extremely exuberant burst of laughter reached his ears.
“Hahahahahaha… hahahahahahahaha!!!”
At first, the laughter seemed somewhat restrained.
But as it gathered momentum, it gradually became more and more unrestrained, its volume seemingly capable of breaking through the heavens.
Standing once again on the floor of Minato’s house, Shiranui Rei felt the power that had suddenly appeared within his body.
He let out the most carefree laughter of his life.
“Minato! I feel freaking fantastic!!!”
Besides the Yami Yami no Mi, which had made him unbelievably happy, the Flying Thunder God Technique’s ability to transport him across worlds had also filled him with surprise.
This meant that he, who had originally been confined to the shinobi world, could now set his sights upon a far broader universe and countless new possibilities.
From this moment onward, he decided to officially name his unique creation:
“Random Flying Thunder God” — an SSS-rank ninjutsu!!!