Chapter 263: Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Daibutsu
"Here they come. Size-wise, comparable to the large Sea Kings in the Calm Belt — though they fall short of the truly massive ones, the island-sized varieties that even Admirals would think twice about engaging directly."
Sengoku's eyes sharpened as they fixed on the distant horizon, which was only tens of thousands of meters away by this point. Against an opponent of that scale, the distance was practically nothing.
He felt no fear looking at the Void Creatures' enormous forms. Surprisingly, what surfaced instead was something closer to excitement — an unfamiliar feeling, one he quickly pressed down with the discipline of a lifetime. It reminded him of his younger days, hunting the great pirates across the seas.
He took a slow breath of still-clean air, his expression settling into something grave and composed.
"It's been a while since I've handled anything personally. Admin-sama — you won't mind if this old man goes first to warm up?"
Ryū shook his head with a slight smile. "Go ahead. I've got an itch to get moving myself, but I'm staying here — someone needs to guard this Spiritual Core."
With that permission granted, Sengoku turned his gaze to Kizaru.
Kizaru blinked. He scratched his head with a puzzled look. "Sengoku-san, why are you looking at me like that? I'm staying here with Admin-sama to guard the… Core thing."
Sengoku's mouth twitched. "Your fruit ability isn't suited for defensive work. Your high-output attacks have too much penetrating force — you'd be just as likely to destroy the Spiritual Core as protect it. Staying here would only get in the way."
Nobody understood Kizaru quite like Sengoku. He'd mentored the man before he ever became an Admiral; he knew every detail of that ability inside and out.
And the transparent slacking attempt earned his complete contempt.
He was going to drag this particular young man out of the salted-fish life if it was the last thing he did.
The unfortunate Kizaru ultimately couldn't win an argument with his direct superior — especially one who controlled his salary and performance bonuses. Sengoku had his lifeline firmly in hand. Kizaru went.
Sengoku didn't activate his Devil Fruit immediately. He wanted a read on what these things could take. He coated his right fist in Armament Haki, stepped into Moonwalk, and vanished.
He reappeared directly above one Void Creature's skull, every vein in his arm standing out, every muscle pulled taut — and he drove his fist down.
The impact exploded outward in a shockwave that shredded the surrounding air. The Armament-coated punch connected with the Void Creature's head with everything behind it.
The creature's skull caved inward. Then sheer physics took over — that enormous body, acted on by gravity, launched downward like a missile and plunged toward the ground.
With one punch, Sengoku had knocked a Void Beast out of the sky.
"And it's still intact. The head's dented — not crushed. Not even unconscious." He kept his expression measured, voice quiet. "Remarkable defense. And that's the entry level."
As stated in the group chat — these things were serious.
The one he'd just sent down: measured against Marine Headquarters' roster, this creature could defeat the Giant Vice Admirals. Without question.
He didn't linger. While one Void Beast was falling, he locked onto another to the right and released his Devil Fruit.
Paramecia — no.
Zoan.
Mythical Zoan.
Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Daibutsu.
A golden-dark Buddha, eyes blazing with righteous fury, materialized in the air where Sengoku had been.
Thirty meters of towering divine wrath — still dwarfed by the Void Creatures, but in a different category from anything this world had seen. His presence alone bent the air.
"Daibutsu — Buddha's Impact!!"
His right palm swelled with a tremendous vortex of compressed force. He drove it forward.
The shockwave roared outward toward the nearest Void Creature.
The creature saw it coming — or perhaps it had watched its companion get knocked from the sky and recalibrated. It wrenched its enormous body sideways in midair at the last instant and the attack scraped past, barely missing.
The Void Creature's grotesque jaw dropped open. Black energy gathered at the back of its throat, condensing rapidly — one second of charge, and it had already reached two meters in diameter, radiating a pressure that set every instinct screaming.
It fired.
Sengoku's pupils contracted. He crossed both arms in front of him.
But then, thirty meters from impact, the black energy bolt simply stopped.
It hung in the air for a moment — then reversed direction and shot back the way it came, slamming into the Void Creature's wing-like appendages as it stared with something that might have been confusion.
The scream that came out of the creature carried to where Ryū was standing, clear as a bell.
"Can't have you uncles hogging all the Points."
A crisp, cool voice — ice underneath, and just the faintest edge of competitive irritation — reached Sengoku's ears.
He turned.
A girl with green hair was hovering at over a thousand meters altitude. He had no idea what she'd done to stop that projectile. Her expression was composed, precise, and faintly haughty.
"And Kizaru-ojisan," she added, glancing sideways at the figure hovering thirty-odd meters away, "you didn't come all the way here just to watch, did you?"
Kizaru coughed softly, then turned his attention to the swarm of Void Creatures emerging from the void with increasing speed. His expression, usually at half-mast, edged toward something more serious. "Hey, hey — that's already seventy or eighty of them, isn't it? Just the three of us, we won't be making a dent in this in any reasonable timeframe."
One after another, the Void Creatures were pushing through the void. Somewhere between one and five per second, the count climbing at an alarming rate.
"Ara ara… and that's barely a tenth of them. At least nine hundred more to come. Taking some damage is going to be unavoidable at this rate~"
A gap in space folded open in front of the three of them. Someone stepped through it, treading the empty air as casually as flat ground.
Yukari.
She surveyed the growing swarm and continued in the same light tone. "We only need to hold back half of them. Leave the rest to Admin-sama and the others — they can handle their side."
Sengoku's brow furrowed. "Holding back half may itself prove… considerably demanding."
"…"
Author's postscript: Went out for sashimi, came home to a catastrophic evening. This chapter was written in the bathroom. An appropriately… atmospheric chapter. Urgh.
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