As the black storm clouds continued to approach, Zeff rolled his eyes in mild frustration as Zephyr quickly pulled himself out of the patch of dirt that he had just been kicked into. The sound of approaching thunder was hard to differentiate from the rumble of combat occurring on the bridge above, but Zeff kept his eyes focused solely on the admiral that was now approaching him with fury in his eyes. The Rocks Pirates chef wouldn't have ever considered himself an expert in Observation Haki, so he had been hoping that power he had been sensing from the man with the purple pompadour was simply him misreading the ability.
Unfortunately, a kick with the combined force of his devil fruit and Armament Haki not leaving so much as a scratch confirmed that he had been right on the money, and he formed a small patch of ice underneath his boots as his opponent approached.
"Cheap tricks like that won't work on me, kid!" The gruff navy soldier barked at the man that was barely younger than him. "Devil fruits will always fold to strong enough Haki, and I've never met a soul that gets anywhere close to what I can do!" He boasted confidently as he smashed his fists together, the hum of the spiritual energy making the air itself vibrate.
"Let me give you a little lesson, old timer," Zeff said sarcastically as he began rotating his hips one at a time. Without continuing his sentence, he launched off the ground with a spin, spiraling like a corkscrew through the air as his leg became alight with fire. Like a comet soaring through the sky, Zeff continued to spin rapidly, the flames on his leg increasing in potency as his momentum continued to build.
Looking toward his approaching foe with a mildly excited smile, the admiral formed a fist with his right hand, taking a deep breath before launching a ferocious jab toward the rapidly approaching chef. The rain had started to pick up in intensity from the moment that the battle started, and a crack of lightning in the distance illuminated the two fighters as they collided.
"Obsidian Impact!" Zephyr shouted with intensity and vigor.
"Spiral Sear!" Zeff shouted as he whipped his leg toward his opponent. His shin, the outside coated with a thick layer of flame, impacted with Zephy's Haki blackened fist with a resounding boom.
The concussive force of their strikes meeting created a resounding shockwave. As if a tornado had just touched down on the battlefield, surrounding piles of scrap metal and timber were blown away, if they managed to simply avoid getting completely disintegrated. The two combatants gritted their teeth as ferociously locked eyes, the adrenaline of the intense clash causing both men to strain beyond their usual output. Just as he felt himself start to waver slightly, Zeff cracked a smile before opening his palm toward the admiral's face.
"About that lesson," Zeff said as the fog of the Chilly Chilly fruit began to waft off his closed fist. "If cheap tricks don't work, you still need to be prepared for expensive ones. Sub-Zero Sorbet!" He shouted as a flood of jagged, slushy ice rocketed from his hand like water from a firehose.
The intense and immediate pressure of the attack immediately ended the clash, blowing Zephyr off his feet as his body was forcefully pulled into the sudden wave of slush. Landing on the ground as he continued to hold open his hand, Zeff brought his other hand and breathed deeply as he attempted to concentrate. The process of transforming matter was a feature of his fruit that he was still getting used to, but trying ideas on the fly was all part of being a good chef.
"Flash Freeze," he whispered as the flood of slush that he had just unleashed began to solidify.
While Zephyr attempted to struggle free of the torrential wave that he was caught in, he noticed too late that the liquid that had captured him was actively turning into a solid. After intense struggle, he finally managed to yank his right arm free of the torrent, though his submerged head had already begun to freeze over before he could even attempt a strike.
Unclenching his fists once he saw that his foe was fully covered, Zeff deactivated the Flash Freeze technique, crashing the wave of ice he had just made into the ground. While the wave that led up to the sphere that Zephyr was contained in shattered immediately upon impact, Zeff was impressed at his own ability to infuse more structural stability into his creations. That had been his intention after all, but successfully trying a new technique against an admiral was going to feel surprising even for him.
Unfortunately, the chef only had mere moments to revel in his success before the cracks forming along the chunk of ice containing Zephyr made him groan in annoyance. With a sudden burst of force and a crackle of Haki, Zephyr shattered his temporary prison, panting from both exertion and annoyance as he stared menacingly toward his opponent.
"Ok…I guess you want to be serious now," he said as the sheen of the Haki coating his arms seemed to become even shinier somehow.