On the elevated ground overlooking the bustling port, a hunting party driven by the astronomical bounty offered by the Donquixote Family had finally tracked down their quarry. The pirates spread out in formation, their eyes gleaming with avarice as they spotted their targets.
Oboro sat cross-legged atop the grassy hill, his sword resting horizontally across his knees in a meditative pose. From this vantage point, he gazed down at the group of increasingly agitated enemies below with the detached interest of a predator observing scavenging animals.
A cigarette dangled from his lips, its smoke curling lazily in the ocean breeze. The habit had become a ritual for him, each drag carrying him back to memories of the Dark Continent, where Fant's impossibly strong tobacco had provided one of the few reliable comforts in that hellish landscape. Such luxuries hadn't existed during his time in the Taisho era of Demon Slayer, making this simple pleasure feel almost decadent.
The mask that had concealed his identity lay discarded beside him, though from the pirates' perspective below, his distinctive scarred features remained obscured by shadow and the brim of his hat. Only his cold, calculating eyes were visible through the drifting smoke, predator's eyes that seemed to dissect everything they observed.
At the base of the hill, Dom stood alone with a Nichirin blade gripped in his steady hands. The bodies of several would-be bounty hunters littered the ground around him, their blood already beginning to darken against the earth. His recent transformation had elevated his capabilities far beyond what any of these minor criminals could handle, and the evidence of that superiority painted the hillside in crimson.
"That's him!" The leading pirate thrust his cutlass toward Oboro's elevated position, his voice cracking with excitement and barely controlled greed. "The escaped slave who robbed Joker himself!"
The prospect of such unimaginable wealth had done exactly what large bounties were designed to accomplish, it had stripped away rational thought and replaced it with desperate hunger. These pirates saw only the payday of their lifetimes, not the impossibly dangerous individual who had earned such a price on his head.
"Catch this bastard, and the Devil Fruit belongs to us!" another voice shouted from the crowd, raising his weapon high. "The Donquixote Family will owe us a debt that could set us up for life!"
The logic was intoxicating in its simplicity. Here was a single man, apparently relaxing on a hillside with only one companion for protection. No matter how skilled he might be, surely twenty experienced pirates could overwhelm him through sheer numbers and coordination.
"Kill them both!"
The roar that erupted from the attacking force carried all the fury and desperation of men who had risked everything on this single gamble. They surged up the hillside like a human wave, weapons gleaming in the afternoon sun, their battle cries echoing across the port district.
Dom's response was immediate and devastating. His scarred features split into a predatory grin as blood still fresh on his clothing caught the light. The transformation Oboro had granted him hadn't just enhanced his physical capabilities, it had awakened something primal and violent that had always lurked beneath his unremarkable exterior.
His body became a blur of motion as he dove into the charging mass, moving between them like smoke through fingers. The enhanced speed and reflexes that marked his new nature allowed him to flow around their desperate attacks while his blade found gap after gap in their defenses. Each strike was precise, economical, designed to end lives rather than prolong combat.
The Nichirin sword's superior craftsmanship made their crude weapons seem like toys in comparison. Where their steel met his blade, theirs shattered or turned aside. Where his edge found flesh, death followed with surgical certainty.
The pirates' initial surge of confidence crumbled within minutes, washing away like sand before a tide. What had seemed like overwhelming numerical advantage evaporated as body after body hit the ground around Dom's dancing form.
"Hahahaha!" Dom's laughter rang across the hillside as he carved through his opponents with increasing enthusiasm.
For the first time in his life, he understood what it meant to be truly powerful. Not just strong enough to survive, strong enough to dominate. The intoxicating rush of superiority flooded his system like the finest drug, and he found himself reluctant to let it end.
This was what he had been missing during all those years as a minor pirate scraping for survival. This feeling of being the predator rather than the prey, of watching fear dawn in his enemies' eyes as they realized their mistake too late to matter.
Rich combat experience, enhanced by supernatural capabilities, transformed what should have been a desperate battle into something resembling an execution. These pirates had thought they were hunting a prize, instead, they had volunteered to feed a monster.
When Oboro finished his cigarette and flicked the spent butt away, only Dom remained standing among the scattered corpses. The transformed pirate breathed heavily, his eyes bright with the afterglow of violence, clearly hoping for more opponents to test his newfound abilities against.
"Although his will isn't particularly strong, his previous experience as a pirate gives him the foundation to build upon," Oboro mused silently, studying Dom's expression of savage satisfaction. "People are adaptable creatures. Nothing builds confidence quite like genuine victory, and nothing is more convincing than results."
Dom was discovering what it meant to be a predator rather than prey, and the revelation was transforming him in ways that went far beyond mere physical enhancement. This was exactly the kind of psychological development Oboro had been hoping to cultivate.
"Find us passage on a merchant vessel," Oboro instructed, rising from his meditative position with fluid grace. "But remember to attend tomorrow's auction. Their attention remains focused on me, not you, that gives us tactical advantages we should exploit."
"Understood, Boss." Dom looked up from the carnage surrounding him, gradually returning from his battle-drunk state to something approaching normal awareness.
The port below them hosted far more than just pirate ships. Merchant vessels, cargo haulers, and trade ships from various kingdoms passed through Sabaody Archipelago daily, many of them involved in the gray market businesses that kept the world's economy functioning. Arms dealers, contraband smugglers, luxury goods transporters, all conducted their affairs under the World Government's deliberately blind eye.
Such vessels offered far better escape routes than pirate ships, which attracted unwanted attention from Marines and bounty hunters alike. Merchant captains asked fewer questions and maintained more discrete routes, especially when properly motivated.
"This location's proximity to the port means our little demonstration will draw attention quickly," Oboro noted, studying the harbor where various ships prepared for departure. "The news will spread through every information network on the island."
He had deliberately chosen this visible position to create the impression that he was preparing to leave Sabaody Archipelago entirely. The Donquixote Family's agents would receive reports of his presence here and naturally assume he was seeking passage off the island.
"Let them spread their forces thin searching for us at every departure point," he continued with cold satisfaction. "The more resources they commit to watching escape routes, the fewer they'll have available for other contingencies."
The tactical situation was developing exactly as he'd hoped. With such a vast area to cover and limited manpower, even an organization as powerful as the Donquixote Family couldn't maintain concentrated surveillance everywhere simultaneously. Their response would necessarily be reactive rather than proactive, giving him multiple opportunities to dictate the terms of their encounters.
As Dom departed to secure their transportation, Oboro remained positioned on the hillside like a spider in its web. This highly visible location would serve as bait for the next wave of bounty hunters, allowing him to continue thinning their numbers while gathering intelligence about his opponents' capabilities and tactics.
The first to respond was not another group of pirates, but a more professional organization entirely.
Black shadows emerged from beneath the massive mangrove roots with practiced stealth, their movements carrying the disciplined coordination of experienced killers. These were mafia soldiers, men in expensive suits who treated violence as a business rather than a passion.
Oboro slowly rose to his feet, rolling his shoulders and stretching his limbs with the casual preparation of someone about to engage in light exercise. "Time for a proper warm-up," he murmured to himself.
"Kill him!" The lead mafioso commanded without preamble, his voice carrying the cold authority of someone accustomed to having his orders followed without question.
The killing intent radiating from this group exceeded even what the pirates had displayed. These were professional murderers who understood that conversation was merely a waste of ammunition. They had come to collect a bounty, not to engage in theatrical posturing.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire erupted across the hillside as over a dozen weapons spoke simultaneously, filling the air with lead and cordite smoke. The volume of fire was impressive, enough to shred any normal human being into unrecognizable fragments within seconds.
But Oboro was far from normal, and his enhanced perception allowed him to track individual bullets even as they cut through the space he had occupied moments before.
Thirty minutes later, the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps announced the arrival of a much more dangerous opponent.
Delinger burst onto the scene wearing his signature high-heeled boots, slightly out of breath from his urgent sprint across the archipelago. The young half-fishman's distinctive appearance, pointed teeth, fighting fish heritage clearly visible in his predatory features, marked him as one of the Donquixote Family's genuine elite.
The moment he received word of the mysterious thief's location, Delinger had abandoned everything else to race here personally. Doflamingo's fury over the Devil Fruit theft had been terrible to witness, and every Family member understood that failure to capture the responsible party would result in consequences far worse than death.
"Impressive work," Delinger commented with deliberately casual arrogance, his hands clasped behind his head as he surveyed the battlefield littered with mafia corpses. His tone carried the kind of condescension that suggested he viewed the slaughter as mildly entertaining rather than genuinely threatening.
"It's you again," Oboro replied with genuine surprise, having expected Lao G to respond instead.
The elderly martial artist would have represented a far more serious challenge, given his decades of accumulated skill and his mastery of Armament Haki. Delinger, while dangerous, operated on a more manageable level of threat.
"Planning to run away?" Delinger asked mockingly, his sharp teeth gleaming as he grinned. "No ship will take you now. We've notified every fleet in every port, and every captain knows what happens to people who cross the Donquixote Family. Even if you use your Devil Fruit powers to escape this immediate area, you'll never leave Sabaody Archipelago alive."
The threat was delivered with absolute confidence, backed by the very real influence that Doflamingo's organization wielded throughout the criminal underworld. The Heavenly Demon's reputation as one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea opened doors and closed others with equal efficiency.
"When did I say I wanted to run away?" Oboro chuckled softly, reaching up to pull back his hood and reveal his distinctive scarred features to the late afternoon sunlight. "Don't worry yourself over nothing. You seem to enjoy fighting people. Coincidentally... so do I."
Delinger froze mid-stride as recognition struck him like a physical blow. The face before him matched perfectly with the wanted posters that had been circulating throughout the archipelago, not just any escaped slave, but the Celestial Dragon's property who had been causing chaos across the Grand Line.
"Magnificent!" Delinger shouted with explosive enthusiasm, his pupils dilating with excitement. "It really is you!"
Capturing a Celestial Dragon's escaped slave would represent a achievement that even exceeded recovering the stolen Devil Fruit. Such a prize would definitely earn Doflamingo's personal favor and potentially elevate Delinger's status within the Family hierarchy.
"I've decided," he continued with predatory satisfaction, raising one finger for emphasis, "I won't kill you immediately. Torture comes first, make sure you suffer appropriately for your insolence. Don't disappoint me by dying too quickly."
The words had barely left Delinger's mouth when his enhanced senses registered something impossible. The man who had been standing ten meters away suddenly materialized directly in front of him, having covered the distance faster than his eyes could track.
Time seemed to slow as Delinger's perception tried to process what his reflexes were already responding to. The speed was genuinely shocking, far beyond what any normal human should be capable of achieving.
"Hehe," Oboro laughed softly, close enough that his breath stirred Delinger's hair.
Despite being caught off-guard, Delinger's combat instincts kicked in with supernatural speed. His fighting fish heritage granted him reflexes that bordered on precognitive, and years of training under Doflamingo had honed those gifts into lethal precision.
His leg swept upward in a devastating arc, the sharp point of his high-heeled boot aimed directly at Oboro's temple. Armament Haki flowed across his calf like liquid metal, transforming flesh and bone into something approaching living steel.
Crack!
The kick connected with Oboro's raised forearm, but instead of the expected sound of crushing bone, there was only the sharp report of perfectly timed deflection. Oboro's entire body shifted sideways with the impact, using advanced martial arts principles to redirect the tremendous force rather than absorbing it directly.
"What?!" Delinger's eyes widened in genuine shock.
He had committed fully to that attack, wrapping his leg in Armament Haki and striking with enough force to shatter stone. Under normal circumstances, blocking such an assault would require equal or superior Haki to avoid catastrophic injury.
Yet somehow, this scarred stranger had neutralized his technique using nothing but physical skill and perfect timing. The sensation had been like hitting cotton with a sledgehammer, all the power flowing away into angles and redirections that left him feeling off-balance and confused.
"This is Huajin," Oboro explained with academic interest, flexing his slightly reddened fingers where they had made contact with Delinger's Haki-enhanced leg. "Soft force, the principle of redirecting incoming power rather than meeting it head-on. Haki does increase the quality and destructive potential of an attack, but as long as you don't engage in direct resistance, most of that power can be channeled harmlessly away."
The technique required supernatural reaction speed and the ability to read an opponent's intentions almost before they formed them. Against someone of Lao G's caliber, such methods would prove insufficient, the elderly martial artist's decades of experience would have anticipated and countered such redirections.
But Delinger, for all his natural gifts and Family training, still operated with the straightforward aggression of someone who had never encountered truly sophisticated martial arts.
"You're impressive for someone your age," Oboro continued conversationally, shaking out his slightly stinging hand. "Armament Haki at your stage of development shows genuine potential. Unfortunately, potential and mastery are entirely different things."
The casual tone and backhanded compliment sent rage flooding through Delinger's system like poison. A fin erupted from his back as his fighting fish heritage asserted itself, granting him a burst of enhanced speed that left afterimages trailing behind his movement.
He began circling Oboro with predatory intent, looking for the perfect angle of attack while his fury built to explosive levels.
"What are you so arrogant about, you worthless trash?!" Delinger snarled, his voice cracking with adolescent rage and wounded pride. "I've changed my mind, I'm going to kick you into pieces! You can't even use Haki!"
His assessment was tactically sound, if delivered with typical teenage subtlety. Delinger's combat experience had taught him to read opponents quickly and accurately. This stranger possessed extraordinary reflexes and unusual fighting techniques, but his physical capabilities appeared limited and he showed no signs of Haki mastery.
"Too fast," Oboro acknowledged silently, tracking Delinger's circling movement with enhanced perception that could follow every step despite his body's limitations. "Although my senses can capture his position clearly, if I try to take the initiative in attacking, my current physical condition might not be able to match his rhythm."
Even with his soul power suppressed by this world's dimensional barriers, his mental capabilities remained far beyond human norms. The problem lay in the disconnect between perception and physical response, he could see what needed to be done, but his abused and weakened body struggled to keep pace with his strategic mind.
The situation would improve dramatically once he managed to escape Sabaody Archipelago and had time to properly develop the Dantian cultivation method. But for now, he would have to rely on superior technique and tactical thinking to overcome raw physical disadvantages.
Whoosh!
Delinger suddenly launched himself skyward with explosive force, approaching from an angle that eliminated most conventional defensive options. His entire leg swelled with enhanced musculature as he prepared to deliver his signature technique.
"Headless High Heels!" he roared, aiming the devastating kick directly at Oboro's neck with enough force to decapitate a giant.
The attack represented everything Delinger had learned during his years with the Donquixote Family, perfect timing, overwhelming power, and the kind of killing intent that had made their organization feared throughout the Grand Line.
In the split second before impact, Delinger's eyes registered something that made his blood run cold. Oboro's response wasn't the desperate scrambling he had expected, but a demonstration of martial arts mastery that belonged in legend rather than reality.
The scarred man's body moved with micro-precision that seemed to violate physics, bending backward just enough to let the deadly kick whistle past his head by millimeters. Then, as Delinger's momentum carried him past the optimal striking position, Oboro uncoiled like a spring, his elbow and fist moving in perfect coordination.
The distance was too close for evasion, the timing too perfect for counter-attack. Delinger's enhanced reflexes screamed warnings, but his body was locked into its attack trajectory with no room for course correction.
"The reason the Donquixote Family wields such influence," Oboro said calmly, his words somehow audible despite the chaos of combat, "is because of Doflamingo's individual strength and your organization's collective reputation. But facing any opponent with such arrogance will only lead to death."
"My stomach!" Delinger thought desperately, covering his abdomen with Armament Haki in the split second before Oboro's attack connected.
The prediction proved fatally incorrect.
"Ahhh!" Delinger's scream split the air as Oboro's fingers speared through both his eyes with surgical precision, destroying his vision in an instant of overwhelming agony.
The deceptive attack had bypassed his hastily prepared defenses entirely, targeting the one area he hadn't thought to protect. Pain beyond description flooded his nervous system as he crashed to the ground, hands clutching his ruined face while blood poured between his fingers.
"If this had been Lao G, the outcome would have been very different," Oboro observed with clinical detachment. "That old man has the experience and skill to cover his entire body with Armament Haki simultaneously. Even if I could overwhelm him with superior technique, breaking through his defenses would prove nearly impossible."
"Ahhhh!" Delinger surged upright despite his injuries, charging forward with the twin horns that emerged from his skull like a maddened bull.
But his blindness and pain made the attack clumsy and predictable. Oboro's foot intercepted his face with contemptuous ease, sending the young half-fishman sprawling back to the ground where he lay twitching and disoriented.
"Interesting," Oboro noted, studying the distinctive horns that had been concealed beneath Delinger's hat. "So those are natural growths rather than decorative accessories."
His follow-up strike had targeted specific pressure points that would paralyze the nervous system temporarily. Delinger's enhanced physiology was fighting off the effect, but the disruption would last long enough for Oboro's purposes.
The demonstration confirmed his theories about Haki mastery in this world. Like the "Flow" techniques he had observed in Hunter x Hunter, truly advanced Armament Haki required years of dedicated practice to achieve full-body coverage and instant repositioning. Delinger's abilities, while impressive for his age, remained fundamentally limited by experience and training.
"Still too weak," Oboro murmured, bending down to grasp one of Delinger's horns and lift him from the ground like a piece of luggage.
The young fighter's hands and feet continued spasming as his paralyzed nervous system struggled to regain control, but the damage was too comprehensive for immediate recovery.
"Can't convert?" Oboro frowned after several moments of concentration.
His original plan had been to use his system's resource extraction capabilities to claim Delinger's half-fishman bloodline, his martial arts training, and possibly even his rudimentary Haki knowledge. Such techniques had been trivially easy to accomplish in the Demon Slayer world, requiring only that the target be unable to resist the process.
But here, despite Delinger's helpless condition, the extraction simply wouldn't function. The familiar interface refused to activate, as if the very concept had been blocked by external interference.
"The world's will is definitely interfering," he realized with grim satisfaction. "It doesn't want me harvesting resources from this reality."
The limitation was frustrating but not entirely unexpected. This higher-tier world possessed defenses that his previous hunting ground had lacked, forcing him to adapt his methods accordingly.
"You'll die horribly," Delinger gasped through blood and ruined tissue, his fangs still bared in defiant rage. "Young Master will hunt you down and make you suffer for this insult, and when he finds you, "
Snap.
Oboro's hand closed around Delinger's throat with the finality of a bear trap, cutting off the predictable threats with casual efficiency. Despite the physical disadvantages he currently operated under, years of martial arts training had given his fingers strength that could crush windpipes like paper tubes.
He had no patience for the standard villain monologue, especially from someone whose organization he was actively dismantling piece by piece.
"Ah," he said with renewed interest as his system interface finally activated, "it seems the extraction only functions after death. Similar to hunting plot characters in other realities, though the conversion efficiency appears reduced compared to living subjects."
The discovery was valuable intelligence about how his abilities functioned in this world's environment. Killing would be required for resource acquisition, which automatically placed him in irreconcilable opposition to every powerful figure he encountered.
The world's will was truly sparing no effort in forcing him toward the most dangerous possible path.
After another moment, Oboro released Delinger's corpse and picked up the distinctive white hat that had fallen during their brief combat. The accessory would serve as useful evidence of his victory, should he need to demonstrate his capabilities to future opponents.
"Really," he mused with dark amusement, "every effort is being made to drive me into a corner."
As he disappeared into the shadows beneath the massive mangrove trees, the distant sound of approaching footsteps announced the arrival of other Donquixote Family members who had finally traced the disturbance to its source.
What they found when they reached the hillside would send shockwaves throughout the criminal underworld. Bodies scattered across the battlefield like discarded toys, and in the center of it all, the twisted corpse of one of their own executives.
Delinger's neck had been snapped with surgical precision, his eyes destroyed, his distinctive features rendered almost unrecognizable by violence. The young half-fishman who had served as one of Doflamingo's most promising fighters lay broken and discarded like refuse.
"This..." one of the arriving Family members whispered in horror.
They had expected to find the aftermath of Delinger's victory, not evidence of his complete and total defeat. The implications crashed over them like a tsunami of dread and disbelief.
Someone had killed a Donquixote Family executive in single combat. Someone had challenged their organization's reputation for invincibility and emerged victorious. The news would spread through every information network in the Grand Line within hours, potentially undermining everything Doflamingo had spent decades building.
In the shadows of the Yarukiman Mangroves, where pirates and criminals conducted their deadliest business, a new predator had announced his presence with a demonstration of power that would reshape the entire archipelago's understanding of what was possible.
The war between the mysterious thief and the Heavenly Demon had claimed its first major casualty, and the corpse lying twisted on the hillside served as stark proof that this conflict would escalate far beyond what anyone had initially imagined.
The game was entering its deadliest phase, and the stakes had never been higher.