he fight raged on like a fever dream wrapped in cotton.
Gale weaved between twisting tendrils and heavy fog swipes, the edge of his rapier gleaming under the swirling gray like a stubborn candle trying not to go out in a storm. He dashed in, slashed, dashed out, repeated.
Again. And again. His blade would hit its mark, pass through Blight's mist-form, and slice nothing but atmosphere. Not even a satisfying hiss or poof. Just fog going "nah."
Still, Gale kept at it, ducking and dodging, trying not to get turned into human mist meat.
"Keep the pressure up," he thought, "act like the sword's my main play… let him think I'm just swinging blindly until I hit jackpot."
Because, in a way, he was.
He just needed one moment.
Under his cloak, the revolver felt like a brick of hope—three shots. Three sea-stone bullets. Three blessed little miracles. And somewhere, deep in the useless trivia graveyard of his brain, a memory stirred.
It was from the comment section of some fan-made "Top 10 Worst Devil Fruit Users" video. Completely unrelated. Except it had devolved into a 37-reply debate about Logia users and haki.
One particular user—"Luffy4life69"—had insisted that Logia types could sometimes phase through even haki attacks by consciously manipulating their bodies. It sounded like utter nonsense at the time. But now?
Gale dodged a scythe-like slash of fog and duck-rolled under a swirling fog spike.
"That guy might've been onto something…" he thought, deflecting another strike with his coat like a cape-wearing bullfighter.
If Blight could do that—make holes in his own mist-body at the right time—then even seastone bullets weren't a guarantee.
Gale grit his teeth.
"I only get three. I can't miss. No pressure."
Then—opportunity. Blight reached forward, summoning a fog-arm so thick it cracked stone underfoot, and committed to a downward strike. Gale sidestepped, spinning under it in one graceful sweep, cloak flaring behind him. He landed, dropped low, and drew his revolver in one clean snap.
A green-glinting bullet shot through the fog.
And hit.
Blight flinched. There was a sound like mist being punched in the gut. Gale grinned wide.
But then Blight's body rippled. The bullet passed through like it had struck water, briefly distorting the mist before it returned to its usual swirls.
"…Wait, what?"
Gale blinked.
The bullet hit. He saw it hit. He heard it hit. That was seastone!
Blight's glowing eyes narrowed. "Ah. Sea-prism bullets. Clever."
Gale didn't have time to say "thanks" before a massive fog-fist slammed into his side like a freight train made of clouds and trauma.
He didn't even skid—he just flew, cape flapping, body twisting mid-air like a kicked ragdoll before finally slamming into a jagged piece of rock a dozen meters away.
He groaned, peeling himself off the rock like a sticker that had lost its will to cling.
"Ow," he muttered, rubbing his ribs. "That... counts as fog assault, right?"
His coat was singed at the edges, his hair a wind-blown mess, and his pride slightly bruised—but he wasn't out. Not yet.
Still, he didn't have the time to nurse his bruised ego or gather his thoughts.
Fog lashed out again before Gale could even finish adjusting his spine back into alignment. A claw-shaped tendril swept low; he leapt over it. Another whipped toward his face; he ducked under.
The moment his feet touched the ground, a third burst from beneath like a fog-powered jack-in-the-box. He twisted sideways, narrowly avoiding being launched into orbit again.
'Can this guy stop attacking for one second?!' Gale mentally screamed, sword clanging against a whip-like strike. 'I'm trying to have a dramatic internal monologue here!'
Still, the gears in his head were turning fast.
That shot hit. It landed. Blight flinched. He froze for half a second like someone who just swallowed a wasp. That wasn't a logia-style dodge. And Blight definitely didn't reform around the bullet either.
So how the hell did he tank it like it was a rubber band?
Gale ducked another swing, this time countering with a kick that passed clean through Blight's chest and hit absolutely nothing. No resistance. No grunt. No "ow." Nothing but fog.
Then—lightbulb moment.
He landed, skidding backwards with a hand planted on the ground, eyes wide.
"…You're not a logia, are you?"
Blight actually paused mid-attack. His glowing misty eyes blinked. Then, he smiled—slow and smug like someone who just got caught cheating at a game and decided to double down on it anyway.
"You're right," he said, voice echoing strangely through the fog. "Congratulations, boy."
He spread his arms.
"Your prize…"
The fog quivered, pulsed, then burst open—and six more Blights stepped out of the mist, surrounding Gale in a wide circle. Each one looked identical. Same coat. Same twisted beard. Same eerie green eyes glowing like haunted lighthouses in the fog.
"…is even more suffering," they said in perfect unison, like a boy band of pain.
Gale stood very still. Blinked twice. Then blinked again, slower.
"Oh," he said. "Cool. Love that for me."
Then they all attacked.
Six pirate-shaped fog demons, all charging at once with weapons formed from condensed mist and that creeping weight Gale knew could crush rock. He leapt backwards, deflected one blade, sidestepped a club, and ducked under a whip that carved a trench through the dirt.
"So. Not a logia," Gale thought, eyes twitching as he slashed at one Blight. The blade passed through, as expected, but he kept testing.
"That means he's either a paramecia with some ridiculous mist-body nonsense, or—God help me—a mythical zoan. Wouldn't that be fun?"
He rolled, dodged, blocked, breathed, then rolled again.
The real problem wasn't that Blight had clones. It was that any one of them could be the real one… and he only had two seastone bullets left.
Two bullets.
Six targets.
"Math says I'm screwed," Gale muttered under his breath.
He didn't even bother trying to guess which one was real.
No, there was only one logical solution.
"…I have to stab every single one of them," he muttered.
And then, in a voice loud enough for the clones to hear: "This is by far the dumbest game of 'Where's Waldo?' I've ever played."
Blight—or one of them—chuckled.
"Oh, do make it interesting."
Gale sighed, running a hand down his face, then rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck.
"All right. Line up, foggy bastards," he muttered. "Let's see who bleeds."
The six Blights stood still for only a moment—long enough for Gale to feel like, maybe just maybe, they were going to make this easy on him.
Yeah. No such luck.
In perfect synchronization, the fog-doubles flowed together like oil in water, becoming one giant, writhing storm of coat, beard, and glowing green eyes… and then, with a casual snap, they burst apart again, scattering in all directions like dramatic anime villains splitting up before a boss battle.
Gale's eye twitched so hard he thought he pulled something.
"Me," he grumbled under his breath, dodging a whip of fog, "and my big damn mouth…"
One of the Blights lunged, scythe-like tendrils curving in from the side.
Gale parried, stepped in, and stabbed straight through the chest.
Nothing.
The body dispersed like vapor in a cold wind before reforming.
"One down, five to go," he muttered.
The next one came at him with a giant fog-axe. Gale ducked under the swing, pivoted behind him, and rammed his sword into the figure's back. A hiss of mist—still nothing. Just another hollow clone.
"Okay. Sure. That's fine. Two down. Maybe I'll hit the jackpot on number three."
He didn't.
Or number four.
Or five.
By the time the fifth clone puffed into misty irrelevance, Gale was breathing a little heavier—less from exertion and more from sheer frustrated disbelief.
He stood in the clearing for a moment, sword in one hand, the other gesturing vaguely at the heavens.
"Of course the last one's the real one," he said to nobody in particular. "That's just my luck. If I ever buy a fruit basket, I'm getting six bananas and only one of them is edible."
Somewhere in the fog, a quiet chuckle echoed.
"Is that bitterness I detect?" one of the Blights asked, tone amused.
Gale rolled his shoulders. "Oh no, this is me being absolutely thrilled that I now know exactly who to shoot in the face."
He reached into his cloak and felt the comforting shape of the revolver. Two bullets left. That was it. No second chances. No "oopsie do-over."
But at least now, there was no doubt—no annoying clone shenanigans. He had a target. A real one. No more games of "Stab the Specter."
Blight stepped into view, that smug fog-cloaked silhouette standing just a little taller now, as if being the last one standing was a prize.
His fog coiled and swirled around him like a pet dragon on a leash.
"Your persistence is… admirable," Blight said, folding his arms. "But ultimately—"
Gale raised a finger. "Lemme stop you right there. You don't get to monologue after sending six ghost copies to sucker punch me for ten straight minutes. That's my turn now."
Blight blinked, genuinely thrown off.
Gale grinned. "You're not a logia. You're not untouchable. You've just been lucky up 'til now."
His fingers curled around the revolver grip. He felt the weight of it. Cold. Heavy. Honest.
"You think I'm running out of options?" Gale said, voice dropping lower. "Buddy… I live in the bottom of the barrel."
And with that, he surged forward—sword in one hand, gun in the other, aiming for the one damn Blight that had nowhere left to hide.
Gale darted forward like a man possessed, cape fluttering behind him, slashing and weaving his way through the phantom clones that had the audacity to keep getting back in his way.
One tried to trip him with a fog-tendril—he stomped right through it. Another swung wide with an axe made of mist—he ducked, rolled, and stabbed it in the ribs like he was making ghost soup.
Every slash was sharper, every movement tighter.
He was done playing fog-tag.
"You guys had your moment," he growled, slicing through the fourth clone. "Now sit down and be dead like polite little clones."
By the time he reached the last Blight—the one standing at the center like a smug statue waiting to be worshipped—Gale didn't hesitate. The moment that curved mist-blade came swinging his way, he vanished.
One blink later, he was behind the man. No warning. No one-liner. No mercy.
Click.
The cold mouth of the revolver pressed between Blight's shoulder blades.
BANG.
The shot rang out like thunder, clean and brutal. Blight's entire frame went rigid. His body jerked forward in a slow, almost theatrical collapse, fog peeling off of him in thick curls.
The other clones shimmered and popped out of existence one after the other like candles blown out by fate.
The mist around them finally began to part, as if exhaling.
Then the body fell forward, lifeless, fog curling around it like dying breath.
"…Fucking finally," Gale muttered, lowering the revolver. His voice was dry, brittle with exhaustion, like he'd just spent ten years in an endless group project where no one else pulled their weight.
But before he could even savor the relief of a job well done and maybe, maybe find a nice flat rock to collapse on…
A laugh echoed in the mist.
A low, smug, mocking laugh. Blight's voice. But it wasn't coming from the body.
Gale's entire body locked up as he turned, slowly, very slowly, toward the not-so-dead corpse.
Which, to no one's surprise, was now unraveling like unraveling a fog-scented fruit roll-up. It dissipated into the air completely, leaving nothing behind.
Gale's eyes darted around—and there they were again.
Six new Blights.
Same beard. Same coat. Same damn smug expression like he just got promoted from Vice Admiral of Fog to CEO of "You Thought."
"…You're not even here, are you?" Gale asked, voice flat and eyes twitching like a caffeine-deprived substitute teacher.
From every direction, Blight's voice echoed like he was testing out the reverb setting on a karaoke machine.
"Indeed. And I must say, your powers of deduction have improved quite nicely. But granting you another prize? That would be no different than child abuse…"
Gale didn't even have a comeback.
He just stood there, rubbing his temple with one hand and holding the revolver limp in the other.
The laugh that came out of him wasn't so much a chuckle as it was the noise you make when you step on a Lego barefoot in the middle of the night and realize the world is a cruel and pointless place.
"Great," he muttered. "I've been fighting a foggy Zoom call this whole time."
He wasn't just frustrated anymore.
He was pissed.
His fingers curled tighter around the hilt of his sword.
"Oh, we're done playing hide and seek now," Gale muttered, teeth grinding. "I'm gonna find your real body, and I'm gonna make you wish you were dead."
...
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