Viola was beautiful and her past pitiful.
Yami killed her without mercy.
Transmigrators are all egoists; Yami was no exception.
Coming from another world, he felt no guilt killing people of this one.
If Viola had a grievance, it was only that she possessed a power Yami wanted.
Before a strategic-class ability, a pretty face is worthless.
After killing Viola, Yami swiftly seized the Paramecia Glare-Glare Fruit.
He then closed his eyes for a moment and slowly opened them.
In an instant, the world before him changed.
His gaze shot like a streak of light through the room, then the palace, then up to the sky.
An invisible pair of gigantic eyes looked down upon Dressrosa in the direction Yami faced.
Everything seen from that god's-eye view projected into his mind.
At the same time his own eyes retained a first-person view that could hop in an instant to any point the god's-eye beheld.
He slowly raised both hands, making an OK sign with thumbs and forefingers. A thin membranous film formed within the circle.
He switched his vision to a street scene and lifted the finger-circle to his eyes.
Men and women on the street first lost their clothes and stood as if naked, then their flesh vanished, leaving only walking bones.
Zooming further, the scenes within their hearts and brains projected into his mind.
Far sight. X-ray. Mind-reading.
"Incredible power. Compared to this, Enel's and Fujitora's Observation Haki are little-brother level."
After using the Glare-Glare Fruit's three faculties, Yami murmured in mild awe.
Confidence flooded him.
For now, he truly had nothing to fear.
He could focus on raising his strength and slowly forming a crew.
He dumped Viola's body in the other space and headed for Dressrosa's docks.
On the way, he used the thousand-mile eye to find a sparsely manned sailing ship, then handled its crew as he had Viola and stole the vessel to depart.
Viola's disappearance would surely alarm Doflamingo.
If he had no vivre card for her, he might think she fled and take it out on King Riku.
If he did have one, he would soon know she was dead, suspect a formidable intruder in Dressrosa, and begin a search.
None of that concerned Yami.
Since eating the Dark-Dark Fruit, he had been in a rush.
He rushed to Water 7 to hunt Blueno, then rushed to Dressrosa to hunt Viola.
If not for his special physique that needed no rest, he could not have endured it.
Even so, he felt deeply tired.
For days he had been almost constantly at sea.
He hadn't stayed even a full day in Water 7, not even an hour in the Sabaody Archipelago before heading to the New World.
At islands along the way he did nothing but resupply and leave.
He disliked such sailing.
Now that he had the powers he needed and the confidence to fear nothing, he could finally enjoy the wonders of another world.
He took out an Eternal Pose and steered the ship toward the Red Line.
…
Half a month later.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
On an uninhabited island in the first half of the Grand Line, Yami was pummeling a rock ridge more than ten meters high.
To be precise, he was using the ridge as a training post.
Who has the best natural talent in this world?
He didn't know about Rocks or Roger.
But among the current Emperors, none had childhood talent more outstanding than Charlotte Linlin.
A born monster, at five years old she swatted at the giants' mosquitoes and accidentally broke a few of their ribs with a single slap.
The blades of giants—terrifying in their power—could not harm her in the least; instead their weapons shattered from the rebound.
At six, she formed a pirate crew with Streusen and could casually destroy a city. In an era when even Rocks might not yet have risen, her first bounty was fifty million belli, soaring to five hundred million a few years later.
Those "few years" were at most nine; Charlotte Linlin was only fifteen then.
A fifteen-year-old in that era, with a five-hundred-million bounty.
The Supernovas of the Great Pirate Era—worst generation, Ace included—weren't even worthy to carry her shoes.
And that wasn't even the most frightening part.
The most frightening thing was that Charlotte Linlin was lazy—disliked training, loved eating and having children—a terminal sluggard.
With so many children in the story, she was either giving birth or on the way to it.
Pregnant, she neither trained nor slept properly.
She possessed the world's strongest talent yet squandered the world's favor.
Even so, she was still one of the strongest female pirates of the Rocks era, and the strongest woman across both the last age and this one.
The instant Yami gained the born-monster physique, his weakling body became invincible across the seas.
If his starting strength was that monstrous, the potential of a born monster was beyond imagining.
So he would never waste his talent like Charlotte Linlin.
After blasting another ridge apart, Yami rested a while.
As he drank water, his eyes went glassy, staring ahead.
He looked dazed, but in truth he was using the thousand-mile eye to watch an island.
Water 7.
His gaze tracked Rob Lucci and the others.
All of them knew Blueno was gone.
But with no body found and Iceburg showing no change whatsoever, they ruled out exposure and continued their undercover work at Galley-La Company.
Yami's purpose in watching wasn't to see whether they would investigate Blueno's disappearance and cause of death.
It was to wait until their training sessions and secretly use mind-reading to steal Rokushiki—and even Life Return—training methods.
As a born monster, Yami wouldn't fight like Charlotte Linlin with weapons.
What suited him best were pure martial arts and Armament Haki, crowned with Conqueror's coating.
A natural close-combat prodigy.
Rokushiki was a human-body martial art designed to surpass human limits—
or, put another way, a regimen for unlocking bodily potential and breaking past one's physical restraints.
Training Rokushiki would develop the body more efficiently than blindly pounding rocks.
But only Marine officers of at least headquarters rank and the World Government's CP organizations could learn it.
For a transmigrator like Yami, obtaining such methods was difficult.
That was why he had been so eager to seize the Glare-Glare Fruit.
The earlier he gained it, the earlier he could steal Rokushiki—and even Life Return.
Lucci and company had only just infiltrated Galley-La this year.
Over the next five years, there was no way they wouldn't train Rokushiki.
Had they idled for five years, they would never have reached the strength shown in the story.
So once Lucci began, Yami could learn in secret—fully grasping the CP9's eight-hundred-year peak killing art, Rokushiki.