The sky split open.
A pulse of pure darkness erupted from Noctis, warping reality itself. The battlefield trembled as a crushing force expanded outward, swallowing the very concept of light.
Hiro's breath hitched. His instincts, honed through countless battles, screamed at him—this was beyond normal darkness. This was an abyss that devoured even the void itself.
Noctis spread his arms wide, his grin widening. "This is my domain."
Hiro barely had time to react before everything went black.
Not just sight—his entire being was swallowed.
His Haki flared, but it was like trying to light a candle in an infinite abyss. His body felt weightless, his senses dulled as if he had been cast into a realm where existence itself faltered.
Noctis' voice echoed, omnipresent. "You feel it, don't you? True darkness doesn't just obscure vision—it erases presence, devours will, consumes everything."
Hiro clenched his fists. He had faced powerful foes before, but this was something else. A living void.
Then, pain.
A blade sliced across his ribs, unseen, undetectable.
Another cut followed.
Then another.
Hiro gritted his teeth as slashes rained down on him from all directions. He couldn't see, couldn't hear his opponent—only feel the agony of being torn apart in the dark.
But he refused to yield.
Hiro exhaled, steadying his mind. He focused not on his eyes or ears but on something deeper. The rhythm of the battlefield. The pulse of the world.
His Observation Haki sharpened.
Then—he felt it.
A ripple in the abyss. A slight distortion where Noctis moved.
There.
Hiro struck.
His spear materialized in an instant, coated in pure blackened Armament Haki, his Conqueror's Will bleeding into it.
CLASH!
For the first time, Noctis faltered.
Hiro smirked. "Your abyss isn't perfect."
The darkness trembled. Noctis' presence flickered—just enough.
Hiro didn't waste the opportunity. He moved.
His body blurred as he weaved through the void, his spear cutting through the unseen chains binding him. The abyss around him recoiled as he forced his will upon it.
Then the world exploded.
A pulse of Night Night no Mi energy erupted from Hiro, colliding with Noctis' abyss. The battlefield twisted as two absolute voids clashed, neither willing to submit.
Hiro's voice was calm, but his eyes burned. "I don't need light to see."
Noctis' grin remained, but his fingers twitched. For the first time, Hiro had pushed him back.
The atmosphere crackled with tension. Hiro's eyes glinted with determination, his body rippling with barely-contained power. The clash between him and Noctis had sent shockwaves through the air, but the true force of their battle hadn't even begun to unfold.
Noctis stood at the center of the shifting darkness, his figure barely distinguishable from the abyss itself. "Impressive," he drawled, his voice like the whisper of a forgotten soul. "But do you really believe you can beat me?"
Hiro's gaze never wavered, though his breathing was steady and controlled. The attacks that had rained down on him moments ago had done little to slow him—this was a fight for survival, for his crew, and for the sake of his very existence.
Hiro grinned, the corner of his lips curving upward. "I don't need to believe. I just need to win."
Noctis' lips curled into a snarl, but the darkness only seemed to grow more profound around him. "Such confidence, yet you are bound by limits. What happens when there are no limits left to break?"
The air shifted again. Hiro's eyes flicked downward for just a moment, and he saw it—Noctis was manipulating the very essence of the world around them, bending reality as though it were a fragile thread ready to snap at a whim.
The ground beneath Hiro's feet fractured, pieces of it dissolving into nothingness as the space around him warped and bent. The very notion of time and direction felt irrelevant, a shifting illusion that Noctis held in his grasp.
Hiro could feel the weight of the situation bearing down on him, the suffocating pressure of the void pressing against his mind. He had been in close-quarter battles, dealt with enemies who were stronger than him, and faced those who wielded abilities that bent the fabric of reality. But this—this was different.
This was the power of the true abyss.
His body tingled with an invisible force as Noctis' voice seemed to echo from all directions. "You understand now, don't you? Your Haki, your devil fruit powers... they are nothing in the face of true annihilation."
The darkness stretched and twisted around Hiro, wrapping itself around his limbs. It was as if the very world itself was trying to eat him alive. He could hear the wind howl, but it was distant—hollow.
Then Hiro did something unexpected.
He let go.
The darkness closed in, but Hiro stood unmoving, his body slack. He exhaled slowly, clearing his mind. He was letting it consume him.
Noctis chuckled, his form materializing in front of Hiro as his abyssal form swirled around him like smoke. "Do you think you can escape it? There is nothing here for you, pirate. You will—"
But before Noctis could finish, Hiro's Conqueror's Haki erupted in a violent wave, breaking through the suffocating grip of the void.
The power of the Night Night no Mi hummed with darkness, and Hiro's form began to shift, melding with the very essence of the abyss that Noctis had unleashed. Hiro's eyes flared with determination.
"This is my darkness."
Hiro's body blurred as he disappeared, melding with the shadows themselves. Noctis could sense him, but only barely. The very fabric of the battlefield twisted as Hiro's presence merged with the night. Hiro was now a part of the abyss, not overwhelmed by it, but embracing it.
Hiro emerged from the blackness behind Noctis, his form a blur of shadow. "You never understood it, did you? Darkness isn't just something that devours. It's something that exists outside of your reach. A part of me."
In that moment, the battlefield seemed to freeze. Noctis spun around, but it was too late. Hiro's spear pierced through the void, faster than Noctis could react.
"Night's End."
A single thrust.
Noctis froze, his eyes wide with shock as the spear, powered by the full force of Hiro's darkness and Haki, impaled him through the chest. The blackness around him flickered, wavered, and then began to fade as Noctis' form dissolved into nothing.
For a brief moment, everything was silent. The air hung still, and Hiro's heart pounded in his chest as he stood amidst the dissipating darkness.
But as the blackness faded, Noctis' voice rang out once more, though it was quieter, more distant. "This... is not over..."
Hiro exhaled deeply, his grip on the spear tightening. His shadowy form shimmered as he stepped back, his eyes scanning the void, the flicker of a smile dancing on his lips.
"Noctis…" Hiro murmured, his voice cold. "You were a threat. But now, you are just another casualty."
But deep down, Hiro knew that Noctis' words weren't entirely without truth. Even if he had won this battle, the fight for the future of the New World was far from over.