Teach stood alone on the storm-wracked slopes of Thunder God Island, his body trembling under the endless punishment of the sky.
Black hair floated in the air, charged by static, while blood trickled from his mouth and nose. Every breath came ragged as he performed the Thunder Breathing Method, his body generating weak currents that clashed against the raw fury of natural lightning.
It was like throwing eggs against stone. His currents shattered instantly, swept away by the overwhelming energy pouring into him.
But Teach was not here to resist.
He was here to consume.
Through Life Return, he bent his will inward, using his body's control to slowly digest the energy of the lightning. His muscles could endure, but his heart and lungs screamed. His organs trembled on the brink of failure. The pain was so sharp it hollowed his mind, forcing him to the edge of collapse.
And yet he endured.
The Monkey King Wine he'd once received from Kakarot coursed in his veins, strengthening him when he would otherwise have been broken. He poured Armament Haki deeper into his body, layering protection until the incoming bolts dulled just enough to become bearable.
He let out a shaky laugh, his voice echoing into the storm. "Zehahahaha… close one."
Blood dripped from his lips, but his eyes burned with hunger. He knew this method was working. His currents were growing stronger, thread by thread, as he refined the energy flooding him.
Life Return… truly a divine technique.
In Teach's mind, it stood shoulder to shoulder with the three forms of Haki.
Ordinary men could become extraordinary with it. He even suspected Garp, the so-called Marine Hero, owed his endless vitality to mastery of Life Return. That was how the man stayed a monster for decades.
Hours passed.
Then a full day.
Teach sat in the storm, unmoving, his body the battlefield between human current and divine lightning. At first, the difference had been crushing. Now, bit by bit, he felt the scales shift. His body adapted. His currents grew denser.
By the time he opened his eyes, he had stepped into a new threshold of resistance. Lightning no longer felt like death striking from the heavens, it felt like a forge tempering steel.
When a mutated leopard stalked from the shadows, eyes gleaming, Teach barely moved. He let the beast pounce, then caught it with one hand, twisted, and broke its neck. Dinner.
He had no more time to waste. Deeper still.
As he advanced toward Thunder God's Peak, the lightning grew even fiercer.
He adjusted his own magnetic field with Observation Haki and Life Return, not to avoid the strikes, but to invite them, to make the heavens hurl their fury upon him.
Bolts chased him step for step. The deeper he walked, the more savage the storm.
Even the earth warped, sand and stone floated, suspended in midair by the twisted magnetic field. The few trees here, charred black, were alive only because they had long ago adapted to lightning.
When he finally stood at the foot of Thunder God Peak, he looked up and laughed. The mountain stretched like a pillar into the heavens, its steep cliffs gleaming silver-blue from arcs of lightning dancing across their faces. The peak vanished into thunderclouds so low they seemed to smother the earth.
Kaido had trained here. Teach knew it.
That monster had endured half a year within those very clouds. Teach was no Kaido, he didn't have a dragon's body or the Nine Transformations of the Azure Dragon but he would carve his own path.
His Observation Haki swept across the mountain. That was when he felt it. Not just lightning. Something else. A ripple of energy buried within the rock. And alongside it, the unmistakable shape of a Devil Fruit.
Teach's lips curved into a grin.
He began climbing, each leap carrying him seven or eight meters up the near-vertical cliffs. His body sparked like a beacon, lightning chasing him upward.
At the halfway point, he spotted it. Nestled in a rocky crevice, glowing faintly against the charred stone, sat a fruit shaped like a peach, its skin a shimmering blue patterned with swirling marks.
Teach plucked it free, weighing it in his palm.
"Not golden, huh? Zehahaha… greedy of me to think it would be lightning itself. Still…" He tucked it away.
That made six Devil Fruits in his collection, the Ancient Zoan Night-Blood Bat, the Spring-Spring Fruit set aside for a companion, the Zoan fruits, Mantis, and Emperor-Crocodile, the snake-like Zoan he'd acquired from the Tiger King's trade, and now this new find.
Counting the ones given to Kaido and others, he had already touched eleven Devil Fruits. A fortune of futures waiting to be claimed.
But his Haki tugged him upward. There was more.
The strange energy he had sensed earlier pulsed closer to the summit.
He climbed faster, bolts falling so thick the sky itself seemed to collapse on him. And then he saw it, embedded in the mountain itself, hidden beneath centuries of storms.
A golden stone, glowing faintly, veins of lightning trapped inside like a living storm.
Teach clawed his way into the rock, fingers tearing stone apart. With a crack, he wrenched the gem free. Lightning arced across his arm, and for a moment, he nearly dropped it.
This was no Devil Fruit.
This was something else, a thunderstone; born from lightning tempered into matter. It thrummed in his palm, carrying the power of twenty to thirty million volts.
Teach's eyes gleamed. He pushed current into it, and the stone awakened, wrapping his arm in crackling arcs. His attacks surged with newfound power, his stamina consumption cut in half.
He laughed, the sound echoing like thunder.
"Zehahahaha! A gift from the gods themselves!"
Already his mind raced with uses. He could fuse it into his sword Thunder Fang, craft it into a gauntlet, train with it to refine his currents. Through Observation Haki, he could feel more of them scattered through Thunder God Peak.
Enough to change his arsenal forever.
So he stayed.
Ten days of training within the storm, drawing on thunderstones, feeding on lightning. When he finally descended, bare-chested and scarred, his current had risen to seven, even eight million volts. His body was sharper, his Haki denser. A small gain, but to Teach, every step mattered.
When he returned to the outskirts town, no bolts chased him anymore. He had mastered his magnetic field, walking calm beneath the sky as if the island itself acknowledged him.
At the inn, he found Mobius and Voss bruised from training, Pitou watching from the side with her usual quiet brilliance. She learned faster than anyone, but he did not push her to break herself, her talent was her own weapon.
Two months had passed since they set out.
Three more kingdoms lay ahead before their true destination; Wano.
The journey was faster than planned, but far richer. Companions gained. Power collected and Seeds planted.
And one day, when they sprouted, the world would tremble.