The armor was shattered. The ultimate weapon was broken. Don Krieg, the man who had built an empire on the foundation of his own invincibility, was finally, truly vulnerable.
But a cornered beast is at its most dangerous. A king with nothing left to lose is the most terrifying foe of all.
Even as his spirit reeled from the defeat, his body, running on a lifetime of pure, spiteful instinct, acted. With a final, desperate roar that was more animal than human, he triggered his last hidden weapon. A launcher hidden within his remaining shoulder plate fired, not a bomb or a stake, but a heavy, tightly woven iron net, a tool not for glorious combat, but for base capture.
It shot through the air and ensnared Luffy, who was still airborne and off-balance from his final, triumphant Bazooka. The heavy, cold iron wrapped around his body like the grip of a giant, metallic spider, pinning his arms to his sides. His forward momentum gone, he hung in the air for a split second, a helpless pendulum, before beginning to plummet towards the churning, unforgiving sea below.
A horrifying realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. The sea. The source of his power, and his one, absolute weakness. Entangled in this iron anchor, weighted down by his own victory, he would sink to the bottom and drown.
A triumphant, bloody smirk spread across Don Krieg's face, a mask of pure, ugly revenge. His grand plan was in ruins, his pride was shattered, but he could still claim this small, final victory. He had lost the battle, but he would still take his opponent's life.
But Luffy was not done. He was a creature of indomitable will. He couldn't use his arms, but his hands and feet were still free. Twisting and writhing within the confines of the net, he stretched his legs and neck out, aiming a flurry of desperate kicks and headbutts at Krieg, fighting even as he fell.
"Still struggling, you pathetic worm?!" Krieg roared, enraged by his opponent's refusal to simply die. "MEN! SHOOT HIM DOWN! Shoot him out of the sky like the dog he is!"
The remaining Krieg pirates, seeing their chance for a final, cowardly revenge, raised their rifles.
On the deck of the Baratie, Sanji watched in horror. "Luffy! Get out of there! Why aren't you trying to escape the net?! You're just falling!"
"He can't," Zeff's voice was a low, gravelly rumble beside him. Sanji turned to see the old man's single eye fixed on the falling boy with an expression of profound, intense focus. "He can't look down now. After a battle like this, after pushing past his limits to achieve victory, a man's spirit is on the line. To retreat now would be to deny everything he just fought for."
He continued, his words a lesson forged in the fires of the Grand Line, a philosophy that Sanji was only just beginning to understand. "That boy possesses a weapon that a man like Krieg, for all his armor and all his schemes, could never comprehend. It is a 'spear' of courage, a harpoon of will that he aims straight at his goal, and he will never, ever let it go. On the battlefield, it is the one who fears death, even for a single, fleeting second, who loses. That boy… he doesn't have that fear. That is why he won."
As the Krieg pirates took aim, their rifles glinting in the sun, Sanji finally understood. He moved in a blur, a whirlwind of black shoes and righteous fury, a series of swift, elegant kicks that sent the pirates' rifles flying from their hands, clattering uselessly to the deck.
With the threat from below neutralized, Luffy saw his chance. He had one final, desperate, insane attack left. He twisted his legs together until his rubbery limbs were coiled as tight as a powerful spring. He then stretched his arms through the net, grabbing onto Krieg's head, his rubbery fingers finding purchase on the tyrant's golden hair and steel jaw.
"Gomu Gomu no TSUCHI!" (Hammer!)
He untwisted his body. The spinning, hammer-like force of his coiled legs came crashing down, his feet slamming into Krieg's head with the force of a meteor.
The final blow landed. Krieg's eyes rolled back into his head, and his body finally went limp, truly and utterly defeated, and collapsed onto the wreckage.
But Luffy, still ensnared in the heavy iron net, his energy completely spent, continued his descent. He hit the water with a heavy splash, his consciousness fading as he plunged into the cold, unforgiving, and deadly sea. Certain death awaited him.
"He's going to drown!" the chefs screamed.
Zeff calmly turned to his sous chef. "Well, don't just stand there, you little eggplant. Go get him. He can't swim."
Sanji's jaw dropped. The sheer, infuriating nonchalance of the old man was breathtaking. "YOU'RE ONLY TELLING ME THAT NOW, YOU SHITTY OLD GEEZER?!" he roared, but he was already kicking off his shoes and diving into the churning water without a second's hesitation.
The battle was over. A long, stunned silence fell over the wreckage, broken only by the sound of the waves.
Gin, still weak from the poison but conscious, stared at the spot where his captain had fallen, his mind unable to process the defeat. Don Krieg… the strongest man in the East Blue… the symbol of absolute power… had lost.
As if in a trance, Krieg's unconscious body, powered by sheer muscle memory and a will that refused to die, began to twitch and stand up, a horrifying, mindless puppet. His crew stared, too terrified to even speak.
It was Gin who ended the farce. He walked onto the wreckage, his face a mask of grim finality. He stood before his captain's empty shell and delivered a single, powerful, but not malicious, punch to the gut. Krieg collapsed, finally out for good.
Gin turned to his terrified, leaderless crewmates, who were now just broken survivors of a failed dream.
"It's over," he announced, his voice ringing with a new, quiet authority. "Don Krieg's ambition to rule the seas has died here today. But we are not dead. We will take our captain, and we will leave this place. We will start anew."
He then turned to the chefs of the Baratie, and to Sanji, who was now pulling a sputtering, unconscious Luffy from the water. He gave them a deep, respectful bow, a final, silent apology and thank you, before leading his men away, a defeated but not broken man, ready to forge a new path.