The sea itself seemed to roar in protest. Momoo, the colossal sea cow, let out a final, terrified bellow as it rocketed towards the shore of the Conomi Islands, dragging the small boat behind it like a child's toy.
"YAHOOO! FASTER, MOO-MOO!" Luffy cheered, enjoying the ride of his life.
"STOP SMILING, YOU IDIOT! WE'RE GOING TO CRASH!" Sanji yelled, trying to brace himself.
Yosaku, at the tiller, could only scream in terror.
They hit the shore with the force of a cannonball. The small boat shattered into a thousand pieces, sending Luffy, Sanji, and Yosaku flying high into the air in a comical, cartwheeling arc. Momoo, its momentum unchecked, crashed head-first into the island itself, creating a massive crater before sliding back into the sea, its eyes spinning, completely knocked out.
At that exact moment, Zoro was sprinting frantically along the coast, his mind a whirlwind of worry. 'Usopp… captured… I have to get back to Arlong Park before they…'
He heard the massive crash from the landing and looked up just in time to see three familiar figures plummeting from the sky directly on top of him.
CRASH!
A tangled heap of a rubber man, a blond cook, a green-haired swordsman, and a terrified bounty hunter lay in the middle of the path.
"Oww… what a rough landing," Luffy mumbled from the bottom of the pile.
Zoro shoved them off, his expression grim and urgent. "This is no time for games! Usopp has been captured by Arlong! If we don't hurry, they're going to kill him!"
But before they could even form a plan, another figure stumbled out from the trees. It was Johnny, his face pale as a ghost, his body trembling.
"Aniki…" he stammered, his eyes wide with a horror that chilled them to the bone. "It's… it's too late…"
"What are you talking about?" Zoro demanded.
Johnny fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. "Usopp-aniki… is dead. I saw it with my own eyes… Nami-aneki… she killed him."
The world stopped. The sea breeze felt cold. The cheerful sun seemed to lose its warmth. Luffy and Sanji stared at him, their faces a mask of pure, unadulterated shock.
Meanwhile, just off the coast, the terrified survivors of Gosa Village watched from their makeshift camp as a new ship appeared on the horizon. It was a Marine vessel, its sails bearing the symbol of justice. A wave of tearful, desperate hope washed over them.
"We're saved! The Marines are here!"
On the deck of the ship, the smartly-dressed Commodore Pudding Pudding looked at the ominous island through his spyglass. "Our sense of justice will not allow us to overlook a pirate stronghold that brings such suffering to innocent people," he declared to his men. "Our mission is to rescue the survivors and eliminate the pirates! For justice!"
The Marines let out a determined roar.
At Arlong Park, a Fish-Man scout reported the ship's arrival. Arlong, lounging on his throne, didn't even look up from cleaning his teeth. "The 77th Branch? Never heard of them. They must be new." He yawned. "Offer them a bribe of two million Beli to look the other way. If they refuse, dispose of them."
Just as he finished speaking, the roar of a cannon echoed across the water. A cannonball came screaming towards him.
Arlong just grinned. He opened his mouth, a cavern of razor-sharp teeth, and caught the cannonball between his monstrous jaws.
CRUNCH.
He crushed the solid iron into scrap metal and spat it out. "Cancel the negotiations," he said calmly.
His top three officers—Hatchan the octopus, Chew the archerfish, and Kuroobi the ray—stepped forward. "Allow us to handle this, Arlong-san."
What followed was not a battle. It was a massacre.
Chew leaped onto the deck of the Marine ship and, with his incredible lung capacity, fired jets of water from his mouth like bullets, mowing down the terrified soldiers. Mizu Teppo!
Kuroobi, a master of Fish-Man Karate, dove into the sea and ripped the ship's rudder clean off with his bare hands.
Hatchan, with his immense strength, simply pushed the now-uncontrollable ship, driving it into a sharp, underwater reef, creating a massive, swirling whirlpool that sucked the entire vessel, and all the hope of the Gosa villagers, down into the dark, silent depths.
The three officers returned to the throne room, not even breathing heavily.
"That was nothing," Kuroobi said.
"Thanks to your maps, Nami," Hatchan added, "we knew the reef's exact location!"
"We Fish-Men are invincible!" Chew declared. He then turned to Arlong. "But Arlong-san, are you really going to let that human girl go once she pays her debt of 100 million? She's an invaluable asset."
Arlong just laughed. "I would rather die than break a promise regarding money."
Back on the shore, Luffy was grabbing Johnny by the collar, shaking him violently. His face was a mask of furious denial.
"YOU'RE LYING!" he roared. "NAMI WOULD NEVER KILL USOPP! SHE WOULDN'T HURT ONE OF HER CREWMATES!"
"Who," a cold voice cut in from behind them, "are you calling a crewmate?"
They all spun around.
It was Nami. She stood there, her expression cold and unreadable, the saw-shark tattoo of the Arlong Pirates a dark, damning brand on her shoulder. She looked at them not as friends, but as obstacles, as insects. The warmth and laughter she had shared with them on the Going Merry was gone, replaced by an icy, impenetrable wall.