"Wait... no, I...!"
Nami's voice trembled with panic as she rushed toward Arlong, desperation flashing in her tearful eyes.
"Out of my way!" Arlong snarled. He shoved her aside, refusing to listen to any explanation.
Even if it wasn't her fault, he would pin the blame on her. That was how he ensured his own advantage.
Nami hit the ground hard, pain flaring through her arms. Her face twisted with shock and humiliation as tears welled up, shimmering under the fading sunlight.
"You bastard!" Ryan Quinn's voice cut through the tension like a whip. "You call yourself a man? Attacking a woman like that?"
He stood tall, his eyes burning with righteous fury, radiating the kind of calm that came before a storm.
Arlong's gills flared in rage. "Enough of your human whining! Go to hell!"
He roared, grabbing his massive serrated cleaver and lunging toward Ryan with terrifying speed.
In an instant, the towering Fishman closed the distance. His jagged blade, Shark Saw, sliced through the air, aimed straight for Ryan's skull.
"Die!"
For a moment, Ryan didn't move. His gaze remained steady, unblinking, as the monstrous blade descended toward him.
From the corner of her eye, Nami gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth as her heart nearly stopped.
What is he doing? Why isn't he dodging? Is he trying to die?
Even Nami, sharp and calculating as she was, couldn't comprehend the madness in Ryan's calm.
Then came the sound
Clang!
A harsh metallic cry split the air, followed by a chilling crack.
Ryan's dark blade flashed upward, intercepting the strike in one clean motion. His sword, the cursed Excalibur Morgan, glowed faintly with a sinister black-red hue.
The moment the two blades met, Arlong's massive cleaver shattered like brittle glass.
"What—?!" Arlong's eyes widened in disbelief as the black sword carved effortlessly through steel.
Without missing a beat, Ryan's blade traced the fracture line up the broken weapon, swinging toward Arlong's exposed neck.
Arlong's pupils shrank. Instinct screamed at him to move, and he threw himself backward just in time.
A cold sweat broke across his scaled forehead. One second slower, and his head would have rolled on the dirt.
Panting heavily, he dropped the ruined cleaver and stared at Ryan with a mixture of rage and fear.
"That blade... it's sharp," he growled.
Ryan tilted his head slightly. "It's a sword."
"I don't care if it's a sword or a toothpick! It won't matter once I tear you apart! My teeth can crush through steel!"
Arlong's voice rose into a bestial roar. "You lowly human! You dare challenge a Fishman? Repent in hell for your arrogance!"
His muscles tensed as he crouched low, power surging through his shark-like frame. "Shark... ON... Teeth Grinder!"
With a blur of motion, Arlong spun forward like a living drill, his body twisting violently as he lunged at Ryan, his serrated jaws wide open to bite through flesh and bone.
Ryan frowned slightly.
He's trying to bite through my sword? Really?
Is he dreaming? Or just insane?
Even though Ryan knew the Excalibur Morgan couldn't be damaged by such an attack, he wasn't keen on letting that mouth anywhere near it.
It was disgusting.
What if he drools on it?
With a swift sidestep, Ryan vanished from the line of attack, reappearing several feet away as Arlong's teeth snapped shut on empty air.
"Hey!" Ryan called out, his tone half amused, half disgusted. "That's seriously unhygienic!"
Arlong's face twisted in rage, his gills flaring again. "You insolent brat! SHARK... ON... DARTS!"
He spun sharply, his serrated nose aimed forward like a harpoon, propelling himself at Ryan with explosive force.
"Tch."
Ryan crouched slightly, both hands gripping his sword's hilt. Energy gathered around the blade dark, pulsating, and alive. The black-red aura of Excalibur Morgan began to burn brighter, twisting the air with its unholy heat.
The world seemed to still as Ryan raised the sword high above his head. His eyes glowed faintly, reflecting the blade's sinister power.
As Arlong's massive figure hurtled toward him, teeth bared and eyes filled with blind fury, Ryan's voice rang out:
"Vortigern! The Hammer of the Dark King!"
He swung.
The impact was instantaneous.
Before Arlong's nose even reached him, the blade's unleashed magic exploded outward, a torrent of black-red energy devouring everything in its path.
The power slammed into Arlong's torso, the dark magic tearing through muscle and bone.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion echoed across the clearing.
The lower half of Arlong's body simply ceased to exist, obliterated in a storm of crimson mist.
Blood and seawater splattered across the ground and onto Nami's stunned face.
She froze.
Her trembling fingers brushed against her cheek, where a droplet of blood slid down slowly, leaving a red trail against her skin.
"Ar... Arlong..." Her voice quivered. "He's... dead?"
It didn't feel real.
The tyrant who had ruled Cocoyasi Village for years, the same Arlong who carried a 20 million Berry bounty the most feared pirate in the East Blue was gone.
Killed in an instant.
By a stranger.
By a man she still didn't understand.
Her mind spun as she stared at the lifeless body. For the first time, the oppressive weight that had crushed her heart for years began to lift.
Tears welled up again, but this time they weren't from despair. They were warm, trembling tears of release.
Arlong's crew stood frozen, their gills flaring in panic.
If this human could kill Arlong in a single strike, what chance did they have?
Silence spread across the dock. No one dared move.
Ryan exhaled slowly and looked down at the corpse, his eyes calm but distant. "So that was worth twenty million, huh?" he muttered.
He tapped the side of his sword thoughtfully, as if trying to decide how to spend the bounty.
Then he heard it the faint sound of quiet sobbing behind him.
Turning slightly, he saw Nami standing there, tears streaming freely down her cheeks.
Her body shook, but her expression carried something new a mix of disbelief, relief, and gratitude she didn't yet know how to express.
Ryan's gaze softened for a brief second, but his presence remained chilling, the aura of battle still clinging to him.
To Nami, that moment felt surreal.
The man who had just slain a monster with a single strike was now looking right at her his cold eyes meeting hers, his face splattered with blood, his sword still humming faintly with dark power.
Her tears stopped mid-fall, frozen by that piercing stare.