While the 'Surgeon of Death' treated his people and repaired the battered submarine as far as possible, simultaneously considering how to benefit from the situation, every Straw Hat Pirate experienced a crisis previously unknown to them: Nami was crying. If her beauty could be considered one kind of 'weapon of mass destruction,' then her tears could qualify as a weapon of a similar class, merely a different type. Like an ordinary bomb compared with a poisonous one. Yosaku, Johnny, Sanji, and Usopp instantly transformed into four worried boys capable of nothing but helplessly wringing their hands. Helplessly, because fighting Luffy was impossible, while all their appeals had no effect upon him. He had become completely carried away.
By then, the young man's severed torso and legs had been joined together, only backward, while Luffy's head rested in his own hands. He kept thrusting that same head beneath Nami's nose, supposedly trying to comfort her but only making matters worse. Under any other circumstances, she would long since have tried driving Luffy's head through the Going Merry's mainmast—and this time he truly deserved it. But Luffy's 'joke' had touched the girl's deepest, most secret fears. Having lost her mother at an early age, it was hardly surprising that Nami feared above all else losing her new family as well. Luffy had always been its central pillar, to say nothing of every other reason for concern. In his desire to 'adventure' and his search for everything interesting, Luffy completely ignored common sense, logic, and self-preservation. One of Nami's hidden fears had long been that a day would come when he 'bit off' more than he could chew, causing another adventure to end in catastrophe. Luffy cut into pieces fit the description of that catastrophe perfectly.
Sniff, sniff...
"Nami, stop crying already!"
Sob, sob...
"See? My head can talk, so I'm perfectly fine!"
"U-u-u-u..."
"How could you even think somebody might kill me?"
Sniff, sniff...
"Just because somebody managed to cut me into pieces?"
"U-u-u-u..."
"I've told you more than once that getting killed is no reason to remain dead! Just look at Yosaku! He dies every day! Sometimes ten times in one day! And nothing happened—he's still alive and well!"
"U-u-u-u..."
"His Fruit's power? So what? The world may contain all kinds of ways to stay alive after dying! Or are you saying you know every one of them?"
"U-u-u-u..."
"What makes you think that? Forget such nonsense! Unless I want it, nobody is killing me!"
"U-u-u-u..."
"What kind of rubbish is that?! Why would I want to die? There's still so much I haven't seen!"
No one knew how long this 'conversation' might have continued had the situation not decided to change once again in the most unexpected fashion. Predictably, Luffy was the first to learn of that impending change, cutting off his next justification midway.
"Just think ab—"
The young man's mouth remained open, but no further sound emerged. Several seconds later, he slowly closed it, and his expression became somewhat puzzled.
"Ugh... this could prove slightly troublesome," he muttered.
"P-people!" Usopp unexpectedly spoke up. "I think I've just caught the disease called 'I-don't-want-to-stay-here-any-longer,' so let's sail away as quickly as possible!"
After a brief pause came a thunderous:
"What?!"
"I'm serious! I don't want to stay here any longer, no joke!" the noticeably pale long-nosed young man said. "Let's leave!"
"I think it's already too late," Zoro finally said.
Having initially returned to the ship to 'save' Nami—or perhaps the quotation marks were unnecessary?—from Luffy's escalating excitement, the swordsman quickly recognized the impossibility of the task he had taken upon himself. He therefore moved aside to wait until Luffy calmed somewhat, while remaining ready in case the young man went even further and had to be restrained regardless of consequences.
"What are all of you talking about?" Johnny asked in extreme confusion.
"Luffy?" Zoro asked.
"We'll see how the cards fall."
"Are you sure? It's about four hundred meters long."
"I wouldn't be surprised if it's larger."
"Guys, can we please run away? Please?" Usopp began openly whining. Nami, who had spent the entire time sitting on deck with her forehead pressed to her knees, did the opposite. She fell silent and raised tear-filled eyes toward everyone.
"I already said it's too late," Zoro repeated.
"More accurately, we never had a chance in the first place," Luffy added. "The creature is too enormous."
"What are you talking about?!" Johnny could no longer endure the mystery.
"You'd better hold on," Zoro advised him. "Everyone should hold on. It's about to start shaking."
"Why?!" Johnny's question sounded almost like a cry from the soul.
While Johnny tried to extract details—he was curious, simply incurably curious—Yosaku and Sanji behaved more sensibly. They silently followed Zoro's advice and gripped the ship's railing. The swordsman himself approached Tashigi, who stood somewhat apart, and placed one hand upon her shoulder. When the girl prepared to protest, he gave her such a look that she instantly transformed into a pillar of salt. Luffy climbed over to 'hug' Nami, but since the girl had not even begun considering forgiveness, she immediately fought him with all her strength. After his latest 'joke,' Nami did not want to see him, much less embrace him—especially while the young man still had a severed head and, below his stomach, his backside occupied the place where his groin should have been. Despite every attempt by Nami to resist, Luffy imposed his 'hug' upon her anyway.
"Should we warn our new acquaintances?" Zoro asked.
"Why? If they die, then it wasn't meant to be," came the remarkably cold-blooded answer.
"Fair enough." The swordsman nodded indifferently.
Zoro had met Law for the first time that day, so he did not care in the slightest whether the man survived the next several minutes. Besides, after spending so much time near Luffy, he too had begun to appreciate the ethereal thing called fate. If Trafalgar Law could not survive, then his destiny had been too simple. Fate's favorites always survived. This did not mean one could ignore most of the world's people, but there was no reason to save Law either. Johnny and Yosaku were one matter; their destinies had unquestionably been changed radically by Luffy's intervention. A pirate on the Grand Line was entirely another. The time, place, and circumstances of their meeting differed far too greatly to produce the same result, so it was best to rely upon fate's decision—or Law's own strength. After all, every person possessed the ability to change fate, though not everyone found the strength to use it. This would also be a good test.
"So still..." Johnny began trying to reach the truth again, and immediately received his answer.
For an instant, everyone aboard the Going Merry and the nearby drifting Heart Pirates' submarine thought the sea itself had risen into a wall. Then they began falling into a marine abyss, drawn downward by an enormous whirlpool. Black walls surrounded them, while the sun rapidly receded as though the ships had entered some tunnel. Nami's arms instantly clamped around Luffy like steel pincers. Of every uninitiated person, she was the first not only to understand what was happening, but actually to see an enormous mouth close somewhere high above them. No sea had risen and no whirlpool existed. A gigantic monster had managed to swallow both ships at once. Now all of them were heading directly toward its stomach.
Or perhaps not.
"Everything is clear. We're dead!"
With those words, Luffy broke the silence that settled over the ship after the Going Merry reached the supposed stomach of the creature that had swallowed them. There was an excellent reason both for the silence and for Luffy's words. Given time to think, almost anyone could realize that a stomach was essentially a sack containing liquid capable of digesting various organic matter. It was also important that this would be a dark 'sack.' Where would light come from inside a stomach? It did not matter whether the stomach belonged to a human or a Sea King. Aside from size, there was no fundamental difference. Naturally, creatures with different digestive systems existed, but even that fact could not explain what was happening. Strangely, Luffy's phrase could serve as an 'excellent' explanation: no one knew what life after death was supposed to look like. It would have been more reasonable to assume hallucination, illusion, a waking dream, or something similar, but such possibilities were too 'boring' and were therefore immediately discarded in favor of the more "entertaining" explanation.
"...I can't die," Yosaku offered as a counterargument, though his voice lacked confidence.
"I don't know, I don't know." Johnny shook his head. "I've always wondered what would happen if you were cut into pieces and fed to some creature so it digested you. How would your Fruit work then? Would it work at all? If it did, would you begin regenerating inside the creature's body, or from the pile of shit left after it digested you?"
"...Your uncontrollable curiosity frightens me more with every passing day," Yosaku admitted honestly after involuntarily imagining the scene his friend described.
"It would be more interesting to throw him into lava," Luffy's head immediately said, refusing to miss the opportunity. "Would he burn to ash and fail to recover? Or would he burn and regenerate at the same time, condemned to eternal torment?" At the words 'eternal torment,' the young man added extra drama to his voice, as though genuinely concerned for Yosaku's fate rather than eager to learn the answer to an interesting question.
After those words, Yosaku involuntarily took several steps backward. Johnny's irrepressible curiosity could not compare with Luffy's desire to see something 'interesting.' Once, while Johnny had merely discussed the limits of Yosaku's immortality, Luffy had gone and cut off his head. This was therefore an excellent moment to hide behind Nami or Zoro. The problem was that Nami still sat on deck embracing Luffy's body, while his severed head rested in Zoro's hands, so Yosaku had no desire to approach either of them. At least they themselves understood their roles within the family.
"Luffy," Zoro said warningly with a frown. Though he spoke only one word, everyone understood its meaning.
"Don't even think about it!" Whatever the situation, and whatever feelings she experienced after everything that had happened, Nami could not remain silent. "What will you do if he actually dies?" Although the girl embraced Luffy's body, she addressed his severed head. This was unquestionably logical, yet looked entirely surreal.
"Isn't it obvious?" Luffy asked in response, though Nami had not intended her words as a genuine question. "We'll search for a way to bring him back to life! I think that would also make a fairly interesting adventure."