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Bang!
The door to the ship's cabin was kicked apart. A massive red-furred gorilla burst out, howling wildly as it rampaged onto the deck.
"Nyuu, Arlong!" The octopus Fish-Man, Hatchan, chased after him in a panic.
His face was covered in blood, and he bore several injuries. His slick, mucus-covered tentacles were streaked with tufts of red fur.
"Calm down, Arlong!" The ship's doctor, Aladin, rushed out from the cabin behind them, shouting, "You're still injured!"
"ROOAARR!!" The red-haired gorilla beat his chest and roared. The Fish-Man crewmates on deck looked on with pity as the gorilla, its voice clearly filled with Arlong's fury, roared out:
"How do you expect me to calm down?! Look at what I've become!!"
The red-furred gorilla ground his teeth, furious. Several Fish-Men tried to restrain him, but in his beastly, Zoan-enhanced form, Arlong threw them off violently.
"He's gotten way stronger! This… could it be…"
Arlong rampaged across the deck, unstoppable, then threw back his head and howled to the sky, before suddenly going berserk, tearing chunks of red fur off his own body.
"This isn't me! I'm not supposed to be like this!"
He clawed off massive patches of his own fur, leaving behind bloody bald spots.
"This isn't me! It's not me at all!"
Rage.
Uncontrollable rage.
As the maddened gorilla howled, tufts of red hair scattered through the damp, salty air, falling like feathers.
"That's enough, Arlong. Calm down." Tiger, wrapped in bandages, approached with a stern face and punched the red-furred gorilla in the face,
But didn't knock him down.
Arlong's face was pressed by Tiger's fist, but he remained standing, unmoved.
He's stronger… Tiger's eyes widened in surprise as he felt the gorilla's skull pressing his fist back.
The other Fish-Men were utterly shocked, Arlong was actually holding his ground against the Old Boss Tiger?!
"ARLONG!" Jinbe shouted, charging in with a frigid expression. He threw a heavy punch into Arlong's abdomen. Bang!
"Are you trying to challenge Big Boss Tiger?!" Jinbe growled, his eyes dark beneath his furrowed brow.
In front of Tiger and Jinbe, the red-furred gorilla finally collapsed slowly to the ground.
Tiger rubbed his wrist. Blood seeped through the bandages wrapped around it.
He lowered his head, silently watching his bald, patchy gorilla-like comrade.
The beast covered its face with one large, bald arm, and its entire body trembled faintly.
"Uuuhh…"
From beneath that arm came the raspy sound of sobbing. Arlong was crying.
The Fish-Man brothers aboard the ship were deeply moved. Some, the more emotional ones, even began to shed tears.
"Waaaaahhh… Big Brother Tiger… How did this happen to me…?" Arlong's face, now a tear- and snot-soaked gorilla mask, was pitiful and ugly as he sobbed. He lay sprawled on the deck, weeping loudly,
"I… I'm supposed to be… a proud Fish-Man!!"
His cries were raw, like screams of blood and pain.
Tiger clenched his fist tightly. After a moment of silence, he said: "As far as I know… The only thing that could cause something like this… is a Zoan-type Devil Fruit."
Jinbe was stunned. He turned sharply to look behind him, but the resort island was already long out of sight.
"What happened… while you were still on the ship?" Tiger crouched down, turning toward the sobbing Hatchan.
"Nyuu… nothing happened!" Hatchan, rubbing tears from two of his hands, used another pair to hug himself, and the last two to count off on his fingers as he choked through his sobs: "I was taking care of Arlong the whole time while he was unconscious…
Then when he woke up, he just started growing this thick red fur on his arms… and then… he turned into this gorilla form…!"
Whiz!
Tiger was suddenly slammed aside, the bald-patched gorilla rolled and leapt toward the ship's rail, and without hesitation, threw himself overboard, disappearing into the sea.
"He's dangerous! Stop him!" Tiger reached out and shouted.
The other Fish-Men were stunned, because that line sounded completely illogical at first.
Jumping into the sea?! What place could be safer or more comfortable for a Fish-Man than the sea?
"Nyuu!" Only Hatchan didn't hesitate. Before Tiger's words had fully left his mouth, he had already leapt off the ship, Splash!
Everyone gathered at the railing and looked down. Not long after, Hatchan surfaced, carrying on his back a bloodied but now reverted Fish-Man Arlong.
But Arlong's expression was hollow, more devastated than anyone had ever seen. He looked like he'd just suffered a soul-crushing blow. His whole body seemed to have lost its strength.
"Nyuu… Arlong couldn't move underwater…"
Hatchan dragged Arlong back onto the deck. Arlong flopped down with a splash, belly bloated, eyes vacant as he stared into the sky.
"Arlong, what's wrong?!" Hatchan scrambled anxiously.
"He's…" The ship doctor, Aladin, rushed over grimly.
He pressed hard on Arlong's swollen belly.
"He drowned!"
Pfft!
Water gushed from Arlong's mouth as he coughed violently.
Drowned?!
All the Fish-Men froze in shock, just like Arlong himself, stunned by the word.
"We breathe with lungs on land, and with gills underwater..." Doctor Aladin sat beside Arlong, tail curled, sighing heavily.
"But if a Fish-Man panics too hard underwater, they might accidentally use their lungs instead and drown… Devil Fruit users are cursed by the sea and cannot swim… Arlong must have realized, the moment he entered the water… that he could no longer swim. The shock must have been devastating..."
Never swim again?!
Even those closest to Arlong, Hatchan, Chuu, and Kuroobi, looked horrified.
Arlong was perhaps the proudest of all Fish-Men, His swimming speed was among the best of their kind.
To lose the ability to swim… To him, it must've been a crushing, soul-breaking blow.
"Arlong, are you sure you didn't accidentally eat some strange fruit?" Doctor Aladin questioned.
"I've heard Devil Fruits taste horrible, and even if hidden in food, anyone would instantly notice when biting into one…"
Arlong lay there blankly, muttering to himself, clearly not hearing a word.
"Nyuu, definitely not," Hatchan said, hugging himself with three pairs of arms, worried sick.
"Before he was punched unconscious by that Giorno guy, he was totally fine… But when he woke up, his arms were already covered in red fur… and he'd turned into a gorilla… nyuu…"
"It was Giorno." Tiger and Aladin's eyes lit with realization,
They turned to see Jinbe, hand to forehead, sighing.
"Did you all forget the rumors? About Chopperna Giorno… That he can steal other people's Devil Fruit powers and use them as his own."
Tiger's voice deepened.
"So not only can he steal Devil Fruits for himself, he can also store them, and even insert them into other people's bodies?"
"That's… unbelievable…"
Doctor Aladin was stunned.
"But he only punched Arlong once, there was no further contact afterward. So when did he insert the Devil Fruit into Arlong's body?!"
Jinbe furrowed his brow, thinking aloud:
"Back on the resort island, during the battle, he said this to me:" 'Ask Arlong for me, what's it like to become a red-furred gorilla, a close cousin of humans?'
Even if we don't know how he did it, It had to be him. He basically admitted it.
"I'm going to KILL HIM!!!!!!!"
Arlong suddenly jumped up, shocking everyone around him.
They rushed to stop him from flailing around, but he snarled, rage twisting his face, and his body transformed again.
He rapidly grew larger, his limbs thickened enormously, and his arms grew so long, they could hang naturally to the deck.
Transformed into his gorilla form, Arlong was overwhelming in strength. He effortlessly shoved Hatchan, Chuu, and Kuroobi aside, roaring: "He dared to do this to me?! I'll kill him!! That bastard… he turned me, ME, a proud Fish-Man… Into…"
Arlong's furious words slowed, his bloodshot eyes swept over the crew on deck.
Including Captain Tiger,
The respected Big Brother Jinbe, and all their wounded, bandaged Fish-Man brothers, every single one of them was injured.
While he had been raging about killing Giorno, none of them had tried to stop him.
They simply stared at him grimly. Some bowed their heads, some clutched their wounds. Tiger and Jinbe said nothing, just watched in silence.
"While you were unconscious, beaten nearly to death by that punch… The rest of us… already put our lives on the line for you, and fought for the sake of our brotherhood." Jinbe's voice was heavy.
"You all…" Arlong murmured, finally realizing, ever since he woke up, all he had thought about was his own transformation. He hadn't even noticed the state his crewmates were in.
Doctor Aladin's expression was grim.
"If Giorno… had any killing intent toward the rest of us… Then the Sun Pirates would have been wiped out by him that very day."
(End Of This Chapter)