BOOOOM!
The Flying Shark, ship of Willy the Killer Whale, rammed its massive rounded prow straight into a pirate sloop. The wooden vessel exploded into splinters, vanishing beneath the frothing waves.
"GWAHAHAHAHA!"
Willy threw his head back in laughter.
"Humans are pitifully weak! Nothing but an inferior race!"
His crew of Fishmen roared along with him, voices rumbling like a storm tide.
Once, Willy had sailed under the banner of the Sun Pirates. But after the death of Fisher Tiger, though Jinbe took command, the crew had splintered. Willy's violent temperament and his fanatical, supremacist views drove him away. He set off alone, reveling in hunting humans and selling them to slavers.
"Captain!"
From the lookout, a Fishman shouted, "A ship is following us! That flag—!"
Willy squinted. "Whose?"
"The Grinning Skull flag—it's that man!"
"…Huh?" Willy frowned. "Weren't they far ahead just now? When did they slip behind us?"
Then, a wide grin split his face and he burst into guttural laughter. "Guhahaha! I hadn't even gone looking for them, and they dare come to me instead? Excellent!"
"Helmsman! Port turn—catch the wind!"
Snatching up the chain mace at his hip, Willy barked, "All hands, battle stations! First to kill that brat earns fifty million Berries!"
"WOOOH!"
Swords and spears flashed. Cannons rolled into position.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
Eight cannons on the port side thundered at once, belching fire and smoke.
"That mark—it's Fishmen."
Jin lowered his spyglass, watching the cannonballs streak across the water. The Genesis drove forward under the storm of fire, bearing down on the Flying Shark.
"They want close combat?" Jin murmured.
"Guhahaha! Does he not understand? Fishmen wield ten times the strength of humans in the sea! He dares fight Fishmen at close range?!"
"Sink him!"
Willy sneered, steering his prow to ram. The iron chain mace spun menacingly in his grip. He wanted to crush this human with his own hands.
But then—
WUUUUUHHHH…
A low, otherworldly roar shook the air. Dark red flames licked to life along the Genesis's hull.
And before Willy's eyes, the ship's sides twisted—alive—its planks writhing and yawning. The Flying Shark's proud iron prow was swallowed whole, like prey in the jaws of a beast.
"What—what is that?!"
"Impossible!"
"Is it… a demon?!"
Fear cracked the voices of hardened Fishmen.
The Flying Shark shuddered violently. Its frame was dragged inward, devoured plank by plank. Screams echoed as pirates slid down organic passageways, funneled like morsels into the bowels of the Carrier.
They tumbled down in a heap, a mountain of Fishmen gasping, stunned.
"…Fishmen?"
"Fishmen!"
Their mutters rang as the warriors of Winterhan surrounded them.
And at the front stood—
"Wilson. Long time no see."
Willy staggered to his feet, glaring.
"…I thought you were dead. Yet here you are. Like Jinbe, a filthy dog at humanity's heel. You, a traitor to Fishmen… a disgrace to our kind!"
Wilson's eyes hardened. His reply was calm, yet sharp as a blade.
"Traitor? No. It's you who betrayed Brother Tiger's ideals. You who hunt your own kind."
"You became the very same as the humans you claim to hate."
Willy's laugh was cold, vicious. "I killed you once. I'll kill you again."
The chain mace whirled—and crashed down.
CLANG!
Wilson raised his massive spiked club, meeting it with brute force. Sparks lit the gloom.
"Kill them all!" Willy roared. His Fishmen surged forward, blades flashing.
The battle erupted.
The racial gifts of Fishmen showed immediately—speed, power, toughness. Where a Winterhan soldier needed three or five to overwhelm one Fishman, these pirates were trained killers. Willy's crew numbered over twenty, with three formidable officers among them. They gained the upper hand quickly.
But Jin had not come to watch his men be slaughtered. This was training—but not suicide.
He moved.
Shhhh!
A blur of motion, like wind itself, and one Fishman officer's head burst apart under Jin's strike.
The corpse collapsed. Blood painted the floor.
It was sudden, it was brutal, and it silenced the jeering Fishmen in an instant. His soldiers' morale surged like fire.
"Bastard!"
The remaining two officers roared, launching themselves at Jin.
"Fishman Karate!"
The stingray Fishman's eyes blazed. He swung his blade-hand like molten rock erupting from a volcano.
"Marlin Fist!"
The marlin Fishman's elongated body coiled and snapped forward, his spear-like punch compressing air until it cracked like cannon fire.
BOOOM!
The strike hit Jin square in the chest. He didn't move.
The stingray's knife-hand followed, sharp enough to slice stone.
"Die!"
Two devastating blows—any man should have crumpled.
But Jin stood unmoved. Not a step back. Not a sway. His body was a mountain.
"…This man…"
The Fishmen faltered. His physique—greater than their own?
They couldn't know. Jin's body had been reforged by spacetime's energy the moment he crossed worlds. With each training session, each adaptation, he had become less human, more force of nature.
His left fist rocketed out, smashing the marlin officer into the wall with bone-shattering force.
His right hand scythed across, a strike so sharp the very wind screamed.
SHHHP!
The stingray's arm fell away, severed.
"No—!"
Jin was already upon him, his punch compressing air around it like a storm wrapped in flesh. It drilled through the Fishman's chest, erupting out his back in a fountain of gore.
The marlin officer tried to rise—but Jin's boot came down, snapping his neck like driftwood.
It had taken only heartbeats. Three officers. Dead.
The other Fishmen froze in horror.
Their morale broke.
The Winterhan warriors, emboldened by their king's ferocity, surged forward. The tide reversed, cutting down the Fishmen who only moments before had pressed the advantage.
Willy howled in rage, his voice shaking with grief and fury.
"Wilson! Traitor! Will you watch humans butcher your kin?!"
Wilson's jaw clenched. He did not want to see it. His heart twisted. But he knew—these men were no innocent Fishmen. They had blood on their hands, human and Fishman alike.
Jin's voice whispered at his shoulder.
"Wilson. Earn enough merit, and you can bring your people to my kingdom. To live free."
"Humans are liars! Filthy! Vile!" Willy spat, eyes bloodshot. "You'd believe this man? Better to join me. Together we'll kill him, and the ship will be ours!"
Wilson closed his eyes. Memories surged—chains around his wrists, human slavers beating him in the Sabaody fighting pits, his body broken for their sport.
Then, Fisher Tiger's hand, dragging him into freedom. The Sun Pirates. His hatred, his rage.
And then—Willy. His "comrade." Who became the same as the slavers, selling their own. Wilson had tried to stop him. The betrayal had almost killed him.
Captain Sherlock's hand had saved him. Sherlock's laughter had softened him.
And slowly, he had seen—humans were not all the same. Some cruel. Some kind. Some wicked. Some good. Just like Fishmen.
He understood then what Fisher Tiger had meant. Freedom. Peace.
"You…" Wilson's voice cracked into a roar. "You betrayed Brother Tiger's dream! You became everything we once despised!"
The chain mace whirled down. Wilson lifted his spiked club, blood spraying from his mouth as he took the strike head-on.
And with all the weight of his conviction, he swung.
CRACK!
The club crushed Willy's skull in a single devastating blow.