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"Nami, you brought someone back—what do you mean by that?"
Two figures walked out of the smoke. Arlong looked at Nami beside Arthur, his face turning cold. "Are you rebelling. Do you want me to destroy your village."
"Arlong, even if I raised the hundred million, you never intended to give the village back to me, did you." Nami glared at Arlong, eyes full of hate.
"Oh. You heard." Arlong paused, then grinned savagely. "Doesn't matter. I never planned to return it. As long as you behave and draw charts for me, I won't touch your village. Isn't that the same."
"So from beginning to end, you were lying to me." Nami's eyes went dead, as if the resolve she'd clung to for eight years had been shattered in an instant.
"Sha-ha-ha-ha, Nami, understand this—I'm a pirate." Arlong laughed cruelly. "Since when could you believe a pirate's words."
"....."
Nami said nothing. She covered her mouth as tears overflowed.
"Idiot. Didn't I say I'd help you. With me here, the village doesn't matter. Don't cry." Arthur patted her head, helpless.
He understood. Before meeting him, Nami's only fuel had been an oath and a lie. Now the oath of eight years had broken in a day. Without Arthur, the girl might have fallen into despair—might even have wanted to die.
Right now, Arthur was her only hope.
"Arthur, help me....."
At his words, the deadness in Nami's eyes lit with hope. Looking at him, she spoke the words from that night.
"Relax and leave it to me." Arthur gently ruffled her orange hair and drew her behind him. His gaze went flat as he looked at Arlong, and he spoke slowly. "Arlong of the Sun Pirates' remnant. You ugly Fish-Men who took a Celestial Dragon's slave as your captain. Filth from under the sea that survived Kizaru's hand and fled to the weakest sea to play king."
"Lowly human, who do you think you are."
Arthur's sharp, cutting words were like blades driven into the Fish-Men's hearts, a thorough humiliation.
Every Fish-Man present fumed, eyes blazing.
Arlong himself rose from his beach chair. The grin was gone; only killing intent remained.
Beside him, Captain Nezumi felt that murderous aura for the first time.
"Lowly human. Compared to you, I am far nobler." Arthur sneered and pointed at the right side of Arlong's chest. "As one of the Sun Pirates, you must be proud of that emblem. But do you really think pride can hide the truth of its origin—the Hoof of the Celestial Dragon. Ugly Fish-Man, calling yourself superior won't change that the man you worship—Fisher Tiger—was a lowly slave, a plaything of the Celestial Dragons, and a beaten dog that crawled out of Impel Down."
"Die....."
The roar of killing intent shook Arlong Park. Arlong and his crew were driven mad by Arthur's words; led by Arlong, the Fish-Men charged, sworn to tear him to pieces.
Fisher Tiger's pride, their boss's death, the brand of the Hoof—things they never wanted to hear.
Hearing Arthur insult Tiger like that, how could they not be blinded by rage.
"They're insane. All of them." Captain Nezumi, terrified by the massed attack, fell from his chair. Even the three Marines behind him shook like leaves.
Nami clutched Arthur's clothes in fear, yet her eyes were filled with shock—and elation.
Shock at Arlong's past. Elation because Arthur's words had driven him into a rage and proved they weren't lies, sweeping away the fear that Fish-Men had held over her for eight years. They didn't seem so terrifying after all.
They ruled a village; they didn't flee the Grand Line to this place to strut.
Exactly so. Arthur had chosen such barbed words to humiliate and enrage Arlong for Nami's sake, to shatter the nightmare image he cast in her heart.
Now these "superior" Fish-Men showed a brittle, frenzied side.
Break that completely, and the heart-demon would be gone.
"Hammer of the Wind King!"
As the Fish-Men rushed him, Arthur summoned the Sword of Promised Victory and flicked it once, releasing Invisible Air.
A hemispheric wall of wind opened wide.
Like a hurricane, it blasted the charging Fish-Men away without mercy.
This wind was no simple wind. It was a blade.
Those struck by the Hammer—bodies several times stronger than humans—looked like they had been cut by a thousand knives, laced with wounds and splattering flesh.
Many of the Fish-Men died on the spot.
If the Hammer had been the piercing type, everyone within its diameter would have been pulverized.
Even so, those it struck were left dead and dying, their bodies ragged and bloody, bone faintly visible.
Before Arthur, the ground was scored with gouges as if a bulldozer had run through.
"Crack——crack———crack———"
Arthur began the finishing blows. Holding Nami's hand, he led her before each Fish-Man groaning on the ground. His right foot turned purplish-black, and in front of Nami he stomped again and again, crushing their throats.
The gore made Nami grip Arthur's arm tight. She didn't stop him, and it didn't delight her, yet tears flowed once more.
Arthur could faintly hear the whisper from her lips: "Bell-mère....."
"Armament Haki..... not a man of the East Blue....."
Kuroobi, one of Arlong's officers, stared at Arthur's Haki-coated right foot and choked out his last words.
"Damn human....."
Arlong staggered to his feet, clutching the wind-cut gash at his throat, hatred burning in his eyes.
"Nami, hold on."
Facing Arlong, Arthur drew Nami in front of him, holding her in a tight embrace. He put her hands on Excalibur's hilt, laid his own hands along her arms, and they gripped the sword together.
"Watch closely. The Fish-Man who terrified you for eight years is just a beaten dog who ran from the Grand Line to the East Blue..... nothing to fear." Arthur bent to Nami's ear and whispered, "Let me end this—with you."
He poured mana into Excalibur—but nothing like that night. Not even a single seal was undone.
"Swish——thunder!!"
He transformed mana into light and released it as a wave of sword pressure. With Nami's hands in his, Arthur swept Excalibur across.
A crescent of golden light flashed out.
The light sliced across Arlong and cut him at the waist; the flesh of his midsection boiled away. The arc carried on and split the tower in Arlong Park cleanly in two. It collapsed for good.
A body and a tower, both hewn in half; the prison and the heart-demon that bound Nami for eight years—evaporated in the roar of light.
"Bell-mère, everyone....."
Nami shed tears yet again—but this time they were tears of release, of freedom, of joy.
Leaning into Arthur, as into the safest harbor, she whispered softly:
"Arthur, thank you....."
"Yeah. You're welcome....."