"Hahaha, back already, Nami. Pretty quick this time."
Arlong lounged in the courtyard, baring a grin as Nami walked in. He held out a webbed hand.
Nami wore a faint smile, the cold edge she usually carried gone for the moment. She stepped up and said, "Yeah. I got enough."
She set the case at his feet. "There is one hundred million Berries. You can count it."
Arlong glanced at the case and laughed, spreading his arms. "No need. I trust you don't miscount. Very well, Cocoyasi Village is yours again."
Relief broke across Nami's face. "Then I am free to leave too, right?"
"Of course."
Arlong's grin sharpened. "Although… if you leave, the situation becomes a bit different."
The word landed like a knife. Nami's brief joy froze.
"What… different how?" Her voice shook.
Arlong lifted his hands. "This sea is my territory. Your 'redemption' of the village works because you are one of my crew. In that case, I allow you to administer that village as you wish."
"But if you quit the crew, we are no longer comrades. And a village inside my waters is… well." He clicked his tongue. Then smiled again. "You, however, are free to go whenever you please. I will not stop you."
Nami's smile died. Color drained from her face. She clenched her fists and forced out the words. "That was not the agreement. You promised. This is not what you promised."
"I fulfilled my promises," Arlong said blandly. "I returned the village. I grant you your freedom. I never once promised what would happen after. I never said I would withdraw my men or abandon my territory."
His eyes narrowed, amused. "Unless you stay in my crew. Then we remain comrades, the village is yours to rule, and I will not interfere. But if you run, your villagers die for your choice."
"Despicable," Nami whispered, trembling.
She had predicted he would twist the terms, but knowing it and facing it were different things. The outcome was almost unchanged.
Not entirely unchanged. If she remained in the Arlong Pirates, the village would be safe. Arlong would not touch them.
But then she would never be free. She would live and die drawing maps for a tyrant.
Images flooded her mind: Belle-mere, Nojiko, Ajian, every face in the village. Tears welled without her noticing. Trading her freedom for all their lives… how could she walk away from that?
It was a cruel choice for a fifteen-year-old who loved the sea and dreamed of adventure. She shook, tears slipping down her cheeks, but still could not speak.
And still, she was strong. Even staring into the dark, she bit down and chose.
A hand rested gently on her head.
"Do not make that choice."
Ron stood behind her, his voice quiet and sure. "You are my navigator. You are not going to spend your life drawing maps for him."
Nami's body went still. The tears stopped. A different shiver ran through her. He had stepped in at last, even with a monster in front of them.
"And you are?" Arlong frowned at the newcomer behind Nami.
Ron slid his hand from Nami's hair to her shoulder, stepped forward, and flashed a clean, easy smile. "A fisherman."
His right hand pressed forward with the wand as his left arm pulled Nami back in a smooth leap.
Arlong blinked. Recognition flickered. Wasn't this the man Nami had snatched from his hands not long ago? The thought barely formed before a crimson flame-arrow screamed across the air toward his chest.
Pure danger slammed into him. He tore the chair to splinters and tried to dive away. Too late. The flaming bolt was brutally fast.
It struck.
A blossom of fire exploded, swallowing Arlong and the gallery in a roar. Buildings behind him caught in an instant, flames racing up the beams.
"Graaah!"
Even a Fishman's tough body could not shrug it off. The pain tore a howl from him. He rolled off the walkway and down into the courtyard, thrashing wildly to smother the blaze.
Ron landed with Nami, rolled once more to clear the blast, then set her down and stood with the crystal wand in hand. He watched Arlong's burning form tumble toward the inner pool that connected to the sea.
"Still alive after that," Ron murmured. "That hide is thick. The scales must have blunted some of the heat."
He raised the wand.
The courtyard howled with wind. Seven or eight towering blades of air slammed down in a crossing storm.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
The cuts were not clean like silk. They bit and snapped like steel through bone, a rain of blood and meat fanning across the stone. Arlong's final scream cut off as his body came apart mid-lunge, pieces splashing into the pool and staining it a dark, spreading red.
Nami sat up slowly, stunned.
The nightmare that had crushed Marines and pirates alike, the monster no one in Cocoyasi could defeat, was simply… gone.
So simple.
So final.
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