Fishman Island, the southern commercial district of Coral Hill.
Outside of Mermaid Cove, this was the busiest spot on the island. Shops, taverns, and deep-sea souvenir stalls lined the streets, and pirates and merchants from all four seas and the Grand Line regularly passed through.
Carina, dressed in a sharp dark trench coat, browsed idly at the counter of an antique shop.
"Caw! Shiny! Pretty! Caw!"
Beli perched on her shoulder, plucking an old coin polished from some kind of deep-sea shell with his beak.
"You and your flashy trinkets."
Carina smiled and took the coin from him with slender fingers.
The moment her skin touched its surface, her power activated without a sound. A faint electrical frequency, perceptible only to her, was embedded into the lifeless object.
Then she tossed the coin casually into the shop's change box.
"I'll take that tone dial," she said, dropping a stack of Berry on the counter.
Outside, Carina closed her eyes and reached out with her senses.
Everything within a two-kilometer radius became an invisible web, feeding her vibrations, sounds, even the muscle outlines of living creatures. A full holographic scan, two kilometers in every direction. That was the current limit of her Devil Fruit.
"One under the bar counter in that tavern. One brushed onto the hilt of that pirate captain's sword."
She moved through Coral Hill's landmarks and hidden corners like any other tourist, planting her little spies.
"Once we leave Fishman Island, any pirate or merchant ship that carries these coins away will spread the Eclipse Pirates' intelligence network across the entire New World." She dusted off her hands, satisfied.
She was about to head to the next block.
"Hey! Human woman!"
A hostile, rough voice rang out ahead.
Carina stopped. Blocking her path were seven or eight fishmen, all mean-faced and bristling with fish features. Most had tattoos on their arms and chests, a design like a severed head.
"Something you need?" Carina frowned. Her Observation Haki had picked them up ages ago. She just hadn't bothered.
"Need? Hahahaha!"
The leader, a black-backed fishman with a mouthful of fangs, laughed arrogantly. "This is the noble Fishman Island! Who gave a lowly human woman like you permission to strut around our streets?"
"Yeah! Humans are only good for being crushed under our feet as slaves!" An octopus fishman beside him swung an iron pipe. "Hand over your money and that squawking idiot bird on your shoulder!"
"Caw! You're the idiot octopus! You look like a moldy meatball! Caw!"
Beli was not a bird with a mild temper. He flapped his wings and fired back without mercy.
"Bastard! A roast bird dares to run its mouth? I'll pluck every feather off you!" The octopus fishman flew into a rage and swung the iron pipe straight at Carina and Beli.
Carina sighed. She didn't even bother to dodge.
"Beli."
"Caw!"
The macaw, still on her shoulder, raised a scaly right foot with practiced ease and crossed two talons in front of his chest with a sharp click.
Boom!
A translucent pale-green glass barrier snapped into existence in front of Carina.
Clang!
The heavy iron pipe smashed against it. The impact rang out like metal on metal. The seemingly fragile glass didn't show a single crack. Instead, the recoil tore the octopus fishman's grip open, sending him and his pipe flying backward.
"Aaaah! My hand!" He rolled on the ground, clutching his bleeding wrist.
"Devil Fruit user?!"
The black-backed fishman's expression shifted, but he didn't back down. He drew a long blade from his waist. "It's just two of them! You dare fight back on Fishman Island? Brothers, call everyone! Call them all! Today we skin this human woman alive!"
A few shrill bone whistles sounded.
On Carina's two-kilometer mental radar, figures began converging rapidly toward the street.
Within minutes, the broad Coral Hill thoroughfare was completely choked with a dark mass of bodies.
A hundred, two hundred… nearly three hundred fishmen thugs, all hard-faced and armed with an assortment of blades and clubs, surrounded Carina. Every one of them was a radical racist from the lowest depths of the Fishman District.
Ordinary citizens and shopkeepers had long since bolted their doors, peeking out only from behind their windows.
"Run, human woman! Why aren't you running?"
The black-backed fishman, emboldened by the swelling crowd, jeered. "You garbage humans hog all the sunlight on the surface and still think you can swagger around down here in the deep sea? Don't think riding in on some black ship gives you the right to act up!"
"Tell that so-called 'Breaker' captain of yours! Down here in the deep, Hody Jones is the real king! All you humans are nothing but stepping stones for Hody Jones!"
Carina listened to the rising tide of curses and insults aimed at the Eclipse Pirates.
She smiled.
"Lowly humans this, lowly humans that. So the deep sea is crawling with bottom-feeders who only dare to bully a woman."
She unslung the Eye of God sniper rifle from her back and worked the bolt with a crisp, metallic clack that cut through the noise of the street.
"Beli, expand the barrier. Cover us both."
"Caw! Got it! Caw!"
Beli kept his talons locked tight. The pale-green barrier stretched outward on both sides, forming a perfect hemispherical dome that sealed Carina and himself inside without a single gap.
That done, Carina didn't fire right away. She closed her eyes and reached into the crew's mental channel.
"Ding—"
Sea Forest.
Ace, Sabo, and Jeno, who had just finished his upgrade, all heard Carina's voice in their heads at the same moment.
"Captain, I'm in the southern district of Coral Hill."
Her tone carried a chill. "Ran into a group calling themselves the New Fishman Pirates. About two or three hundred of them. They've got Beli and me surrounded. Their mouths are filthy. They're after our treasure and they won't stop insulting the Eclipse Pirates."
"Oh?"
Ace stopped walking. A cold, lethal glint flickered in his dark eyes.
"They keep shouting a name. Hody Jones. Seems to be their boss," Carina continued.
"Hody Jones?"
On the mental channel, Shark, who had been wandering alone on the other side of the commercial district, felt his slate-gray face darken with menace.
"Captain, my apologies. It looks like my ignorant countrymen need a hard lesson."
"Yahahahaha! What kind of ants dare provoke us?"
Enel, who had been observing the sunlight conduction high above Fishman Island, let out an insanely arrogant laugh over the channel. "Carina, just step aside! I'll drop a few Divine Judgments and turn that whole damn Fishman District and those thugs into ash!"
"Quit talking crazy, Enel."
Sabo adjusted his hat with a grin. "If you hurt any innocent mermaid ladies or blow up this gorgeous deep-sea scenery we finally got to see, that'd be a real shame. Carina, don't tell me you're about to wipe out against small fry like that. The captain and I are on our way."
"Yohohoho, shall I come play a requiem?" Brook chimed in elegantly.
"I'm not coming back, Ace!"
Buggy, who had been poking around some remote trench, shouted with wild excitement. "I think I'm about to hit a huge treasure! My gut says there's plenty of loot buried under this silt! A few hundred punks are your problem. Don't interrupt my fortune hunting!"
"Carina, send me your coordinates."
Ace's voice came through. "Stay where you are. Keep the barrier up. We're on our way."
He cut the connection.
Turning, he looked at Shirahoshi, still lost in grief after visiting her mother's grave, and at the Right Minister, who was busy planning their sightseeing route.
Ace's easygoing expression vanished. A cold smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Right Minister."
The flustered minister looked up. "It seems our deep-sea tour has to pause. A pack of suicidal small fry is attacking one of my crew on another street. They're even threatening to trample the Eclipse under their feet."
"W-What?!"
The Right Minister dropped his trident in shock, his whiskers flying. "Th-That's impossible! Who would be stupid enough to provoke you?!"
"Some radicals from the Fishman District, apparently. Their leader is a man named Hody Jones," Ace said flatly.
"Fishman District… Hody Jones?!"
The Right Minister went pale, cold sweat beading on his face. He knew exactly how those thugs operated. The Fishman District technically belonged to Fishman Island, but it was completely beyond Ryugu Palace's control. The young fishman punks who gathered there were the island's most dangerous tumor.
But why, of all people, did they have to pick a fight with these lawless living disasters?!
"Lord Ace! Please, calm yourself! This must be a misunderstanding!" The Right Minister fumbled for a Den Den Mushi, his hands shaking as he dialed. "I'll report to King Neptune immediately! I'll have the Ryugu Palace army handle this!"
Shirahoshi didn't fully understand what was happening, but the moment she heard the name Hody Jones, her enormous body trembled violently. Pure terror flashed in her eyes, and she shrank back in fear.
"Don't worry, Shirahoshi."
Ace looked up at the giant princess. "You and the Right Minister can come with us and see for yourselves."
He turned and strode toward the Bubble Car.
"Sabo, Jeno, Chopper. Let's move."
…
Coral Hill, southern district.
The once-colorful coral buildings and broad street were now packed solid with over two hundred vicious fishmen thugs. They carried rusty swords and spears. Some had even hauled two old cannons out of a hidden warehouse, their muzzles aimed straight at the pale-green dome in the middle of the street.
"Human woman! What's the point of hiding in that glass shell? You think you can play turtle forever?!"
The black-backed fishman stood at the front, brandishing a heavy cleaver and roaring. "Brothers! That flimsy shell won't last! Hody Jones said it himself: whoever skins this human woman today becomes a hero of the fishman race!"
"Kill her! Drag her off as a slave!"
"Smash that shell! Roast the bird!"
Whipped into a frenzy by the black-backed fishman, the two hundred radical racists howled and surged toward the barrier like a tide, swinging blades and clubs.
Boom! Clang! Bang!
The screech of blades scraping glass, the dull thud of iron bars, and the violent explosions of two solid cannonballs slamming into the barrier merged into a single roar.
Thick black smoke and kicked-up dust swallowed the pale-green dome.
"Hahahaha! Look! That woman must've been blasted to pieces!"
"Cannon fire isn't something some weird ability can stop!" The fishmen laughed wildly beyond the smoke.
Then the deep-sea breeze slowly cleared the dust.
The laughter died in their throats.
The translucent pale-green barrier still stood silently in the middle of the street. Its surface didn't show a single hairline crack or scratch.
Perched on Carina's shoulder, the macaw Beli scratched idly at his feathers and opened his beak in a long, bored yawn.
"Caw… so boring. Didn't even tickle. Caw."
"Big words are cheap, you gill-faced uglies."
Carina stood inside the impregnable barrier, facing the two hundred pairs of disbelieving, furious eyes outside. A cold smirk crossed her lips.
She raised the Eye of God and switched the mode to high-explosive cannon.
"I haven't actually tested Jeno's cannon mode in real combat yet."
Through the high-magnification scope, the icy crosshairs passed straight through the barrier and locked onto the chest of the loudest, closest black-backed fishman.
"Beli." She pressed the barrel's tip firmly against the green barrier.
"Caw!"
Beli answered with perfect timing. With a thought, at the exact tiny point where the barrel touched the barrier, the pale-green absolute defense dome opened a coin-sized hole, just large enough for the barrel to poke through. That kind of fine-tuned micro-control over the Barrier-Barrier Fruit was the result of two months of training.
"Since you're all so eager to die, I'll collect a little interest first."
Bang!
A deep, oppressive gunshot.
No gunpowder smoke, no whistling bullet. A blinding blue laser beam, far too fast for the naked eye to track, shot through the hole in an instant.
"What the—"
The black-backed fishman saw only a flash of blue. The thought of dodging never even formed in his brain.
BOOM!!!
The moment the blue high-explosive laser touched his chest, it triggered a ferocious detonation.
A small orange mushroom cloud erupted in the dense crowd. Terrifying heat and a shockwave ripped through a radius of over a dozen meters.
The black-backed fishman who had been screaming about skinning her didn't even manage half a scream. His entire upper body was blown apart by the high-explosive laser, reduced to a rain of blood and shredded flesh.
A dozen nearby fishmen thugs were hurled back by the blast wave. They slammed into the coral buildings on both sides. Some had broken limbs, others suffered massive burns across their bodies. They hit the ground wailing in agony.
"What?!"
"She fired! That woman fired! And the bullets explode!"
The remaining thugs, who had been about to charge again, stared at the mangled corpses of their comrades and plunged into panic and chaos. They had never imagined that a human woman hiding in a shell, looking utterly defenseless, would be carrying a weapon capable of monstrous attacks.
"Kill her! Spread out and charge! Don't give her a chance for a second shot!"
A shark fishman, another ringleader, forced down his terror and screamed, trying to reorganize the formation.
As the enemy surged forward again like a tide, probing for gaps in the barrier from every direction, Carina stood inside her absolute safety. Not a trace of panic. She moved the semi-automatic sniper rifle with unhurried precision.
"Two hundred live targets. You could hit them without even aiming."
She pulled the trigger coldly, worked the bolt, chambered another round. Her finger began a rapid, rhythmic dance on the trigger.
"Beli, get ready for the fireworks."
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The blue laser beams, like a reaper's scythe, tore through the deep-sea street in relentless succession.
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