The Fishman District. The darkest depths of Fishman Island.
Sunlight never touched this place. The air hung thick with damp rot and the coppery tang of old blood. Crumbling coral tenements crowded together like a maze, crawling with vicious fishman thugs of every breed.
BOOM.
The massive iron gate at the district entrance exploded inward. A raging torrent of water tore it clean in half and sent both pieces crashing into the street.
Shark walked through the wreckage. His face was stone. He stepped into the lawless tumor the rest of Fishman Island refused to touch.
"Who the hell do you think you are?! This is Fishman District!"
Thugs snatched up blades and surged forward. Then they saw his face. That dark blue-gray skin. The killing pressure rolling off him in waves. More than a few took an involuntary step back.
"Get Hody Jones out here." Shark's voice was low. It carried down every inch of that street.
"You're nothing! You think you're worthy of seeing Boss Hody?!"
A shark fishman roared and charged, blade raised.
Shark didn't even look at him. His right fist punched the air.
"Five Thousand Tile: Straight Punch."
A visible shockwave of compressed air tore through the fishman's chest. He didn't scream. His body rocketed backward like a cannonball, plowing through three buildings before it stopped. He didn't get up.
The street went dead silent.
"Shahahaha! Look who decided to throw his weight around."
A grating laugh echoed from the depths of the district. Several heavily built fishmen emerged from the shadows.
The one in front had black curly hair and a red knit cap. Great white shark. Hody Jones.
Behind him came his inner circle. Dosun. Zeo. Daruma. The same breed of filth, every one of them.
"Shark. Word is you left the Sun Pirates to lick the boots of lowly humans."
Hody stopped about a dozen yards away. He looked Shark up and down with open contempt, then jabbed a finger at the broken bodies littering the ground.
"What's the matter? Strutting around Coral Hill with your human masters wasn't enough? Now you come back to Fishman District to murder your own kind? You threw away your fishman pride!"
Shark's eyes stayed dead calm.
"Fisher Tiger's sun brand was not made for trash like you. Hiding in the deep sea. Peddling fake superiority and cheap lies to poison our people. You've never even seen the real surface. You worthless scum. You dare speak of fishman pride?"
His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.
"Do you even know who's oppressing us? Have you ever fought back with your own strength?"
"You don't know a damn thing!"
Hody's face twisted. Shark had hit the nerve.
"Humans are lowly, worthless creatures! Every last one of them deserves to die! Arlong's vengeance! The hatred of our enslaved brothers! Only when every human is dead can fishmen truly rule the world!"
His eyes blazed with fanatic fire.
"And for that great cause, even that stupid woman who did nothing but cry about peace... her death served its purpose."
"Shut your rotting mouth."
Shark's right arm drew back. Moisture in the air began swirling toward him in visible streams.
"Kill him!" Hody screamed.
Dosun swung his massive hammer. Daruma bared teeth that could shear through steel. Zeo vanished into the ground. All three attacked at once from every blind angle.
Shark didn't even reach for Samehada on his back.
"Fishman Karate: Seven Thousand Tile: Sea Current Shoulder Throw."
He wrenched his arms through the air. The groundwater veins running silent beneath the district answered his call. A raging water dragon erupted from the earth and swallowed Dosun and Daruma whole, hurling them into the air.
"That's all you have?"
Shark bent his knees. Every muscle fiber, torn and rebuilt into something monstrous, fired at once. He appeared in the air above them like a teleport. His right leg sheathed itself in deep, gleaming black.
Armament Haki. Hardening.
CRACK. CRACK.
Two brutal whip kicks. Two胸骨shattering impacts. The sound of bone giving way was sickening. Dosun and Daruma vomited blood and dropped like meteors, cratering the stone below. They didn't move again.
"Die, traitor!"
Zeo burst from the shadow at Shark's back. His short blade drove straight for the spine.
CLANG.
The knife struck Shark's back and stopped dead. It may as well have hit a fortress wall.
"Too weak."
Shark didn't turn around. His hand shot backward, clamped around Zeo's throat, and pile-drove him into the stone.
Seconds. That was all it took. Hody Jones's prized officers, the core of his power, crumpled like paper in front of Shark.
"You bastard."
Hody stared at Shark. Not a scratch on him. Real fear flickered in Hody's eyes for the first time. His hand dove into his pocket and came out with a fistful of red pills. He threw them all into his mouth like candy.
Energy Steroids. The forbidden drug of Fishman Island.
"GRAAAAAHHH!"
The drugs hit his bloodstream. His eyes went crimson. His body swelled, muscles bulging like boulders, veins crawling under his skin like fat earthworms.
"My power is hundreds of times greater than any ordinary fishman now! Die! Water Shot!"
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Countless water droplets, compressed to needle points and supercharged by the steroids, tore through the air like heavy sniper rounds. Sonic booms cracked in their wake as they screamed toward Shark.
"Power bought with pills that burn through your own lifespan. You call that fighting?"
Shark drew a deep breath. Black Armament Haki, dark as ink, flooded over both his fists.
He didn't dodge. He faced the oncoming storm of water bullets and threw one devastating punch straight into it.
"Warrior's Rend!"
The shockwave from his fist, wrapped in Haki that could tear through anything, detonated the water bullets in midair. It didn't slow down. It plowed through and slammed into Hody Jones's chest.
Hody's steroid-bloated body, pushed to its absolute limit, folded like wet cardboard against that Haki-clad iron fist. His ribcage shattered across a wide radius. Blood erupted from his mouth. He flew backward like a broken sack of garbage and crashed into the ruins of Fishman District.
"Boss Hody!"
"Impossible! He took that many Energy Steroids and couldn't even block one punch?!"
Thousands of Fishman District thugs stared at their leader, bleeding out in the rubble. The man they'd worshipped as a hero. Their faith crumbled on the spot.
"Stop! You human lapdog! Don't you dare kill Boss Hody!"
A handful of the most radical thugs, eyes wild, grabbed fallen blades and threw themselves between Shark and Hody's broken body.
"Boss Hody is a hero! He killed the human assassin who murdered Queen Otohime! You traitors who sold out Fishman Island, what right do you have to kill him?!"
"Hero?"
A cold, mocking voice cut through from the district entrance.
Ace walked into the dark street. Behind him came every officer of the Eclipse Pirates except Buggy. King Neptune and Jinbe followed, their faces grim.
And beside Ace, her enormous tail swimming gently through the water, was Princess Shirahoshi. Her long pink hair drifted around her. Her blue eyes, brimming with tears, locked onto the crumpled form of Hody Jones in the rubble.
"Looking to die?"
Ace's gaze swept over the thugs blocking the way. There was no pity in it.
"Idiots who got used as tools. If you want to die that badly, then burn with him."
"We won't back down! Boss Jinbe, please! Save Boss Hody! He's Fishman Island's hero!"
"HE IS NOT!"
The scream tore through the street. Raw. Shattering.
Princess Shirahoshi's enormous body shook. Tears streamed down her face. She pointed at Hody Jones on the ground, and her voice carried six years of agony, of grief locked away so deep it had nearly drowned her.
"The one who killed my mother... was never a human pirate!"
"It was you! Hody Jones! That day in the plaza... I saw it with my own eyes. You hid in the corner and shot my mother dead!"
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