The North Blue. Several thousand meters above the sea.
The metal disc tore steadily through wind and snow under Leonora's control.
Shark sat cross-legged at its center, holding the freshly acquired Devil Fruit in his hand.
"Carina, open the channel."
Ding.
The familiar chime sounded through the link.
"You got it, Shark?" Ace's voice came through.
"Smoothly." Shark raised the sludge-like fruit before him. "Carina, take a look. This the one?"
Through shared vision, Carina studied it from her end on the sky island. "Swirling arabesque patterns on the surface. Earth-brown. Texture like mud. No question. That's the Logia-type Numa Numa no Mi."
"Bwahahaha! Beautiful!" Jeno's voice exploded through the channel. "Shark! Do it! Feed it to your sea beast, just like we planned!"
"Hold up, Shark. Testing mid-flight is a hassle. There's an uninhabited island ahead. Let's set down there."
Leonora dipped both hands, and the metal disc descended smoothly onto the snow-covered beach of the deserted island.
Once on solid ground, Shark reached back and detached Samehada from where it clung to his back, setting it down in the snow.
"Samehada. Open up."
"Gur?" A flicker of confusion showed in Samehada's dull yellow eyes, but it obeyed its master without hesitation. Its suction-cup-lined mouth gaped wide.
Shark didn't pause. He shoved the entire Numa Numa no Mi straight into Samehada's jaws.
"Gulp!" The fruit went down.
For the first few seconds, nothing happened. Then.
"Gurrh!"
A deep, guttural roar.
The dark silver memory-alloy shell encasing Samehada began to shudder violently.
Shark and Leonora watched in amazement. The solid metal plating melted before their eyes, transforming rapidly into thick, dark brown sludge. The mud carried no harsh odor, only the dense, earthy weight of deep soil.
In the span of a breath, the three-meter mechanical sea beast was gone. In its place, spread across the snow, lay a churning swamp of bottomless depth.
"The metal armor... it elementized too?" Leonora raised an eyebrow.
"It worked!" Jeno screamed through the channel. "Zoan types transform with their clothes. A modified creature eating a fruit can elementize its own components! Shark! Test the storage space!"
Shark strode to the side, hoisted a massive boulder taller than himself with one arm, and hurled it into the mud without hesitation.
Plop. No crash. No impact.
The multi-ton boulder touched the sludge and simply vanished, swallowed into an abyss in perfect silence.
"Incredible!" Chopper cried through the channel. "It swallowed a rock that huge! But it's only that small!"
"That's the Numa Numa no Mi's pocket dimension." Ace's voice came across the link. "The internal space is nearly infinite. Spread the swamp wide enough, and it swallows anything. Weapons, shells, even living creatures."
"Living creatures too?" Sabo asked, surprised.
"Of course. They don't die inside. They're just trapped in the mud, completely immobilized." Ace leaned back in his beach chair. "Shark, since it can swallow living things, try this. Have it swallow you."
Two seconds of dead silence on the channel.
"Swallow me?" Shark stared down at the swamp at his feet.
"Yeah." Amusement threaded through Ace's voice. "It has consciousness. It won't harm you. If it swallows you and you control its form from the inside, wouldn't that essentially give you a Logia ability by proxy?"
Jeno sucked in a sharp breath at the sheer audacity of the idea. "Genius. Symbiotic fusion?!"
Shark inhaled deeply. No hesitation. He stepped straight into the dark brown sludge.
"Gulp!" The mud surged up his legs instantly, climbing higher. Within a heartbeat, his towering three-meter frame was completely engulfed.
All that remained on the metal disc was a vast, roiling swamp.
"Shark? You alive?" Carina tested the channel.
"I'm fine." Shark's deep voice came directly from within the mud.
Then.
BOOM.
The swamp erupted upward. Massive waves of dark brown sludge surged into the air, converging and reshaping.
Leonora watched in stunned silence.
Standing on the frozen shoreline was a swamp titan over ten meters tall, built entirely of churning mud. Its head retained the faint outline of Shark's great white shark fishman features, but his inverted-triangle eyes had become hollow, swirling vortexes of sludge.
"This feeling..." The titan spoke, and Shark's voice carried an unguarded exhilaration. "I'm inside the swamp, but this outer layer of mud feels like a second skin. I can defend with it. I can even assimilate the surrounding terrain."
The swamp titan stepped forward and drove both palms hard into the frozen earth.
"Swamp Hell."
Centered on the titan, dark brown mud spread rapidly in all directions. Solid, snow-crusted ground softened and collapsed under the corrosive force. In seconds, hundreds of meters of terrain transformed into a flowing quagmire.
The titan's vast body dove and swam through the mire with complete freedom. No trace of land's sluggish drag remained. It moved with the speed and ferocity of deep-sea combat.
"In this environment, my Fish-Man Karate has no land limitations anymore." His voice rolled through the sludge. "This swamp is my ocean now."
The titan threw a right punch.
"Fish-Man Karate: 5000 Tile True Punch!"
BOOM.
As the punch drove forward, the mud along the titan's arm solidified and extended like living stone, launching a colossal shockwave of compressed sludge. It smashed a distant hilltop to rubble. The scattered mud, on impact, flew back and seamlessly rejoined the titan's body.
"Perfect!" Jeno was practically dancing through the channel. "Shark! From now on you're not just a fighter. You're our mobile armory, our troop transport! You could smuggle a Fish-Man army of hundreds into an enemy camp without anyone knowing!"
"My thanks, Captain. This fruit fits me well." Shark released the fused form. The mud retreated swiftly, reforming into the mechanical sea beast pack, which clamped firmly onto his back. Not a trace of filth clung to his clothes.
"Testing's done. Time to head back, Shark."
Leonora stepped onto the metal disc and prepared to activate her Fuwa Fuwa no Mi.
She paused. Her brow furrowed.
Her gaze shifted to the far coastline on the other side of the island.
A beat later, Shark turned his head in the same direction.
"Fighting over there. Sounds like someone's being hunted."
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