Crack, crack, crack, crack.
A series of flashes streaked across the gates of Arlong Park. Then, with a crash, the thick gates shattered into geometric chunks of various sizes and scattered across the ground.
"Who goes there?"
The approaching fish-men demanded furiously. Their answer was:
A flash of steel.
Slash, slash!
Roman and Zoro walked into Arlong Park from opposite sides, leaving two slowly collapsing fish-men behind them.
"What?!"
"You dare cause trouble in Arlong Park?"
"Kill them—"
"Wait—"
Though one cautious officer told them to wait, these idle fish-men had probably gotten too used to bullying ordinary people. The moment they saw Roman and Zoro, they charged without hesitation! Many did not even have weapons, rushing in barehanded—
Slash, slash, slash, slash!
Amid a string of blades slicing through flesh, the fish-men, whose physical strength supposedly far surpassed that of ordinary humans, were little different from dead fish before true experts.
"Ahhhh! My brethren!!!"
"Trash was trash."
Roman flicked the blood from his Sailor's Knife. The gleaming weapon, spotless as new, pointed at the towering figure who had just leaped up from his chair.
"Hey, are you Arlong?"
"Who are you people? What are you doing in my territory?!"
Faced with Arlong's dark expression, Roman merely answered calmly.
"We're pirates—members of the Straw Hat Pirates."
"As for why we came here—"
The thought of Nami kneeling on the ground, crying as she hurt herself, darkened Roman's face as well.
"You made our navigator cry!"
?
What kind of bullshit reason was that?!
"Your navigator..." Arlong might have looked rough and crude, but he was actually cunning and scheming. Otherwise, he could not have colluded with the Marines for eight years, even avoiding Luffy's grandfather's "farming," and become a local emperor in this corner of East Blue.
"We don't know—"
??
"Could it be..." Arlong frowned as a possibility occurred to him.
"Don't tell me you're unlucky fools Nami tricked?"
"There are two mistakes in what you said."
Roman gripped both blades in reverse and strode toward him, treating the ordinary fish-men around him as if they did not exist.
"First, Nami never tricked us."
"Second, meeting Nami was not an unlucky thing for us."
Roman stopped in front of Arlong. He was not short himself, but before the other man's two-meter-sixty frame, he seemed...
But battle had never been a simple contest of height or muscle. It was about:
"Third, you shouldn't have—"
Let me get this close!
Slash—
The twin blades in Roman's hands suddenly swept upward at Arlong! It was as though he had unleashed two simultaneous Quick-Draw Slashes!
The Sailor's Knives went from impossibly slow to impossibly fast in an instant. The two slashes seemed to cross the boundaries of time and space, vanishing in a blur. When they reappeared, they brought a rain of blood with them as two massive arcs of sword energy crashed forward.
Paper Dance: Twin Iai!
Sword energy crisscrossed through the air, cold light blazing brilliantly! Zoro's eyes flickered as he watched from behind.
Roman, you said you didn't know swordsmanship...
"Tch."
Yet Roman, whose attack had seemingly landed, snorted unhappily and leaped back. A massive fist smashed down where he had just been standing, shattering the hard stone floor in every direction as if it were tofu.
"Human, how dare you!"
"Don't be rash, Leader Arlong."
Canson, holding a mangled fish-man corpse in one hand, stopped Arlong from pursuing. At the critical moment just now, he had abruptly shoved Arlong aside, then dragged over an ordinary fish-man to use as a shield. Otherwise—
One look at the fish-man in his hand, with only his upper body remaining, showed just how dangerous Roman's attack had been!
"Canson, you too!"
But Arlong showed no gratitude toward the one who had saved him. He glared furiously at the crimson fish-man beside him.
"You actually used one of our brethren as a shield—"
"Leader Arlong, leave this enemy to me."
Facing Arlong's fury, Canson released the mutilated corpse and stepped forward, proudly confronting Roman.
"If I lose, I am willing to accept Sun Scorching Punishment."
Hiss—
The other fish-men, who had still harbored complaints, immediately fell silent. Fish-men could live on land just like humans, but unlike humans, they needed large amounts of water to keep their skin moist. Dryness was therefore their greatest enemy.
Sun Scorching Punishment—its name alone made its nature obvious.
A hulking fish-man weighing several hundred pounds could be tied beneath the blazing sun for days and dried into a few dozen pounds of "fish jerky"! For fish-men, it was unquestionably the cruelest punishment.
"This is troublesome."
Roman frowned. He had never been bound by things like "fairness" or "honor." Whether it was a sneak attack or a dirty trick, any method that could bring victory was useful.
Too bad I failed to kill... no, severely wound Arlong right away. The coming battle probably would not be easy. And besides—
"Who are you?"
Roman frowned at the middle-aged fish-man before him, who looked more like a fisherman than a pirate. Though his memories from his past life had become vague, weren't there supposed to be only three officers under Arlong?
He glanced at the three figures standing beside Arlong, clearly drawn in an entirely different style from the other grunts: a dim-witted six-armed octopus, a freakish fish-man with long lips, and a fish-man in a karate outfit whose arms bore two fan-like bones resembling blades.
Then who was this crimson fellow in front of him...?
"Roman the Counterattacker. I didn't expect to meet you here." The other man instantly identified him, causing Roman to frown.
"You know me?"
"Heh, have I been forgotten so quickly?"
The crimson fish-man shook his head self-mockingly, then his expression turned stern.
"You remember the Flame Pirates, don't you?"
—!
"You're Captain Canson?"
No way, this guy had actually chased them here from North Blue...
"If you came looking to take revenge on the Silver Light Pirates, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
No wonder this guy looked so familiar! Roman remembered now. This man was the captain of the Flame Pirates from North Blue, one of the unfortunate groups the Silver Light Pirates had wiped out. He had heard that their captain had been away at the time. He had never expected that...
"Is that so?"
Yet the other man simply assumed a fighting stance.
"As the combat captain of the Silver Light Pirates, you are also on my list for revenge."
"So there's no talking this out? Fine—"
The instant the word left his mouth, Roman lunged at him like a gale!
The Sailor's Knives in his hands were cold as snow and physically thin as paper, reflecting the sunlight above. As the twin blades danced, they resembled dazzling streaks of lightning, faintly sealing off every possible avenue of escape.
The gale raised by the blades condensed into a bloody, savage pressure that bore down heavily on the crimson fish-man. Even the pool twenty meters away rippled in widening circles. Its ferocity and sharpness made the ordinary fish-men watching shudder with fear!
Facing Roman's grim twin blades, the crimson fish-man merely took a deep breath. Then—
"Exhale—"
Canson's curled beard flared outward, and his face turned red as fire. Opening his mouth, he spewed out blue flames that gathered into an azure pillar several meters long. It carried a surging wave of fire and engulfed Roman head-on!
??
&#*#&￥*
As the flames rushed at him, Roman could only spring backward! He immediately canceled the ever-active Paper Dance: Iron Armor on his body and even threw away both blades in his hands at once! Yet the flames still clung to him. Though Roman immediately rolled across the ground to put them out, it was:
Completely useless!
The flames clung to his skin and burned with a sizzling hiss, as if they were trying to bore into his flesh. Roman had no choice but to immediately create several layers of paper over his skin, then discard them at once. Though this intensified the flames on his body, it expelled that substance that had seeped deep into his flesh.
That effect and that color... Roman sniffed the air, then voiced his grim guess:
"This is... phosphorus!"
"That's right." Canson exhaled, sending out a spray of sparks.
"I'm a Dark Indian Sea Bream fish-man. I can normally absorb phosphorus-containing organic matter from food and continuously store it within my body, then spray it out against enemies when needed."
What the hell—
Roman's face went dark. A fire-breathing ability, and one involving phosphorus-like burning material that would not go out once it stuck! This was practically a perfect counter to his Devil Fruit ability.
"Zoro."
Helpless, Roman glanced at the green-haired swordsman beside him, who had once used Three-Sword Style... but was now down to One-Sword Style.
"Sorry. I'll have to drag you into a desperate fight."
"Heh. Just what I wanted."
Before you continue