What Is This?

Sig fought desperately to stay conscious, driven by his will to survive, but his mind was already growing hazy.

Just before he passed out, Sig saw a light beneath the sea. To make sure it wasn't an illusion, he forced himself to hold on a little longer. When he got closer, he saw an island inside a giant bubble...

Its vivid colors seemed to beckon passing travelers, and it was filled with an atmosphere utterly unlike Mary Geoise.

Sig breathed a sigh of relief. Then... the tension drained from him, and he could no longer stay conscious. His eyelids grew heavy, and he blacked out.

Gurgle, gurgle—

Hachi: ???

"Did the suckers suck your brains out? You're telling me this is one of us?"

"But... when I rescued him... I really saw scales on him... Oh, right! He was breathing through gills, too! Right here... Weird, where'd they go?"

"Huh? You saw blood and got so scared you started hallucinating?"

"No, no, Brother Long, look... This kid's so skinny, and he's injured. If he wasn't a Fish-Man, he couldn't have made it all the way here, right?"

"You still dare talk back?"

As Sig slowly regained consciousness, he heard arguing and woke up.

Beside the bed where Sig lay, the sawshark Fish-Man Arlong was scolding Hachi. The idiot had actually dragged a human back to Fish-Man District?

"That's enough! Arlong, Hachi, it's fine. I don't care if he's human. We'll take him to Fish-Man Island later." Jinbe cut off Arlong's rant.

They were already on Fish-Man Island, but both Arlong and Hachi understood that when their boss Jinbe said "Fish-Man Island," he meant taking the human out of Fish-Man District. They were about to leave, and Fish-Man District wasn't a place for humans.

Fish-Man District was a special part of Fish-Man Island. A large portion of it was made up of an enormous sunken ship. Legend said that one day it would rise to the surface and carry the Fish-Men and Mermaids into the true sunlight. But by now, hardly anyone still believed that tale.

Most Fish-Men and Mermaids only taught their children not to leave Fish-Man Island, not to leave the seabed... and above all, not to have anything to do with the humans outside!

Of course, because of its unique location, Fish-Man Island was the only unofficial pathway connecting the first half of the Grand Line to the New World. To cross the Red Line Continent, you either needed official papers to travel overland, or you had to pass through the underwater tunnel beneath the Red Line Continent. Fish-Man Island was at one end of that tunnel.

Many pirates and other unofficial travelers came and went through here on their way to the New World, so there were naturally plenty of humans passing through the island.

Thanks to Queen Otohime's efforts, although the Slave Hunters had left Fish-Men and Mermaids deeply distrustful of humans, the two groups were still generally able to coexist.

But humans would never be welcome in Fish-Man District.

It was now essentially an official orphanage. Fisher Tiger, Jinbe, Arlong, and the others had all grown up there as orphans.

Though Fish-Man District hadn't yet become as notorious as it would later, and the island's residents weren't especially hostile toward it, the district had rejected humans since ancient times.

As far as Jinbe was concerned, there was nothing wrong with rescuing a human. Their boss Fisher Tiger had rescued countless human slaves. It was just that humans didn't belong in Fish-Man District!

"But I really did see them..." Hachi continued to mutter, clearly still unconvinced.

Arlong glared at him. "Boss Jinbe already gave the order. Didn't you hear him? Huh?" As he spoke, he raised a fist as big as a cooking pot.

Hachi instinctively covered his head and took a few steps back, quickly nodding. "Got it! I'll do it right away..."

Sig struggled to open his eyes. Taking in the fearsome-looking sawshark Fish-Man, the tall, broad tiger shark Fish-Man whose body was almost square, and the starfish-headed Octopus-Man watching him with eager anticipation, he roughly guessed who they were.

"Hey, you're a Fish-Man, right?" Hachi hurriedly asked Sig.

"Idiot! How does he look like a Fish-Man? At most, he could be a Mermaid... No! Even when they grow up, male Mermaids don't get legs instead of tails!" Arlong pointed at Sig's legs, his nose almost poking Hachi in the face.

"But something is definitely strange... How did you withstand the pressure a mile beneath the sea and hold your breath all the way here?" Jinbe furrowed his cloud-like brows, sensing there was more to this than met the eye.

Sig noticed Jinbe's suspicion, as well as Arlong's contempt for humans.

Jinbe's suspicion made sense. If Sig weren't a Fish-Man or Mermaid, then surviving the pressure a mile beneath the sea through sheer physical strength would mean he was an incredible fighter in the world of pirates.

Judging by how Sig looked, that clearly wasn't the case.

"I... I don't know what happened, either. When I get angry or excited, scales appear on my body.

"Earlier, when this Octopus-Man brother mistook me for a Fish-Man and dragged me down here, I was terrified. But just when I was at my limit, I suddenly felt a sharp pain here, and it seemed like gills grew..."

Sig chose to tell the truth. Apart from leaving out his special ability, everything he said was completely true—he really didn't know why this was happening to him!

To make his story more convincing, Sig deliberately entered his Fish-Man Transformation again. Sure enough, rows of gill slits appeared on both sides of his neck, extending down to his collarbones.

Jinbe and Arlong stared at the sight in shock, while Hachi puffed out his chest, as if to say, "I told you I saw them!"

Arlong's expression suddenly changed. He glared at Sig and said, "Damn it! Could those Celestial Dragons be conducting experiments to steal the Fish-Man Race's great power?"

"Eh?" Sig didn't know why Arlong had come up with that idea, but... it did make a certain amount of sense?

Sig quickly explained, "No, no, I've never been involved in any experiments like that! In Mary Geoise... I just sang."

Jinbe nodded. "The Celestial Dragons aren't clever enough for that, and the World Government's research facilities wouldn't conduct those kinds of experiments in Mary Geoise."

How could such an important test subject have escaped amid all the chaos?

"Who are your parents?" Jinbe clearly had a different theory.

"I don't know. I've never met them." Sig continued to tell the truth.

Before he crossed over, Sig had been one of the orphans at the Starting Point Orphanage.

"Boss Jinbe, even those filthy mixed-bloods aren't like this, are they?" Arlong looked at Jinbe in confusion.

Normally, the children of Mermaids and humans didn't look like Sig, either. There had been cases of Mermaids and humans having children—for example, Big Mom's twenty-ninth daughter was a Half Fish-Man, and looked no different from a Fish-Man. Kokoro's granddaughter had Mermaid blood, but looked completely human; she was just an excellent swimmer.

Jinbe calmly offered his theory. "Most of the cases we've seen were children of Mermaids and humans. Do you know what children of Fish-Men and humans look like?"

Arlong: ...