Arlong Pirates

"What are you?" Arlong asked in surprise as he looked at the blade in his hand, which had been snapped in two by a sudden kick from a young man.

As far as he knew, none of the nearby villages had anyone strong enough to break a blade with a single kick. Moreover, the young man before him was covered in bandages and was clearly injured.

"Just a passerby," William said lightly.

In truth, he had already been sitting on a nearby rooftop when Arlong entered Cocoyasi Village. Everyone's attention had been focused on Genzo, so no one had noticed him.

"A passerby? You lowly humans actually dare defy me?" Arlong furiously threw a punch at William.

William suddenly leaped back, grabbed the still-stunned Genzo, and dodged Arlong's punch. The chair, however, was unfortunately smashed to pieces beneath Arlong's fist.

When Arlong saw that William had not only dodged his punch but had also rescued Genzo, who was supposed to be executed, and fled onto the roof of a house, his rage instantly flared.

"Boss Arlong, are you planning to level the village?" The Fish-Men behind Arlong grew nervous when they saw him furiously overturn the house beneath William's feet. Though they also despised humans, they were nowhere near as extreme as Arlong, and destroying the village was not their goal.

"Boss Arlong, destroying a village would be easy, but don't forget that our goal is to rule them!"

"If it ends up like Gosa Town, we'll lose another place that pays tribute to us!"

"If we lose one, we'll find another!" Arlong completely ignored his companions' attempts to persuade him and stubbornly insisted on killing William for daring to oppose him.

"At this rate, the village will be destroyed." Chew, the kissing gourami Fish-Man officer, tried to stop Arlong, but Arlong was simply too strong. They had no way to restrain him.

"You're Arlong, right? If it weren't for Fisher Tiger and Jinbe, I'd kill you today!" Though William said that, he knew he was still seriously injured. If he fought Arlong, it was impossible to say who would win.

Arlong's treatment of humans was infuriating, but setting race aside, he was a loyal and righteous man—though only toward his own kind. Even that made him better than plenty of humans, among whom there was no shortage of despicable people who schemed against their own companions.

"Who exactly are you?" Upon hearing the names of the two Fish-Man heroes, Fisher Tiger and Jinbe, Arlong calmed down. In East Blue, well-informed people might know Jinbe as one of the Shichibukai, but hardly anyone would know the name of Fisher Tiger, captain of the Sun Pirates.

"My name is William. I came on my captain's orders to find our navigator." Smiling, William warned Arlong, "I don't care how you treat the villagers. Our races are different, after all. But if you keep pushing your luck, I'll kill you. Only you, of course."

William's meaning was obvious. If Arlong continued causing trouble, William would no longer show him any courtesy. But he had also made it clear that even if he killed Arlong, he would not attack the other Fish-Men.

"William? Did you come to arrest me?" Instead of getting angry at William's words, Arlong became wary.

The Fish-Man companions behind him had been wondering whether they should stop Arlong, but they discovered that he had not gone berserk. Instead, he was strangely calm. As for the villagers of Cocoyasi Village, their hearts were in turmoil, and they had no idea what Arlong intended to do.

"So you know who I am? But I'm not interested in you. I'm a pirate now!" From Arlong's words, William guessed that Arlong already knew his identity.

Although Arlong looked like the type to solve everything with brute force, he was actually quite shrewd. Otherwise, he would not have cooperated with Colonel Nezumi, nor would he have spotted Nami's talent at a glance when she was young. From Arlong's expression, William could guess that Colonel Nezumi had probably not told him the contents of that Marine Headquarters document. That was not surprising, since it had nothing to do with Arlong.

"But I'm very interested in you! I'll hold a banquet at Arlong Park and wait for you!" After learning that William had left the Marines and become a pirate, Arlong clearly intended to recruit him. A former Marine colonel from the Grand Line was bound to possess considerable strength, and the intelligence in his hands surely could not be compared to the worthless scraps Colonel Nezumi possessed.

"I'll definitely pay you a visit." But William's visit was not to discuss cooperation with Arlong. He was going there to wreck the place; Arlong simply did not know it yet.

"I'll come back another day. Consider yourselves lucky to have kept your lives!" After Kuroobi, the loach Fish-Man officer, tossed out those words, he followed Arlong out of Cocoyasi Village.

Seeing Arlong finally leave, William also let out a sigh of relief. That bastard was Arlong, the sawshark Fish-Man with a bounty of ten million Beli. If William had not been seriously injured, he would not have wasted so many words on him. Although William's injuries were severe and he might not be Arlong's match right now, Arlong was still not strong enough to keep him there. The villagers of Cocoyasi Village, however, would have suffered.

William did not want Nami to hate him for the rest of her life. Besides, in order to better develop one of his Devil Fruit abilities, the "Castle ability," he planned to recruit some promising people and station them within the castle inside his body. Like Capone Bege, wielder of the Castle-Castle Fruit, he wanted to turn himself into a mobile fortress that could carry an army wherever he went. Of course, what William needed was an army of quality, not merely one of numbers.

Although the Straw Hat Pirates followed an elite path, this army would be one of William's "abilities," and not just any lackey could join it. He had always believed the Castle-Castle Fruit was an excellent Devil Fruit; Capone Bege's subordinates were simply all lackeys.

What if the army stationed inside the castle were entirely made up of Devil Fruit users or the human weapons developed by the Marines, Pacifistas? Of course, for the current William, that was nothing more than a wild fantasy.

"Genzo, are you all right?" Seeing William casually toss Genzo onto the ground, Nojiko hurried over and asked.

"Thank you." Genzo did not pursue the matter of William throwing him onto the ground. If William had not appeared in time, Arlong would have executed him already. He was only curious about who William really was, that he could dodge Arlong's punch while carrying someone and make Arlong interested in him just by hearing his name.

"That was quite an impressive display from such a beautiful lady. Hello, my name is William!" But to William's disappointment, Nojiko ignored him completely. She seemed quite displeased that he had casually thrown Genzo onto the ground.

William had forgotten how Nojiko felt about Genzo. In the sisters' hearts, Genzo was practically half a father to them. If their adoptive mother had not been killed by Arlong, Genzo might truly have become their adoptive father. After all, the scars covering Genzo's body had been left when he fought Arlong for Nami and Nojiko's adoptive mother. If his vitality had not been so tenacious, he could not have survived.

"Forget it." William said nothing more in response to Nojiko's indifference, but he still told Genzo, "If you want to resist Arlong, I advise you to give up. At your level, don't fight him. Even defeating one of his officers would be a matter of sheer luck."

William was not exaggerating. Those officers were far stronger than ordinary Fish-Men. If they wanted to win through numbers, how many villagers would have to die just to defeat one officer? Those Fish-Men were not idiots. Other than Arlong, who among them would challenge an entire village alone?

Genzo and Nojiko said nothing. Clearly, they did not want to discuss such matters in front of an outsider.

"Can you defeat Arlong?" Nojiko suddenly asked.

"I could before. Not now, because I'm injured." William pointed at the bandages wrapped around his body.

Nojiko and Genzo had also noticed the thick bandages around William. He was obviously badly hurt. Someone who still dared provoke Arlong while injured was either an idiot who did not know his limits or someone confident in his own strength.

But both Nojiko and Genzo believed William was the latter. If he had not been injured, they might have begged him to save Cocoyasi Village. But that thought only flashed through their minds before they cast it aside.