Arlong Park (4)

"A four-tier straight punch? Then that stinky old man's kicks I used to take must have been at least four-tiered." Sanji, who had been lying outside the park, got to his feet, lit another cigarette, and started rambling.

"I never thought there'd be someone in the East Blue who could take my straight punch and not die!" Kuroobi had originally been about to attack William, but Sanji kicked him flying instead.

"Probably quite a few, especially at a certain restaurant!" Sanji looked down on Kuroobi's frog-in-a-well mindset.

"You dare look down on me?" After being kicked away by a human and then being scorned, Kuroobi's pent-up rage erupted. "I'll kill you with the essence of Fish-Man Karate. The move that sent you flying just now was the 'Hundred Tile True Punch,' but my strongest move is the 'Thousand Tile True Punch.'"

"Meat! Shoulder meat! Back meat! Chest meat! Leg meat!" Sanji gave Kuroobi no chance to unleash his ultimate move, not even a chance to fight back. Their captain was still in the sea, dead or alive unknown. He did not want to lose his captain just as he had finally set out to pursue his dream.

Of the three of them, only he could dive into the sea to save Luffy. Zoro had already reached his limit; even if he could still move, Sanji could not let him go into the water. William was a Devil Fruit user. For now, Sanji could only take down Kuroobi, the striped fish-man, before diving in to save Luffy.

But Arlong on shore was a huge problem. Until Luffy came back up, they could only leave William to hold him off.

"Bastard, take my ultimate move, Thousand Tile—" Before Kuroobi could unleash his ultimate move, Sanji vanished from his sight. In his final moment of consciousness, he saw only a black shadow.

"Lamb Leg Cannon!" After kicking Kuroobi away, Sanji let out a breath. "Looks like dessert won't be necessary!"

"Kuroobi?" "You bastards, you actually did this to my precious comrades... Aren't you getting a little too cocky?"

On a village road through the fields outside Arlong Park, Usopp lay in a pool of blood. In truth, he was playing dead with ketchup. If he had not fooled the long-snouted fish-man Chew, he would probably have been killed long ago.

"Wait, you damned fish-man!" Usopp was terrified, but he was unwilling to accept this. Wasn't he a member of the Straw Hat Pirates? When the crew declared war on Arlong's group, hadn't Luffy, William, Zoro, and even newcomer Sanji all fought with everything they had?

"You're still alive? If you'd just obediently played dead, nothing would've happened!" Chew had thought Usopp, who lay in that "pool of blood," was already dead. He never expected him to be faking it.

Feeling that his intelligence had been insulted, Chew punched Usopp to the ground, then vented his anger by viciously kicking his body.

"Usopp Iron Hammer! Usopp Rubber Band!" Enduring the pain of Chew's kicks, Usopp pulled an ordinary iron hammer from his backpack and smashed Chew's leg. Yet Chew foolishly shut his eyes and raised his hands to block the Usopp Rubber Band, while Usopp seized the chance to flee into the woods.

"Damn it, I fell for such a simple trick!" Chew's intelligence was clearly no match for Usopp's; it had practically been dragged down to the gutter. He felt ashamed that he had chosen Usopp as an opponent, and felt that Usopp's actions were insulting his intelligence.

"Liquor?" A bottle flew out from the woods, and Chew casually caught it. But he was baffled. Was Long Nose inviting him to drink as an apology?

"Special Attack: Lead Star!" Usopp's lead star struck the bottle. As it shattered in Chew's hand, the strong alcohol inside splashed all over him.

If I lose, then so be it. At worst, I'll die. I'm already a pirate.

Though Usopp thought that, his body had already gone limp on the ground, unable to move. He was simply too afraid. If not for his companions, he might have fled long ago.

"Nothing but dirty tricks. I'll blow you away with the water from these rice paddies! Water Cannon!" Chew sucked all the water from the paddies into his body, then compressed it and fired a high-pressure water blast from his long snout, no weaker than a Gatling gun.

"That destructive power is terrifying!" Usopp watched as a patch of nearby woods was blasted away by the high-pressure water cannon in barely a dozen seconds. His heart nearly stopped from fright.

In Usopp's eyes, fish-men were far too terrifying. Not only did they look different from humans, they also possessed these bizarre racial gifts. They're monsters. Humans can't possibly win with human strength alone.

"The target's exposed! Die, Long Nose!" The long-snouted fish-man Chew discovered that Usopp had revealed his own hiding place and charged over without hesitation.

"It's already over!" Usopp, who had been kicked to the ground, actually smiled. The cowardly Usopp actually smiled in the face of a powerful enemy.

"What do you mean, it's already over?" Chew suddenly had a bad feeling. He knew Usopp had little strength and should not have posed a threat, but like the other fish-men, he had underestimated every member of the Straw Hat Pirates.

"The outcome has already been decided. Special Attack: Fire Star!"

"Uwaah! Water! Water!" The alcohol on Chew's body was rapidly ignited by the Fire Star, flames engulfing his entire body and dealing far more damage than an ordinary Fire Star attack.

Chew had only considered Usopp's fighting ability, never his "schemes." That was why, despite possessing strength that completely suppressed Usopp, he kept suffering losses at Usopp's hands.

"Not good!" Seeing Chew about to use the remaining water in the paddies to put out the flames on his body, Usopp immediately grabbed his hammer, charged forward, and shouted, "Usopp Iron Hammer!"

Strike while the iron was hot and take his life while he was down! This was the first time Usopp had taken the initiative to charge at Chew. He knew this was his only chance to defeat the enemy, and he absolutely could not miss it.

After taking an unknown number of hammer blows from Usopp, Chew finally collapsed. Yet Usopp did not notice that Chew had already lost consciousness. He kept swinging the hammer in his hand and smashing it down until his whole body went weak, only then stopping in fear.

"Hey, newbie, hurry and save Luffy!" William shouted urgently to Sanji. He had no idea how long Luffy could hold his breath underwater. It would be awful if they pulled him up only for him to stop breathing.

"Splashing water has the power of a shotgun?" Sanji had just taken down Kuroobi and had not yet jumped into the sea when water Arlong flung out struck him. He stared at Arlong in disbelief.

"Watch me break that nose of yours!" Zoro clenched Wado Ichimonji in his teeth, picked up the sword Hachi had dropped, and charged at Arlong.

"It's a treasure precisely because it can't be broken!" Arlong actually used his saw-toothed nose to take Zoro's Three-Sword Style head-on. Then Arlong struck with force, piercing Zoro's shoulder and worsening his injuries.

"You damned shark, I'm your opponent!" If William had not kicked Arlong in time, Zoro's shoulder might have been ruined.

But William was not much better off than Zoro. Though his injuries were not as severe, and his Zoan Devil Fruit powers allowed his wounds to heal rather quickly, he could not survive fighting Arlong without giving it his all.

"Guys, I already took down that long-snouted fish-man. The rest is up to you!" Usopp returned to Arlong Park and saw William, Zoro, and Sanji fighting Arlong, but Luffy was nowhere to be seen.

"Chew? He was taken down by an idiot like this?" Learning that his last companion had been defeated by a human who did not even look like a warrior, Arlong's fury reached its peak. He threw William aside and walked toward Usopp.

"Special Attack: Fire Star! How can it have no effect?" Usopp discovered that the Fire Star, which had worked so well against Chew, had absolutely no effect on Arlong. It would have been one thing if Arlong had dodged, but he took the Fire Stars head-on without evading or blocking.

"Special Attack: Fire Star!" Usopp, who had been so confident moments ago, quickly fell into panic. Though several consecutive Fire Stars all hit Arlong, that only made Usopp more unsettled.

"Long Nose, die!" Arlong raised his wet right hand, preparing to use the same move he had used against Sanji on Usopp.

"Hey, you damned shark!" William used Shave to move in front of Usopp and blocked Arlong's attack with his body. He shouted furiously, "Don't pick the wrong opponent. Great Eruption!"

A massive wave of flames rushed toward Arlong. Though the flames William spewed in human form were not as powerful as those he used in his hybrid form, they were still enough to burn Arlong. If he had not been worried about accidentally burning the injured Zoro to death, this Great Eruption could have covered nearly half of Arlong Park.