“This…
this is…”
By the time Nami and Nojiko arrived, the scene at Arlong Park had already settled into devastation.
Both of their faces went pale with shock.
The Fish-Men they had feared for years were lying in pools of blood like fallen animals.
Blood had soaked the ground red.
The pool connecting to the sea had turned the same color.
The thick smell of it hit them both immediately, turning their stomachs.
They had to swallow hard to keep from being sick.
Standing in the middle of it all, completely out of place, were two people.
Rocks and Kuina.
As for the Buggy Pirates, they had already gone.
Rocks still needed them to take the fall.
He wasn’t going to kill them.
If something was useful, use it properly.
The Buggy Pirates were going to carry the credit for wiping out the Arlong Pirates, one way or another.
“As of today, the Arlong Pirates are finished.
Your village is free.”
Rocks turned to face the two of them, eyes settling on Nami.
“Per our agreement, I’ve saved your village.”
“You shouldn’t have anything holding you back anymore.
Nami.”
“This…
you did this?”
Nami pushed past the nausea and jogged over.
Her eyes were sharp and fixed on Rocks.
“You actually defeated them all?”
The Arlong Pirates.
The crew that had enslaved her village for years.
The weight that had sat on every person in Cocoyasi Village.
Annihilated today.
“As you can see.”
Rocks nodded.
“When I say something, I do it.”
“Wh-where’s Arlong?”
Nami looked around.
No sign of him.
Her expression tightened.
“He’s not here?
He was the strongest of them.
If he’s still out there—”
“He’s dead too.”
Rocks raised a hand.
In it was something with a serrated edge.
Not a weapon.
Arlong’s nose.
The Cero had reduced Arlong’s body to fragments.
Only the needle-sharp nose, hard as steel, had survived intact.
Nami’s hatred for Arlong was absolute.
She had wished him dead a thousand times.
She recognized what was in Rocks’s hand in an instant.
“He’s…
he’s really dead?”
Nami murmured it, a little dazed.
One slipped free and traced down her cheek.
The Fish-Man who had haunted her like a shadow.
The one who had killed her mother Bell-mère.
Dead.
Killed by Rocks.
A debt repaid.
The shadow lifted.
Even a girl as strong as Nami couldn’t hold it back.
But her character was too stubborn to let it become more than that.
She pressed her lips together and didn’t make a sound.
“Nami…”
Nojiko came up beside her, looking at her sister’s tear-streaked face, and couldn’t find any words.
More than herself, Nami had carried the heavier weight.
Everything she had given for Cocoyasi Village.
“I’m fine, big sis.”
Nami wiped the tears away and turned a bright smile on Nojiko.
“The Arlong Pirates are finished.
We’re free now.
From here on out.”
“Yeah.”
Nojiko nodded hard.
At some point her own eyes had gone wet too.
Arlong was dead.
The Arlong Pirates were gone.
Tears from something different from grief.
“Thank you, Rocks…”
Nami turned to him, that bright smile still on her face.
“If not for you, I don’t know how long we would have stayed like this.”
“I’ll honor the agreement.
I’ll be your navigator.
I’ll repay this debt.”
That throwaway agreement.
The one she had long forgotten.
She hadn’t expected it to be honored.
She also hadn’t expected a seventeen-year-old to have this kind of strength.
Strong enough to take out the Arlong Pirates.
For that old agreement, and for this debt she now owed.
Nami was willing to be his navigator.
“Oh?
That fast?”
Rocks said lightly: “I figured you’d play dumb and act like the agreement never happened.
I had already steeled myself to just take you along anyway.”
“Kid…
kidnap?!”
Nami blinked at him.
Something occurred to her, and she asked carefully.
“You two…
you’re not pirates, are you?”
“Not currently.”
Rocks shook his head, paused, and spread his hands.
“Though it’s hard to rule out.”
The reason he wasn’t a pirate yet was that the Marines hadn’t officially set their sights on him.
An exceptionally powerful person sailing the seas under the name Rocks would absolutely be classified as a threat.
Nothing to be done about it.
That was the consequence of carrying the name Rocks.
Nami and Nojiko looked at each other.
Neither of them followed that entirely.
Not currently.
Hard to rule out.
In other words, there was a real chance of them becoming pirates?
“Don’t worry.
Even if I end up technically called a pirate, I’m not the kind who raids villages and burns things down.
Not that sort at all.”
Rocks could see their concern.
“I have standards.
I wouldn’t lower myself to that.”
“Is that so…”
Nami looked at him and gave a small nod.
Then her voice settled into something firm.
“If I said I’d be your navigator, I won’t go back on it.”
“You saved me.
You saved our village.
I can’t repay a debt like that with anything except myself.”
“Good.”
Rocks nodded with a smile.
Then he gestured for everyone to follow.
“Let’s head back first.
I’m going to need some help with something.”
The Marines at the nearby branch would absolutely be coming to investigate.
Getting the Buggy Pirates credited for taking out the Arlong Pirates would require the cooperation of Cocoyasi Village’s residents.
Splash.
Just as Rocks and the others were about to leave, a massive sea beast with a bull’s head broke the surface of the pool.
It fixed its savage eyes on all four of them and let out an angry bellow.
What was going on here?
It had only gone to find food.
How were all the handlers dead when it came back?
Had these humans done this?
“That’s Momoo?!”
“The monster that destroyed the neighboring village!”
Nami and Nojiko both jumped at the sudden appearance and went pale.
The creature’s destructive power was tremendous.
It had leveled the neighboring village.
Rocks glanced at it.
He didn’t release his Conqueror’s Haki.
He said one word, flat and cold.
“Leave.”
The sea beast’s senses were sharper than any ordinary human’s.
Rocks hadn’t released his Conqueror’s Haki, but to the creature’s perception, something terrible was watching it.
A pressure that existed at the level of instinct itself, like a natural predator.
Just meeting that gaze was enough to fill it with fear.
Momoo let out a frightened whine, plunged back into the water, and fled.
It would have grown another tail if it could.
“What just happened…”
“Why did it run?”
Nami and Nojiko stared.
Neither of them had any idea what had just happened.
One word and that terrifying creature had turned and run?
What had Rocks done to it?