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The Fish-Man Bar.
Its windows looked out on an alien panorama of coral forests and darting, colorful fish—breathtaking, beautiful. For anyone not born to the depths, though, the crushing, silent pressure of the deep sea pressed down like a suffocating blanket.
The Silver Pirate Alliance, led by Bill, packed the small establishment, eyes glued to the windows—scrutinizing every fish-man who passed by.
They had been here for a month.
Bill had been sure that camping out at the crossroads of the world would lead him to Hack. But there had been nothing—no whisper, no trail. His grand plan to hitch his wagon to the Thunder God Pirates was evaporating.
"Hey! What are you looking at? More booze!" he roared at the mermaid proprietor, who stared back with a mix of fear and hatred.
They were pirates—bullying the locals came naturally. But Bill was smart enough to keep it verbal—he didn't want to be run out of the kingdom before he found his prize.
Barrels of the island's specialty ale were brought over—the aroma was intoxicating.
Bill, however, was in no mood to drink. His dream was on the line.
"Just drink, boss," one of his men slurred. "We'll find him."
"Agh!" Bill sighed, draining his mug in one gulp. He leaned back, gaze drifting to the window, mind already spinning for a Plan B.
And then he saw them.
"Two—large sea bream?" he muttered, squinting. He sat bolt upright, eyes widening. "Get me the spyglass! NOW!"
He recognized one instantly:
Fisher Tiger.
The other, farther away, was a blur—but when the current ripped the second man's hood free, the skin tone and hair matched the bounty picture perfectly.
A man scrambled over with the spyglass. Bill snatched it, hands shaking, and focused.
"HAHAHAHA! That's him! It's really him! The Gods are on my side!" he bellowed, leaping onto the table. "Get me the Den Den Mushi! Now! Call the Thunder God Pirates! Call that terrifying woman, Catarina Devon! We've got him!"
He trembled with ecstatic joy—his life was about to change.
'The Silver Alliance,' he thought, 'is about to hit the big time.'
————
"Purupurupuru…"
Arthur stepped out of the bath, water cascading off bronze-chiseled muscles. He toweled off, body a map of lean, explosive power, and casually picked up the ringing snail.
"This better be about the Op-Op Fruit or the Revolutionaries," he growled into the receiver. "I'm not interested in anything else."
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"Mmmrrrooo! Boss! We got a hit! News on the Revolutionaries!" Catarina Devon's voice boomed over the Den Den Mushi—triumphant and drunk.
She expected praise. Instead, a high-pitched shriek of volts answered her.
"Zzzzzzzzt!"
Raw electricity leapt from Arthur's hand and vaporized the towel he'd been holding. He spoke—low, threatening—each word punctuated by the crackle of ozone.
"What. Did. You. Say?"
"Boss! W-We got news on the Revolutionaries!" Devon stammered—suddenly sober, flattened by the cold fury in his voice.
"Where."
"Fish-Man Island!" She spilled the report in a frantic rush. "The Silver Pirate Alliance has been staked out there for a month. Their leader, Bill, just spotted the fish-man Hack! He's leaving the island now—heading for Sabaody!"
"The Silver Pirate Alliance… Bill… what do they want?" Arthur asked, shrugging on his greatcoat as he strode toward the palace doors.
"They want to join our fleet, boss! Bill's a Logia user—the Smelt-Smelt Fruit… He could be useful…"
"Fine. Give Bill control of all the gold mines Myskina scouted. Tell him to melt the ore and ship it to Punk Hazard."
Arthur slammed the receiver down, cutting the connection. He glanced up at the storm clouds—his birthright—and dissolved into a bolt of lightning, shooting into the sky.
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Raijin Island—one of the gateways to the New World—sat close to the Red Line.
A normal ship might take a week to make the crossing. A fast one, three days.
Arthur, as lightning, was a thousand times faster.
He blurred through clouds—a flicker the eye could barely register. He wasn't truly at the speed of lightning, but close enough. In three hours he had crossed the Red Line and hovered over the Sabaody Archipelago.
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He sat on a cloud, ten thousand meters up, his Observation Haki unfurled—blanketing a radius of hundreds of kilometers. And he waited.
The colorful bubbles from the Yarukiman mangroves floated up, catching the sun, then burst—silent splashes of light.
Pirates, merchants, nobles, Marines—he saw them all, every soul on the archipelago—laid bare before his mind's eye.
Time passed without impatience. He simply floated, his mind circling back to his true work: the hunt for the electron—the quest for microscopic control.
He didn't know how long he'd been waiting when his Haki finally twitched.
A hundred kilometers out—near the edge of the Florian Triangle—two figures breached the surface.
A cold, merciless smile touched Arthur's lips. He dissolved into lightning and shot toward them.
He recognized both.
One was Hack.
The other—the red-skinned fish-man with the wide mouth—was Fisher Tiger.
Hack was a decent martial artist, but against Arthur he was nothing. Tiger was tougher, but even he would struggle against a common Vice Admiral. They were gnats.
He could have ended them in an instant. But he held back.
He wanted to follow them—wanted to find their destination.
Baltigo—the mythical "White Earth" island, the hidden Revolutionary headquarters.
He'd asked navigators about it. The island didn't exist on any map. Like Punk Hazard, it had a chaotic, unloggable magnetic field—impossible to find unless you were lucky, or unless you were led there.
Arthur would let Hack be his guide.
He would follow him home, save Vegapunk, and then he and Dragon would have a little chat.
What goes around comes around. On Raijin Island he'd been defensive—hands tied. But on Dragon's turf?
There would be no such restrictions.
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Tiger and Hack never looked for a ship. They feared the bounty hunters that now swarmed the seas—hungry for Arthur's reward. They traveled by swimming—the ocean their natural element.
They never knew that ten thousand meters above them their worst nightmare shadowed every move—a patient, silent follower.
For a month, Arthur trailed them.
And he listened.
A few days into the chase, as they rested on an uninhabited island, he overheard their plan—a detail that sparked real interest.
The "Slave Liberation Plan."
A Revolutionary deep-cover agent in the World Government would create a diversion—drawing Mary Geoise's high-level defenses away. Then Fisher Tiger would climb the Red Line alone and, while the Holy Land was unguarded, free the Celestial Dragons' slaves.
It was audacious—brilliant, even. It confirmed Dragon's ruthless calculus: he was using Tiger as a pawn, risking the fish-man's life to save his own men.
'He's not a Revolutionary,' Arthur mused—'so his death doesn't matter.'
Dragon preached equality, but pragmatism ruled. Did he truly believe humans and fish-men could ever be equal?
'Peaceful coexistence—maybe. True equality—impossible.'
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Sea Calendar 1506. East Blue. Foosha Village.
After a grueling two-month journey, Shiryu and Don Chinjao finally arrived. Their ship—without a turbine engine—had taken the long route, unable to cross the Calm Belt.
They dropped anchor and stepped onto the shore of the peaceful, unremarkable village.
Shiryu lit a cigarillo, a cruel, hungry smile spreading across his face. "So this is his home—the brat who dared raid our island…"
"Just tell me where they are," Chinjao growled, white beard trembling with rage at the thought of Garp. "Anything tied to that bastard must be destroyed."
"Let's start there," Shiryu said, his Haki sensing a cluster of life in the village center. A bar—Party's Bar—buzzed loud with drinking and singing.
The itch—the desire to kill he hadn't scratched for two long months—rose like a fever. He slowly drew the Seven Star Sword.
A ghostly green light bloomed at the tip.
With a single, merciless slash, he unleashed a terrifying blade of energy at the unsuspecting village.
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