Luffy hung motionless in the air, propulsion jets idling, steam curling from his shoulders like smoke from a dying fire. His eyes burned deep crimson Future Sight painting every grain of sand, every twitch of the two remaining Crocodile copies below in perfect, glowing threads. The desert wind howled around him, but he didn't flinch. Didn't blink.
The copies snarled in unison.
"You think floating makes you untouchable, Mugiwara?!"
Sand surged upward in massive columns thick, razor-edged pillars meant to skewer him mid-air. Luffy's lips curled into a small, dangerous smile.
"Gear Fourth… Snakeman."
The air cracked.
A sonic boom rolled across the plateau as his body shifted slimmer now, leaner, Haki-coated limbs elongating like living whips. Steam exploded outward in violent bursts. The propulsion jets flared brighter, hotter, propelling him in impossible angles left, right, up, down all at once. The very atmosphere screamed in protest.
The copies launched again Desert Spada x10 this time, ten crescent blades of compressed sand whistling toward him from every direction, edges sharp enough to split steel.
Luffy moved.
Not dodging. Flowing.
His arms blurred into afterimages rubber stretched to its limit, Haki surging black and red along every inch. "Cobra Gatling Gun!"
Infinite arms appeared.
Not exaggeration. Not metaphor. Dozens no, hundreds of elongated, whip-like limbs erupted from his shoulders, chest, back each coated in Advanced Armament, each tipped with a coiled fist that struck like a striking cobra. They lashed out in a storm of precision violence, faster than sight, faster than sound.
The first Spada shattered mid-flight fist after fist hammering its core, Haki shattering the "consciousness" Crocodile had imprinted into the sand. Grains exploded outward in harmless puffs.
The second blade met the same fate arms converging from impossible angles, Advanced Conqueror's Haki flickering along the edges, breaking the sand's cohesion at its deepest level.
The copies tried to reform bodies dissolving into swirling dunes, then rising again, hooks gleaming anew. But every time they rebuilt, Luffy's infinite arms were already there striking the exact point where the "core" reformed, the invisible knot of will that kept the copies animate.
One copy lunged hook slashing for Luffy's throat. A dozen snake-like arms intercepted it mid-swing, coiling around the golden hook, twisting, shattering it into powder. The copy staggered. Another barrage fifty fists at once hammered its chest. Sand sprayed like blood. The core cracked. Consciousness flickered.
The second copy roared, summoning a tidal wave of sand to bury Luffy from above. Snakeman twisted in mid-air body bending at angles no human could survive arms whipping upward in a spiraling counter-storm. Haki-laced fists punched through the wave, shattering its momentum, then converged on the copy's reforming head.
One final, concentrated strike.
The core shattered.
Both copies froze eyes wide, mouths open in silent rage then collapsed inward. Sand poured from their forms like water from a broken vessel. Coats dissolved. Hooks crumbled. In seconds, nothing remained but three small piles of ordinary, lifeless grains blowing gently across the plateau.
Luffy landed lightly in the center.
Steam rose thick from his shoulders, curling into the hot air. His breathing was steady deep, controlled. Snakeman's form held for one heartbeat longer, then deflated with a soft hiss of released pressure. He stood normally again straw hat slightly askew, vest torn in places, but eyes still sharp.
He cracked his neck once.
"Time to find everyone."
Without another glance at the scattered sand, he turned and ran sand kicking up behind him toward the temple's deeper corridors where his crew waited.
Somewhere ahead, the fruit pulsed closer now, its call almost audible.
And in the shadows of a nearby dune, unseen, Toku watched the entire fight.
His cigarette had burned down to ash between numb fingers.
The monster inside him purred.
Luffy's grown strong.
Good.
Stronger distractions made the taking sweeter.
He flicked the dead butt away and slipped back into the temple's darkness.
The fruit was waiting.
And soon, no one would see him take it.