The water wasn't just an enemy; it was a collaborator. Every kick Sanji launched, every desperate twist of his body, was swallowed, slowed, and turned against him by the crushing embrace of the sea. Meanwhile, Kuroobi moved like a blade through silk, his finned limbs leaving trails of bubbles as his fists and feet slammed into Sanji's ribs, his gut, his jaw.
*Thud. Thud. THUD.*
The impacts were muffled thunder in Sanji's ears, each one driving a spike of agony deeper and stealing more precious air from his burning lungs. He tasted copper. His vision pulsed with dark spots.
"Your struggle is pathetic," Kuroobi's voice bubbled, a smug, distorted echo. "The water loves me. It hates you. It's that simple."
Sanji saw an opening, pushed off a crumbling pillar, and spun, driving his heel toward Kuroobi's temple. The water caught his leg, sapping its speed. Kuroobi didn't even dodge. He took the blow on his forearm and grinned, the webbing between his fingers fluttering.
"Thank you," Kuroobi gurgled. "The current you create only makes me stronger."
He retaliated with a piston-strike to Sanji's solar plexus. All the air left Sanji's body in a silent, agonized scream. A cloud of precious bubbles erupted from his lips and raced for the distant, shimmering surface.
*Air. I need air.*
Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the pain. He kicked wildly, desperately upward, toward that wavering light. Just one breath. One gasp, and he could think, he could fight—
A shadow fell over him. Kuroobi was already there, hovering above, blocking the sun, blocking salvation.
"Going somewhere, surface-dweller?" Kuroobi sneered, planting a webbed foot on Sanji's shoulder and shoving him back down into the blue gloom. "This is the end of the line for your noble chivalry. Tell me, was it worth it? Dying for a principle?"
Sanji's chest was a furnace of need. He clawed at his own throat.
"Once you're gone," Kuroobi continued, swimming a slow, taunting circle around him, "I will go up there and snap the neck of that green-haired swordsman. Then I'll find your captain, whatever's left of him. I'll slaughter the villagers hiding in their homes. One by one. You will have saved *no one*."
The words were more crushing than the depth. Failure. Total, absolute failure. Not just to breathe, but to protect. The faces of Nami, of Nojiko, of the old man Genzo, flashed behind his eyes. *I'm sorry.*
Kuroobi's hand shot out and clamped around Sanji's neck with bone-creaking force. "Let's finish this. A quick trip to the garden."
The world became a violent blur. Kuroobi dove, dragging Sanji with him, plunging toward the abyssal dark of the seafloor. The pressure changed instantly—a giant's fist squeezing Sanji's entire body. His ears popped. His eyes felt like they would be pushed into his skull. And then, a hot, tearing agony in his core.
*Cough.*
A bloom of crimson, *his* crimson, flowered in the water before his face. It was beautiful and horrifying. The pressure was rupturing him from the inside.
On the shore, a collective gasp went up from the villagers huddled behind the rubble.
"The water… it turned red down there!" a woman cried, clutching her child.
"Mr. Sanji! Mr. Genzo!" a young boy wailed.
Nojiko bit her knuckle, drawing blood, her eyes fixed on the turbulent, red-tinged water. "Please… please be alive."
***
Miraculously, painfully, Sanji *was*.
Sprawled on the sandy bottom, surrounded by the eerie silence of the deep, he felt his own blood drifting around him like a ghost. Kuroobi loomed over him, a triumphant demon in the dim light. Sanji's hand, trembling, rose. Not in surrender. One finger pointed, unwavering, back toward the surface.
A challenge.
Kuroobi's grin widened. "Still defiant? You want another taste? I am happy to oblige."
He grabbed Sanji again and shot upward, a torpedo of malice. The rapid ascent was its own torture, but Sanji's mind, fueled by rage and the image of his friends in danger, clicked into a cold, precise clarity.
*Fishmen breathe through gills. Water in, water out.*
As they surged upward, Sanji turned his head, ignoring the screaming protest of his muscles. He saw the rhythmic flutter of slitted gills on Kuroobi's neck.
*No water in.*
With the last of his strength, Sanji lunged forward and sank his teeth into the soft, vulnerable tissue.
Kuroobi's triumphant charge became a convulsive shudder. A choked, watery gurgle escaped him. His grip on Sanji's neck went slack. Sanji bit down harder, tasting salt and something alien, blocking the vital flow.
Suffocation, the hunter's weapon, became the prey's.
Kuroobi thrashed, panic in his eyes for the first time. He released Sanji, clawing at his own neck. Sanji didn't wait. He kicked off the fishman's chest and shot toward the light, toward life, toward the fight.
He exploded through the surface with a ragged, glorious gasp. The air had never tasted so sweet.
On the wrecked plaza, Zoro, leaning heavily on his swords, stared. "Cook?!"
From his throne of shattered stone, Arlong's jaw went slack. "Impossible!"
Sanji tread water, filling his lungs again and again. He locked eyes with Zoro. "The shitty rubber man is… sort of fine!" he yelled, the words rough but clear. Then he turned his fiery gaze back to the bubbling water. "NOW COME UP HERE, YOU OVERGROWN TROUT! I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!"
Kuroobi breached the surface a moment later, heaving, the gills on his neck torn and bleeding. He hauled himself onto the walkway, fury overriding his pain. "Land changes nothing! I'll crush you just the same! Your bones will make a fine broth! **MURACHU MULLET SLAM!**"
He coiled, preparing to launch his ultimate technique, a blow that could shatter stone.
He never got the chance.
"You talk too much," Sanji snarled.
The barrage was a blur. *Bam!* A kick to the knee. *Crack!* A heel to the ribs. *Thwack!* A spinning blow to the jaw. Kuroobi was driven back, stunned, a puppet with its strings cut. He tried to steady himself, to muster his attack, but Sanji was already a whirlwind of vengeance.
"You threatened my friends," Sanji said, his voice low and deadly. "You threatened my crew."
He planted his foot, the world seeming to slow. "You have no idea what you've done."
"**Mouton Shot!**"
The final kick connected with a sound like a cannon blast. Kuroobi's eyes bulged. Sanji leaned in as the fishman left the ground. "Any dessert?" he asked, cold as the deep sea.
Kuroobi became a blue-and-white streak, rocketing across the plaza. He smashed through the remaining walls of Arlong Park's central tower with a catastrophic crunch of wood and stone, before collapsing in a heap next to the unconscious Hatchan.
Silence, heavier than the ocean's pressure, fell.
Sanji landed lightly on the walkway, water streaming from his suit. He lit a cigarette, the flame steady in his hand. He took a long drag and exhaled, nodding toward the two defeated fishmen. "See? Nothing special."
Arlong rose from his seat. The stone armrest crumbled to dust in his crushing grip. His eyes were pits of pure, unadulterated rage. The air grew thick and cold around him.
"You… insects…" he breathed, the words vibrating with menace. He stepped forward, his shadow engulfing Sanji and Zoro. "You think this is a victory? You've merely plucked two scales from a dragon. You are still in my ocean. And you are still **miles** from winning."
Zoro, gripping Wado Ichimonji, shifted his stance. "Cook. What did you mean, 'sort of fine'?"
Sanji didn't take his eyes off the advancing Arlong, the Saw-Tooth Arlong, whose every step made the ground tremble. His voice was grim, urgent.
"He won't die," Sanji said. "But Luffy's pinned under a massive chunk of the tower… at the bottom of the bay."
He flicked his cigarette away, the ember hissing as it hit the water.
"And he can't swim."
Arlong's monstrous grin returned, wider and more terrifying than ever. "Is that so?" he rumbled, his gaze shifting past them, out to the deceptively calm sea. "Then it seems your captain is already dead. And you two are next."
**TO BE CONTINUED…**