Chapter 37: Giant Elephant Gun! Stop Noah
The sky above Fishman Island had become a canvas of dread.
Every resident who had been celebrating moments earlier in Gyoncorde Plaza now stood frozen, their gazes fixed upward. The celebration of their liberation had transformed into silent horror as the impossible shadow grew larger, closer, more absolute.
"Noah... it's actually going to fall."
The words spread through the crowd like ripples in still water—soft at first, then growing into waves of realization. Mothers clutched their children. Fishermen forgot their nets. Children stopped crying and simply stared.
At the Fishman Island observation tower, a soldier grabbed the Den Den Mushi transmitter with trembling hands. His voice, when it came, carried across every speaker, every receiver, every corner of the kingdom.
"Residents of Fishman Island... and crew of the Straw Hat Pirates."
He paused, swallowing hard.
"Straw Hat Luffy is still fighting Hody Jones aboard Noah. He is attempting to prevent the ark from crashing into our island."
The soldier's final words fell heavy as stones into still water.
"Attempting to stop Noah from destroying Fishman Island."
The silence that followed was absolute.
"Captain Hody..." a murloc whispered to another. "He's still alive up there?"
"So what if he is?!"
The shout came from a human pirate, his chains recently broken, his face twisted with fear. "If Noah falls, this whole island ends! We all end! Murloc, human, fishman—it won't matter!"
Jinbe, standing among the crowd with his massive arms crossed, said nothing. His eyes remained fixed on the descending ship, reading its trajectory with the practiced eye of a former Warlord. His expression grew darker with each passing second.
Around him, murloc faces shifted from confusion to horror to dawning despair.
"Is Captain Hody really willing to kill us all? His own people?"
The question hung unanswered in the salt-tinged air.
At the edge of Fishman Island's protective bubble, the Straw Hat crew had gathered near the membrane's threshold. Above them, through the shimmering barrier, they could see the dark shape growing—and a single figure rising to meet it.
Nami's hand pressed against the bubble's surface, her eyes tracking the small form ascending through the crushing deep. "Itachi... he's going up there."
Chopper's hooves gripped the membrane's edge, his reindeer nose pressed flat against the invisible barrier. "Itachi-brother... Luffy... they're both up there!"
"He's going to help Luffy stop Noah," Robin said quietly, her arms folded beneath her chest. Her voice carried certainty, though her eyes betrayed concern. "The question is whether even their combined strength will be enough."
Zoro's hand rested on Enma's hilt, though he made no move to draw. His single visible eye tracked the distant figure with an intensity that bordered on reverence. "That bastard lent me Shusui earlier," he muttered. "He'd better come back to collect it."
Sanji exhaled smoke from his cigarette, watching it disperse against the bubble's surface. "All we can do now is trust them. Trust Luffy's instincts and Itachi's eyes."
"Trust them," Robin echoed softly. "Yes. That's all we can do."
Through the crushing pressure of the deep sea, Itachi moved.
The moment he'd pierced the bubble's boundary, his Black Fire Crow technique had extinguished—the flames unable to sustain themselves in the endless water. But he'd anticipated this. The moment the crows dissolved, Susano'o's skeletal form manifested around him, ribs curving protectively as the ocean's weight tried to crush him.
Veins pulsed at his temples. The pressure at this depth was immense, far beyond anything a normal human body could withstand. But Itachi was not normal, and Susano'o was not merely armor—it was will made manifest.
He swam upward, each stroke carrying him closer to Noah's massive hull.
Luffy is up there, he thought, his Sharingan spinning as he calculated distances, trajectories, probabilities. Alone against Hody and trying to stop that ship.
The ark loomed above him like a leviathan, its ancient wood groaning under the strain of its impossible descent. Itachi pushed harder.
Hold on, captain. I'm coming.
Aboard Noah, the battle had reached its final, desperate stage.
Hody Jones stood amid the wreckage of the ship's deck, his body a patchwork of wounds that should have killed any normal creature a dozen times over. Blood streamed from a hundred cuts. His gills worked frantically, struggling to process oxygen. One eye had swollen completely shut. And still he laughed.
"Jahahahaha! Jahahahaha!"
The sound was no longer human—no longer even fishman. It was the laugh of something that had crossed a line and kept running, hatred carrying it where flesh and blood could no longer go.
Luffy faced him across the broken deck, his body equally battered. The wound where Hody had torn flesh from his shoulder gaped red and raw. His straw hat hung askew, held in place by sheer stubbornness. But his eyes—those eyes burned with an intensity that had nothing to do with hatred and everything to do with purpose.
From the ship's edge, Prince Fukaboshi watched in horror. His massive body, bruised from his own battle with Hody, could barely move. But his voice carried.
"Is Hody immortal?! How can he still stand?!"
Fukaboshi forced himself to turn, to observe, to understand. Through the fog of pain and exhaustion, realization dawned.
"No... that's not it. His body passed its limit long ago."
He watched as Hody laughed and raged, each movement slower than the last, each breath more ragged.
"The reason Hody can withstand so much poison, so much damage, is because he's driving his body with hatred. Pure, absolute hatred for humans. That's the only thing keeping him standing. The only thing that's kept him standing all along."
Hody's laughter cut off abruptly. His one good eye fixed on Luffy with murderous intensity.
"Straw Hat Boy! Do you really think you can beat me?!"
He spread his arms wide, gesturing at the ship, at the falling ark, at the island below.
"IMPOSSIBLE! I am the one who will restore the glory of fishmen! I am the TRUE KING OF THE SEA! And you—" His arm swept toward Luffy, finger pointing like a blade. "—you will bring your beautiful dreams and die with me beneath the waves!"
Around him, seawater that had leaked through Noah's damaged hull began to rise. It swirled and condensed, forming not one but dozens of massive shark-shaped projectiles—each one large enough to crush a man, to tear through flesh and bone.
Luffy didn't respond. His attention had shifted from Hody to something else—something larger.
He began inflating his arm.
Air rushed into muscle and bone, expanding his limb to impossible proportions. The arm grew and grew, swelling until it dwarfed the ship itself, until it rivaled Noah's own massive scale. And then, as Hody watched with manic eyes, Luffy's expression hardened.
A dark sheen spread across the giant fist.
Armament Haki.
"Go to hell!" Hody screamed, hurling every water shark simultaneously. Dozens of massive constructs shot toward Luffy like living torpedoes, their jaws gaping wide.
Luffy raised his arm.
"GOMU GOMU NO—"
The first water shark struck. The giant fist shuddered but held.
"—ELEPHANT—"
More impacts. The fist pushed back, struggling against the relentless assault.
"—GUN!"
The giant fist EXPLODED forward, smashing through the remaining water sharks like they were made of paper. Hody's eyes widened as the black fist filled his vision—and then it struck.
BOOM!
The impact shattered wood and sent shockwaves rippling through the ship's structure. Hody flew backward, his body crumpling as he crashed through multiple decks before finally coming to rest in the ship's deepest hold.
He lay there, consciousness flickering like a dying flame. His body screamed for rest, for death, for anything but this endless agony.
But his mouth still moved.
"Noah..." The words came out as barely a whisper, carried on bubbles and blood. "With my will... GO! Destroy Fishman Island! Destroy those murlocs who have no dignity! Destroy those traitors who bow to humans!"
He thought he'd spoken to no one.
But Luffy heard.
Luffy's eyes narrowed. His giant fist, still expanded, still coated in Haki, began to move again.
"GOMU GOMU NO—"
His arm became a blur.
"—ELEPHANT GATLING!"
The fists RAINED down. Each strike landed on Noah's hull with the force of a battleship cannonade. Wood splintered. Beams cracked. The ancient ark, preserved for centuries, began to break apart under the assault of one rubber man's absolute refusal to let it destroy his friends.
CRASH. CRASH. CRASHCRASHCRASHCRASH—
Wood and debris flew in all directions as Luffy's fists hammered the ship into pieces.
And then a figure emerged from the darkness beside him.
Itachi landed on the deck, Susano'o's skeletal form fading as he assessed the scene in an instant—Luffy's berserk assault, the shattered decks, the distant shape of Hody's broken body far below.
"Luffy. What are you doing?"
Luffy's head snapped toward him, eyes wide, grin splitting his face despite the blood and exhaustion.
"Ah! Tear-trough Itachi!"
His fists never stopped moving. If anything, they accelerated.
"I'M GOING TO DESTROY NOAH!"
Each word punctuated by another thunderous impact.
"This ship is NOT going to smash Fishman Island! NOT while I'm standing!"
Below, Shirahoshi watched through the bubble's surface, her massive hands pressed against her mouth.
"Luffy-sama... Itachi-sama..."
Her eyes, enormous even by mermaid standards, tracked every movement, every blow. And what she saw made her heart clench.
"Luffy-sama's wound... it's getting worse!"
The bite Hody had torn into Luffy's shoulder gaped wider with every punch, blood streaming down his arm, his chest, his leg. The violent motion of the Elephant Gatling was tearing him apart from the outside in.
Shirahoshi made a decision. She began to rise, to swim toward the ship, to beg Luffy to stop—
"SHUT UP, COWARDLY STAR!"
The roar hit her like a physical force. Luffy's eyes, wild and blazing, locked onto hers from across the impossible distance.
"STAY THERE! DON'T MOVE!"
His fists never slowed.
"JUST WATCH! WATCH ME DESTROY THIS SHIP!"
The force of his words, of his absolute certainty, froze Shirahoshi in place. She couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could only watch as the man who had saved her, who had believed in her, tore himself apart to save everyone below.
Fukaboshi watched with pain in his ancient eyes. Beside him, his brothers Ryuboshi and Manboshi had dragged themselves to the ship's edge, their bodies as battered as his.
"Because of us," Fukaboshi whispered. "Because of our failure, this burden falls on outsiders. On humans who should never have needed to fight our battles."
Tears mixed with seawater on his face.
"Forgive us, Luffy. Forgive us, Itachi. We are not worthy of your sacrifice."
In the observation tower, the soldier had never stopped broadcasting.
"—Straw Hat Luffy has defeated Hody Jones! I repeat, Hody Jones has been defeated! But the battle continues!"
His voice cracked with emotion as he watched through his scope, transmitting everything to every receiver on the island.
"Straw Hat Luffy is now attempting to destroy Noah! He's punching the ship apart piece by piece! He's trying to ensure it cannot reach Fishman Island! He's trying to save us ALL!"
The words echoed across Gyoncorde Plaza, across Fishman Island's cities and villages, across every corner of the kingdom.
Silence.
Then—a single voice.
"It's impossible."
Others took up the refrain.
"He can't do it. That ship is too big."
"He'll die trying."
"Why would a human do this for us?"
But another voice rose above the doubt. An old murloc, his scales gray with age, his eyes fixed on the sky with something like faith.
"There's nothing WE can do," he said quietly. "This battle—this was never our fight. It was the Straw Hats who ended it. It was the Straw Hats who saved us."
He looked around at the gathered crowd, at the thousands of faces—murloc and human alike—watching the sky with fear and hope.
"So now, we TRUST. We trust the Straw Hat Boy!"
Another voice joined his. Then another. Then a dozen.
"Trust the Straw Hat Boy!"
"Stop Noah!"
"Luffy! ITACHI!"
The chant spread through the crowd like fire through dry grass.
"STOP NOAH! STOP NOAH! STOP NOAH!"
On High Harbor, King Neptune stood alone at the edge of his kingdom, his massive form silhouetted against the bubble's glow. His eyes, ancient and sad, watched the distant battle with an expression only centuries of life could produce.
Joy Boy, he thought, the name carrying the weight of a promise made centuries ago. It seems the agreement we made cannot be fulfilled.
His gaze never wavered from the falling ship.
Now, the only way to save Fishman Island is to destroy Noah itself. To destroy the symbol of our ancient promise.
A pause.
But... can it truly be destroyed? Can one boy's fists undo what time itself has preserved?
In Gyoncorde Plaza, the Straw Hats stood together, watching.
Zoro had sheathed his swords. Sanji had let his cigarette burn down to nothing. Nami's hand still pressed against the bubble. Chopper's eyes streamed tears. Robin's expression was calm, but her fingers pressed into her own arms hard enough to leave marks.
"There's nothing more we can do," Zoro said quietly. It wasn't resignation—it was acceptance. The recognition that some battles must be fought alone, even by those who fight together.
Sanji nodded, a thin stream of smoke escaping his lips. "Yeah. All we can do now is trust Luffy."
Robin's voice came soft but certain. "And Itachi. He's up there too."
"Trust them both," Nami whispered. "Just trust them."
Above them, through the shimmering barrier of the bubble, through the crushing weight of the deep sea, two figures stood against an ancient ark and the madman who had set it falling.
One punched with fists that could shatter anything.
The other watched with eyes that could see everything.
And Noah continued to fall.
(End of Chapter)
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