Morning Is Coming

Morning draws close over Thriller Bark. From the sea and the island, voices cry, "Paaaaa...!!" and "Morning is coming!!" while people shout, "Everyone, get into the forest!!!" Far away, ships sit in the brightening water, and someone curses, "Damn it!! We've come this far!!" Another realizes the scale of Moria's final move: "He took the shadows of all the zombies on the island!!" The mast mansion tilts as Moria, swollen with shadows, tears through the island. A panicked voice says, "He split the island with one attack!!!" and another adds, "Right now, Moria is even stronger than Oz!!" With dawn arriving and Moria's power raging, the crowd concludes, "There's nothing more we can do! Run away!!!"

Lola's crew begs her to escape. "Come into the shadows, Captain Lola!!! Do you want to die!?" they shout. Lola refuses, declaring, "I... I won't return to the shadows!!! I don't care whether I live or die anymore!!" Her crew pleads, "Captain..." but their fear turns toward Luffy and the Straw Hats. "Hey!! Where do you guys see any chance for victory!?" one asks. "There's no way you can win!! You're up against a monster with the strength of a thousand men!!! Your shadows and power are in there too!! There's no more time left!!!" Zoro answers instead of yielding: "If you're going to watch, then just shut up and look...!!! The fight with Moria... We've already won it." When they ask how, another explains, "All that's left is to see if we can win before the sun rises. Moria is betting that he can defeat us in that short amount of time with his power."

Moria towers over the battlefield, stuffed with a thousand shadows, while the Straw Hats stand before him and evaluate the risk. One asks, "Will we be destroyed first...!? Or will Moria self-destruct first...!?" The truth is that Moria's stolen power is unstable. Luffy steps forward and begins pumping his body, his limbs steaming with Gear Second. He clenches his fist and announces, "Gear Second"!!! The others watch him prepare to strike while Moria looms above, his giant form full of black, boiling shadow power. Luffy is no longer trying to match Moria's mass; he is betting on speed, pressure, and the fact that Moria cannot fully control the thousand shadows he has forced into himself.

Luffy launches through the broken battlefield in Gear Second. Moria swings and stomps through the ruins, trying to crush him, but Luffy slips between the massive limbs. Dust and stone explode around them as Moria's oversized body crashes down with heavy impacts, while Luffy's smaller frame moves too quickly to pin. At the bottom, Luffy sets his attack and says, "Gomu Gomu..." The page shows the contrast clearly: Moria has the raw size and shadows of the entire island, but Luffy still has control, speed, and timing. The fight becomes a race between Moria's unstable strength and Luffy's ability to force the shadows out before the sun takes the shadowless victims.

Luffy fires himself into Moria with "Jet Rocket"!!! His body shoots forward like a missile and slams into Moria's swollen torso. Moria reels, eyes wide, as the blow sinks in. Below, the effect is immediate: shadows begin streaming from Moria's body. Someone shouts, "Shadows are coming out!!!" and Moria groans, "Ooooh..." The huge mass of stolen darkness ripples and ejects black streams upward. Luffy's hit does not need to defeat the giant body outright; each impact shakes Moria's concentration and forces the stolen shadows free. The crowd realizes that the key is not overpowering the thousand shadows, but making Moria fail to contain them.

Luffy follows with "Jet Bazooka"!!! The double-handed impact hammers into Moria, blasting him backward with a roar of "Buhooh!!!" Moria staggers, then Luffy drives another "Jet Bazooka"!!! into him, making the warlord cry, "Doaah!!!" The stolen shadows begin to loosen further. The watchers finally understand what is happening: "They're gradually being freed." Another asks, "Why...!? Those shadows should be under his power..." The answer is simple and fatal to Moria's plan: "As Moria loses consciousness, his control over the shadows fades..." Moria's face twists with horror as he realizes that the more damage Luffy does, the more impossible it becomes to keep his stolen army inside himself.

Even Moria cannot fully control a thousand shadows. Black forms burst from his body as he pants and groans, "Aaaah...!!" Luffy, still steaming from Gear Second, begins another attack: "Gomu Gomu..." But Moria fights back with his own shadow power. He spreads a mass of bats and calls, "Brick Bat"!!! The black bats swarm into a solid form and then form a prison around Luffy. Moria snaps the trap shut with "Black Box," the kanji meaning "Shadow Box," and Luffy finds himself sealed inside. "I'm trapped," he says, still breathing hard. The move shows that Moria's power remains dangerous even while he is losing control; he can still shape shadows into weapons and cages if Luffy gives him an opening.

Moria tries to crush the trapped Luffy, but Luffy breaks through. The box-like shadow prison buckles under his force, and Luffy shouts, "Break!!!" as his fist punches out through the dark barrier and smashes into Moria. The direct hit shocks the crowd: "A direct hit!!!" and "That punch split the island!!!" someone cries, while others shout, "Strawhat!!!" The prison bursts apart with chunks of shadow and debris scattering through the air. Moria falls back as the battlefield erupts around him, and the point of the exchange is unmistakable: even Moria's special shadow techniques cannot hold Luffy long enough to stop the assault. Luffy keeps breaking through every delay because there are only moments left before dawn.

Moria keeps taunting even as Luffy smashes through his defenses. "Stop!!!" someone cries as Luffy drives downward and Moria hisses, "Haa... Haa... You little... punk..." Moria declares, "This is your 'baptism.' This is what happens when you act tough on this ocean...!! This is what happens when you defy a Shichibukai!!!" He lectures Luffy with contempt: "Know your place!!! This world...!! This world only crushes those who stand out!!!" The battlefield explodes again, and Luffy is thrown down so hard that Usopp and Brook shout, "Luffy!!" and "Luffy!!?" But Moria's words are not just insult; they reveal his own defeatist worldview, the belief that the world punishes anyone who reaches too high.

Luffy stands up from Moria's crushing blow. The spectators cry, "He... he stood up!!!" Moria snarls, "I don't know about being a punk or standing out..." Luffy, battered and calm, says, "But I... won't be crushed by anyone...!!! Because I'm made of rubber." Moria tries to dismiss him: "You won't be crushed...!? How can you say that...? You're just revealing your lack of experience..." The crowd, however, is stunned. "Is he immortal or something!? Amazing!!" someone says as Luffy remains standing before the enormous Shichibukai. Moria, panting and enraged, vows, "I'll make you spit them all out right now...!!!" but the statement sounds less like control and more like desperation.

The sun cuts into the courtyard, forcing everyone to dive for shade. "Uwaah!! The sun!!!" someone screams. Others shout, "You idiot!! Make sure you're in the shadows; otherwise, you'll be destroyed!!!" and "Get in the shadows, quick!! The courtyard is dangerous!!!" A victim cries, "Help me!! My arm...!! My arm is gone!!" Even as people scramble, Luffy prepares another reckless escalation. The crew yells, "Eh!? Hey!! Is it okay to add that technique!?" Brook asks, "Don't you remember what happened to you after you used Gear Second, Luffy!?" Chopper shouts, "That's really reckless, Luffy!!! You're damaging your own body!!!" But Luffy begins Gear Third anyway, inflating with "Bone Balloon"!!! and then announcing, "Giant" as Moria watches.

Luffy combines Gear Third's giant body with Gear Second's speed and launches the attack "Jet Shell"!!! His inflated torso rockets straight into Moria like a huge cannonball. Moria starts to command the shadows, muttering, "As if I'm going to let my troops go... Shadows... I'm your master!!!" but the impact overwhelms him. The strike drives into his belly and forces more shadows out. The crowd shouts, "The shadows are coming out!!!" and "Uwoooh!!! So powerful!!!" Even as Lola and others cry, "Come back to me, my shadow!!!" they see that Moria is losing the ability to hold the stolen power. "He's not going to let them go...!!" one says, but the impact proves otherwise: Luffy is forcing them free by battering Moria beyond control.

Lola calls desperately to her shadow: "Come back to me!!! I've been looking for the zombie you were in for three years!!! You're in there, right!? If you can hear me, come back!!!" Around her, people beg, "Captain Lola, please get in the shadows!!! You're going to lose your body!!" but Lola keeps shouting. "Right now... all of our shadows are in Moria...!! This kind of chance is never going to come again...!! But... we're still up against a Shichibukai..." Across the field, the victims cry, "Come back, our shadows!!!" and "Come back!!" Luffy echoes them in his own way: "I've got something to say... to my shadow, too...!! You!! If you want to become the Pirate King...!!!" Someone beside him adds, "Make sure..." because everyone knows Luffy's shadow is inside Moria as well.

Luffy finishes his command to his own shadow with a brutal hit. He roars, "You come with me!!!" and smashes into Moria again, shouting through the attack as the warlord bellows, "Bluooo oooh!!!" Moria's body convulses under the impact, and the crowd below screams, "Uooooooh!!!" as more shadows tear loose. The blow is not just physical; it is Luffy refusing to let even his stolen shadow follow Moria's will. The enormous Shichibukai reels, his body shaking and sweating as the gathered shadows begin to escape despite his orders. The attack turns Moria's thousand-shadow body into a failing container, and every freed shadow brings the victims one step closer to survival before sunrise.

The shadows finally burst free in a flood. Moria screams, "Aaaaaaaaaahhh!!!" as black streams pour out of him, and someone cries, "The shadows are coming back!!!" Zoro looks on as the shadows streak across Thriller Bark, returning toward their owners. People shout, "Hey, guys!!!" "Shadows!" and "Come on... hurry!!" while the island shakes from the force of Moria's collapse. On the wide battlefield, Moria's giant body crashes through the broken mansion and the crowd cries, "He did it!!!" They urge one another, "Go forward and see...!! The real 'nightmare' is in the 'New World'...!!!" Moria, beaten and losing his stolen army, gasps, "Why, you... haa... haa...!!" while the victims and Straw Hats witness the shadows racing home before the morning sun can erase them.

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