Luffy vs. Blueno

The story returns in a nearly silent beat. Against the empty white of the page, Robin's face is buried in shadow, her jaw clenched so hard that the only sound is "Gnash!!" Beside her, the marks "...!!" carry the force of everything she is holding back. There is no movement from the battlefield here and no speech to soften the moment; the page lingers on Robin's anguish after Spandam's cruelty and after learning that Luffy and the others have still come for her. Her silence is not calm. It is pain, fury, and fear compressed into one trembling pause before the chapter cuts back to Luffy standing in the enemy's path.

Luffy stands before the vast Government building, battered but fixed on the path ahead. Blueno points him toward the truth and says, "Robin is in that building behind you." Luffy snaps back, "Isn't she!!?" and immediately turns the answer into a demand: "Get outta my way!!" Blueno remains composed. He tells Luffy, "It seems that all of you still haven't noticed..." but Luffy is done listening to speeches and barks at him, "Cow!!!" Blueno's only reaction is a puzzled "?" The clash is simple now: Robin is behind Blueno, and Luffy will not discuss laws, threats, or odds until the man blocking him moves.

As the island stretches out below the Tower of Justice, Blueno begins explaining what Luffy's invasion means. He says, "This sort of thing... is a global-scale grand offense." The page cuts away to the lower battlefield, where Government soldiers turn their cannons on the charging rescue force. Orders rip through the smoke: "Fire--!!!" The King Bulls and fighters barrel forward with cries of "Bru ruru ruua!!!" and "Bahi hihi!!!" while shells detonate around them. People scream "Oo-waah!!!" as the assault keeps moving. Blueno speaks in the language of nations and authority, but below him the answer is already physical: Luffy's allies are smashing through Enies Lobby anyway.

The charge through Enies Lobby turns chaotic. Soldiers and allies shout "Ya jerk!!", "Gyaa!!!", "Woah!!!", and "Boom!!" while the bulls roar "Bru ruru bahi!!!" and "Ba-hin!!" The Franky Family explains why Sodom and Gomorrah are fighting so fiercely: "Then--!! Just when they were nearly dead inside the Sea King's stomach, the brothers, Sodom and Gomorrah were rescued by the Franky Family." They were told, "Since we're full now, we won't eat you guys!" From then on, "they swore loyalty to their life saver, Franky!!" Sanji understands what one bull is saying: "He says, 'I'll stick with Big Bro for the rest of my life!!'" Someone worries, "Well, that's fine, but could he watch where he's going? That was pretty close." Chopper adds, "Since I can understand what he says, I can tell he's fairly happy."

On Gomorrah's back, the group notices something wrong with the passenger count. One of the bulls cries "Bahi hinhin?" and the message is translated: "By the way, that masked guy that was with us." Another voice asks, "Is it okay that he didn't ride with us?" The answer comes back, "He said." Everyone freezes in stunned beats of "Eh!?", "Hhm?", "!!!", and then panic breaks open: "He is not here!!!" Someone asks, "Why...!? That guy!! Did he fall off!?" but the conclusion is worse and funnier: "No, when I think about it, he wasn't aboard from the start!!" The page ends with the awful realization, "He ran away...!!!" Even in the middle of Enies Lobby's warzone, Sogeking's absence lands like its own emergency.

At the Main Island Entrance, the map labels the clash as Galley-La vs. Houbantai and guards. The shipwrights and allies have hit another wall of defenders, but they do not slow down. One fighter yells, "These bastards--!! You won't block our way!!!" Another challenges the line, "Do it if you can!!!" The Galley-La workers charge with tools and ropes while their enemies bark and stagger with "Woof woof!!" and "Guah!!!" Then a massive move erupts across the page: "Sen-kan-hou!!!" with the note that "Senkankou" means battleship cannon. Guards are blasted aside, crying "Uwaaaaaa!!!" and one soldier shouts, "Dannit!!! It's only three people! What's going on!!!" The rescue side keeps proving that numbers alone do not decide this invasion.

The battle spreads across the island while Robin's memory and Luffy's conviction answer each other. A voice recalls, "You... you're strong when you fight, right...?" and another asks, "Can you win... against those guys?" Luffy's answer fills the page: "I can!!!" The thought continues through Robin's face and the running allies: "Anyone who loses his way becomes weak." But when the crew understood it was time to save her, "Their strength became limitless!!!" On the ground, guards yell, "Stop that rope bastard!!!" and the reply comes back, "Just try it!" The page does not merely show people fighting; it shows why they can fight this hard. The moment Robin needed saving became a direction none of them would abandon.

A net of ropes snaps over the guards as the shipwrights call out their techniques: "Ratline Knot!!!" and "Shrouds and ...!" The trapped soldiers shout "Uoh!!" and "!!" while the path opens. Back at the plaza, Luffy stares at Blueno and asks, "What're you talking about...?" Blueno begins spelling out the scale of the enemy they have attacked. He says, "In the oceans of this world... we boast influence in more than 170 affiliated countries." The battlefield noise falls away against the image of the empty flagpole and Blueno's calm profile. Luffy is not just facing one CP9 agent; Blueno is trying to make him understand that he has struck the front of a world-spanning machine.

The World Government flag snaps in the wind as Blueno names the force behind Enies Lobby. "The gigantic organization known as the 'World Government' owns this island." He continues, "When you invaded this island... it meant you decided to revolt against all of the affiliated countries!!!" Luffy and Blueno stand separated by the plaza while Blueno adds, "The 'Government' bears that dignity." His threat becomes explicit: "You'll be marked criminals until all of you are caught. Then you'll probably be given cruel deaths." Luffy's answer is not fear. He looks at Blueno and says, "What a small amount of power...!!" Blueno narrows his eyes and replies, "At most, there are ten of you..."

Luffy cuts through the lecture with the same demand as before: "I just told you... to get out of the way!!!" Blueno answers that the demand no longer matters: "Whether or not I move, when you all entered the Gates of Enies Lobby, all you did was seal your fate." He reminds Luffy of their earlier fight, saying, "I think you could tell in the Galley-La mansion, the difference in our power..." and adds, "Fighting is also useless against our Six Form fighting style." Luffy coils his arm and rushes anyway. He declares, "I don't think I'm gonna lose!!!" Blueno begins, "That's right... but, somehow, this time..." as Luffy's fist slams in with "Broing!!" The question shifts from legal punishment to whether Blueno can still stop him physically.

Luffy launches the attack with a grin and the wind-up of rubber: "Gomu Gomu..." Blueno stands firm and answers with the Six Powers guard, "Tekkai." The blow becomes "Rifle!!!" and crashes straight into Blueno's hardened body. The impact is enormous, the lettering swallowing the center of the page, and even Blueno's face shifts from certainty to shock. A startled "!!?" hangs beside the collision. In their first fight at the Galley-La mansion, Tekkai had made Blueno feel untouchable, but here Luffy's fist drives into him with enough force to make that certainty crack. The page turns the earlier humiliation into a visible measure of growth.

Blueno skids through the stone and cannot hide his disbelief. He thinks, "What!? When I fought this boy in the mansion... I don't recall him having this much power...!!!" Luffy presses the advantage at once, throwing a storm of fists and shouting, "Gatling Gun!!!" Blueno tries to vanish with "Soru!!!" and slips through the barrage with a "Fwip!!!" But Luffy's eyes track the movement, and Blueno's own eyes widen as the rhythm of the fight changes. This is no longer the helpless boy CP9 overwhelmed in Water Seven. Luffy has adapted to their speed and power, and every panel pushes Blueno from calm authority into alarm.

Luffy catches Blueno's movement and smashes him through the plaza with a huge impact, scattering broken stone across the spread. Blueno is knocked back with another shocked "!!!?" while Luffy stands amid the dust. He tells him exactly why the Government's speeches do not matter: "We only came to take Robin back!!!" Then he draws the boundary between their goal and the enemy's politics: "As for the ways of the World Government, do whatever you want with 'em." The page is a declaration. Luffy is not making a revolution because he has studied the world's institutions; he is breaking through Enies Lobby because one friend is trapped behind its walls.

The mounted group continues racing toward the courthouse while Sogeking's absence still hangs over them. Someone says, "Anyway... we can't go back to get someone who didn't ride with us!!!" and adds, "He'll be fine on his own somehow." Nami protests, "But this island is full of guards!! But he's not Luffy, so alone his life might..." Zoro answers with hard-earned trust: "As we've gone through each island, all of us have been slowly getting stronger, even if we haven't realized it. He, too, with every island he's visited, has overcome death." The group refuses to break formation. As they near the courthouse, someone shouts, "Look, we're almost at the court-house!" Gomorrah calls "Barururu!!" and the line lands: "We don't have anyone in our group who would die so easily!!!"

A mortar shell slams into Sodom with a violent "Bagyaaa!!!" The massive King Bull rears from the explosion, blood and smoke bursting across his body, while everyone cries out in shock: "!!!?" and "Sodom!!!" One guard celebrates, "Alright, we've stopped one of them!!!" Another fighter screams, "Shit...!!! King Bull!!!" Sogeking's face freezes in horror as Sodom absorbs the hit that should have stopped the charge completely. The rescue force's momentum suddenly has a cost: the animals carrying them are not just transport, but comrades bleeding under Government fire.

Sodom staggers but refuses to drop at once. The riders shout, "Sodom!!!" and "Sodom!! Hold on, don't collapse yet!!!" Chopper panics, "This's bad! We have to treat him immediately!!!" but there is no time to stop in the middle of the battlefield. Franky orders, "You guys, move over here!!!" and "Don't hesitate!!!" Nami stares at the wounded bull and says, "Sodom's already done for!!!" while another voice notes, "That mortar hit his heart!!!" Franky pushes them onward: "Quick, before he collapses!!! If you don't keep moving, no one will get what's coming to them!!!" The page makes the choice brutal: honor Sodom by using the last seconds he is giving them.

Sodom, bleeding from the mouth and barely upright, gives one final command through his pain. The translation reaches the group: "He says, 'Go'!!!" Gomorrah answers with a huge "Bahin!!!" while another panel shows the fallen bull and the small sound "Oo...!" Behind them someone says, "No one's riding it!" and Zoro asks, "What'd you say?" The wounded Sodom is left behind with "Thud" as Gomorrah surges ahead. The whole battlefield opens in front of the remaining King Bull, and the cry becomes a charge: "Here we go, Gomorrah!!!" Gomorrah roars, "Barurururua!!!" The rescue force presses on because stopping now would waste Sodom's sacrifice.

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