Gyoncorde Plaza

In Fishman District, aboard the enormous ship Noah, Vander Decken IX spirals through heartbreak and rage. His crew tries to reassure him, "Cap'n Decken!! You'll get lucky someday!!" but Decken snaps, "Don't give me empty reassurances, you idiots!!!" He says his heart is broken, so he has shaved his head, and when someone asks, "Just the top?!" he ignores the absurdity. Decken insists he only decided to marry Shirahoshi for the sake of fulfilling his ancestor's dream, but now he is obsessed because she rejected him. He quotes the wound back to himself: "Not my type," and concludes, "That was when I realised... truly, this was love!" The worst part, he says, is that he still has not managed to kill her, and the stuff he threw at her keeps hurtling away because "that Straw Hat brute is protecting her."

Decken's rage suddenly becomes a plan. His men tell him, "Oh, hang on!" and ask, "What wrong, Cap'n?!" Decken decides, "That's right... I should just crush them all in one fell swoop! Every last one of 'em!!" With a theatrical "BAHOH!" and "BAHO HOHOHO HOHOH!!!" he stands before Noah and announces, "Ohhhh, I just had the most beeeaaauuutiful idea!!!" The scene cuts to Fishman Island's Gyovelley Hills, where the people realize that, in the end, the sea monsters alone were enough to annihilate them. Decken's revenge and Hody's assault are now converging on the same terrified island.

The Neptune Army lies scattered and beaten in the Gyovelley Hills. People cry, "Minister of the Right!! Minister of the Left!!!" and then realize the scale of the defeat: "...The whole Neptune Army...!!!" The ministers have fallen with the soldiers, and the battlefield is littered with wreckage, monsters, and bodies. One voice says, "So close...!!" while another laments, "We were so close...!!" The page makes it clear that the royal defenders almost reached Gyoncord Plaza, but Hody's sea monsters broke them before the execution could be stopped.

The defeated soldiers and citizens think of Queen Otohime, crying, "Ohhh, Queen Otohime...!!!" and remembering that at this year's Reverie her wishes were finally going to come true. They ask, "How did it come to this...?" and beg for protection because in just an hour their beloved king will be murdered. Outside Gyoncord Plaza, the entrance has been sealed, and the people cannot get in. Someone hears pirates whooping and howling inside and suggests climbing above the plaza to see what is happening. The execution site is closed off, but the terror inside is already loud enough to reach everyone outside.

Inside Gyoncord Plaza, the place where Queen Otohime was assassinated and where Neptune's execution is now set to happen, Hody Jones arrives with his army. A kraken appears among the sea monsters, and someone shouts, "Whoa aaaa!! A kraken?!" Hody rides in with the chained king and declares the fallen forces "my soldiers...!!" He sits before the plaza with Neptune bound nearby, introduced in full as HODY JONES, a great white shark fishman. The people can only watch as the same public square that once held Otohime's dream becomes the stage for Hody's new kingdom.

Hody's officers laugh at the defeated army: "Ahaha hahahah hah!!!" and "What pathetic soldiers!! And they thought they could protect their country!!!" One notices Hody's condition and says, "Hody..." as the others realize he may be about to do something dangerous. Ikaros panics that if Hody blows himself up with dynamite, he will become dried squid, while Dosun warns he will take someone else with him. Hody, still hidden by smoke and pain, mutters strange sounds instead of a clear answer. The page shows even his own commanders hesitating; Hody's new strength is becoming unstable enough to frighten the people who follow him.

A soldier tries to run before the princes arrive, thinking, "If I can take out even one of these fiends before the princes arrive, I will be satisfied...!!" Hody calmly flicks a drop of water from his fingers. The others warn, "Hey, this looks pretty dangerous!!" and then Hody fires with "Uchimizu," a small burst of water that becomes a lethal projectile. The shot hurls the soldier away before he can reach Hody. The translator note identifies the word as "firing water," but on the page it reads like a bullet: Hody has become strong enough to turn a single droplet into a weapon.

The force of Hody's Uchimizu travels far beyond the plaza, blasting through Fishman Island's landscape and splashing down near the western Mermaid Cove. People cry, "What is that thing...?!! Just how far is it gonna keep on going...?!!" and "Ehhh...?!!" as the projectile tears across coral buildings and distant neighborhoods. The shot's distance turns one casual flick from Hody into a countrywide warning. Even those nowhere near Gyoncord Plaza feel the reach of his new body and the threat it carries.

The water bullet finally lands with a "SPLOOSH!!" near Mermaid Cove, far from where Hody fired it. The people there recoil as debris and water crash down around them. The page lingers on the distance between Gyoncord Plaza and the western coast, making Hody's power feel less like a local attack and more like something that can strike across the island. The mermaids and citizens at the cove are caught in the aftermath without even being part of the battle.

Back at Gyoncord Plaza, even Hody's subordinates are shaken. One says, "I thought 'Uchimizu'... was just an ordinary brute force attack...!" Another points out that only minutes ago Hody was half-dying from overdosing on energy steroids, yet now his hair has gone white and even his body has changed. They ask, "How do you feel right now, Captain...?" Hody looks up with a transformed face and answers only, "Incredible." The word is quiet compared with the destruction, but it reveals what matters to him: the drug's cost means nothing beside the intoxicating power it has given him.

The princes finally arrive at Gyoncord Plaza, scattering dust and noise as the crowd shouts, "It's the princes!!!" and "Fukaboshi!! Ryuboshi!! Manboshi!!" The citizens are terrified, asking, "Are we really gonna be okay?!!" and calling that it is the princes. Hody sees the ruined Neptune Army around him and asks why the soldiers did not wait for the princes' arrival. Fukaboshi answers from above, "As though the Neptune Army would be defeated so easily if they did not have some such dirty trick up their sleeves. Re-mi-fa-so!!" He tells his father to wait and warns that the monsters and fishmen have all been drugged.

The three Neptune brothers attack together, each calling a technique as they crash through Hody's forces. Fukaboshi invokes the people's effort "to clench their teeth and make an effort to grasp a brighter future" by offering their signatures in the name of peace. Ryuboshi uses "Kouin Ryuusuisou" and a translator note calls it "Flowing Water Lance of Ages." Manboshi shouts "Shicchin Banpou!!!" with a note reading "Countless Treasures," and Fukaboshi drives in with "Ryuuguu Roumon!!!" Hody snarls, "Why do you not understand, Hody Jones?!!" while Fukaboshi tells him that he and his accomplices are weaker than any citizen of this country because the people have the courage to turn their eyes from the cruel oppression they suffered.

The princes continue their assault, promising, "We will not allow it!!!!" They reject Hody and his allies as fools who know nothing but revenge and hatred. Fukaboshi declares that Hody will not take the king's head, nor the citizens' homes, and certainly not the kingdom itself. The attack sends Hody's forces reeling while the watching people see the royal brothers fighting not simply to rescue Neptune, but to defend the island's choice to move beyond inherited hatred.

The three princes stand together and state the stakes. "We will make you taste defeat! And forge a future of harmony with humanity!!!" they vow, warning that if Hody prevails, their people will lose every chance of peace with humans for centuries to come. Around them, citizens cheer that the sea monsters have all been defeated and cry, "They really are strong!!!" and "That's the princes of our kingdom for you!!!" Hody listens with a glare and says, "Prattle all you like. But in the end, this country..." He leaves the sentence hanging for the moment, because victory, in his mind, belongs only to whoever survives.

Hody completes his answer as his officers brace themselves: this country "belongs only to the victors!" He and his commanders lunge back into the fight with a shared roar, "HAAA AAAHH HHH!!!" Far from the plaza, Shirahoshi rides Megalo toward the danger and cries, "Father...!!!" Megalo answers with "RRUOH HHH!!!" while Jinbe calls after them, "Worry not!! We will prevail!!!" Shirahoshi urges, "You must hurry, Megalo!!!" and whispers, "Please, be safe...!" The chapter closes with the battle erupting at Gyoncord Plaza while the princess rushes toward her father.

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