To cut straight to the point:
Luffy utterly overwhelmed Arlong.
"The hell are you supposed to be?"
Luffy had come alone to Arlong Park, the seat of Arlong's power. The villagers of Cocoyasi watched from a distance, holding their breath. This was the man Nami had brought back, the one she'd entrusted their future to.
Before the confrontation, Genzo, the village's de facto leader, had revealed the truth Nami had been carrying alone for years. Every villager now knew the burden she bore and the reason for her "betrayal."
If Nami was willing to stake everything on this stranger, then they would bet their lives right alongside her.
And so Luffy stood alone against the countless fish-men of Arlong Park. The villagers, despite their resolve, braced themselves for the worst. It was a hopeless mismatch, a single man against an army.
"You're Arlong, right?"
"...A lower life-form like you dares to address me? What do you want?"
Luffy identified the fish-man lounging arrogantly at the center of the pack as Arlong. He took a slow look around at the gathered fish-men, a bored expression on his face.
"[All Control: Paste]."
"...Huh?"
The moment Luffy spoke, every fish-man in the vicinity felt a bizarre, fundamental shift within their bodies. Their limbs gave out. They couldn't stand. They couldn't even crawl properly. Nami, watching from afar, understood immediately what Luffy had done.
He had pasted the physical information of a newborn infant onto every single fish-man present. Fish-man or not, a newborn couldn't even hold up its own head, let alone fight.
Nami, who had experienced this helplessness firsthand, felt a fresh wave of awe at the sheer, terrifying power of his ability.
"You... what did you do to me...?!" Arlong snarled.
"Oh? You can still move with a baby's strength? Impressive, fish-man. Or wait... is my power just not sticking to you properly?"
Arlong was the only one who managed to rise, though his legs trembled violently. Luffy wondered if fish-man physiology granted them some inherent resistance, or if the stronger the will, the less effective his tags became. It was a phenomenon he hadn't encountered with Uta or Makino, a variable worth further study.
"Eh, whatever. [Change]."
Luffy shrugged and applied a new tag.
"You inferior scum...!! I'll KILL YOU...!!"
"Hmm? But right now... aren't you the inferior species?"
"...What?"
The surrounding fish-men and villagers began to murmur and point at Arlong in confusion. Arlong, not understanding, looked down at his own hands and froze.
"What... WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"
The webbing between his fingers was gone. His skin was no longer the proud blue-gray of a shark, but a pale, fleshy pink. His legs, his frame... and when he reached up to touch his face, the jagged, saw-blade nose—his pride and joy—was missing. He stumbled toward a window, the dark interior of Arlong Park turning the glass into a makeshift mirror.
Staring back at him wasn't a shark fish-man. It was a human.
"How does it feel?" Luffy asked, his voice flat. "Becoming the 'lower life-form' you looked down on so much?"
"This is... impossible! You bastard... You're mocking me! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
Arlong lunged, but his body was no longer his own. Reduced to the muscle mass of a human infant, and further weakened by being stripped of his fish-man heritage—which had ten times the strength of a regular human—he couldn't even manage a proper lunge. He toppled forward, crashing face-first into the ground, helpless.
"...I received a report and rushed over. What exactly is the situation here?"
The voice belonged not to the corrupt Marine officer Nezumi, who was in league with Arlong, but to Commodore Purin-Purin. He'd answered a covert distress call sent to another Marine branch.
The aftermath was swift. An investigation was launched into Captain Nezumi's corruption. Plans were drawn up for the reconstruction of Cocoyasi Village and Gosa Village.
The completely neutralized Arlong and his crew were taken into custody. Purin-Purin offered a formal apology, stating, "As one who upholds Justice, I can only express my deepest shame," and promised the Marines' full cooperation in the recovery efforts.
With the threat of Arlong finally extinguished, the islanders erupted into a wild celebration. A massive feast was held in honor of their liberation.
At the center of it all were three people: Luffy, his companion Makino, and Nami, the woman who had suffered under Arlong's boot heel for so long.
This feast also served as a farewell party for Nami.
"I've decided! I'm going with these two!"
When the villagers had asked why she was siding with Luffy, she'd given them her answer.
Luffy, who had expected her to tag along after Arlong was dealt with, simply nodded. Makino, however, was stunned. "Nami?! But your home is finally at peace! Why leave now?"
"Makino," Nami explained, a determined fire in her eyes. "My dream is to draw a map of the entire world. And I want to do it because I choose to, not because some bastard like Arlong forces me to. That means getting on a ship. But not just any ship. A ship captained by someone I can trust with my life... Luffy's ship. Besides, you two don't know the first thing about real navigation, do you? Our interests align perfectly!"
Makino recalled Luffy telling her, before they'd even met Nami, that he needed a navigator. "Well... I suppose that's true..." she admitted, her reservations fading. When Luffy simply said, "Yeah. Welcome aboard, Nami," Makino smiled warmly. "I agree. I'll feel much safer with you around."
"So, what's the deal with you two?" Nami asked.
The feast had raged late into the night, but now the village was quiet, most of the islanders passed out from exhaustion and drink, leaving only a handful of stragglers nursing their cups. Back at her own house, Nami finally asked the question that had been burning in her mind.
"You're not just a cook and a captain, are you? I mean... you know..."
"What? You already saw, didn't you?"
"Gh—!!"
It had been a few days' journey from their meeting to Cocoyasi Village. In that time, on that tiny boat with no cabin, Nami had witnessed Luffy and Makino fucking on the deck more than once.
Out on the open sea, with 360 degrees of visibility, they hadn't even bothered to hide it.
"That's why I'm asking, damn it!" Nami hissed, her face bright red.
She had decided to throw her lot in with these two, but she knew their relationship was anything but normal.
Between the shocking nature of what she'd seen, her worry for the villagers of Cocoyasi, and the terror that Luffy might lose to Arlong, she'd never found the right moment to ask.
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