"Hawk Rifle!!"
"Hard Smash!!"
Luffy's fist and Parfait's fist collided head-on.
A blow amplified by the contraction of rubber plus added rotation, met squarely by a Haki-infused fist that intercepted and deflected it.
The instant their power canceled out, as if returning the favor, Parfait twisted her own fist round and round, spinning it before thrusting it forward.
"Fettuccine... Smash!!"
Right before Luffy's eyes as he tried to knock it down with his own fist, Parfait's extended punch curved sharply in an arcing trajectory, slipping past his defense and striking him.
"Urgh...! You bastard..."
But there was no time to flinch.
The moment her arm contracted back to normal, Parfait's leg extended and swept at Luffy's feet.
Luffy jumped just in time to dodge, and while airborne, blew air into his fingers to enlarge his arm. Then, wrapping it in Haki until it turned jet black, he reared back that massive fist and dove in, thrusting it straight at Parfait.
"Gum-Gum... Elephant Bullet!"
"I've already seen that one."
A colossal fist slammed down with tremendous force, yet Parfait handled it without breaking a sweat, cracking it from the side to deflect its trajectory.
Then, without hesitation, she exploited the opening left by the big move and dove into Luffy's guard.
She drove a black, Armament Haki-hardened fist into Luffy's solar plexus like a spear... but,
"I knew... you'd do that!"
The next instant, the air that should have been in his arm traveled back through it in a flash, returning to Luffy's torso, which swelled up like a balloon.
His abdomen turned black, wrapped in Haki, and that was where he caught Parfait's fist.
The damage was real, but Luffy gritted his teeth and...
"Rayleigh told me... just bouncing back cannonballs and punches as 'plain defense' is wasteful! He said to turn every last hit into an 'attack' that pays back double!"
"!"
The fist that had sunk in met the enhanced elasticity of rubber combined with Haki, generating a recoil far exceeding the force of the original strike, and just like that...
"Gum-Gum... Direct Payback Fire!!"
A tremendous rubber recoil blasted Parfait away.
Launched with the force of a literal bullet, Parfait slammed into a Coral Rock on the far side of the plaza with a thunderous crash. The impact was so great that part of it crumbled apart with a roar.
A perfectly executed counterattack. Surely even Parfait, who had been virtually unscathed until now, had taken a solid hit... or so it seemed.
...However,
"Oh my, what a coincidence... I have a technique like that too."
Parfait, who should have been smashed into the rock, had instead landed feet-first against it, as though she had simply touched down on its surface, crouching with her knees bent against the rock wall.
Her feet, embedded in the rock, spoke to the sheer magnitude of Luffy's attack... yet once again, Parfait bore no injuries.
Far from it. Her own attack had already begun.
Parfait's contracted, bent legs... her thighs had swollen to more than double their normal size, visibly packed with tremendous force.
"I absorbed all the impact of being slammed into the rock through my legs... combined with my own leg strength, my Powers... and Haki on top of that...!!"
Then, as her legs extended with explosive force, that power was unleashed, and once again Parfait launched forward with bullet-like speed.
The massive rock she had used as a foothold was completely pulverized by the force of her kick-off, testament to the sheer magnitude of the impact.
Parfait turned her body into a cannonball, riding that momentum straight at Luffy, ramming him shoulder-first like a tackle.
But Luffy, sensing her coming, leaped aside just in time to dodge.
...However,
"Hard... Strike!!"
Parfait, who appeared to have missed and crashed into the large rock on the opposite side of the plaza, bounced back with zero delay, not losing an ounce of momentum, and from behind delivered a devastating flying kick straight into Luffy.
"Ghbueh---?!"
He barely managed to get his Haki guard up in time, but couldn't mount a proper defense, let alone brace himself. Luffy was blasted away, slamming into a Coral Rock beyond... no, punching clean through it and sent flying even further.
***
"As I feared... even for Luffy, this is still too much."
"Not even a Four Emperor in person, and she doesn't even seem to be going all out... for even Luffy to be getting pushed around by an Executive like this..."
Beside Jinbe, whose expression looked like he'd bitten into something bitter, Nami and the others stood aghast, as though witnessing something beyond belief.
Luffy, the strongest member of the Straw Hat Pirates in both name and reality... the one they all believed without question would become the Pirate King,
was being overwhelmed right before their eyes by a slender, still-young-looking girl, seemingly unable to land any effective blows.
They had heard she was strong. They would have assumed as much without being told.
The Four Emperors who reigned over the seas of the New World. There was no way someone holding the position of Grand Executive in one of their Pirate Crews could be weak.
But even so, if it's Luffy, if it's our crew, surely even against people like that...
Having thought that way somewhere in the back of their minds, Nami and the others were thoroughly doused with cold water by the scene unfolding before them.
"Luffy-san doesn't appear to be going all out yet either, though..."
"But the same goes for her. She's using Haki and her Powers, sure, but she's got this completely cool look on her face... Come to think of it, that's been bugging me too. I can see she's an Ability User, but what kind of Powers? One minute her arms and legs are stretching and shrinking like Luffy's, the next she's ridiculously tough, and then she's using all these weird techniques..."
"Some of those techniques reminded me of the air bullets that Bartholomew Kuma uses."
"Oh, that's it! I knew it looked familiar... that thing where he flicks the air with those paw pads!"
"No, what kind of anything-goes Powers is that? Hey, Boss Jinbe, tell us, what the heck are that girl's Powers?!"
"Well, you see..."
"MRAAAGH!!"
While they were mid-conversation, Luffy came barreling back from beyond the rocks, immediately charging straight at Parfait.
Steam rising from his entire body, he sprinted at ferocious speed. Too fast to let the enemy get a bead on him with ranged attacks.
The same invisible something from before came flying, but it missed Luffy and gouged the ground instead.
Closing the distance rapidly, Luffy blew air into his fingers... this time inflating both arms massively, then dyeing them black with Armament Haki.
The sheer intimidation surpassed, no, far exceeded the Elephant Gun that had felled even the colossal Monster Kraken. Even the onlookers watching from a distance had their eyes bulging.
"At this range... nothing's gonna stop me no matter what hits!"
He drew both enormous arms far behind him. At this point, there was no nimbly dodging attacks anymore.
But enduring multiple hits with Armament Haki, aiming at Parfait who stood there unflinching, showing no intention of moving, Luffy thrust both arms forward while gouging the ground...
"Gum-Gum... Grizz..."
Just as he was about to thrust them out...
Parfait's six vertical-roll curls moved.
Those large, tube-shaped curls all swiveled in unison toward Luffy with a mechanical clank, their openings aimed directly at him.
"Huh?"
Then, the next instant, the base of each curl puffed up for just a moment before...
"Guminade Launcher!!"
From those six barrel-like curls, something shot out at tremendous speed, like bullets.
"WHAAAAAAAT?!"
At this spectacle, shocking in every possible sense of the word, Luffy, Nami and the others, the Fish-Man Island citizens watching from the sidelines... everyone screamed in astonishment. Of the six projectiles fired, four struck the jet-black fists dead-on, blasting them back and neutralizing them despite the momentum already behind them.
The remaining two hit Luffy square in the torso, once again sending him flying far, smashing through and shattering several Coral Rocks along the way.
The impact produced a massive pile of rubble that buried Luffy underneath, but somehow he managed to crawl his way out. The damage looked severe, but he could still move.
"Hah... hah... damn it...! She's way too interesting... what the heck was tha... hm?"
That was when Luffy happened to notice one of the somethings that had just hit him lying on the ground nearby. He picked it up to look at it.
It was a ball, small enough to sit in the palm of his hand, about the size of a ping-pong ball. Semi-transparent, with a springy bounce to it. When he squeezed or tried to crush it, it deformed slightly but pushed back with considerable force. Like a superball.
After staring at it for a moment, Luffy, for whatever reason, popped it into his mouth.
While everyone watching went 'Huh?', he chewed through the ball and swallowed it. Then, one word.
"Tasty."
"HUH?!"
"Oh, really? Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it."
As the spectators were left baffled by this sudden bizarre behavior, Parfait looked oddly pleased for some reason.
The whole thing was incomprehensible, and Usopp couldn't help firing off a question slash retort.
"Dude, why are you eating some weird unknown thing? You just stuffed yourself a minute ago... That's the enemy's weapon, you know? And is it actually good?"
"Yeah. It's a little hard, but it was kinda like gummy candy and pretty tasty."
"It's not 'kinda like' gummy candy, it literally is gummy candy. I'm a Gummy Human, having eaten the Gummy-Gummy Fruit."
"GUMMY?!"
Before the stunned onlookers, Parfait bent her arm, twisting it in a way that completely ignored skeletal structure.
Luffy, being a Rubber Man, could probably do something similar, but Parfait went further, softening it into something half-fluid, deforming until her arm lost its original shape entirely.
"There's quite a range when you say 'gummy,' from hard gummy to soft gummy. When I harden my body into hard gummy, on top of high defensive power it also has shock absorption, so it can block and repel any half-hearted Haki. Conversely, when I soften it into soft gummy, I can dodge or deflect enemy attacks through shapeless deformation with ease."
"So when her arms and legs were stretching like Luffy's, that was because of the gummy too... which means those air blasts were probably her hardening her palms into hard gummy and flicking the air to launch it..."
"Precisely. Though I can't perform those specific functions as well as the originals, the Gum-Gum Fruit or the Paw-Paw Fruit."
Even so, using her gummy body to absorb impacts, deflect attacks, sway fluidly to dodge or redirect strikes, or produce gummy spheres like superballs from her body as projectiles... the range of applications was vast, and its simplicity made it easy to wield and powerful.
A gummy body capable of shifting freely between hard, soft, elastic, and fluid. Parfait's own combat genius, a body and skill set honed through rigorous training, and powerful Haki including the Conqueror's Haki she was born with.
Mastering all of these into an incomparably formidable power was precisely why Parfait had earned the title of Sweet Commander at the youngest age in history.
And those skills and abilities continued to be refined even now.
"Well then, now that the cat's out of the bag... we're running out of time, so this next one is your last chance, Straw Hat-san. If you've been holding something back, I suggest you use it now."
"I know... you're strong. The way things are, I probably can't win."
Luffy, somewhat out of breath, brought his arm up in front of his face for some reason and spoke.
"I've been wondering this whole time. Every time I hit you, it felt like punching some massive wild beast... like my blows weren't reaching all the way through. It was because you were hardening with gummy... but if that's the case, then I'll punch with that in mind...! Gear..."
Luffy chomped down on his own arm in front of him and began to blow...
...But at that very moment,
"Heeeey, wait up, you guys over theeeere!! Whaddya think yer doin', runnin' off with my treaaasure?!"
"Hm?"
The voice rang out across the plaza without warning, making both Luffy and Parfait look in its direction.
From the far side of the plaza, weaving through the crowd of onlookers and running toward them, was a single man. He had a nasty look in his eyes, and his tongue was lolling out, whether from being out of breath or just because that was how he always looked.
"Oh! That guy's already up... Did he follow us here?"
"An acquaintance of yours?"
"Nah, not really... but that guy kidnapped a Mermaid, tried to kidnap Yowahoshi, stole treasure, just keeps doing bad stuff."
"Oh dear, a human trafficker type? What obvious trash... Actually, he does look familiar. Pekoms, is that gentleman on the list?"
"Hold on, Parfait-sama, let me check... Ah, here he is. A Pirate from North Blue, Wet-Haired Caribou. A Rookie who's been making waves recently... oh, 200 million Bounty. Not bad."
At the mention of a Bounty Target worth 200 million Berry, the crowd flinched and parted to avoid him.
As for Caribou himself, he was running in a straight line not toward Luffy and Parfait, but glaring at Baron Tamago and Pekoms.
Right beside those two sat the massive pile of treasure they had just received from Luffy as "compensation."
"That's the treasure I went and stole! I don't know who the hell you are, but... give it back right noooow!!"
Caribou's eyes were locked on the treasure and the two standing guard over it. He wasn't looking at Luffy and the others who had knocked him out earlier, nor at Parfait who was facing off against Luffy... or rather, he didn't seem to have noticed them at all.
Having gathered the gist of the situation from the polite muttering and Luffy's words, Parfait was appalled by the man's shortsightedness and narrow vision, but decided to do nothing and simply watch how things played out.
Before her gaze, Caribou produced a gatling gun from his Bottomless Swamp body and opened fire.
He attacked Pekoms and Baron Tamago, trying to reclaim the treasure, but...
"Logia users who've deluded themselves into thinking they're invincible don't last long. To think you were planning to enter the New World like this... pathetic. Gao."
"Honestly, half-boiled types are nothing but trouble, Soir... And yet he's Over 100 Million Berry? The Government is quite generous indeed, pon."
Big Mom Pirates combatant, Pekoms.
Bounty: 330 million Berry.
Big Mom Pirates combatant, Baron Tamago.
Bounty: 429 million Berry.
Caribou, who had recklessly attacked two opponents far above his own level without knowing any better, was no match for them whatsoever and was, quite literally, kicked aside.
Pekoms landed a gut punch that doubled him over on the spot, and Baron Tamago followed up with a stomp that drove his head into the ground. Just like that, he was out cold, crumpled at their feet.
The citizens of Fish-Man Island watched with eyes full of shock and awe as the two effortlessly dispatched a Pirate who had come at them with weapons, including ranged ones.
Among the Straw Hat Crew as well, most reacted with surprise, thinking 'These guys really are insane,' while others wore fearless grins as if they'd just seen something entertaining. And then there were those who sank into despair, thinking 'So we went and picked a fight with a group crawling with people like this...'
Which reaction belonged to whom is left to the reader's imagination.
As for those two, Pekoms and Baron Tamago, they paid no mind to the stares of the crowd, but there was a hint of irritation about them.
Perhaps it was because Caribou, too immature to understand his own weakness, had recklessly attacked them at the worst possible timing, interrupting Parfait's match.
Baron Tamago noticed something and sighed.
"Parfait-sama, I have unfortunate news... time's up, Monsieur."
He pointed a finger at the hourglass that had been set out. The sand had completely run through, indicating that five minutes had elapsed.
Parfait's face took on a look that said 'Oh dear,' and she let out a small sigh.
"That is unfortunate... Well, I may have been getting a bit too heated anyway... so perhaps it's for the best. In that case, Straw Hat Luffy, we're done for today."
"Huh, it's over? We haven't settled anything yet."
"Settling things wasn't the point, so it can't be helped. ...If you want a real fight that badly, then do as you said earlier and go pick a fight with Mama or whatever in the New World... Mama did say she'd be 'waiting,' after all."
Parfait said this while patting the dust off herself, straightening her slightly disheveled clothes.
Everyone watching besides Luffy, the citizens of Fish-Man Island and some of the Straw Hat Crew alike, realized the fight was apparently over and let out sighs of relief.
Despite neither side having gone anywhere near full strength, it had been a clash where a single misstep could have caused devastating collateral damage from the Shockwave alone. No one wanted to imagine what would have happened if it had escalated further. That was what most of them were thinking.
"Parfait-sama, what do we do with this one? Gao. Just dump him somewhere?"
"Leaving trash like this on the roadside would only be a nuisance to the good people of Fish-Man Island. Call someone over, restrain him with Seastone Chains or handcuffs, and throw him in the ship's brig."
"We're taking him back, pon?"
"I don't particularly want this oversized piece of garbage, but... from what I've heard, he was conducting kidnappings right here in our Territory, no less... and above all, he interrupted our match, which frankly pisses me off. Let's bring him back and give him to Mama. He doesn't seem completely weak, so I'm sure he'll make a fine Homie."
With that, she strode away.
Just as she was leaving, she glanced back once in Luffy and the others' direction.
"Well then, everyone, farewell... With your level of skill, I doubt you'll suffer the disgrace of an early retirement in the New World. That much I can guarantee. Should we meet again someday, I look forward to going all out next time."
"Yeah... got it. Next time we meet... it'll be when I come to send Big Mom flying!"
At the sight of Luffy firing back without an ounce of hesitation, Parfait let out a soft chuckle. Then she turned and walked away for good, taking Baron Tamago and Pekoms with her. Each step was filled with grace and elegance, completely belying the ferocity of the life-or-death battle that had been raging just moments before.
After the brief, small storm had passed, the plaza was left with a lingering, uneasy tension that was anything but pleasant.
To be continued...