"MARIO! LET'S SWITCH!" Luffy's voice wasn't just a command; it was a declaration of trust, a wide, fierce grin spreading across his face as he acknowledged his crewmate holding the line.
A wave of relief so profound it almost buckled his knees washed over Mario. The immense pressure, the weight of facing Arlong alone, evaporated. The captain was here. "All yours, buddy…" he breathed, the words laced with exhaustion and satisfaction.
From the rubble, Arlong rose again, a gash on his forehead now matching the blood on his lips. His fury was a physical force. "You again…!" he snarled, his voice a guttural promise of violence aimed at Luffy.
But Luffy didn't do banter. He did action.
Arlong never finished the sentence. A red blur shot forward— "GOMU GOMU NO… PISTOL!" The fist, propelled by elastic power, connected with Arlong's face with a sound like a thunderclap. The shark-man's eyes bulged in shock an instant before his entire body was blasted off its feet, hurtling backward like a cannonball. He smashed through the remaining structure of the Arlong Park headquarters, disappearing into the dark interior in a cacophony of splintering wood and crumbling stone.
Luffy retracted his arm, his sandals scraping against the broken ground as he settled into a low stance. He didn't even glance back. "Stand back," he said, his voice low and serious, his focus entirely on the hole he'd just created.
Mario let out a shaky, pained laugh. "Easier said than done…" Using Soru and Tekkai in such a rapid, desperate sequence had torn something deep inside him. Every muscle fiber screamed in protest; even the simple act of standing straight sent white-hot needles of pain shooting up his spine. He took a wobbling step, his body threatening to give out entirely.
Suddenly, an arm slid firmly around his waist, catching him. He smelled the faint scent of tangerines and sea air. It was Nami.
Her grip was surprisingly strong. "Let's get you out of the way," she said, her voice steady. Mario looked at her. The tracks of her tears were still visible, but the hopelessness was gone from her eyes, replaced by a brilliant, blazing light of determination and, for the first time, unwavering trust. "And… thank you," she added, the words simple but carrying the weight of eight years of stolen hope.
Mario managed a weak but genuine smile, leaning on her slightly as she helped him hobble away from the epicenter of the coming storm. "Any time."
As Nami guided him toward the relative safety of the villagers, who parted for them with looks of awe and gratitude, Mario took one last look over his shoulder. Luffy stood alone before the shattered remains of the park, a solitary figure against the towering threat. The fight for a navigator's soul was over. Now, the fight for her future was about to begin. And Mario knew, with every aching fiber of his being, that their captain would win.
From the smoking rubble of his own headquarters, Arlong emerged. Splinters of his throne room clung to his shoulders, and his expression was no longer one of mere anger, but of apocalyptic rage. Everything he had built, the symbol of his dominance, lay in ruins around him.
„You… have ruined everything," he hissed, the words dripping with venom. He stalked forward, his saw-toothed sword, Kiribatchi, held tight in his grip. „But still… you are not enough. You could never be enough. Do you know what the difference is between you and I?"
Luffy, who had been calmly cracking his knuckles, tilted his head with genuine, earnest curiosity. He wasn't being flippant; he was actually considering the question. „Nose?" he suggested, pointing to Arlong's distinctive snout. „Jaw? Oh! I know! Webbed hands!" He held up his own fingers, wiggling them for comparison.
From the sidelines, supported by Nami, Mario couldn't help but smile weakly. Only Luffy could deconstruct a tyrant's racist ideology into a simple checklist of physical traits, not out of mockery, but from a place of pure, literal-minded inquiry.
Arlong's eye twitched, a volcano of fury bubbling over. „ITS OUR RACE!" he screamed, the raw prejudice exploding out of him. He abandoned all pretense of swordplay and lunged like the predator he was, jaws gaping wide, aiming to take a chunk out of Luffy's shoulder.
The fight intensified into a brutal dance. Luffy weaved and stretched, his rubbery body contorting around Arlong's furious charges. He landed a solid Gomu Gomu no Pistol to Arlong's gut, making the fishman grunt, but Arlong's response was sheer destruction. As Luffy dodged a bite, Arlong's powerful jaws snapped shut on a nearby stone pillar, chomping clean through it as if it were a breadstick.
The display of raw power sent a cold shiver through the watching villagers. The hope that had sparked now flickered uneasily.
Nami's hand tightened on Mario's arm, her knuckles white. „If he does not win…" she whispered, the words so quiet they were almost stolen by the wind. „This will be the end of the East Blue."
Mario looked at her. The determination on her face was absolute, but it was the determination of someone who saw no other path. It wasn't just about her village anymore. She understood Arlong's ambition. If he crushed Luffy here, his reign of terror would spread from Cocoyasi to engulf the entire sea. There would be no stopping him.
Mario followed her gaze back to the fight. He saw more than just a battle. He saw the future of the East Blue hanging in the balance. And he knew, with a certainty that steadied his own aching body, that Nami was right. If Luffy fell, he, Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, and Nami herself would fight Arlong to their last breath. They would give their lives on this broken ground.
But as he watched Luffy roll with another blow,.Mario felt that certainty harden into faith. They wouldn't have to.
"He'll win," Mario said, his voice hoarse but firm. "He's our captain."
But Mario was worried more than he let on. The bravado he showed Nami was a thin veil over a churning sea of dread. The image was seared into his mind: Arlong holding a bloodied, helpless Zorro, the cursed blade Kitetsu gleaming in the sun, poised for the kill. His interference, however minor, had already warped the story. Arlong had drawn that sword far too early. The sequence was broken.
Did I do this? The question echoed in the quiet chambers of his mind, a terrifying counterpoint to the roar of the battle before him. Just by being here, did I almost get Zorro killed?
He had tried to be a ghost, to observe, to nudge things along without altering the core timeline. But saving a life, it seemed, was not a nudge. It was an earthquake. The narrative was fighting back, tightening the screws, raising the stakes to compensate for his presence. It was as if the world itself had become… harder.
As Luffy and Arlong traded earth-shattering blows, Mario's thoughts spiraled deeper, far beyond the confines of Arlong Park. He pondered the epic story of One Piece in its entirety. Was his desire simply to see a different ending? A happier, neater finale?
No. The truth, when it came, was immediate and visceral, a sharp pain in his chest that almost brought hot tears to his eyes. It wasn't about the ending. It was about the journey. The first, most agonizing thought that flashed behind his eyes was a name: Ace. And with it, the towering figure of Whitebeard, breathing his last on a battlefield of fools. The most unjust, heart-wrenching deaths he had ever experienced in any story. A tragedy that had left him hollow for days when he'd first read it.
And there was so much more. The smile on a certain surgeon's face as a kingdom was erased. The weight of a thousand shadows on a weeping reindeer's soul. The sound of a violin on a crumbling bridge.
He wanted to change it. The desire was no longer a fan's idle fantasy; it was a burning, physical need. A mission. He felt it in the ache of his muscles, in the fierce joy that had surged through him when he'd slammed into Arlong. This was real. They were real. Zorro's grunt of pain was real. Nami's tears were real. Luffy's dream was real.
And if it was real, then he could not—would not—stand by as a passive observer. He would not let his beloved characters suffer fates he knew were coming. He would not let Ace die in his brother's arms. Not while he had breath in his body and a chance to alter the course of history.
The weight of this resolve was heavier than any Tekkai. It was the weight of destiny itself. He had saved Zorro today. It was a warning and a promise. The path ahead would be infinitely more dangerous than he had ever imagined. But as he watched Luffy duck under another of Arlong's attacks, a fierce grin spreading across his captain's face, Mario made his choice.
He would walk that path. For Ace. For Robin. For Whitebeard…..For his captain Luffy. For everyone. He would become not just a passenger on this journey, but a part of its crew, and a guardian of its future. A promise to make things right.