Gear Fourth ~repack~ [2K]

But Luffy wasn’t at the bow, laughing. He was in the men’s quarters, sitting cross-legged on his hammock, staring at his own hands.

He walked past her to the deck. The wind was picking up. Dark clouds boiled on the horizon. The crew was scrambling to tie down barrels. Jinbe was at the helm, calm as stone.

The sound wasn't a punch. It was a cannonball tearing through silk. It was a thunderclap happening inside a closed fist. Luffy remembered the shockwave traveling down his own spine, rattling his teeth. He remembered thinking: If this doesn’t work, I’m dead. The ten-minute cooldown was a death sentence. He was a rubber raft with a slow leak. Every second after Gear Fourth, his body screamed: You are not invincible. You are a human who has stretched too far. gear fourth

He thought of Doflamingo in the skies of Dressrosa. That string-demon had laughed at regular punches, at Jet Gatlings, at everything Luffy had. But when Luffy had compressed himself into that bouncing, red-hot sphere and vanished above the clouds? The look in Doflamingo’s eyes changed from arrogance to primal fear.

The air on the Thousand Sunny was thick with the scent of salt and the distant rumble of an island they’d just escaped. Usopp was stitching a gash in the mainsail, Chopper was restocking bandages, and Sanji was barking orders from the galley. But Luffy wasn’t at the bow, laughing

It was escape .

“Gomu Gomu no…”

“Remembering what?”