Lara's POV;

Both Nojiko and I were gulped down and pulled into the sea kings stomach. We splash landed inside something that was wet and had the consistency of water. Naturally, it made me lose my strength and I sunk like a stone.

Swimming, struggling, dog paddling, nothing worked. I could hold my breath for quite some time, but this will kill me if I don't do something. Moving was hard, I felt sluggish and I couldn't focus correctly. I could only hold onto my sword, anything more was too much.

I was just about to pull a swim ring out of my inventory, when a light shone down on me and someone grabbed me, before swimming upwards.

Through the dim light, I could see Nojiko carrying me upwards. We both resurfaced and I coughed the liquid I had involuntarily drunk out, disgusting stuff.

The body around us suddenly rumbled and moved around. The sea king must be moving quickly.

“Damn Lara, why are you this heavy?” Cursed Nojiko. She was pulling me up and used her waver-skates to bring us to a wall, where she made an improvised island with a cloud dial.

The world quaked again and we heard a muffled roar from the sea king. It sounded as if it was in pain, is Lia attacking it seriously?

“Fully submerged liquid has the same effect as the sea,” I replied weakly. She hurled me out of the liquid and threw me on her cloud island, before pulling herself out as well.

I felt how strength refilled my body, I could move again and the strange hole that I felt inside my mind was filled again, it were my Devil Fruit powers.

I stood up and inspected our surroundings. The first thing I noticed was the light source, it came from a tactical light on Nojiko's rifle. It shone in a bright white light and illuminated part of our cloud island.

Next was the light green 'water' we have swum inside. This must be the stomach acid of the sea king. I would puke if Calm Mind wouldn't stop me from feeling grossed out.

“This stuff is dissolving clothes!” shrieked Nojiko suddenly. I covered my ears and glared at her. True to her shriek, her skirt and shirt were in tatters and barely holding together. The slightest stress on them will make it rip.

A glance down revealed that my clothes weren't much better off. I was slimy and sticky as well. I put some vibrations on both of us and the gunk that clung to us got thrown off. It had the side effect of completely destroying our clothes.

Only our panties were left, a strange happenstance that one.

Nojiko rounded up on me angrily frowning. “Lara! Why did you do that? Now we are naked.” her shouts made her large breasts jiggle. I couldn't stop myself and had to put my hands on them, their constant movement made me stare.

She stuttered and blushed, before hitting me on the head. “Stop that, it's inappropriate.”

I rubbed the growing bump with a grin. “But they are distracting with all their jiggling. Look at them, all moving around. You sure you aren't somehow related to a cow?” For that, I received another hit, but it was worth it.

“Stop fooling around, we are in trouble here,” she huffed, she also now had her arms crossed under her boobs, preventing them from jumping around so much.

I suppressed a laugh and became serious again. “Fine, let's get out of here. Really, this is perfect even.”

She picked her gun up and moved the flashlight around, giving light to the cave-like room we were inside. The 'water' was slightly green and in constant movement. Large chunks of meat were drifting around, in the process of getting dissolved.

“How is this good for us?” questioned Nojiko with a frown.

“Well, we couldn't hurt it very well from the outside. Now we are where it is vulnerable, killing it will be way easier,” I explained.

Suddenly I had to draw my sword and block two rows of sharp teeth. An eel-like fish has jumped out of the acid lake and tried to take a bite out of me. The monster fish was as green as the acid, which made it hard to spot.

With a push, it got thrown into the air and Nojiko promptly put half a dozen bullets into its head. “What the fuck was that?” she then asked and had to shoot another one of them.

We quickly realized that there were more of these fishes inside the sea king, many more. A good half-dozen jumped us at once. Nojiko tried to kill as many of them as possible before they could reach us, but these beasts were intelligent. They were coming at us from under acid and jumped out only a few short meters away from us.

Those she couldn't shoot down were cut down by me, but their scaly skin was slippery and hard to cut. I had to apply my devil fruit to cut them easily. Nojiko's bullets were penetrating their hide rather easy on the other hand.

We had to defend our small cloud island for the next five minutes. Dead eel-like fishes were drifting around us and got slowly dissolved. Seems like they are immune to the acid. Well, their scales are, the flesh starts to dissolve as well.

They learned that we aren't easy prey after two dozens of their friends were dead. They still circled us but stopped attacking. “Seriously, what are these?” Repeated Nojiko her question.

“Maybe parasites? They live inside the sea king and eat what it eats. Tapeworms are similar,” I guessed with a shrug.

Nojiko accepted that answer and bent backwards with a groan. “Damn I will get some back pain from this.”

“Sucks to be you, my own aren't heavy enough to bother me much,” I said with a grin and got a glare from her.

“Let's get out of here, I don't want to be naked any longer than necessary,” she groused and shot the fleshy cave wall with a few bullets. They did no damage whatsoever. “Any idea?” She then asked.

“I wanted to try and hear its heart, but these damn fish monster intervened,” I answered and tried to listen to the heartbeat of the sea king. It was hard to pinpoint but I think I found its general location after a moment of concentration.

“Can't you just cut us out?” Asked Nojiko.

“I don't want to, what if this thing survives that and attacks us again. No, we have to kill it and then cut us out,” I replied and refocused on the beating heart. “It should be further inside,” I said after a moment and pointed towards our possible target.

Nojiko activated her waver-skates and threw a cloud dial into the air.“We should keep close to the ceiling. If you fall in again I have to follow you and those eel monster want our booty.” She joked and jumped onto her self-made cloud road.

I followed up with a geppo and we rose to the fleshy cave ceiling. It was twitching and secreting acid from its pours. The whole thing looked utterly disgusting and horror like.

“I am so taking a very very long bath once this is over,” grumbled Nojiko after evading a large acid drop.

I nodded while listening to the steadily louder sound of the sea kings heartbeat. We are close, soon I won't be able to point out its exact location.

“Lara, wait a moment!”, shouted Nojiko suddenly. I stopped and turned around to look at her, she, in turn, was pointing downwards and giving light to something inside the acid water.

Down, barely visible, was a light glint of golden light. “I think there is some gold down there,” explained Nojiko before throwing a cloud dial downwards.

I followed her down and both of us could only stare wide-eyed at what we saw inside the acid. The small golden glint was the tip of a pile of gold. Not some small pile either, the mountain of gold was easily as large as our ship and must reach to the bottom of the acid lake.

“This is a huge amount of gold, but why is it inside the sea king. Shouldn't it be at its lair?” Questioned Nojiko with Berry signs in her eyes.

“This must be trillions worth of Berry,” I muttered, awed by the sheer size of the pile. “Come Nojiko, we can't take any of it now. Let's first get out of the damn animal and then worry about how to get our hands on all the gold,” I then said and pulled her away from the gold.

I had to carry her back up, out of view from the gold. “Ah, all the money.” She looked conflicted as if she has trouble choosing between going down and grabbing some gold or escaping from this hostile cave made out of sea king flesh.

“We're almost there,” I informed her and then stopped in the middle of the air. The heartbeat was the loudest here.

“I can hear it as well, it's fast,” said Nojiko.

“Yeah, it became faster and more erratic since we started moving. Maybe Lia is keeping it busy, it would be bad if the sea king moves too far away from the Raptor. Let's quickly take it out. Stay close, you might have to pull us out of this beast. I won't be able to swim in blood.”

“Blood?!” Shrieked Nojiko, but it was too late. I had gathered my Haki and Devil Fruit power, before thrusting the tip of my blade forward. A fast and sharp force blade pierced into the rather soft flesh of the sea king's inside and punctured a large wound into the wall.

The animal roared in pain and the walls began to move with its pain caused movements. The whole 'cave' tilted and massive amounts of acid began to move under us. The sea king must have raised its body upwards.

“Get ready!” I shouted over the loud noises of the sea king. Nojiko placed herself right behind me and I gathered all my strength into the next attack. I even activated my Angel Fruit to give this one some more umpf.

With a shout, I created a downright massive force blade. It stretched in length and cut into the sea king down its length. For a short moment, I could see the light of the sky, before a literal river of blood came crashing down on us.

Nojiko grabbed me and used her waver-skates to push us through the blood. I myself couldn't do more than let myself get dragged along, the blood was acting like sea water and I wasn't able to move.

Everything was red and I had the heavy taste of iron in my mouth. And then we broke through and the bright light of the sun shone down on us. Nojiko steadied both of us and I started to use geppo to hold myself afloat.

We both swiped the blood out of our eyes and looked around. I could see the now dead sea king drifting inside the sea and the Raptor sailing a few kilometres off of our position.

I could also feel how Lia came closer to us, she wasn't far away, to begin with, and soon reached both me and Nojiko. “Good, you are both alright.” She sounded really relieved and held a fond smile upon seeing me and Nojiko in relatively good condition.

“Lia? Is that you? I still have blood in my eyes. Ugh, this is so gross,” complained Nojiko. She was wiping her hand over her face and tried to see us.

“What happened to you?” Asked Lia in return. She took control over me and Nojiko so that both of us could relax and float next to her.

“Got eaten by the sea king. Its stomach acid has dissolved our clothing and might have started on our skin a little bit. Nojiko pulled me out of the acid and we decided to cut our way out of the beast after destroying either its heart or something close to it.” I explained what happened and our lack of clothing.

“I suggest you take a dip in the sea before we get back to the Raptor. Blood is hard to scrub out of the floor and carpet,” joked Lia with a laugh.

Nojiko grumbled and gave her the finger. We nonetheless got down to sea level and we took a dip to get the most off of us. Nojiko had to pull me back out again, but that was no problem.

Lia then moved all three of us back to the ship and we were greeted by the rest of the crew. I noticed how the boys were staring at my and Nojiko's bodies, especially her chest. But they wisely choose not to mention it.

Nojiko then pulled me along to the bath and I had to wash her hair and she did mine. We had to use and rinse shampoo out of our hair four times. Blood was really annoying to get off.