Arlong Treasure-Raid Frame-Up
Status: confirmed · Technique: chekhov-explicit · villain-doctrine-install
The seed
Ch. 80 pages 6-17: Arlong orchestrates the Marine raid on Nojiko’s house via Nezumi — using Marine legal-confiscation cover to seize Nami’s 100M-berry cache. The chapter installs the Arlong-prefers-legal-cover-to-open-betrayal villain-doctrine. Arlong then publicly denies breaking his promise (pages 16-17: “When did I… ever break my promise!!! Tell me!!!”).
Predicted payoff
Forward-payoff (Arlong-arc combat-climax chapters): the original 100M-buyback deal is canonized as a trap-deal — Arlong never intended to honor it. The Marine-raid frame-up is the second betrayal, not the first. The first betrayal is the deal itself — Arlong told Nami he would free the village for 100M berries while planning always to seize the cache via Marine-cover at the deadline.
The I-never-break-a-promise line is a villain-doctrine-statement-built-to-be-broken — Krieg-pattern villain-doctrine grammar (cf. Krieg White Flag Duplicity).