What kind of island is Raftel, really?
Why is it that, after centuries of voyaging through tempests and tides, over charted waters and into uncharted myths, not a single navigator, no matter how seasoned, has stumbled upon it by chance?
No map marks it. No legend pinpoints it. Not even a drunken tale dares to misplace it.
It lies beyond the end of the Grand Line… and yet, even there, it cannot be found. As if the world itself conspires to keep it hidden.
These weren't just questions that plagued the World Government or the starry-eyed dreamers chasing the Pirate King's legacy. No—now they weighed heavily on the shoulders of the Buggy Pirates, standing on the precipice of something far greater than any of them had dared to imagine.
Faced with the rising tide of doubt, Gabban cracked a knowing grin and turned to Buggy."Well then, Captain," he said, voice light but laced with curiosity, "what do you think?"
All eyes shifted to Buggy.
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, eyes narrowing, mind working faster than most gave him credit for.
"The New World, like the first half of the Grand Line, is a mess of chaotic magnetic fields," he began slowly. "That's why standard compasses don't work. You need a Log Pose—or a permanent pointer—calibrated to each island."
The room fell silent, every crewmember hanging on his words.
"But," Buggy continued, "what if there was an island that didn't emit any magnetic pull at all? Or better yet, one that actively repelled magnetism? That kind of place wouldn't register on a Log Pose. You could sail past it a hundred times and never even realize it was there."
Gabban, Bullet, Doringo, and Sunbell exchanged subtle glances. They had seen it. They had stood at the threshold of that final island, felt the weight of centuries on their shoulders. And now, here was Buggy, who'd never once set foot on Raftel, grasping at the truth as if he'd been born knowing it.
As expected of you, Captain…
Buggy caught their looks and smirked. "So I'm not far off, huh?"
He leaned back, arms crossed, eyes distant.
"But that's just the first layer," he muttered. "If Raftel's been hidden for eight hundred years, magnetic shielding wouldn't be enough. Its location must be... special. Maybe it floats above the clouds like Skypiea. Maybe it's buried deep beneath the sea, like Fish-Man Island."
He paused, letting the implications settle over the crew.
"Unless…" He raised an eyebrow, half-serious, half-intrigued. "It exists in an entirely different dimension?"
A few chuckles broke the tension—some amused, some uneasy.
But Gabban, Bullet, Sunbell, and Doringo didn't laugh. They stiffened—just barely—but enough. Their pupils shrank, and the air in the room shifted.
Buggy noticed.
"Wait, wait—don't tell me…" His eyes widened. "Is it in a different dimension?! No, no, that can't be. That'd make the four Road Poneglyphs completely useless. They lead to a location, not a parallel dimension."
He exhaled and waved the idea off with a casual shrug.
"So, no—Raftel must still exist within this world. My guess? It's underwater. Or, even better... It's both above and below. Maybe to the naked eye, it's just a tiny reef. Something small. Unremarkable. A forgotten dot on the map. No permanent magnetic field. No grand landmark."
He chuckled, the sound tinged with irony.
"The world loves legends that hide in plain sight. The great hermit lives in the city... the small one? Hides in the wild."
The crew of the Buggy Pirates fell silent, each member turning inward, letting the theory sink in. You could see the gears turning behind their eyes—pirates and madmen, dreamers and rogues—all caught in the grip of the mystery.
It was Vegapunk who finally broke the quiet, adjusting his glasses with a skeptical frown.
"But Buggy… have you considered this?" he asked, tone clipped, academic. "Even if Raftel is underwater, as long as it emits any magnetic signature, it should still be detectable by a permanent Log Pose."
Buggy grinned, sharp and confident.
"Exactly, Doctor. And that's why I said earlier—Raftel's unique. It's either cloaking its magnetism... or it's had it erased."
He tapped a finger to his temple, grin widening.
"And there is a way to do that."
Vegapunk's brow furrowed. "…You're suggesting a Devil Fruit?"
"Bingo." Buggy snapped his fingers. "Picture this: an awakened user of the Jiki Jiki no Mi—the Magnetic-Magnetic Fruit. Someone who could strip magnetism from anything. If someone like that existed eight hundred years ago, and they were tasked with hiding Raftel… erasing the island's magnetic pull would've been child's play."
The room stiffened. Realization began to dawn.
"It wouldn't be the first time an island's shape—or its secrets—were twisted by a Devil Fruit's power," Buggy went on, now fully commanding the room. "The Boin Archipelago floats in that weird spiral because of some ancient phenomenon—maybe even a Devil Fruit long forgotten. Green Bit split clean from Dressrosa thanks to the Ope Ope no Mi, and Punk Hazard? That place is still half frozen, half burning from a single clash between Admirals. That's what awakened Fruits do. Their power doesn't just vanish—it clings. Stains the land. Like a seed of chaos planted deep into the earth."
He let that sink in, then added casually:
"Take the Adam Tree I planted. With enough time and care, I could grow another one—maybe even bigger than the Tree in Elbaf."
A hush fell over the crew.
Buggy leaned forward, voice lowering just enough to draw them in.
"So if someone used the Magnetic Fruit to cloak Raftel... they could've buried its magnetic signature beneath the sea, masking it beneath the faintest tick. Maybe tied to some unremarkable reef the world's ignored for centuries."
A wave of gasps rippled across the room.
"In other words," Buggy said, arms spread like he was unveiling a magic trick, "the four Road Poneglyphs do point to Raftel—just not in a way a Log Pose can track. But if we triangulate their locations... we can narrow down the zone where that hidden reef's gotta be."
His voice dipped, low and electric.
"And once we're there, we dive."
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Gabban clapped, slow and deliberate, a grin tugging at the corners of his weathered face.
"If I hadn't gone to Raftel with Roger," he chuckled, "I'd swear you and Shanks stowed away on our ship back then."
He leaned back, eyes gleaming with the glow of old secrets. "You're spot on, Captain. Raftel's underwater. Its magnetic signature doesn't register until you're right on top of it—and beneath the surface. That's why no one's ever found it by accident. You can't stumble across it. You have to be looking."
He glanced around the room, voice steady. "Without the Road Poneglyphs... you're sailing blind."
"Haha! Captain, you're a genius!" Enel cackled, arms thrown skyward as faint arcs of lightning danced around his shoulders. "If that's the case, then what are we waiting for? Let's move!"
"Not so fast." Buggy raised a hand, the faintest laugh dancing in his throat.
His gaze swept the room and landed on one man in particular.
Crocodile.
"We don't even have the right ship yet," Buggy said coolly. "The Thriller Bark is massive... and a walking target. Besides, now that we're this close, we need something grander."
A wicked smile curled his lips.
"It's time to bring Pluton back into the world."
The air went tight—every breath sharp with shock.
"W-What?!" Lucci blurted. "Pluton? The Ancient Weapon?!"
Voices erupted. Murmurs turned into chaos. Even the battle-hardened veterans of the Grand Line looked shaken.
Crocodile narrowed his eyes. He didn't speak, but the tension in his jaw said everything. Ten years of obsession. Ten years chasing shadows.
Buggy turned toward him, grin razor-sharp.
"You spent over a decade chasing that warship, didn't you, Crocodile? Tell me—what if I said... I already found it."
Gasps again—louder this time.
Then Buggy turned his head toward the back of the room, where Blueno stood silently, arms folded in that ever-unshaken stance.
"Bring in Tesoro," Buggy said. "Tell him it's time for his golden touch."
Blueno gave a curt nod. "Understood."
Crunch.
The air rippled and folded in on itself as Blueno stepped through a spatial gate and vanished without another word.
The room was left in stunned silence. Members of the Buggy Pirates exchanged glances, half in awe, half in disbelief. Even the Empress and the Revolutionaries murmured among themselves, unsure of what to make of it all.
"Tesoro?" Lucci muttered. "Why him? A golden tycoon... when we're talking about an Ancient Weapon?"
Crunch.
Before the speculation could take root, Blueno returned—efficient as always—and this time, Tesoro stepped through behind him. His golden coat shimmered, catching the dim light like a second sun. His eyes burned with barely contained excitement.
"Captain! So it's finally time, huh?!"
He practically radiated energy, his grin stretching from ear to ear.
After all, it had been Tesoro who discovered the submerged treasure off the coast of Wano—a massive warship buried beneath stone, silence, and centuries of myth. He'd stumbled on it while scouting under Buggy's direct orders. Back then, he'd nearly raised the thing using his Goru Goru no Mi powers, but Buggy had stopped him.
Because that wasn't just any ship.
Buggy had revealed something astonishing: the warship Tezoro found was none other than the Ancient Weapon—Pluton.
That moment hadn't just been a discovery. It was a test. Buggy entrusted him with the secret, not to buy loyalty, but to measure it. If word had leaked to the Marines… or worse, to the Celestial Dragons… Buggy would've known exactly where the leak started—and ended it accordingly.
But time passed. And Tesoro held his silence.
Now, standing among pirates, tyrants, and revolutionaries alike, he'd proven himself. The stronger the Buggy Pirates became, the more loyal he grew.
Buggy clapped a hand on his shoulder, his usual cocky grin in full swing.
"Let's go. Once we raise Pluton, we're paying the Revolutionary Army a little visit."
"Yes, sir!"
Without another word, the crew plunged beneath the waters off the Wano coastline, each member encased in a protective bubble of coated resin. Even the five Vegapunk satellites followed, bobbing and bickering with mechanical elegance, their presence strangely welcome in a crew otherwise allergic to reason.
Buggy was glad to have them. Pluton wasn't just some oversized cannon—it was ancient. Possibly sentient. Certainly more machine than wood. And if anyone could decode a weapon lost to time, it was the smartest brain in the world.
They reached the ocean floor.
Jagged rocks jutted like fangs around a peculiar mound—small, golden, and shimmering faintly in the gloom. Tezoro stepped forward, placing a hand on a smooth stone and closing his eyes. His golden aura pulsed softly, spreading like veins through the seabed.
"There," he whispered. "Beneath this slab. Just past the golden mound."
Then the earth trembled.
A shape stirred beneath the stone. Massive. Dormant. Ancient.
A colossal silhouette.
Tesoro's voice dropped to a reverent whisper.
"It's a warship… but it's entirely made of metal."
A ripple of awe passed through the crew.
"Metal?!" Bullet blinked. "That size? Wouldn't it just sink?"
"Has to be a bluff," Bepo muttered. "A ship made of solid metal can't float. Not naturally."
Even Vegapunk frowned, arms crossed, thoughts already firing like pistons behind his glasses.
"In theory," he murmured, "a fully metallic vessel could float... if engineered with absolute precision. Buoyancy's not the issue—distribution of mass is. But in this era? With this world's technology?"
He shook his head slowly.
"No. The industrial foundation is too underdeveloped. It shouldn't be possible. Not now. Not even close."
He paused, voice trailing into uncertainty.
"But this is Pluton. One of the Ancient Weapons…"
A heavy silence followed—tense, pensive, as if the sea itself held its breath.
"If such a ship could be built eight or nine centuries ago…" Vegapunk murmured, brows knit in concern, "…then why has humanity's technology regressed this far?"
It was a disturbing question.
And no one had an answer.
RUMBLE.
The ocean floor shuddered with a violent quake.
Tesoro's eyes flared gold as his Devil Fruit powers surged to life. Under the command of the Goru Goru no Mi, stone slabs split open, sliding aside like doors to an ancient tomb. Beneath them, the faint outline of something massive stirred.
The seabed trembled. Pressure built.
A shockwave spread out in all directions—silent but overwhelming—displacing sediment across kilometers of the ocean floor.
Ka-ka-ka—
A low, agonized groan rumbled beneath them as ancient rock began to fracture. One slab cracked. Then another. Then, all at once, the entire stone shelf buckled violently, rising in jagged bulges before erupting outward with a deafening CRACK.
The explosion sent a hail of debris spiraling into the deep. The clear view ahead vanished, swallowed in a storm of silt and shattered stone. Visibility dropped to zero.
Instinctively, everyone shielded their eyes, muscles tense as they scanned the swirling gloom.
Bzzzz… Bzzzz…
A strange vibration cut through the darkness. Low. Rhythmic. Unnatural.
Then—light.
Twin beams of white-blue brilliance burst through the murk, slicing the sea like swords of artificial daylight. They shone directly on Buggy and his crew, illuminating them in full undersea theater. The beams didn't flicker like sunlight filtered through waves. They were cold. Precise. Unrelenting.
In an instant, the sea became a stage.
No one spoke. Not at first.
"What the hell is that?" Crocodile finally whispered. "That's not sunlight…"
But no one answered.
They were all thinking the same thing.
Even the glowing Alchemic Mangroves of Sabaody had never looked like this. This was something else. Something older.
Bzzzz… Bzzzz…
With every pulse of that strange light, the debris cloud was driven back, swept away by invisible pressure, as if the very ship beneath them refused to remain buried.
And then they saw it.
Emerging from the ocean floor like a waking titan, the Ancient Weapon Pluton came into view at last—monolithic, unstoppable.
A colossal battleship, buried beneath the seabed for eight long centuries, now rose in full—its pitch-black hull gleaming as if it had never aged.
The crew was struck silent.
Even the bravest veterans stared, breath caught in their throats.
But Buggy… Buggy's reaction was different. He didn't gasp. He didn't speak.
His eyes narrowed. His thoughts raced.
No way… This thing… It looks exactly like a certain aircraft carrier…
Only—modified. The hull wasn't just shaped to glide—it was designed to receive ships.
A carrier… with docking functions?
And it wasn't small.
No.
It was massive.
In a world of wooden ships and flintlock pistols, seeing a machine of this scale, of this era-defying precision, felt like a divine prank. A cruel joke played by the gods on the timeline of history.
Others might have been shouting in wonder, asking questions, maybe even screaming. But down here, deep beneath the sea, sealed within protective bubbles, no sound carried. Still, Buggy didn't need to hear it.
He knew.
They were losing their minds.
Because this warship… was insane.
From a rough visual sweep, Pluton stretched well over a thousand meters in length. Its hull was a seamless sheet of pitch-black alloy—sleek, elegant, yet impossibly heavy in presence. The ship rose in tiers: three massive decks, each towering dozens of meters high, stacked like temples of war.
And yet—somehow—they weren't flooded.
As the crew swam closer, trying to peer into the structure, they found no sloshing water, no sea life, no corrosion. Only darkness. Stillness. The silence of sealed engineering.
Each deck was lined with sharp, orderly walkways, so precise that you could see clearly from bow to stern. Along the railings, strange gaps were evenly spaced beneath the handrails—drainage ports? Pressure regulators?
It wasn't just built.
It was designed.
Too well. Too intentionally.
Buggy stared, goggles gleaming, his mind spinning faster than his heart could keep up.
It didn't look like a warship.
No—it looked like a cruise liner.
Correction: It was bigger. Stronger. Stranger.
Even the largest cruise ship from his past life—Harmony of the Seas—had only been 348 meters long and carried under five thousand passengers.
Pluton was more than three times that size.
And it had been built eight centuries ago.
Buggy narrowed his eyes.
The Ancient Kingdom… what kind of civilization could've created something like this? What kind of power? What kind of knowledge? And if they were that far ahead…
Why did the world fall so far behind?
The question sat like stone in his gut. For eight hundred years, technological progress had regressed. Marine warships still ran on sails and seastone. Mechanized cities had never emerged. Ancient war engines—if they even existed—were scattered in ruins and forgotten bunkers.
None of it made sense.
He hated puzzles that didn't play fair.
Why would a kingdom with this kind of capability vanish without a trace? Why had the entire world agreed to fall into silence?
This ship wasn't just a weapon.
It was evidence.
This… Buggy thought grimly, this must be why Raftel exists. The full story has to be written there.
His excitement simmered just beneath the surface, tempered by awe. A rare thing, in his world of bravado and theatrics.
Without speaking, he gave Gabban a slight nod. The old pirate moved forward, pressing a calloused palm to the black hull of Pluton.
The reaction was immediate.
Gabban recoiled like he'd been struck by lightning, stumbling back with a sharp grunt. He nearly broke the surface of his protective bubble. His hand shook. His brow twitched.
Buggy blinked, surprised.
Then he stepped forward and placed his hand on the warship.
A pulse.
It wasn't pain—it was a strange, low-frequency fatigue. A bone-deep weariness hums through his arm and down his spine. Like touching the edge of some ancient, slumbering mind.
His lips parted slightly.
"…Seastone," he murmured. "But… purer. Denser."
And yet, despite its nature, it barely scratched him.
Buggy's physical strength—tempered by countless wars and sharpened through years of Haki mastery—was far beyond the realm of mortals. His power had long since crossed into something that could only be described as planetary class.
Still, even he felt it. A faint resistance. A reminder.
Even the mighty can be humbled.
He turned to Gabban, silent but knowing.
The old pirate, now steady, raised his hand with a smirk and flashed an easy "OK" sign.
That was all Buggy needed.
They both understood the trick: seastone might suppress Devil Fruits, but it couldn't negate powers acting upon it. That's why Aokiji could freeze the sea itself without immediately drowning.
The crew, still watching from a short distance, stepped forward—curious, cautious, captivated. One by one, they pressed their palms to the hull…
And recoiled.
Hard.
Law frowned, his sharp eyes scanning the impossibly vast hull of the vessel. There was a clinical edge to his voice, laced with disbelief.
"A vessel this size… and it's made of Seastone?"He stepped closer, almost studying it like a cadaver."Even the Marines don't have the resources to pull that off. This isn't normal."
Moria's twisted laugh echoed off the metal, wild and jagged like broken glass.
"Kishishishi! That's insane! Who the hell has that much Seastone just lying around?!"He jabbed a clawed finger at the hull, eyes wide with manic glee."You'd need an empire to make something like this!"
Enel's face twitched—displeased, almost offended—as static danced around his shoulders. He gestured dismissively at the ship like it was a blemish on the sea itself.
"Oi… how does this abomination float?" His voice was sharp, imperious. "Seastone should drag it to the bottom of the ocean. This… goes beyond blasphemy."
Crocodile stood silent for a beat, letting the smoke from his cigar curl lazily into the water around him. His eyes never left the ship.
"Floating's one thing," he muttered, voice low, gravelly. He glanced toward the others, gaze half-lidded and dry. "How does it move?"Another puff of smoke. "This isn't technology from our time."
The questions came fast, tripping over each other like soldiers in retreat. A flood of disbelief and awe.
Whoosh—whoosh—
While they struggled to process the impossibility, Gabban got to work. His hands moved with a craftsman's grace, channeling his energy into the hull—steady, practiced.
Then, with a groan older than memory, Pluton began to rise.
Slowly.
Majestically.
The deep trembled as the ship ascended from the seabed, emerging into daylight like a forgotten god.
And then—it surfaced.
FWOOOOOSH—
The ocean exploded.
A black leviathan broke through the waves, vast and merciless. Its hull gleamed beneath the sunlight like liquid obsidian—elegant, terrifying.
Dozens of pressure vents hissed beneath the railings, blasting water away in all directions. In the blink of an eye, the main deck stood dry. Spotless.
Impossible.
And yet—here it was.
Enel stared up, disbelief cutting through his usual arrogance. "Oi, Gabban… you sure you're not a god too? What the hell is this thing? It floats?! That makes no damn sense!"
Gabban chuckled, brushing off his hands. "Heh. Beats me. But I like her style."
He let go of his energy.
Clunk.
Pluton shuddered… then stilled.
Still floating.
A beat of silence.
Then—
"WE'RE RIDING A LEGEND!"
"This thing's bigger than a damn island!"
"Buggy-sama! Let's take her for a spin!"
The crew erupted in cheers, half-mad with joy.
Buggy cracked a roguish grin and waved them forward like a king welcoming his court.
"All aboard, ya lot! Let's see what the Ancients were made of!"
Clatter!
Boots slammed against the deck as pirates scrambled up the side like children storming a toy store. Laughter. Shouts. The echo of footsteps across metal that hadn't known life in centuries.
But then—
Before they could even finish boarding, a low hum filled the air.
Mechanical. Deep. Alive.
Buggy froze at the center of the deck, eyes narrowing.
The hum grew louder.
Ka-ka-ka...
From the starboard side, an armored casing of pitch-black glass began to split. Smooth. Surgical. A blooming, symmetrical motion—like a lotus of steel unfolding.
The outer shell peeled back, piece by piece.
And what lay inside—
Was not from this world.
Bright panels of shifting light pulsed across the interior walls—soft, spectral, and strangely rhythmic. The chamber was vast, sterile, and pristine, filled with floating glyphs and unfamiliar symbols etched in the air like ghosts of another era.
It didn't feel like a warship.
It felt like a space station.
A control center built not for sailing the seas but for commanding the heavens.
Then came the voice.
Feminine. Soft. Calm.
Yet it held that unmistakable weight—something no human voice could replicate. The kind of resonance only ancient machines could carry.
"Greetings. I am [Pluton—Pluto]. Thank you for reactivating my core systems.Iris authentication in progress…The authorization is requested. Do you wish to proceed with iris registration and assume command of [Pluto]?"
The silence that followed was total.
Buggy blinked.
"…She talks?"
Half the crew flinched. The rest just stared, stunned into stillness.
Buggy scratched his chin slowly, casting a long look around the glowing control chamber. "Well, damn. I've been on a lot of ships in my day... but never one that asked me for eye contact first."
His boots echoed lightly as he stepped forward, eyes narrowing behind his goggles, a crooked smirk tugging at his lips.
"Alright, sweetheart," he said, voice low and laced with mischief. "Let's see what you're made of."
---
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