"…What… is this…?"
I stood rooted at the edge of the island, completely stunned.
Stunned, and staring down at the scene spread out beneath my feet.
Blue sea… and white clouds.
Of course, it wasn't the sky reflected on the water. Both the sea and the clouds were below me—both of them, undeniably "down there."
Which meant only one thing.
I was in the sky.
But this wasn't a Sky Island.
…It shouldn't have been. Until just a moment ago, it definitely wasn't.
And yet now—
(…Calm down. Breathe. Sort it out.)
In my entire twenty-seven years of life, I'd never experienced anything like this.
No—this was beyond "experienced." I'd never even heard of something like this happening.
I was dangerously close to panicking, but I forced myself to take a few deep breaths and steady my thoughts, then tried to retrace what had led to this.
Though "retracing" was generous, since most of it still made no sense.
It started the day I found both the "island that should exist but doesn't" and the "island that shouldn't exist but does."
By the time afternoon had worn on, a fairly large storm rolled in.
The storm itself passed, but if I set sail after that, I'd be navigating at night. So I decided to stay put and leave the next morning.
And the night passed normally. No pirate ambush. No retaliation. Just an ordinary dawn.
I ate breakfast, checked the ship from top to bottom, and thought, Alright—time to go.
That was when it happened.
Without warning, the island began to shake.
And not in a small way—this was violent, deep shaking, like the island itself was being rattled from the roots up.
A level I'd never experienced even back in Japan in my previous life. If it was an earthquake, it sure as hell wasn't some "intensity three or four" kind of thing.
I whipped my head around, trying to figure out what was going on—
—and saw something far more impossible than any earthquake.
The island… was floating.
Not just the island.
The surrounding sea was rising with it, slowly lifting into the sky.
I know that sounds like nonsense. But there's no other way to describe it.
It was as if the island and the sea around it had been cleanly cut out… or scooped up by some enormous, invisible, transparent spoon—and then carried upward.
Because it was "the surrounding sea," my ship—right as I was about to depart—was lifted along with it.
I could only stand there, dumbstruck, while everything climbed higher and higher.
In no time at all, we'd risen above the clouds—high enough that I could look down on blue sea and white cloud at the same time.
…and that brings me back to where I started.
Even after replaying it, I still didn't understand a thing. What was that? What in the world just happened?
Tectonic movement? Abnormal weather? That wasn't even close. I'd never heard of anything on this scale.
Could someone have done it on purpose…?
No, no way. There's no "technology" for this—
But… a power?
If some kind of ability could do this, then how strong would that ability have to be? What kind of Ability User could pull this off?
It was only a guess, but even the idea made my skin prickle.
And it wasn't just this island.
All around me were other islands, too—multiple islands, each lifted with their own surrounding sea, floating in the air like an entire archipelago suspended in the heavens.
If I looked carefully, I could even see different climates mixed together. One island had cherry blossoms blooming. Another was blanketed in snow, with drift ice floating in the water around it.
As someone who loved "reporting" as a convenient excuse for adventure, a place this unknown should have made my heart leap—
—but right now, confusion drowned out excitement.
Even if this were a Sky Island, this scenery was abnormal.
And besides… Sky Islands were supposed to be made of Island Clouds and Sea Clouds, weren't they?
But these were just… normal islands. Solid ground. And the "sea" wasn't cloud at all.
…No. Still no. I didn't get it.
What was this place?
"Well… it's the One Piece World. Places this absurd probably exist. Maybe it just never showed up in the Original Work… or maybe I'm the one who doesn't know. That's the scary part—you can't completely rule anything out."
It was unbelievable. It was incomprehensible.
But it was right in front of me, and pretending it wasn't would get me nowhere.
So I decided, for the moment, to accept it. This is what it is. This is where I am.
And if I really wanted to, returning to the blue sea below… should be possible.
If I made something like a parachute out of paper, I could lower the ship slowly and land safely on the water.
So I didn't have to spiral into despair like, I'm trapped—what do I do?
…And once I realized that, I felt a certain dangerous "ease" settle into me.
Which meant my bad habits woke up, too.
Because if I could leave anytime—
…then maybe…
(…glance)
"…Who knows if I'll ever come somewhere like this again. Right. This is for investigating the situation properly. That's what this is. Yes. It can't be helped."
With the reassurance that I could always go back, the islands spread out before me started looking like treasure.
Not gold and jewels.
Experience. The kind you only get once, if you're lucky.
Alright.
Decision made.
"Okay. Adventure time. First things first—I'm going to check out as many islands as I can."
---
I attached large wings made of paper to my ship, then used them like a hang glider—catching the wind and gliding from one island to the next.
And it really was exactly what it looked like from afar.
Each island had a completely different climate.
All four seasons were there—spring, summer, autumn, winter. Dense jungle. Snowfields. Different terrain, different air.
On one island, cherry blossoms were in full bloom, so I ate lunch there like it was a hanami picnic.
It was strange—so strange it bordered on wrong—to have islands that close together, yet with climates that didn't match at all.
Even in the Grand Line, you didn't normally see something like this.
And the fact that it was all floating in the sky made the whole thing feel even more unreal…
…but at this point, I'd already crossed the line where "unreal" mattered.
As I explored, two things stood out more clearly than anything else.
First: these islands didn't feel like Sky Islands at all.
There were no Island Clouds, no Sea Clouds—none of the plants or signs that would remind me of a Sky Island environment.
It really did feel like chunks of the Blue Sea had been cut out and lifted upward.
Blue Sea islands, just… placed in the sky.
Second: the wildlife.
There were an incredible number of creatures that I'd never seen anywhere else.
Yes, in this world, "strange animals" weren't rare.
But it was unusual for almost everything I saw to be that kind of strange.
And some of them weren't just strange—they were aggressively hostile.
Some attacked me the moment they spotted me. Others were fighting each other constantly, as if battling was simply what they did.
The strangest part was that these weren't hunts.
Even after the fights ended, no one ate anyone. It didn't feel like a food chain thing.
It didn't even look like territorial disputes.
It was just… fighting. Everywhere. Loud, restless, constant.
Was this simply an island full of violent creatures?
That question followed me as I moved from island to island—
Until, on one of them, I finally found what looked like a human settlement.
Maybe I could get answers.
I approached carefully so I wouldn't alarm them, but the people living there turned out to be gentle and calm.
When they learned I'd arrived here by accident—though, yes, I'd been exploring pretty enthusiastically ever since—they fussed over me kindly.
"That must've been awful. Don't hold back—rest here as long as you need."
They led me inside and served me tea, warm and unguarded.
And in that house, I heard something that made the hairs on my arms lift.
"So… this island wasn't originally a Sky Island?"
"No. Originally—well, it's been ten years now. But it used to be a normal, peaceful island on the sea. There were odd creatures even then… but people and animals lived together just fine."
The older women spoke with the kind of weary resignation that only comes from years of swallowing bitterness.
And only then did I really notice it.
There were elderly people in the village. There were small children.
But I hadn't seen young men or young women at all.
And I learned why almost immediately.
"This happened… because of Shiki."
"Shiki?"
"Yeah. The pirate who runs this place. They call him Shiki the Golden Lion."
The women explained that the village had lived so isolated from the outside world that they hadn't known who he was at first.
But judging by what Shiki and his pirates said, they'd realized quickly enough that he wasn't some ordinary bandit.
As for me—
I knew exactly who he was.
Not just a "big name."
A name that made your stomach drop.
Shiki the Golden Lion.
The man who once tore through the New World with a massive force of subordinate pirates.
The Golden Lion Pirates' Grand Boss. Pirate Fleet Admiral. The Flying Pirate.
A survivor from the era of the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger—known as a great pirate who'd even fought Roger.
A living legend.
They said that in that era, the Pirate King, the Golden Lion, Whitebeard, and Big Mom were the ones who dominated the sea… something like the Four Emperors of today.
And there was another fact that mattered even more here:
He was the only prisoner in Impel Down history to successfully escape.
Then there was his power.
The Fuwa Fuwa no Mi.
The ability to make anything he touched float freely—and to fly through the air himself.
Rumors said he'd lifted pirate ships and warships into the sky, then smashed them down from above, or used them as huge airborne weapons.
Most people called it exaggeration.
Stories.
Urban legend.
But—
(After seeing this… how could I?)
This wasn't ships.
This was islands. Entire islands.
And not just the land—the sea around them, too.
If Shiki was behind this… then the impossible things I'd seen made a kind of terrifying sense.
The "island that shouldn't exist but does."
The "island that should exist but doesn't."
If he could move islands around like cargo, then of course a chart would be wrong.
When I asked the women, they said Shiki used these islands as bases for research and other projects—and that sometimes, he brought in new islands.
Like he was adding rooms to a house.
Like he was restocking supplies.
If he needed space for a new experiment, he simply went and "got" another island.
The scale was insane.
As far as I knew, after Shiki escaped Impel Down, the Marines had staked their pride on hunting him down.
And still, they'd never found him.
If he'd been here all this time… then of course they hadn't.
No one would look for a pirate in the sky.
Even if they thought of it, how would you search the sky?
The women's timeline matched, too—Shiki came to this island, and soon after, the island and the surrounding area became what they were now.
Since then, Shiki had ruled these islands as their absolute lord.
And the village's missing young people…
Anyone who could serve as labor was taken away.
Children too small to work, and middle-aged or older people who weren't "useful enough," were left behind to scrape by.
And if someone became too old, or got sick and could no longer work, they were sometimes tossed back like discarded tools.
Not something you could celebrate. Not really.
But… what was he doing here?
Why would someone like Shiki hide for over a decade?
It didn't feel like peaceful retirement.
I'd heard he was doing research, but—
"We don't know the details," one of the women said. "But Shiki seems interested in the plants that grow here… and the animals that eat them."
"Plants? I've seen plenty of strange animals already, but… plants?"
"There's a medicinal herb on this island called I.Q. We've used it for a long time—when we get sick, or when someone's poisoned by Daft Green, we make medicine with it. They say the animals look the way they do because they eat it, too… It's a strange herb. But after Shiki came, he took it all for himself."
No one knew why.
To the villagers, I.Q was useful, yes, and maybe a bit unusual—but not something priceless.
So when Shiki stole it, they rebelled. They tried to drive him out.
But he was Shiki the Golden Lion.
It wasn't a fight. It wasn't even close.
They were crushed as easily as twisting a baby's arm.
And then, as if mocking them—"If you've got that much energy, I'll put you to work"—he began conscripting people.
And after that, he floated the island itself into the sky.
And that was how they'd lived ever since.
…I see.
Ruthless. Vile.
From their perspective, it must have been unbearable.
Their sons and daughters taken. Their home ripped from the sea and hoisted into the air. Their familiar medicine stolen.
(What I really want to know is what he's doing with I.Q. Pirates don't monopolize a plant and "research" it unless it matters. Could it be turned into some kind of weapon…?)
---
Meanwhile—
At the Golden Lion Pirates' headquarters in the winter region of the same island…
Shiki the Golden Lion himself sat on his throne, receiving reports from pirates who had just joined his subordinates.
Most of it sounded like the usual noise.
But one detail caught his interest.
"Oh? Someone predicted yesterday's storm?"
"Y-yes… I'm told my men only spoke with them. I didn't meet them personally, but… they were warned as the person left. Is that right?"
"Y-yeah! They said it was a passing shower so it'd probably stop soon, but it'd be a big one, so we should hurry back to the ship!"
"…They even called the size and how long it would last? Our own team couldn't fully predict that storm's formation… Interesting."
Just then, one of Shiki's men shouted, "Lord Shiki!"
He was one of the watchers—monitoring the territory using multiple screens, checking footage from roaming self-propelled Den Den Mushi.
One of the monitors showed—
"There's an unfamiliar person in the village. Based on their clothing and age, we believe it's an intruder from outside."
"…! Th-that's her! Captain—Grand Boss Shiki! That's the one we met!"
A low-ranking pirate burst into excited noise at the sight of the woman on screen.
Shiki clearly understood what he was saying—this was the "woman who predicted the storm."
But his reaction wasn't what the men expected.
"…What…?"
For some reason, Shiki was staring at the monitor as if he couldn't look away.
His eyes locked on Sue's face.
(That face… no way…)
"Huh? That's the Pirate Literary Master, isn't it?!"
"Wait—Captain, you know her?"
"Idiot. How do you not know her? She's a pirate too. A wanted woman with a 76 million Berry bounty."
While the subordinates clamored, Shiki didn't even turn his head.
He spoke instead to the man at his side—his trusted researcher.
"Hey, Dr. Indigo. What do you think?"
"Yes… I suspect I'm having the same impression as you are, Boss."
"Yeah… this is too close."
Something about it struck deep.
Shiki's mouth curled around his cigar, twisting into a feral grin.
Without taking his eyes off the woman on screen, he murmured as if to himself.
"To think I'd see her here… First of all, I'm shocked she's even alive. But that face, that air… and a mind sharp enough to predict the weather… There's no mistaking it. This one—"
"—is Sou's daughter."
To be continued...