Tenryu Island.
Government Affairs Processing Center.
Trebol stared at the photos sent from Mock Town and let out a series of mocking laughs.
"I say, I say, Tesoro—another bunch of brainless pirates coming to die!"
In the photo, the hull of an airship was halfway swallowed by the clouds.
Tesoro gave it a glance and turned away in boredom.
"Nothing impressive. I thought it might be some warrior riding the Knock Up Stream, but this is just a clunky machine."
Robin, who was also handling paperwork nearby, took a curious peek. She recognized who it was.
After a brief hesitation, she spoke up.
"That seems to be Crocodile, the former Warlord who had a conflict with Moria-san in the West Blue. Is it really okay to just ignore this?"
The disaster Crocodile had stirred up was still vivid in her memory, even after nearly half a year.
"It's fine. The airspace above Jaya Island is still a good distance from us."
Tesoro plucked a few strands of hair from his head, worn out by fatigue, and buried himself back into the mountain of documents.
Robin still looked uneasy, her expression that of someone who hadn't seen much of the world.
Tesoro added casually, "It's not easy for him to find us, Robin. Relax. Focus on the work."
"And besides," Trebol sniffled through his snot-like mucus, picking up the conversation, "there's a far scarier monster over there!"
He chuckled darkly, as if picturing something delightful.
"Beh-hee-hee-hee-hee!"
...
At the same time—
A ship was speeding across the White-White Sea, heading toward what used to be the descent channel from the Sky Island.
"Senor Pink, are we really going to Fish-Man Island this time?" Yamato cupped her face with both hands, eyes sparkling with excitement.
She had never visited an undersea island before!
"Yeah, that's right."
Senor Pink rubbed his throbbing temples as he replied.
Young female mermaids could fetch extremely high prices in the human slave market.
They were favorites among nobles and Celestial Dragons.
Since the start of the Great Pirate Era, pirates traveling through the area often abducted and plundered Fish-Men and Merfolk on a massive scale.
Even the Marines got involved.
So naturally, Fish-Man Island didn't have the friendliest attitude toward humans anymore.
And on top of that, they were going to meet the island's queen. What a headache.
"Wonder if mermaids are as beautiful in real life as they are in the videos!" Buffalo's eyes turned into red hearts.
He'd only seen them in recordings. Never in person.
"You low-grade men who only care about pretty faces—you're not even one ten-thousandth of Doflamingo-sama!" Monet scoffed, clearly unimpressed by Buffalo's drooling.
With her exceptional talent for killing and blind devotion to Doflamingo-sama, Monet had already mastered Rokushiki and earned the right to go on missions.
"Can you eat mermaids?" asked the slow-witted Weevil, holding up a roasted chunk of meat.
"You idiot!!!" x3
"..."
Elsewhere—
Due to the full migration of the Sky Island, the air forces that were previously stationed between the White Sea and White-White Sea had now withdrawn to the airspace surrounding Tenryu Island.
That meant Crocodile's airship faced no resistance after braving the ordeal of the dense clouds and several attacks from Sky Fish.
Now it floated steadily, cruising through the White Sea 7,000 meters above the ground.
Even for Lafitte seeing this with his own eyes was awe-inspiring.
He had heard legends and knew Sky Islands were real, but witnessing it was something else entirely.
Wringing out his damp clothes, he muttered with admiration,
"This is unbelievable. These clouds in the sky... they have the buoyancy of a real ocean. It's a sea in the sky!"
"But where's the Sky Island?"
Daz Bonez scanned every inch of the vast white horizon, but saw no signs of any islands.
Crocodile used his power to dry himself off completely, escaping the soaked environment, and looked upward.
"Look up there."
Bonez and Lafitte both turned their gaze upward—and simultaneously said:
"No sunlight?"
Above them was only more flawless, glowing white cloud. No sunlight. That meant the upper cloud layer could support weight.
There had to be something up there.
Then Crocodile spotted it.
A runway made entirely of white clouds came into view in the distance.
At the far end of it—sunlight.
"Up that way."
Moments later, the airship climbed onto the cloud runway.
Crocodile's ears twitched. He picked up a strange sound.
"What's that noise?"
"Huh?" Bonez tilted his head from side to side, trying to hear. "I don't hear anything."
As the altitude increased, the murmurs grew clearer.
"O merciful Father! You, who weave the threads of fate,
Your light is the gaze cast upon this world.
Time flows at your command.
You are the saint who descended among us.
We, who are unworthy of love, thank you for choosing us.
Under your guidance, all things will march toward glory..."
As the airship rose above the White-White Sea, what appeared before the trio was a massive statue, over a hundred meters tall.
Though made of stone, the expression on its face was lifelike—imperious and vivid.
Seated atop a stone platform, it gazed down on the world as though judging it.
The figure carved into the stone was none other than the one Crocodile had long held in his thoughts—Doflamingo.
A vast crowd knelt reverently before the statue, on the white clouds.
Their whispers merged into a solemn chant.
"There's got to be at least ten thousand people," Bonez roughly estimated, shocked.
Judging by the wide variety of clothing styles, they weren't just pirates—there were Marines mixed in too.
"But how are that statue and all those people standing on the clouds?"
"Maybe Sky Island clouds are different," Lafitte said, "like how the White Sea and White-White Sea differ from each other."
But what really caught Lafitte's attention were the prisoners so devoutly bowing in worship.
"Did Doflamingo start treating himself like a god or something?"
He couldn't make sense of it.
The infamous Heavenly Yaksha, Doflamingo, was hiding out on a Sky Island—just to soak up this kind of fake devotion?
Crocodile snorted coldly, voice full of disdain.
"Playing god... what a farce."
This version of Doflamingo wasn't even worthy of being his rival.
"Even if I don't understand everything this man's doing…" Lafitte heard a deep, calm voice cut through the air, clear in the ears of all three.
"…that man has never done anything meaningless."
The trio snapped around.
A towering figure, nearly the size of a small giant, was slowly approaching.
Lafitte suddenly realized—Crocodile, who hadn't flinched against Moria, actually showed visible emotion.
Crocodile's pupils contracted. His tone turned mocking.
"Bullet. After vanishing from the seas for years… don't tell me you're bowing to Doflamingo now? Have you become this Sky Island's guard dog?"
Clang… clang…
Bullet threw off the Seastone shackles that had been draped over his shoulders.
Like a tiger freed from its cage, he stretched his massive, iron-forged frame.
His mouth curled into a toothy grin.
"He did beat me. But I sure as hell didn't bow down to him!"
-----------
Fanfic is finished 527 chapters in total on p@treon/tambeerg