The Eclipse's deck.
Morning light dyed the cloud sea a pale gold.
After six months in seclusion, the Eclipse was finally running its final checks before departure.
Lunar robots hauled supply crates back and forth across the deck. Jeno's new recon drones folded into the hull's side bays one by one. The vector thrusters beneath the ship let out a low, rumbling preheat hum.
The black warship, silent for half a year, was like a beast finally rousing from sleep.
Ace stood at the bow, his dark red coat snapping in the high-altitude wind.
He said nothing. He just swept his eyes over the crew gathered on deck.
Sabo stood not far behind him, his top hat pulled low.
The Flame Dragon Staff coiled across his shoulder, lazy as a small pink dragon. It occasionally opened its mouth and spat a wisp of flame, and inside that flame, the faint crackle of wind and thunder could be heard.
Wind, lightning, fire. The three forces flickered across its scales for a moment, then tucked themselves away.
After half a year of attunement, the Flame Dragon Staff no longer felt like an external weapon.
It adjusted its flame clouds to Sabo's breathing. It pressed wind and thunder into its shaft before he even raised his hand.
Enel leaned against a nearby mast, biting into an apple, and glanced over.
"Hmph. Flashy."
Sabo didn't turn around.
"You said something different last time it sent you flying."
Enel's temple twitched.
"I let you have that one."
"Your exact words were, 'I saw that one coming.'"
Sabo smiled.
"Seeing it doesn't mean dodging it."
Enel crushed the apple in his teeth, lightning flickering in his eyes.
Six months ago, he would have already turned into a bolt of lightning and charged in for another fight.
Now, he just let out a cold huff.
"Next time, I'll dodge before you even throw it."
Sabo tipped his hat lower, his tone calm.
"Then I'll just throw something you haven't seen before."
They locked eyes.
Neither said another word.
They'd fought too many times this half year. Sabo's wind, thunder, and fire. Enel's Mantra prediction. They knew each other's moves inside and out by now.
Once they returned to the New World, someone else could do the testing for them.
At the edge of the deck, Riona leaned against the railing, polishing Byakuya.
Her biggest gains in the last six months hadn't been physical. They'd been in her mastery of the Float-Float Fruit and the scale of her slashes.
The Golden Lion's leftover ability research and swordsmanship records were the best possible teaching materials for her. And now, she was slowly working all of it into her own fighting style.
Urouge sat cross-legged at the center of the deck, hands pressed together, eyes closed in meditation.
The Gravity Mace lay still beside him, its sheer weight dimpling the deck beneath it.
He had barely stopped this half year.
Body. Armament Haki. Taking hits. Hitting back.
No flashy techniques.
Just a body that was thicker, more direct, more monstrous.
Shark stood by the ship's rail, Shark Skin quietly writhing on his back.
Dark brown slurry seeped from the gaps in the creature's carapace, then retracted just as quickly.
This modified sea beast had become more and more like an extension of Shark's own body.
Brook sat in the shadows, tuning his violin.
His bony fingers drew across the strings, and a thread of Underworld chill bled from the notes.
Beside him, the Seven Star Sword vibrated without a sound, a flicker of green ghost-fire glinting through the gap in its scabbard.
"Yohohoho."
Brook let out a soft laugh.
"Today's wind is perfect for setting sail."
Chopper stepped onto the deck from the medical bay.
His body hadn't changed much, but his combat ability had climbed significantly.
His Monster Point was now in a controllable phase.
More importantly, Bonney's treatment over the last six months had given him a real foothold into understanding lineage factors and physical development.
Kuma stood at the medical bay entrance.
Bonney sat on his shoulder, wrapped in a coat, chewing unhappily on the recovery rations Chopper had approved. She stared toward Riona's kitchen, eyes full of longing for grilled meat.
"Chopper's so stingy."
Chopper whipped his head around.
"I heard that!"
Bonney pouted.
Kuma gently steadied her, his eyes soft in a way that didn't match a man with a 950-million bounty called the Tyrant.
But his body and Armament Haki had been honed all over again in this half year too.
To protect Bonney.
And to protect this ship.
Law stood beside the Heart Pirates.
Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin were all noticeably sturdier than half a year ago.
Shachi and Penguin's water-combat fundamentals had been ruthlessly drilled by Shark. Bepo's martial arts and underwater mobility no longer looked as awkward as they had at the start.
Law himself still wore that icy expression.
But he'd stopped bringing up the term "affiliate crew."
He just stood on the Eclipse's deck, Kikoku resting at his side, the same way he had after countless training sessions these last six months. Silently waiting for the next order.
Ace watched all of this, the corner of his mouth slowly lifting.
This half year had not been wasted.
None of them had reached their limit yet.
But every single one of them had crossed their old threshold.
"Ace."
Carina shut her intel ledger.
"Final supply check confirmed."
"Sky Island defense channels have been handed over to Weipa."
Ace nodded and turned toward the front of the deck.
There, Weipa stood with the God's Guard at the edge of the White-White Sea.
Half a year had passed, and the man's presence was nothing like before.
The Weapon Fruit had turned his body itself into an armament.
The Limit Breaker serum and the Eclipse's training had pushed him from being the Shandian warrior chief into something else entirely: the true defensive core of the Sky Island.
Ace walked to the rail and looked at him.
"The Sky Island is yours."
Weipa dropped to one knee and slammed his right fist against his chest.
"As long as I live, no one sets foot on Apayado."
Ace smiled.
"Don't die."
"If you can't hold it, call for help."
Weipa looked up.
Ace pointed at Carina.
"She left you a channel."
"Something goes wrong, you call."
"Don't pull that brainless pirate act where you have to be half dead before you think to ask for reinforcements."
Carina added from beside him:
"Sky Island defense channel is online at all times."
"Patrols, logistics, sentries. All standard."
"If you run into real trouble you can't handle, patch straight into the core channel."
Weipa's voice was low.
"Understood."
In the distance, the Shandian warriors and the former God's Guard raised their weapons as one.
No shouting.
Just uniform, silent respect.
In half a year, the Eclipse hadn't only made itself stronger.
It had turned the Sky Island into a true fortress in the clouds.
Ace turned and walked back to the bow.
Carina came to stand beside him.
"The entire world is waiting for us to show ourselves right now."
"The Navy. The Emperors. The underworld. And a whole pile of idiots looking to make a name off your corpse."
She paused, then glanced at Law.
"The Donquixote Family is still hunting for you too."
Law lifted his eyes, his expression unchanged.
Sabo stepped up beside Ace, the Flame Dragon Staff shifting back into its full-length form in his hand.
"Then it's time to head back."
His tone was calm.
"This trip to the New World won't be a probe anymore."
Enel took a bite of his apple, sparks dancing at his fingertips.
"Finally, we're done sitting on this cloud."
"I've been bored out of my mind."
Riona slid Byakuya into its sheath.
"Kitchen supplies will last a month."
Urouge smiled and pressed his palms together.
"This humble one is ready."
Buggy clutched his head and shouted.
"Hey hey hey! Don't talk like we're about to go pick a fight with an Emperor right this second!"
Carina glanced at him.
"It'll happen sooner or later."
She said it flatly.
"We're going to run into the Emperors sooner or later anyway."
Buggy's expression froze for an instant.
Then he puffed out his chest and forcibly swallowed the cold sweat.
"Hmph!"
"So what if they're Emperors?"
"You give me enough prep time, even if Kaido shows up, he's got to march through ten layers of traps, three rounds of poison gas, and eight hundred slime bombs first!"
He paused and added, much quieter:
"Obviously, it'd still be best if the captain took point first."
Ace burst out laughing.
Then he lifted his head and looked toward the distant cloud sea.
"Half a year. That's long enough."
His voice wasn't loud, but it silenced everyone on deck.
"Eclipse."
"Take us up."
The next second.
The vector thruster array beneath the hull lit up in sequence.
A deep, rolling roar rose from inside the black ship's frame.
The White-White Sea rippled outward in massive rings.
The Eclipse slowly lifted away from the cloud sea.
Apayado, the Golden Belfry, the giant beanstalk, the Asura Training Isles. All of it shrank smaller and smaller below.
Weipa and the God's Guard stood at the cloud shore, heads tilted up, watching the black ship rise into a higher sky.
Bonney sat on Kuma's shoulder, watching the Sky Island fade into the distance below them. She asked quietly:
"Where are we going?"
Ace stood at the bow, the wind whipping his dark red coat.
"To the New World."
He said:
"To show them."
"The Fifth Emperor isn't something the papers made up."
...
The Blue Sea.
A stretch of water somewhere on the Grand Line.
A merchant ship was navigating carefully through the shipping lane beneath the clouds.
The lookout yawned and then went rigid.
He looked up at the high sky.
There, threading through the cumulonimbus, a massive black silhouette flickered past.
Like a ship.
Like some monster swimming through the sky.
"Hey..."
The lookout rubbed his eyes.
"Did anyone else just see that?"
The sailors on deck looked up.
But the clouds had already sealed over.
Nothing there.
Just the faint remnant of a torn cloud trail lingering in the high air.
Half a day later.
A blurry sighting report was forwarded through a nearby naval branch to Marineford.
It contained only a single line.
"Suspected black ship sighted."
The black ship that had vanished for half a year had finally returned to the sea's gaze.
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