Chapter 28

The large shrimp that's bringing the crew up the twisted cloud road doesn't stop for a second as it continues to ascend the ship to new heights.

"How is this even possible?!" Nami asks as she clings to the railing to keep her balance.

Rose chuckles at her disbelief as she relaxes next to her. "Hard to tell what's not possible anymore. This river could be man-made for all we know."

Robin looks ahead to see that the ship is reaching another gateway. "It looks like we're reaching the exit."

"Looks like there's something written on the gate." Chopper says while Usopp grabs his binoculars.

Once the sniper takes a look at the sign at the top of the gate, he begins to grow more nervous. "It says that we're heading to Godland Skypiea!"

Luffy widely grins at the announcement as they're about to get through the gate. "Then let's go!"

Once the speedy shrimp takes them through the gate, everyone gapes in awe at the large island that's mostly made of clouds except for the trees and buildings.

Rose widely grins at the beautiful white island, as the ship gets closer to the beach, before she heads inside to change clothes. Once the boat stops, Luffy wastes no time in jumping overboard to run around on the soft shoreline. "This is awesome!"

Usopp and Chopper quickly join in as they jump onto the cloudy beach.

"Hey what about the anchor?! There's no sea floor here!" Zoro says, but his captain is too busy running around to worry about it.

"Never mind…" The swordsman quietly sighs at his childishness before he looks around at the amazing island. "I can't believe a place like this exists."

Sanji nods in agreement as he rolls up the bottom of his pants and takes off his blazer. "You got that right, no wonder the others are so excited."

He quickly dives off into the cloudy ocean to swim into the water with a goofy grin, and leaves Zoro to sweat drop at his antics. "You're no different from them…"

He shakes his head at the situation before he drops the anchor into the water.

Meanwhile, Rose walks outside in a pale purple tank top, black capris with her sword strapped onto her light blue belt, dark blue sandals with a thin ankle strap to keep them from falling off, and her dark red backpack safely strapped on. When she looks around, she finds Nami about to free the south bird with the bird waiting patiently for freedom.

Once the south bird is finally free of his chain, he flies towards Nami to peck at her, but before he can do anything Rose creates a gust of wind to lift him away from her.

The bird angrily squawks at the wind girl, while she only chuckles and waves at him. "Sorry for not freeing you sooner, but we won't bother you anymore."

The bird only narrows his eyes at the easygoing, freckled, girl before he accepts his freedom and flies away from the crazy crew.

Nami quietly sighs in relief of not getting pecked before she turns to Zoro. "Did you drop the anchor?"

"Yea, but I'm not sure if it'll do any good with the island being made up of clouds."

Robin looks down at the cloud before she turns to Nami. "Is your log pose still pointing up?"

The navigator blinks at the question before she looks to see that the log pose is pointing towards the island. "Nope, this is exactly where we're supposed to be."

"Works for me." Rose says as she wastes no time in flying off the ship to join the Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp in running around on the soft, fluffy, clouds that make up the beach.

Nami quickly follows them onto the beach while Robin and Zoro stay behind.

Zoro gets ready to get off when he sees Robin staring at the island. "You're not coming?"

"I'll be there soon." The archaeologist says as she takes in the beautiful sight of an island in the sky. "It really is amazing though. I never thought that sailing and landing on islands could be an adventure too."

Zoro raises an eyebrow at the comment as he watches her get off the ship without another word. He shakes his head to not think much into it before he gets off the boat to join the others in enjoying the new surroundings.

As Sanji and Robin are admiring at the balloon like flowers nearby, Nami and Chopper are in a gazebo where even the chairs are made of clouds. Usopp gathers up the clouds under his feet to see if he could make a castle, while Zoro relaxes under a palm tree with pumpkin like fruits hanging on it, with Luffy climbing onto the same tree.

Rose doesn't waste time in sitting on a separate palm tree with her camera in hand as she not only takes pictures of the sky island, but also of her crew mates as they do their own thing.

Luffy doesn't notice the picture taking in the tree next to him as he wraps his legs around the top of the tree trunk to keep him from falling so that he grabs onto one of the dark green fruits on top.

Once he takes a bite into the green pumpkin, his teeth immediately start to ache from trying to munch into the hard fruit. He groans from the pain to see that his teeth didn't even make a dent into the solid food, so he starts hitting it. "Hey, open up!"

He freezes when he hears a camera going off, along with a few giggles, to see Rose capturing his cute antics on camera. He only stares at her with big, dark, eyes for a moment, before he stretches one of his hands towards her.

Rose raises an eyebrow at the rubber hand reaching for her until it grabs her camera, and brings it to him. Before she can question him, Luffy quickly starts taking pictures of her without warning. She chuckles at his retaliation as she grins at the camera, and raises her hand up to give him the peace sign.

After the fifth picture, he waves for her to come over with a bright smile. "Come take a picture with me!"

The brunette didn't need to be told twice as she flies next to him. Luffy throws the pumpkin onto the ground, before he wraps an arm around Rose's shoulders, and stretches his other arm back a little so that the camera can catch them both.

Rose couldn't stop her blush from coming out as she wraps an arm around his shoulders, with a sheepish grin, before her captain takes a picture of the pair.

Once Luffy's done, he hands her back the camera and blinks when he sees the blush on her freckled cheeks. "Hey, are you ok? Your face is red again."

She quickly nods as she puts the camera back in her bag while she fights off the blush. "Y-yea, I'm all good. Thanks for the picture."

She lands on the beach before any more questions could be asked, and starts piling up the clouds together so that she can practice her cloud manipulation.

Luffy sweat drops at her retreat before he grabs another pumpkin and tries to eat it, but it's still too hard for him. He looks down at Usopp making a cloud castle before a mischievous grin appears on his face. "Hey Usopp, want some fruit?"

The sniper didn't have time to answer before the rock-like fruit landed on top of his head. Usopp twitches an eyebrow in irritation when he hears his captain laughing before he glares up at him. "Stay right there!"

The rubber man doesn't listen as he jumps from tree to tree while he's still laughing with the sniper in pursuit for revenge.

Rose chuckles at the chase as she looks at the large clump of the cloud that she managed to pile up, so that it's as tall as her. She takes a deep breath before she creates a gust of wind around the cloud to change its shape, so that it barely looks like a three-layered snowman. She happily grins at the crooked cloud man as she tries again, but stops to hear the sound of a harp playing.

The rest of the crew also stops what they're doing to the sound of the soft music being played. Zoro looks around for the source when he freezes to see a tiny white fox, with a long snout, running up to him. "What the-? A fox?"

The others don't notice the animal, but instead find that the musician on top of a cloud hill by the white sea, is a young woman in a pink dress with her blond hair in braided pigtails along with two antennae on top of her head. What the pirates found the most astonishing about this girl though, is that there are two small wings on her back.

"She's an angel!" Sanji says when the mysterious girl notices the audience, and greets the newcomers with a friendly smile.

"Heso."

The pirates look at the girl in confusion for the odd greeting as she walks over to them. "Are you guys from the blue sea?"

Rose nods at the question before she grins down at the fox by Zoro's feet. "Is that your fox?"

The native nods before she turns her attention to her pet. "Sue, come here."

Sue quickly obeys as he runs over to the girl while she introduces herself. "My name's Conis. I live not too far from here."

She looks to see Luffy holding one of the pumpkin fruits and points to it. "That fruit is called a gaunasu, do you want to drink it?"

Luffy raises an eyebrow at the question, but nonetheless he hands her the fruit.

Conis calmly smiles at the fruit as she flips it upside down, and takes a pocket knife out of her dress pocket. "This fruit is as hard as steel on the outside, but you can open the bottom to drink its juices.

Once she cuts a small hole at the center of the bottom of the fruit, she places a straw inside and hands it back to Luffy.

Luffy tilts his head at the fruit before he takes a sip, and his eyes immediately bug out from the amazing taste. "This is awesome!"

"Really?! Let me try!" Usopp says as he takes the fruit to sip on it with Chopper quickly following.

Conis looks down to see Sue nuzzling her ankle for attention, so she picks her up before she grins at her guests. "If you guys need help with understanding the island I can help."

Sanji steps up to the woman with a gentlemanly smile. "There's something I need help with. You see, your beautiful gaze has burnt a hole in my heart- Ow!"

Nami pulls him close to her by the ear to stop him from flirting before she smiles at Conis. "There's actually a lot of things we'd like to know about this island."

"Ask away."

"What's coming over here from the sea?" Zoro asks which makes the rest of the crew look out to the white sea in confusion to see a middle-aged, winged, man riding a fast one-man boat towards the shore.

Conis brightens up at the bald man with two brown antennae on his head, that matches his fluffy beard, and recognizes him. "Heso father!"

"Father?" Robin asks, but she doesn't receive an answer as the sailing man is riding towards them with barely any control on his small boat.

When Nami looks at the boat he's riding, she sees that there's no sails, and the only thing that seems to be controlling it are the handlebars that Conis' father is barely keeping ahold of. "What kind of boat is that?"

"It's a boat called the waver." Conis says as her father shows no signs of stopping while he gets closer to them.

"Excuse me, but I have to stop now." Conis' dad says, but he sails onto the shore and makes the crew jump out of the way to avoid getting run over.

Just before the waver is about to hit a tree, Conis' father widens his eyes to see that he's flying off the boat on a gust of wind and avoids crashing with his ride.

Conis looks at her dad in complete shock, because she's never seen her dad flying before. "Father?!"

"Sorry, that's me." Rose says as she slowly releases her wind to gently land him next to his daughter.

Conis and her father widen their eyes at the wind girl before the winged man chuckles at his luck. "Now that was an amazing experience. Thank you for the help."

Rose nods at the gratitude as she watches him grab his waver to see that it's not damaged from the crash. He looks at the wingless group with his daughter curiously. "You're all from the blue sea?"

Conis nods with a calm smile. "That's right, they're my friends."

The bald man nods as he grins at the pirates. "Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier. My name's Pagaya."

"There's no need for you to apologize." Usopp says when he notices the basket on his back. "What were you doing out there?"

Pagaya looks back at his basket, and grins when he shows him one of the many sky lobsters that he caught. "I was just out fishing these sky lobsters. I have more than enough for everyone if you wish to join us for lunch."

"Awesome!" Luffy says as he, Chopper and Usopp grin in excitement.

Sanji brightens up at the offer as he steps up. "Please let me help, I'd love to learn about your cuisine."

Pagaya happily nods while Nami goes over to the waver.

The navigator can't help but be curious at the small boat that has no sails or paddles to move it, yet it can sail so quickly. "Before we go I'm really curious, how does this waver work?"

Conis blinks at the question before realization hits her. "Oh I see, you don't have experience with dials, do you?"

Nami blinks at the new term before she looks back at the boat. "A dial?"

Conis nods as she goes up to the boat and shows her the two foot pedals that are in between the stand holding the handlebars. "They're what we use to power the boat and these pedals help channel them. The pedal on the right accelerates it and the left one stops it."

Luffy widely smiles at the cool boat as he approaches it. "Can I try?"

"Go ahead." Conis says as she takes the waver to the sea just before Luffy gets on.

Rose looks at the waver in thought as she tries to remember what happens with Luffy's ride when she read about it. When she realizes that he's going to crash, it's too late as Luffy takes off without warning.

"Whoa, look at him go!" Chopper says as he and the others watch Luffy quickly sailing off.

Luffy happily laughs at how fast the waver's taking him before the handles start shaking. "What the hell?!"

He tries to keep control of the waver, but the turning handles keep moving on their own and makes the boat start swerving. "Why is it shaking?! I can't stop!"

Rose starts flying after him, while she ignores everyone's questions, just when the wavers completely loses control and flips over with Luffy going head first into the white waters.

"Crap!" Rose makes it just above where he fell and blows wind out of her hand to create hole in the cloud so that Luffy's upper half can be seen for her to focus on.

But, just before she can try to pull him up, Luffy stretches his arms to grab her shoulders and slingshots himself towards her. He shoots up so fast that she couldn't react in time to stop him before his face accidentally crashes onto hers so hard that it sends them both flying.

Rose flinches from the hard headbutt, but widens her eyes when she feels a pair of warm, chapped, lips on hers. She looks in Luffy's eyes that are equally as shocked as hers, and realizes that her captain, Monkey D. Luffy himself, stole her first kiss. With no idea on how to react, her mind immediately shuts down as her face goes from pale to crimson in a matter of seconds.

Luffy quickly pulls away from her soft lips and rubs his head with one hand while the other stays on her shoulder. "Ouch, that hurt!" He looks around to see that Rose isn't using her wind, as they are still being sent flying from his stunt, and looks at the blushing girl in confusion. "Hey Rose, you alright?"

"Uh…" She can barely answer the concerned question as the flustered girl is still stuck in a daze while they're descending.

Luffy's eyes bug out of his head when he sees that they're heading towards the water, and calls out to the wind girl in his arms. "ROSE, SNAP OUT OF IT! WE'RE FALLING!"

Regardless of being shaken and yelled at to make more wind, the shell-shocked girl was only able to snap out of it when they've hit the water with Luffy's arms still around her.

The others can only drop their jaws at what they just witnessed, except for Sanji who's completely furious.

"HOW DARE YOU STEAL ROSE-CHAN'S LIPS YOU BASTARD?!" The fuming chef dives after the pair while the others are still wondering what exactly did they just witness.

Zoro can only shake his head at the craziness before he takes off his shoes and mutters under his breath. "Better make sure he doesn't kill Luffy."

He joins Sanji in going after the drowning pirates while the rest of pirates start to slowly recover from the sight.

Pagaya looks at the water nervously before he turns to the crew. "Will your friends be alright?!"

Nami nods while she tries to suppress a smirk from the crazy kiss she saw. "With Zoro and Sanji after them, they should be fine."

As if on command, Zoro emerges while he drags Luffy, who's holding two lumps on his head courtesy of Sanji, out of the water by his foot. "Dammit, they almost fell out of the cloud."

Sanji carries Rose bridal style out of the water while he glares at Luffy, who's catching his breath from almost drowning. "You owe Rose-chan an apology, you shitty captain!"

Rose quickly gets out of Sanji's hold, while her face is still lightly red, and steps in front of him before he can hit Luffy again. "It's fine, it was just an accident."

Luffy sits up cross legged and nods in agreement. "Yea, what's the big deal if we kissed anyway? It's not like it felt bad."

The others freeze at the comment and turn to the rubber man, who's staring at them with big, innocent eyes, with one question in mind. *HE KNOWS WHAT A KISS IS?!*

Rose struggles to fight off the small blush on her cheeks from his adorable stare before she shakes her head. "T-there's nothing wrong with it at all. Accidents happen all the time, so let's leave it alone."

She moves to the back of the group while she ignores the captain's curious stare and the happy smirk the navigator is giving her. She uses her wind to play with the clouds by her feet to distract herself and get rid of the blush. *Dammit, what the hell's wrong with me?! Stop being so flustered already!*

The others leave the matter alone when they see the waver drifting back to shore, so Usopp goes up to it and drags it to the beach.

Conis looks at the waver sadly before she looks at the crew with an apologetic look in her eyes. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have lent this to a beginner."

"Is it really that hard to master a waver?" Robin asks as she looks over the small boat curiously.

Pagaya nods as he points to the boat. "The hulls are light, so even the smallest wave can set it to turn. You need to understand the sea very well in order to master it."

"This isn't so bad!" Nami says which makes them all turn to see that the navigator took the waver, while they weren't looking, and is sailing it like a pro.

Usopp's eyes bug out from the shock of how well she's riding the waver compared to Luffy. "I can't believe she did it!"

"That's awesome!" Chopper says as he watches her practically gliding on the ocean with ease.

Luffy grows jealous of how Nami could ride it at the first try, and calls out to her. "HEY NAMI, WE'RE HEADING TO THE WING GUY'S PLACE! COME BACK-!"

He stops calling out when the chef kicks him in the back of his head. "Knock it off."

Nami ignores her captain's complaining as she waves to Pagaya. "Is it ok if I ride out here for a while?!"

"Yes, but please be careful!" Pagaya leads Conis and the pirates towards a long staircase that goes to his home while he happily chats with the others on how Skypiea operates.

As the crew walks up the staircase, Rose stays in the back of the herd and looks back to see Nami still in their sights. *It shouldn't take long for her to head to the Upper Yard. Maybe I should-*

She snaps out of it when she feels a hand on her shoulder and jolts when she sees Luffy looking at her curiously. "Hey, what are you doing? You're falling behind."

She can't even look him in the eye without remembering the kiss, so she shyly looks away from him and stares at the beach that they left behind. "Sorry, I was just thinking about some things. Actually, I'm not really hungry, so I'm gonna keep practicing my wind on the beach. I'll catch you later."

Before Luffy can say anything, she flies off the staircase and lands on the shoreline to start practicing her wind on the cloud man she abandoned.

Luffy stares back at the training girl for a moment before he rejoins the others at the small house at the top of the stairs.

When Rose looks back to see that she's alone on the beach she buries her face in the back of the cloud man to try to calm herself down. She knows that the kiss was just an accident, but she can barely look at Luffy without remembering it. What she can't shake off is that while most people would be pissed if someone kissed them like that, she isn't mad at all. Instead, it's the fact that she liked the way his lips felt on hers that's gotten her so frazzled.

She quickly shakes her head to get rid of that feeling before she takes her head out of the cloud, and blows it away with her wind. She keeps making cloud men with her wind and then blows them down repeatedly to take her emotions out on something. "Dammit, I gotta stop thinking about this like a fucking idiot! Accidents don't count as a first kiss, that was just a headbutt! I'm just letting Nami's comments about us get to me!"

She stops her childish rant of denial when she remembers Nami, and looks towards the ocean to see that the navigator's wandering away from the beach. "Shit!"

She picks herself up with her wind and flies after her at a distance where Nami won't notice her, but the brunette can still keep an eye on her.

The distance worked for Nami never noticed the wind girl behind her as she reaches another island that looks exactly like the forest in Jaya.

The redhead gapes at the sight as she coasts toward the edge of the land. "Whoa, this place is huge. Is this still Skypiea?"

"That's a good question." Nami jolts at the sound of Rose's voice and turns to see her floating next to her as if she was always there.

"When the hell did you get here?!"

Rose casually shrugs as she goes to the island and puts her feet on the ground. "Just now, I saw you wandering off, so I thought I'd explore with you."

She stomps on the ground with curiosity, as if she doesn't know that the land is from the blue sea. "This is weird though; this place isn't made up of clouds like back there. This is regular land."

Nami nods in agreement as she stares up at the trees that are as tall as a giant. "Maybe we should turn back. I'm not getting a good feeling about this place."

"I couldn't agree more." Rose quickly flies back to her, but when they turn around, they freeze to see that the man who attacked the ship is ten feet behind them with a bazooka aimed in their direction.

However, instead of firing at them he jumps off the cloud and shoots the island.

The pirates widen their eyes at the blast before they hear a man screaming in pain.

The girls look towards the sound in shock to see a slightly muscular, young man with short shaggy blonde hair, dressed in a light yellow shirt and black knee high shorts flying in their direction from the blast. However, the barefoot man didn't go far as he lands face first on the shoreline.

The wounded stranger ignores the blood flowing from his tan forehead as he silently pants from exhaustion. He slowly lifts his head to find some way off the island, but stops in shock to see a girl flying over the ocean with another girl on a waver. He barely cares about the unusual sight as he raises an arm to them. "P-please, help me…"

Rose quickly nods as she starts using her wind to lift him up when the skies begin to go from blue to dark grey from the clouds forming above them.

"W-what's going on?" Nami asks as she shivers in fear just when a large, blue, lightning bolt plunges from the sky towards the man on the island. However, before it could hit its mark, Rose throws him into the water to avoid the blast.

The bazooka wielder widens his eyes at the strike before he retreats to leave the girls alone to stare at the fire that the lightning started.

The man that Rose threw into the water gasps for breath, after he swam to the surface just in front of the girls and grins up at them with tears of relief in his brown eyes. "T-thank you."

"Hurry, get the fire out!" The trio looks to see four winged men, a giant bird, and a large dog working to put the growing flames out, and don't notice that the man they've been chasing has survived.

"Don't thank us yet, we gotta hide." Rose says as she manipulates the cloud surrounding him to move away from him until his kicking legs start showing, so she can create a gust of wind for him to fly on.

The others nod in agreement as Nami sails close to the distant coast to hid behind a large tree, with Rose following her with the man floating right beside her.

Rose peeks from behind the tree to see the four odd men have just finished putting the fire. *So these four are the priests…*

"Get back!" Nami whispers as she pulls Rose back by the arm before she could be noticed by them.

A bald muscular man with pointy sunglasses pats his giant white dog before he stares at the coast. "Did you guys hear him talking to someone before the blast?"

A pale man with long red hair and with a physique that's similar to a ball nods as he adjusts his round glasses. "I think I saw a raider sailing away Ohm, it was probably him. Still, what was Eneru thinking doing-?"

He pauses when he senses something new, so he looks around the area which makes the others stare at him in confusion.

The middle-aged priest, who looks like a pilot with a pointed mustache, raises an eyebrow at his searching comrade. "What are you doing Satori?"

The one known as Satori can only look at his fellow priests in shock. "I should be asking you that Shura! Don't you guys notice the weird mantra nearby?! It's practically screaming at me!"

Nami raises an eyebrow at the question, while both Rose and the man that they were after widen their eyes in horror.

The wind girl slowly peeks from behind the tree again to see that all of the winged men are now on alert, in comparison to how they were in the anime. *Oh my fucking god, this means my aura's different from the others! Shit nuts!*

She quickly hides before she's noticed, while they're still searching for the strange presence.

"You're right, I've never sensed anything like this before." Ohm says before he looks at the direction the pirates are hiding in. He looks to the, dark skinned, priest whose dreadlocks are pointing up and nods to him. "Gedatsu..."

Gedatsu doesn't speak because he's busy biting his lower lip, so he only nods as he and the other priests look towards the direction.

Nami begins to shake in fear, but stays silent while the stranger is trembling even worse than her. "T-they found-?!"

Rose covers his mouth with one hand for a second before she puts a finger to her lips to indicate them to stay silent. Once they nod in understanding, she snaps her fingers with right hand and catches the tiny tornado in her hands. She takes a deep breath before she lifts the tornado into the air with her wind to help it grow, and throws it at the priests who are stalking towards them without looking.

The four men stop walking and tilt their heads when they see the small tornado fly towards them, but their confusion immediately changes to shock as the tornado grows in mid-air to their height.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Shura asks as he and his comrades get dragged into the twister along with the bird and dog.

Rose peeks her purple eyes over the tree with the others, to see the priests are sucked into the tornado. "Now's our chance!"

Nami nods as she sails off on the waver. Before Rose follows her, she creates another tornado with her left hand and uses her wind to push it towards the first tornado to make sure that they'll cancel each other out eventually.

The stranger, that she saved, widens his eyes at the mercy as Rose flies them away from the island to catch up to Nami. "Why did you do that?! When they get free, they'll just come after us!"

Rose quietly sighs as she looks ahead. "As far as they're concerned you're already dead, so you shouldn't be worrying. As for us, we can handle them."

"Easy for you to say with your crazy powers!" Nami says before she looks up at the blonde man. "As for you, we want answers! Who are you?! Who were those guys?! And why were they after you?!"

The man quickly nods before he looks back at the island to see that the twisters have collided for a second and then faded away. "I'll tell you whatever you want when we're safe!"

Rose nods in agreement as they rush to get out of there while they still could.

Meanwhile, the priests, dog and the bird have just landed face first on the ground, after the tornado that kept them flying was cancelled out by the second tornado.

"How did a cyclone just appear?!" Satori asks as he rubs his aching head.

Shura growls at the humiliation he was put through, as he gets on the back of his large, purple feathered bird. "I'm sure our tornado maker is the one with the strange mantra. When we were flying, I saw some people taking to the ocean to escape. I'm going after them. Come on Fuza!"

The bird calls out in agreement as he starts flying, but before they can leave the island, blue lightning bolts start flashing across the sky.

All the priests, except for Ohm, have to cover their eyes from the blinding flashes as they shoot across the clouds with thunder rumbling right after it.

Being the only one with sunglasses, Ohm curiously watches the flashes before they fade away along with the dark storm clouds. Once the priests calm down, Ohm gets on the back of his dog before he speaks up. "Leave them be, Eneru obviously noticed the new mantra as well. We need to go see how he wants to deal with this."

The others silently agree as they turn away from the coastline and leave to see what their master has to say about the new occurrence.

Once the three intruders knew that they were safe, the man could no longer stop himself from crying tears of joy for surviving the ordeal. As the three of them continue travelling across the ocean, he wastes no time in repaying his debt by telling Rose and Nami everything they want to know.

"So your name's Eddy?" Rose asks, with the blonde quickly nodding as he wipes his tears.

"Yea, I'm a pirate from the blue sea. My crew came here to find the city of gold, but I'm the only one left."

Nami widens her eyes at the story in terror, because that's what she wants to do on the island before she looks back at the land they were on. "Are you telling me that just those four men took out your whole crew?"

Eddy grabs onto his arms to try to stop shivering from the memory as he looks away. "Those four are not ordinary men. They're this island's priests, said to be the strongest soldiers on the island. They can practically sense what moves you're going to make before you do it."

"Is that what they meant by mantra?" Nami asks, with Rose jolting from the reminder that her aura sticks out, like a sore thumb, to haki users.

Neither of them notices the wind girl's flinch as Eddy scratches the back of his head. "To be honest, I'm not exactly sure of it myself. This is the first time they said anything about mantra being strange though."

Rose clenches her fists at what she'll have to face before she changes the subject. "You said that those four were priests, right? Did they say anything about what they worship?"

Eddy freezes at the question before he begins to tremble again. "Their god Eneru lives on the island and is said to be the most powerful of them all! I bet you that lightning bolt that tried to kill me was his doing!"

"I believe you." Rose says as she softens up at what the survivor had to go through, and gently pats his shoulder to give him some comfort.

Nami grows more nervous by the minute, and begins to wonder if the treasure is worth facing the island's god. "S-so you're saying that this island's god ordered those guys to go after your crew, because you went after their treasure?"

He shakes his head as his sadness turns into fury from the memory of how they got in this mess in the first place. "No, it was that old bitch at the gate! We didn't have the money to pay the entrance fee, but she let us pass only to report us to the priests!"

Rose and Nami widen their eyes at the explanation, when they remember the old gatekeeper they met, before they turn to each other.

"Nami, you don't think..."

The navigator slowly nods before she looks ahead. "We gotta warn the others!"

Rose looks over the cloud island that's coming into view and stops following Nami. "You go on ahead, I'm gonna drop this guy off."

Nami silently agrees as she starts sailing in the direction of the beach that they were playing on.

Rose looks around the coastline to find an abandoned beach that's connected to the island that they were on before. "Do you think you can walk?"

Eddy nods, because the wounds are mainly shallow ones on his torso and head, so she heads over to the shoreline with him and gently sets him down on his feet. She stays flying over the coastline with a soft look on her face before she bows her head to the pirate. "Thank you for answering our questions, and I'm sorry for the loss of your crew."

She straightens up and flies up to look over the hill, that separates the island from the beach, to see a small town that's not too far from here. "I'm also sorry that I can't bring you to our ship's doctor, but since my crew will be Eneru's next target it's best that you stay away from us. There's a town past this hill that should have a doctor, so if you go there and lay low you should be alright."

She turns away to leave when he grabs her wrist. "Wait, why did you save me? Once they find out that you attacked them, they won't hesitate to kill you!"

She raises an eyebrow at the question before she shrugs and pulls her arm free. "Don't worry about it. My crew would've gotten on their bad side even if I hadn't thrown a tornado at them. As for your question, I didn't want to get nightmares by watching you die. Just don't waste this second chance by acting like a douche bag ok?"

He blinks at the explanation of not wanting nightmares, but he doesn't question it as his confusion turns to overwhelming happiness of having survived the ordeal and slowly nods. "Thank you…"

Rose nods with a tiny grin evident on her freckled face from the gratitude before she flies off to rejoin her crew mates at Angel Beach.

A few minutes before the girls escaped the island, the rest of the Straw Hats along with Pagaya and Conis head back to the beach to work on a spare waver. However, before they could do anything, a group of winged soldiers wear white berets crawl on the beach towards them.

The pirates drop their jaws at the sight while the natives are looking at them in shock.

"What are the white berets doing here?!" Conis asks as the squad stops.

The small army quickly stands up and stays in position while their leader turns to the pirates that are just staring at them in confusion. "Blue Sea pirates, you are found guilty of entering this island illegally!"

Conis and Pagaya widen their eyes at what they heard before they step away from the pirates.

"You're trespassers?!" Pagaya asks nervously, but the Straw Hats however, only stare in confusion because they were told to go through the gate.

"What are you talking about?" Luffy asks but the commander takes a picture of the pirates out of his pocket and shows it to the crew.

"Don't try to deny it. The watcher of Heaven's Gate informed us of your crime after you trespassed."

Sanji raises an eyebrow at the accusation before he turns to the others. "When did we trespass?"

"I think he's talking about the entrance fee that we didn't pay." Robins casually says as if there's nothing wrong with what she said.

Usopp widens his eyes at the explanation before he turns to the soldiers. "But the old lady said that we could go through the gate!"

The commander sighs as he puts the picture away and raises his hands up. "Now hold on, this crime is minor."

The pirates looks at the soldier in confusion as he explains the situation. "Illegal trespassing is a class 11 crime. You just have to pay the fine and you'll become regular tourists."

Zoro raises an eyebrow at the explanation before he scowls at them. "You should've said that from the beginning. What's the fine?"

"You just need to pay ten times the entrance fee. Since there are eight of you in total, the fine is 80 billion aigusu."

Chopper widens his eyes at the fine before he turns to the others. "If 10 thousand aigusu is in a beli, then doesn't that mean we have to pay 8 million beli?!"

Robin nods at the math question before Sanji glares at the soldiers. "That's too much! Why didn't the old lady just stop us if this would happen?!"

"If you had paid the fee at the gate, then it would only be 800 thousand beli." The commander says but the pirates are still unhappy about this situation, because both prices are too expensive.

Sanji puffs a smoke from his cigarette before he looks at the ocean. "We don't have time for this. Both Nami and Rose are still missing and-"

He cuts himself off when he sees the navigator sailing towards them on the waver. "Nami-swan~! There you are!"

Nami widens her eyes at the white berets when Usopp calls out to her from the shore. "Nami, do you have a stash of beli?! We need to pay 8 million beli!"

The navigator twitches an eye at the expensive fine as she keeps her head down. "You're saying we need to pay 8 million beli?"

The white berets look at the rider in confusion as she sails towards them as fast as she can. When they realize that she's not stopping anytime soon, it was too late for them to dodge as she sails onto the shoreline so fast that the waver starts flying until it hits the commander straight in the face. "THAT'S TOO EXPENSIVE!"

Every single person on the beach, including Nami, were shocked at what she did as the commander flew backwards until he crashed into a gazebo.

Nami quickly turns off the waver just before it lands on the beach with everyone's eyes still on the navigator. The redhead looks at the broken down gazebo, that collapsed on the leader of the white berets, in horror as she realizes her mistake. "I lost it from the stupid fine!"

"Are you kidding?!" Usopp asks, but he doesn't receive an answer from her as she runs to the crew.

As the soldiers rush to retrieve their captain from the gazebo, Rose flies in and widens her eyes to the damage. "What the hell?!"

The rest of the crew notice her arrival and look at her in confusion as she lands on the beach.

"We should be asking you that. Where were you and Nami?" Zoro asks.

Rose quietly sighs as she rubs the back of her head. "We went exploring and found out that we're in deep shit with the island's ruler."

That just leaves the pirates, who didn't see the island confused, but Nami quickly nods in agreement as she gives the waver back to Pagaya. "We need to get out of here now!"

Before the others could do anything, the captain of the white berets has been dug out of the broken gazebo and glares at the pirates. "YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE! WHAT SHE DID WAS A CLASS 5 CRIME! I'M SENTENCING YOU ALL TO DRIFTING CLOUD!"

The pirates only look at the man in confusion as Conis and Pagaya become horrified by the sentence.

Luffy tilts his head at their fright of a strange sentence. "What's drifting cloud?"

Conis nervously turns to him before she explains it. "It's a sentence where your all placed on a small cloud only to drift in the sky until you die! It's a death penalty!"

Robin hums at the explanation, as she crosses her arms over her chest, while she remembers the ship that fell from the sky. "That could explain what happened to the ship that fell out of the sky. The crew must've received the same sentence two hundred years ago."

Usopp and Chopper yelp in fright of the same fate happening to them while half the soldiers get their bows and arrows ready.

Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, and Rose narrow their eyes at the white berets before they fire their arrows.

What surprised them though, was that instead of the arrows flying towards them like regular ones do, they swerved in the air with thick cloud trails following behind them. The four of them quickly dodge the arrows, but while they were distracted the white berets jump onto the clouds, wearing skates on their feet that were like what the raider had on when he attacked the ship, and start gliding on them.

Usopp and Chopper run to the back to avoid the confrontation with Nami, while the others get their guards up against the gliding soldiers who are unsheathing their twin swords.

Luffy quickly dodges the swordsmen by stretching his arm up to the tree above them, grabbing on, and catapulting himself into the air.

The captain along with half of the soldiers were slack jawed at the sight of the rubber man before they were met with Luffy's stretched fists and kicks to send them flying.

Zoro smirks at the fight as he joins the fray by slashing at any soldier that gets in his way. A white beret on one of the higher clouds grits his teeth as he tosses his swords and grabs a bow and arrow. The archer wastes no time in pulling back his arrow, but before he could release it he widens he starts freaking out when he sees two arms growing out of both sides of his body. "What the- AAH!"

Robin ignores the screams that are caused by her clutch on the soldier as she gives any soldier that comes near her the same treatment until they fall unconscious.

Any of them that tried to go after the Nami, Usopp and Chopper during the fight were met with a foot to the face courtesy of the chef.

"Way to go Sanji! Just how I planned!" Usopp says as he keeps his body hidden from behind a tree with Chopper and Nami with him.

Sanji turn to him in irritation, after he gives a white beret a roundhouse kick to the jaw. "Shut up! I'm protecting Nami!"

"Keep it up Sanji!" Nami says with a cute grin that motivates their blond crew mate to keep the three of them safe.

Needless to say, Rose is having the most fun out of them all in this fight, as she soars in the air so that she's on the same level as her enemies, and punches and kicks any opponent that gets close to her. When she sees a sword about to strike her, she smirks as she unsheathes her sword and blocks him off. As she's busy fighting off her enemy, two more white berets, who are gliding towards her on two separate clouds, are heading towards her with their weapons ready.

Rose ducks to dodge the sword her opponent tried to give her then whacks him in the face as hard as she could with the back of the blade to knock him out. She gives sideways glances to the two men coming towards her and doesn't move. Instead, she only smirks before she manipulates her wind to push the two cloud streams they're riding on up above her.

The soldiers widen their eyes in horror when they see that her wind also morphed them together, so that they're on a collision course with each other. They try to stop themselves from colliding, but they were going too fast to stop them from crashing with one another and falling off the cloud stream.

Conis and Pagaya could only stare dumbfounded at the sight of a small group of pirates defeating their island's law enforcement as if it was child's play.

"I can't believe how they're fighting against them…" Pagaya says with his daughter silently nodding as the Blue Sea dwellers finish up their fight.

Once the last one was taken down, Zoro sheathes his sword while he turns to the navigator. "How much money do we have anyway?"

"About 500 thousand beli." Nami says as she sighs in frustration of how the situation got worse.

Rose widens her eyes at the answer as she sheathes her own sword. "You only got that much for the poses I gave you? I thought these kinds of things were valuable."

Nami twitches an eyebrow at the complaint as she moves away from the tree. "If they weren't stolen marine poses then I could've sold them for more!" She shakes her head before she points to the ship. "Forget that! Let's get out of here while we can!"

The captain of the white berets, who is lying on the ground to recover from Luffy's punches, smirks at the suggestion as he slowly sits up. "It's too late for that now..."

The crew warily watch the bruised up man as he slowly stands up and makes their situation clear. "With this crime you have all become second class criminals. Instead of dealing with us white berets, your judgement will be passed onto the priests of the Upper Yard! No matter how much you cry or scream, I can assure you they won't show you any kind of mercy!"

Usopp, Nami and Chopper shiver in fright of the threat as they watch him, and the rest of his men, army crawl away from the beach to report the crew's crimes.

It only took a moment for everyone to process what just happened before Luffy breaks the silence. "Man, those guys are weird."

"Now's not the time for that Luffy!" Usopp says before he looks to see that Conis and Pagaya have already moved ten feet away from them. "What are you doing?!"

"We can't help you now that you're second class criminals." Conis says as she and her father stay at the distance.

"You don't need to go that far!" Nami says before she sighs in defeat. "Whatever, looks like our break is over."

"But what about the adventure?" Luffy asks before Nami whacks him on the head.

"Our lives are more important here!"

Robin lightly giggles at the squabble before she looks at the ship. "I agree, we should go before the priests tear us limb from limb."

"Don't say that!" Chopper and Usopp cry out at the same time.

Zoro looks to the ship then turns back to the crew. "How are we supposed to get out of here?"

Everyone, but Rose, freezes at the question, because they were so worried about getting up, that they never considered how they were going to get back to the blue sea.

Sanji turns to Conis and Pagaya and calls out to them. "Conis-chan, is there any way we can leave the island safely?"

Conis hesitantly gets closer to the crew before she answers them. "You need to get back to the white sea that you started on, and then head to the far east to a place called cloud end. I don't think you should try though, with your new criminal status it will be really dangerous."

Nami grins at her worry before she starts heading to the ship. "It'll be fine, we're used to being chased like this. It's better if we just set sail. Thanks for everything."

Robin follows Nami to the ship while Luffy turns to Conis' dad. "Hey mister, can we take some of those lobsters to go?"

Pagaya nods to the suggestion. "Of course."

"Perfect, I'll make the lunch boxes for everyone." Sanji says with a small grin.

Usopp goes up to the native man with an eager look in his eyes. "Can I borrow some dials to help fix the ship too?"

"Absolutely, come with me." Pagaya leads the three boys back to his home, along with Conis, while most of the crew starts heading for the ship.

Rose however, doesn't move from her spot as she looks from the group heading to Conis' house to the others that are climbing aboard the Merry. *Either I join the boys on their fight through the trials or I go with Nami's group to the altar…*

She glances towards the Merry's figurehead for a moment, before she flies up to catch up to Nami's group to protect the ship against any priests that approach them. Once she's on the deck, she silently looks back on the sky island and scowls at what she knows what will come next. As she thinks about the future events that are to come, she can't help but grow fearful. Fearful of not only what Eneru will pull when he learns of her aura, but also about not knowing what she can do to keep the crew from learning about her strange aura. And if they do find out, how she can make an excuse for it without revealing her secret.

Chopper, who's the closest one to Rose, as he also looks out at the fun island they were on, jolts when he feels a light cold breeze, that's even more chilling than when Rose is sad, brushing through his fur. He looks over to Rose to see her gripping the railing with both hands, but her face shows no signs of her anxiety. "Are you ok?"

Rose snaps out of her daze, which also cancels her mood breeze, and smiles at the reindeer. "Yea, why?"

"You made a cold breeze again."

She raises an eyebrow at the comment, because she knows that she's not feeling sad, and shrugs it off. "My power must be on the fritz again, but don't worry about it. All that matters right now is us getting out of here."

Chopper nods in agreement as they get to work on getting the ship to depart, all without knowing that the same speedy shrimp that brought the Merry to the island from the gate, is swimming right below them to get ready to kidnap them.

As soon as the four priests make it back to their god's shrine, in an island cloud high above the Upper Yard, the four men were met with their wingless leader smirking in delight as he lazily relaxes on his throne with a handmaiden feeding him grapes.

Once the pale, muscular, long eared, man on the throne sees his followers, he waves for the woman to leave as he sits cross legged on his seat. "I know all of you have sensed that strange mantra. What can you tell me of it?"

The four priests only kneel before their god before Shura speaks up. "After you've set the lightning bolt on the target, we sensed someone hanging around the Upper Yard. This mantra was so strong, it was nothing that we have ever sensed before. What really surprised us though, was whoever it was threw a tornado at us."

Eneru raises an eyebrow at the report as he scowls at the thought of a new powerful person in the area. *So this being can create tornadoes... It could be another god or a demon...*

He looks to his four followers, who are still kneeling before him, and tries to learn more of the situation. "Do you know what it looked like?"

Ohm slowly shakes his head as he keeps his head down. "No, we caught a glimpse of a few people leaving the island while we were trapped, but we couldn't pinpoint which one was the culprit. We believe that the mantra holder is one of the blue sea pirates that entered Skypiea illegally today."

The shirtless god nods off at the explanation before his playful smirk returns. "In that case, I'll leave you four to pass judgement on all of them. I received word that the pirates became second class criminals, so they're being sent to the Upper Yard."

The four priests smirk at the news of the prey that they get to battle with before Gedatsu lifts his head up. "When we find out who the tornado maker is, what shall we do with them?"

Eneru chuckles at the question before he answers it as if it's a simple matter. "Test its strength in the trial. If it's strong then bring it to me, but if it's as weak as the humans then feel free to kill it."

TO BE CONTINUED