Zrocker119:This chapter is shorter then usual, but I felt like it should end where it did.
"normal speech"
'thoughts'
~hollow~
-START-
"Okay, I've done my fare share of crazy things but this takes the cake!" Ichigo shouted over the roaring wind. After catching the south bird and Luffy helping out the Oldman, Ichigo couldn't quite remember his name...or the monkey looking guys either but that was besides the point. What is thought is that this plan of taking the knock up stream to get to the sky island, is batshit insane! One miscalculation and they'll be blown to kingdom come. Chad was doing his best to keep the ship steady and not have it get capsized as he willingly steered them into the track of a giant whirlpool.
...Did he forget to mention that they're crazy?
"HERE I COME SKY ISLAND!" Of coure Luffy was ecstatic about it. Usopp and Nami were trying their best to change Luffy's mind but the captain wasn't going to budge on this. Not that he ever did on anything once he made up his mind. Then, just as they were falling into the whirlpool, it disappeared and the sea became eerily calm.
"Wh-what happened?" Asked Sanji.
"Clearly the whirlpools gone." Ichigo said stating the obvious.
"Hey Zoro," Luffy pointed behind them, "isn't that..."
Heading towards them was what appeared to be some sort of boat, if it could be called that. It looked like someone just cut down some trees and tied the logs together. Four figures could be seen on it.
"Tshahahaha! I finally caught you Straw-hat Luffy and Ichigo Kurosaki!" A large man with black hair and beard called out. " We've come to take the head of the men worth a total of 350 million beli!"
"What's he talking about? I'm only worth 30 million." Luffy was clearly confused.
"Ichigo." Chad called out.
"Yea-!" He bearly caught the binoculars thrown at him. "WILL YOU STOP THAT!" He looked through them and saw what Chad was worried about. "So they decided to let the world know."
"What is it?" Nami aske hearing the grim tone in his voice.
"HOLY CRAP!" Usopp shouted getting everyone attention. "Luffy! Your bounty got raised to 100 million, Zoro you've got one worth 60 million and Ichigo..."
"What about Ichigo?"
"My bounty is at 250 million," ichigo answered first, "and Chads got one worth 75 million."
"Uh Guys."
"WHAT?!" Nami cried not believing what she heard. "Why didn't you have one before?"
"Guys."
"The government didn't want the world to know that one of their most promising marines went rouge. Back in Alabasta Smoker saw me and must have spread the word, forcing them to let the world learn of what I did." Ichigo reasoned.
"GUYS!" Chad shouted finally loosing his patients. Hearing him shout for the first time since meeting him shocked everyone. Thanks to the silence Ichigo noticed something.
"Are we getting higher?" The moment he asked that question, the sea exploded.
-LINEBREAK-
"He-he...alright," said ichigo as he laid on the deck, "Anyone that's not dead make some sart of noise." A collective number of groans reached his ears. That was good, if they could feel pain then they were still alive.
"I think I broke something." Zoro complained sitting up.
"GUYS LOOK!" Luffy said sounding excited. Lokking around they crew became silent seeing that they were surrounded by a sea of white.
"Its...its a sea of clouds." Nami had a hard time believing what she was seeing. She looked at the log pose to see that it was still pointing up. "But the log pose is still pointing up."
"Maybe we're only in the middle of the 'millennium cumulonimbus'..." Robin trailed off not sure herself.
"At least everyones alright." Ichigo said before putting a hand on Nami's shoulder. "Good job navigator." Nami blushed from his praise.
"How are we supposed to get higher?" Chopper asked addressing the situation before them.
"Not a clue." Ichigo reach over and plucked Usopp out of the air as he tried to dive off the boat. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"What are you talking about?"
Ichigo unceremoniously dropped him back on the deck of the ship. "We're currently a couple thousand kilometers in the air right now. What do you think is going to happen if you were to swim too far down?" Usopp's face slowly contorted into a look of horror at what Ichigo was telling him. "Huh that's what I though."
The water...clouds near the Going Merry exploded and some kind of octopus attacked the boat. Zoro and jumped into action, surprisingly it popped like a balloon after just one cut. "Hu that was easy."
"Hey look at this." Robin said showing them a flat looking fish that she had found. "They must have evolved differently from those that live in water. Making themselfve lighter because the buoyant force is much weaker here than in sea water."
"It has feather instead of scales." Nami noted.
Chad stood next to Chopper who was looking through some binoculars. "Hey Chad!" Over the short time that Chad and Ichigo had joined their crew, Chopper had come to see them as older brothers. He like being around Chad the most, something about his presence was just calming to him.
"See anything interesting?"
Chopper looked a bit more. "I can see another ship and a...person?" He said quizzically.
Chad held out his hand and Chopper gave him the binoculars. Taking a look, Chad saw what he was talking about. A pirate ship was sailing through the clouds. Heading towards it was a man wearing a bull mask, carrying a shield in one hand and a bazooka in the other. To Chads shock the man destroyed the boat and began heading towards them.
"We've got company!" Chad shouted alerting the crew. Ichigo, Luffy, Zoro, Sanji and Chad all got ready to fightm but to their utter shock the man managed to desimate all of them without sustaining a single injury. The masked man was ready to destroy the Merry, just like he did the other ship, when an oldman wearing an old fashioned suit of armor armed with a lance came riding in on a gaint bird.
"Not another one!" Name cried thinking he was there to kill them as well. Thankfully this one is a good guy and drove off the bull masked lunatic.
"Are you all alright?" He asked dismounting the bird.
"Yeah, thanks to you old timer." Ichigo thanked him getting up.
"Call me 'The Sky Knight'."
"What was that by the way?" Name asked pointing to them all,"That guy destroyed you."
"You are all from the blue seas yes?" The Sky Night asked.
"Do you mean from below?" Ichigo asked pointing down. "If so then yes."
"This place is 7000m above the blues seas, the air is much thinner here. This is the white sea and above here is the white-white sea at 10000m." The Sky Knight explained. "It's very dangerous for people of the blue seas."
"I'm actually getting use to it." Luffy said hitting his chest. The rest of them nodded, having goten use to the air as well.
"That shouldn't be possible!" The sky knight said not believing them.
"Trust me when I say we've done crazier things," Nami put a hand on her forehead, "We did just hiich a ride on the knock up stream.
"Wait! You didn't come up through the top of High Waist!" He looked at them in surprise.
"You're saying there's another way up here!" Nami began strangling Luffy. "See! I told you we should've waited and gathered some more information!"
Ichigo managed to pry her off of their idiotic captain. "Calm down Nami. We're all still here aren't we."
"You didn't lose any of your crew either!" He couldn't believe how lucky this crew was. "Maybe it was a good thing you took the knock up stream. Had you not, you surely would've lost some of your crew."
"See everything worked out in the end." Luffy laughed off her worries.
"Here," The knight handed Nami a whistle, "Should you ever need help blow into this and I'll come." He hopped onto the back of the bird that brought him.
"Wait you never told us your name!" said Nami.
"I am Gan Fall and his," He gestured to the bird, "is my partner Pierre. He ate the Uma-Uma fruit allowing him to change into a winged horse." Pierre's body started to change. Horse legs grew from his chest and the back legs changed to match them. His beak shorted and bulked up. When he was finished with his transformation, he had become...the bastardized child of a pegasus.
...Man those spots are ugly.
They watched as Gan Fall flew away wishing them good luck.
"He really didn't tell us anything useful." Robin said once he was out of sight.
"Yeah." They all agreed.
"He said we're only in the white sea," said Chad, "and that the white-white sea is even higher. How do we get there?"
"I'll call him back and ask!" Luffy tried to blow the whistle but Nami stopped him.
"No! That's for emergencies only!" She yelled pulling on his cheeks.
"Hey look at that!" Chopper shouted pointing at a waterfall shaped cloud off in the distance. "Why don't we head to that." That was the best idea that they had heard all day. So, with nothing better to do, that's what they all agreed on.
Nami checked the log pose. Seeing that is was still the same she sighed. Normally she'd be at the wheel helping who ever was steering, but Chad was almost as good as a navigator as herself so he didn't require her assistance. Noticing that Ichigo was alone by the railing.
"Hey." She said leaning on the railing next to him.
"Hey." An awkward silence took over.
"I've been wondering," Nami began, "when you first found us you said that your, sorry our father died because he was sick. How come you lied." He was quiet for a moment.
Ichigo let out a sigh. "I didn't want Vivi to know what really happened. Her knowing would've put her in even more danger than she already was."
"Isn't she already in danger by being in an 'intimate' relationship with you." Nami pointed out.
"H-h-how did you know that we slept together?!" He whispered blushing madly.
"You just told me." Nami grinned making him faceplant.
"Well we weren't at the time." He sighed. "She probably knows by now anyway."
"...She going to be pissed, you know that right?"
"Yep." Ichigo actually shivered at the thought. He remembered how they use to rough house when they were little. She was one of the higher members of BW for a reason. Yeah he had a reason to fear his girlfriends wrath.
"Have fun with that." Nami laughed. "...what was our father like?"
"Insane," He responded not even giving it a thought, "Every morning I woke up to him attacking me, and when I got back from a mission...and when I was going to the bathroom. He always said it was to keep my skills sharp, but I'm still convinced it was to piss me off." Nami sweat dropped at his bluntness, but she had to agree. Their father sounded a bit off...maybe that explained why she went with Luffy in the first place. "But...he was always there, looking after me, giving me advice when I needed it. He was a good man and a damn good marine. He raised me as best as he could. If he wasn't then aunt Rangiku and uncle Gin were."
Nami blinked. "We have a aunt and uncle?"
"Miss navigator we have a problem." Robin said getting Ichigo's and Nami's attention. Blocking the ships path was a huge cloud. Wait was that Luffy bouncing on it.
"NAMI COME TRY THIS! IT'S SO FUN!" He called to them. Chopper quickly hopped on to join him.
"If he can bounce on that cloud, then we can't just sail through it," Nami mused, "Hey Luffy! See if you can find a way through."
-LINEBREAK-
"Next time I'll go and give the directions." Ichigo grumbled once they finally made it through the maze of clouds. Luffy kept leading them into dead ends and having them going in circles. It took some time but they eventually made it. They were surprised to a gate way of some kind. Above it was a giant sign that read 'Heavens Gate'.
"Somebody's full of themselves."
"Are we already dead?" Luffy asked earning him a hit from Nami. "Lets see if we can take this up!" A door opened and a short, shrived old woman came out. Sprouting from her back was a pair of bird wings. She took her camera and started snapping pictures of them.
"If you want to go up then each person must pay the 1 billion aigusu enterance fee." She told them still taking pictures.
"Ummm...what if...we don't have the money?" Nami asked. They had some money but 1 billion what ever she called it sounded like a lot, and she didn't want to spend any.
"You can still go."
"REALLY?!" Usopp shouted not believing her.
"You don't need to go up if you don't want to. I just need to know what your going to do." She informed them.
"We still want to go to Sky Island, and we're not paying!" Luffy said wanting to get moving.
"Really? 9 people, okay then."
"...Um, how do we get up?" As luggy asked, 2 giant claw bursted from the clouds and grabbed the side of the Merry. "What's going on!?"
"That's the white sea's speedy shrimp." That was all they heard before the ship moved up the cloud like river.
"THIS IS AWESOME!" Luffy shouted at the top of his lugs as he sat on his favorite seat. The giant shrimp(yes I just said that) move very quickly through the cloud river as it snaked through the sky, climbing higher and higher. Eventually they reach the top where their destination lied. They had finally made it to the sky island.
-END-
Zrocker119:Before I end this I just wanted to say thank you to KuramaFTW for pointing out some of the flaws in my story. I really mean it, any constructive criticism is welcomed as long as your not a complete ass about it. Well, as always, until next chapter fav/follow and review.
