Warm Memories and Brotherly Bonds

by RoseDragonWitch

In the middle of some strange ruins, Luffy disappeared. As the rest of the Straw Hats try to find him, they end up travelling through his memories and are trapped in the past, with no idea to how to get out or how to find their captain. But not all things are meant to be seen… how will they take to seeing what had Luffy been hiding from them?

26. City of Gold in the Island in the Sky

Chapter 26: The City of Gold in the Island in the Sky

"So we finally get to see it?!" Brook called excitedly, waiting impatiently for the images to come back so that he could see everything. "The Sky Island?!"

"Not right away," Sanji answered, and when they looked at him in surprise he added, "We ended up running into a little bit of trouble before we got there."

"Isn't that always the case with us?" Usopp sighed as the memory finally reappeared around them and they were standing on the Merry's deck once again. Their past selves were spread out everywhere, dripping wet and panting for air as if they had all just run a marathon. The air seemed to be so thin that it was difficult for them to draw breath… there was bright sunlight all around and it took them all several minutes for their eyes to make anything out.

The first thing they noticed through the light was that the ride had taken it's toll… both of the Merry's wings on her sides had been broken clean off and the sails had been torn to shreds… they could hear their past selves all gasping and coughing, and then memory Zoro's voice croaked out, "What the… what just happened to us? Everyone alright?"

No one answered him, too exhausted to speak. But as their eyes cleared even more, Brook and Franky gasped.

"CLOUDS?!" Brook screamed in shock.

"No freaking way!" Franky wheezed, running to the side of the ship so that he could get a closer look. "We're really floating on clouds?!"

"That's how we felt," Nami said knowingly as Luffy finally got back up and was looking around excitedly. "Hey guys! Look out there! What is that?!"

The others were slowly getting to their feet, and their jaws all hit the deck when they saw. They were sitting afloat on a sea of white, fluffy clouds alright. Franky just stared in amazement as Brook was screaming in wonder, as loud as his fans had been when he was on stage.

"I forgot about how amazing this place was," Usopp whispered as Chopper nodded, his eyes as bright as his past self's.

"What in the world?!" memory Sanji gasped, truly not believing what he was seeing.

"It's solid white!" Luffy cried out joyfully.

"THEY'RE CLOUDS!" memory Chopper yelled, his eyes were practically glowing, looking like he wanted to jump into the clouds and see for himself.

"Yohohoho, truly spectacular!" Brook gasped out once he had screamed himself hoarse. "I wouldn't believe this if I wasn't seeing it with my own eyes! Well, I've got no eyes… Yohohoho!"

"Yeah, and if they're freaking out now, wait till we get to the island," Nami whispered to the others, knowing that these two going to lose their minds when they say it. Her past self was gapping at it all, wanting to know how it was possible—and what was keeping them from falling?

Luffy tried to reason that since both clouds and boats float it was the same thing. Rolling their eyes, they tried to explain it to him that it was completely different until Chopper realized that memory Usopp had stopped breathing—apparently the shock of breaking through the clouds was too much for him to take. After a little panicking and CPR, Chopper was able to get him breathing again, but it looked like he was going to pass out again when he got a good look at his surroundings; as if truly not believing that he was alive. He screamed in panic, crying out to know where exactly they were.

"Basically…" memory Nami whispered, "It's an ocean in the sky!"

Franky was straining his eyes to try and make out the shape of anything that might be an island, before he asked them, "Where's this floating island though? I don't see anything?"

"You'll see," Robin said in amusement.

"No way!" past Usopp said to what Nami stated, running to the side of the Merry to look down at the clouds. "Seriously?"

"I know it's hard to believe," current Sanji laughed, "I mean… I thought that I died here for a moment." Memory Nami was then staring down at the Log Pose and gave a sharp intake of breath when she noticed the needle. She looked up to Robin and told her that the needle was still pointing straight up.

"Wait, it's still pointing up?" Brook asked in surprise, unable to believe that.

"We were more than halfway there," Robin answered as her past self spoke up to Nami and answered reasonably, "So we must still be somewhere in the middle of the Cumuloregalis cloud."

"Wait!" memory Chopper asked, sitting next to her, "You mean we have to travel even higher?!"

"That's what the Log Pose says at least," she answered.

"I don't get how we could go any higher," Franky said in surprise, looking up above them to see the bright slight and even more clouds. "You're saying that the island's right above us?"

"That's right," Nami answered him, folding her arms, her heart beating faster at the thought of seeing such a beautiful place once again.

"How do you get there?" Brook asked, "Because I don't see an elevator…?"

"We sailed up a river of clouds," Zoro answered, "And let me tell you, that's a ride I'm not looking forward to taking again." The two looked baffled at that explaination until they heard memory Usopp laughing triumphantly, and when they looked back, he had taken the top of his overalls off and he posed on the side of the Merry.

"I can't believe how skinny you look here," Franky poked fun at their Usopp, who laughed back a little before he glanced fondly at his own muscles that he had worked so hard for… hard to believe that he had been this same kid here.

"Here I go!" past Usopp cried out, "Cloud swimming champ, USOPP!"

"You weren't…?" Brook asked as the other Straw Hats shook their heads at him.

"Just what were you thinking here?" Sanji asked as Usopp laughed a little awkwardly before he looked down in shame.

"I wasn't…" he admitted with a mutter.

"Yeah, that much was obvious," Sanji stated. But memory Chopper and Luffy both whistled and cried out, happily rooting Usopp on. Memory Sanji tried to warn Usopp not to do anything since they still didn't know much about this place. But, naturally, Usopp didn't listen as he did a perfect dive right into the sea.

"How was it? Was it like swimming in the sea?" Brook asked, wondering if it was possible that even someone like him could've done something like that.

"Not at all," Usopp said, thinking back to that terrifying moment with a shudder. "I was really moving… there was so little resistance."

"Of course, this sea has to be several times less dense than the Blue Sea," Nami sighed as Luffy and past Chopper were pouting as they looked down where Usopp had disappeared. Both of them were wishing that they could swim like that as they frowned down at the sea… but as they waited, they slowly began to realize that he wasn't coming back up.

"What's… taking you so long?" Franky asked jerkily. As the others joined Luffy and Chopper at the side, memory Robin spoke up, "You know… it's possible that this ocean may not have an actual bottom."

"Say what?!" past Sanji cried out.

"You mean you fell through?!" Brook cried in shock.

"That must've been a real nasty shock," Zoro stated and Usopp was shaking his head at his own stupidity. He remembered just going down and down through the clouds, marveling at how easy it was for him—but soon realized that he wasn't swimming anymore and he was falling. He froze up, his life starting to flash before his eyes… that was when he felt something go swimming up his pants and that was enough for him to have a panic attack… just freaked out until he was brought back up to deck.

Once Robin's words had sunk in, they all realized what she was talking about and looked ready to panic themselves as they stared in horror at the sea before them.

"IDIOT!" memory Zoro cried out, sweat falling from his face, "DID THAT FOOL JUST FALL THROUGH THE CLOUDS?!"

Eyes wide, Luffy cried out Usopp name before he stretched his arm out in a desperate attempt to save his friend with Sanji yelling out that he just told him not to do something so stupid.

"How are you going to pull him out of that?!" Franky yelled at them.

"With a little teamwork," Sanji informed him. This proved to be true when memory Robin called for Luffy to stretch out as far as he could go.

"I am, but I can't see where he is!" Luffy cried out, tears welling up in his eyes, but she told him to just leave it to her. She crossed her arms in front of her and shut her eyes, seemingly concentrating.

"What were you doing anyway?" Chopper asked her as he watched, their past selves all looking extremely tense, and sweat was falling from their faces now.

"I was using my powers and Luffy's outstretched arm to try and see him," she answered, and it was a very tense thirty seconds… but then her past self called that she found him.

"Oh, thank goodness," Brook sighed, his hand over his chest. "A real heart-stopper there… but I don't have a heart to stop anyway though, Yohohoho!"

"What?!" Luffy cried out at once, "WHERE?!"

But she didn't answer as she said her technique, and they guessed that she was helping Luffy to find Usopp and suddenly Luffy gave a sharp intact of breath. Giving a smile of relief, memory Robin opened her eyes and told him that he could haul him up. Luffy beamed back at her and began to pull hard on his own arm; but then they noticed that he was taking an unusually long time for him to bring him up—and Chopper was asking if he was heavy.

"You're kidding right?" Franky asked, eyebrows raised, "You saw for himself, he was nothing but skin and bones."

"SHUT UP!" Usopp yelled at him.

"He shouldn't be that heavy," past Robin answered as Chopper and Nami were telling him to pull harder. With a great tug, Usopp came bursting through the clouds; and he was apparently out cold.

"Yes!" past Nami cried happily, "He's back!"

"That is a relief to know that you weren't hurt, Usopp-san," Brook said gladly.

"Yeah, but he sure doesn't look alright to me," current Zoro stated, looking at Usopp's eyes, that were rolled into the back of his head. But just then something beneath them began to rise up and Luffy cried out, "But he's not alone!"

Brook yelled in shock for a giant octopus and with a long, colorful snake-like fish burst through the clouds underneath them—both of them treating Usopp like he was a worm on a hook as they went to try and eat him.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE THINGS?!" Franky screamed out.

"SKY FISH!" Nami yelled over the noise. Thankfully, memory Zoro and Sanji took care of both of them. As Luffy pulled Usopp safely onboard, Zoro slashed at the octopus and Sanji kicked the fish—but then, the strange thing was that when they did attack, it was like they were fighting giant balloons… they both seemed to pop and the air went out of them.

"What the hell…?" Franky stated, not getting what he was seeing here.

"Believe me, we were just as surprised," Zoro said, remembering how cutting that octopus was probably one of the thinnest things he ever cut.

"I forgot how big things were here!" Chopper stated with wide eyes and a gulp. The 'Monster Trio' were ally gasping for air, already looking tired after even something as simple as that.

"What's wrong?" Franky asked, not understanding why they were suddenly acting like pussies.

"I'd love to see you fight in a place like this!" Zoro snapped in annoyance. His past self was suddenly struggling for breath as he croaked out, "This air… it's so thin… it's hard to breathe."

"Thin air?" Brook asked in confusion.

"It's caused by the high altitude," Robin explained to him. "As altitude increases, air pressure decreases. In order to fill your lungs with air, the air pressure in your lungs has to be less than the pressure of the air outside."

Brook looked to her as he exclaimed, "I see! So you can't get enough air! That's why you're getting tired so quickly!"

"What do you make of this?" memory Sanji asked, looking over the dead fish, that was now flat as a pancake, "I've never seen anything like it before, I'm not even sure if it's even a fish!"

"That octopus thing was more like a big balloon," Luffy pointed to the remains of the creature.

"How is that possible?" Brook asked in fascination—truly some strange creatures in the world.

"Yeah," memory Zoro agreed darkly, "'Cept balloons don't have teeth!"

"How can there be fish up here in the clouds?" past Nami asked them all, clearly not understanding any of this as much as the rest of them.

"You said it best yourself," memory Robin answered her softly, "Basically it's an ocean in the sky."

"I never would've believed it if I haven't seen it myself," Brook said, now practically jumping up and down at the thought of seeing the island itself.

As they examined the dead fish, Usopp, who had been laying frozen on the deck suddenly came back to life, now thrashing around. Past Sanji looked to him in annoyance, asking what the problem was now and Usopp cried out as he reached his hand into his pants, "There's… SOMETHING IN MY PANTS!" and suddenly he pulled out a blue fish before he fainted.

"I don't think I've seen you faint so many times in one day," Franky said, watching him twitching on the deck.

"Like you would've been in any better shape!" Usopp snapped, really getting sick of being picked on here. Oh, why can't they hurry and get Luffy back so that they could tease him instead?

Memory Chopper cried out in worry as he ran over to see if he was alright, but memory Usopp just laid there in a fetal position muttering, "Sky Island's scary… Sky Island's scary…"

"Not his day," past Robin said before she noticed the strange fish on the floor.

"You got that right, Robin," Zoro commented as past Robin picked up the fish in curiosity.

"This whole trip was just one big, bad day," Usopp whispered, remembering fighting priests, being hunted by god and struck by lightning… what a nightmare that was.

As Robin examined the fish with Nami, they came to the suggestion that these creatures seemed to have evolved to become flat or balloon-like to make themselves even lighter. But when their backs were turned, they saw that Sanji had already cooked it up and Luffy was gasping out how good it was.

"You just got here but you were already cooking the first thing you find?" Franky asked with a snort of laughter.

"To be fair, those Sky Fish were something I never cooked before and were delicious by the time I got through with them," Sanji said proudly.

"Please, by the time you were done with it, it was barely edible," Zoro stated.

"DO YOU WANNA DIE?!" Sanji screamed at him, aiming a kick for his ribs.

Memory Nami however spotted them eating the fish and began yelling at them, "HEY! WE WERE STILL EXAMING THAT!" She began shouting at them until she tried it and suddenly her anger disappeared, her taste buds melting as she took several more pieces and Luffy was telling Sanji they should cook the bigger fish. Meanwhile, Chopper was on one of the Merry's broken wings and was looking through the binoculars, trying to find any signs of an island. "Hey guys!" he suddenly called excitedly, "There's a…"

But his voice died in his throat so quickly that it was as if he hadn't said anything at all… he just continued to stare, turning bone white.

"What's wrong with you?" Franky asked, as past Chopper began shaking like a leaf.

"It wasn't good…" Chopper gulped to him.

"Hey, what's wrong, Chopper?" memory Sanji asked when he noticed that he had frozen up. But then memory Chopper dropped the binoculars and fell back, looking like he was about to faint. "What's the deal? You see something out there?" Sanji went on. But now Chopper was freaking out as he began to scream out that he saw a ship out there that had just been destroyed, and a guy running around the clouds with wings. Now he was heading straight towards them so they had to get out of there.

"Wings?" Brook repeated in surprise.

"You hit your head or something?" Franky asked curiously.

"Wait for it…" Zoro said, vaguely remembering the jerk who attacked them here. The memory Straw Hats were all looking skeptical as Franky, but when they looked up and saw that he was right. A man, tall and muscular, sporting a pair of tiny wings on his back, and various tribal tattoos across his left shoulder was heading straight towards them. They couldn't see his face however because he was wearing a large horned mask and was moving along the clouds as if he had little rockets attached to his feet.

"Who is that?" Franky asked startled.

"I think his name was Wiper, or something," Usopp stated, trying to think back.

"Yeah, I remember," Robin nodded. He was the warrior that ended up risking so much to help them take out Eneru… even willing to destroy his body if that was what it took.

"Check it out, he's right," past Sanji said in mild surprise as he glanced out at the figure speeding towards them, as if this happened every day, "There's a guy running around out there." He then called out to him, "Hey stop! What do you want?!"

"To destroy you!" he yelled back with a deadly voice.

"For what?!" Brook cried. They weren't doing anything so why did this guy want them dead?!

"We barely got here and they were already trying to kill us," Zoro shrugged unconcerned. "Nothing new."

"You're taking the fact that people want us dead a little too calmly!" Nami yelled at him.

"Oh, is that all?!" memory Sanji asked, sounding ready for a fight as he moved into a fighting stance, with memory Zoro stepping up as well, snarling that he'd deal with him. Luffy came running up behind them, asking what was going on—but the guy with the mask was already there.

The battle after that was short—even though they had him outnumbered, this guy was able to fight all three of them off. Their movements were slow and sluggish, and so it was easy for he was able to kick all three of them down before he pointed his bazooka down at them, getting ready to fire. Memory Chopper was screaming, sure that he was going to blow up their ship… but then something else came.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" yelled an aged voice and they looked up to see two figures coming right at them.

"It's that weird old guy!" Nami cried out, recognizing him.

"Weird old guy?" Franky repeated, now completely lost to what was going on. "What is happening here? None of this is making sense!"

"How is that different than from any of our other adventures?!" Sanji called back. They turned back to the battle to see that it was old man with a long white mustache and beard, dressed in armor made of solid metal who had come to their rescue on the back of a large pink bird with red polka dots all over his body and horn-like ears. But the two obviously knew each other so well, they had no problems working together; and though he was old, he was light and nimble… he jumped from the bird's back and clashed his lance against the attacker's shield, sending the attacker back through the clouds.

"GET HIM GAN FALL!" Chopper cheered happily; he'll never forget how this guy risked so much to save him from that priest. He hoped that he fully recovered from that injury and was doing alright.

Gracefully, the old man landed on the side of the ship; with memory Nami now looking terrified, "Oh, great! Now who's this guy?!"

The old man turned and stepped onto deck. "Miss…" he said politely, "You may call me… the Sky Knight."

"Knight huh?" Franky said impressed. "You don't expect such an old geezer to be able to fight like that."

"Now you know things are bad if you had to be rescued by an old man," Sanji sighed, shaking his head in disgrace.

"I still can't believe how easy this guy beat you guys," Usopp whispered in disappointment. "That's pathetic."

"Oh please, like you're one to talk," Sanji retorted, pointing to Usopp's past self, who was still laying catatonic on the floor.

The Sky Knight was looking around them, as if still expecting trouble, but soon sighed as he muttered in grim satisfaction, "He's gone…"

"But what just happened?" Brook asked them, "I don't get it?"

"He thought we were someone else apparently," Sanji muttered, remembering the long talk that he, Usopp, and his sweet Nami had with Gan Fall when they were travelling through the Upper Yard.

"What's going on here?" memory Nami demanded, looking at Gan Fall. "Who was that guy?" But rather than wait for an answer, she glared back at all three men who were lying there having a hard time breathing, "And you… could you be anymore useless? You've had him outnumbered three to one!"

"Why didn't you fight him if it was so easy?" current Zoro demanded, his temper shorter than ever.

"Because you guys are monsters!" she replied angrily. "You should've been able to beat him with one arm behind your back!"

"Oh, shut up," Zoro snapped and Sanji burned at that, getting ready to kick his brains in for yelling at her. But he turned back and proclaimed to her as she rolled her eyes at him, "I promise I won't let it happen again, Nami-swan!"

Meanwhile, memory Chopper was thanking the old man for saving them, who replied that he was just doing his duty and this was on the house.

"Well, that was kind of him," Brook said gratefully. "So is he another one of your friends?"

"He may be old and weird, but he did help us out more than once since we got stuck up here" Nami said and Chopper nodded firmly by her side.

"What gives?" memory Sanji gasped, and seemed unable to sit up, "I feel so weak."

"Yeah…" Luffy wheezed, "I… could barely… move."

Past Robin reminded them that it had to do with the thin air as the old man walked up the stairs, asking if they were Blue Sea People.

"If you were what?" Franky asked, sounding lost.

"Blue Sea People?" memory Nami asked in equal confusion, "What's that? And who are you?"

"As I said I am the Sky Knight," he answered calmly, "And Blue Sea People are what we call those who live below the clouds. I'm assuming you traveled here from the Blue Sea?"

"Oh, that makes sense," Brook said thinking it over.

"Yeah, that's right," Luffy said, looking up at him.

"Then that explains it," Gan Fall answered in understanding as he sat on the railing, observing them all with interest, "You have reached the White Sea, seven thousand meters in the air."

"Seven thousand…?" Franky repeated in shock.

"The Great White Sea, where I assume you're heading, is still further up," Gan Fall went on, "about ten thousand meters. Ordinary Blue Sea People can't possibly endure it here."

"Well, lucky you guys are far from ordinary," Franky said, still shaking his head at hearing how high up they were.

"You have no idea," Nami chuckled, shaking her head. Thank goodness for that… that's the only thing that's kept them all alive up till now.

"Ten thousand?!" Brook said this time, sounding shocked as well. "That's like when we went to Fishman Island only instead of going to the bottom of the sea, it's the other way around! Yohohoho"

Luffy was sitting up, giving his chest a little punch before he began to say that he thought he got used to it which the others agreed.

"No, no, no, that's just not possible," the old man said, clearly sounding like he didn't believe them. Past Chopper then tried to ask him who it was who attacked them and why. But the old man stated that they had other business to talk about. He told them that he was a solider for hire… that the Great White Sea was dangerous since that these 'Guerrilla' like the one who attacked them, wouldn't hesitate to kill them, but if they bought a One Whistle for five million extols, he would protect them.

"Extols?" Brook asked and you could almost see the question marks above his head.

"There's nothing about this place that's making any sense," Franky whispered, wondering just what an extol was.

"And it only gets more confusing, believe me," Nami sighed. Their past selves seemed to be just as lost as Brook was, clearly not having any idea to what he was talking about. The old man was looking put out, saying that it was a reasonable price and that he couldn't afford to lower it any more than that. But when memory Sanji asked what he was talking about, saying that they didn't know anything about extols or this whistle, it was the old man who looked lost this time.

"You don't know?" he asked in puzzlement, "I don't understand. You came here from the Summit of High West didn't you? Surely you must've passed an island or two?"

"Summit of High West?" Franky repeated, looking to the girls, hoping that they could tell them what he was talking about.

"There are other Sky Islands?" Brook said, before he remembered, "Oh, right! You said that you were learning on another Sky Island for these two years didn't you Nami-san?"

"Yes, and apparently there's supposed to be some kind of road that we could have used to get here," Nami explained with a shrug, "But I never did find out any real information about it. So don't ask…"

"I still don't know what you're talking about," Luffy said to Gan Fall.

"Wait! Let me get this straight!" memory Nami yelled up at him, now sounding truly ticked off this time, "You're saying that there was another way we could've gotten up here, where we would've passed an island or two? As in there's more than one Sky Island?"

"What?" Gan Fall said, realization coming over his face, "Don't tell me you travelled by way of…" but it was Robin who interrupted him, "We rode up here on the Knock-Up Stream."

"My word," he said in amazement, staring at them all with a great deal more interest, "That monstrous current? So there are still souls in the world brave enough to make the attempt?"

"Well, it was a monster alright," Sanji said.

"A ride that I don't ever wanna take again," Usopp said firmly.

"I don't know," Zoro smirked, "I thought it was an interesting ride up."

"Well, you would!" Nami sighed.

Her past self however was now crying. "I knew it…" she whispered, "Then we risked our lives for nothing!" To vent some of her anger, she grabbed hold of Luffy, shaking him violently as she began to scream at him at how she was going to kill him for almost getting them killed and how if they had asked around a little more, they could've found another way up here.

"I personally doubt that," present-day Robin chuckled. "If that was possible, you wouldn't have been laughed out of Mock Town. No one else seemed to have heard about it and we could've been looking for months but never get any closer to this place. Really, I think that this was our only option."

Franky laughed. "Besides, I'd like a chance to ride that thing someday!"

"SHUT UP!" Usopp and Chopper yelled at him as Gan Fall asked them if they lost any of their crewmates.

"No! We all made it!" Luffy yelled up at him.

"Then you can consider yourselves fortunate," he answered him, "If you had taken another route, one or two of you would have survived, but the rest of you would have perished. That's the gamble."

"So it looks like our gamble paid off," Robin stated to Nami, who nodded dully.

"But still… there had to be a better way!" she moaned out.

"Now, now, now… if it was that easy then everyone would have heard of Skypiea now wouldn't they?" Robin asked in amusement.

"By way of the Knock-Up Stream either everyone dies, or everyone survives," Gan Fall stated, "Those are the only two possible outcomes."

"Well, that makes me feel better," Usopp whispered sarcastically.

"But you have to admit, by our usual standards, that's actually pretty good odds," Zoro shrugged agreeably.

"Not many are willing to accept such an all or nothing risk," Gan Fall explained, "Especially these days, if nothing else, I see that you are navigators of exceptional bravery and skill."

"Thank you," present-day Nami smiled at the compliment. While memory Usopp smirked, trying to take the credit for that before he changed his mind as past Nami grabbed his face threateningly.

"Please, your sense of direction is hardly better than Luffy's or Zoro's," current Nami hissed to him who blushed at how he was acting here.

But Gan Fall was now looking deeply impressed; and it was a surprise to see him pull out a whistle and toss it down to them. "Should you find yourselves in danger, you have but to blow it and I will come to your aid!" he called as he turned around dramatically, "As I said, normally I would charge five million extols, but for today please consider this as my gift to you."

"It was nice to know that not everyone up here hated us," Nami told them as her past self quickly asked his name.

The old man turned back to her, "I am… Gan Fall! And this is my partner, Pierre…" he gestured to the bird next to him.

"Weirdest bird I've ever seen," Franky muttered. And the bird only got weirder… for as the Sky Knight jumped onto his back and bade them a farewell, the bird transformed. A horse with wings that maintained the pink body and red polka dots but with white feathers. It turned out that he had eaten the Horse Horse Fruit… Pegasus model. It was a bit of a letdown for them all as they watched him fly off—having expected to see it look cooler.

"Is there even a reason for it to transform?" current Sanji asked them and they all shrugged.

"But he's different," Brook offered happily, "And being different is good!"

"In the end…" memory Robin stated, once the duo were both gone, "He really didn't tell us anything did he?"

They all agreed as they looked to the little whistle on the deck. As they began to look around for a way to go, Luffy stated that they should call the knight back and ask him. Memory Nami, Chopper, and Usopp all jumped forward and began to fight over it, struggling over which one of them should have it. It was really quite funny… to hear them fighting over which one of them was the weakest and why they should be the one to carry it… with Luffy, naturally, just wanting to be the one to blow it.

"You know… you guys are probably the only people who would be arguing over which one of you wants to be known as the most pathetic," Franky muttered with a dead-panned expression.

Nami laughed and ran her hand through her long hair. "Looking back, I guess it is stupid."

"Why would you be the weakest though, Chopper?" Zoro asked him, "You're a transforming reindeer aren't you? So…?"

"Maybe, but I wasn't much of a fighter in these days," Chopper admitted, looking down in embarrassment.

"You don't give yourself enough credit," Robin said to him kindly. "Remember how amazing you were when you stood up to Wapol and his henchmen?"

Chopper blushed at that, trying to fight the urge to dance as he thought it all over. This was a big turning point for him… especially since he fought that guy in the Ordeal of Swamp… he really began to stand on his own feet and fight—finally feeling like one of the pirates too instead of hiding behind one of his friends. He was only sorry that they wouldn't get to see how he won that fight.

In the end, since none of their memory selves could agree on anything, past Nami fixed the whistle to the mast, saying that if anyone got into trouble, all they had to do was run over here and blow it—now it was fair to them all… which Usopp and Chopper agreed.

Memory Nami then turned her wrath onto Robin and the boys, telling them that they were not to blow the whistle under any circumstance. Luffy groaned out that he wanted to blow it just once, with Nami threatening that if he so much as touched the whistle, he'd be swimming with the Sky Fish. And they all promised they wouldn't touch it.

"Why not?" Brook asked.

"Like they need someone to protect them," Nami sighed. "They can take care of themselves. They didn't need the whistle."

Once that was settled, they noticed what appeared to be a waterfall in the distance and decided to head for that. They sailed easily through the clouds, much smoother than on water; but as they went further on, they soon found their path blocked by clouds so thick that they couldn't move.

"Those big clouds seem to be floating on top of the ocean, sorta like icebergs," memory Sanji said pointed out as they tried to figure out what the problem was.

"So what, they're cloud-bergs?" past Usopp asked skeptically.

"Well, there's obviously something different about them," memory Nami said as Luffy offered to stretch out and grab a piece, but when he did, it ended up bouncing back like a ball.

"I never thought it was possible to walk on a cloud," Franky said, sounding close to laughter. Seeing Luffy's fist bounce back was all it took and soon he jumped right onto them, bouncing around on it like it was a giant marshmallow. Usopp and Chopper quickly joined him and they were all bouncing around, loving everything here. Getting frustrated with them, memory Nami was telling them to quit playing around and that they should be looking for a way to get around them. But Usopp solved that problem… he was standing near the top of the cloud and was looking off into the distance when he obviously spotted something.

"Hey!" Usopp yelled as he and Luffy both came running back down to them, "There's a gate up there!"

"A gate?" memory Nami repeated, sounding skeptic.

"Gate?" Franky stated in surprise. "And how could you make a gate up here in the sky?"

"Yeah!" Luffy yelled joyfully as he jumped down onto the deck with them all, "A big one! It's up ahead underneath that waterfall thingy!"

"Oh! That sounds amazing!" Brook said in wonder, like a little kid who was promised a real treat. Memory Chopper also jumped down from the marshmallow cloud, crashing into Usopp's head, but he was having so much fun that he didn't seem to notice it all even as Usopp yelled in pain.

"I can see that you were having a good time," current Robin commented to Chopper who blushed a little more.

"I'd never been anywhere like this before, and I just couldn't help it," he offered as they set off from the cloud-bergs.

"So there's a man-made structure in the middle of the clouds?" memory Sanji asked as they continued sailing on.

"At this point, I'm not sure anything we find up here would surprise me," memory Robin answered him.

"And I have to agree," Zoro yawned, "This was by far one of the strangest islands we've been to."

"Sky Island sure was fun… but scary too!" Chopper added happily. After a little arguing, their past selves soon reached the waterfall on top of the cloud-bergs. And just at the base was a large, and elaborate gold and white gate there, the name "Heaven's Gate" carved right above it.

"It's huge!" Brook called, his eyes were wide, if he still had eyes.

"Yep, that's a gate alright," past Sanji stated, in a little impressed tone.

"Hold on," memory Usopp said nervously once he read the name, "Am I reading this right? Heaven's Gate? What's that about? Sounds like a place you go when you die!"

"Yeah?" memory Zoro asked to Usopp's worry, an evil smirk on his face. "Well, now that you mention it, maybe we are dead, you ever think about that?"

"Huh…" Sanji stated, thinking that over, "You know that would go a long way to explaining this weird place…"

"BUT I DON'T WANNA BE DEAD!" memory Chopper screamed out.

"You look really scared here, Chopper," Robin said to their Chopper, "You didn't really think that we were all dead were you?"

"No," Chopper said a little too quickly, though he knew that he wasn't fooling anyone.

Luffy just laughed, "Who cares? We're here aren't we? Wherever this gate goes, I'm going!"

"Of course he would say that," Nami sighed but her mouth was fighting the smile the whole time. Her past self was getting really angry at the boys for trying to scare them and hit them over the heads to tell them to start acting serious. But as they neared the gate, a very old woman came outside, something in her hand—some kind of camera—and began to take pictures.

They were all startled by her as she called to them all that she was Amazon, the Heaven's Gate Inspector, and she wanted to know what their business was. Sight-seeing, Warmongering, other…?

"Well that depends, because you can't promise her anything," Franky chirped up. "No matter where you go, there's bound to be some kind of party going on."

"Yeah, and more often than not, they're parties that I wished we missed," Usopp whispered sarcastically.

"I… I guess it's kinda like sight-seeing!" memory Nami called.

"We wanna go to the Sky Island!" Luffy added, looking unsure as to what to say, "It's passed this gate right?"

"Can we say all the above?" past Zoro offered.

"I guess that's the best answer we could've given," Robin laughed a little.

"That's just what happened," Nami agreed, not sure if she was looking forward to these future memories of what they had to go through while they were up here.

"Dude, just what did you guys do up here?" Franky asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer. But instead of answering him, the old woman said that it didn't make much difference to her, but that they were to pay seven billion extol for the entrance fee if they wanted to go any further.

"Whoa! Wait a moment! Seven billion extols?!" Brook called in shock. "How much of that would be in beri's?"

"That would be about seven hundred thousand," Robin answered. "Apparently it is ten thousand extols per beli."

"But that's stupid!" Franky yelled out. "Who has that kind of money?! Who pays seven hundred thousand just to go through a stupid gate?!"

"Let's just say that the guy in charge of this place was a first-class asshole," Sanji whispered. "Hey, does anyone have any more cigarettes? I'm almost out."

"It would be good for you to cut down a little, Sanji," Chopper said firmly.

"You're kidding right?" Sanji asked his swirly eyebrow raised. With their past selves quietly talking amongst themselves that they had no idea what an extol was, and even if they did, they doubted that they had enough for that. Usopp hissed to the others that this had to be some kind of scam, but Nami covered his mouth to shut him up and instead asked Amazon what would happen if they didn't pay.

"You may still pass," Amazon stated.

"That's it?!" Franky yelled in frustration as memory Usopp almost choked on that answer.

"The choice is yours," she answered, "I certainly won't try to stop you!" when they looked startled she added, "My job description doesn't require me to actually guard the gate. I'm merely here to ask you intentions."

Nami rolled her eyes. Sure she didn't try to stop them or anything, but she got them into a world of trouble.

"Well that settles it!" Luffy called agreeably, "We wanna go to the Sky Islands!"

"But we don't have the money so we can't pay you!" memory Usopp added.

"Very well," she said, "The seven of you then?"

"Looks like it was a scam after all," Franky said.

"Not quite," Nami hissed in annoyance. "She told us that she didn't care what we did, but she didn't warn us that if we passed without paying, we'd be marked as criminals!"

"What?!" Brook gasped out.

"Wait, you mean to tell me that you guys were outlaws before you even saw the island?" Franky asked bitterly.

"We're pirates," Zoro reminded her. "Doesn't matter where we go, we're always outlaws."

"True," Robin nodded.

But Luffy, still looking surprised at how easily she was letting them go, answered yes, but they still needed her to tell them how to get there. Rather than tell them two giant pinchers came out of nowhere and grabbed down on their broken wings. As they screamed what it was, she answered that it was the Great White Sea's Express Lobster. Just then they shot forward, the creature was taking them up the waterfall at breakneck speeds. When they looked they could see the road, spiraling up to the heavens in front of them and they began to ride it—the Milky Roads.

"This is so sweet!" Franky laughed out, eyes wide—unable to believe that they were actually traveling along a road of clouds.

"They aren't all fun!" Usopp yelled over the wind, remembering their miserable time going through the Upper Yard and that corkscrew drop. Their past selves were all hanging on desperately to whatever they could find to keep themselves from going overboard, they felt like riding a roller-coaster the whole way up. But somewhere along the way, Brook spotted something.

"What's that?!" he called, and when they looked to see where he was pointing, they saw the sign that read: Godland Skypiea.

"Godland?!" Franky yelled as they zoomed passed it. "What the hell does that mean?!"

"Let's just say it's not good!" Zoro called. But then they saw a bright light from above them and memory Chopper cried out, pointing at the exit. But Luffy was grinning as he screamed out excitedly, "This isn't the exit, it's the entrance!"

"OH YEAH!" Franky screamed out, beaming like he never beamed before. But it wasn't just him or Brook, everyone felt their hearts beating fast, their anxiety grow to see this all again. Up and up they rode… and when they burst through the clouds and were in the bright sunlight. Blinking through the blindness of it all, there it was… as breathtaking as they remembered… like they were dreaming.

In the bright sunshine there was an island made up of clouds, filled with sparkling buildings and roads made up of what looked like cotton candy. There were several smaller clouds that held shops and trees, and there were several large roads made up of clouds and embedded with what looked like twisted up vines crossed to the smaller islands… it was gorgeous.

Brook and Franky were too stunned to speak—just like the past Straw Hats. And though they had seen this all before, the other six smiled once again—having forgotten just how beautiful this place was.

"Truly unbelievable…" Brook croaked out. "My heart feels as if it'll burst out of my chest if I had a heart or a chest!"

"SUPER doesn't even begin to describe it!" Franky called, like a little kid at Christmas. "And you're telling me that you actually came here?!"

"You got it," Sanji laughed, "I know what you mean… I thought that I was hallucinating or something here."

The Merry came to the cloudy beach with a little bump and they heard Luffy took a deep breath. "I can smell the adventure!" he gasped out, his eyes wide. "Potent as the seaweed in summer!"

And he then jumped, with Usopp right behind him running ashore on the soft clouds. And that's how it was… they were like a bunch of little kids during a Snow Day. They were running around the marshmallow-like beach, with Chopper rolled around, looking like he was drifting off as Usopp began building a cloud castle. Luffy was hanging from the tree, laughing as he pulled some strange fruit off the tree and almost ended up breaking his teeth on how hard they were.

"This is why we came here," Nami laughed as Sanji ran around with flowers for the girls. Even Franky and Brook were running around, trying to look at everything before they heard the sound of gentle music being played.

Brook was the first to stop and looked up in great surprise. "That's a harp," he said at once.

"Which can only mean one thing!" Sanji gasped, his eyes wide as he stared around wildly, trying to find her… and they all looked up to see her. A very pale girl with long, blonde hair tied in two braided pig-tails, she also had what looked like antenna sticking out at the top of her head and miniature wings on her back. They all stared at her, with memory Sanji naturally claiming that she was an angel. She played her harp for a few more minutes before she looked to them.

"It's Conis!" Chopper called happily.

"The friend you mentioned before?" Brook gasped. "She's so beautiful! Now I want to see her panties!"

"Shut up!" Nami yelled, giving him a hard punch to the head.

Conis, however, slowly turned with a smile at their memory Straw Hats, as if she had been expecting them. "Heso…" she said with a smile in a soft voice.

"Say what?" Franky asked, a little struck by her beauty that he didn't really hear what she was saying. "I'm sorry… what did she say?"

"In this place, Heso means hello," Nami quickly muttered.

The past Straw Hats stared at her in confusion as they tried to figure it out. But then Conis called to a furry creature they didn't noticed before. "Su… come here," she called. A solid white fox with squinted eyes and a mouth that looked a little like a snout happily went over to, flicking her bushy tail. As Conis walked out to Su as well she addressed the Straw Hats, "Did you come from the Blue Sea World?"

"If that's what you call it," Luffy called in a friendly voice, "We sailed up a river of clouds to get here. Speaking of here, is this your home?"

"Oh, my dear Conis…" current Sanji sniffled, "It's been too long since I've seen your beautiful face! Truly an angel! There is no doubt in my mind!"

"I wonder how she's been doing all this time," Nami sighed in wonder, hoping that Conis and her dad had really pulled the people of the sky together and made a new life for themselves in these last two years. She'll never forget their hospitality… the world really needed more people like them around.

"Yes, it sure is," Conis said, putting the harp on her back, "And I'd like to welcome you to Skypiea's Angel Beach." She noticed the large fruit in Luffy's hand and she laughed a little sweetly as she offered to help him open it. She showed them that you had to cut through the underside to get to the sweet stuff inside.

"Yohohoho, she's so helpful!" Brook said happily.

"My name is Conis," she told them as she picked up the fox and added, "And this little one's name is Su, she's a Cloud Fox. If you need anything at all, please, let me be of service."

"She's like a hostess or something," Franky said with a good-natured laugh. "But thank god, I was starting to think there was nothing but old people up here."

Memory Sanji, naturally, tried to start giving her romantic words, until Nami pulled his ear and threw him down to get him to behave himself. But she beamed at Conis as she walked over to her, and started to ask questions. But they didn't get too far with that as Conis's father showed up on a waver on the sea, and almost crashed into them as he tried to stop. He was almost bald, but had those strange antennae sticking out his head, with a round beard around his mouth. However he was just as, if not even more, hospitable as his daughter and he even invited them to their house for lunch. The memory faded as Nami stared in amazement at the waver and asking Conis's dad, Pagaya, all about it.

"What a kind-hearted family," Brook said fondly.

"Yeah, they really did a lot for us," Usopp said smiling. "They were great…"

"Yohohoho, I truly hope that we can all come here one day," Brook sighed, "I wish to meet all of your friends! Yohohoho!"

Nami grinned, "And I speak for all of us when I say that we all like that idea."

The whole crew laughed at that as the memory came back. They were in a bright, wide-open house that overlooked the sea of clouds… it was very strange for them all to see the ocean a calming white instead of blue… but at the same time, this place was so welcoming, that it was almost like home. Most of the crew was in this room with Conis, and they could hear the sounds of Sanji and Pagaya in the kitchen making lunch.

Franky looked around before he realized that someone was missing. "Oi! Nami, where were you?"

"Oh, I went for a quick ride on Pagaya's waver," she laughed, "That thing handled like a dream!" She suddenly had the urge to get their own waver back out and take that thing for a quick spin.

They all sat down to watch the scene. Conis was explaining the working of Dials… how they were strange devices made from the remains of particular shellfish, which have the ability to store energy and matter. The shellfish remains are gathered from the shallows near the shore of the White-White Sea and how there were many different types of Dials that store various things depending on their type. And how the content can be released by pressing the apex on the other side of the Dial. As long as they are not used or damaged, Dials seem to be capable of storing their contents indefinitely.

"Useful devices indeed," Brook said softly, his hand going to his skull that held the precious Tone Dial that carried his old crew's final song. 'Laboon…' he thought, 'I hope you're doing well…'

Memory Sanji then came in with Pagaya, carrying trays of food that they hadn't seen before and they began to enjoy their meal—marveling at the exotic tastes.

"I'm dying here," Usopp groaned, his hand over his stomach.

"I hear ya," Zoro nodded, now hungry enough for even the crap-cook's food. Memory Sanji went to the window, staring out at the sea and asked them where Nami was.

"I think she's riding the waver," Luffy said through a mouthful of food.

"I don't see her," memory Sanji spoke up, now sounding worried and Usopp told him to relax, that she probably just went too far out for them to see her. At his words, the present-day Straw Hats noticed the anxious and tense looks on Conis and Pagaya's faces.

"What's wrong with them?" Franky asked.

"I'm worried," Conis said nervously to her father, "Do you think she's ok?"

"I have my concerns," he answered back, sounding apprehensive, "But I can't say one way or another."

Brook looked to them both before he asked, "Is that a problem? That Nami-san went out too far on the waver?"

"Yeah… sorta…" Nami answered, wishing that she stuck closer to land.

"It wasn't your fault," Usopp reminded her, "We had no idea what was going on up here in the sky after all. How could we know about Eneru?"

"Who's Eneru?" Franky and Brook asked in confusion.

"I wish I could forget him," Nami shivered, remembering how she had to go with him to stay alive. The idea of going off to some strange land with him was just too horrible…

Luffy noticed the uneasy looks as well and asked what he problem was. Conis looked to them and answered, "In the clouds, there's a place called the Upper Yard that no one is ever allowed to set foot on. It's not too far away… it would only be a short trip by waver from here. I'm afraid your friend Nami may have set ashore there out of curiosity."

"I was there," Nami sighed, "But I never went ashore… I was just looking around."

"Why isn't anyone allowed to go there?" Brook asked in confusion. And what did this Eneru fellow have to do with it?

"What's so bad about this place that no one's ever allowed to go there?" past Usopp asked after a large swallow of food, "Is it full of monsters?"

"It's sacred ground," Conis answered him.

"Sacred? What does she mean by sacred?" Franky asked, wondering how ground could be considered holy.

"Sacred, my butt," Zoro muttered as memory Robin was looking at Conis in real surprise.

"But it's so much more than that," Conis said, her face darkening slightly, "It's the island… where god lives."

"GOD?!" Brook and Franky cried out in shock together.

"Please," Zoro said, "He was no god… just some wannabe jackass who ate an extra powerful Devil Fruit and then proclaimed himself to be a deity. That weird old guy once called him the Devil himself once…"

"The Devil? That's a bit extreme isn't it?" Brook asked.

"Not at all," Nami said angrily, "You have no idea the kind of damage that he'd done! How many lives he ruined. He showed up to Skypiea about six years before this memory right here. And ever since he'd been ruling over all the people here like they were his play things."

Brook gulped as Franky said, "I'm really not looking forward to seeing what you mean to that, sis."

"And I really hope that you don't," Sanji muttered, fighting the urge to smoke one of his last two cigarettes.

"There's actually a god?!" Luffy exclaimed loudly, "And he lives on an island up here that no one's allowed to walk on?!"

"This sounds so pathetic now that we know the whole story," Sanji sighed.

"Now that you know the whole story," Franky muttered bitterly.

"You mean the god?" memory Chopper asked startled, "The same one from the all the old stories? And he actually lives on the island next door to you?"

"He does," Conis said almost regretfully. "I'm sure that everybody noticed the big sign that said Godland Skypiea. That means that this land is ruled by the almighty god Eneru."

"Wait? This Eneru is the god?" Franky asked as memory Sanji looked like he couldn't believe that god would have such a stupid name.

"Again, just some power-hungry monster with a powerful ability," Zoro said with a shrug. "Without it, he wouldn't had been able to do anything."

"He knows and sees everything," Conis went on, "He's truly omniscient. He keeps his all-seeing eyes on everyone… always."

"Yes, his Haki was truly powerful," Robin agreed, thinking back. "He used that to keep a close watch over everyone in Skypiea. Anyone who did anything that seemed like a betrayal or even disrespect, he would kill."

"KILL?!" Brook screamed in horror.

"Ok, this guy really is a jackass then," Franky agreed, deciding that he hated everything about this guy. The past selves were all staring at her, wondering if what she was saying was true. But past Zoro merely leaned back skeptically. "God huh?" he asked.

"Wait, you mean you don't believe in god?" memory Chopper asked, "But why?"

The current Zoro shrugged as his past self explained, "Well for me, it's not a matter of belief. I don't see proof of it one way or the other. And to be honest, I don't really care to. But if you want to, go right ahead. It's not up to me to deny anyone their little beliefs."

"To each his own," he added, nodding sagely to his past self. Memory Sanji then looked back to Conis and asked that if this 'god' lived so close to them, then she must've seen him before. Her eyes widen at once, trying to say absolutely not, that she knew that the Upper Yard was a place where only god could live. But the way she spoke made it sound as though she was reciting something that she had memorized countless times before.

"I see…" Luffy said, and a dangerous sparkle was in his eyes. "A place we're not allowed to go to no matter what."

"He's going to get himself killed one of these days," Usopp whispered as his memory self noticed the danger signs as well. He screamed in terror before he grabbed hold of his captain's vest and began to shake him hard, "I've seen that look in your eyes before Luffy! And it always gets us into trouble! When the lady tells us not to go because it's sacred or whatever then that's exactly what she means! We cannot go there! I am not letting you drag me down with you this time!"

"Right… what was I thinking?" current Usopp sighed sadly, wishing that he could warn his past self that it was already far too late. That they were already in this mess the moment that they went through that stupid gate.

"Hey…" Luffy said in a falsely innocent voice that none of them believed, "I know that we're not supposed to go there. Come on… you really think I'm the kind of guy who would do that?"

"Who does he think he's kidding?" Franky asked as the past Straw Hats all said, "Yes… absolutely," with Robin giggling at it all.

"He knows… he just doesn't care," Nami muttered under her breath.

But then Luffy asked Conis that if this really was god, shouldn't he forgive them no matter what, and that walking around on the Upper Yard didn't seem too serious to him. Conis tried to tell him that any law set by Eneru was always met with punishment. Memory Robin then asked her what these 'punishments' were and Pagaya told them that they believed that anyone who set foot in the Upper Yard never returns.

"Now… that would get your attention," Sanji said, looking lovingly at Nami, truly just glad that she was alright.

"EVERYONE WHO GOES THERE DIES?!" memory Usopp yelled out as the cigarette fell from past Sanji's mouth when he finally understood why they were so worried about Nami going out to far.

"I must admit," Pagaya said softly, "I'm as worried about Nami as all of you are. I hope she hasn't sailed too close to the Upper Yard."

Past Sanji spun around and began screaming Nami's name out the window, as if hoping she could hear him; and Luffy was already saying that they should go out and look for her.

"You don't care about saving Nami!" memory Usopp yelled shaking him one again, "You just want to satisfy your twisted desired to do the exact opposite of what you've been told!"

"Well, I'm sure that he does care, but I can't completely disagree with what you said there, Usopp," Zoro sighed at that as the memory disappeared and Robin looked to Nami, asking what happened to her while she was gone.

"Like I said, I did see the Upper Yard, but I didn't set foot there," she said, "Not technically." She then quickly explained that while she was there, she saw a group of men who called themselves Eneru's priests, and they had been chasing a man who was searching for treasure on the island. However, before the priests could finish him off, Eneru decided to act on his own and in a show of power, a massive beam of energy had fired from the sky and disintegrates the treasure hunter.

"DISINTEGRATED HIM?!" Brook screamed out and she nodded unhappily.

"It's not exactly something I like to remember," she sighed. "I guess I should count myself lucky that they didn't notice me. But I did overhear them say that they heard of another group of 'criminals' had appeared and I realized that they were talking about us. Once they were gone, I headed straight back to Angel Island to warn everyone."

"A little late for that," Usopp sighed.

"Why? What happened next?" Franky asked at once. But then the next memory popped up, and they were all suddenly back on Angel Island's beach, the Straw Hats, Conis, and Pagaya were all standing in front of them were a large group of men with uniforms consisted of light-purple T-shirts, blue with white cloud-shaped spots wide trousers.

"Well look at what we have here!" the man in the front, wearing a long cape, obviously their leader, as they looked at the six present Straw Hats. "You must be the Blue Sea Dwellers who have illegally entered the land of Skypiea! Prepare to have the full weight of Heaven's Judgment brought down upon you!"

"Who are these guys?" Franky asked, eyebrows raised.

"They served as Skypiea's lowest lever of law enforcement," Robin answered, "The White Berets I think they're called."

"What's this about illegal entry?" Brook asked quietly. "You mean when you didn't pay that old lady?"

"Exactly," Usopp sighed, "And these guys gave us a hard time about it."

"Hard time… I was ready to gut them all," Zoro snarled, his hand still on his blades.

"You're calling them criminals?" Pagaya asked in astonishment as Conis looked fearfully at them all. Luffy asked the two of them what they meant by illegal entry and Pagaya responded that it just wasn't a good thing.

"Why should you have had to pay to enter in the first place?" Franky asked exasperatedly. "I mean… come on…"

"Eneru made it a law that any outsiders are immediately criminals," Nami informed him as the captain pulled out a stack of photos from his coat and stated that Amazon took those photos and there was no point in denying anything. As Pagaya tried to explain to the White Berets that they weren't the criminals they thought they were, memory Sanji quickly got annoyed and asked for what felt the hundredth time, just what this whole thing was about.

"Does this have to do with that ridiculous one billion extol entrance fee?" memory Robin asked, "Because we didn't pay her a thing."

"But didn't that old lady say that we didn't have to pay for it?" past Usopp asked, "It's not like she tried to stop us."

"Yeah, that's true," both Brook and memory Chopper said together before Brook added, "She just let you go…"

"That was the trap," Zoro muttered darkly.

"Enough!" the captain, whose name they learned was McKinley, said loudly, "There's no sense in denying it, now fess up!" when no one spoke, he went on, "Don't worry, you need not become panicked just yet. According to Heaven's Judgment, illegal entry is only an eleventh degree crime. Once you accept your punishment, which will be minimal, you become legal tourists on the spot and may go about your business!"

"Oh… really? That sounds reasonable… I think…" Brook said, hoping that this could be solved civilly.

"Reasonable?!" Nami screamed at him. "There was nothing reasonable about it!"

"Well, you should've told us that sooner," past Sanji said, but he sounded highly suspicious about the whole thing before he demanded to know what they had planned for them as far as punishment before they accepted anything.

"A mere slap on the wrist!" McKinley answered, "All you need to do is pay ten times the entry fee! Of course if you pay immediately we'll forget this little episode never happened. So ten billion per person, times seven people… makes your total seventy billion extols. Cast only."

"SAY WHAT?!" Franky yelled in outrage. "WHO CARRIES AROUND THAT KIND OF MONEY WITH THEM ALL THE TIME?! SLAP ON THE WRIST MY ASS!"

"This was a trap from beginning to end," Robin answered, as memory Usopp was calling out to know just how much that was in beris, "By not telling us that we would've become criminals by not paying them in the first place, they made it so that we would end up in this situation…"

"And we had no way of knowing beforehand what would've happened," Zoro added as McKinley told them that the payment would've been seven million beri's and memory Sanji dropped his cigarette once again as he yelled out, "Get real! Do you realize how expensive that is?! After risking our lives coming to this place, why should we have to pay a stupid fee just to enter your precious city?! We can't agree to that!"

"For once, I agreed with you there," Zoro told him as they watched McKinley's indifferent expression.

"You brought this upon yourself!" McKinley yelled, still in that annoyingly loud voice. "If you had just paid the seven hundred thousand beri's in the first place, we wouldn't be having this talk!"

"What sense does that make?!" Nami called angrily, furious at the thought of giving up seven million beri's like that.

"That's still way too much money!" memory Sanji yelled and the others all nodded at that.

But the White Berets were clearly not interested in listening anymore. "This is your first warning!" McKinley yelled threateningly, "The White Berets serve under the vessels of almighty Eneru. Arguing with us will only raise the number of your crime!"

"Why should you guys care?" Franky asked, "It's not like pirates need to follow the rules?"

"Yeah, but in this place, their so-called 'god' can back up his threats," Nami told him darkly.

The memory Straw Hats all chose to ignore what McKinley was saying, talking among themselves about what it was they should do. With the White Berets watching them, memory Usopp managed to buy them time by convincing Luffy that they should wait for Nami where they were in case she came back for them. But as they watched these memories, every minor thing they did seemed to raise their crime level. Such as the broken waver they brought with them, which they were accused of destroying before stealing.

"This waver looks downright abused!" McKinley yelled as Luffy told Pagayu that he hoped that he could fix it, "If I find out you're responsible for this damage, you're looking at a tenth degree crime! Destruction of Sky Island property by a Blue Sea Dweller!"

"It's none of your business what we do with our things now is it?" current Sanji snarled, remembering that this guy ticked him off.

Pagayu tried to explain that he was the one who broke it as Luffy added that this one belonged to them anyway. McKinley looked skeptical as he went to it and went on, "Is that right? Sounds suspicious to me. I was under the impression that wavers didn't exist in the Blue Sea World. If this one was stolen from Skypiea, the decree of your crime will increase!"

"Does it look like it's even from this century?" Zoro growled as he watched. "Who cares if it was stolen or not? It's been a mess like this for two hundred years!"

"It's not stolen!" Luffy snarled, "Wanna fight about it?!"

"Go for it, Luffy," Zoro nodded. And it went downhill from there. Usopp was running around, trying desperately to keep the fragile peace between them and the White Berets, hoping that Nami would be able to bail them out when she got back. But when he tried a simple distraction, fishing, they ended up catching a rare Sky Fish that tried to eat Conis, until Zoro attacked it. The White Berets declared that this fish was so rare that it was illegal to catch it and their crime level was now to the ninth decree.

"YOU ALL GOT INTO TROUBLE BY SAVING CONIS-SAN?!" Brook screamed in outrage. He wasn't the only one…

"WHY IS THAT A CRIME?!" memory Chopper screamed out just as angrily, "THAT THING WAS GONNA EAT CONIS! ZORO SAVED HER LIFE!"

But the White Berets just seemed to be glad for any excuse to declare that they were in trouble.

Even when it turned out that Zoro didn't kill the stupid fish, Luffy still tried to eat it, which went to their eight decree crime. After they sent it off on its way Luffy, Zoro, and even Chopper were all growing more and more irritated with the White Berets, and even when they tried to take a nap and started to snore, their crime only increased.

"You mean you couldn't even snore without being declared as criminals?" Franky asked with a large sweat-drop over his head, "How does anything get done up here?"

"I wondered that," Robin answered, "Eneru's Observation Haki was so strong that he always knew everything that was going on here… doing nothing really was the only thing that kept them safe."

"That must've been a hard for them here," Chopper said nervously. But the memory Straw Hats had just about reached their limit. Luffy was all for beating them up and memory Zoro was already getting his swords out at that order.

"Just take him out already," Franky said at once. Memory Usopp was doing his best to try and prevent a fight breaking out, but they all knew that these guys weren't going to take it for much longer. But just when things were getting serious, Nami finally returned, calling out to them from the waver. "LUFFY! PROMISE YOU WON'T START ANY TROUBLE OK?!"

"DON'T KNOW IF I CAN KEEP THAT PROMISE!" he yelled back.

"I should've known better," Nami sighed as she shook her head. It was already too late for that…

"Funny, you were the one who really caused the problems," Zoro pointed out to her.

"What are you…?" Brook began, really getting sick of having all these questions.

"HEY NAMI!" memory Usopp screamed out desperately, "WE NEED YOU TO FORK UP SEVEN MILLION BERI'S FROM YOUR STASH TO PAY FOR ALL THE FINDS WE GOT!"

"What made you think I had that much?" Nami demanded hotly.

"You were our best bet and you know it!" Usopp retorted.

"OH GOOD! SO WE PAY THE FINE AND WE'RE CLEAR!" she called before she seemed to realize what he said and a very dangerous smile came over her look. She suddenly sped up and rammed the waver right into McKinley's face, screaming out, "YOU'RE RIPPING US OFF!"

"WOW! What a hit!" Franky cheered, punching the air.

"About time someone hit him, I just wished it had been me," Zoro stated, watching as the scene seemed to freeze for a moment before McKinley was sent flying off, crashing through the ground and lay there with blood dripping down his face.

"Nami… what were you thinking? Just out of curiosity?" Robin asked her as the navigator blushed.

"I wasn't… I was so mad that I… just wanted to hurt him," she mumbled as she played with her fingers for a moment.

Some others gulped as the glanced nervously at her, as if expecting her to start attacking them as well. But they didn't say anything as they all looked quickly back to the scene, as memory Nami brought the waver back to its owners before she turned to the crew and said that it was time to make themselves scarce, telling them that Eneru wasn't someone they wanted to mess with. As they all looked over to McKinley laying there, Zoro asked Pagaya, sounding like he already knew the answer, "I assume that's another crime on our records?"

"Oh yes," Pagaya said fearfully, "Quite… knocking out an official is a crime of the fifth degree!"

"Fifth huh?" Usopp asked, not looking too worried, "Could be worse."

"You guys were sure racking up a record here," Franky said impressed. "And you were only here a few hours… if that!"

"That's not good at all!" Conis said, shaking a little. "Once you're found guilty of committing a fifth decree crime, almighty Eneru will banish you to the Land of the Drifting Clouds."

"Land of the Drifting Clouds?" Brook repeated. "That doesn't sound so bad…?"

"Wait for it…" Robin stated as memory Usopp asked what was so bad about it and Luffy commented that it sounded like fun to him.

"It's a death sentence!" she cried out, "You die!"

"Ok… that is bad," Franky muttered.

"WE… WE DIE?!" Chopper, Usopp, and Nami cried out in horror—looking close to running to the Merry and getting the hell out of here.

"You got him good Nami," past Zoro stated as he pointed to McKinley, who was still out, and the other White Berets who were examining him worriedly. "But come on… a death sentence in god's land? That's quite the contradiction."

"Yeah… I mean… the real god can't be all about plagues, fire and brimstone right?" Brook asked anxiously.

"Don't know… never met the guy," Zoro shrugged unconcerned.

"But it's the truth!" Conis cried out, sounding close to screaming, "This is very serious! They'll put you and your ship on a small cloud and set you adrift in the sea with no hope of rescue or escape! You'll eventually die a very slow and painful death! It's terrible!"

Sanji shivered at the thought, knowing how painful that would be… and she would be right, there wouldn't be any hope of escape in this situation… after all, who would think to look for you on a cloud?

Memory Robin thought that over before mentioning that was probably what happened to that ship that fell on top of them. When they looked to her, she reminded them of the St. Briss, the incident that started them on their quest to find Skypiea, and for all they knew that crew could've been punished just like that over two hundred years ago.

"So if you had been sent to that place, you'd probably still be up there today…?" Brook asked. "Except you'd be all bones like me! Yohohoho!"

"It's not funny, Brook!" Usopp yelled, a horrible flashback of seeing those falling skeletons fall around them coming back to him.

At those words, memory Nami went deathly pale and went to the other White Berets and tried to trick them into believing that she hit their captain by accident when she lost control of the waver. Luffy started to say that it looked like she knew what she was doing to him, with Usopp having to drag him away, hissing at him to keep his mouth shut.

"He's got such a big mouth…" Nami whispered, shaking her head, "I swear… one of these days…"

"He never thinks, that's his problem," Sanji sighed as they watched Pagaya step in and suggested that they should carried McKinley up to his house to treat him. Once understanding their priorities, the White Berets—for some reason—crawled away before warning the Straw Hats not to go anywhere.

"Ah… I know that we're just locals from the Blue Sea… but ah… why are they crawling? Why don't they just walk?" Franky asked with more sweat-drop.

"Usopp said that they had issues," Chopper said and they all nodded in agreement to that. Once they were gone, Conis told the memory Straw Hats that she truly didn't believe that they were as bad as they were made out to be. But she screamed at them that they should take this chance to leave before it was too late.

"Yeah, but then who knows what'll happen to Conis-san?" Brook said anxiously. "Would she be alright?"

"Who knows?" Usopp stated, but feeling a lot of guilt that she and Pagaya did end up getting into a lot of trouble trying to help them. But he supposed that beating Eneru and saving them from being killed by him sorta makes up for that.

As Conis went running off, memory Nami quickly explained to the others that they were going to do what she suggested. That she saw the island and it was full of monsters. Luffy was looking excited at the very thought, but Nami snapped at him that they were leaving now, and if they hurried they shouldn't cause Conis or Pagaya any trouble. Since they were with the White Berets, they shouldn't be suspected of helping them. The past versions of Robin, Usopp, and Chopper were all climbing onboard, with Sanji and Zoro halfway out as well. But Luffy hadn't moved, staring at Angel Beach with Nami asking what the problem was.

"Why are we running away?" Luffy asked her, his voice oddly emotionless.

"Because we're in trouble!" she said loudly as if it was obvious.

"So what? We're always in trouble," he said, in that same calm tone.

"That's true… it's not like we're new to trouble," current Sanji nodded in agreement.

"Yes, but I wasn't just thinking about us," Nami told him angrily as her past self agreed with that, saying that if they didn't leave then Conis and Pagaya could get arrested to.

"But they haven't done anything!" Luffy stated coldly. "Whoever arrests them is an idiot!"

"That's true… but it wouldn't be the first time that innocent parties were arrested," Franky growled, closing his eyes for a moment as his words came back to him as if from a lifetime ago… 'BRING TOM BACK!'

He sighed miserably as he opened them once again, his heart suddenly feeling heavy. Memory Nami was staring at Luffy, muttering that she already knew that but… however past Usopp interrupted her, yelling that they could argue on the boat, and they were getting ready to leave.

"He can be so stubborn," Nami sighed watching them.

"But now that it think about it, how did you intend to get back to the Blue Sea?" Brook suddenly asked in surprise. "I mean…?"

"Yeah… we weren't thinking about that while we were looking for the way up here," Sanji admitted as memory Nami nodded at Usopp's words and understood that they were out of time. Glaring back at Luffy she yelled loudly and slowly so that he couldn't hope to mishear, "How many times do I have to tell you?! Staying here means more trouble for everybody!"

But Luffy was still calm, in fact he was starting to creep some of them out by how calm he was here, before he answered, "We're in trouble no matter what."

"What does he mean by that?" Chopper asked, forgetting what happened next. But he got his answer quickly enough. Memory Nami was looking at him in surprise, probably just as confused by his sudden tone as they were, but then they heard Conis's voice call out behind them, "SAVE YOURSELVES! PLEASE GO!"

All of them spun around to see that the White Berets were back. McKinley was on his feet, his face heavily bruised and showed signs of former bleeding, but he was smirking at them triumphantly—as if they had just caught a bunch of kids breaking the rules—which in a way they did. But he warned Conis that if she said anything else, he'll label them as accomplishes, so they had no choice but to keep their mouths shut.

"I really hope that she does," Brook said worriedly, "As touched as I am that she's concerned for all of you, I don't want to see her punished for it."

"I'll kill anyone who tries to harm such a beautiful angel," Sanji threatened angrily.

"Yeah! They didn't do anything!" Chopper called loudly, "They should leave them alone."

But then the White Berets began their attack on them. Luffy told Nami to head back to the ship, which she did without complaint as the White Berets created long, purple clouds for them to ride on with skates that were powered by Jet Dials.

The fight was fun to watch to say the least… if very short. Luffy was able to stretch out of harm's way, and was able to take them out by using a new attack… Gum Gum FIREWORKS. He jumped into the air and spun around rapidly before he stretched and wrapped himself in his own arms and legs like a rubber ball. And when he let his limbs go free, the ball unwrapped itself and he unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks of increased speed that went every direction due to his fists and feet bouncing back and forth.

"YEAH! HE TOOK THEM ALL OUT IN ONE MOVE!" Franky laughed, "GO FOR IT LUFFY!"

"As expected," Sanji laughed, before he noticed the tip of an arrow aimed for the rubber idiot, sticking through the purple clouds.

"That's dirty, attacking when your back's turned," Zoro said as his past self and Sanji took out the men with the arrows easily.

"Wow! I didn't even see them!" Brook gasped as the cloud started disappearing.

"Like we were going to let them kill Luffy with a cheap shot," Sanji laughed. The 'Monster Trio' were now turned back to look at the Merry, asking how their money situation was and they learned that they were practically broke. Only enough to last them one more day at most.

"I forgot about how poor we were here," Usopp stated.

"We still have the two hundred million from Thriller Bark don't we?" Robin asked them.

"We used up some of it when we got back to Sabaody and did some shopping," Nami confessed, "But yes, we still have most of that. Which I will be keeping a very close watch on…" she added darkly, giving the boys a deadly look—and they nodded hurriedly as Robin giggled at that.

McKinley was on his feet again, though barely as he smirked evilly at them all.

"Wow, he's tough," Franky said impressed.

"Sorry criminals but you have no chance of escape!" he declared and the Straw Hats all looked back at him, "You should've behaved and done what I told you to do!"

"Well… we were behaving," Sanji stated, "And to be honest, I'm impressed that we behaved ourselves for as long as we did."

"And they were the ones who kept going on about every little thing we did," Usopp sighed, "And after all that work to try and keep them calm."

"Valiant effort, Usopp," Robin chuckled a little, patting him on the back.

"Of all the upholders of law here in Skypiea, we White Berets are the most lenient!" McKinley went on. "However, they are not nearly as forgiving!" He laughed cruelly as he declared, "Congratulations! You are now considered second decree criminals! You can try to cry for mercy, but you will all be judged!" He pointed a finger dramatically at them, "BY THE PRIESTS OF UPPER YARD! HESO!"

"Those laws were stupid anyway," Zoro stated as the memory faded around them.

"These priests again?" Brook repeated softly, "You said they lived on the Upper Yard, Nami-san?"

"They were the four men who served under Eneru," Zoro stated, thinking of the fool Ohm… "And probably his strongest followers."

"Yeah," Chopper said, thinking of the three priests that he had to face. An experience he rather forget…

"Were they really that dangerous?" Brook asked tensely.

"Not really," Sanji sighed, "But the problem was that they knew Haki too. They kept predicting our moves and that was hell to fight."

"I bet we could take them on easy now," Zoro said, holding up his blade and hoping that they would get to face Eneru again someday. He knew for sure that he could take him on this time around… and if they ever did see him again, he would be ready.

The memory appeared again, and the Straw Hats were there with Conis and Pagaya—but the White Berets had cleared the beach, with Luffy glaring at their retreating backs. "What's wrong with those guys?"

"A lot if you ask me," Zoro yawned, wondering when they would get to see more fighting. It was starting to get boring.

"Forget them!" memory Nami yelled, turning them back to the matter at hand. "That old lady ratted us out! She lied to us! She said it was ok for us to pass through! But when we did, they accused us of illegal entry?! That's flat out fraud!"

"But what could be done at this point?" Robin asked.

"We might as well have face their 'punishment' from the start and had gotten it over with," Zoro sighed.

"Easy for you to say, we were almost killed just trying to find you guys!" Usopp snapped.

"Exactly," memory Usopp said, "But then even if we were told we couldn't pass, we would've just forced our way through anyway. I mean, how was that little old lady gonna stop us?"

"She wasn't," Franky said, "I mean, she looked like she faced death in the face just getting out of bed in the morning."

Memory Nami told Usopp to shut up as Pagaya told them regretfully that since they were now second decree criminals, he and Conis couldn't help them anymore and moved back far away, as if afraid of catching something. But past Nami didn't seem upset at them before she turned her anger to Luffy, who still wanted to go to the Upper Yard. She began giving him a pounding, telling him that they didn't know who or what Eneru was, but his powers were deadly and that she wasn't going anywhere near there again.

"I don't see how you're able to hurt him here," Usopp whispered.

"Words speak louder than actions sometimes," she answered with a shrug.

It was here the past Straw Hats realized that they didn't know how to get back down. Usopp turned to Conis and her father, asking if there was any way back to the Blue Sea. Conis told them that there was, but that meant that they had to go to a place called Cloud End. It was far to the east of here and they had to cross the White Sea. Some of them were looking relieved at that, but naturally Luffy was whining that he didn't want to go yet.

"It seems a little discouraging that you had to leave so soon… after all you went through to get up here," Brook said, "But why do I get the feeling that leaving wasn't so simple?"

"You'd be right," Sanji said, "We actually stayed for about almost a week."

"Really? Even with 'god'," Franky made air quotations in the air around that last word, "now angry and wanting to smite you?"

"Please, Luffy kicked that wannabe god's ass," Zoro yawned. "I hope we get to see that… I was so sick of him by the time that we crushed him…"

"I hear ya," Sanji said, remember all too well how he had been burnt crispy the two times that he had been hit by his stupid lightening… and they say that lightening never strikes the same place twice.

"You're only other option is to stay here and get sentenced to death," memory Usopp hissed.

"What's the problem with that?" Zoro asked with a shrug.

"I see that you and Luffy really do have the same mindset," Nami muttered darkly. It was almost scary how alike these two were… if up to them, they'd be fighting monsters and risking their lives every single day.

Memory Nami lost whatever patience she had as she snapped at Luffy that she didn't want him causing Conis and her dad anymore trouble and that even if they left now there was no guarantee that they would make a clean escape.

As the crew starts packing up to leave with Nami, Chopper, Robin, and Zoro at the ship it was decided that Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp would get food and whatever supplies from Pagaya's home. They followed the group up to the house and merely watched as they packed—memory Sanji was mixing box lunches and Usopp was taking some spare tools and parts that Pagaya said that he no longer needed.

"Again, I've never met such kind people," Brook said happily. But he found all this odd… if they really didn't want to cause these two so much trouble, they really were pushing their luck by staying and taking supplies.

"They were really wonderful," Robin smiled as memory Usopp was walking to the window. Conis had walked in at that moment, and memory Sanji was the first to present her a beautiful box lunch made just for her. But as they were getting ready to leave, memory Usopp was yelling from the window, screaming that there was something wrong with the ship.

"Why? What is it?" Brook called as they also went to the window, memory Sanji and Luffy jumped to their feet, asking what was wrong as they stood together, staring out at the sea. Past Usopp just pointed and they could see that the ship was rocking violently back and forth.

"What's going on?" Franky asked, "Were you caught up in some kind of current?"

"Worse," Chopper gulped, remembering how terrifying that was. "We were kidnapped!"

"By what?!" Franky and Brook cried out as memory Sanji had taken a small telescope from Usopp's bag and looked through it, screaming that he could see Nami on deck. When his face suddenly turned blue, some of them had become anxious that something happened. But instead he whispered, "Wait… why in the world is she wearing a t-shirt?"

The current Nami smacked their Sanji just as memory Usopp had done the same thing, screaming out, "I'm pretty sure we've got more pressing concerns right now!"

"Guys look!" Luffy yelled, "The ship started moving!" He jumped up so that he was crouching on the sill, "But why?! They wouldn't just leave us here would they?"

"We were forced to leave against our will!" Chopper cried out as the ship, was not only moving backwards, but a large and dark shadow appeared beneath them.

"You're being hijacked by some kind of monster?!" Franky yelled.

"Whoa… I don't think I've ever seen a ship sailing backwards before!" Luffy yelled.

"But…" memory Usopp gasped, pointing dramatically, "But they haven't even set the sails yet!"

With everyone's attention focused on the ship, most of them didn't notice how Conis sighed miserably behind them. Zoro noticed this however just as Luffy glanced back at her for a moment before past Usopp gasped. It was then that a lobster—at least twice the size of the one that brought them up that Milky Road, had burst out through the sea and beneath the ship. With the Merry on its back, they were carried off at high speeds.

"WHAT'S THAT THING?!" Brook cried out.

"We never did figure that out," Chopper croaked as the ship was now heading out of their sights.

"Why don't you jump in the sea?! You need to abandon the ship!" Brook said anxiously.

"We couldn't do that!" Usopp yelled, furious that he could even suggest such a thing.

"Besides we were being followed by a whole school of Sky Fish," Robin answered, "Even if we were able to kill that thing or escape, it's just be replaced by another. There was nothing we could do."

Before the ship was out of their sights, they could hear Nami's familiar voice screaming out at the top of her lungs before they faded away. "LLLLUUUUFFFFFFFFFFFYYYYYYYY! HELP UP!" her voice echoed, "SANJI! USOPP!"

And then they were out of their sights.

There was stunned silence all around them. No one could think of anything to say before memory Sanji muttered about the t-shirt again.

"YOU'RE STILL THINKING ABOUT THAT?!" past Usopp screamed and current Nami slugged Sanji once again, but despite the blood falling from his face, his eyes were still in the form of little hearts. But then memory Usopp turned to Luffy and began a rant to try and rescue the others.

"I wonder…" Luffy said thoughtfully, "Where are they going?"

"Where are they going…?" Usopp repeated, trying to calm down, "Yes… right…"

"I got nothing…" Luffy said and it truly looked bad until Pagaya had a very odd choke in his throat and they looked to him as he jumped.

"He knows?" Brook asked in surprise.

"Unfortunately," Sanji sighed to them as Pagaya informed them that the others were being taking to the sacrificial altar.

"SACRIFICE?!" Franky screamed in horror.

"YOU MEAN YOU WERE ALL GONNA DIE?!" Brook cried out.

"Well, we're obviously still alive and kicking," Zoro reminded him. "That oversized sea food platter hauled us all the way out to the middle of a forest and dumped us on this altar… just left us there!"

"Say what?!" memory Sanji gasped in horror, "You don't mean that Nami and Robin and the rest…"

"The rest?" past Usopp smacked him before Sanji went on, shaking in rage, "Are gonna be sacrificed to that wanna-be god?! That bastard! He better not touch a hair on my pretty Nami's head!"

"Nice to know you care so much about the rest of us," Franky muttered darkly.

"Asshole," Zoro added.

"Now Moss Head, would it have been so bad if you died?" Sanji asked, "All you did was take a walk through a forest while I was doing some real work!"

"Oh, I'm going to lob off your head one of these days!" Zoro promised, his hands itching to go to his swords. However, Pagaya then went on, telling them the rest that in Heaven's Judgment, there were actually two types of criminal punishments. Being taken to the altar and waiting to die by a priest was the first, but the second was a challenge in which the rest of their crew were now hostages in Eneru's hands and they had to go try to rescue them before they died.

"That's a sick thing to do," Nami hissed, but also slightly grateful that she had been carried off like that. At least she didn't have to run into any of those priests.

"Hostages?!" memory Usopp gasped, getting what Pagaya was trying to say.

"I'm afraid I must tell you," Pagaya said grimly, "That the ones who are to receive the punishment… are the three of you standing before me."

"Wait, what are you trying to say?" Sanji asked, but it was clear from his tone that he did understand, though he didn't want to admit it.

"If we only had a map," Pagaya said and Usopp quickly turned to the old one that he had in his bag and showed it to them. Pagaya showed them where the altar was, and how to get there. They were to head to the Upper Yard where the priests were waiting for them. There were four of them in all, and they had to get through them to get their friends back.

"So what he's saying is that all you had to do was beat up some priests and that's it?" Franky asked, "That doesn't sound so bad."

"Yeah, but this was before we knew anything about Haki," Sanji informed him, "We had no idea to how they were able to predict our moves before we even made them. That was so annoying…"

But Luffy was smirking, "Finally… a little action."

"Of course he'd be happy," Nami sighed.

"We got to the altar at the end of the day didn't we?" Usopp reminded her, "And let me tell you that it was far from fun!"

The memory faded around them once again. After a few tense minutes, it was back and they saw the three of them all had large bags on their back with Conis was leading them through a crowded street… at least it was crowded before they arrived. The angels on either side, shied away from them as if they were all carrying something contagious, their faces held fear and anxiety.

"What's with these guys?" Zoro asked.

"Well, word traveled fast about us being criminals, so can you blame them?" Sanji asked, still sighing miserably at the thought of so many beautiful girls avoiding him like this. Meanwhile, Conis was telling them that this was called Lovely Street, and she started to go into some real details about it.

"She's like a tour guide here," Franky said with a little laugh.

Like his current self, the memory Sanji was especially depressed that the girls were shunning him and was softly groaning about it. As they followed them, some of them noticed out of the corners of their eyes, several of the White Berets always following them—as if making sure that they were heading to the right place.

Robin frowned at that, not liking what this must have meant. But the others didn't noticed it… Luffy was fascinated by everything he saw, stopping to look at everything until Sanji snapped at them, "Hey Luffy! When you're done fooling around there's still the matter of rescuing Nami and the others! If you don't get serious, and soon, they're gonna be sacrificed you know that?"

But Luffy didn't seemed concerned at all. "You worry too much," he said, "They're fine. Don't forget, Zoro's with them."

Zoro smirked proudly at that. Most people say that you gotta earn trust, that it's not something you give to anybody. As for him, he had always been careful about the few people who he gave his trust, and was always wary of people he met. At least until he met this goofball rubber kid… always grinning like an idiot, who busted into the marine base he was detained in, just to ask him to join his crew and took the bullets for them by using his own body as a shield. This guy's nuts…

"Yeah, like we can really count on that guy," memory Sanji said doubtfully.

"At least I'm more useful than you, Mr. Nosebleed," Zoro answered smugly, which led to another set of glares and growling before Nami yelled at them to snap out of it or else.

"I just hope the ship hasn't sustain any more damage," memory Usopp muttered worried, "I mean, she's had more than her fair share of abuse lately."

"You can say that again," Chopper said quietly, "But you mean you weren't worried about us at all, Usopp?"

"Hey, I know you can fight when it really counts, Great Doctor Chopper," he said with a smile and Chopper turned a bright red, spinning a little and telling him to shut up.

But Luffy suddenly ran right through them, his eyes set on something a little ways ahead. It appeared to have been some kind of statue made up of mud, encased behind glass.

"What is it? Art or something?" Franky asked, looking over it in a interested way.

But Conis answered for him, "This is vearth. You might say… it represents the eternal yearnings of the people of the sky."

"Eternal yearnings?" Brook repeated.

"Earth, or vearth as they call it up here, is something considered a treasure to the people up here," Robin answered. "Because though clouds can support life up here, you can't grow anything on them. Everything that we need to survive all comes from the ground."

"I see," Brook said in slow understanding as Luffy said that it sounded crazy that they worshiped this mud statue.

Conis laughed a little. "Well, I guess it would be difficult for someone from the Blue Sea to understand." She then looked up, realizing where they were "Oh, we're almost to the docks, right this way."

They followed her past all sorts of ships, of different sizes and colors. Of course Luffy wanted the biggest gondola that he could find, but instead she led them to a tiny ship with the figurehead of a crow and a bright umbrella above their heads.

"Presenting the crow," Conis said cheerfully.

"That thing looks like it barely floats!" Franky yelled, feeling really let down after seeing some of the other beautiful ships.

"I think it's kinda cute," Robin said with a smile.

"Oh, Robin dear, you always did have wonderful taste!" Sanji swooned.

"You're kidding me right?" Luffy asked her.

"Wait ah… crows don't even swim," memory Sanji said slowly.

"They should've made it a duck or something," Zoro added.

"What difference does that make?!" Nami snapped in annoyance.

"We seemed to be having a lot of irony concerning birds and ships," Usopp sighed.

They watched as Conis explained that she used this to get around until she learned to drive the waver. So she had no problems lending it to them now. She then led them a little further ahead, telling them to take gate number 2… that would lead them to the Upper Yard. That was when they noticed that she seemed to have a lot on her mind. Luffy seemed to have noticed it as well as he frowned in concern and asked, "Hey, Conis?"

"Yes?" she asked nervously.

"You've been trembling ever since we left," Luffy said, his tone now serious, "Is everything ok?"

"She is?" Chopper asked in surprise, looking up and realized that he was right. Her whole body was trembling slightly, and she was suddenly unable to look at them as her eyes widen at Luffy's words. "Is it that noticeable?" she asked.

"Yeah," Luffy said, surprisingly soft, "It's like you're scared or something."

"Probably about what might happen to her if this 'god' finds out that she helped you guys," Franky said, feeling real worry for the girl.

"Not quite," Usopp disagreed softly.

Memory Sanji at once started to say how sweet it was of her to worry about them. But then Usopp brought up another good question. "Speaking of being worried…" he said, "Are you and Pagaya gonna be alright? I mean, everyone in town is avoiding us like the plague, but you're leading us around, lending us your boat, giving us directions… is helping us gonna get you in trouble? Doesn't that make you like… our accomplishes?"

"Hey yeah, what is with that?" Zoro asked in surprise.

Luffy noticed how pale she had become. "Conis," he said gently, "Don't cry. You're gonna be fine, ok? You should've told us you were scared. Really, we could've just come here on our own."

"But with their sense of direction it could've taken them a week to find us," Nami said, but she said it without any scorn. What was wrong with Conis here?

"No," she said, unable to look at them. "It's… it's not…"

"Huh?" Brook asked, "If it's not that then…?"

Sweat was falling from her face and she was shaking worse than ever. "It's not what you think," she whispered. "Don't you get it? Even after I told you how terrifying Upper Yard is, I still lead you here. I even got you a boat and told you which route to take. Don't you find that odd? It's it obvious what's going on here?"

"She led you all here on purpose?" Robin asked in surprise.

"Now, don't be harsh on her," Sanji said grimly, "Poor girl had no choice in the matter. And anyone who can force her to do anything like this doesn't have a heart!"

They suddenly spotted McKinley yelling at Conis not to say anything foolish, before hid as their past selves looked around for the source of his voice. The others in town slowly began to back even farther away, as if there was a bomb about to go off.

"I don't get it! What's going on here?!" Chopper asked startled, and liking this less with every second. All of them but Sanji and Usopp were startled to see that Conis was looking close to having a nervous breakdown.

Suddenly she fell to her knees, "Just run away, please," she begged. She started crying as she apologized over and over again. The citizens were all freaking out at her tears, yelling at her, demanding to know what she was doing.

"Would someone just tell me what the hell is going on here?!" Zoro yelled. But Conis was already confessing everything. She revealed to them that she was the one who called the sky fish to take the Merry and the crew away.

"Conis? You mean…?" Chopper gasped as the others stared, unable to believe what they were hearing.

"You mean that thing that took Nami and the others away?!" memory Sanji yelled out, "You called it Conis?!"

Conis continued to cry, telling them that while they were inside talking to her dad, she went aboard and lied to the others about a current that leads to Cloud End. And she had them raised anchor, which was the signal for that lobster and took them away.

"So that's what happened," Nami whispered, tears in her own eyes as she understood. But the tears fell when Conis finally cried out the reason that she did it, "Once we know someone's a criminal, we must lead them to Upper Yard! If we don't… then the penalty is death!"

Their past selves faces were frozen, darkened as she sobbed openly. "It's our duty…" she croaked out, "It's the duty of every citizen!"

"You mean they were going to kill her if she didn't lead you to the docks?!" Brook gasped.

"As cruel as it is, it's the truth," Sanji said firmly. "I can never blame Conis for this… it's that bastard Eneru who forced her to make such a terrible choice." His hands curled into fists as he finished, "And even if she did have a choice here, I can't bring myself to ever hate her!"

"Knowing it now, I don't blame her either," Nami said, her heart truly aching for Conis. This must've been so difficult for her, but here she chose to tell them, willingly accepting the punishment rather than do something like this.

"But there was no need to!" Brooks stated, "You all were heading for the Upper Yard! There was no need for her to guide you all there!"

"They thought that we were going to run away and abandon our friends," Sanji said in disgust, "Apparently it had happened before."

"That's crazy!" past Usopp gasped out.

"I know," Conis confessed, tears falling fast, "I'm sorry… I should've told you sooner!"

"Wait a second!" Luffy said, his voice full of anger, and now he was trembling like Conis had been—only out of fury. "You're saying… that they forced you to lead us all here?"

Too choked up to speak, she merely nodded. The three of their faces still dark, Luffy started, "If that's true…" and suddenly all three of them were yelling, "THEN WHY EVEN TELL US AT ALL?!"

"We were going no matter what, but when she tried to warn us, it was like she signed her own death warrant!" Sanji said bitterly.

"Why? What happened?" Chopper asked fearfully.

Conis, stunned by their words, stopped crying and stared up at them, clearly not understanding. "Are you nuts?!" Luffy asked, grabbing her shoulder, "Now you're life's in danger!"

"But she led you here! There's no reason to kill her!" Nami gasped before she remembered the kind of monster that Eneru was… which means she knew what was coming… she stared up at the sky in terror as all the townspeople were all running now, looking just as terrified as they cried out that the judgment was coming.

"Judgment?" Franky repeated, sounding angry and lost once again, now gripping his big afro in frustration. Suddenly the skies above them opened up and there was a bright light above them. They looked up and there was a pillar of light flying down towards them.

"WHAT THE HELLLLLL?!" Franky screamed as they all moved back, though this thing couldn't really harm them. But the power that it had was so strong that they could feel the electricity in the air. Luffy saw it coming and his face turned deadly white as he grabbed hold of Conis as they ran for it. But it was too big… they would never hope to avoid it.

"LUFFY! CONIS! GET AWAY FROM THERE!" Nami screamed, but it was too late. The force of the impact was so great that it seemed to shake the whole island, blinding them all as they covered their faces from the brilliance of them all. But as soon as it had come, it disappeared. Shaking at the display of power they just saw, they all stood there, staring at the damage that had been caused. There was so much smoke that they couldn't see anything in front of them for a moment. Memory Sanji and Usopp were both alive and untouched, but they were screaming in horror, calling for Luffy and Conis where there was an enormous crater there…

"That… that couldn't have been real!" Brook gasped as Franky's jaw fell open. Even those who had seen Eneru's power before were still as horrified and amazed at the raw power here.

"The Rumble Rumble Fruit…" Robin answered. "The power of lightening… that was the fruit that Eneru had eaten. And it's this power that let him rule over them all unchallenged for six years."

"That's one of the most powerful fruits of them all," Sanji stated, thinking back to when he read about it. "And a Logia type on top of all that."

"I can see why they thought that he was a real god…" Brook gulped.

"Maybe, but please…" Zoro hissed, "He was nothing without that fruit, and as soon as he ate it, he started calling himself a god. Pathetic…"

But for a horrible second, they truly thought the worse for Luffy and Conis until they heard another voice from above them call, "Do not fear! They are both safe!"

They looked up and there was Gan Fall, on the back of Pierre, with the two safely on his back.

"Oh, thank goodness," Brook sighed in relief.

"That's twice he helped us out here," Zoro said firmly. The citizen around were staring at him as past Usopp said, "The weird old man?"

"When do you guys start using his name?" Franky asked half-heartedly at the joke.

"Me? Weird?" Gan Fall asked humorously, "No, I am the Sky Knight friend. And this one's on the house." He tossed Luffy down to them, but promised that he would keep Conis safe with him, that he gave them his word. Luffy stood up and gave him his thanks, and after he helped them like this, they truly believed that she would be safe for now.

But as Gan Fall looked down at them, his expression was unusually stony as he asked them, "Now that you have seen the scope of Eneru's power… and anger… what are you going to do next?"

"I thought that was obvious," Sanji stated. "Like we were going to let that bastard Eneru get away with everything he did."

"The same thing we were going to do from the start," Luffy called, voicing what the current Sanji just said, "Go to Upper Yard and rescue our friends."

Gan Fall was looking at him with new respect as he said, "I see… may luck be with you!"

And with that, he took Conis and they headed off across the city.

"That's one less thing to worry about," present-day Usopp sighed, glad for some small miracles. The three waited until they watched them fly off into the distance before they headed back over to the Crow and threw their bags into it. Past Usopp was already starting to give them words of farewell before Sanji pulled him into the boat and he looked ready to cry. Luffy got behind the wheel and said eagerly as he started it up, "Alright… Upper Yard here we come!"

"Even with all of us in danger, he's still thinking about the adventure," Robin commented in amusement.

"That moron won't ever change," Sanji stated, but he smirked at that. The citizens behind them were all gapping at the three of them in amazement—as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing—as they pushed off and headed off towards the gate and down the Milky Road… towards their friends… and the closer to danger.

As the memory faded, Brook croaked out, "Such power…"

"Yeah, and they were really trying to kill her," Sanji snarled, furious that anyone would do something like that.

"Was Conis and her old man alright?" Franky asked worriedly. "I mean… nothing happened to them here right?"

"The weird old man was true to his word," Nami said gratefully. "They were both safe."

"That's a weight of my chest," Brook stated. Just then the memory came back, and they were still in the Crow… the three of them heading along—the rest of them were following on top of the Milky Road like a sidewalk.

"I'm never gonna get used to this," Usopp whispered, hating feeling like some kind of ghost here.

"I really hope Conis is alright," his past self said worriedly, looking behind them at the ever shrinking Angel Island. "You know she's going to have hell to pay when the White Berets catch up with her, and it's our own stupid fault. She'd be ok if she hadn't helped us. And I'm not sure we can trust that Sky Knight. He pretty much gives me the creeps."

"But he helped you out twice!" Brook reminded him.

"Yeah, but we hardly knew anything about this guy," Usopp reminded him, "How did we know that we could trust someone like that?"

"I see your point," Franky nodded.

"But he was a good guy!" Chopper said without a doubt in his mind.

"I'm glad to know that now," Usopp admitted, "I'm saying that here…"

"He's kinda old and weird, but he doesn't seem like that bad of a guy," Luffy said.

"He always did have good instincts about someone," Robin smiled.

"There was no other choice," memory Sanji said regretfully, "I wanna protect her but it's not like we could've brought her along with us."

"Well, then she probably is in less danger without us," past Usopp admitted, not able to think of anything to disagree with that.

"That's usually how it works with us," Zoro shrugged as he watched.

Memory Usopp than counted off, "Sacrificial altars, ordeals… from the sound of it I wish I was the one flying off with the old geezer."

"Big baby," Zoro whispered as the boat continued down a little slope and they could just make out the Upper Yard. As they drew nearer, some of them gasped when they saw it.

"Hey guys?" past Usopp cried out in shock, "Where did that huge forest come from?!"

"Is that the Upper Yard?!" memory Sanji yelled as Usopp went to the map, trying to make sense of this.

"IT'S HUGE!" Franky yelled, "And I thought the tress back in Goa were big! They're like toothpicks to these guys!"

He was right, though the Upper Yard reminded them a great deal of the Middle Forest in Goa, only the trees were easily at least twice as big. Onwards they went, Luffy admiring the foliage—and talking about how much he wanted to climb them. A little further ahead, they spotted the statues up ahead, similar to the one they saw on Lovely Street, only these seemed to be much older and made of solid stone rather than mud. There were also several torches that marked the entry. "Look! The entrance!" Luffy yelled excitedly.

"Oh, this'll be good," Franky said, looking forward to this. "We get to see you guys beat the crap outta some priest!"

"Well, this is it, Usopp," memory Sanji said, "If you're gonna chicken out, now's the time."

"Actually, if you don't mind," past Usopp said, "I was kinda thinking I'd like to go back…"

"You were willing to leave us?" Chopper asked, feeling a little numb.

"No!" Usopp said quickly, "I… I was just kidding here! Yeah, that's it! I was trying to lighten the mood! We all needed it! Besides, I'm sure that you were all safe with you there."

"You really mean that?!" Chopper asked, his eyes bright.

"Hey! You're the doctor of the Straw Hat Pirates! If you can't do it, who can?" he asked and that cheered Chopper up greatly, blushing, and slapping Usopp's knee as he told him to shut up.

The others smiled at that as Luffy laughed to memory Usopp, "Too late!"

"THEN WHY DID YOU ASK ME?!" he screamed at the two as they laughed at how freaked out he was. They soon passed the statues, Usopp's face was contorted with fear as they sailed on—the faces looking like they were leering at them the whole way. As they went further on they saw the remains of ships scattered on either side of them—each of them run aground and sliced right in half as if a giant knife had cut them… like Zoro when he was done with a ship. Just then they heard the sounds of a large bird somewhere in the distance that startled Usopp so much that he shrieked.

"Would you calm down?" Luffy asked him, turning the wheel a little to avoid a broken mast sticking up through the clouds.

"Yeah, take it easy," memory Sanji agreed.

"Don't see why you're so freaked out," Zoro stated in his bored voice, "Nothing's happened yet. If you can't stand this, then I'm worried about how you'll take it when something dangerous does show up."

"Hey! I didn't do so bad against that fat freak!" Usopp yelled.

"What fat freak?" Nami asked. But memory Usopp was yelling at the other two to notice the ship wreaks and that they all looked like they had been sliced up.

"Wow… what happened?" Chopper asked.

"You're about to find out," Sanji whispered to him. They heard a slight rustle through the trees and Usopp began twitching at that, asking if they heard it. "The woods are full of noises! Just relax," Luffy told him calmly.

"I heard that!" past Sanji yelled. That was finally too much for Usopp, he started screaming and broke out the two paddles that were attacked to the ship and tried to go faster. It was a good thing because, out of nowhere, there was a large scythe came flying from behind the trees, its blade large and sharp.

Chopper and Brook both screamed in shock as it came barreling towards them—though the three in the boat were able to miss it by the skin of their teeth, it turned out that wasn't the only one… dozens of them started to appear and Luffy screamed out orders to start paddling like crazy, which the other two had no complaints to following. It was all they could do to keep avoiding being sliced in half… it was a good thing that they didn't take the gondola that Luffy had wanted before, because the Crow was small and nimble enough to avoid the blades… though they were still narrow misses each time.

Memory Usopp was yelling out confusing orders, and Luffy finally yelled at him to take the wheel as he turned to the back and launched them into the air, sending them flying right passed the scythes. With Usopp at the wheel, the other two began to paddle like mad… going much faster than before. But then large wooden spears came flying at them from above.

"WHAT'S WITH THIS FOREST?!" Chopper cried out.

"We were lucky we made it thought that mess alive," Usopp cried out.

"You think that a so-called god would try something a little flashier than this though," Franky stated, watching as the three in the boat did everything they could to keep the Crow from being hit. In the end, Luffy was able to use his Gum Gum Pinwheel to hit them and bat them away until they were safely out of the way.

"This is just his sick way of toying with us," Sanji sighed, who remembered feeling a little bit of letdown after seeing this. He had expected to have to fight the one who created that major blast of lightening like back at the docks. Instead they got spears and giant lamprey. "And can you believe that he didn't even make to the actual ordeal yet?" Sanji asked them, "This was like a little introduction…"

"Oh, this is gonna be a rough ride I can tell," Brook said anxiously as the three were breathing hard, glad to have escaped that obstacle. But their bad luck didn't end there… they looked on to see something was glinting ahead of them through the trees… they found out what it was when as a large spinning buzz saw came flying right towards them.

"I FORGOT ABOUT THAT STUPID THING!" Usopp yelled, hating seeing all this and opening up all those old fears.

"Please, I could've taken that thing on!" Zoro yelled out, wishing that it was the stupid cook who got carried off instead of him. But no… instead of facing something interesting, he was stuck taking a stupid walk around a forest. Damn, why couldn't the cook be the one who was stuck at the altar?

The buzz saw narrowly avoided them.

"It's god!" Luffy cried as it fly past them.

"Not yet!" past Sanji yelled, now breathing hard as Usopp screamed that it was coming right back at them and they were now struggling to stay afloat.

"This is madness," Brook cried out as the blade spun in the air and like it was being drawn to them like a magnetic, it hurtled back towards them.

"Wow, and I thought that I had it bad waiting at the altar by myself," Chopper whispered.

"What?" Franky asked. Chopper told them that after the lobster dumped them off at the altar, they were surrounded by shark-infest clouds. But by using a vine, Zoro and the girls swung over to land and he was stuck guarding the ship when a priest arrived to attack him.

"And you had to fight him off on your own, Chopper-san?" Brook asked, "That's very brave."

Chopper blushed once again before he confessed that he used the whistle that the Sky Knight gave him and he came to save him. Meanwhile, again and again the buzz saw kept flying at them, trying to cut them to pieces. Usopp was freaking out, wanting to go back… but there was no point right now… there was no guarantee that they would survive it. Luckily they ended up outrunning it when it slammed into one of the trees cutting it in half.

"I think we finally outran it," memory Usopp sighed in relief before he looked behind them and groaned out miserably, "Oh, but this is bad… now it's too late to go back! I can't even see the entrance anymore!"

"Then stay here," Luffy offered.

"Good Luffy… nice and direct," Zoro said in amusement.

"I'D DIE YOU IDIOT!" memory Usopp screamed back at him as the others all chuckled.

"You two really do fight like brothers," Robin chuckled and Usopp shrugged, unable to fight the smile coming to his own face.

"When it gets right down to it, you two were practically separated at birth," Nami laughed.

Memory Sanji agreed with what Usopp stated and pointed as a giant snake-like creature with row after row of razor sharp teeth burst through the Milky Road and attacked.

"A LAMPREY?!" Chopper cried out as the large, round mouth headed straight for them. But Sanji was more than ready for it. He jumped up and with a single kick, it was sent flying from them. As he looked back at it anxiously, Luffy commented on that this was the neatest forest he'd ever been in.

"Neat forest my butt!" memory Usopp snapped, "If this is our so-called ordeal, then I quit!"

"You can't quit yet, we just got here!" Luffy laughed.

"Besides, we haven't even reached the fun part yet," Sanji muttered darkly as his past self muttered anxiously, "We've got to keep moving. We can't spend more time than necessary on this Milky Road… otherwise we're asking for certain death."

"But you're taking the idea of certain death very well," Brook said in an upbeat voice.

"Well, what can you do?" Sanji asked as their past selves began to talk about how they were sure that the priests were all waiting for them on the island. Memory Usopp realized what Luffy was saying and cried out in horror, "So you're telling me that nothing that we've gone through doesn't have anything to do with our actual ordeal?"

"I don't know, I kinda doubt it," past Sanji said, "Especially considering the magnitude of that attack back at the docks. I couldn't tell you how it all works, but its serious power… take even one hit and you're a goner. This Eneru shouldn't be taken lightly… and I have the feeling that he's watching us even now."

"Wouldn't surprise me," Zoro agreed darkly. "In fact I'd bet my swords on it."

Luffy then asked Sanji in surprise if he thought that this Eneru was hiding somewhere in time, to which Sanji agreed, stating that he had to have been close by to have been able to attack as accurately as he did. But memory Usopp then pointed out that didn't have to be the case… if this really was a god, he could probably be watching them right now.

"You didn't actually believe this guy was a real god did you?" Franky asked Usopp.

"What was I supposed to think after seeing that attack?!" Usopp demanded hotly.

Memory Sanji rolled his eyes at Usopp's words as he asked, "Yeah? And since when did you become such a devoted follower? You're not even from around here."

"You're missing the point completely," Usopp hissed back at him, "Everyone says that god is great right? I was taught to respect those with power. You don't have to mean it… its self-preservation."

Past Sanji shrugged in a bored way, letting him believe what he wanted, but also reminding him that not everything considered a god is 'good'. But he added that they could talk more about it later when another lamprey appeared, its rows of teeth bearing at them. Usopp screamed as Luffy took care of it, punching it so hard that it was slammed into a tree branch from above and it fell back behind them with a splash.

"I hate Sky Islands…" past Usopp whispered, "They're scary…"

"I can't argue with you there, Usopp-san," Brook said softly.

"Wanna get out here?" memory Sanji asked almost teasingly.

"WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT?!" Usopp screamed, actually standing up and spinning around to glare at him, "YOU WANT ME TO DIE?! I'M ALLOWED TO BE SCARED! CUT ME SOME SLACK!"

"The important thing is that you're still going even though you're scared of out your mind! Yohohoho," Brook added cheerfully.

Zoro didn't point out that it if was up to him, Usopp would've turned back long before now and only came with them because they forced him to. But he didn't say anything as he watched Luffy pointing ahead of them, yelling that a giant head was blocking their way.

"A HEAD?!" Chopper cried in shock.

"It's alright, it's just a statue," Sanji told him as they all looked ahead to see the giant stone face, with its hand held up to its mouth as if keeping a secret.

"What is that?" Franky asked as Sanji told Luffy that it was just a sculpture, to which Luffy responded that either way it was still a dead end.

"No! Look!" memory Usopp yelled, "There are four entrances!"

And he was right… the river branching off into four paths going through each finger, each labeled with a different ordeal: "Ordeal of Swamp", "Ordeal of Iron", "Ordeal of String", and "Ordeal of Balls".

"What is all this?" Franky asked slowly.

"Isn't it obvious?" Robin asked seriously. "Each one of these doorways leads to one of the four priests. This was set up to make you decide your 'own poison' so to speak…"

"So if you get killed, you have no one but yourself to blame for the choice you make," Zoro nodded in understanding.

"Which did you all chose?" Brook asked Sanji and Usopp.

"Hey! I remember one of them!" Chopper said, looking to the first finger. And he also thought of the priest who attacked him when he stood guard at the Merry. "The Ordeal of Swamp! I was almost killed there!"

"And I remember the second one," Zoro stated, looking to the next one. "The Ordeal of Iron almost did kill you there… I thought for sure you were dead, Chopper."

"Really?" Chopper asked in surprise, "I really don't remember that so well…?"

"I'm not surprised," Zoro answered, remembering the horror of seeing Chopper laying there covered in blood. He thought for sure that he was…?

"But what about the last two?" Robin suddenly asked.

"I didn't really understand it," Chopper went on, "But the priest who attacked me had to be the one in charge of the Ordeal of String."

"So you all took…?" Brook began as Sanji nodded.

"The Ordeal of Spheres," he nodded. Memory Usopp looked back to them, asking which one they should take, with Luffy pointing to the last one, saying that spheres sounded like fun. "That's your only reason?!" memory Usopp yelled, "They're ordeals! They're not supposed to be fun!" He then looked back to their choices and added, "Not that I'm disagreeing with you… spheres is definitely the one that doesn't sound to violent."

He then started to imagine what the other ordeals would be like, with each one and in the end, his active imagination got the better of him and he didn't know which one to take.

"I never knew you had such an active imagination, Usopp-san…" Brook said.

"Some of the people back in my home village used to say that it was a curse," Usopp gulped, thinking back. He could see what they meant.

"We don't have time for a debate here," memory Sanji stated in annoyance. They had to make a choice now. "We're right on top of it!"

"Alright! Spheres it is!" Luffy decided. Looking like he was doing this against his better judgment, Usopp turned the wheel hard and they headed to the doorway in the pinky, shutting his eyes as he did so—as if hoping that he could somehow protect himself from whatever was coming. When they entered the long tunnel and found that they were in the pitch darkness, they couldn't see anything in front of them.

"How bad were these Ordeals?" Franky asked suddenly.

"It was a nightmare," Usopp hissed, "The Ordeal of Spheres had a ten percent survival rate."

"Only ten percent?!" Brook cried in shock.

"What did you have to do here?" Nami asked, not sure she'd like the answer.

"I'm sure you'll see," Sanji sighed to them, "But in case you don't, let's just say that not all surprises are good."

Memory Sanji then poked fun at Usopp, asking him not to shut his eyes since he was the one driving. Not that this made any difference, it was just as dark either way. Luffy suddenly had a very interesting idea and they heard his voice call out, "Hey guys… what if this is like one of those games?"

"He just had to scare us here didn't he?" Usopp whispered bitterly as his past self asked what he was talking about.

"You know… if you pick the right door then you get a prize?" Luffy asked, "But if you pick the wrong one…?"

"Huh… not a bad idea," Robin said thinking it all over.

"Yeah, but in this case, no matter what you chose, it was a wrong door," Zoro yawned.

"What are you talking about?! What if we picked wrong? Why couldn't you mention this before Luffy?!" memory Usopp yelled at him.

"Well, let's see here…" Luffy's voice said, sounding thoughtful as he thought it all over. "If you pick the wrong one… then you fall off the island?!"

Usopp lost it. "HOW CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING SO STUPID?!" he screamed out. "WE'RE THOUSANDS OF METERS IN THE AIR! I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY TIMES YOU'RE LIFE CAN FLASH BEFORE YOUR EYES DURING A FALL LIKE THAT, AND I DON'T WANNA KNOW!"

"Well, that would be one way to know if you picked the wrong door," Zoro said calmly as Usopp sighed, wishing that he had switched places with Zoro here… Light suddenly appeared in front of them and they spotted the exit. "You both are being idiots," past Sanji said as they headed through, "Nothing like that is gonna…"

But then as they went out, they went right over the edge of a cliff…

Some of the present-day Straw Hats all screamed in shock at what they were seeing. The Crow hung in the air almost comically for several seconds before they fell, looking down to see nothing but clouds below them. The three in the boat screamed wildly as they did so with memory Usopp screaming at the top of his lungs, "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"

Some of the other Straw Hats screamed in shock as well as they started to fall. But when they went through one cloud and, to everyone's relief, they landed on another Milky Road that had been directly beneath them, but they hadn't been able to see it with all the clouds.

Chopper was shaking horribly as he clung tightly onto Zoro's leg, Nami and Brook were both trying to remember how to breath after seeing something like that.

"I think my heart really did stop at that," Usopp muttered as the three looked around, shaking. Sanji was asking, as if making sure that they weren't dead, "We're alive?!"

Past Usopp was twitched horribly. "I seriously thought we were falling all the way back to the Blue Sea…"

"I'm still going to kill Luffy for doing that," Sanji muttered as his past self was now kicking Luffy hard in the head. "THAT'S BECAUSE SOMEONE HAD TO MAKE UP A LAME STORY TO SCARE US!"

"I was scared!" Luffy laughed, "I thought I was a goner too!"

"Dumbass," Sanji hissed to himself.

Once he finished laughing and everything calmed down, memory Sanji pulled the traumatized Usopp from his seat at the Crow and took over at the controls this time. Here, they looked around cautiously, trying to get their bearings right. They were still in a large forest, not unlike the road they took to get here, but the Milky Roads were all crossing and overlapping with each other, even sometimes going up high in the trees and under branches. But what was really different was that this forest was filled with hundreds of large white balls. They seemed to have been made of Island Cloud, and they were simply floating… not moving, but hanging in the air, drifting around innocently.

Most of the present-day Straw Hats couldn't figure out what was so dangerous about this Ordeal, but they didn't say anything as they watched. The three in the Crow sailed around for some time, just looking around at all the balls that resembled giant flakes of snow, their eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. After a while though, Luffy and Usopp dropped their guards and began poking their heads into the bags for a snack. Only Sanji remained fully aware, looking around watchfully as if expecting someone to jump out and attack at any moment. Soon their captain and sniper had gotten bored, and the two of them were playing with one of the balls, passing it back and forth like a beach ball.

Sanji looked back to them and began to tell them off before a snake burst out and went for Usopp, bearing its fangs.

"Whoa, where did that thing come from?!" Franky yelled out.

"Didn't see that coming," Zoro said in mild surprise.

"A SNAKE?!" memory Sanji screamed out in shock as Luffy kicked at it, sending it flying away. But then Usopp pointed out another 'snake ball' in front of them, and when Sanji tried to kick it… this time, it ended up exploding, burning them all.

"It blew up?!" Chopper gasped in horror.

"FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WHAT'S WITH THESE THINGS?!" memory Usopp screamed out in fear before he broke down crying—it was obvious to them all that he had finally reached his breaking point.

They then heard someone laughing. "Oh, silly children! These are Surprise Clouds! You never know what's going to come out of them!"

"Who's speaking?!" Nami called worriedly, staring around, but not seeing anyone.

Luffy and the other boys were also all looking around, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from when they heard that childish laugh once again. "Heso!" they all looked back and they saw him. A man, who hardly looked any different from the round cloud that he was floating on, with long, dark red hair and little wings… dressed in a white jumpsuit with a vertical line of golden rings that ran from front to back… and bright yellow sunglasses as he gave them all a stupid grin.

"I'm so glad you picked my challenge, the Ordeal of Spheres!" he said, bursting out laughing.

"His… ordeal?" Franky repeated, and all the Straw Hats, memory and present, all had sweat-drop falling as they looked at this guy.

"Yeah… is that a talking dumpling?" memory Sanji asked.

"I thought that he was a cream puff," Chopper whispered.

"You mean to tell me that this guy is seriously one of Eneru's priests?" Zoro asked, his eye twitching in annoyance. "How can you take a guy seriously when he looks like that?!"

The talking dumpling suddenly got up and began dancing and spinning around happily on the cloud as they all stared at him.

"Ok, this is just sad," Nami whispered, looking ready to fall over. But Robin was frowning a little. Though this guy was clearly an idiot, they should never underestimate their opponents. That often leads to disaster.

"That's the ordeal?!" Luffy yelled out, now sounding furiously disappointed, "Ball guy?!"

"Stop with the dancing! And tell us who you are!" memory Sanji yelled. The dumpling didn't answer at first, still doing his dance as Usopp and Luffy whispered to each other, not really seeing him as much of a threat…

"You honestly had trouble with this guy? And I thought you couldn't get any more pathetic crap-cook," Zoro said.

"Be careful not to get over-confident, Zoro," Robin said softly as Sanji was now practically burning up at the insult. Zoro glanced at her, and remembered everything they had seen up till now. He shut his one good eye and nodded slowly in understanding.

"Sorry," he whispered back as Nami told Sanji to calm down, which he did only to happily, "It's just hard to take someone seriously when they look like that."

Robin nodded at that, but she had a bad feeling that because of this priest's carefree attitude and idiotic dancing, they might have underestimated his ability and had to pay for it. She seemed to have been proven right when memory Sanji lost his temper and yelled up, "HEY! DUMPLING! NAMI AND THE OTHERS BETTER BE SAFE!"

"The sacrifices?" he asked happily as he continued to dance and spin around, "They'll escape, or they won't… doesn't really matter which. If they escape they'll die! If they're sacrificed… well they'll die then to!"

"He sure doesn't beat around the bush does he?" Franky asked lightly.

"What's that mean?!" past Sanji demanded, sounding angry.

"What do you think?" Zoro asked him in annoyance. "He thinks that you're all gonna die."

"But I would be more worried about yourselves!" the dumpling went on, "You'll have to beat me if you plan on going any further! And I really don't see that happening!" he laughed that annoying laugh once more as he jumped, heading right for them. Luffy was in front, looking ready to throw a punch.

"Oooooooh!" the dumpling said interested, "You're gonna stretch?"

"Wait, he's using it isn't he?" Nami asked knowingly.

"Yeah," Sanji said sourly. Luffy looked startled that the dumpling had said that, but went for the punch anyway. The dumpling danced out of the way, missing it completely before he held his hand up to Luffy's face… and with some kind of shockwave from his hand, Luffy was sent flying. His hat was blown off like a kite before he was slammed right into the tree, crashing into it and for a moment the memory faded around them… turned dark before they came back and Luffy was on his face… leaving a deep crater in the tree behind him. A trail of blood was dripping from his mouth as Usopp and Sanji yelled at him, trying to know if he was alright.

"How'd he do that?!" Brook cried out, "He didn't even touch him!"

"That was an Impact Dial!" Usopp gulped, knowing the pain of one of those things all too well.

"A what?" Brook cried, turning to stare at him.

"It can absorb any attack, like an explosive, and store it," Usopp said, "and you can use it later to fire it back! He used that to store Luffy's Pistol attack and threw it back at him!"

"LUFFY!" memory Usopp called in terror, "YOU'RE OK AREN'T YOU?! A HIT LIKE THAT COULDN'T HAVE HURT YOU THAT MUCH!"

"Well, his own attack would…" Sanji said, wincing at their stupidity here. The dumpling laughed as he held up his slightly smoking hand, "Well, you see… it's not what you call… a normal hit!"

Enraged, memory Sanji charged at him, but once again the dumpling was able to dodge it by merely stepping to the side, almost twirling around… "Only the most well trained are granted the power of… Mantra…"

"Mantra…?" Franky repeated sounding confused.

"That's what they call Observation Haki up here," Robin answered.

"I never really understood how that works," Chopper gulped, wishing that he could do something that cool.

"We'll talk more about that later," Zoro promised. But meanwhile, memory Sanji was staring at the dumpling in shock, unable to believe that he was able to predict his attack, before the fat freak held up his hand and sent him crashing to the ground as well. Past Usopp screamed out Sanji's name, not noticing the dumpling right behind him before he was also sent flying down to join them. All three of them were bleeding and hurt, but they didn't seem to be too badly hurt because they were already starting to get back up. Luffy looked to the others, and Sanji confirmed that they were alright as he reached for his hat.

"Looks like it didn't hurt you guys as much as we thought," Franky pointed out.

"It was mostly shock than them actually hurting us," Sanji muttered, his face turning a little red at how lame he looked here. His past self was then demanding to know what that bastard did.

"I've got no idea," Luffy confessed, wiping some of the blood from his mouth, "Who is this guy anyway?"

"Wish we never found out," Usopp whispered to himself.

Resuming his dance on the Crow, the dumpling answered, "My name is Satori! I am one of the four priests of the almighty Eneru who watch over the Upper Yard and see to it the judgment of criminals such as yourselves! I own the vearth in this Lost Forest!"

"The Lost Forest?" Luffy repeated, sounding just as lost.

"Why yes," Satori smiled evilly, "My forest and all its glory! Ho, ho-hooo!"

"What makes it his forest?" Franky whispered skeptically as Satori stepped on the accelerator and caused the Crow to start moving once again.

"Wait! You need that don't you?!" Brook called anxiously.

"That's the point of the Ordeal," Sanji muttered with a sight twitch in his eye. Satori went on speaking, telling them that the boat will continue going along without them until it reached the exit. If they were unable to find the boat before then, they would lose their only way to the sacrificial altar and be lost in this forest forever. That was what this trial was… to try and find the boat once again while avoiding him and his 'Surprise Clouds' which could be holding anything.

"So that's what you meant when you said that not all surprises were good," Nami whispered. "Just what kind of things were in there?"

"Nothing good," Usopp moaned out, the pain still sharp in his mind.

"The Ordeal of Spheres!" Satori yelled joyfully, "There's a ten percent survival rate! So good luck!" He laughed a little more, "You boys better catch up to her real soon! She's getting away!"

Luffy offered to stay behind and deal with Satori while Sanji and Usopp went looking for the boat. Memory Sanji hesitated for only a moment before he nodded in understanding, but before he left, he warned him to be careful. Luffy jumped up and began swinging around fighting with Satori… however with his Haki—or Mantra—it was impossible for Luffy to be able to make a move without him already knowing it. In the end, the fight ended quickly and Luffy's head was slammed right through a thick tree.

"That didn't last long…" Franky said, feeling a bit disappointed at that.

"Haki users can be a pain in the ass to fight," Zoro stated with a smirk. "But they're far from invincible."

Luffy tried desperately to pull his head out of the tree trunk as Satori continued to laugh. "Aren't you stubborn?" he asked sweetly before he went floating away on his sphere, clearly going after the others. After several tense minutes, Luffy was able to pull his head back out—luckily, after a little running, they found that he hadn't gone far. They spotted him tormented the other boys and Luffy went running along the tree branches to reach him, sending a Gatling Gun right at him…

"No!" Nami called, "If you do that, Luffy…?!"

"Too late," Robin answered. That attack only made things worse.

"LUFFY STOP!" past Sanji screamed, "USE YOUR HEAD! YOU'RE ONLY MAKING THINGS WORSE!"

Luffy realized this as well, but it was too late. The onslaught of the attack had caused all the Surprise Clouds around them to start flying every which way. They would then hit other Surprise Clouds and then they would go flying in all directions as well so that it was alike a snowstorm. They were soon forced to run around, avoiding them at all costs… a variety of things emerged from them. Things like spears, giant crabs, fire, Usopp even had four giant singing birds appear out of some and start punching him like a boxing match… Luffy, through a series of acrobatics while trying to avoid drowning and being eaten by Sky Fish, was forced to start swinging around on vines, his fear turned to laughter as he let out a loud jungle call.

"WILL YOU GET SERIOUS?!" memory Sanji roared at him.

"That's what you did," Nami hissed to Zoro, remembering how he had cried out just like that as he swung away from the altar.

"What?" he asked, "If you do the call, you can swing a lot easier."

"How the hell does that make sense?!" she yelled at him as he shrugged unconcerned.

After seeing Luffy swinging around on vines, memory Usopp got an idea and went to his newest invention that he called the Usopp AAaaaAAAaaaAA! A special belt that he made that could fire a grappling hook for him to swing from tree to tree with. And the present-day Straw Hats watched as he was able to hook onto a tree and went swinging over to the Crow… everyone thought for sure he was going to make it—even Satori was looking surprised by this… at least until they found out that Usopp forgot to put in a way to detach the rope and missed the boat.

"That's lame man," Franky said in disillusionment, "You really got our hopes up."

Usopp turned red once again at how stupid he had been. "I forgot about that… it wasn't completely ready when I built it… it still had a few bugs to work out but I thought that it would've worked."

"And it would've if you had unbuckled it," Robin offered. "You're inventions are useful."

"Of course! And they only got even better over these two years!" Usopp beamed proudly. "I'm sure that the next thing I come up with will really amaze you!"

Finally losing his temper, past Sanji got them both down in front of him and beat them both black and blue.

"You didn't have to go that far did you Sanji?" Chopper shrieked in shock.

"Of course I did!" Sanji said angrily. "Someone had to slap them awake and start acting serious!"

"Here's the deal," his past self said once he had cooled off and took several deep breaths on his cigarette. "I'm gonna forget what just happened… now you do what I say."

Both boys nodded, having no problems with that, and clearly not wanting to get beaten up again. "Ok then…" he said as he went on. "First thing we forget about the boat for now. Then we're all gonna charge that fat freak at once!"

"Is that really your best idea?" Zoro asked him in amusement.

"SHUT UP! I DON'T SEE YOU THERE WILLING TO HELP! AND IF I WAS HAVING SO MUCH TROUBLE, YOU WOULDN'T HAVE STOOD A CHANCE!" Sanji yelled at him. The amused look on Zoro's face was replaced with anger and soon the two of them were fighting in the background. The Straw Hats all ignored them as they turned back to the matter at hand.

"I don't care what kind of powers he's got…" memory Sanji said, "With all three of us attack at the same time, if there's a way to beat him we'll find it."

"That rarely ever works though," Brook said anxiously.

"Oh…?" Satori's voice called from somewhere above them, obviously having heard everything they said, "Don't be so sure…"

They all jumped up, staring around to try and find him… when memory Sanji turned his back to keep looking, Satori fell from the branches above and jumped behind him, hitting him with another Impact Dial and sending him crashing to the ground.

Luffy and Usopp both tried to fight, but soon they joined Sanji as well—all three of them were lying bruised, bloody, and burned on the ground as Satori continued to jump around happily on the Surprise Clouds. By this point, Luffy was struggling to push himself back up as Satori laughed again. "You're still alive! I'm impressed! And… as a reward for good behavior… we're gonna finish off our fun today with a move I've received several awards for! Ho, ho-hooo!" He then pulled out a stripped cane like a giant candy cane… "My Super Secret Surprise… Sphere Dragon!"

"I'm almost afraid to see this," Nami whispered with a tremble in her voice.

And then, Satori connects several surprise balls together with a dragon head on top so that it looked like some strange kind of caterpillar. "Introducing the Sphere Dragon!" he called happily.

"That's it?" Franky yelled.

"That doesn't look so bad…?" Chopper said nervously, but Usopp shook his head.

"It's bad…" he said firmly.

But Luffy looked far from impressed as he got back to his feet, now panting hard, he yelled up, "It looks like all you did was string a bunch of Surprise Clouds together! Is that the best you can do? I have to say I'm disappointed!"

"Oh, you won't be for long!" Satori promised, "You see my friend, the dragon is loaded with explosive surprises and all sorts of delightful shrapnel."

"Hell…" Sanji muttered, stopping his fight with Zoro to look up at the talking dumpling again.

Memory Usopp paled before he squeaked out, "But… that means…?"

"If you even touch the fireball sphere somewhere on its body it'll be over for you and your friends!" Satori said happily. "You'll be blown to bits in the incinerating inferno! Hope you like fireworks!" he then held the cane high and the dragon went straight for them.

"And the worst part is if you touch it you'll end up going down in flames," Robin said causally, as if dragons exploded everyday.

"THAT'S EASY FOR YOU TO SAY!" Usopp yelled.

Luffy clearly didn't care if the dragon exploded or not, he was going to attack anyway but just as the dragon went straight for him, Usopp charged in, tackling him out of the way just in time. "You idiot!" he yelled, holding Luffy down to keep him from attacking the dragon again, "That freak just told us if we touched that thing it'll explode! Do you want to die a fiery death!?"

"He never was good at listening," Nami stated, "Which is why we have to do all the work."

But Luffy practically threw Usopp off him, demanding, "Well how are we gonna fight it if we can't touch it?!"

"I think that's the point," Brook said worriedly.

"Come on you guys!" Chopper cheered, "You can take him!"

"That's just it!" past Usopp yelled at him in frustration, "We can't fight it! I think now is the time to run."

Satori sent the dragon after them again, and they were forced to run. "What do we do?!" Luffy yelled, jumping around wildly, the dragon head quickly catching up.

"I don't know, you're the captain!" past Usopp yelled before he had an idea. "On three, we jump! THREE!"

"That's it?!" Zoro yelled exasperatedly. But the two did jump out of the way, missing the dragon completely, but they ended up landing onto another Surprise Cloud. They didn't realize it at once but once the dragon missed them they turned blue in the face before it exploded once again.

"That had to hurt," Franky winced.

"Ho, ho-hooo! Well, you are quite the little survivors aren't you?" Satori asked, still as gleeful as he had been before—and they were all growing sick of listening to this guy. The two rolled over, with Usopp yelling at him that he was just toying with them. "Correct! It wouldn't be as much fun if you didn't experience the full power of the Sphere Dragon!" Satori asked, as if they were two naughty boys who were being punished for doing something stupid. "Shall we continue? There's no way you can win!" he bragged, "After all… I'm a priest! And you all look so tired! Why don't you just end this now and die?"

"Come on! There must be something you guys can do!" Nami said in frustration.

"Don't worry my dear, that fatso go what was coming to him in the end," Sanji said firmly.

"My heart can't take any more of this," memory Usopp gasped, now looking like he was fighting to breathe, "Too many surprises… how… it… hurts…"

"And it did," Usopp whimpered as he watched.

"You'll be out of options quite soon," Satori said, looking back up, "It's sad really… your little boat has almost reached the exit. And when that happens, it's all over for you! Ho, ho-hooo!"

"NO! You have to hurry!" Brook cried out anxiously.

"You'll have nowhere to go unless you suddenly learn to fly!" Satori went on just as Luffy was sitting up, "You'll wander around their terribly confusing forest until you die of exhaustion!"

But they all knew that the boys were far from beaten. Luffy was up again, trying to attack, but he might as well have just told Satori what he was going to do. He dodged it and had the dragon going after him once again. As Luffy ran, they noticed memory Usopp slipping off into the forest.

"Where were you going, Usopp?" Chopper asked at once.

"With Luffy distracting that fat freak, this was my only chance to go find the boat," Usopp said.

"Or were you just running out on us?" Sanji asked teasingly.

"Hey! I may be a coward, but I'm not traitor!" he said angrily. As Luffy continued to run, he finally caught a break when he ran up a tree, and almost ended up falling back on the dragon. But something caught him before he did and he discovered the wire that was connected to Satori's cane—and what caused him to control the dragon like a puppet. It only took him a few seconds to realize what it was and then he snapped the wire in half.

"Yeah! That's how you do it!" Nami cheered.

Robin chuckled as she nodded. "Yes, he was close to blowing up there… if he missed that wire he'd be dead."

"Would it kill you to think positive for once?!" Nami said, frowning heavily at her friend.

Seeing the wire break, Satori gasped in horror. "You ruined my Sphere Dragon you impudent little brat!" he yelled, and for the first time he sounded angry. "Now you die! Get over here this instant!"

But as he pulled the cane, he pulled Luffy with him—who hadn't let go of the other half the rope and was pulling the dragon with him.

"Oh, this is gonna be one heck of a boom," Franky said, pulling his sunglasses back down to cover his eyes.

Satori realized to late what was happening. "LET GO OF THE DRAGON FOOL!" he screamed, but Luffy was still hurtling towards him, still pulling the dragon behind him—perhaps having instincts holding onto the other rope. Satori screamed out just as they crashed into him and the explosion after that was enormous—a giant fireball went up around them, burning the trees as shrapnel went flying in all directions.

"WOW!" Franky yelled in amazement as some of the others had to duck and yell from the impact of the explosion. But the blow was quick… filled with smoke, they looked up to see the giant mushroom shaped cloud above them and in front of them, some of them gasped.

There was a giant black crater in the ground, blowing parts of trees away, the ground completely burnt to a crisp. It was smoking and filled with things like swords, arrows, spears…

"It's like a freaking battle happened here!" Usopp yelled out. He remembered hearing the boom as he looked from the trees to try and get a view of the land around them.

"Cool…" Franky whispered.

"IT WAS NOT!" Usopp yelled.

"Where's Luffy?" Chopper cried worriedly, staring around him, but not finding any trace of Luffy or that priest.

"I don't know, but he's still around," Robin answered, pointing up to see Satori was there on another Surprise Cloud as he gasped for breath and severely burned.

"I guess all that blubber protected him," Zoro stated, sounding disappointed.

"That was close," Satori wheezed, "That maniac must've had a death wish! This isn't good…" he looked at the damage and added to himself, "I've got to intensify my training! I can't let a weakling like him… get the upper hand in a fight! Not even for a second! That might block me from using my Mantra."

"Block it…?" Nami whispered, not understanding for a moment.

"You got to hand it to Luffy, though it was an accident, it really did a lot of damage," Franky said with a little laugh.

"Well, you're going to love this next part then," Sanji stated with a smirk.

"You're right…" Luffy's voice said and Satori was looking around anxiously, "That was close…"

"Where is he?!" Chopper said, glad to hear his captain's voice again, but unsure to where he is.

"Right there," Robin smiled. She was right, Luffy was clinging to Satori's back—also burnt and injured.

"It's you?! How are you still alive?!" Satori said, finally noticing where he was, and seemed stunned that he hadn't noticed it before.

Zoro nodded, getting what happened in the battle. Due to the explosion Satori temporarily lost control of his Haki, and failed to see Luffy clinging to his back until right now. He had been taught by Mihawk to never drop your guard or lose your concentration no matter what or that can happen. He made a mental note to learn from this guy's mistakes.

Then suddenly Satori was trying to throw Luffy off desperately, trying to get rid of him and screaming out, "GET OFF ME! YOU HORRIBLE LITTLE MAN! I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS! LET GO OF ME RIGHT NOW! I SAID LET GO!"

"After all the trouble that we had to go through to catch him? I don't think so," Sanji said firmly.

"Do not let him go Luffy!" called a familiar voice and memory Sanji was sitting on top of a dud of a Surprise Cloud that had a flower sticking out of it. Satori looked up in horror, "YOU TOO?!"

"Hey Sanji!" Luffy said, pushing Satori's head down so that he could see him. "Where have you been?"

"Once again, useless…" Zoro stated.

"What was that Moss Head?!" Sanji growled at him.

"Come on," he said, "After this you were out cold when Eneru attacked you. What good were you then?"

"Eneru attacked you, Sanji-san?" Brook asked at once.

"Oh, like you were any good yourself!" Sanji snapped.

"More useful than you were," Zoro said firmly. Thankfully memory Sanji was screaming at Luffy, and it distracted them from another fight.

"I WAS OUT COLD ON THE FOREST FLOOR!" he screamed, "WHERE ELSE WOULD I HAVE BEEN YOU IDIOT?!"

"You didn't have to yell like that," Chopper pointed out.

"I had a lot of stress here," Sanji answered as his past self calmed down almost at once as he said, "But that's beside the point…" he lit a cigarette and turned his attention back to Satori, "The point is you keep saying challenge this… and challenge that, which normally wouldn't interest me. However there are two helpless ladies who are waiting for me to come to their rescue… and I refuse to let them down. So I'm proposing this… and I think you'll like it," past Sanji said as he looked up, his face dark as finished, "Ordeal… of Love."

"That sounds so lame," Zoro said. But Satori freaked out and tried to escape, but Luffy stretched out his arms and legs and wrapped them around him to keep him from moving anywhere. Satori realized that he was trapped and began to scream out that they had no honor gaining up two against one.

"Funny, he didn't seem to have any problems with them before…" Franky pointed out.

"That was before he realized that he was screwed," Sanji smirked.

"We have no honor?" memory Sanji repeated in disgust. "You creeps kidnapped our friends and tried to murder a beautiful young angel! And you accuse us of not having any honor!"

"Yes! Now hurry and take him out!" Brook said, though he sounded a little cold, he couldn't forget what they tried to do to his crew and to Conis for trying to protect them.

Luffy smirked as he added to Satori, "I've been thinking… it's pretty amazing you're able to predict our movements…. But what good is that…? When you can't do anything to avoid them?"

"Nothing at all," Zoro smirked. He was going to enjoy this. Satori turned blue in the face and began to thrash around more desperately than ever… he screamed out that they release him at once. That he was a priest and not being judged by him was a first degree crime in Skypiea—that attacking him meant declaring war on Eneru.

"Yeah, but being judged by him means death…" Franky pointed out, "So I think that you should take your chances."

"And that's what we did," Sanji nodded. His past self and Luffy couldn't have cared less what Satori said anymore. Sanji then leaped high into the air and starts flipping over rapidly to gain speed, when he fell down, he brought the heel of his foot down on Satori's head, shattering his glasses and causing a few teeth to pop out of his head as he screamed and that was the end of the fight and the memory.

"Thank you… he couldn't have shut up any sooner," Zoro sighed. "I can't think of anything more humiliating than being beaten by a guy who looks like that."

"But I still don't get how he was able to do that," Chopper said, looking back up to Zoro. "Just what is Haki? And how can these guys use it? Can anyone learn it?"

Zoro sighed, "It's kinda hard to explain… but to this kind of Haki, it's known as the ability to hear…"

"To hear?" Brook repeated, sounding lost.

"Not just anyone can master it," Sanji admitted, "It took me months to even start to get the hang of it. And out of the three forms of Haki, it's probably the most common. But what Moss Head means is that it's the ability to sense the presence of others, even if they're far away or concealed. See, everyone has a kind of 'voice' and as long as you're alive, you're body emits this 'voice'. And if you practice long enough you can learn to hear this voice and foresee their moves."

"And how does that work?" Nami asked them in confusion, sitting on a falling tree trunk as she listened.

"Basically this prediction appears image or brief 'premonition' of what your opponent will do in your mind's eye," Zoro answered, "And you can actually foresee the kind of damage you'd take if that attack hit you. What I do know is that the more killing intent your opponent has, the easier it is to see. But once you fully master it, you can see it with everyone."

"But most people use it to just sense where someone is," Sanji finished.

"But how come Satori wasn't able to predict what Luffy pulled with the spheres?" Franky asked in confusion.

"Because Haki can't predict random attacks," Zoro answered. "Haki is linked with your opponent's own awareness of themselves and their surroundings. If you rely only on impulse or by surprise like Luffy did when he still held onto the string of clouds, you could lose your concentration."

"I see," Chopper said in amazement. So that must have been what happened when he defeated Gedatsu… he lost his own concentration…

"And the other Haki forms?" Nami asked.

"Later," Zoro stated as he pointed forward to see the next memory came up and they were continuing on once they found the boat. They had left the forest and had entered a rich grassy field, much like the one they had found Ace's and Whitebeard's graves in. Only there was something wrong here… there were skulls set up on stakes, scattered everywhere.

"This is horrible!" Chopper screamed in horror at all the skulls.

"SKULLS?!" Brook cried out and Usopp hit him over the head.

"You're hardly different from them don't ya think?!" he yelled at him.

"What… is this?!" Luffy gasped, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked ahead.

"My money is… this is where we're supposed to find the ordeal which means another priest," memory Sanji said, "So you two stay awake."

"We didn't want to have another incident like with those clouds do we?" Nami asked Usopp who looked down, once again kicking himself for how stupid he was here.

"Oh no…" memory Usopp moaned out, "I think one ordeal is enough of a nightmare today. Which one seems like it can be out here? String? Iron? Swamp? I'm so nervous!"

"Relax, it's just a grassy field!" Luffy told him.

"Open your eyes!" Usopp cried out with a strangled scream, "It's not just a field! It's a field with a thousand impaled skulls set up like trophies to scare us! And it's working!"

"This place sure isn't do your nerves any good is it bro?" Franky asked with a little laugh.

"No, it didn't," Usopp said seriously. "This place was giving me grave hairs by the time we left!"

Luffy looked over the edge and saw that he was right as they passed the skulls. "Yeah, you're right… I wonder who did this?"

"It had to be a priest of course!" Franky yelled out. But Robin was frowning a little as she passed them all.

"I don't think so," she disagreed with softly, "Eneru's men had only been here for about six years. Even if they had killed a person every single day here, I don't think that this would be enough… they're all much older than six years as well."

"Wait, what are you saying?" Nami asked, not getting what she was saying.

"If I has to guess, these had to be parts of the outcome of the war up here," she said.

"War? What war?" Brook asked startled.

"It's kinda a long story," Nami said as memory Usopp than began to cry again, gasping out that it had to be another one of those priest behind this and he was going to tear their bodies in half.

"Another priest with another ordeal? Sounds like fun!" Luffy said.

"You think he would've learned his lesson after that first priest," Nami said exasperatedly.

"He doesn't learn unless you beat it into him," Sanji said knowingly.

"Are you out of your mind?!" memory Usopp demanded, now sounding hysterical. "Those are heads on sticks back there! ON STICKS! That's gonna be us!"

"Oh don't worry so much Usopp, we'll beat 'em," Luffy said when they suddenly heard a blast a little ways of them. Looking up, several figures came bursting out and flying at them on those strange skates one again. One of them was carrying a large bazooka and noticed them as well when they flew overhead; he then flipped upside down and sent a cannonball at them, which Luffy reflected and redirected.

"What's his problem?" Zoro asked angrily. There were about four men in all, and when they saw Luffy inflate himself, they landed in the treetops, looking stunned as they stared at them.

"He looks familiar…" Brook said, noticing one of the men, the one with the bazooka. "More of his priests?"

"Not quite," Sanji muttered.

"WE'RE READY!" Luffy screamed at him angrily, now revved up for some action, "COME ON DOWN! WE'LL CREAM YOU! MAKE YOUR MOVE BIG GUY!"

That remark seemed to tick the man off, even at this distance. He then stood up and shouted back, "You sound and stink of Blue Sea People! Which means you're the ones causing all the chaos in Skypiea!"

"Guilty as charged," Zoro said proudly.

"It's what we do best," Sanji agreed. Memory Sanji then said quickly to Luffy that he was the one who attacked them when they first arrived, which only infuriated Luffy all the more.

"I thought he seemed familiar," Brook said, now recognizing the tattoos on the man's shoulder. Now that he could see his face, half of it was also covered with similar tribal marks that his arm had. He was also smoking a cigarillo when he glared down at them with cold eyes.

Memory Usopp screamed in fear, cowering in his seat as he cried out to just hurry up and blow them up to get it over with.

"Facing death with grace and dignity as always," Sanji teased.

"If you don't want to die, then go back to your Blue Sea immediately!" the man yelled, "Because I promise if you do anything stupid on this island… we'll execute you with Eneru!"

They were all startled to hear that he wanted to kill this so-called god. Sanji stated that these guys weren't like the Skypieans who didn't seem to have the nerve to stand up to him… but Usopp was now begging Luffy that if they weren't Eneru's priest there was no reason to fight them and that they should just sail on. But Luffy was too angry to listen—clearly wanting to go over there to fight him, but Usopp had to jump on him, keeping him down. But then the four of them disappeared, no longer interested in staying.

Memory Usopp laid back as Luffy stared after them. "I wonder why they're up here…" he said softly.

"I'm not sure," past Sanji said seriously, "Must be pretty serious. But they seem to be enemies of Eneru as well as us."

"You know…" Usopp whimpered softly, "I really do hate this place."

"Why did they want to kill Eneru?" Brook asked in confusion with the images fading around them. "And a war? There's been a war going on here?"

Deciding that now as probably as good a time as any, Nami explained that the Upper Yard was once the missing part of Jaya that was sent up in the sky four hundred years ago by the Knock-Up Stream. Its former habitants, the ancient Shandorians, were driven out by the Skypieans, whose greed caused them to successfully claim the land as their own. And because of that, for the last four hundred years, the Skypieans and Shandorians were at each other's throats to claim the Upper Yard.

"Fighting over this hunk of land for four centuries?!" Brook gasped out. "Couldn't they have solved this peacefully?"

"No," Zoro said, "Apparently neither side was willing to let go of the Upper Yard."

"But, Gan Fall, the Sky Knight had been the leader of the Skypieans before Eneru arrived had been trying to work out a peace treaty with the Shandorians," Nami added, "But before everyone could come to an agreement…?"

"I see," Brook said softly. It must've been hard for Gan Fall to see all this happening and be unable to do anything to have prevent it.

"That's why he decided to become the Sky Knight," Nami finished up, "So that he could at least do something to protect the people up here. Because after Eneru invaded Skypiea and took over, things just got so much worse here."

"Wait!" Franky gasped out. "If this land was once part of Jaya, does that mean… does that mean that this part of Jaya is the City of Gold that Noland talked about?"

"That's right," Robin nodded, "The City of Gold didn't sink into the sea like he thought, but rather it had been up here in the sky all this time."

"This is all incredible!" Brook said in awe. "To think…?"

"Yeah," Sanji sighed as the next memory appeared before them, "But this place had a hell of a lot of problems despite the fact that we're so close to heaven. This place was as far away from 'Godland' as you can imagine."

"But the war's over now isn't it?" Franky asked at once. "Right?"

Robin only smiled and put her finger to her lips, silently telling him that they'll know soon enough. The next memory was of them continuing to ride the Crow along the Milky Roads, only now the sun was going down. The sky was a mixture of red and gold's… and they knew that it wasn't going to be much longer before the sun set.

"I'm surprised that they have sunsets up here," Franky said, looking at the slowly sinking sun.

"I think we all were, but I suppose it has to get dark up here while the sun is on the other side of the world," Nami offered. They were now following the Crow as it took a road that was climbing over the largest tree that any of them had ever seen. Luffy's eyes were wide like a child's as memory Usopp began muttering that he had a bad feeling that something bad was waiting for them over that treetop, he was sure of it.

It turned out to be a right guess when they got to the top, it led to an incredibly unsafe drop. And like they were on a rollercoaster, they went into almost a free fall, sliding down at a break-neck speed. Memory Sanji suddenly called over the rush of the wind, "Do you see them down there?!"

"Not another priest!" Brook called in worry.

"Are those the priests?!" memory Usopp cried fearfully.

"No, just Sky Sharks," past Sanji said and Usopp sighed in relief, "Oh thank goodness… I thought for sure that we were goners—WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SKY SHARKS?!"

"Sharks that live in the sky I suppose," Robin laughed a little as they spotted them. Franky gave a sharp intact of breath and Brook screamed. Sharks, the size of whales, bright blue with stripes were there at the bottom of their descent, their mouths filled with razor sharp teeth, and large enough to swallow them whole, were wide open. Memory Usopp started panicking, but Luffy took care of them all by jumping to the Crow's head and used a Gatling Gun and punching each one of them out cold. Once the danger was out of the way, they ended up skidding to a rough stop in what looked like a lake of clouds—and splashed water everywhere.

"Boy! This place really is trying to kill you!" Franky yelled, looking at all the sharks that were floating everywhere behind them.

"Yeah, but we finally came across a break here," Sanji smiled triumphantly as he pointed to the front. Luffy also noticed it as he gasped and yelled to the other two once they got their bearings, "Check it out! We found it! There's the altar with the Going Merry sitting right on top!" He was right, on the top of a pyramid-shaped structure was the ship, and over on the shore were Nami, Robin, and Zoro… all of them alive and unscathed.

"ALRIGHT!" Franky cheered as he punched the air. "YA DID IT! AND EVERYONE'S ALRIGHT TOO!"

"But what happened to the Merry-chan?" Brook asked anxiously. Even from this far away, they could see that the ship was a mess. She was burnt in several places and the mast was lying at the foot of the stairs that led up to it. But none of them seemed to have noticed it at first… Luffy and the others were all so glad to see them, to meet familiar faces that weren't trying to kill them, they started to cheer and celebrate. It was a touching scene. They went over to the shore to pick up the three there before they headed to the foot of the stairs and raced up to be greeted by a big hug from Chopper…

But Chopper was in just as rough shape as the boat… his fur was scorched, and there still bleeding cuts—he had covered his chest with bandages as he had treated his own injuries.

"What happened to you, Chopper-san?!" Brook cried out.

Chopper sighed unhappily as his past self told them that soon after Zoro, Nami and Robin headed off in to the woods, a priest called Shura appeared at the Sacrificial Altar to take care of the 'offering'. He was burning everything around him with his lance and bird that breathed fire—and managed to destroy parts of the Merry before he finally got bored and tried to kill Chopper.

"So he must've been the one with the Ordeal of Swamp or String…" Zoro said with a frown, wishing that he had stuck around at the altar himself to fight this guy.

"It must've been String," Chopper said, suddenly remembering when Gan Fall and his bird couldn't move, just stuck in midair… that must've been string that was holding him trapped there… invisible string or something like that?

After hugs all around, asking each other if they were alright—with Sanji particularly asking the women, who informed him that they were just fine—memory Usopp finally noticed what was left of the mast and asked what happened. Past Chopper tried to apologize… letting him know that he tried everything he could to protect the ship, but that priest kept burning everything.

"We all know that you must've done your best, Chopper," Nami told him gently as she crouched down to meet him at eye level.

Chopper shifted uncomfortably, still wishing that he had been strong enough to fight that guy off and protect the memory. If he hadn't called Gan Fall there, then he wouldn't have been so seriously hurt. He sighed, before he looked up, trying to remind himself that he wasn't that same person anymore. He was a monster who could protect Luffy and his friends. Nodding firmly to that, he watched as memory Usopp nodded slowly, telling Chopper not to worry about the ship, that they'll figure it out later and was just glad that he was alright.

At his words, memory Chopper looked ready to cry as he ran to the edge of the ship, climbed up it and began to declare to the rest of the world, "I PROMISE TO BECOME A MORE RELIABLE MAN STARTING RIGHT NOW!"

"And you have become one," Sanji laughed a little.

"It's all a matter of confidence," Robin added and Chopper told them both to be quiet, that he didn't want to hear anymore compliments from them even if they did make him happy… which he said that they didn't.

Luffy told him to stop yelling at the altar and asked how he was able to get rid of that priest. Memory Chopper looked back and explained that he used the whistle to call Gan Fall. In the nick of time, the Sky Knight appeared and the two fought a battle in the sky. After an even match, Shura used his ordeal to trap Gan Fall and pierce him with his lance. Chopper then took them all inside the cabin to where he had been tending to his wounds, promising that though he was badly injured, he had a good chance of recovering if he rested.

"Wow… what a guy…" Franky sniffled, tears falling and his lip trembling as he realized this. "He risked his life so much to do what he thought was right… what a guy…"

"We owe him three times now," Zoro said as Luffy crouched down at Gan Fall's bedside and said softly, "He was willing to sacrifice this much for us… even though he gave us that whistle for free."

"That only makes it all the more heroic!" Franky sobbed out dramatically.

"If it wasn't for the Sky Knight, you guys probably wouldn't have a ship and I'd for sure be dead," Chopper said softly.

"I've got a bunch of questions for him," memory Sanji stated, but his serious tone had respect and gratitude it in. "But I guess I'll wait until he wakes up," he finished before he glanced to Pierre and added a thanks to him as well. They soon decided to move to land and make camp there for the night; with Usopp explaining to Luffy in annoyance that if they were attacked, their ship would be the first to take a beating and they couldn't risk her suffering any more damage than she had so far.

After they watch them take the Crow over to shore, they got their camp set up. It was strange how causal everyone was acting after everything that had happened today… Luffy complained about being hungry and hauled one of the Sky Sharks out of the water so that Sanji could roast it over the fire for him. They set up the tents and Chopper made some medicine for Luffy, Sanji, Usopp and Gan Fall—before passing some medicinal herbs to Robin and Sanji, asking them to grind it up for him for the old man.

None of them said much as memory Usopp set up a chalkboard and turned to the others, getting their attention. "Quiet down now!" he called, "It's time to hear everyone's field reports!"

Sanji, still grinding up the medicine, spoke first, "We ran into this priest named Satori who uses spheres with different kinds of threats inside each one. Explosives, dragons, the usual… but what really hung us out to dry in the fight was that this guy kept predicting our moves with a power called Mantra or something."

"If he didn't have that ability he would've been easy to take care of," Sanji said darkly.

"Excuses," Zoro stated softly.

"The priest who attacked me was named Shura and he used a spear that set fire to anything!" memory Chopper then spoke up, "He seemed like he could predict my moves just like that Satori guy and I tried and tried to attack him but he…" he trailed off, sounding ashamed, "He… he dodged me every single time. Then the bird he was riding burnt down the mast and the Sky Knight was defeated."

Nami patted Chopper's shoulder in a consoling way as he sighed.

"Sounds like you all had a rough time," memory Nami say sympathetically. "Well, what we found is that this island we're on is actually the missing part of Jaya! You see the City of Gold didn't sink into the ocean… but it was shot into the sky like us."

"How did you figure that out?" Brook suddenly asked her.

"When we went looking around the island, we found the other half to Cricket's house here," Nami answered.

"Wait! The other half?!" Franky yelled in shock.

"It's not important," Zoro said as their past selves were letting the news sink in them all.

Memory Usopp called victoriously after he finished writing it all down on the board. "Excellent work!" he cried to them all, "Now… based on your reports… we learned that the priests can predict our movements with a power they like to call Mantra! And the bird blows flames and the spear burns you! But most importantly we learned this!" he jabbed at the board with a stick at the notes, "The City of Gold is not a thousand leagues under the sea like we thought! But is hidden somewhere on this very island!"

"Wow, after all the trouble we went through to get here, who would've imagined that it'd be the City of Gold?" Nami whispered to herself.

"Did you guys find a lot of gold?!" Brook asked excitedly.

"Yeah, we found tons of it!" Chopper said eagerly. "But we actually found it in…"

But before he could finish, Luffy was yelling out in shock at what Usopp said, "NO WAY!"

"That was the first thing I told you!" memory Nami yelled at him in frustration. But Zoro and Sanji both began a conversation, sounding civil with each other for once, about what Mantra was all about. Sanji offered that perhaps it was some kind of sixth sense that you could only learn up here, which Zoro looked highly doubtful here.

But it was clear that there was only one thing on Luffy's mind as he stood up, his eyes shining as he whispered in wonder, "This is it! An adventure with gold at the end! I can't wait!"

"Now that was an adventure that I had no problems getting behind," current Nami smiled.

"You glad that you went back to this place?" Franky asked teasingly as she laughed a little.

"While I can't say that going through everything we had to go through to find the city was something I had wanted to do, at least it worked out in the end," she said with a shrug.

Her past self was smiling at Luffy, and even gave him a wink as she said, "Glad to see someone on my side. I'm ready!"

"Luffy no," past Usopp said, turning pale again as the excitement quickly drained out of his face. "Did you forget what the scary Guerrilla guy said about execution?"

"Why should we have worried about that guy anyway?" current Zoro asked him in a bored tone.

"God will be… really mad," Chopper said nervously.

"Good," present-day Sanji nodded smugly. Anything that made that wanna-be god miserable was good in his book.

Past Robin giggled to herself. "Sounds like fun," she said, sounding excited for the chance to look at this ancient city with her own eyes.

"What is wrong with you people?" current Usopp whispered. How could anyone think that going through all this be fun?!

"Well, we wouldn't be very good pirates if we turned our backs on gold," past Sanji reasoned with a smirk, "So let's not."

"You would have been a disgrace to all pirates if you did that," Franky nodded with a laugh. "I mean… who in their right mind would think of walking out on a chance to see a city made of gold?"

"Won't be easy," past Zoro added with an evil grin, "You know everyone up here already hates us. Which means I'm in."

"Yeah, and this way, when we did get our hands on it, it's not like we'd have a guilty conscience would we?" current Zoro added, nodding with what his past self said.

"Come on," memory Usopp said tearfully, "Aren't you even a little frightened by the wrath of god? I mean… I wanna live don't you!?"

But they were all smiling, each one of them had clearly made up their minds about what they were going to do, and Luffy only confirmed it as he stood up tall, laughing his head off as he declared, "GOLD! AND IT'S ALL WAITING FOR US!"

The memory then faded as the present-day Straw Hats all looked among themselves.

"Truly something worth seeing!" Brook said in wonder. "A City of Gold! I cannot wait! This just gets more and more exciting with every memory!"

"It really was a sight to see," Robin agreed. Even without the gold, it was still a gorgeous place to see… a city worthy of being called the Golden City.

In the next memory, all the Straw Hats were gathered around the fire, enjoying some stew from a large cooking pot that Sanji obviously prepared for them all, and memory Nami had her glasses on as she was speaking to them all, "Anyway, let's review Noland's Logbook. He discovered the City of Gold four hundred years ago. However after leaving the island and returning with his king, he discovered that the gold ruins had vanished. Luckily we now know what happened to these ruins."

"And Noland was telling the truth all that time!" Franky said firmly. "I knew it! You guys gotta tell that Cricket this!"

"Don't worry, I think he got the message," Nami told him with a little smile.

However, before past Nami went on, there was a loud clanging noise. Apparently Sanji had hit Luffy over the head with the pot's lid for something again. Getting ticked off, past Nami was telling him off before he retorted something about Luffy's manners. Looking annoyed at the boys, past Nami turned back to the others and started to talk about how it had to have been the Knock-Up Stream that brought this place to the sky.

"That I can believe," Franky said, thinking of that giant pillar of water they rode on the way up here. He really couldn't see any other way they could've gotten here. Not without some kind of miracle anyway…

"Do you really think a whole island could've done that?" memory Chopper asked her as he passed several bowls to the others.

"Well, it's the only thing that makes sense," past Nami answered, "Remember, Cricket said whenever this phenomenon occurs it's in a different location."

"Yeah, and if a particularly powerful Knock-Up Stream had burst right beneath Jaya, I suppose that it wouldn't be hard to imagine it…" Robin agreed as she nodded in thought. Memory Usopp agreed with them all, stating how enormous the explosion was and he wasn't surprised that it lifted up part of an island.

Memory Zoro looked up at the trees, muttering that he found it hard to believe that this giant forest was the same one they saw back on Jaya. Past Robin agreed, but also stated that there must've been something special about the environment here in the clouds that dramatically increased growth rate—just looking at the trees and animals they had seen. Memory Chopper added that it had been a large flock of South Birds who saved him and Gan Fall; and they were at least ten times bigger than the ones they saw on Jaya. At those words, Sanji then asked Chopper why those birds saved them, and the little reindeer confessed that he wasn't sure about that, but he did say that when he woke up and saw them there, they referred to the Sky Knight as god.

They stared at him. "HE'S GOD?!" Luffy screamed out, food actually falling from his mouth as he pointed wildly over his shoulder at the sleeping knight, "SO IF WE BEAT THE CRUD OUTTA THIS GUY THEN OUR JOB HERE IS DONE?!"

"Where'd he come up with that?" Nami demanded.

"Well, all we heard was that 'god' was the one behind all the suffering here," Zoro offered as memory Usopp began yelling at Luffy, before Nami brought them back to the matter at hand, asking if any of them remembered what Noland wrote about in his log about the City of Gold.

"The last thing he wrote in his log before he died is something odd," memory Robin answered, "It's something I still can't figure out, even after seeing this island. It said that the City of Gold was in the skull's right eye."

"That's it!" past Nami declared before she went to the two maps with her.

"But what does that mean?" Franky asked in bewilderment.

But memory Nami was pulling out two maps and was spreading them out in front of her. "I matched up Robin's map of Jaya… along with the old Skypiea map that we found in the shipwreck," she said, carefully folding one of the maps and putting them together like a puzzle. As everyone got up and went over to see what she was talking about she added, "Of course, this isn't exact and there may be some incorrect overlap… but if you match up the location of Cricket house with the broken one we found up here… this is what Jaya looked like four hundred years ago!"

And as Franky and Brook towered over the memory selves to get a good look at the map, they realized what it was that she was talking about.

"Neat!" Luffy said beaming, "It's a skull!"

"It is a skull!" memory Chopper chirped.

"OW! Way ta go sis!" Franky yelled, giving her the thumbs up.

She laughed proudly, her hand behind her head as she said, "Well, it was just a hunch… and I remembered seeing the two halves of Cricket's house and I decided to give it a chance. And boy did it pay off."

"And according to this we aren't that far away from there the City is supposed to be!" Brook added happily.

"Yes, only a few miles," Robin agreed. The memory Straw Hats had a bright shine in their eyes and they were already starting to celebrate until Usopp asked exactly where in the Skull's Right eye they were supposed to look. Memory Nami figured that out as well as she pointed to a small monument in the center of the eye. "It's the one structure that's actually inside the eye," she explained. "And no one's found it yet because of all the people who've tried, we're the ones with both maps!"

They were all getting excited, some of them looked like they were ready to go off into the forest now for it. But Nami came up with the game plan. Since they couldn't leave the ship unguarded, it was decided that in morning they would break the crew into two groups. And hopefully by this time tomorrow they would have more gold than they ever dreamed as well as finally leave this island behind.

The present-day Straw Hats watched them finish their meal and talk excitedly about their plans, each sounding as crazy as the next… but past Nami was promising them that they would think of something after they fixed the ship and got her off the altar. It was funny to watch as some of the boys were starting to get into an argument with Nami about having a big bonfire or to put it out. The boys were all for the idea, but Nami was getting angry, reminding them of the danger that they were all in and that the forest didn't need any help in killing them. But as they argued, they had some more unexpected visitors… a large pack of Cloud Wolves appeared.

After a few harsh words exchanged, and Nami ended up clobbering the leader of the pack, they seemed to have developed a grudging respect. And no one was able to see how it happened, but to their amazement, it ended up becoming a party—the Straw Hats and the Cloud Wolves were all dancing, singing and laughing around the fire—the festival of the Eve of the Gold Hunt…

And they were all laughing at the scene, Franky, Brook, Usopp, and Chopper had joined the dance around the fire with the past versions of them all—and were really disappointed when the memory faded around them.

"It's over?" Franky asked in huge disappointment. "Damn! And that was the best part!"

"That was a great night," Nami laughed a little nostalgically.

"I think we party enough don't you?" Usopp asked him.

"Nonsense! You can never party too much!" Franky laughed as the next memory was of a hazy morning and they were standing at the foot of the stair of the altar. Memory Usopp was pointing wildly to the ship, yelling to the others and practically crying, "It's true! I wasn't dreaming! Someone was here last night!"

They glanced up in time to see that the Merry had been repaired. They climbed the stairs to see that the ship was now full of miss-matched patches. But the mast was put back where it was before and the sides were fixed with extra boards—even the flying gear had also been taken off her so she looked as she always been. Frowning a little, Franky went over to the front of the ship so that he could get a good look at her, having a bad feeling about this.

"I knew it!" memory Usopp yelled out, "See guys, I told you I wasn't insane!" He was then crying as if he was relieved to know that as well just as Nami put her hand on the mast, looking pleased, and unable to believe it. "Hey, now that's service!"

"I'll say," Robin chuckled a little. "Can you imagine… what a chore it would've been just to stay something this heavy upright?"

"Wait, you mean that none of you repaired the ship?" Brook asked in surprise. Usopp lowered his head, unable to look at him as Chopper said, "No… it was like this when we woke up."

"But who repaired it for you?" Brook asked, now completely baffled as memory Sanji said, "I hate to say it. But they did a lousy job."

"You ingrate!" current Usopp yelled at their own cook. "After all that, you go and complain?!"

"Just making a statement," he answered softly as Luffy laughed happily that whoever did sure was nice. Memory Usopp was now pacing the deck, saying that he knew that he saw someone here last night.

"Who?" Brook asked, not understanding.

"Well, for a long time I didn't know," Usopp admitted, "It was really foggy… but…" but for some reason he couldn't go on. Just thinking about the Merry, and how she had actually gained a life of its own, giving up everything for them, was more painful than anything else he could think of.

Thankfully, memory Zoro was speaking again, asking how he couldn't see how anyone would want to help them. As far as he knew, the only other people up here with them were their enemies so why would any of them want to risk crossing a river of Sky Sharks to fix their ship? As memory Chopper swung happily from rope called to Usopp, asking who he thought he saw, though Usopp couldn't think of an answer to that.

But for Nami, the curiosity had worn off and she told them that it didn't matter anymore and that they still had a lot of work to do. As they started to get to work they heard memory Usopp whisper to the ship, "How could he have possibly known? Come on Merry… just tell me who I saw."

"It was certainly kind whoever it was to fix up the Merry-chan," Brook said kindly.

"Doesn't matter," Franky said, and for the first time, he sounded surprisingly bitter. They all looked at him in surprise as memory Usopp and Chopper headed back down the stairs to the Crow to try and figure out a way to get the ship off the altar.

"Look," Franky said sourly from the front. They joined him and he pointed gloomily to the hull of the boat.

"See this?" he asked, "I didn't really pay much attention to it at first, but this is the damage that Bellamy loser dealt it when he broke her in half like that. The keel's completely split down the middle. To be honest, I'm impressed that you were able to get her up the Knock-Up Stream with her in this condition."

"Wait!" Chopper gasped out, "You mean the Merry's already unrepairable?!"

Franky sighed grimly and that was all the answer that they need. Usopp stared wide-eye at the beloved ship and friend. So even from this moment she was already doomed? He supposed he always knew, but to hear it firsthand…? It felt as if someone had squeezed his heart.

"Just another reason to hate that Bellamy bastard," Sanji snarled, punching his fists together, "If I ever see him again, I'm breaking that face of his!"

"M-Merry!" Chopper cried out miserably. But as he rubbed the tears from his eyes, memory Usopp and Chopper were in the Crow and now making their way around the altar—in the end, Usopp came up with an idea. Using his Usopp AAaaaAAAaaaAA, he was able to hook it around the Merry's bow and tried to pull it off themselves. However, the Crow just didn't have enough strength for something like this. But Usopp soon came up with another way…

"Are you using Chopper as bait?" Franky asked with a deadpanned expression as Usopp hung Chopper to a large pole like a fishing line and tried to tempt a Sky Shark to eat him.

"I FORGOT ABOUT THAT!" Chopper screamed furiously, his sadness over the Merry forgotten for the moment. "YOU ALMOST GOT ME EATEN!"

"It was the only way to get the ship off there!" Usopp said loudly, "I'd never really let them eat you!"

It was proven so since memory Usopp was able to hook the rope onto the sharp and used its strength to heave the ship off the altar, down the stairs, and back into the water. After they took the time to untie Chopper, calm him down, and convince him that they were his friends, memory Nami pulled out the map and came up with the plan.

"That was still cold bro," Franky muttered as Usopp muttered an apology to Chopper who turned his back on him, looking angry.

Since Luffy and Robin insisted on going to the City of Gold, and Nami had to stay on the Merry to guide it out of the Upper Yard and to the meeting place, she came up with the two teams. "Ok, let's look at the map," she said, pulling out her pencil and began drawing arrows on it. "The exploration team will be taking this route… moving south," she said, drawing an arrow directly to the right eye. "There should be some old ruins near the skull's right eye. Keep an eye out for enemies and bring back that gold!" she told them.

"Huh… you make it sound so easy," memory Zoro said.

"Yeah, it was anything but easy," current Zoro muttered darkly, thinking of those Shandorians who attacked him, getting carried off by that giant South Bird, almost eaten by a giant snake, and crashing right into the middle of a battle. What a horrible day…

"I'm looking forward to investigating those old ruins," past Robin said smiling widely.

"Hold on," Luffy said, looking to Nami, "You're the one who keeps talking about gold and more gold but you're not coming?"

"Well, of course not," she said, "It's way too scary."

"Oh, and that makes it all better?" current Zoro asked in aggravation.

"Shut up Moss Head!" Sanji snapped at him, "Nami-swan has every reason to be afraid!"

Memory Nami seemed to notice the look on Chopper's face and gave him a dark look, asking if he said anything and he shook his head hurriedly as she went back to the map. "We'll be in danger too you know," she added, "We'll be taking the Merry downriver through the island. Then, we head for the beach near the ruins as fast as possible." She drew the arrows so that even a child could understand them. "We'll met up here," she finished, pointing to a spot near the right eye, "And then we can escape this stupid Sky Island." She sighed happily as she thought about it, muttering dreamily, "At long last we'll be a rich and powerful pirate crew! Able to buy anything!"

"Yeah! What are we waiting for?! Let's get this party started!" Franky yelled happily.

The groups were divided with Luffy, Zoro, Chopper, and Robin in the group going to get the gold—while Nami, Usopp and Sanji were to stay on the Merry with Gan Fall and Pierre and hopefully meet up with them.

"Ok," past Zoro said agreeably as they all picked up their bags after Sanji packed them all box lunches, "We'll all meet safely on the east coast!"

Nami sighed as she watched them attach the Crow to the back of the Merry so that they would be able to travel along the Milky Road. Why couldn't anything they do be as simple as it sounds and go as planned? But she put it out of her mind, knowing that there was no sense in worrying about it now. The Merry stopped by the south shore, were the four of them jumped to land. They hung around long enough to wave the Merry off before they turned and went their separate ways for the day.

(VERY IMPORTANT! READ THIS NEXT PART! First off, I've been hearing a lot of complaints about the anime lately… how we got another filler arc and that we won't be going right into Dressrosa right away. I don't know why everyone is so surprised? We get one of those arcs at the end of every major arc, so why would we stop now? Anyway, just wanted to say that… and also, I hope you really enjoyed this chapter. And I'm sorry to say that this will be the final chapter of this year. I decided to take a short break from this story and try to focus on getting some of the others done so that I'll have less to worry about you know? And with the holidays coming up, I don't have much time these days, but I wanted to at least finish this chapter for you all. So please accept this chapter as an early Christmas present from me. But I do promise that I will have the next chapter up first thing on January first… as a way to kick off the New Year. I hope you look forward to it.)