Heeeeey everybody...god i know it's been waaaaaay too long and I could go on an on for excuses, but i wont, cuz yeah...ugh. let's just say chronic depression started it and then a bunch of family drama continued it...so! now that that's outta the way, here we are finishing up Skypiea! woo! took far longer than I expected to reach this point and sadly we are coming up to just shy of all the pre-written material I've got left...which is another reason this took so darn long...and ugh ALLLLLLL of my writing had been in Microsoft WORD so of course when my account for microsoft's subscription ended I couldn't really DO anything with my stories besides read them...so I pretty much transcribed by hand all 47 pages of this chapter onto google doc's and that took some time, let me tell ya...still gotta do it for all my other documents unless I find a worka-round that lets me copy/paste out of word and into google doc's...so if you see any typo's, opps...i often was doing the transcribing until the point of nearly passing the F**k out lol

(is it weird to write a character who curses so much yet irL you'll almost never hear me say curse words? lol...i sure think so!)

anyways! hope you like the long chapter after such a long absence! :D

also, wanted to give a major shout out for the last three people who fave/followed the story, you guys gave me the swift kick in the tush as a reminder that yeah people still read my P.o.S story and are interested in my idea/s, SO! thank you so much! seriously, can't put into words how much that helped finish pulling my head outta that numb state that long term depression can dump you in, so really again, thank you, and thank you for everyone else who've continued to read/follow/check on the story. it truly means a lot :)

My first reaction to waking?

Slapping the offending person that was shaking me silly, of course.

When i realized it was Will that was doing the shaking, I have him my best frumpled (((my word for frustrated, grumpy, and rumpled mixed together lol ))) mock glare and calmly told him that he was on the top of this month's Shit List^™.

Naturally, he went pale with the appropriate amount of dread at such news. Usopp would learn…they all would.

Usopp, Nami and Aisa's voices drew my attention away from tormenting my little brother, who i was ignoring giving out a sigh of relief as I turned my attention elsewhere.

"Damn, everyone is down!?" Usopp was clutching his head in his panic as he looked over all of our nakama that were still out of it.

I was dismayed to see just how severe Zoro's wounds were.

Robin had been given first aid to Wyper and Zoro, the worst of our crispy fried group, but she only had a basic skill level in said medical feild.

With Will's aid, I made my way over to everyone and in Chopper's stead, checked everyone's wounds.

Good news.

They were all alive and would stay that way so long as infection didn't set in. Which, once Chopper woke, wouldn't be a problem for the (sometimes) diminutive doctor.

I sighed in relief and sat back to thank Robin as Nami screeched, "What!? Luffy went UP the vine…!?"

Aisa's following shout that it was in order to rescue Nami was downed out with Will and I's snort of amused denial.

"What!? He did!" she defended our captain with an angry scowl on her adorable little face that still held all the adorableness of childhood baby fat in her cheeks.

I shook my head as Will said, "No, I'm sure that's on Luffy's mind, but I doubt he's actually planning on JUST rescuing Nami. His plan probably is 'kick Eneru's ass, and THEN rescue Nami'...maybe ring the bell if he's near it."

Usopp pointed to the sky that was ever growing in inky darkness and exclaimed loudly, "we are running out of time? We need to leave quickly!?

Nami looked up and in less than a minute had calculated that if she was able to get up to the top of the beanstalk with the waiver while the rest of us raced back to the Merry, then we'd still have plenty of time, even if the whole island was destroyed.

I looked up at the sky and asked, "uh, not to be a stick in the mud, but wouldn't it be easier to ask Neal to catch up with Luffy and haul him up to the right height?"

She shook her head and pointed to some of our still downed crewmates and explained, "we need to get them to the Merry as quickly and safely as possible…"

Right as Nami finished explaining her reasoning, all hell broke loose.

I almost mean that literally….

Lightning rained down from the black sky, utterly vaporizing everywhere it touched that wasn't solid earth/dirt. Nami had us quickly scramble to move everyone over to a patch of dirt when a blast that was too big for her to redirect came near us.

Aisa, while young, was a strong little girl. She was the one to drag the unconscious Horse-Bird, who was in bird form, over when we were scrambling to move.

Usopp had dragged Sanji while together, Will and I had managed to move Zoro and Robin cradled a slumbering Chopper in her arms. Nami was left pushing her waiver.

Even with Nami's timely prediction on needing to move, Aisa and Usopp were still flung into the air, flipping ass over tea kettle. When Usopp managed to sit up his own power again, he yelled, "that last thunder strike was waaaay to close!"

Nami told us to go back to the ship while she caught up to Luffy and I nodded, heading to Zoro alongside Robin to grab my sword from Zoro's hand.

I had to pry my sword out of his grip, making me raise my eyebrow in confusion, as last I'd known it had been in my hand when Eneru had blasted me into oblivion.

It was like trying to pry a welded nail out of a sheet of iron…that is to say, nearly impossible…

Impossible wasn't going to stop me when my beloved friends and family were in danger though, so after pushing down on one of the few pressure points in a persons hand that triggers an automatic release of water their gripping, i managed to extract my sword from his hand and return it to its sheath.

Usoop hefted Sanji and Robin (still cradling Chopper) planned to use her Devil Fruit to move Wyper and Gan Fall the way she had apparently done earlier with copies of her feet beneath their backs. The thought of which almost made me a bit green.

I was not a 'feet' kind of person.

Used to annoy Tashigi to hell and back with all my demands for her to never not wear socks in my presence. Even though i was completely fine with seeing feet in sandals and other similar types of shoes, i just couldn't stand seeing bare feet….something i felt i had to keep secret from Captain since he had a propensity for losing his damn sandlas whenever he had a serious fight to the death with an enemy boss…ewww…

Only problem? Wyper managed to stand up and regain consciousness before Robin could sprout any of her 'feet' on him. She'd been getting Zoro ready for transport, (aka grow her bare feet from his back…) when he too woke up. This left only our doctor left to wake as Gan Fall proved to be up and going, sitting up before Zoro.

Aisa called to Wyper but he could only stare transfixed out at the landscape of their ancestral homeland being destroyed by Eneru's non discriminate lightning barrage.

I had a sneaky feeling when just looking at it that it was at the point beyond Eneru's control of being able to stop. Similar to how everyone had told us about Crocodiles sandstrom tornadoes, once the storm got to a certain size, it was beyond stopping by mortal means.

I felt bad for the guy; he'd put his and everyone of his men's lives on the line to find it. To defeat their enemy that had kept them from reclaiming their homeland, but now…

Now everything was being destroyed.

For a long moment, he just stared at the destruction being wrought before he finally said in a whisper, voice choked with so much emotion that it was impossible to distinguish just what he could possible be feeling as he said, "what rights do you have, Eneru…to take everything away from us!?"

Meanwhile, Usopp was in full blown panic mode, screaming out nonstop, "Shit! Shit~~~~~~Shit! The madness will not end! Le….let's just get out of here!"

There was a large flash of blinding white-blue as lightning poured down along the side of the beanstalk, bringing with it the remaining area of God's Shrine that had been above the upper ruins that Zoro (now holding Chopper), Wyper and I had fallen from earlier.

Eneru must have decided to personally blow it up.

Once the light from the lighting faded away,, leaving only smoking ruins around us, wyper, having not moved from where he stood, turned to us and asked Robin, "by the way, did you say something about a golden bell…?"

Robin nodded and Usopp asked tensely, "what bell?"

Gan Fall looked over and asked softly, "a Bell?"

I shrugged, having not been awake yet, (and hadn't received that play by blay from everyone yet…)

"The Bell is Eneru's next destination, do you know where it is?" Wyper asked gruffly.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! Why are we talking about the bell? Shouldn't we be running away!?" Usopp interjected with raised arms out to Wyper and Robin, while Robin just pointed to the beanstalk and said simply, "it's up the stalk. Somewhere near the top, I think…"

Usopp was still uselessly trying to convince everyone that we needed to leave NOW and that our best bet was to follow Nami's plan of leaving everything to Luffy, but they were too busy having a staring contest with each other.

Robin explained, "the giant stalk penetrated the land trhough the center of Shandora. If I remember correctly, the bell was located at the center of the city so theoretically, the bell should be somewhere further up the stalk."

I turned to Robin and asked, "soooo what bell are we talking about here? I feel like I missed something important…."

Zoro leaned to me and whispered, "the one from Cricket's family log book…"

I whispered back, "ohhhh, that one…"

On my other side, Will and Neal nodded once, having heard Zoro's explanation.

There was a loud crack from above and we all whipped our heads to face skywards, seeing the very tip of the beanstalk was broken from an angled blow of lightning.

I scowled as I thought, "that fucker needs to cool it before I find a soapy water bucket and douse him…"

Before I could contemplate just where i could even get a bucket of soapy water to dump over the bastards head, Aisa's voice drew everyones attention from the top of the beanstalk down to Wyper as he tried to make his way up the fucking beanstalk…

It was one thing for Luffy to run up the thing, he was relatively unharmed and ready to fight the big fight; Wyper, however, was NOT.

"Wyper! You'll die if you start climbing now! You'll never get to him anyways! He's flying!" Aisa yelled as she tugged on his loincloth in an effort to stop him.

"I really, really hop he's wearing SOMETHING under that animal skin wrap…would hate it if it got tugged off from her overzealous attempts to stop him and be scarred for life by the sight of his surely hairy ass." I thought as the loincloth dipped a little further down his hips due to her efforts.

The two Shandian's froze as silence descended on our little rag tag group. Everyone but Usopp was staring at me for some reason, and as Wyper's face went from beet red and reached down to tug his loincloth back into place, I realized I'd said that last thought of mine out loud again.

"Ops, sorry!" I muttered red faced in embarrassment.

Usopp. Thank god, the real one, not that asshat pretender above us, chose that moment to draw all of our attention to the tip of the beanstalk falling down.

His shout had just barely given us all time to throw ourselves back and away from the beanstalk as the tip drive itself into the island cloud.

Robin was the first to find her voice, asking retorically, "what is going on up there…?"

Usopp freaked, yelling, "oh no! Luffy!? Anyone see Luffy's corpse anywhere!?"

Will smacked him upside the head as he sat up from where he'd landed, saying as he stood up, "knock it off, have a little faith will ya? Luffy's made of RUBBER, even a fall like that wouldn't kill him."

Usopp gave a huge sigh of relief as Aisa's little voice scolded the wounded Shandian warrior, "Wyper! See? I told you. You can't climb now!"

Wyper's nose was bleeding, and I hated to consider it was caused to damage to his brain, as he panted out around his pain, "the bell is right above us…I'm so close to fulfilling Great Calgara's wish…"

Before he could finish his thoughts, a beam of sunlight ringgit around the beanstalk, making us all look up (again) our nakama hoping it was a sign that Luffy had won his fight, but at the sight of the perfectly sphere of black clouds, I knew that the timing wasn't just yet for such a victory.

Eneru must be pulling out his trump cards…

The cloud moved to hover over a distant part of the island, Gan Fall pointing out that it was right above the area where Angel Island was located at, finishing with asking if he was dreaming because he couldn't believe his eyes…

I whispered, "if this were a dream, I'd have my sister and mother here, but since their not, I hate to break it to ya, but this is reality."

Usopp was shaking and mumbling about some made up disease that invovolved sky islands and lightning. For once, I agreed with the kid.

The black cloud spere condensed in on itself and then lowered down to Angel Island and, well, there's no other word to describe it than that it exploded into a gigantic ball of pure lightning.

I was stupid and didn't look away in time, sonow i was blinking spots out of my eyes, partially blind from the intensity of the explosion.

Beside me, everyone else hadn't fared much better.

In its wake was a massive hole in the sky. Even the White-White Sea clouds had been totally obliterated by the blast.

All of us, even the stoic hard core Shandian warrior, were horrified by the loss of life.

There was only a moment of silence before the sky began it's onslaught of raining death via lightning from above.

I'm not sure HOW Usopp managed to make even his damn long skinny nose wiggle in fear as he cried out through rivers of tears down his cheeks, "first the explosion…now it's raining thunder strikes again? We're doomed! We're really doomed!"

Gan Fall held his head in his hands as he started to cry tears of rage, voice rising in volume the more he spoke, "Angel Island was…eradicated….? Why…why….? Eneru! You heartless monster!"

All around us the ground shook with each blast that struck the land, but Zoro was the one to stop Usopp from trying to run off towards the Merry when he told us Luffy's plan to ring the bell for Cricket and the Monkey Brothers to hear down on the blue sea below.

Wyper's face was os intense as he asked us why Luffy wanted to ring the bell as well, that Aisa had stopped tugging on his arm and demanding that it was time for him to run to safety in order to listen to the answer to his question.

Zoro assured us, "if he said he is going to do that, there is no way that Nami can get him to come down. His target is the same as what Eneru's after too."

Usopp pointed skywards after a moment and we were scrambling, this time it was just a leaf that was falling, but when that leaf is the size of the Merry's mainsail? Yeah, you best bet your sweet ass we were booking it to get out of the fucking way!

Getting squashed beneath a gigantic falling leave like an ant was NOT part of my to-do list for the day!

Then again, neither was getting electrocuted twice on that list, but! That's besides the point!

Aisa, cleaver little babyface girl, was the one to point out that something had been written on the leaf. It was a message from Luffy and Nami with new instructions for us all.

"Cut the beanstalk…and make it fall westward," Robin read aloud for us all, being the closest ot the section of the leave with the message on it.

We looked up to gauge which area we'd need to cut to make it fall, but instead, we were distracted by a second black sphere of death, this one easily dwarfing its predecessor that destroyed Angel Island.

Aisa fell to her knees and cried, "there's no way we can get away from that…we are all doomed!"

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck….if I don't develop a phobia of lightning after this shitshow, I don't think anything will ever change that…fucking logias…" I thought as i felt my breath grow shallow and my chest begin to constrict my breathing.

((((if you can see the nod to the story: "This Bites!" from that little sentence I hope i made you smile like i did as i was writing it :D :D :D :D ))))

Besides me, Will started to nervous laugh, and Neal, who had only just managed to maintain his Full Griffin Zoan form, was huddled down and shaking fear. His ear tuft feathers laid flat down against his skull and his eyes blown wide as he gazed above.

Zoro stood up and pointed along the length of the beanstalk as he explained what he'd figured out of Nami's plan, "They'll use the falling beanstalk as the bridge to the flying ship. That must be what they're planning to do."

Usopp yelled, his East Blue Shark Teeth on prominent display, "that's suicide!"

Zoro snorted, "then you go tell them that."

Usopp gripped his hair that was escaping ouf of the bottom of his olive green bandana as he cried out frustratingly, "I would if I could!"

Zoro was panning in pain as he stated, "is it a suicide or a working solution? We won't know until we try it."

I groaned and made my way into standing. My muscled kept spazzing out from the electrical shock and i was just sooo done with today in general. All i wanted was to be able to be safe, have Will be safe, have the crew be safe, and sleep for a thousand years to make it all better…but no! I gotta help my fellow swordsman chop a gigantic beanstalk!

What has my life come to? I often internally asked myself on days like today.

But before Zoro and I could take a single step towards the beanstalks base, we all had to dodge yet another epically large blast of lightning that was trying to fry us to ashes.

Zoro had managed to scoop up Chopper from where Robin had set him down from when we'd had to dodge the leaf and threw him over to her again while Usopp had will haul Sanji out of the way, yelling at everyone else to, "find a place to hide! The ruins! Go to the ruins!"

The only ones to not make a run for it was Zoro, myself, Wyper and somewhat not surprisingly, Usopp.

Once everyone else had made it away to relative safety, Zoro said, "alright then…now we just have to cut the beanstalk and make it fall towards that ship…we have to do it before Eneru throws that thing at us…"

I glanced above to check how far down the black cloud sphere had descended and bit my lip at the sight of it having grown just a little bit more.

Before we could make a game plan on how we were going to go about chopping the damn thing, Zoro dashed forwards, saying to Usopp, "right now, the survival of Sky Island rests on Luffy's shoulders!"

I huffed out to myself (on purpose!) annoyed, "damn it, Zoro! I wanted to make the first cut!" and ran after his sexy ass.

When i drew level with him, I smiled with grim determination, "it's our responsibility to ensure Luffy gets there to do so!"

He only gave a feral-savage grin in response before Usopp said from behind us, "ca…can they make it? We're counting you guys! You're the only ones here who can cut that thing!"

I raised my left hand in a wave, and with my other, drew my sword from its sheath.

As we ran, we constantly had to dodge left and right to avoid getting blasted by stray bolts of lighting. From besides me, I noticed Zoro glance back and around us as we ran, muttering, "he's making holes everywhere!"

I pushed myself to run just hose few steps faster, hugging and puffing as I did so to keep up with him, "huff, We gotta time this…huff…just right!"

He nodded and looked ahead at the beanstalk and told me, "I can definitely get the one strand. After I've cut it, you'll have to get the second."

I nodded and allowed my pace to slow just that three steps back so that he'd have the space and time to hack the first of the twisted twin stalk.

Not only did he slight right through it like a hot knife through butter, he also excuted a second cut that made and entire triangular slice fall free of the enormous plant from the second strand that I was to cut.

Way to set the bar high, Zoro…now, if I don't do at least that much, I'd be a disappointment as your regular sparring partner…damn it…I thought as I swung my sword down onto the second strand of beanstalk with all my strength.

The problem with my clean slice through?

I only had the one sword, so my single slice was unable to cut out a chunk like Zoro's two swords had done…

I really did cut clean through my half of the beanstalk! That wasn't the problem here!

The issue was that with my sincle slice, that the two sides of my cut supported itself and needed to be pushed into leaning over.

"AHHHHH!" I screamed as the fucking sea king sized water snake launched itself up from below to knock its head against the beanstalk, giving it that nudge it needed to finally fall.

It was crying as it did so, and the resulting headbutt knocked it back out again too, but hey, it probably needed all the rest it could get if we lived through this shitshow.

Zoro managed to twist himself and jump off of its back to launch himself back at me and we fell to the ground, painfully skidding across actual dirt instead of soft island cloud.

Zoro was coughing as he tried to suck oxygen back into his abused body, and I was only marginably better, as he'd twisted himself midair to land on his back with me cradled in his arms.

From above us, I was dismayed to see that although the beanstalk WAS leaning, it wasn't nearly far enough for what Nami and Luffy needed.

As it was, the beanstalk had only started to lean halfway through the cut I'd made on the severed second stalk.

Usopp's firestars were being shot out of his rifle, but there wasn't enough gunpower to linger long enough for a proper flame to catch. Still, he kept firing shot after shot. I counted fourteen shots before they stopped, only to be replaced with Wyper's voice yelling out, "Move out of the way!"

Zoro and I scrambled to move back, not sure what the native warrior had in mind, only to see the second stalk, that I had severed, mind you, be obliterated by a final REJECT blast.

All our jaws dropped and Usopp scream out, "what the fuck was that!?"

Aisa screamed Wyper's name, as Gan Fall berated him, "that fool used the reject dial again!?"

Looking at Zoro, I hissed, "again?! He used that double edged sword attack more than ONCE!? No fucking wonder he looks like utter shit!"

Zoro could only nod, and say softly, "he used it on Eneru not long after you passed out."

"Oh…" I exhaled softly as I looked up, hearing the creaking of the beanstalk start to fall faster at last.

Usopp screamed as loud as he possibly could, and for him that is fucking LOUD, "Go! Kick his ass, Luffy!"

Will joined in, "we're counting on you, Capt'n!"

Neal trilled, "take him down!"

Robin smiled at their faith and Zoro and I just stared up at the sky.

We weren't able to sit and watch for long.

Eneru started sending blast after blast down on the base of the beanstalk, forcing us to get up and move, or else, ya know…die.

As we ran, I heard Wyper, and damn was I impressed by that fuckers ability to stand back up again after that reject dial! Cry out to Eneru above, "it's useless…Eneru! You won't be able to…heh…heh…you will never destroy the great history of Shandora!"

Aisa screamed his name again, and I idly wondered at their relation to each other for her to be so deathly concerned about the man, wondering if he was her father, brighter, uncle?

Wyper continued on, likely barely conscious, "under any circumstances, we bravely charge forward…and survive! You will never smother the pride of our existence! No matter how many forests you burn…or how many ruins you destroy! The earth of Shandora will never crumble under your wickedness!"

The sphere of death began to glow a brilliant white, almost no trace of Eneru's hot blue cloro tinting it, and from where we'd managed to duck for cover, Zoro and I clutched each other and closed our eyes against the blinding light above.

From on high, I heard Luffy scream out, "gum-gum: Firework Golden Peony!"

Thunder rolled, and lightning crackled and flashed across the sphere as it went dark again, but somehow, above it all, Luffy's voice rang clear to us below, "we tried super hard to get to Sky Island…I won't let your stupid ball destroy it!"

I snorted into Zoro's chest, and I felt more than heard it as his chest vibrated in a curious hum, "Eneru's attacks are just his giant balls….oh god….he's totally over compensating for a lack of something…" and from there I devolved into a blithering mess of hysteric laughter.

All my stress fell away as I giggled and snorted my way through getting myself back under control, a task made all the harder due to Zoro's shoulders shaking in suppressed chuckles.

Sadly, the sphere didn't stay black, and being so far down below, we had no clue it it was Eneru's doing, or Luffy fucking up his plans.

I was seriously hoping and praying for the later…

Otherwise, we'd all be dead before we even had time to regret our deaths.

With a blast of condensed air being released from the clouds as Luffy's gold encased fist literally smashed through the sphere of lighting clouds of death, I could hear him command, "turn sunny now!"

And the heavens, as if truly by his command….DID.

I had to peak out around the safety of Zoro's arms when Wyper started screaming to Luffy, "Ring it, Brat! Ring it! Relight the Light of Shandora!"

He'd collapsed to his knees and was clutching his bandaged arm, the one that apparently housed the deadly reject dial and was crying.

From above, Eneru seemed to have lost his last nerve in dealing with our Captain, for instead of sticking to the things he knew worked, he went and switched himself to his pure logia transformation, which he called, "200 million volts, Rei-Shin!"

It looked like a fat version of some kind of lightning deity, and I had to at least admit that if your gonna go with a god themed complex, Eneru at least has style in this form while doing so…(though, you'd never see me mutilate my body willingly just to follow a fashion fad like what Eneru had done to his earlobes and the drums in his shoulderblades!).

Luffy reminded him with a solid kick to the face that his lightning was useless against a rubber man like him, but Eneru wasn't out yet.

I gasped, subconsciously clutching Zoro's blue tank top between my fingers and felt his hands grip me tighter as we bore witness to the golden trident spearing into Luffy's side and back. Luffy's screams of, "ow! Hot! Hot! Hot!" let us know that Eneru ahd super heated his golden weapon to further inflict pain and agony.

We were too far away and neither of us had any kind of binoculars or scope like goggles to see how Luffy managed to tear himself off of the trident, all I could make out was one moment Luffy was impaled, and the next he's flipping backwards over it and falling! I sucked in a sharp breath as Nami's shrill voice cried out our Captain's name, but it turned into a shaky exhale of relief as his other hand managed to latch onto a teeny tiny piece of floating island cloud next to Eneru's flying ship.

Luffy screamed out as he thrust forwards a rapidly spinning fist, the one that was encased in gold, "GUM-GUM: GOLD PISTOL!"

It was too fast for Eneru to try to avoid, and too strong of a rotation for him to stop with just body alone. The fist that connected with him was made of rubber, his one natural weakness, and encased in pure gold, a natural conductor for electricity.

Even as he tried, it was impossible for his lightning body to disperse and reform as the rubber fist forced him into human solidation and the gold sucked up all the latent lightning from Enrue's body.

The superpowered punch sent Eneru flying back and with the gold encase fist, they slammed into the side of the golden bell, and a loud, clear, "goooooooong!" rang out across the heavens themselves.

Zoro picked me up, as i was to entranced by the goings on above to pay attention to us and sat us down near our crew, where Usopp was screaming Luffy's praise; despite having to hold his hands firmly over his ears.

Eventually Zoro must have thought it was enough, for he told Usopp to keep it down, as if it was Usopp's voice and not the abnormally large golden bell that would shatter his eardrums.

I laughed as Will helped pull me to my feet, fussing over me and checking for any new injuries. I waived him off and after pointing to Neal, we made our way over to him and helped cover his ears, which were more sensitive than our human ones.

A little ways away, I saw Robin had sprouted some extra hands of her own to apply overtop of Chopper's delicate reindeer ears and Sanji, who was still passed out and therefore could not protect his own ears.

The bell continued to ring as it fell, the sun glinting off of it and making a sparkling shipper descend all around us.

Dozens and dozens of huge south birds took to the sky, crying out, "choh!" as they sang along with the bell.

As Luffy fell, I was relieved to note that he'd lost the gold that had encased his hand and had one hand spread out in his joy while the other held his hat to his head and was screaming as loud as he possibly could, "the Golden City does exist!"

After the fourth ring of the bell, Chopper and sanji awoke, which, outside of Robin, no one noticed until Chopper observed aloud, "wow! How nice! What's that sound?"

Gan Fall was crying, almost incoherently, "I knew it…I knew this day would come…I knew it would…."

Sanji lit a smoke before speaking, "so this is what Norland heard back then…"

Wyper, it turned out, wasn't too far away from where Zoro had stopped to lean against some of the last bits of rubble, whispered out in revered prayer, "do you hear it? Montblonc Norland? I'm sorry to be a little late. I hope your descendent can hear this…"

Near the base of the beanstalk, the snake had woken up, and crying tears of joy as she spoke of her long dead friends, Norland and Calgar. I was only mildly shocked to hear that she was over four hundred years old, and actually knew the men…but, given her size, i guess i shouldn't have been tooooooo surprised.

It wasn't only the golden belfry of Shandora that fell, Eneru and his ship now that it was no longer powered by Eneru himself, were falling to the ground at an alarming speed.

It crashed into the White-White Sea, and I idly wondered if Eneru would drown like he deserved.

Chopper tried to treat Zoro, who looked to be one of the worst off when it came to battle inflicted wounds, mostly because they hadn't been bandaged yet. As Chopper started to treat the many injuries, Zoro could be heard muttering, "instead of worrying about me…take a look at him."

"Eh? You mean that person over there?" Chopper asked innocently.

Making his way over to Wyper, and having only just beginning his examination, he exclaimed, "wow! You're right. He's wounded really badly! His bones are in pieces here!"

Sanji stood and asked through an exhale of smoke, "hey…isn't he one of the raiders? Why are we helping him?"
Zoro hummed and admitted, "I don't quite understand what he is about, but….I know that he's at least an honorable warrior…"

Sanji asked as he took out his smoke with one hand and the other stuffed in his pants pocket, "huh? What are you saying? You pity him?"

Zoro shrugged and said, "sort of…"

I plopped down between them, having only just escaped Will's bear-hug of victory, and told Sanji, "he's apparently got some kind of personal tie to Norland and some guy named Calgara. Not sure that is, but he's part of a group of natives of Jaya from 400 years ago that were blasted up here with this section of the island."

Will came and stood besides Sanji and next to my knee and told us quietly, "Neal and I saw him go toe to toe with Luffy while in the forest."

Sanji hummed in low keyed amazement, and I whistled softly, "woooohoo," as that was not an easy feat to claim.

We watched as Aisa asked Chopper quietly in a pleading voice, "can you help him, civet cat?"

Chopper, sensitive about his species, snapped at her and pointed to his horns on the sides of his hat, "I'm a REINDEER! See these?! I have HORNS!"

Turning back to his patient, he told her softly, "don't worry though…he'll be okay!"

Sanji turned to Usopp, who had just sat down on a piece of crumbled building across from Zoro and I, and asked quickly, "where's Miss Nami? Is she safe?"

"She's with Luffy, so she's probably okay…." Will pointed upwards as he told him that Sanji just turned to him and asked, "what about Conis-Chan? I wonder where she is…"

Will shook his head and raised his hands in the universal sign for 'I don't know' and Sanji turned back to Usopp and asked him, "what happened with the golden bell?"

Usopp was fiddling with his boots as he remarked, "it probably fell down…"

Zoro sighed as he leaned back and was denied my head resting on his shoulder unless I moved to follow, as he said, "it's too bad that we couldn't take Eneru's golden ship and…now…the golden city is just an empty shell now too…sigh…we're still stuck being penniless pirates."

Will snorted and said, "not entirely."

We all looked over to him and he gave a cheshire like grin, and held up one of his Box Storages in the palm of his hand.

"Inside, I stuffed as many gears and whats-its that i could pry off of things from Eneru's ship. That's why it was malfunctioning so damn badly."

We all smiled. Well, Zoro smirked, but same thing.

Usopp cheered as he thought aloud, "I want one of those dials a lot more than gold, though. Since you can't really find those in the blue seas…."

Usopp started dancing around and talking to himself as he thought about all the different dials he knew about and ways he could make his arsenal even more impressive.

While it may have felt like time was crawling on, it wasn't all that long before Luffy and Nami came running up to join us, Conis bringing up the rear as she tried to keep the bag of food that Luffy was towing behind him from ripping.

Sanji immediately started spinning in a love struck circle at the sight of Conis, who was crying out of relief that we were all okay, making him ask her if she was really that worried about him, to which Usopp was the one to speak out and told him to stop acting crazy.

Zoro asked Luffy, "where did you get the food? Any booze in there?"

Luffy smiled around a mouthful of lizard meat and told us how he and Nami had managed to find the priests storage on their way here, and that there was still a lot more too.

I thought to myself, "well that's a blessing in disguise, all those people that Conis mentioned warning about Eneru's plan that managed to escape will need it for the next month or so as they get back up on their feet after loosing everything…."

Sanji snapped out of his love-crazed mode and started muttering about needing to leave a notebook of advice on how to make food last as long as possible, cooking with depleting rations, and other dietary babble as he distractedly asked Will if he could get a spare notebook off of him.

Will did so, pulling up a different Box Storage, and we watched amusedly as Sanji began to scrible down different cooking instructions about pickling, and canning as much food as possible for a starting baseline….

Zoro brought the joyous mood down accidentally as he asked Conis, "hey, Conis. Where's your father?"

"He…um…he…tried to protect me…and Eneru…"

We were all quiet as she trield off, tears leaking down her pale cheeks, Sanji troed to come up with something to say that would help, but all he was able to utter was her name.

From behind us, her father said, "Conis-chan…"

We all whirled on him and exclaimed in shocked surprise, "eh!?"

Once that wore off, the boys got huffy and as one, collectively pointed to him and screamed out, "you sound like the one who died wasn't you or something!"

Pagaya was so shocked that he instinctively apologized and admitted to still being alive because the blast had forced him to fall down into the White Sea, a mere 3000 meters below.

I didn't even TRY to ask how he managed to survive such a fall…I wasn't sure I could handle such a massive brain aneurysm if he were to give a vague and not at all workable answer. Or god forbid, apologize again…

Conis was just so glad to see her father was alive after believing he was dead for the last two hours (at least) that she collapsed into him, crying over his lap as he told us how he'd been saved by people who were escaping to some place called 'cloud's end', and were now coming back using cloud dials.

"Bus since Angel Island is completely destroyed…everyone is coming to God's Island instead," he finished explaining.

Meanwhile, the Shandian Chief was also having to field similar questions from his own tribemates. Although, theirs were a little more war like in nature, such as, "Will the 400 years anguish really just simply go away like this?" with other people pointing out that god's militia had also been destroyed so maybe…

For us?

Luffy was busy filling his stomach, and we had all managed to snag a meal out of the bag for ourselves.

We sat in a semi circle around Luffy, with Zoro sitting directly opposite him and Usopp and Nami on either side of him. I was sitting comfortably between my brother and Zoro with Sanji on the other side of Neal and in the space between Usopp and Neal, who was reclining on his side with his flank being used by Will as a back rest.

Across from Sanji, sat Nami, Robin and Chopper next to Zoro, completing our circle.

Once we were done eating our "snack" as Luffy called it, Usopp asked, "is it night-time already?"

Leaning on one knee, Zoro asked Luffy, "what now?"

Nami threw out the suggestion of going back to the ship, to which Chopper, Usopp and Luffy were severely shocked at. They thought for sure that she would want to go gold hunting now that the danger had passed.

Or at least have a victory party…

Luffy, as captain, got his way…as usual…

The bonfire was so epic that it put our fire of last nights campout to SHAME!

The fire was so huge that made the fucking water snake, who had finally introduced herself to me as Nola, look 'small' in comparison.

Temporary tents were constructed out of ship sails and even giant building was made using island cloud dials blown over top of several sections of the ruins. It was in here that all those of severe injuries were being treated. Most of the population were fine, a few scratches and bruises, but nothing debilitating.

It was for those who'd gotten badly hurt due to Eneru's "survival game" that needed the most treatment. Wyper being the one in most arguably the worst condition.

Music was being made as everyone made impromptu drums. A few Shandian's quickly whittled out some simple reed flutes from some sticks, all temporary stuff of course, and not their best work, they assured us, but it was enough for music to be played and where there is music, there is dancing.

Everyone was working together, pulling food down from the Priest's storage, hauling firewood for the bonfire, talking, smiling out of joy…

No one was trying to kill each other over centuries of conflict. They were to relieved and happy to be freed from under Eneru's tyranny to care about past grudges now.

They were simply happy to be alive!

Hundreds of people were dancing and playing music, laughing, singing and talking around the great bonfire.

We StrawHats were right in the middle of things, of course.

Usopp was practically swindling people out of dials with "sales" of his rubber band collection, once they heard that Rubber was immune to lightning? Oh, they were just about ready to mug the poor kid…

Sanji was where all the food was being prepped, giving out lessons on some of his recipes and advice to the many, many chefs that had congregated into attempting to feed everyone.

Luffy and Aisa were right in the center of all the dancing, Luffy even had a hunk of Sanji's roasted meat on a bone, just the way Luffy loved it, in one hand as they danced. Luffy sang out merrily, "Parrrrrrrrty!"

Robin had a smile on her face as she sipped from her own mug of fruit juice.

Zoro had settled down with a gunslinging warrior from the Shandian's, named Braham? Zoro had apparently beaten him in battle this morning, yet now the two were chatting over booze like old war buddies.

For all my love of the blade, there were so many things about men that i would just never understand.

I finally got my play-by-play from Nami and Will on what had happened while I was passed the FUCK out due to Eneru's second blast in the city of 'gold'.

Chopper was still helping everyone that he possibly could inside the "building", and Neal had flown off to chat with some of the larger Skypiean South Birds as they flew in spirals high above the party. Their odd bird calls ringing in surprisingly well with the music and the sound of the drums.

It wasn't until night had well and truly fallen, the sky dark with stars, that Wyper awoke.

Chopper had predicted he would wake in the next ten minutes, so not only was Gan Fall, Conis (who had been acting as a beside nurse for several of Chopper's patients since there were just so damn many of them…) were there to keep him from doing something stupid, (in example: trying to stand up!) but so too was his tribe's Chief, who ordered him to calm down and not push himself.

They explained how there was no one in the sky now that wished for war or more fighting and bloodshed.

Wyper never joined in on the party feel, no laughing, music and due to doctor's orders, he wasnt' allowed to dance. (Personally i doubt he'd have joined in on the dancing but meh.) However, despite that, he seemed to be having a genuinely good time, if the peaceful "almost" smile on his face was anything to go by.

I was highly disturbed by Pagaya's idea of humor.

He had raised his shirt so that his stomach, which was a gloriously round pot belly shape, and drawn an imitation of his face on it. I shudder away from thinking about where he found the hair? Fur? That was used for his "beard" placed just under his bellybutton that was being used for a nose. Especially because no matter how crazy his dancing, the hair/fur never once seemed in danger of falling off…yep best to not think about it.

He then proceeded to further embarrass himself by dancing around the bonfire with several other older men from both nations.

The party lasted for DAYS….as in plural, nonstop, even on into the night…endless partying…

I didn't have to worry about not liking the large party, everyone here treated us like were their holy heroes sent from on high or something…if i showed even the slightest hint of discomfort they'd back off or one of their buddies would rag the other person away.

Our crew tried to stick together for the most part, but with a party that goes on for that long, eventually you duck out to enjoy yourself.

I had tried to corner Zoro after Chopper had cleared him, but he was proving to be rather elusive. If the party weren't so damn large, I'd almost think he was purposely avoiding me again…after a week had gone by and I hadn't seen him not even in passing, I started to reassess that thought.

Why would he be avoiding me NOW? I was hoping we could find a private spot to revisit that damn kiss! It's just…not fair…best kiss of my life and the guy is acting as skittish as a fucking colt!

That thought drew me up short…was this Zoro's first kiss?

noooooo…I thought, hadn't he told me he'd been in a few relationships before? Did he? Fuck, I couldn't remember….Shit…fuck…ass…BALLS….FUCK!

Sadly, I didn't find Zoro that night.

Instead, I was ambushed by pretending-to-be-Tipsy Nami, who was dragging a highly embarrassed Conis and an amused Robin behind her. One hand clamped so tightly around a wrist that neither girl could likely feel their hand anymore.

Nami explained how Conis and Robin had said to her that neither of them had had a proper "sleep-over" and she was determined to fulfill such a crucial aspect of a girls life.

I deadpanned, "Nami….I don't think any of us have had an actual 'sleep-over' before."

She stared at me in wide eyed horror and said aghast, "oh my god. You're right! Fuck! To the Merry!"

She turned around and started marching off to our ship, still dragging along her unwitting victims. Curious, and my mood entirely soured for my Zoro-hunt, I followed.

I thought amusedly as I walked along behind, if she wasn't holding the other two girls hands, she'd likely have fist pumped the air at that command…how cute.

Once safely ensconced inside the "girls" room aboard the confines of the Merry, I asked Conis, "so…just to be sure, you wanted to be here, right now, yeah? Cuz if you didn't I can distract Nami long enough for you to make a run for it."

I found her unconscious actions that displayed her nerves to be cute, as she looked to the bottom right, bit and chewed at her lower lip before she finished smiling at me nervously and fisted her hands along the bottom edge of her pink dress.

Once looking me in the eye, she reassured me, "no, I could have left at any point. I actually…I was hoping I could talk with you again, Wisp-san."

"Me? Why?" I asked, raising a brow while reaching for my drawers with my spare clothes.

Might as well wear proper pajamas for a "sleep-over" party, right?

I decided on a plain-Jane sky-blue button up shirt that was three sizes too big with a set of thick, soft-fuzzy light-blue, black, and grey plaid sweatpants that had a white drawstring at the waist.

I kept my sea stone gloves on and my knee-high wool socks, but I did relax enough to let my hair down from the high ponytail it had been in all day.

"I wanted to continue talking with you about the dials you and your family managed to breed down in the Blue Seas. From all the scholars here in the sky, that should be an impossibility."

Her eyes glowed with fascinated joy and an untapped well-spring of curiosity as she leaned forwards, eager to hear more.

"I'm not sure if that's true everywhere or if it's just exclusive to the second half of the Grand Line," I began, but had to stop and backtrack a little to help Conis understand what I meant by they 'grand line' and why that would make it so different and special.

"The Grand Line is this one major section of the sea that runs perpendicular to the Ring of Mountainous Land known as the Red Line, that wraps itself around the planet. It's called that due to the unusually high iron and red ochre compounds found inside the stone, giving it the rust-red color its named after."

She nodded and said she'd heard stories of such a thing existing back when she'd been a young girl; before Eneru had come and took over Skypiea and ruled as a tyrant.

(Nami and Robin where on the other side of the room getting changed and chatting together while Conis and I talked.)

I found it interesting learning how much her life was shaped by Eneru's take-over. She had been a pre-teen when he showed up, so she never felt safe enough to take the time for love or heartbreak. Hell, they never felt safe enough to truly discuss her childhood dream of following in her mother's footsteps.

After we'd all gotten into our pajamas, Nami asked Conis what kind of things she did for fun if she'd had such difficulties.

"Oh, well I really love playing my harp. It was a gift from Mama. And Su," she cuddled the downy cloud fox to her bosom with a fond smile, "she came into our lives about two years ago. She had been abandoned by her mother due to being the runt of her litter. She was such a tiny thing…"

Nami and Robin smiled fondly. I asked, "did you raise her by hand then?"

"Yes, I had to have help from the local pet store, and even though I tried to release her back into the wild when she became an adult, she inevitable found her way back to my home every night. After a month, Papa gave in and she's stayed by my side ever since."

"That's so sweet. You two share such a strong bond…" Nami said as she sat down next to Consi on the bed. Robin decided to pull out the desk chair and reclined in the soft cushion.

I sat on my own bed crisscrossed applesauce. Looking at Su, I asked, "is the reason their known as 'cloud foxes' due to how soft their fur is? Or simply due to living among the clouds?"

She giggled and said, "A bit of both, I suppose. Although, I'd never thought of it like that before. Do foxes look the same down below?"

Nami snorted and collapsed into a fit of giggles, as Robin explained, "no. Down in the Blue Seas, foxes are predominately an orange with a white under-belly and a small section of white is tipped upon their tails. Going up from the toes to the middle of their legs varying in length upon the individual, is a dark brownish-black marking ath is also seen at the tips of the ears and their muzzles. That is the standard look to most foxes."

Conis seemed fascinated in the differences, and considering her passion for breeding dial shellfish, it was only natural her curiosity could be sparked in other aspects of mammalian, reptilian, avain and marine biological differences.

Her look of longing-awe reminded me of Vivi's facial expression from when we were in the royal bath and talking about all the things, we'd seen in the short time she'd been with us out to sea. I could feel Conis's heart felt longing to go and see these differences.

A feeling I knew the other two girls saw too, if their sincere smiles were anything to go by.

Robin gave a soft hum and leaned back in her seat to rest her back against the wall of the ship as sh elooked over us with a 'detached' air of disinterest. (she wasn't fooling anyone.)

Nami giggled and asked in a teasing singsong, "Ne~ne~Conis~"

"Hm? Yes, Nami-san?" Conis asked as she was brought out of her daydreaming fantasise of all the different Dial Shells she could potentially find down below in the Blue Seas.

"Would you want to go with us? I'm sure Luffy would love to have a Dial Breeding Expert for the Crew."

Conis's eyes turned misty, yet she held herself back. Clutching her hands to her heart, as if the physical act of holding her hands from reaching out and seizing her dreams.

I smiled and said gently, "with me diving to the sea floor, I'm sure I could find a bed of Dial Shellfish to add to the colony you build. I could even see if I remember Mom's lessons for growing the many different useful corals we had."

She looked back and forth between Nami and I in hopeful awe, joy and a heartfelt longing so great that she was unable to keep the intense emotions from leaking from her eyes just a little in the form of two solitary tears leaking from each eye.

"Of course, we'd have to get the Capt'n to offer the official invitation, seeing as it is Luffy's crew, but I hardly think he'd say no, it's Capt'n Luffy, after all," I added on with an eyeroll, as if it was no big deal. Which it was yet wasn't in this case. Luffy was all about people chasing their dreams and each and every person on this crew had one.

Robin nodded with a sarcastic smile when I winked at her as I whispered, "He let Robin join when she asked, so you could just straight out ask him to join if that's your wish."

She looked out the porthole window, where we could see the red-orange glow of the enormous bonfire party still going on in the distance.

She whispered, "I think I'd like to, but I need time to think it through, if that's possible?"

Nami shrugged, and I said, "well, definitely think it through, this won't be like taking some walk from one end of the island to another. Down in the Blue Seas, Pirates are viewed as world class criminals due to are ability to travel said world with our ships and not always following the laws. We're not your typical pirate, granted, but we are still pirates. Once you start down this path…"

I paused, trying to find the words to put it into perspective, but struggled. In the Blue Seas, as the Skypieans thought of it as, it was a learned fact of life that one just knew…the same way one learned right and wrong as a child. Having to sit down and break that all down for an adult as an adult was much more difficult than I was expecting.

Thankfully, I didn't have to. Nami picked up for me from where I'd left off.

"Once you start, it's a lifelong commitment. You wouldn't even be safe from the government if you were to return to Skypiea. Most of us," she glanced at Robin discreetly, "never had a choice in the matter on becoming wanted criminals. I was forced to be a thief as a ten-year-old, joining Luffy's crew was actually a step up in my life."

Robin shrugged when Conis looked her way as if asking for her to say her reason of not having a choice, and I was impressed she'd noticed Nami's subtle hint. She had good eyes.

When she realized she wasn't going to get anymore out of Robin, she turned to me with curious eys.

I sighed, and waived the air as if it were pointless, but said, "I needed a way to reach out to my family on a global scale since I don't know where the rest of them are. Gotta let them know I'm at least alive after all these years."

Her face went pale when i said 'alive', and I smiled self-depreciativly, "last time they saw me, I was bleeding out from a headwound on a beach."

Nami grimced at that morbid mental picture, while Robin seemed intrigued as she asked me, "Whisper-san, if you sustained such a sever head wound, do you mind me asking if you had any issues with memory retention?"

I shook my head and said, "to my knowledge, no. the marines that found me were of the good sort, took extra care of me when it was discovered my only living relative had been kidnapped and the ones we were on our way to visiting were of nobility of a sort."

One of Robin's delicately shaped eyebrows rose as she asked, "ho?"

I shrugged and said with a small smile and pride in my voice as I admitted, "wont matter anymore, I'm a pirate now. Even if they wanted to, they legally can no longer acknowledge me without inciting severe repercussions with the W.G."

Robin's face went back to it's serene mask as she nodded.

Nami huffed a sharp breath of annoyance and crossed her arms, turning to me with a mock scowl as she changed to topic, "alright, out with it then."

I tilted my head a little in confusion at her segue to a new topic, not following with her train of thought.

She rolled her eyes, and demanded, "how long are you going to keep dancing around with Zoro?"

I immediately blushed and asked, "what the fuck do you mean!?"

Robin chuckled as Conis sat back with her and said, "I noticed he was even more enamored with you since we first met on Angel Beach. Did something happen?"

Nami's eyes widened in surprise, and she mumbled, "why didn't I see that?!" before lunging into my personal space and commanded in her no-nonsense voice, "spill it."

I looked away from her and said as nonchalantly as I could, "we kissed?" but it came out more like a question than the statement I had intended it to be.

"WHAT!? WHEN!?"

Naturally, only Nami could reach octaves in volume that only dogs could hear when screaming, no need to guess as to who shouted just now.

"Shit….maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that.".fuck…she's worse than a dog on a bone! She's never gonna let this go until I give in…damn it…I thought as I looked anywhere but at where Nami was sitting, grinning dementedly.

"Well…it was more like the beginnings of a make-out session, but we got interrupted, and as for when? While everyone," well, mostly everyone, I thought as I remembered that Neal had still been awake, "was asleep after the bonfire with the Cloud Wolves."

She stared at me bug-eyed for a moment before sighing bonelessly, whimpering morosely about all the lost chances she had to cash in on our deal from Alabastra.

I rolled my eyes.

Robin giggled past a delicate hand that was held over her mouth before asking me if I'd managed to get my 'love confession out before or after the heated introduction with Zoro's tongue'.

I spluttered and asked, "l-lo-llll-love confession!?"

Nami suddenly sat up with a shark like expression as she said, "what? Did you just jump him then?!"

I was still hung up on the "L" word…damn it…it's a fuckin' Four Letter Word that is NOT said lightly, here people! Stop throwin' it around like it's candy! Shit! Fuck!

Conis giggled, light and airy as she added, "even I could tell you cared greatly for the green haired swordsman, Wisp-san."

I was still spluttering and Nami rolled her eyes, "yes, yes. Love. Come on, don't tell me you haven't figured it out yet!? I know you've had the hots for the guy since at least Whiskey Peak, but what I wanna know is, when it changed to something more?"

I shook my head slowly as I thought, love? Me? Do I? I mean…wha…when did that fucking happen!? I don't have time for love, do I/ I still have shit to do, fuckers to kill, mom and Crys to find…fuck….I DO fucking love the shit head, don't I? Fuck, fuck, Fuckity fuck, Fuck! "What the fuck do I do now!? Shitty sexy fucker just haaaad to fucking worm his ass into my heart! FUCK!?"

I was officially starting to panic.

Fabulous.

I closed my eyes and tried to think clearly. When had this happened? How far up Shitcreek was I?

I could only conclude, that, Yes….somewhere down the line, I had developed romantic feelings for the man, not just a desire to fuck him…that was still there of course but it wasn't the only feeling. They were still small…new yet…but…in my heart, I could tell. These were not something that would just…go away.

I wasn't that kind of person.

I try to follow my heart when it gives me such solidly sure emotions…and stick to them with all my strength and willpower.

Such as the time when I saw my father practicing with his sword at five, and I'd just known…that was what I wanted to be…graceful, strong, deadly yet beautiful…

When Luffy asked me to join the crew, I'd felt a…strong rushing of longing and rightness…

When Zoro and I'd had our first spar together…

That rush of adrenaline and joy at finding a partner to spar with that not only matched me, but slightly surpassed me…someone who pushed me to improve, but yet, did not belittle my weaknesses…it was exhilarating.

Knowing that his was a man that had been found worthy as a swordsman at the hands of my 'uncle' (even if he didn't know he was an uncle just yet) when we'd spoken alone for the first time while at Drum (not counting the duck since it can't speak back without Chopper as an interpreter).

When Zoro and I had spoken in the clock tower…

It had been one of the times where we had spoken together about something so intensely personal and alone…

Was that it?

Or was it the time in Mock Town where I saw how deep his loyalty went to our Captain? Or the time-

No, I don't think there was just A time…but many times where I had slowly, tenderly, swept ever further into love with the man. I had a feeling then…that with just a little more time…the shallow pool of…love, that I was feeling would eventually deepen until it became like the depths of the sea.

So…apparently I was in love with Zoro and everyone but the bloody fucking Captain, who wasn't interested in such affairs, and myself(?) were aware of said fact. Oh god! does ZORO already know? Fuck! Does he not feel the same? Or is it just for sex for him? Shit, shit, fuck!

Looking up at Nami with tears in my eyes as I panicked, breathing in harshly as I started to work myself into a panic attack on accident, I asked, "wh-what do I do now? I didn't-didn't realize!"

Her eyes went wide at my reaction and started to flounder at the sight of my tears.

Robin stood and pulled me into a hug and stroked my hair over my shoulder and rubbed my back as she made a calming, "shh, deep breaths Whisper-san…shh, take deep breaths, like before…"

Following her advice, I took a deep inhale and exhale a couple times to calm myself. When I felt like I'd gotten myself under control again I pulled back and gave a shaky smile as I whispered, "thanks."

She gave a small smile and asked me, "would you mind if I braided your hair?"

I shook my head and turned a little to make it easier for her to reach my hair. She settled down onto my bed and Nami moved over to the other bed with Conis.

Robin started to hum softly as things and acknowledgement as she too shifted a little to face me more and began to run her fingers through my scalp and hair, loosening any tangles that might have developed over the day's festivities.

Conis smiled as she asked me softly, breaking me out of my calm little bubble, "do you have to do anything different? It seems like to me that you've been progressing steadily on your own."

Nami perked up and tried to encourage me, "yeah! I mean, the idiot's already so head over heels for you, I'm sure he just needs time to pull his head out of his ass. With how dense the ignoramus is, he might not even know what it is he's feeling, or what to do with those feelings…"

I chuckled and admitted confidently past a blush at the memory of his lips on mine, "oh, he definitely knows what to do with that mouth of his…"

I left my sentence anging, delighted with the damn near glow in the dark scarlet of Nami's blush as she imagined Zoro's mouth doing naughty things….

With this kind of stuff, it's better to leave them to imagine it for themselves.

Robin chuckled as she mused, "I imagine the dexterity he has in his lips and tongue and jaws would have been a requirement with how he wields and speaks around his third sword, and given him excellent results in bedroom activities…"

I laughed along with everyone else with that, and with the exception of Robin, all three of us were blushing heavily now.

Fuck yes it does! I'd been just barely able to keep up with his lips as he kissed me!

Once we had all caught our breath, Conis asked what else is normally done at slumber parties. Nami went onto a long list of girlish activities that made me remember tales of the other village girls and the hush-hush whispers that the local boys would use to speculate on said 'forbidden' parties.

Turns out?

Their pretty normal.

Sure, there was a lot more teasing and sleeping than I was expecting. But that was probably due to the fact that we all weren't pre-adolescent girls and had a healthy appreciation for fucking sleep.

We did end up doing our nails at Nami's insistence.

Robin chose to do a two layered paint job called a crackle. It was where the bottom layer was one solid color, in the most common case being black or white (she chose black) and the top shade a contrasting color that would "crack" while drying and thus expose the black/white layer underneath.

I'd seen some of these where they chose to do an awesome shade of red as the underlayer and black on top to make it look like lava. Now those were amazing.

Robin chose a lovely shade of royal purple with a black underlayer, sparking to a cool discovery that of any color she chose to wear she'd go with purples, blues and blacks as her go-to color choices.

Conis ended up with choosing a beautiful baby pink base coat and a gold filigree pattern that matched the white embroidery of her short pink dress. It was cute, girly and so very much Conis in nature.

Nami chose a rather mild and standard French Tip but had hadded a pop of colorful surprise when she added a cute flower design in the center of her nail.

For my own nails, I chose a simple teal blue with little white empty circles for bubbles.

I wasn't usually one for getting my nails done, but Nami promised me one freebie in regard to our deal from back in Alabastra. I tried to point out that the deal was essentially a moot point now that Zoro and I had kissed, but whatever. She had stated that this just meant she'd keep it to just embarrassing things in general instead of my fixation on Zoro, to which I gave in with a sigh and a fond smile.

Robin's devil fruit power was a god send for helping us dry our nails, sprouting out six arms to hold paper fans over our nails to help them dry faster.

After our nails were done, we had a lot of fun braiding and practicing different styles of hair for the four of us. Nami never new how to braid so Conis and Robin offered to show her how by practicing on my hair.

She had blushed when we all were surprised by her not knowing this, and had said defensively, "what? I've always had chin length hair. Same as my sister, Nojiko…plus, when was I supposed to have learned while stealing from pirates and forced to draw sea charts for that bastard?"

At Conis and Robin's confused looks she took a shaky exhale and said, "sorry."

I shook my head and apologized on behalf of the rest of us with a gentle smile, "it's fine Nami. It's easy to forget your rough background on a crew like this, huh?"

She smiled back finally.

Robin had done my hair up into a beautiful and elaborate updo of several braids twisted and pulled back into a stunning bun that trailed off in a thick braid to end at the nape of my neck.

I absolutely LOVED it.

The enthusiastic hug I suddenly bestowed upon her had startled her at first, a fact I knew by the sudden tenseness and forced relaxation of her muscles. I simply held her until she was comfortable in my hug before pulling back and telling her with a smile just how much I appreciated the work she'd gone into with my hair.

I was afraid to sleep with it, scared that I'd mess it all up.

Robin laughed and told me that if I liked that much, she'd teach me how to do it for myself so that I could keep it.

So, while Nami switched to Conis to continue learning to do simple braids and then moving on to French braids, something she could even do with her shorter hairstyle, Robin was teaching me to do my hair up in the style she'd given me.

Thank God Usopp's girlfriend gave us a fucking vanity mirror over the dresser that Nami had claimed! I'd never be able to do this hairstyle without a mirror!

We didn't end up going to sleep until almost four in the morning, but I had to say, I could see why all those village girls from my youth liked to have slumber parties every chance they could get away with if all slumber parties were as fun as this.

The next morning, I froze in horror when I went to roll out of my bed and had my entire abdomen cramp up in agonizing pain.

OHHHHH FUCK NO! Not now! Why!? Fucking uterus!

Looking down under my weighted blanket, I grimaced at the sight of the splotch of blood that soaked not only my fucking sleep shorts, but my bedsheets as well.

Groaning as I laid back for a split second, I heard Robin chuckle out a question that was thrown my way, bright eyed and bushy-tailed despite our late night, "what's the matter, Whisper-san? Not a fan of mornings?"

I groaned in pain as I rolled myself to my side and peered out of my nest of blankets and rhetorically snapping at her, "is any sane woman a fan of having their uterus stab themselves out of revenge of not fulfilling our biological expectation of cranking out babies like we're springtime bunnies?"

Nami, who had apparently been out of the room for a bathroom break, had come in just in time to hear me respond to Robin.

She winced at my acrid tone, and asked if I needed her to go find Chopper. I only moaned as I dragged myself out of bed and headed for the bathroom. I needed a fucking shower, NOW…

When I finally emerged from the steaming bathroom, I felt marginally better.

Ahhhhhhhh, the wonders of hot fucking water…..

When I reached the girls room, I was greeted with the sight of Nami talking quietly talking to Chopper. Raising my eyebrow at Nami, I asked Chopper, "hey Chopper, what bright you back to the Merry so early?"

Chopper turned away from whatever Nami and him had been discussing and smiled at me with his 'calm/nice Doctor' face. I internally rolled my eyes.

"I wanted to change my shorts, but when I got here, Nami said you were having a hard time with your menstrual cycle. Do you usually experience painful cycles? As your doctor, I need to be aware of these things. Little differences can be preludes to large and sometimes fatal medical complications."

I nodded, remembering the Baker's wife from my birth island in East Blue. She'd developed ovarian sists that no one had caught for years. It wasn't until they all ruptured from an accidental fall from their porch steps that clued anyone into her condition. All the women in our sleepy island village had a hard crash course lesson from the down doctor about the various health hazards a woman could face but not recgonize as something being wrong.

"I've always had hard cycles, Dr. Chopper. I usually have a really hard time of it the first two-three days where I bleed extremely heavy but the last two-three days aren't typically that bad. On the first day I almost always end up dealing with severe cramps and mood swings. So if I'm extra bitchy today, don't let it twist your pants outta whack, Dr. Chopper. It's just my hormones talkin' before my brain can filter them."

I tried to always address Chopper by his Doctor title when he was in his "doctor" mode, since this was his role on the crew. Just I strived to always refer to Luffy as Captain.

Although, with Chopper, I allowed myself to relax that title reference whenever he wasn't using his game face. It was hard to do sometimes and I knew I'd called him by his title in some of my loud mental ramblings before in the past. He alwasy blushed and stuttered out denials of the title whenever I did so, clueing me in to my runaway mouth.

I paused in my thoughts and muttered under my breath at the mental reminder of my bad habit of speaking my thoughts aloud without meaning to do so, "more than I usually do, anyway…"

Chopper pulled out a small black notebook that he ALWAYS kept in his blue backpack. It was the only written medical journal of the crew that he allowed himself to keep. He quickly flipped to a section that I'd learn later was dedicated just for me and jotted down what I'd said.

"Okay, I'm not too worried then if it's something that's occurred since you first hit puberty," he glanced up at me in an unasked question if that assumption was correct, to which I nodded, "but just in case, I'd want to do a pelvic examination once you're off your Cycle, Wisteria."

That was the other thing. Chopper always insisted on using my and Will's full and proper (not nicknames) names whenever he was in his "doctor mode".

I groaned at the thought of the examination, but I'd had them done before, back when I first bled at 14. That had been embarrassing as all hell. But at least I'd known what to expect in regard to my cycle, thank you mom…

I nodded to show I understood and consented to the exam. I wouldn't like it, but I'd still go through with it for safety. I wasn't boar-headed like some of my male compatriots on this ship.

Nami's face paled when Chopper threw over his shoulder casually as he walked out the door, "I'll need to do one for all the girls too."

I patted her shoulder companionly as I passed her on my way to my dresser to get dressed for the day.

Conis and Robin were not in the room at this point, having left the room sometime during my long hot shower. For half a second I felt guilty at taking such a long shower, but at the stabbing ache centered just in front of my pelvic bone and slightly to either side of my hip bones flared, I thought, "fuck it, if they want a hot shower, they can draw up their own batch of water and wait for it to heat the fuck up. This hurts like a fucking bitch."

Nami chuckled and finally moved out of the girls room while I was in the midst of pulling up my only black pair of cargo pants with an elastic waistline.

I only wore this pair while on my cycle. Mostly due to it being easier to hide blood stains in black fabric. Last thing I needed was to be humiliated for running out of female products on a predominately MALE pirate crew…

No fucking thank you.

Quickly I set about tying my sword to my waist with my orange sash and pulled on a pair of lightweight navy blue long sleeve blouse and my knee-high black wool socks and combat boots.

I took the time to do my hair back up into the beautiful braided updo style that Robin had taught me last night. I'd been right to fear sleeping in it and fearing it would come undone, that coupled with the necessity of a long shower and I would have had to redo the hairstyle anyways.

As the last touch, I pulled on my orange sea stone gloves, bemoaning the burnt smudges that littered them from Eneru's attempts of deep frying my ass.

I'd be lucky if I had enough material left to leave them up to my forearms, worse case having only enough for standard length gloves.

I tried not to stomp my way towards the kitchen, where I was surprised to see Sanji already slaving away over the stove and Luffy inhaling a platter of double chocolate chip pancakes.

At the sight of the heavenly sweet substance, I drooled.

"AH~ Wisp-san! Never fear! I kept a plate of chocolate chip pancakes just for you~!" He sang out as he twirled away front he stove after flipping a last pancake onto the platter that Luffy was making quick work of emptying.

"Thanks. Now where's the chocolate syrup?"

Sanji paused at my brisk tone, no longer twirling as he looked at me in confusion, muttering, "chocolate syrup? It's in the fridge…"

I grunted and with a hard yank, opened the fridge quickly to snatch the bottle of liquid ambrosia and slathered it over top my plate. Once i could no longer see a single speck of the perfectly golden brown glaze of the pancake and only dark, rich, chocolatey gooeyness, I dug in.

I beat Luffy in finishing my plate, even after having to stop and lick every last trace chocolate syrup off of my plate, and decided that I hadn't had nearly enough fucking chocolate for breakfast. Instead of wasting my time for waiting for a cup of milk to come to a near boil, I just tilted the bottle of chocolate perfection up and chugged.

It was the sight of this that Zoro decided to stagger into the kitchen.

I slammed the bottle down onto the table and glowered at him and said darkly, "so glad you could join us Zoro. You almost missed breakfast. Sanji made pancakes."

He reeled back as if I'd struck him, but I turned away and shoved the nearly empty boddle of liquid salvation back into the fridge, and set my plate down into the sink. I was in no mood to argue with Sanji right now over allowing me to pull my own weight in helping with dishes, so without another word to anyone I went out on deck.

After the door closed I heard Zoro ask the room at large, "what was with Wisteria?"

Sanji's smooth voice spoke unsurely, "I could be wrong, but in my experience, only one of two things drive a woman to drown themselves in chocolate. Given her reaction to you, I'd say it doesn't have anything to do with her body's monthly assault."

"What…"

"And instead, I'd ask, 'what did YOU do to the Lovely Flower!?' Shitty MossHead!?"

"I didn't do SHIT, ero-cook!"

II sighed and decided to walk away. I didn't want to deal with any of their SHIT today, or for the rest of this week, to be honest.

I crawled my way up to the crow's-nest and was only mildly surprised to see Neal wrapped around my brother in his full Griffin form.

I groaned wearily and asked him as I gestured to under his wing, "is there any room under there for one more?"

He cocked his head in that way all curious avians did, and asked, "there might, but you'd have to get him to move over some."

I nodded and instead of shoving Will out from the shadowy space under Neal's wing, I crawled so I was laying half on top of him and cuddled up to my brother. I managed to squeeze myself in so that my back was firmly wrapped up alongside Neal's soft and WARM larger body and my front side half draped overtop of my brother.

It used to be that whenever any of us siblings had nightmares we'd cuddle up together in whoever's bed and spend the night in a doggy pile. Had done so ever since mom had told us of her doing the same thing with her sister as a child. She told us it helped to chase her nightmares away.

Eventually, after dad's death, we started doing it if anything at all had upset us.

Will woke as I had done so, but didn't try to get up and leave. Instead he waited for me to settle with a sigh, and asked, "what happened?"

I shook my head and whispered, "girl problems. Be grateful you have a dick and leave it at that."

He blushed and nodded.

We closed our eyes and even though it had only been about two or three hours since I'd woken up for the day, I was swiftly losing the battle to keep my eyelids open.

From beside me, I heard Will whisper, "go ahead and rest, Wisp. I'll stay 'til you're ready to stand again."

I nodded.

After a peaceful pause, I asked in a quiet whisper with my eyes shut, "Will? Would you sing me Mom's Say Goodnight Song?"

For a moment I didn't think he'd respond…but then he gulped and nodded shakily.

"It's time to go to sleep…

"Go to sleep…

"So close your eyes…

"And say goodnight…

"And fall asleep…

"And have a won~derful Dreeeams~~

"So, Say good night, and close your eyes, an fall asleep…

"And dream a dream…

"Just for me…

"A dream so sweet…

"That all you'll ha~~ve..

"Is Won~~~derful Dreeeeams…"

I sighed as my brother's boyish tones deepened as he sang. He'd adamantly deny it, but I'd always though his voice was best suited for this song.

It was a slow and repeating lullaby that our mother had made up for us to have on those nights that three young children didn't want to go to sleep. It soon became a nightly ritual. One that I'd allowed myself to nearly forget the words after so long, despite having had them written down in my song journal.

As always, I was out before I could ever hear the third stanza. To this day, I never knew if there even was a third stanza. It was just one of the many things I never got around to asking my mother before we were separated.

I didn't wake until much later in the day.

Luffy was telling us all to do whatever we wanted to do before we were gonna leave, that way we wouldn't be leaving any regrets behind. I broke in and let him know that Conis was wanting to talk to him at some point today. I feared that if I didn't, he'd miss her in whatever crazy activity he wanted to do today.

And what would that be?

Stealing a bunch of gold before we leave, like proper pirates, of course.

It was mid-morning now, and Sanji made sure we all had a hearty lunch.

After lunch, Usopp spent the early afternoon 'trading' some of his stuff that he didn't need for the few dials that had managed to survive Eneru's destruction of Angel Beach. It didn't surprise me that they were still overly obsessed with having rubber bands than they were over the sheet metal.

Their savior was made of Rubber and thus immune to a tyrant that was made of lightning…plus they lived on clouds (when not on the land that had flown into the sky) you do the math.

Usopp took it in stride and, personally ripped them off like a true con-artist. I knew the true value of some of those dials and knew that not even if we had used all the gold in Will's storage boxes would be we able to afford some of them down in the Blue Seas, so I wisely kept my trap shut over the matter.

The ones Usopp got werent even all that difficult to breed and obtain up here in the sky, so it wasn't like it was a serious problem, thus leaving me feeling very little guilt in not saying anything. Usopp was the malicious kind of con-artist anyhow.

Zoro and I had been practicing some new techniques he had finally perfected during the battles with Eneru's priests, when we were interrupted by Luffy shouting for us.

He wanted to do it while the snake was still passed out drunk from the party last night, but after i persuaded him that it would be easier to wait until i could ask the snake to just keep it's mouth open while we did this; using the "Luffy's Logic" that it would lessen the risk of us getting stuck inside it's stomach and having to fight our way through it's digestive tract, and possibly dying and thus not being able to continue searching for our dreams was what finally won him around.

When Nami heard WHY he wanted to explore the giant assed snakes' insides, she was the first in line to go treasure hunting.

Robin had disappeared at some point, wanting to study the golden bell of Shandora. It had a Poneglyph welded into the golden framework that was the base of the bell. She later told us how she'd found newer writings in the language of the poneglyphs that had a hidden message from the late pirate king himself.

I'd just gotten the snake, Nola, to agree to keep her mouth open for however long we'd need to get the gold out of her stomach. Turns out she hadn't meant to eat so much metal but given her size, it was hard not to get half a building when lunging after equally large birds like the south birds here were.

Nami had enlisted Zoro and Sanji's help to haul sacks of gold; Luffy didn't have to be persuaded to go as it was an 'adventure'. Chopper was simply excited to study what kind of effects Nola's stomach must have had to endure from ingesting metal, stone and dirt along with the more normal options.

Usopp had to practically be manipulated and strong armed into going, despite Nola and my assurances that Nola wouldn't close her mouth while they were inside her.

I illustrated, "it'll be like going into Laboon's stomach to visit Crocus…only less water since she doesn't have to take in so much water when eating. You'll be fine."

Eventually, He had no choice as Luffy accidentally rocketed Usopp, Chopper and himself down into the snakes' awaiting maw.

Neal, Will and I were left on the outside due to Will's Storage Boxes being full from our trip into Ape's Concert just a couple days prior. Plus, it was a promise to Chopper, Nami and Usopp for us to stay out here and make sure the snake kept to her word about keeping her mouth open…

They had been inside the stomach for about an hour and I was expecting them to start trickling back any minute now. Conis had joined us in waiting for the others to come back and had a large pale blue messenger bag wrapped over her shoulder and a strange looking gun strapped to her right thigh.

That was when I saw Robin approaching out of the ruins, followed by a bunch of the Skypieans and Shandian's, all walking at a relaxed gate, so I didn't let myself feel more than a momentary amount of panic. Will jumped down beside me while Neal decided to remain up in the crows-nest.

Nami, Luffy and the others came out of Nola's mouth right as Robin's group came within shouting distance. The boys were all fighting after calling Zoro some rather "unsavory" names.

Zoro, in retaliation, was the one to start the actual violence aspect of the fight in bonking each of the guys on the head, yelling at them, "I'll teach you not to cuss at me!"

Sanji retaliated with kicks and Luffy with punches, Luffy calling Zoro 'stupid' as Sanji screamed at Zoro, "when you get lost after taking 3 steps into a jungle, how would you like it if we don't wait for you!?"

It was that comment that made me realize Zoro must have said something insensitive about not waiting for someone. Most likely being Robin, since Sanji was so up in arms over the topic. Although, it could have been over something as dumb as the small south bird we'd broguht up to the sky, so who knows?

When Nami, ever the paranoid thief when dealing with bags of ill-gotten loot, saw the crowd of locals following behind Robin, she panicked and urged the others to run back to the Going Merry.

Luffy laughed and went along with it, likely because it felt more 'pirate-like' to be chased by a mob while carrying bags of gold with his crew.

Once everyone was on board, Nola finally closed her mouth and rose her head to see what all the commotion was about.

Nami tried to get everyone to urgently prepare the ship to set sail, but I had Will cry out, "HOLD IT GUYS!"

Everyone on the ship froze and looked to me after seeing him point to myself.

I nodded at Will in thanks, and said, now that everything was quiet and I didn't have to strain myself to speak, "hang on everyone. If you look, you'd see that those people arn't carrying a massive cannon," that had been Usopp's theory earlier, when he'd said, "just from the shape of the cloth covering that thing," here I stopped to look annoyed at Usopp, "if they DID have such a huge assed cannon, WHY WOULDN'T THEY USE IT AGAINST THE TRANNICAL MANIAC THAT WAS HOLDING THEIR LIVES HOSTAGE!?"

They all looked a little sheepish at that realization swept through them. Before anyone else could make any other comment to try and prove their bogus theory, I added with a nonchalant shrug, "plus, if you all recall, up here, Gold is practically useless, so I highly doubt they'll care that we took bags of it out of Nola's stomach," (three guesses who's fear that was, and now the first two guesses don't count….)

Zoro and Sanji settled down the bags they'd been carrying, Sanji having had better luck of taking Nami's bags from her to bring them up the ship so she could climb up first. Usopp, who was no longer shaking like a leaf in the wind, came over to look at what was coming for us.

Luffy shouted, "Look! You can see Robin with them!"

We all gathered along the railings and yup, the Skypiean's and with a few people from Shandora were working together to haul whatever that massive thing was behind Robin.

They had started running when they'd seen the crew panicking and tattempting to get ready to leave, so they were now much, much closer.

Sanji pointed to Robin and gushed about how beautiful she was with a happy smile. Before Zoro could snap at him for being a love obsessed pervert, I snarked, "well, there ya go. If she was being chased or forced into leading them to us, she wouldn't be so fucking about it, so why don't we all just shut the fuck up for a damn minute and wait our asses for them to get here and explain whatever the fucks going on?"

The men that were standing near me, with the exception of Will and Neal, all UN-subtlety leaned as far away from me as they possibly could with a worried gazes on their faces.

"R-r-rrright…let's do t-th-that then…" Usopp fearfully stuttered out.

When everyone settled down to wait, it only took another five minutes for Robin and the locals to reach us. The Sky People were panting hard from the monumental task of lugging over the gigantic thing, but they were all nonetheless ecstatic to have reached us before we could 'leave'.

Luffy called down to Robin, "Oi, Robin, what's that thing?"

Robin's smile spread until her eyes were almost crinkled shut as she told us that it was a "thank-you-gift" from the locals for saving them.

Luffy smiled and asked with stars in his eyes if it was a giant piece of meat.

Most of the crew was too used to his nigh on obsession with his favored food group to be surprised at the question. Robin chuckled and shook her head, saying, "no, Captain-san. It's the broken gold pillar from the belfry."

Nami's eyes flashed with the symbol for money again, before she started blatantly drooling. Leaning over the railing to get a better look at the tarp covered pillar she asked breathlessly, "you mean…? That entire thing is…?!"

Robin nodded and the local men which a flourish, pulled the tarp off the pillar to expose their gift.

Nami fainted in greedy bliss.

Will lurched forwards and just barely caught her before she fell from over the side of the railing. At the sudden movement, Neal had lifted off his perch that was Will's shoulder (he was in his small parrot form) and landed on mine, careful to keep his sharp talons so they only sat on my bra and tank top straps.

Sanji was equal parts worried about Nami and enraged at how Will had had to catch her.

When Will had grabbed Nami, it was around her torso, with his arms hugging her stomach, with his left forearm directly underneath her boobs. This left her breasts squishing upwards even more and practically laying on top of Will's arms.

If Nami had been awake, she'd likely have punched him off of her and then charge him an obscene amount of money for the "pleasure" of having touched her body.

Luffy was beside himself with awe at the generosity of the local sky people. Asking in between jumping up and down, "wow! We can really have all that!?"

In a matter of moments after they had said of course, it was the least they could do, Luffy was down and dancing and celebrating with the locals.

Looking at Conis, who hadn't had the chance to speak to Luffy yet about her desire to join the crew, I asked her, "did you know they were doing this? I can't imagine it wouldn't have taken some time to figure out the logistics of lifting that fucker."

She shook her head and said, "no, no one had said anything about this when I went to get my few things off of papa's dial-boat. Nor when I went to talk with Papa about my decision."

I nodded and thought aloud, purposely this time mind you, "well, then it must have been a spur of the moment thing when Robin went looking for the Belfry. Gotta say, your people are amazing if they were able to wrangle that thing all the way here in such a short amount of time."

She smiled in pride at my compliment, and admitted, "yes, we've been told that we Skypiean's have always had a slightly longer stamina in most physical activities. According to our doctor's history texts from comparisons with other doctors that have come up from the Blue Sea in the past, it's due to the lack of easy access to a substance in the air. Our lungs since birth have adapted to doing the same amount of work as may Blue Seas dwellers with less access to this substance. So, we are able to inhale more of it in times of physical activity. Papa warned me that I might get much stronger when…well…if I am able to join you."

She got nervous towards the end of her explanation and I put a hand to her shoulder to comfort her, telling her, "hey, it's not "if" it's "when" right? Luffy will most definitely say it's alright for you to come. You'll see."

Her smile became surer of herself, and I smiled back. Chopper, having heard her explanation, asked, "awesome! Do you mind if I give you a check up before and after we leave Sky Island?! I want to document the differences, so I have a base line of what is normal for you!"

Conis's smile became soft as she listened to our young doctor and nodded, "of course! It's important to have those base statistics for emergencies."

They walked over to the inner part of the ship and got to it. Chopper explained to Conis that Luffy would likely want another party before we leave due to the gift. Unless we somehow managed to convince Luffy it was truly time to go.

Once the excitement of seeing that huge amount of gold being given to us, and Nami had woken up from her fainting spell, we started to settle down and the real nightmare began.

Finding a way to force Nami to accept the thought of having to leave some of that gold behind…

When she realized that the merry would sink faster than a rock in a pond, she started to straight up wail in grief, hugging the golden pillar like a parent would a lost child.

I rolled my eyes and said, "cut the crap, Nami. You know if we tried to take this big assed thing we'd for one, drown, two, the ship wouldn't be able to handle the strain and be smashed to pieces, and three, we could always pick the chunk we leave behind back up when we finish making it to Raftel."

We all paused and everyone turned to look at me befuddled.

I sighed dramatically, and explained slowly, "with Captain's food budget, we'd almost have to come back at some point just ot make sure we're not going to be bankrupt in trying to keep up with his weekly food expenses."

She sobbed at that thought, and I smirked evily, "plus, I'm sure you've noted how as he's gotten stronger he's needed to eat more just to keep up his energy, right?"

At her pale, miserable nod, I went on, "so imagine how much he'd need daily once we reach Raftel and he becomes the Pirate King?"

She froze, horrified at the mental imagery I just bestowed upon her.

From behind and to the left of Nami, Sanji too froze in horror. His face started to turn blue as he continued to not breathe. He over anyone knew the true horror I'd just dumped on them.

From beside me, I saw Robin clutch her tummy as she tried to keep herself standing and not doubling over in her laughter.

Luffy was staring at me wide eyed and a look of awe upon his face at the thought.

Zoro was too busy cutting the damn pillar into small brick sized sections so we could try and fit as much of it on the ship as possible. Will's storage boxes were still stuffed to the maximum from our trip into Ape's Concert of the Rainbow Mist to hold anymore gold.

Usopp was trying to calculate just how much gold we could conceivable carry on the Merry before she would be at risk, muttering to himself as he ran the calculations on a notepad that he'd pulled from his man-purse.

So far we had only cut a small square out of the broken pillar, cutting it up so that it stacked up into the standard golden bars. Once all cut and stacked, the cube shape stack of gold stood 5'x4'x6' in dimensions.

Before Zoro could continue, Usopp told him to stop and explained that this was the most the Merry could probably take, given the state the Merry was in.

Nami was torn from being enraged with Usopp about not being able to take any more gold with us, and thoughtful over what I'd said before.

Conis asked us from where she stood beside Robin, "why not carve your symbol into the gold so no one can try and take it after we leave? O-or at least without knowing you have a stake of claim on it."

Nami perked right up and set to ordering Zoro about carving our flag's symbol into the golden pillar.

Luffy joined in on that thought, cheering Zoro on to leave our pirate jolly roger on the gold. I couldn't help but be reminded of Luffy's bastarization of our flag that he'd painted on top of Laboon's poor forehead. I was suddenly rather grateful it was Zoro doing the carving…

It took Zoro about an hour to get it all done to his satisfaction, managing to get a clear carving of our jolly roger that was as big as a person was tall carved into a solid gold pillar wasn't exactly the easiest of jobs to do as a swordsman.

Conis took this time to beg Luffy to take her on as a crewmember, to which Luffy had looked long and hard at Conis before smiling and saying that of course she could come with, if that's what she truly wanted.

Conis had been so nervous when Luffy had just stood there and stared at her, and I knew she had to have been feeling something soul-shattering like I had when Luffy first recruited me back in LogueTown.

I still didn't know how or what it was he was doing when he did that, all I knew is that I wouldn't have been surprised if he truly was searching our souls whenever he looked at us like that. Maybe he was. Maybe he was looking for some clue to see if we were the kind of people that he wanted to be known as a part of our crew/family.

Who's to say?

Conis was quick to be congratulated by her people, they were overjoyed that she'd be able to follow her dreams and get to go with their hero who they trusted to be able to keep her safe. Relatively, that is.

Luffy quickly pointed out to those people that he wasn't a hero, but none of the sky people would hear any other explanation for his actions against Eneru.

By this point, it was nearing dinner time, so we spent one more night partying with the locals before leaving in the morning. With us StrawHats, we were celebrating a successful treasure hunt and welcoming a new crewmember.

Conis explained that she had decided to leave Suu with her father, as she didn't think Suu would survive a sudden change in climate for the oxygen levels as well as a person could. The last thing she wanted to do was put her precious animal friend into danger that could be avoided. Plus, it would still give her father some company while she was gone.

Luffy was bummed at first that the cute fox wasn't going to be joining as well, but when Conis explained that Suu would have been in danger if she came with, he calmed down and accepted it. Conis asked if we would be able to share clothes and the three women of the crew agreed. Robin had been able to find some clothes when we were on the island with the firework festival of her own. She was the closest in size with Conis for shirts while I was surprisingly the closest in waistline.

My capri's ended up looking like knee length shorts for Conis though. Damn it!

I totally did NOT use my sword to cut down some trees into firewood for the locals at that realization…no, no way. That would admit that I had a problem with being short…which I'm not…nope…

Fuck, who was I kidding? I was so short! I cried to myself pathetically.

Conis tried to assure me that it was fine, a lot of women were on the shorter side, but that just made me more upset. Her face became sad and worried, but Chopper just assured her and Sanji, who was weeping at not being able to help after his multiple attempts earlier, that I was just overly hormonal from my monthly cycle.

Sanji curled himself into a corner of the deck, miserable twirling a finger along the deck and mumbling how he was a 'shitty man that caused a lady to cry…' and that he 'didn't deserve to breathe the same air….'

Zoro had paled and fled to the rear deck behind Nami's tangerine trees to train with his weights.

We left early the next morning, something I was NOT happy about. Who wants to get up at the butt crack of stupid anways? Way to fucking early…

As we sailed along, we were 'led' more like "followed" by Conis's father, who was "leading" us to the place where we could leave the sky islands safely. I say this all with quotations because of the fact that since we have Conis on the crew, we didn't necessarily "need" to be escorted to this exit in the sky.

In reality, it was so that he could say goodby to his daughter one final time.

None of us would begrudge them of their goodbyes, so we went along with the excuse. Nami was too busy geeking out over the massive amounts of gold we had to care one way of the other. She was literally laying overtop of the pallet of gold, screaming out, "gold! Gold! Gold!" over and over again.

I was starting to get a headache damn it.
Didn't help that Luffy and Usopp were dancing around the main deck, crying out, "we're rich! What should we buy? How about a giant statue!?"

"Idiot! That's a waste! We should buy cannons" Usopp tried to beg. Luffy wasn't listening though, muttering on, "a super awesome one!" and devolving into a daydream of having a gigantic bronze statue of himself.

Sanji was begging Nami for a refrigerator with a lock on it, and I was horrified to realize that due to all the hullabaloo in Alabastra, we never did get around to purchasing one of those!

"Fuck, you mean to tell me that we've been having to deal with the giant mouse trap of doom each night? How the hell have I not noticed such a massive fucker each morning?!" I thought to myself.

Chopper was jumping up and down claiming that he wanted medical books at our next stop while Zoro grumbled out about wanting some quality rum.

Will leaned over to me from where he was sitting doing a painting of the endless looking expanse of the White Sea clouds and whispered with a smirk, "when do you think they'll remember that I've been delegated treasurer of the crews funds, and that sucking up to Nami like that will do them all shit and giggles?"

I snorted, and Chopper, who heard us, cried out in horror and apologized to Will for forgetting. He then blushed and wiggled in his place before us and asked, "so, can I use some of the gold to get some medical books?"

Will smiled and said, "of course! I'll even make sure you're the first to get your portion of allowance when we reach port, since you were the first to realize and apologize."

It was at that point that Conis called out to everyone from the port railing that if we looked ahead we'd notice we were almost to the exit. Her father going so far as to point out that he could see it already.

Up ahead was another building with a tunnel entrance and a sign above it that told you where you were headed. It simply read, "cloud end."

Robin asked, "so we are getting down from here, eh?'

Luffy draped himself over the Merry's figurehead whining, "awww~~we're leaving already?"

Sanji looked out over the expanse of clouds and admitted, "yeah, I am feeling a little bit nostalgic already."

Zoro smiled as he looked out over the horizon and agreed, "yes. Time to say goodbye to this White Sea…"

Chopper hopped up so that he could look over the railing and said, "Sky Island was fun, but it was kind of scary…"

I groaned, "I'm beginning to see a pattern here…"

Neal cocked his head, still pointing true north since he was in his small parrot form, "oh?"

I nodded and explained, "any island where there's people on it with more than a single town, we somehow manage to find the deepest pit of fuckery and turn everything ass over teakettle within a DAY of being on said island."

Neal cocked his head the other way as he thought it over, he'd only truly been with us to see two major instances, and the few islands between those he had to agree that they were too small in population to be able to stir up the Luffy Brand^™ of trouble. Skypiea and Shandora had two or three groups of people and look what happened?

Eventually he nodded with a sweat drop comically rolling along the side of his head and muttered, "hopefully it is not a true pattern for our future lives but merely a prelude for better sailing to come?"

Usopp snorted from his place at the stairs, and Conis looked over to us all in confusion.

Nami had finally been brought out of her greedy haze and when she saw the tunnel, she asked Conis, "do we just go through that tunnel, and then follow the milky way all the way down to the blue seas?"

Conis shook her head and said quietly, "if it were that easy, we would be capable of a proper trading route with dwellers of the Blue Seas, don't you think?"

I blanched and begged, "hey, Conis…please tell me it's NOT a drop off or some other kind of bullshit…please! I don't think I can take another one of those!"

She looked at me puzzled, and asked herself, "another?" before shaking herself out of it and said, "not quite. We have a reliable method of getting some of the wildlife to lower us down to the Blue Seas. However," she winced before adding, "they do not have a way to bring us back up…"

Chopper, having not heard the short conversation, asked innocently, "do you think we'll come back later?"

Conis shook her head and her father said solemnly, "this is it…this is as far as I can accompany you," he looked to everyone else and told us, "take care of yourselves, everyone! And please! Take care of Conis!"

Luffy nodded with a serious look in his eyes and said with a small grin, "of course! She's nakama now! Thanks for everything Mister, and Siro! Take care!"

I chuckled at Luffy's nickname for Suu, the cloud fox that had stowed away on Pagaya's dial bot.

Pagaya then looked to his daughter and they shared a heartfelt nod of understanding. They'd already said everything they needed to say back at the island.

Just as we were about to enter the tunnel, Pagaya came running down the island cloud 'sidewalk', calling out, "excuse me! You must put away your sail immediately!"

Usopp relayed his warning and we all jumped into action. Nami and Sanji were quick to move all of the gold into the lower hold so as to avoid it toppling over and off the deck where she'd had it originally.

We then heard an angry bird call, "choh~~~~~~~~~~! Choh~~Choh~~"

It was the smaller south bird we'd accidentally brought up here. He apparently was cursing out for almost leaving here when it was our fault for taking up in the first place and how dare you try to run out without me you bastards, don't forget me here…blah, blah, blah…

He crash landed on top of Luffy and with his weight alone, forced the rubber man to the floor.

Nami looked to the log pose and said with a smile, "all~~~right….Captain," drawing all of us and Luffy's attention onto her, "it looks like the log pose has locked onto the next island…"

Luffy stood up, the south bird landing onto the upper yard railing with an angry, "choh!" for good measure, and Luffy said with a determined smile, "okay. This is the start of a brand new adventure!"

He looked us all in the eye before saying, "alright, crew, let's….GO back to the Blue Seas!" he finished with a fist pump to the sky and a final yell.

We all joined in and cried out, "yeah~~!"

Conis looked back to us from where she was watching the brow, and called back to us, "everyone, be careful. We're going to start falling soon!"

"Fuck me, she said "fall" just now, didn't she?" I wailed.

Not even a fucking second later…

We were falling.

I swear I lasted more than a second before going into a panic attack, really I swear!

As we were falling, Conis pulled out a silver whistle from her breast pocket and mumbled, "here goes…the sky island special Balloon Octopus Whistle!"

She then gave as much air as she could and blew into the small whistle as hard as she could.

A second later, a gigantic pink octopus with purplish-black ink like markings on the crown of it's bulbous head leapt out of the sea clouds and latched itself onto our ship.

Usopp and Chopper began screaming fear while Zoro grabbed at his swords, asking, "a monster?!"

But before he could so much as start to draw his weapon, the octopus somehow inflated his overly large bulbous head and we were all forced to the deck as our fall was slowed dramatically.

Now, instead of "falling" we were gently gliding down with style.

Some of us did not land on the deck gracefully. Poor Sanji had ended up on his shoulders and his ass in the air, but quickly flipped himself around so that he could look upwards like the rest of us.

Luffy was immediately up at the railing of the ship and screaming about how cool it was and for all of us to take a look. As if we weren't already looking.

Conis picked herself up from where she'd toppled over and explained that it was an "octo-balloon". They were a tamed species of octopi native to Skypiea. The adults frequently came down to the Blue Seas to breed and lay their eggs before dying, the babies once hatched would take one of the other methods of reaching sky island clouds than the one we'd taken.

While on one hand, aww how cute, baby octopi, but on the other? Aww how sad for the momma octopi…

Usopp and the others weren't as quick to adjust to the 'no longer falling to our deaths' fact.

Not that I could blame them…I was still struggling to fucking BREATHE.

Zoro cursed and was at my side as soon as he had calmed down from his own stressed filled brush with death.

"Wisteria. Breathe. You have to take a breath, there we go…that's it, hold it for the count of four, yup, let it out slow, okay…inhale again, in…and…out…in…and…out…"

We did this for a few seconds before I was able to get out breathlessly, "thanks…"

He nodded and stayed with me until my breathing was under control, before leaving me to Chopper to check me over and head over to keep Luffy in check.

Chopper pulled out his stethoscope to check my lungs and asked, "Wisp, how often do you have panic attacks?"

I shook my head and asked, "normally?"

He nodded, and I chuckled, "well, before joining the crew, it was only maybe once every few months, worse on the month my family, well, yeah…anyways…yeah, normally not that bad."

He frowned and asked, "and now?"

I shrugged and said, "well, it's only been what, maybe two months tops? I've only had a handful of panic attacks, so sure, more than usual. But we've been in some pretty high stress situations, I figured it was allowable."

He nodded and said that was all true, then asked how long I'd known of my fear of heights.

I chuckled, "normal heights don't bother me, if that's what you're askin'. It was more the aspect of falling 10k meters to our actual death. It's like, for example, I really don't like climbing mountains and having my feet at the edge of a cliff that go's more than five or six feet down, ya know? But being on the mountain itself when I don't have to think about falling to my death, don't have to actively see it or some shit, doesn't bother me too much and I can ignore it."

Chopper nodded before saying, "perfectly natural. Plus, with your biology being meant for belonging under the sea level, I imagine it must be a higher ingrained instinctual reaction than it is for regular humans."

I sighed, finally, someone with a god damn brain that actually fucking GETS IT!

Chopper had just gotten up to join the others in admiring the octopus-balloon after saying I was fine, when we heard it.

The gong of the Golden Belfry was ringing out across the heavens once more.

We all had an inner sense that it was the islander's way of saying, "thanks for everything, we hope you return safely, you're welcome back anytime!"

Conis had tears flowing down her face as she looked upwards with a smile and her eyes closed. Basking in the sound of the bell.

We all settled down around the ship and listed to the music of the golden bell as we floated downwards.

okay, so that's Skypiea done, and next we'll be visiting G-8, for those of you who only read the manga, I don't know if g8 is actually included, I think in the manga they just straight up drop outside water7's seatrain tracks and follow yokozuna the frog...? well, anyways I did enjoy the short little arc of G8 because of how natural they injected it into the storyline. biggest pet peeve for anime's with me is when the fillers don't intergrate into the story smoothly/seemlessly. soooo many fillers in some of these animes just crop up where its like "oh we're fighting big bad guy but wait here's a random flower that we must chase down for this side quest style filler! Enjoy!" lol not...

anyways, next update might take a while because I litterally don't even have half a chapter written for the next one, and I usually try to have like three chapters ahead of where I posted to ya'll for editing and whatnot...ugh...plus I haven't been able to get ahold of my beta for a reeeeally long time, so it's been all me for almost the entireity of this story...wooo...so I've been taking ya'lls suggestions in the comments to heart, hope the writing style has improved since we began.

anywho, until next time!

-ThayetJade