Yuta stops dead in his tracks to stare at Woonan's skeleton, but so do all the Strawhats. Still, Yuta gets the sense that some of them are more surprised than others.

He glances sideways at Treva, who's giving the skeleton a curiously displeased stinkeye. Then, Yuta glances at Luffy, who'd also looked to Treva. More than surprised, he seems mullish, and not especially happy himself.

Yuta doesn't suppose that he's too happy either. A skeleton is pretty cool, but he'd been hoping to encounter Woonan alive, if possible.

But it isn't.

"That can be right, can it?" blurts Usopp. Gesturing frantically, he turns his attention to Treva too. "Treva, you said he was alive!"

Treva startles. "I didn't!"

"It's true." Nami grimaces, looking from Woonan, to Treva, and back again. "She didn't. We just assumed."

Treva relaxes, relieved, but she's the only one who is.

"Old Man Ganzo probably suspected," Yuta muses, when it seems like they'll devolve back into silence. "Back at the oden shop, I don't really think he sounded like he thought he'd get to see Woonan again on this island."

That reminds Zoro of something, and he perks up. "Treva, you said Woonan left something behind on this island for that old man. It wasn't just bones, was it?"

"No, it wasn't," Treva confirms. She walks farther into the room, and then points up at the wall that the door is built into. "He left a message for anybody who came here, but it was really for Ganzo."

At this, everyone turns around, seeing for the first time that the whole wall is scrawled over with writing. The handwriting is pretty bad, so they all squint to read it.

It really is a message from Woonan, who recounts how he'd enjoyed the journey to collect a mountain of gold, but that after he was done, he could find no good use for it. So, his next great adventure was to get all of that gold to people who would make something of it, or who really needed it.

Gold can't laugh. It's just a rock.

Apparently, that's what Ganzo had told Woonan long ago, and Woonan had taken it to heart. Woonan's true, personal treasure was the raggedy flag he had put together as a young boy, because with it, he felt like his best friend was still with him in spirit.

Ganzo, the final lines read. Since the day you saved my life, deep in my heart, I've always believed that you were on the same boat as I was, by my side through all my adventures. Because of this, I have no regrets about living my life this way.

For a moment, they all just stare. Usopp snaps out of it first, gesturing and grinning wildly, restless. Yuta is restless too, Yuta realizes, but that's natural. He'd like to tell Woonan that Ganzo didn't die like Woonan had thought, but that's not possible either.

"Ganzo is seriously amazing!" Usopp babbles. "I mean, he's the only person that this great pirate really trusted, right?"

Zoro glances at Woonan's bones over his shoulder. More soberly, he observes, "One of them was a great pirate, and the other sells oden. But they had the same pride."

"Load of good that did them," Nami murmurs, frowning a sort of complicated frown up at Woonan's message. "If they were a little less prideful, they might never have gotten into that fight when they were kids, or Woonan might've visited their home island at some point before he died. They could've seen each other again."

Zoro narrows his eyes at Nami sideways, but he doesn't strike Yuta as taken aback that her opinion is what it is. He likewise doesn't strike Yuta as approving of it, though.

But before Zoro can respond, which he might not have anyway, Usopp speaks up.

"We should probably go, right?" he posits, looking with some anxiety between his crewmates and Woonan's bones. He can't fully bring himself to take the skeleton in directly. "To see how Ganzo and Tobio are doing."

"You guys go ahead," Luffy says. "I think I'm gonna stay down here a bit longer."

"I'm staying too," Yuta decides, because out of the Strawhats, he likes Luffy the best so far.

"And me," Treva puts in as well, raising her hand up like she's in class. Yuta gives her a thumbs up in solidarity. She stares back at him blankly, with her big, yellow, bug-like eyes.

"Well," says Nami, grimacing. She passes her lantern over to Luffy, who accepts it. "I'm not. Have fun."

Luffy grins at Nami, goofy and full of teeth. For the lantern: "Thanks, Nami!"

Nami glares at him, exasperated more so than anything else, and heads back up the stairs. Usopp scurries after her, and Zoro, after one last shared look of some meaning with Luffy, goes up also.

With them gone, Luffy's mood seems to take a turn for the more contemplative. He regards the wall with Woonan's writing on it, so Yuta does too. Treva, for her part, regards Luffy instead, craning her neck to do so. There's no contemplation evident in Treva's face; only a simple, alien joy.

She must be onto something that Yuta isn't, Yuta thinks. He thinks that he might understand it once he's become a real pirate too, if he plays his cards right.

"I'm glad I got to go on this adventure," Yuta announces, unprompted, after some silence. "I learned a lot. I got to see real pirates in action. And I even recruited a guy!"

"This wasn't about you," Treva lets Yuta know.

"To me, it was," Yuta reasons. "I mean, who else would I be about? It wouldn't make sense."

Treva seems to consider this. Luffy laughs.

"That's good," is his verdict, to Yuta. "If I didn't have good examples of how to be a real pirate growing up, I probably wouldn't be here now."

Treva lights up. She pumps a fist in the air. "Shanks!"

"Right!" Luffy concurs.

"Who's Shanks?" Yuta demands, instantly interested. "What's Shanks like?"

"Ginger," explains Treva. Yuta nods.

In further elaboration, Luffy recounts to Yuta and Treva the story of how Shanks inspirationally lost his arm to a sea monster.

"Woah!" Yuta exclaims, obligingly, once Luffy is done. "That guy sounds really cool!"

Grinning, Luffy goes on, "And then Shanks said…" Luffy's face changes and he sticks his tongue out, clearly in imitation of this Shanks guy. "I'm still not taking you with me. You're never going to make it as a pirate, Luffy. And then I…"

"That's not what he said," Treva pipes up.

Luffy and Yuta both turn to her.

Luffy blinks at Treva. "No? So what did Shanks say?"

"I wouldn't take you with me, anyway. You'll never make it as a pirate," Treva recites, not even trying to do an impression. But Luffy's mouth falls open, and then he's grinning again, even wider now.

"Hey, you're right!" he enthuses. "How'd you know that, Treva?"

Luffy's sanction thrills Treva in kind. She gestures broadly, flailing. "I saw it!"

"That was, like, almost ten years ago." Luffy does the math in his head. It takes him longer than Yuta, but when he gets there, he blurts, "Wow, you were a baby! And you really remember all that?"

Treva nods emphatically. "I remember everything I see in the future!" For even more emphasis, she throws her arms out. "And that one was the first sequence I ever saw in the future! I remember all of them, so I know."

"Do you remember other stuff from when you were a baby?" Yuta asks her.

Treva bristles. She reiterates, "I remember everything I see from the future."

"What about in the present, though?" Yuta presses.

"That's nowhere near as important!"

Yuta frowns at her. "It is, though."

"It is," echoes Luffy, which is eminently more valuable to Treva, who balks. Luffy barrels past whatever crisis he'd induced in her. "Anyway, so then I yelled at Shanks that I'll be king of the pirates, and he gave me his hat." In demonstration, Luffy takes his hat off and holds it upside down like a bowl in his hand that doesn't have the lantern, for Yuta and Treva to marvel at. "He told me how important to him it was, and that he wanted me to give it back to him someday, once I'm a great pirate."

Yuta crosses his arms and nods sagely. "And that Shanks guy had to earn that hat the same way from someone else. That's how these things go, so I'm sure of it."

Luffy shrugs, lacking a horse in the race. Treva, though, plants her fists on her hips and puffs out her chest, smug.

"It used to be—" she starts.

But Luffy, jamming his hat back onto his head so that his index finger is free to put up in front of his mouth, interjects. "Shhhh! Treva, don't spoil it!"

Treva slaps both hands over her mouth and freezes, her eyes massive. Luffy laughs at her and pats her head, and only then does Treva relax, a little.

"Well," Yuta says. "I don't know who had it before, but I know who's gonna wear it after Luffy."

Luffy blinks at Yuta. Treva's hands drop from her face so that she can better stare at him, with her bug's eyes.

"You don't know that," she tells Yuta. "Even I don't know that."

"I do," Yuta insists. Like Treva did previously, he plants his fists on his hips. "Because it's gonna be me!"

Treva gapes like a furious fish. Luffy seems only thoughtful.

"But you already have a hat," Luffy raises.

"I'll wear my hat on top of the strawhat," Yuta clarifies.

That satisfies Luffy, who thunks a fist onto a palm. "That makes sense."

"No, it doesn't!" Treva protests. "It makes no sense at all! Yuta can't wear it!"

"Oh!" Yuta turns to Treva. Slowly, he grins. "You want it too, huh?"

Treva rocks back onto her heels. "No! No, no, no, no, no!"

Luffy's attention snaps to Treva. "Hey, there's nothing wrong with my hat…"

"There isn't!" she agrees, vehemently. Luffy blinks at her, but Treva keeps going. "And I'm not wearing it! Never, ever, ever!"

"I get it," says Yuta, reading between the lines. "You want the hat too."

"No!"

Treva proceeds to launch into a rant that Yuta can't parse at all, mostly about delusional people from other worlds, statistical probability, and some lady called Mary-Sue, but he figures that that's fine.

️ ️ ️XXX

Luffy lugs Treva out of Woonan's cave and then out of the shack under his lantern-less arm, like a sack of potatoes. She goes obligingly limp, content to be carried, but her face is still drawn up in a rage. She glares determinedly at Yuta, who follows Luffy, the whole way, but that's of no consequence to Yuta. He has a new goal, a new rival, and a real spring in his step.

There doesn't appear to have been much conversation between the others, while Yuta, Treva, and Luffy had still been underground. Ganzo and Tobio are still sitting on a rock, while Nami is sitting on her bag of treasure, and Usopp is sitting on a different rock. Zoro is standing around, off to the side. If nothing else, Tobio at least doesn't look quite so much like he'll cry anymore.

Everyone looks over when Yuta's group arrives. Nami glances from Luffy to Treva and back to Luffy, and Nami's eyes narrow at him.

"What did you do?" Nami demands.

"I didn't do anything!" Luffy defends. "It wasn't even raining!"

Nami's eyebrow twitches, but she heaves a sigh, letting whatever it is go. Luffy returns the lantern to her, and she disappears it to wherever it is she had conjured it from to begin with. Usopp gets to his feet.

"We should probably go meet back up with Golass, right?" he suggests, on the off chance that an argument might break out regardless. "Or someone should go let him know where we are. We should, uh…" He gestures vaguely, not looking at Ganzo and Tobio. "Give Woonan a proper burial. I think."

"That we should." Ganzo gets up also, unhurriedly, with a long exhale. He raises an eyebrow at the Strawhats collectively, and of Golass, he asks, "You all made a friend while we've been here?"

Yuta takes his wooden sword off his belt to wave proudly in the air. "He joined my crew! Isn't that great news, Tobio? We're up to five crewmates altogether, including you and me!"

Tobio jumps to the ground and shakes his fist at Yuta. "I'm not on your crew!"

"Ryuji and Reika will want to know too," Yuta goes on, ignoring Tobio.

"There's no too! I don't want to know in the first place!"

Ganzo laughs then, a dry huff, distracting them both. Yuta and Tobio turn to him, and so do the Strawhats, for that matter. Treva is still under Luffy's arm, but no one has objected to that arrangement, and she's mostly lost interest in Yuta.

"Did I ever tell you boys how much you remind me of Woonan and I, from when we were your age?" Ganzo wonders.

Yuta beams. Tobio short circuits.

Before Tobio can make up his mind about how to react, Ganzo changes the subject. "Anyway," he says. He pats the big pot of oden strapped to his head. "It would be a shame to let all this perfectly good oden just go to waste. Woonan would've never had that. So, after we've buried him and I've paid my respects, why don't you all chip in to help me get rid of it in his honor?"

Zoro and Luffy both perk up at this prospect. Yuta does too.

"I'll go tell Golass!" Yuta declares. "We were supposed to meet up on the beach."

"The Eldoraggo Pirates are still out there, though," Usopp points out, looking nervously over his shoulder, like the Eldoraggo Pirates will suddenly appear behind him. "What if you run into them?"

"I'd win," Yuta assures Usopp.

Usopp is, visibly, not successfully assured. He turns to Nami for backup.

"Zoro, you go with Yuta," Nami instructs Zoro, in the spirit of cooperation.

Zoro frowns at Nami. "Why should I go with him?"

"Because me and Usopp aren't any good in a straight fight, and Luffy's all beat up." Nami crosses her arms. "If Yuta gets ambushed by the Eldoraggo Pirates on his way to Golass, you're the only one who could do something about it."

Usopp nods his head in vigorous assent. Zoro squints at Nami, then at Yuta, then at Nami again.

Zoro points at Yuta. "He doesn't need me there. He's already getting great mileage out of that toy sword."

"Zoro," Nami admonishes, slowly. It's only one word, just Zoro's name, but she really does pack an impressive amount of venom into it.

Zoro rolls his eyes. "Fine."

Put-upon, Zoro crouches down next to Yuta, unsheathes one of his two less fancy swords, and holds it out to Yuta in offer. Yuta promptly accepts it, raising the blade up against the light for a better view, grinning hugely.

"Zoro!" Nami snaps.

"Okay, fine!" Zoro stands, relenting. "Geez…"

Zoro does end up going with Yuta, while the others get started on putting Woonan's bones to rest. Before Zoro and Yuta walk off, though, Nami and Luffy seem to remember something about some other body on the Eldoraggo Pirates' ship, which will also need to be buried. They tell Zoro about it.

Zoro lets Yuta keep and swing the very real, very much metal sword as they set out, though, even over Nami's disapproval, so Yuta doesn't really care that much about anything else.