Usopp woke up to the sound of a fire crackling. He could feel that his entire body was wrapped up in bandages, and he could still feel throbbing pain throughout his body. Resting on his side, he could see that he was still on the back of the Impact Wolf he fell unconscious on. He let loose a yawn and tried to stretch his body, but doing so hurt.

"Oh, you're awake?" He heard Maria ask from behind, "Then are you ready to train?"

Usopp immediately closed his eyes, stopped moving his body, and started to falsely snore.

"It was a joke, don't worry, I'm in no shape to train you either. I do have breakfast ready though."

Rolling over, Usopp hopped next to the fire and winced as pain shot through his entire body. "Ouch ouch ouch, ouch! That was not my best idea..."

Now able to see the rest of the camp, he noticed that the other Impact Wolf was no longer on fire, and it had the Pop Green garden cart on it's back. The Devil plant was also standing guard.

"I did some basic first aid, but I'm no doctor. Some mushroom stew might help though."

Usopp gladly took a bowl and started chowing down. Maria waited for him to swallow some mushrooms before saying, "Now, you might be wondering how I could tell which mushrooms were not poisonous when I'm blind..."

Usopp coughed up some of the soup in surprise.

"I could tell from the shape and texture! Don't worry, I played it safe with ones I wasn't sure about."

Usopp glared at her. "I guess I'm your source of entertainment now?"

"Sorry, but it's been a couple of days since you fell unconscious, so I've been rather bored."

"A couple of days?!"

"You certainly got injured worse than I did. But enough of that, there is a serious question I still need to ask you."

"About Raven, right? I remember that much… The answer is that… Well, after my fight with the Grimm, I was super worn out, and I was also worried that Raven might wake up soon, so I decided to play it safe and leave ASAP."

Maria nodded, "Ah, so you decided to save Raven from that Pop Grimm rather than run away."

"Right, right- Wait, when did I tell you that!?"

"Just now."

"Ah damn, I did just give it away! But how did you guess that?"

"It just seemed like what you would do. You made your position rather clear before I was knocked out."

"Right… Well, I'm sorry, but I just couldn't take the risk, not when I've already failed my friends at Beacon."

"...There's nothing that can be done about that now. The bandits have undoubtedly moved on, and tracking them would waste more time than we already have. Though… this does mean that I risked my life for no real reason."

"...Actually, I think we were very lucky to encounter and fight Raven."

"What part of that was lucky?"

"You noticed Raven's strange and powerful Aura, right? Have you sensed that strangeness in anyone else?"

"No… I have seen more powerful Auras in your world, but there was something unique with hers. But you did say earlier that you also sensed something similar with Cinder, right?"

"Exactly, so I was thinking that they might have similar powers."

"So we might be able to fight her more effectively when the time comes?"

"Yup, now that we know she can turn into a bird, we'll be able to plan accordingly."

"...And of course, knowing about the lightning, ice, and wind will help too."

Usopp stared blankly. "Wait, what?"

"Were you not paying attention during the entire later part of my duel?!"

"It looked like all of the storm stuff was caused by that one girl I sniped!"

"That was probably just a cover. Did you sense any real intent from her?"

"No, but I thought that one girl was just hiding her intent somehow. Or my Haki wasn't good enough to sense it."

Maria sighed. "Have some confidence, will you? Your Observation Haki skills are progressing well after all. I'm sure you'll be able to use it to accurately predict attacks before we get to Haven."

"I sure hope so."

"You will. But enough of that, after this meal it's best that we get back to travelling up the river. We can ride on the wolves to make things go faster."

"Understood."

As four of the Ace Ops escorted Ironwood and the trusted scientist Pietro Polendina to the landing pad, he could only hope that he wasn't wasting his time.

"I'm surprised you wanted to come, Pietro."

"Even though I want to repair Penny as fast as possible, the implications of cola power are too important to miss out on."

"Do you think there is a chance that this is real?"

"It's so absurd that only someone with a few screws loose could have invented it… And those kinds of people are often called stupid until their crazy ideas work. I won't laugh at this 'Franosuke' person's claims without verifying anything."

"We'll be able to verify things soon enough."

As they approached the Manta that the Ace Ops had used on their latest mission, Ironwood thoughts drifted to the possibility that the man his subordinates had brought here was a spy. From what he had already heard about Franosuke, he seemed to stand out too much, and the answers he wanted were common knowledge. Surely, if Salem were to send someone to infiltrate Atlas, it would not be a man like him. However, he would not dismiss the possibility outright.

When the side doors of the Manta opened, Ironwood for the first time got a good grasp of just how large the mysterious cyborg was. The mechanical augmentations clearly weren't just to replace lost body parts, and he wouldn't be surprised if there were a number of hidden weapons all over his body.

The man himself, however, was sleeping on the ground face first with a snot bubble coming out of his mechanical nose. His hands were also behind his back and cuffed.

Marrow, the Ace Op left to oversee him, apologize to Ironwood. "A few minutes ago, I told him you would take an hour to get here since he was getting on my nerves, but he just instantly fell asleep."

"What did he do to get cuffed?" Clover asked.

"After looking at the moon, he asked me why it was shattered. After I said that it's always been that way, he freaked out and tried to escape. He calmed down after I froze and restrained him, but… He claims that he's from another world entirely."

"There's no reason to ponder the validity of this before verifying his less insane claims," Ironwood said.

"Should I wake him up?"

"No, we'll wait until we reach the training room. On the off chance he is a spy, there's no reason to let him know more about the layout of this place than what is required."

With Aura and his mechanical arm, Ironwood awkwardly lifted Franky's massive and heavy body above the ground. Elm and Vine lifted Franky's disproportionately large arms so they wouldn't drag on the ground, and soon enough they walked away.

Luckily, Franky did not wake up until they had entered the training room and set him on the ground. Ironwood made a mental note to thank Clover for that later.

Franky took his sudden change in location in stride, instead deciding to get straight to business. "You guys wanted me to prove that my Coup de Boo could get me to a flying aircraft, but isn't this room a little small for that?"

"It's the most spacious indoor room we have. Also, we'll be able to measure your initial velocity, and with a few calculations, determine if your claim is plausible or not," Pietro said.

"Very well… Then stand back, as this will be the most suuuperrr fart you'll have the honor of witnessing!"

'Honor' is not the word I'd use, Ironwood thought.

In typical Coup de Boo style, Franky's lower half inflated like a balloon, and after everyone plugged their noses, he rocketed upward and got his head stuck in the ceiling.

The Ace Op's eyes widened, but they otherwise kept a professional facade in front of the General who was struggling himself to keep his jaw from dropping.

Pietro had no such reservations, however. "That was… let me do the calculations… How did he get so much energy from cola?! Could cola have truly powered that?"

"It smells like cola a little," Marrow the unfortunate Faunus said. His keen nose was plugged, but it could still smell the fart a little bit.

Franky's head coming loose and the subsequent fall to the ground snapped everyone back to reality. Dusting himself off, he turned to the group with a serious expression on his face.

"I'm sure this won't be the last thing you want me to prove, but you should see by now that I'm not some lunatic that doesn't know what he's talking about. But for this next claim, I frankly don't care whether you believe me or not."

"This claim being that you're from another world?" Ironwood asked.

"Exactly… I'm not expecting you to believe it, but that doesn't change that I want to go home. If your country can help me, then I don't mind telling you everything I know regarding cola power."

"What makes you think that we would be able to deliver on a promise to send you back to your world?" Ironwood asked.

"It doesn't really matter if you don't think you can do it… I myself don't even know where to start! But giving up now would be more than just giving up on my home… it would mean giving up on the people I'd die for, and it would mean giving up on being a man! So in order to be able to say I've done my best, I'd like to recruit as much help as possible."

"...Considering you want a way to travel between worlds, it's possible that you might not achieve this in your lifetime. Are you sure you want to make a deal when you might get nothing in return?"

"That's fine."

"...At the moment, devoting the resources and manpower for such a project isn't feasible..."

Franky frowned.

"...However, should that situation change, I promise we'll do our best to help you, if this problem of yours be real."

"Oh? In other words, the sooner I make this 'situation' change, the sooner I'll get help? In that case… just suuuuper leave it to me!"

Ironwood let out a sigh as soon as he returned to his office. The arrival of 'Franosuke' had taken up much of his day as the strange cyborg continued to show off features of his body, and he was even able to prove that they were all powered by cola. The man even made a basic cola engine on the spot for Pietro to study and learn from.

The feature that caught the General's attention the most was his 'Radical Beam' which destroyed a chunk of the sparring room and created a hole in the wall. At the very least, it was clear that many of the modifications to Franosuke's body were done to enhance his combat prowess.

If Salem did not exist, Ironwood would be counting his lucky stars that such a person was willing to share his technological secrets with him, but all he could feel at the moment was a sense of unease.

The chance that Franosuke was a spy was practically zero. His body was specifically modified in a way that stood out, he willingly gave away revolutionary secrets, and his cover story was that he came from another world after falling through a hole in the ground. At this point, in his heart of hearts, he did not believe that Franosuke was a spy. Even so, he still wanted to take the proper precautions, just in case.

For the sake of his ever growing stress levels, he wanted to believe this was a good thing. Looking at a request Pietro submitted, he was extremely tempted to refuse, but after a few agonizing hours, he approved it.

I hope I'm not making a mistake… But Penny needs to be stronger this time around. Don't break that old man's heart, Franosuke.

Arlong glared at his own underwater fortress, but there was nothing he could do. His helplessness frustrated him to no end, but more than that, he began reflecting on where things went wrong with Adam.

He always knew that Adam was someone who hated humanity for very tangible reasons, and Arlong had encouraged those dark thoughts. After all, the feeling was mutual. He refused to believe that fostering those feelings was a mistake.

He never could have imagined that Adam would throw away even the lives of his fellow Faunus for the sake of his hatred.

Interrupting his thoughts, one of the thirty guards swimming behind him yelled, "Incoming Leviathan!"

Swimming straight at them was a variant of the Leviathan Grimm that could be found in large lakes. Seeing the monster made memories of his time at Remnant's ocean depths resurfaced, and Arlong's mood worsened. "I don't have time to play games with you!"

His right hand grasped the water and much like a certain fishman technique. He then threw the water as a 'spear' with the tip shaped like his saw nose.

"Shark Spear Wave!"

The water spear impaled the Leviathan in the chest, and it dissipated moments later.

"Awesome!"

"What power!"

"We'll never cease to be amazed when you display your strength."

Even with my Semblance helping, it's still not as large of a spear wave that Jimbei can make, Arlong thought.

"Enough chatting, we don't have time to waste. We'll follow the river that leads to the south coast of Anima, and then we'll be travelling straight across the ocean. Be sure to keep alert so I can defeat any powerful Grimm that show up. Understand?"

"Yes sir!"

A/N: In case it wasn't obvious, the three plot threads aren't quite chronologically aligned. Unfortunately, the nature of Usopp's journey requires a lot of smaller timeskips which the other threads don't have the liberty of taking yet. But hey, having multiple plot threads not exactly in chronological order kind of fits the Volume 4/5 tradition, so it should be fine. Right?