Water 7
The dawn had just broken over the City of Water.
A thin, cool mist wound its way through the canals, clinging like a gentle veil to the ancient stone slabs and the new, half-finished skeletons of modern buildings.
In the massive floating shipyards of the Galley-La Company, the day's work had already begun.
The rhythmic thump-thump-thump of hammers against wood, the high-pitched whine of saws, and the cheerful, rowdy shouts of the shipwrights were the city's heartbeat, a sound of resilience and recovery.
Suddenly, a hammer stopped in mid-swing.
A saw screeched to a halt, its teeth caught in the wood.
A rope, halfway to being knotted, slipped from a calloused hand.
The lively, chaotic heartbeat of the city just… stopped.
An unnatural silence fell over the docks.
"Hey," a carpenter whispered, his voice sounding deafeningly loud in the sudden quiet.
"Why'd it get so dark?"
He looked down, and a shadow, impossibly vast and perfectly round, was swallowing the shipyard, plunging them into a cold, midday twilight.
He looked up.
And his jaw went slack.
On the horizon, the thick, white sea clouds were being torn apart, drawn back like a curtain by an invisible, colossal hand.
And piercing through that curtain, hanging suspended beneath the vast blue sky, was an impossible, breathtaking spectacle: an island.
No, not one.
Dozens.
It was an entire archipelago, floating upside down, their rocky roots pointing toward the heavens.
Nearly thirty islands, like inverted miracles, hung suspended in the air.
Each one was bound by massive, kilometer-long bronze chains that dangled into the void, their purpose unknown.
A strange, glowing moss spread across these chains, shimmering with an eerie, sickly green light, as if the gods had left a dazzling, radioactive necklace embedded in the sky.
"Look! On the biggest one! There's a flag!" a sharp cry, high-pitched with a mix of terror and awe, pierced the tranquility.
In an instant, every telescope in the city—from the fishmongers on the docks to the Galley-La foremen on the scaffolding—was focused on the distant heights.
On the highest, most central floating island, a faded yet still striking Pirate flag fluttered wildly in the fierce, high-altitude wind.
Its emblem: a skull with two crossed scimitars, adorned with a crude, golden-painted crest that looked just like a lion's mane.
The crew of Galley-La, men who had faced the fury of the Aqua Laguna, stood frozen in place, utterly stunned.
Ship nails and tools slipped from their nerveless fingers, producing a sharp, sporadic clink-clank-clink as they hit the wooden docks.
"Gods above… a miracle," one shipwright breathed. "Islands… they're actually flying in the sky!"
"What's going on? How is this happening?" another shouted, his voice cracking with panic.
"It's terrifying… Could this be an omen? Is the end of the world coming? Is another disaster about to strike?!" a third voice trembled, thick with a rising, infectious despair.
The word "disaster" was a trigger.
The city, still bearing the fresh scars of the Aqua Laguna, did not see a miracle.
It saw a threat.
"We're done for! We're truly done for!" a woman in the street wailed, collapsing to her knees.
Pessimism and fear spread faster than any fire.
"We just finished rebuilding the lower districts! And now this! Just when we were recovering from the wrath of the sea, now we face a calamity from the sky! What have we done to deserve this?"
At that moment, all of Water 7 seemed to have been put on pause.
The Yagara-bulls stalled in the canals, their owners staring upward, mouths agape.
Everyone was immersed in this unprecedented, mind-breaking shock, their hearts filled with a deep, paralyzing anxiety about their unknown fate.
...
Meanwhile, above the sea, near the judicial island…
Enies Lobby stood like a fortress on its sea-stalk, quiet in the morning light.
Atop the highest watchtower of the Gate of Justice, the cowardly chief of CP9, Spandam, was enjoying a cup of tea, feeling particularly pleased with himself.
That is, until the sky went dark.
"What the—? what the fuck is wrong with this weather!" he sputtered, spilling hot tea on his uniform.
He scrambled for his high-powered telescope, annoyed.
He jammed it to his eye, but the lenses were fogged from his panicked breath.
He frantically wiped them, his annoyance turning to confusion as he finally got a clear view.
He saw the islands.
He saw the chains.
And then his gaze followed the chains up, to the fleet's majestic, golden centerpiece.
A battleship carved from pure gold, floating with an impossible, arrogant grace. On the gleaming deck of that ship, seated upon a throne of gold and skulls, was a man.
A man with wild, untamed golden hair, dressed in the robes of a forgotten era.
He sat with one leg casually crossed over the other, the very picture of absolute, bored control.
Spandam's eyes widened, and a surge of indescribable, ice-cold shock welled up inside him.
"That hair… that face… He looks so familiar… No… No, it can't be…"
Spandam's voice trembled, his mind desperately trying to reject what he was seeing.
And then, the name, a bogeyman from the generation before, clawed its way up his throat.
"He… He's… Shiki!!!"
The name itself held a terrifying power.
"But he's supposed to be dead! That old man is still alive?!" Spandam shrieked, his eyes bulging as he zoomed the telescope in, his hands shaking so violently the image blurred.
"And his legs! How are his legs restored?! Didn't he cut them off himself to escape Impel Down?!"
Memories of the legends, the reports his father had filed, flashed through his mind.
Shiki, the only man to ever escape the Great Underwater Prison, had done so by ruthlessly amputating his own feet.
A monster of impossible resolve.
But the scene before him was completely, terrifyingly incomprehensible.
The missing legs had miraculously reappeared.
"And the helm! The ship's helm on his head is gone, too! What on earth has this guy been through?!"
Spandam stared in abject terror at the man on the throne.
The legendary pirate, the "Golden Lion" Shiki, was not only alive, but he seemed to have been… reborn.
Restored.
Made whole.
His hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
Fear, pure and primal, surged within him like a tidal wave.
Shakily, he pulled out his personal Visual Den Den Mushi from his pocket, his fingers fumbling and slipping on the shell, barely able to hold the small communication device.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he tried to calm himself and fearfully began recording everything.
"Th-This is Chief Spandam! Reporting a 'World-Ending' level threat!" he squeaked, meticulously capturing every island, every chain, and the terrifying, restored figure of the legend at its heart, afraid of missing any crucial detail.
He knew that what he was witnessing was an event that would shake the entire world to its very core.
The legendary "Flying Pirate" had returned.
....
Back in Water 7…
The floating islands drifted like colossal, silent beasts from a mysterious world, moving slowly, deliberately, over the city.
They seemed to be guided by an invisible, resilient track, gliding gracefully across the azure sky with astonishing, unnatural stability.
Their massive forms cast enormous shadows, imposing an inexplicable, crushing sense of pressure on everyone below.
As the islands cut through the air, the sound finally reached them.
It was a high-pitched, piercing screech, the sound of rocks, trees, and earth scraping violently against the upper atmosphere.
It was a sound that resembled the deafening, enraged roars of a thousand Sea Kings, rumbling like rolling thunder across the heavens.
Amid this breathtaking, terrifying spectacle, the members of CP9, who had been lurking in the shadows of Water 7, quietly gathered on a high rooftop, hidden from the panicking crowds below.
Their eyes, cold and analytical, revealed vigilance and focus.
They were the only people in the city not screaming in terror.
This was not a miracle or an omen; it was a threat to be assessed.
The sheer size and mystery of the islands stirred an indescribable sense of awe even in these usually cold highly trained agents.
This awe was no less than the impact they had felt from the Aqua Laguna.
But this was worse.
The Aqua Laguna was a force of nature.
This… this was a force of will.
Kalifa frowned slightly, pushing her glasses up her nose.
She gripped her pen tightly, her other hand holding a thick report book as she meticulously recorded every detail.
The island count, the estimated altitude, the flag.
As the grinding, screeching sound from the sky reached a crescendo, a drop of ink accidentally smudged on her otherwise perfect page.
A flicker of intense annoyance crossed her eyes.
"That's sexual harassment," she muttered at the ink blot, before quickly regaining her focus.
"According to our records, the Golden Lion Shiki last appeared twenty-two years ago, when he single-handedly challenged Marine Headquarters in a fit of rage," Kaku remarked, his voice a low, grave rumble.
His long, square nose twitched as he squinted at the sky.
"He was trying to kill Roger before the Marines could. It was an act of pure, suicidal madness."
He leaned on the chimney, his eyes reflecting a mix of doubt and wariness.
"But this… this is different. He's passing right over a major government-affiliated city, and he's not attacking. He's just… on a casual outing. It's a parade. He's strolling. Why? A man like that doesn't just go for a stroll."