I looked up at the sky, half-expecting to see Laputa floating overhead. But there was nothing—just a clean, blue expanse. No sign of a Sky Island.
Well, it wasn't completely cloudless, and if something were hovering ten thousand meters up, it might be impossible to spot from the ground. No point fixating on that right now.
What mattered was the girl who'd fallen.
She looked about middle-school age. Ash-gray hair, a slender frame. Her eyes were closed, so I couldn't be sure, but they seemed a little sharp at the corners. That was about all I could tell at a glance.
She was wearing something like traditional clothing—only it was tattered beyond repair. Not just from the fall, either. There were scorch marks and slashes—on the fabric, and on her skin.
And she didn't have the little feathered wings Sky Islanders usually have. Unless they'd been torn off.
I still had no idea where she'd come from—whether she'd fallen, or flown, or been thrown. But despite carving a crater into the ground…
She was breathing.
More than that, nothing seemed broken. Not a single limb twisted the wrong way.
Her durability was absurd.
And then—
"…Ugh… mm?"
"—!"
She tried to wake up on her own.
Right in front of us, the girl stirred, then slowly pushed herself upright. The movement looked painful, but it was steady. She sat there, blinking like she'd dragged herself out of a nightmare.
Her gaze swept the area. It landed on us, and her expression tightened with reflexive wariness.
Then she stopped, like something caught in her throat. Her eyes drifted upward, unfocused, searching the sky as if it held an answer.
And in a small, quiet voice, she murmured,
"…Where am I? And… who am I?"
You've got to be kidding.
---
She wasn't joking.
Amnesia. The most cliché twist possible.
The only thing she remembered was her name: Leona. Nothing else—no past, no home, no reason she'd fallen from the sky.
She looked at us and asked, "Do you know anything about me?"
How would we? She'd dropped out of nowhere less than a minute ago.
That was that. We hit a wall. No leads. No clues. Just the three of us and a girl who couldn't even tell us what she'd forgotten.
The conversation stalled into an awkward, helpless silence—until the weather decided to pick a fight too.
Something in the air shifted, heavy and wrong. I didn't like it. So I sent my Weather Vane up to read the wind.
A storm was coming. A real one.
So I scrapped the idea of leaving by ship.
Sorry, Shuraiya-kun. Adele-chan. Dinner will have to wait.
Camping in this? No chance.
And sleeping on the ship wasn't any better. It'd toss us around all night.
So I turned both ships—mine and Shuraiya-kun's—into paper and stored them away, then used my Paper-Paper powers to throw together an emergency shelter.
A cardboard house.
The design was classic tofu architecture: square, simple, ugly. It was only for one night. No reason to get fancy.
It was about the size of a large prefab cabin, with four rooms: a common area, Shuraiya-kun and Adele-chan's bedroom, my bedroom, and Leona-chan's bedroom.
No bath. Each bedroom had its own toilet. For one night, it'd be fine. Probably.
We were burning the whole place down at dawn, of course. Safely. With proper precautions.
Leona-chan stood there staring as the house took shape, as if her brain had stopped working. I gave her the fastest explanation I could manage and waved her inside.
"Come on. Inside. Now."
A few minutes later, the rain hit.
Outside, the storm raged—wind and water hammering the world into a blur.
"This is coming down hard," Shuraiya-kun muttered. "Think it'll stop by morning?"
"It won't last," I said, listening to the air more than the sound. "The clouds are wrong for a long storm. Wouldn't surprise me if it clears before dawn."
"Good. But… this house is safe, right? I don't want it soaking through and collapsing on us while we sleep."
"It's fine," I said. "Waterproofed, reinforced. It'll hold. As long as nobody starts a fire, we're safe for the night. I guarantee it."
"Right. No fire."
"Obviously."
He frowned, as if emphasizing it for Leona's sake as well as mine.
"No open flames at all. Everything in this place burns. It has zero fire resistance."
"Thank you for the reminder," I said dryly.
We ate dinner while the storm cooled the air outside.
Steaming stew—rich, creamy white sauce that warmed straight through to the bone. Dairy products really were justice.
Leona-chan stared at the bowls like she couldn't believe they were real.
Then Shuraiya-kun asked the obvious question.
"Wait. If we can't use fire… how do we have hot food?"
"I didn't cook it," I said. "I took it out."
"Out of where?"
"Enigma."
One of my Awakening abilities, Enigma, lets me turn non-living objects into paper and store them—within certain limits. And anything stored inside stays exactly as it was.
So if I store freshly cooked food, it stays freshly cooked. Piping hot. No time passes in there.
Store a bowl of tonkotsu ramen and pull it out days later, still steaming—like teleporting dinner across the world.
…There's no Kyushu or Hokkaido here, but you get the idea.
That's why I keep dozens of meals as emergency rations. I just pulled out enough for all of us and served it.
Leona-chan looked stunned when the paper became food—like her eyes wanted to understand but couldn't find a foothold.
Then hunger won.
She started eating immediately.
Stew. Bread. Juice.
And the way she ate—too fast, too desperate—made my chest tighten.
She was thin. Alarmingly thin. And as she shoveled food into her mouth, tears slid down her cheeks.
Hey, hey. Slow down. Nobody's taking it from you.
I almost asked why she was eating like she hadn't had a proper meal in days—
Then I remembered.
Even if I asked, she wouldn't know.
Amnesia doesn't care about good questions.
Still… scars all over her body, too thin, too hungry, no memories. Whatever she'd come from, it hadn't been kind.
For now, I decided, I'd just let her eat until she was full. Questions could wait until she was calmer.
"Go on," I said gently. "There's plenty. Eat as much as you want."
By the fourth bowl, Leona-chan finally slowed, exhaling like she'd been holding her breath for years.
Then she hesitated, cheeks faintly pink, and bowed her head.
"Um… th-that was… thank you for the meal. …Thank you."
"You're welcome," I said. "I'm glad you liked it."
She'd forced the words out anyway, so I made sure to answer properly.
There wasn't much else we could do that night. We turned in early.
Each room had a small light for bathroom trips—Lamp Dials, not lanterns.
I'll say it again: no flames.
The time must've been around two in the morning.
The rain was loud, but the roof held. The air was warm enough. We were all asleep in sturdy beds, feeling safe—
And then—
GAAAAAAAAAAAA—
A split second before the roar, my Observation Haki caught an overwhelming presence, and I jolted upright.
Almost immediately, a bestial roar tore through the house.
Paper walls shredded.
I burst out of my room, nearly kicking the door off its hinges, and saw it—in the main hall where we'd eaten dinner.
"What the hell is that— a lion?!"
"It looks like one," Shuraiya-kun snapped, appearing beside me at the same time. "Adele, stay in your room!"
A lion.
Not an ordinary one, either. This thing was huge—minivan-sized—standing in the center of the room with its fangs bared, eyes full of raw hostility.
And it moved.
The moment it spotted us, it lunged.
Shuraiya-kun and I barely dodged as it tore past and slammed into the cardboard wall.
Without stopping, it plowed through my room, smashed through the outer wall, and burst out into the storm.
—Hey! Now the rain's going to get in!
But it sprang right back through the hole, landing in the hall again with a low snarl.
Its gaze locked onto me, like I'd been singled out as prey.
And yet… the presence I felt through Observation Haki was wrong.
There was aggression, sure—overflowing hostility so thick it almost had a taste—but it didn't feel aimed at me, or even at Shuraiya-kun.
It felt… unmoored.
As if it was just dumping its emotions into the world because it didn't know what else to do with them.
Like it had lost its mind.
Like it was—
Before I could finish that thought, the lion charged again.
This time, I braced—and let it bite.
Its fangs sank into my body.
But without Haki, it couldn't truly hurt me.
My form broke apart into paper, scattering around it, then whipping back in a swirl that wrapped the lion tight—binding it completely.
It thrashed, confused and furious.
I released my Conqueror's Haki.
Thump.
The strength drained out of it all at once.
The massive beast sagged, then toppled onto its side.
And right in front of our eyes—mine, Shuraiya-kun's, and Adele-chan's—it began to shrink, hissing as its frame collapsed inward—
"Ugh… hn…"
"…Just as I thought."
"…Wait. Seriously?"
"Huh?! That's—Leona?!"
Leona—still asleep, or maybe unconscious—writhed on the floor, her face twisted in pain.
"So she's a Zoan Devil Fruit user," I muttered. "And she probably doesn't remember that either."
"Do you think she just… transformed in her sleep?" Shuraiya-kun asked warily.
"…Maybe," I said. "But it didn't look like simple sleep thrashing."
My eyes drifted to the gaping hole torn through my room—straight through the wall and out into the storm, carved by that single, violent charge in her beast form.
I touched the damaged wall and activated my power. The paper sealed itself instantly, the hole vanishing like it had never existed.
Then I noticed the other one—an identical tunnel blown clean through the opposite side of the main hall, connecting it to Leona's room.
Two holes.
And that meant something important.
This lion hadn't burst into the house from outside.
It had appeared inside.
And since the hole was in Leona's room…
Yeah. The answer was obvious.
I'd suspected it almost immediately, but whatever Leona actually was—and what she'd been through—
I still didn't have a clue.
Either way, she wasn't waking up again tonight.
So for now, I'd put the questions on hold.
Not like I had much of a choice.
To be continued...