"What are you doing here?!" Masira roared, his massive frame filling the doorway, fists clenched and ready.
"What did you do to our boss?!" Shoujou bellowed from behind him, equally furious, equally ready to tear the house apart.
"You guys again?" Zoro's hand was already on Wadō's hilt, his eye narrowed dangerously. Sanji shifted into a fighting stance beside him, cigarette dangling from his lips, leg already raised.
"Luffy, you can't reason with—" Usopp started, hands up, already calculating escape routes.
"So you are good people!"
The words came from Masira and Shoujou in perfect unison, their faces suddenly streaming with tears, their aggressive stances melting into open-armed sobs.
Mario burst out laughing. Not a polite chuckle—a real, hearty laugh that came from somewhere deep in his chest.
After the misunderstanding was cleared up—mostly through Luffy's complete inability to hold a grudge and the brothers' equally complete inability to stay angry—they all moved outside. The house simply couldn't accommodate Masira and Shoujou, who were each roughly the size of a small building. They sat on the grass, the two salvagers cross-legged and still nearly eye-level with the standing Straw Hats.
"So that's what happened," Masira said, scratching his head sheepishly. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding."
"Yep, yep, we are sorry!" Shoujou added, nodding vigorously.
Neither of them had any problem starting to be friends with Luffy. Within minutes they were laughing together, sharing stories, comparing scars, and generally acting like they had known each other for years.
I guess simpleminded people make easier friends, Mario thought, watching the scene with quiet amusement.
"He's up," Chopper announced, emerging from the house.
"Perfect." Luffy turned toward the door, cracking his knuckles. "Oi, diamond head, I have some questions."
They filed back inside. Cricket was sitting up on his bed, a cigarette already lit, the smoke curling toward the ceiling. He looked tired—bone-deep tired—but his eyes were sharp.
"First… sorry about the attack earlier," Cricket said, his voice a low rasp. "I thought you were with the idiots who make trouble for me."
"Gold?" Nami's eyes had transformed into beri symbols, her entire body leaning forward like a predator scenting prey. "You have gold here?"
"Don't provoke him!" Usopp hissed, cutting her off before she could ruin everything.
Mario noticed Sanji standing slightly apart, his eyes fixed on Cricket with an intensity . The cook's jaw was tight, his brow furrowed. The earlier fight was still eating at him.
Mario approached quietly, positioning himself beside Sanji, his voice pitched low enough that only the cook could hear.
"Wondering why you almost lost the fight?"
"Shut up," Sanji snapped, not looking at him.
"I'm not here to mock you," Mario said, his tone serious now, stripped of any humor. "But you need to understand your defeat to grow stronger."
Sanji's jaw tightened, but he didn't interrupt.
"Cricket has been diving in the sea for years. Decades. He's fought in it countless times, pushed his body to limits most people can't imagine. He's so used to fighting in the sea—where every movement is resistance, where the water fights you with every step—that fighting on land? It's nothing to him. It's easy. The air itself feels like freedom to him."
Sanji finally looked at Mario, his expression unreadable.
"You remember Kuroobi. The fishman you fought. You almost lost because of his advantage—the water, the terrain, the way he could move. It wasn't that he was stronger than you. It was that he was stronger there."
Sanji's eyes flickered with recognition. The memory was still fresh. The humiliation of that fight still burned.
"We all need to grow stronger," Mario continued. "Maybe Cricket can help you out. He knows what it means to fight against the sea and win. That's a lesson worth learning."
He didn't wait for a response. He simply turned and walked out of the house, leaving Sanji standing there, staring after him with a new expression on his face—something between respect and confusion.
Mario stepped onto the sand and walked toward the shore. The sea stretched out before him, vast and blue and eternal. Somewhere out there, the City of Gold was waiting. And somewhere inside him, the knowledge of what was coming next sat heavy in his chest.
***
As Mario returned to the house, he heard the story again.
He didn't understand it—not fully, not in the way Cricket did—but he could never get tired of hearing it. Even better, hearing it from Cricket himself, in that raspy, smoke-worn voice, was something else entirely.
Cricket explained his connection to Mont Blanc Noland, the legendary "Liar" whose story claimed he discovered a City of Gold. He spoke of the shame that had followed his family for generations, the name "Noland the Liar" whispered like a curse.
Cricket revealed that Noland was his ancestor. His blood. His name.
And Cricket believed—no, he knew—that Noland had been telling the truth. He had spent ten years searching underwater around Jaya, diving day after day, risking his body and his life, trying to prove his family's name wasn't built on a lie.
Mario listened in silence. He had read this story. He had felt it in ink and paper. But hearing it from a living, breathing man—a man who had sacrificed everything for a truth no one else believed—was something else entirely.
Finally, Luffy asked the question that mattered.
"Cricket. What about Sky Island?"
Cricket blinked. Then he laughed—a dry, rasping sound that turned into a cough. "Sky Island? You mean the island in the clouds? That's a children's tale. A myth."
But Luffy didn't laugh. He didn't back down. He just stared at Cricket with those wide, unblinking eyes.
So Cricket sighed. And then he showed them Noland's actual logbook.
The pages were yellowed, water-damaged, barely legible in places. But the words were there. The truth was there. Noland had written about a city in the sky. A place above the clouds. A golden bell that rang across the heavens.
"So it exists!" Luffy was over the moon, already bouncing on his heels, already mentally packing for the journey.
"Robin was right," Usopp murmured, staring at the logbook with wide eyes.
As they discussed the implications—Nami calculating, Usopp panicking, Luffy celebrating—Cricket slowly got up and slipped outside. Mario noticed. He followed.
Outside, Masira and Shoujou were waiting.
"Do you guys like them?" Cricket asked, his voice quiet.
"They don't look like bad people," Shoujou said, scratching his chin.
"I like them!" Masira declared with his characteristic enthusiasm.
Cricket nodded slowly. "Then let's give them a hand."
He paused, noticing Mario approaching.
"Oh." His eyes narrowed slightly. "You're the guy with the really fast feet."
Mario smiled. "Nah, I'm just average. Name's Mario."
"I believe you,"
The two stood in comfortable silence for a moment. The sea breeze carried salt and the distant cry of gulls. Mario looked at Cricket—really looked at him. The scars. The tired eyes. The stubborn set of his jaw. This was a man who had been beaten down by the world and refused to stay down.
Mario spoke.
"I just want you to know. No matter what anyone says."
Cricket looked at him in bewilderment. But then something in his face softened. The hard lines around his eyes eased. The suspicion faded, replaced by something quieter. Something almost like hope.
He didn't ask what Mario meant. He didn't need to.
He just nodded.
***
Cricket led them all back outside, the logbook still clutched in his weathered hands. The crew gathered around him on the sand, the setting sun painting the ocean in shades of gold and crimson. Masira and Shoujou stood behind their boss like loyal sentinels, their massive frames blocking the wind.
"Listen carefully," Cricket began, his voice carrying the weight of years. "I've spent the last decade of my life studying these waters. Diving. Searching. Trying to understand what happened to Noland's city."
He gestured toward the sea. "The ocean around Jaya isn't normal. The underwater currents here are enormous—stronger than anything you've ever sailed through. The pressure down there could crush a normal ship like paper."
Nami's eyes narrowed, her navigator's instincts kicking in. "What kind of currents are we talking about?"
"The kind that can kill you," Cricket said flatly. "But also… the kind that can take you somewhere impossible."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"At certain times, under certain conditions, a gigantic column of seawater can suddenly shoot upward from the ocean into the sky."
Usopp's jaw dropped. "Into the sky?"
"It's called the Knock Up Stream," Cricket continued. "It's not just an ordinary wave. The current rises high enough—powerful enough—to carry a ship toward the sky. All the way up. To the White Sea. To Skypiea."
Luffy's eyes were practically glowing. "So we can ride a water column to the sky?!"
"In theory," Cricket said. "But it's not that simple. The Knock Up Stream isn't something you can just stumble upon. It happens at particular locations. Particular conditions. And getting caught in one is extremely dangerous."
He looked at each of them in turn, his gaze hard.
"If you don't approach it correctly—if your timing is off, if your angle is wrong, if your ship isn't prepared—you'll be destroyed. The Knock Up Stream doesn't care who you are. It will tear you apart."
The crew fell silent. Even Luffy, for once, seemed to understand the gravity of the situation.
Mario stood at the edge of the group, arms crossed, listening. He knew this part.
"You can't simply sail around looking for one," Cricket continued. "I've mapped the patterns. I know when and where the Knock Up Stream will appear. If you're serious about this—if you really want to reach Sky Island—then I can tell you exactly when and where to be."
Nami stepped forward, her expression sharp. "How much time do we have?"
Cricket looked at the sky, reading something in the clouds that no one else could see.
"Not long. The next one will happen soon. Tomorrow, if the conditions hold."
"Tomorrow?!" Usopp's voice cracked. "That's—that's not enough time to prepare! We don't even know if the Merry can survive something like that!"
"She can," Mario said quietly.
Everyone turned to look at him.
Mario met their eyes, one by one. "She's stronger than you think. She's carried us this far. She'll carry us further."
He didn't say what he knew. He didn't say that Merry's time was running out. He didn't say that this might be her last great journey. He just believed—needed to believe—that she had one more miracle left in her.
Cricket studied Mario for a long moment, then nodded slowly.
"Your quartermaster is right. The ship matters less than the crew's will. If you believe in your vessel, she'll believe in you."
Luffy grinned, wide and wild. "Then it's settled! We're going to Sky Island!"