After thirty minutes, Usopp raised the black cloth.
"It's finished!" he exclaimed.
Zoro, Luffy, and Nami looked at the flag. It showed a grinning skull wearing a straw hat.
"Woooow! It's amazing!" Luffy said, his eyes shining like stars.
"Better than the other one," Zoro added.
Nami didn't say anything. She just stared at it.
"Ahahahaha! Of course—this is the great work of Usopp, the master of arts!" Usopp boasted.
"Come on, put it up alre—"
Before Luffy could finish his sentence, a black crow swooped down and snatched the new flag with its beak.
"Our flag is being stolen!" Usopp shouted.
"Naniiiii?!" Luffy yelled.
"Idiots," Zoro muttered.
They all chased after the crow with their eyes and saw it land on the crow's nest. The crow dissolved into black mist, and a pale hand emerged, holding the flag.
Before their eyes, the bandage man formed from the black mist and flew up to the ship's mast. His upper body solidified, while his lower half remained like drifting black feathers.
Slowly, he tied the new flag to the pole.
When he finished, Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp watched as the flag swayed in the wind—the skull grinning widely beneath its straw hat.
For the first time, Nami saw a flag raised like that. She knew these fools weren't pirates in the usual sense. They did things their own way, not how pirates were supposed to.
She didn't say anything. She simply turned and went back to her room.
A day passed as they sailed onward, and along the way they ran into two familiar faces—the bounty hunters Luffy and Usopp had blasted away before.
Nami noticed a commotion on deck and went to check. One of the men was pale, barely standing.
"He's got scurvy," Nami said immediately.
She ordered Luffy and Usopp to grab some lemons from the kitchen. They rushed off without question. After the man tasted the lemon, color slowly returned to his face, and his condition improved almost instantly.
"T-thank you…" the two men said, bowing gratefully.
Nami crossed her arms. "If you want to survive on the sea, you need a cook."
That single sentence made Luffy's eyes light up.
"A cook?!" he shouted. "We need one!"
Zoro, who had been dozing off, opened one eye. When he saw the two men, he frowned slightly.
"…Johnny. Yosaku."
The two bounty hunters froze.
"Z-Zoro?!" they screamed in unison.
Seeing Zoro standing beside Luffy, alive and clearly not imprisoned, confused them at first. Since they were bounty hunters and Luffy was a pirate, they thought Zoro had been captured—or worse, corrupted.
But when they realized Zoro had joined the crew of his own free will, their attitude flipped completely.
"If Big Brother Zoro follows you…" Johnny said, trembling, "then that means you're amazing too!"
"BIG BROTHER LUFFY!" Yosaku shouted, saluting dramatically.
From then on, out of sheer respect for Zoro, they treated Luffy like a superior officer.
As they talked, Johnny and Yosaku shared valuable information about a floating restaurant called Baratie, a place where many top-class chefs gathered.
"A cook heaven on the sea," Johnny said.
Luffy didn't hesitate. "Alright! We're going there!"
The two bounty hunters quickly blended in with the crew, laughing and sharing stories.
The two of them didn't noticed—
High above, in the crow's nest, a silent figure watched.
Wrapped in bandages, unmoving, eyes hidden, the man remained still as the wind passed through the sails.
Observing.
As they sailed onward, the calm was shattered the moment a Marine ship appeared on the horizon.
Without warning—
"BRACE YOURSELVES!" Nami shouted.
BOOOOM!
BOOOOM!
Cannon fire tore through the air, splashing violently around the Going Merry.
A voice boomed from the Marine ship.
"This is the Marines! How dare an unknown pirate raise its flag before us!"
Standing proudly at the front was their leader—Lieutenant 'Iron Fist' Fullbody.
He pointed toward the Straw Hats' ship.
"Who's your captain?!"
Luffy, completely unfazed and not understanding the tension at all, stepped forward.
"I am Monkey D. Luffy!" he shouted proudly.
"Kaizoku ni ore wa naru!"
The Marines stared at him in stunned silence.
"…Is he on drugs?" one muttered.
Fullbody burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! A garbage pirate like you? I've never even seen that flag before."
He sneered.
"Oh, I get it. A brand-new pirate crew, huh? Then let me end your dream early."
He raised his arm dramatically.
"Fire the cannons!"
The Marine ship unleashed a barrage.
Cannonballs screamed toward the Going Merry as the Marines began steering away, heading for the docks near Baratie.
But Luffy grinned.
"Ah—got it!"
His stomach suddenly expanded, rubber stretching outward like a massive balloon as cannonballs slammed into him instead of the ship.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
He absorbed them all—
Except one.
"Eh?" Luffy blinked.
The last cannonball deflected, spinning wildly through the air—
Straight toward the floating restaurant.
The next second—
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The explosion rocked Baratie, flames and smoke bursting upward as the sea trembled.
Silence followed.
The Straw Hats froze.
Nami's face slowly drained of color.
"…Luffy."
Usopp swallowed hard.
"…We're dead."
High above, unseen by the Marines and ignored in the chaos, a bandaged figure in the crow's nest tilted his head slightly—
watching the smoke rise from the restaurant.