Chains That Bind Us |One Piece

Sky Island 4

The Going Merry was sailing through the clouds much like it was the ocean below. The crew was standing on the bow of the ship, watching around and ahead as they were getting closer. "Hold on! Stop! Stop!" Until Nami shouted at them all.
"Some large clouds are blocking our path." Forcing them to stop the ship as clouds were in their path.
"What do we do?" Chopper was asking, since these clouds didn't look the same as the ones there were sailing on.
"They're floating above the sky sea, so they can't be part of it." Sanji pointed this out to them.
"What kind of clouds are they then?" Usopp asked the cook, since thinking that it was ridiculous to think anything else.
"If they're ordinary clouds, we can just sail through them." Nami came to state this fact to them.
"I'll touch on and find out!" With that being said, Luffy began winding up his arm. "Gomu Gomu no..." He sent the arm flying at the cloud. "... Pistol!" Only for it to bounce off it. "Ah, it bounced off." Luffy seemed surprised as he retracted his arm and then got all excited as he jumped off the ship. "Look! I'm bouncing! I'm not sinking! It's so soft! Just like cotton!" He was on top of the cloud going up and down on it. "What is it? What is it? It's almost too fun!"
"Wooow~!" Chopper had sparkles coming off him as he was watching.
"What a strange phenomenon." What all Nami could say as she watched.
"I'm going too!" Usopp took off, completely forgetting what happened to him last time.
"Me too! Me too!" Seeing this had caused Lián to jump off the Merry as well.
"Me too!" And Chopper soon followed after them.
"Ahh~! This feels nice!" Soon the captain was laying across the cloud, looking like he was ready to fall asleep. "It's so warm, I think I might fall asleep. It's more comfortable than a thousand futons." Is what he said, until he found himself flying up in the air again. This was all due to Usopp, Chopper and Lián all bouncing on the cloud right beside him. Soon the four of them were bouncing all over the place together, enjoying themselves like children.
"But, that means we can't take the ship through any pace where these clouds are." This conclusion had been made since the clouds were clearly solid.
"Then there might be a route though them." Jián had been the one to suggested this possibly.
"Hey, look for a route the ship can use while you're up there!" And it caused the navigator to shout up to the four that were enjoying themselves.
"Okay, Yosh!" Luffy didn't have a problem with taking that order, despite being the captain.
"Hey, look over there!" Lián was bouncing up and down, her left hand placed on her forehead as she was looking ahead.
"Hmm?" Usopp had turned in the direction she was looking in. "Oi, Luffy! There's something else over here!" The snipper called out after seeing what it was that Lián was seeing.
"What? Really?" This caused Luffy to take off running over to them.
"Hey! Where're you going!? Quit playing around!" But it only caused Nami to snap at him.
"What's that?" Was asked by the captain after he made it to where Usopp and Lián were now standing. It wasn't long before they had headed back to the ship with what they had found.
"A gate?" Nami looked at the long nose a but confused after listening to him.
"Yeah, there's a huge gate underneath that fall-looking thing." Luffy came landing beside Usopp as he explained. Not long after Chopper came falling onto the sniper's head as he was still enjoying himself a bit. Then soon, Lián had leaped off the clouds to join them, somersaulting a few times...
"10 out of 10!" Before landing in front her brother, her arms stretched out to the sides.
"Are you satisfied now?" Had been asked by Jián, staring at his sister.
"For now!" Which was the response she gave.
"You are quite the acrobat, aren't you, Sister-san?" Both the twins turned upon hearing the question being asked by Robin.
"It's genetic." Which they both answered in unison, Lián filled with energy while Jián didn't seem to care.
"So there's something man-made here?" Sanji had asked as they were taking off once again, heading towards the gate that the others had seen.
"Nothing is out of the question of this sea." Robin stated this to him.
"I'm beginning to wonder the same thing for our sea." Only for Jián to say this, as there was a thin line between reality and dreams after entering the Grand Line.
"Well, we'll know once we get through here!" Luffy was saying as he was excited while there was moving in between the clouds like they were icebergs.
"Go left next!" Chopper instructed as they were going.
"No, right!" However, Usopp said the opposite.
"IT WAS LEFT!" Which appeared to have angered the doctor as he shouted that back at him.
"No, right!" But it was only shouted back at.
"I'll call the Armor Ossan!" Luffy grabbed the whistle once again.
"DON'T!" Which had united the two arguing to grab a hold and stop him.
"This is so exciting!" Lián seemed to be enjoying herself regardless to anything.
"Yosh, we made it through!" Nami pulled everyone's attention head of them as the cloud fall was getting larger and clearer, but right in front of it was a man-made stone building. Everyone was gawking out in amazement, even Jián's eyes appeared to had widen at the sight.
"It really is a gate..." Sanji had doubts and even seeing it he still was finding it hard to believe.
"And look! Those clouds that looked like a waterfall really are a fall!" Nami pointed this out to the rest of them. "It's flowing over that new type of cloud we just saw." She appeared to be slightly excited.
"Let's see, let's see... 'Heaven's Gate'—" Usopp began reading the sign on top of the gate, only to freeze. "A gate to Heaven? Oi! Is this a joke!? It's like we're going to die!" He obviously begins freaking out.
"Or, what if we're all dead already?" Zoro was clearly joking around as he asked this.
"Oh. That would certainly account for all the weird stuff here." And Sanji was going along with it as well.
"And here we were told that we're heretics and going to hell." Lián looked right to her brother as she spoke that.
"We showed them." And even he was going along with it.
"Huh!? We're dead!?" But it couldn't be said for Chopper as he didn't know they were all joking.
"Heave, eh? Sounds like fun!" It was unclear about Luffy as he was laughing around with a odd expression on his face. "Finally goin' there!" But when he said that, it was.
"We're not going to die!" Nami ended up snapping at the lot of them before punching them all across the heads.
"What was that for!?" Zoro, completely annoyed, shouted.
"Because you made that bad joke!" Had been his answer.
"Why did you hit me too...?" Then there was Chopper who hadn't been in on the whole joke but still punched.
"She really is scary." Lián stated this as she and her brother had avoided the punch and standing far away from the navigator.
"Oi, look over there!" But then Usopp's shouting had them all looking at him, as he was pointing to something moving in the gate. "Someone's coming out!" There were doors in the walls of the gate and one of them had been opened with someone stepping out of it. They had something in front of their face that was flashing away and then it had been removed. They were a short very elderly woman with an extensively wrinkled face. She had purple hair, pulled into two buns. She had thin arms, and wore a pink tunic. But the most noticeable thing about her was...
"Look! On her back! W-Wings!" Is that she had a pair of small white wings on her back.
"An angel!' Luffy looked completely shocked, as his face was dark blue. "So that's a real angel? She looks like a prune!"
"Amazing!" Lián on the other hand seemed excited at the sight. The Merry had come to a stop then and silence fell over all as the crew were waiting for the old woman or angel to say something.
"E-Excuse us..." Nami spoken up to say something after a little bit passed
"I am the appointed lookout of Heaven's Gate, Amazon." However, as soon as she did the old angel introduce her. "Sightseeing? Or fighting?" Only to then ask this odd question.
"S-Sightseeing would be closer, I guess..." had been the Navigator answered, though it wasn't filled with complete confidence.
"We wanna go to Sky Island! Sky Island's on the other side of this gate, right?" This was shouted and asked by Luffy
"What do you mean, fighting?" However, Zoro had asked a bit more concerning question.
"It doesn't matter which. Just pay the immigration fee, 1,000,000,000 extol per person, and be on your way. That's the law." The woman didn't really answer his question as she continued to inform them.
"1-1,000,000,000!?" Usopp was shouted upon hearing the amount given.
"There's that extol thing again." No one had explained to them how they could get the money or anything so they didn't know anything.
"How much is 1,000,000,000 extol in beli?" That was the only thing they wanted to know.
"No matter what it is, 1,000,000,000' gotten be a lot!" Chopper had been wrong about that.
"1,000,000,000 for one person... 9,000,000,000 for nine people." Robin added that up without a second thought.
"It's a ridiculous amount for only a short time." Jián stated this, since they would only be on the island till the Log Pose set.
"Maybe the old lady's ripping us off." Lián was half joking about this.
"Excuse me, but about the money... If... If by some chance... we didn't have enough..." Nami was trying to make it sound like a question but in truth was they didn't have the money regardless.
"You can pass." The old lady stated to them, not really caring.
"We can!?" Usopp appeared to be in shock at hearing this.
"Or, you can not pass." The old lady was really indifferent about the whole entire thing. This only caused them to be a little confused as there wouldn't be any point in the price or the lady standing there. "I am neither a guardian nor a warrior. I only listen to your will."
"Okay, let's go! Let's go to Sky Island!" Luffy didn't seem the slightest bit hesitated about going forwards.
"We don't have any money, but we're going through, Granny!" The old woman was told by Usopp.
"I see! Nine of you, yes?" She come to ask in response to clarify.
"Yeah, but... How do we get up to Sky Island—?" Before the captain had the chance to finish the question, something had shot out from before the clouds the Merry was on. They had been claws that grabbed ahold of the broken wings of the ship. "Something's coming up!" And most of the crew began going hysterical.
"Inhabitant of the White Sea, the Speedy Shrimp." Before the other knew wha had appeared and happened, the Merry was moving a high speed.
"W-We started moving!"
"Whoa! A huge shrimp!" All because the Going Merry had a large shrimp right below them, swimming.
"It's going up the fall!" They were heading up the waterfall made of clouds without doing anything.
"Hold on tight!" Nami was warning the others as they were going incredibly fast.
"This thing's fast!"
"Something about this isn't right." Jián stated to the others, since none of it was making sense.
"I know. What is that lady doing there if we could go without paying the fee?" Lián seemed to share the concerns he had as she agreed. The crew were holding on for dear life as they did with the Knock-Up Stream. The speed was quite high all thanks to the large shrimp carrying the Going Merry.
"What's gonna happen?" Sanji was hanging from the bow's inner railing.
"This belt of cloud is almost like a river." With Zoro in front, leaning against it. Then the ship titled slightly, causing Nami, Usopp and Chopper to realise the front railing.
"I can't imagine that this formed naturally..." Nami said after falling into Sanji's arms, who was incredibly delighted at this.
"You okay, little guy?" Lián had asked this to the doctor which was in the arms of Jián, as he had caught him before he was sent flying.
"There's nothing natural about this!" While Usopp was in tears due to the fear and maybe also by the fact that Zoro had his foot on the long nose's head on deck. Then there was Luffy, who was gripping onto the comb on top of Merry's head, in excitement. They were going around and around the river cloud where their surrounding were getting dark and darker.
"The exit!" Until a light above appeared at the end of the river. "There's something written there!" Chopper noticed a sign on the side of the river.
"'God land. The land of God, Skypiea'!" Robin read it as the ligth was getting larger and closer.
"It's not an exit! IT'S AN ENTRANCE!" Regardless of it all they were heading up to who knows what danger. Knowing very little about this knew island they were heading to. Filled with it's own dangers.