-Chapter Ninety-
"It's not broken—the Log Pose registers an island with a strong magnetic pull and its needle is reflecting that" Robin explained.
"Huh?" Nami tilted her head, not fully understanding what the older woman was saying.
"What? Are you suggesting that there's an island up in the sky?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Indeed" Robin nodded. "If the needle is pointing towards the sky, then it must be pointing towards Sky Island."
"Sky Island?" we questioned.
"Are you serious?" Nami frowned in disbelief.
"There's a floating island up there?" Luffy questioned as he looked upwards.
"I'm having a hard time believing that" I admitted, also looking upwards as I crossed my arms—struggling to imagine an island so high up in the sky.
"If there is one then it's full of skeletons and rickety old ships" Usopp shivered.
"If that's the case then I wouldn't mind going to it" I chuckled, raising one hand in defense when the sharpshooter swatted at me.
"Of course, you would, you freak!" he snapped.
"That's ridiculous, I don't see anything but the sky" Zoro huffed as some birds flew by.
"That's not exactly how it works—it's not an island above us, but an entire ocean" Robin explained.
"No way!" Nami breathed out in disbelief as Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper started to sparkle in amazement at this revelation.
"I'm still confused" Sanji admitted.
"Yeah, so am I" I nodded as I leaned back against the ship's railing.
"Yeah! Raise the sails and set our course for Sky Island!" Luffy ordered. "Men, are we ready?!" he excitedly shouted.
"Put the rudder down and point the bow high into the sky!" Usopp exclaimed.
"Sky Island!" the two cheered before Robin used her Devil Fruit powers to shut one up and make the other one cry.
"Did it just hit you the fact that, you know, we can't fly and all that?" Sanji asked.
"To tell you the truth, all I know about Sky Island is word of mouth—rumor" Robin confessed. "I've never actually seen it" she admitted.
"So there's no actual proof that it's real?" I questioned.
"Of course, it isn't real because it's nothing more than a lie—islands don't float in the sky" Nami huffed. "Our Log Pose is broken, that's all it is" she said, determined to believe that that really was what the problem was.
"Not quite, Miss Navigator—you're trying to fix something that's not broken when you should be trying to find a way to get to Sky Island, you really need to learn to trust your instruments" Robin pointed out. "No matter how crazy things get or how weird the situation is we find ourselves in, never doubt the Log Pose out here in the water. This is one of the most steadfast and unbreakable rules—what we should be doubting is the common sense we all have that tells us an island cannot exist in the sky on an ocean of nothing" she smiled. "That needle is pointing towards an island, I bet my life on it."
-Later-
"That's disgusting, digging through a dead man's clothes..." Chopper muttered, his nose scrunching up in disgust as he and Nami hid behind the mast and away from the skeleton that was currently sprawled out on deck.
"It's more disrespectful than disgusting" I hummed.
"That's really going to tell you something?" Zoro asked as Robin was slowly putting the skeleton's skull back together again.
"Don't know" the raven-haired woman shrugged as I leaned forward.
"You're into some pretty weird stuff, Robin" Nami remarked.
"Weak" I laughed.
"What did you just say?!" the ginger snapped.
"I just made the comment that you're weak—you have a skeleton inside you, so what's the difference between it and the skeleton sprawled out here in front of us?" I asked, looking over toward the navigator. "Death isn't something to be afraid of or disgusted by, it's something that's natural."
"It may be natural, but that doesn't mean I want to be anywhere near the dead while I'm still alive and kicking..." Nami grumbled as my lips twitched upwards.
"Any lady with a fascination with dead things is interesting in my book" Sanji swooned.
"Where did Luffy go?" Zoro asked, raising an eyebrow as I gently poked at the skeleton out of curiosity.
"Probably off somewhere having an adventure" I hummed.
"Okay, jump" I heard Usopp say, confirming my suspicions as I looked up and instantly caught sight of him and the captain climbing around the ship that had fallen from the sky.
"What kind of trouble are those two getting themselves into now?" Zoro asked, finally taking notice of what the two were doing.
"Probably the bad kind..." Chopper mumbled as Robin gently sat down the now completely repaired skull.
"Hey, looks good as new" Sanji praised as I looked at the skull, raising an eyebrow at the sight of the three large holes in its crown.
"Except for the holes on the crown, those came from an external source" Robin pointed out.
"Oh yeah, looks like it could have been arrows or a spear or something" Sanji guessed.
"Hm, the holes look too big and neat to be caused by an arrow or spear" I remarked after peering at the holes for a few more minutes.
"You're right about that, but good guess, Mr. Cook" Robin agreed. "These are from a medical practice called Craniotomy, right, Doctor?" she asked.
"An ancient one that cuts out small holes in the skull to remove a mass—like a tumor—and since it leaves a crater behind that's how it got the name" Chopper nodded.
"Cool!" I whistled in fascinated awe.
"Knowing how old of a technique this is, I say this man has been dead for at least 200 years" Robin guessed. "I can also say with confidence that this man was in his early thirties when he died, it must have been during his voyage that he finally succumbed to illness. Whatever it was, much more than the rest of his bones, his teeth have remained in surprisingly good condition" she pointed out. "Because he rubbed tar on them."
"Tar?" I questioned, nose scrunching up in disgust at the thought of putting something like that anywhere near my mouth.
"Yes, tar" she nodded. "It was a common practice in the South Blue to keep away bacterial infections and considering the history of that region, I suspect that he was with an exploratory party" she explained, grabbing a book as she started to flip through its pages. "Here it is, the Briss Kingdom of the South Blue—they launched the Saint Briss Scout Ship 208 years ago."
"That's it! That's the ship that fell on us!" Nami exclaimed when she caught sight of the picture in the book.
"Yeah, I recognize that figurehead out front" Zoro agreed.
"It probably sailed the seas above us, unmanned since the captain and crew died" Robin suggested.
"It's amazing what you can tell from looking at old bones" Nami said, impressed by the large amount of information Robin had been able to gather just by examining the skeleton.
"I'm sure you heard that dead men tell no tales, right?" Robin questioned. "But everything around them does—if this was a scouting party, we should find evidence of that on the Saint Briss" she said.
"Yeah, except it's sinking like a stone" Nami pointed out. "What are you doing, idiot? You know you can't swim!" she snapped when she finally spotted Luffy flailing around in the water.
"I mean, we should have expected this the minute they went aboard the ship" I said, scratching my cheek as I looked at our drowning captain.
"You won't believe it" Luffy was quick to say the minute he was pulled out of the water. "I did it—I found the most incredible thing!" he boasted, happily holding up map with the words "Skypiea" written across the top.
"A map of the Sky Islands?" we questioned.
"It's called Skypiea" Nami read as she took the map from Luffy and started to examine it.
"That's right" Luffy nodded.
"Then it's true, there really is an island up there..." she muttered in disbelief which caused Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper to start cheering.
"The island is real! The island is real! The island is real!" the three chanted. "It's a dream! It's a dream! Time to go up to Sky Island!" they laughed as they started to hop around, causing me to laugh along with them thanks to how infectious their joy was.
"Hold on guys" Nami interrupted. "We don't even know how to get there—if it's even possible—not to mention there's a lot of fake treasure maps in circulations" she explained before sweat dropped when she saw how devastated the three now looked. "No—I mean, sure, it's real! It's got to be because...well just cause" she quickly retracted, frantically waving her hands in front of her.
"Nice save" I sarcastically said before grunting when she elbowed my stomach.
"But the fact is that the map doesn't show us anything" she continued, angrily punching the badly patched-up mast in frustration as an argument now broke out between her and Luffy.
"Um...excuse me...you mind not punching the ship? I put a lot of work into that" Usopp nervously said, only to be ignored.
"Nami is a vision even when she's chewing someone's head off" Sanji swooned, already fawning over the enranged ginger.
"You really know how to pick them..." I muttered, rubbing my stomach as I wandered back over to Zoro. Casting a small glance back toward Nami and Luffy, I winced as I witnessed the navigator harshly hitting the raven-haired man over top the head.
"This isn't about me! It's about reality and reality is we know next to nothing, what we do know is that we can't defy gravity and sail upwards—that's impossible!" she snapped. "What we need is more information—if a big ship like that made it up there then odds are we can do the same thing" she huffed. "We just have to find all the records left on the ship."
"I think the ship is at the bottom of the ocean by now" Usopp pointed out.
"Yeah, I think we already lost out on our chance to explore it" I nodded.
"No" Nami smiled, shaking her head. "If it sunk then we'll just salvage it" she said.
"Salvage!" Usopp and Luffy shouted as one held up a fishing pole and the other a net.
"We can't do that!" Zoro snapped.
"I'd like to see you salvage that ship with just a fishing pole and net" I snorted.
"Salvage? Really?" Chopper questioned as he curiously looked toward Robin.