The chants were gradually dying down as people noticed the figure hovering above them on his spotted bird. Those still shouting didn't understand at first, but their companions quickly jabbed them in the ribs and pointed upward. Once they spotted Gan Fall, the formerly boisterous crowd from Angel Island fell into silence, exchanging uncertain glances.
What were they supposed to do now?
Awkwardness spread through the gathered Skypieans. Nobody wanted to be the first to speak, to make the choice that would define their loyalties.
McKinley naturally noticed the shift in atmosphere. Truth be told, he felt even worse than the others. Sure, he had submitted to Enel's rule and even played the role of his lapdog, but that didn't mean he'd truly broken his spine in surrender. He was one of those who'd taken the lead in accepting subjugation as a way to protect Gan Fall and the others in disguise, buying time until the former god could return and lead them in rebellion.
For that hope, he'd been willing to become a villain who sent outsiders to their deaths. After all, compared to the lives of Angel Island's people, what did a few Blue Sea dwellers matter? He'd stopped caring about concepts like good and evil a long time ago.
But now...
He kept his head lowered, unable to meet the eyes of his former god. Shame burned in his chest.
Then Gan Fall broke the silence in the most unexpected way possible.
"The old god is gone! Long live the new god!"
McKinley's head snapped up, staring at his former leader in disbelief. He opened his mouth, a thousand things he wanted to say crowding his throat, but none of them made it past his lips.
Finally, something loosened in his chest. He felt a weight lift as he understood what Gan Fall was doing, and he shouted, "The old god is gone! Long live the new god!"
With both leaders taking the initiative, the chant resumed.
Meanwhile, Usopp looked at the barely-breathing priest on the ground, then at Gan Fall, who had apparently just joined Team New God without any hesitation.
His mouth twitched. Is this really okay? This feels wrong somehow.
---
Elsewhere, Marcus hadn't witnessed Usopp's victory, but he wasn't worried about his crewmate. After all, with the Protection VIII and Thorns VI diamond armor set, the defensive capabilities were quite powerful.
Without Haki or other advance techniques, breaking through that defense would be incredibly difficult. You'd need overwhelming brute force.
Obviously, these Skypieans who only knew Observation Haki and not Armament Haki wouldn't be able to scratch Usopp.
That was the main reason he had left Usopp to handle things alone.
At the moment, he was studying Nola. He wanted to know about the snake's history, especially what had happened four hundred years ago. But even more than that, he wanted to confirm whether this creature had really been alive since eight hundred years ago.
Clearly, this timeline wasn't following the original story. Otherwise, Noland's logbook wouldn't have been inside this snake's stomach. If it was in there, that meant Noland must have come to Skypiea at some point.
Yet the logbook's final entries described him sailing away with the King of Lvneel toward Jaya, during which they'd faced numerous life-threatening situations. After all, the Grand Line's dangers came not just from pirates, but from unpredictable weather and attacks by Sea Kings.
Marcus held up the worn journal. "The coffins inside your stomach, what's the story there? And this logbook, do you remember it?"
The snake's vertical pupils blinked slowly, and he heard a series of hisses. Then, thanks to Vivi activating her Devil Fruit power and pulling Nola into their mental communication network, a voice echoed in everyone's minds.
"I don't remember much about the logbook, but the coffins... yeah, I know about those. That's an old story from way back."
He remained silent, letting the creature continue. The others did the same, sensing this was important.
"Over four hundred years ago, the Shandians used to sacrifice their dead to me. They'd make me eat the bodies of their fallen kin. Honestly? I hated every second of it. I might be a snake, but I never enjoyed eating corpses. But you wouldn't believe how stubborn those Shandians were. If I refused to eat the dead, they'd offer me living people instead! Can you imagine?"
"What was I supposed to do? I was forced to accept their annual ritual just to keep them from throwing live humans at me. Even after they came to Skypiea, they kept up that tradition at first."
"Thankfully, the native Skypieans eventually drove the Shandians out of Upper Yard. I should honestly thank them for that, the ritual finally stopped happening every year after that. Best thing that ever happened to me up here."
The snake's complaints continued, painting a picture of centuries of unwanted religious attention.
Marcus' expression turned strange as he listened. Wasn't this snake supposed to be some aloof, ancient guardian? Why was she suddenly chatty like an old man at a bar?
He gave the snake a weird look.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Is this really how you normally act?"
"What do you mean?"
"I rarely get to have conversations with anyone," the snake explained, and there was loneliness in her mental voice. "Since I came to Skypiea, I haven't been able to leave. Before that, I could at least chat with other Sea Kings when they passed by. But here? This isn't a place fit for people, or snakes, for that matter. I've gotten so desperate I've even started eating rocks. This wretched island..."
Nola sighed heavily, and Marcus could feel the weight of four centuries of isolation behind that sound.
That made sense when you thought about it. What kind of snake spends hundreds of years eating rocks to survive? Skypiea's resources clearly weren't abundant enough to sustain something his size. And as for the island's animals, given the snake's enormous appetite, if he really started hunting them seriously, every creature on Upper Yard would be extinct within six months.
"You never thought about leaving? Even from ten thousand meters up, you probably wouldn't die from the fall, right?"
Nola nodded her head. "Ten thousand meters is nothing to me. I've survived worse falls than that. But my mission keeps me here. I can't just abandon my post."
"Mission?"
"To guard the Poneglyph. That was the duty given to me by Joy Boy himself."
Marcus felt the atmosphere shift as those words sank in. Robin's head turned sharply toward Nola.
"But now it's fine," the snake continued, seemingly oblivious to the bombshell she'd just dropped. "As long as you visit the Poneglyph, my mission will be complete. It's just a shame..."
"What's the shame?"
"I'm too big. You wouldn't let me join your crew and come aboard your ship."
Nola looked at Marcus with what could only be described as puppy-dog eyes, which was disturbing coming from a creature the size of a small mountain.
Marcus stood there, at a loss for words. "Hold on. Back up. Did you just say Joy Boy?"
"Yes. Joy Boy, the original wielder of the Shichiseiken."
The conversation between Marcus and Nola was being broadcast to the entire Straw Hat crew through Vivi's power.
Robin looked at Marcus thoughtfully.
"You know about Joy Boy?"
Marcus realized he'd let his surprise show too much. He quickly tried to deflect. "I don't know him personally or anything. But why me? Do I look like this Joy Boy guy or something?"
"I can't really tell humans apart that well," Nola admitted. "But Joy Boy was the master of the Shichiseiken, the one chosen and recognized by it. And since the sword has recognized you as well, that makes you the next Joy Boy. Simple as that."
The snake's logic was straightforward, if somewhat unsettling.
Marcus understood the reasoning, but his expression grew complicated. That role was supposed to belong to Luffy, wasn't it? The whole chosen one, Will of D, inherited will thing.
Also, Joy Boy used a sword eight hundred years ago? What kind of weird alternate timeline bullshit was this?
"Now that you mention it," Nola continued, "a few years back, someone else made it to the Poneglyph. He was strong, really strong, but he wasn't Joy Boy."
Marcus had a sudden suspicion. "The last visitor... he wouldn't happen to be a guy with weird curly things under his nose, would he?"
"Curly things? You mean those weren't his nose hairs?" Nola tilted her head, confused as she tried to remember.
"You guys don't mean Gol D. Roger, do you?"
Robin couldn't help but interrupt.
The others perked up at the name. Luffy's eyes sparkled as he leaned forward. "He came to Skypiea too? That's so cool!"
Nola shook her head slowly. "I don't know if it was Roger or someone else. Names don't mean much to me, I can barely tell humans apart, remember? But yes, there was definitely a group that reached the Poneglyph's location. And that person... he could hear it too."
Marcus understood what the snake meant, though he'd brought it up purely out of curiosity. "You said that person was strong. So why do you think he wasn't Joy Boy? And why me instead? Just because I'm holding the Shichiseiken?"
Nola considered the question for a moment, then nodded as if the answer was obvious.
"Yes."
No further explanation. To the ancient creature, it was simply a matter of fact, whoever wielded the Shichiseiken was the next Joy Boy. End of discussion.
Marcus scratched his head.
In both the manga and anime he'd watched before coming here, it was never definitively stated that Joy Boy and the Sun God Nika were the same being. Could they actually be separate entities?
Joy Boy, the most mysterious figure from the Void Century, was also supposedly the one who had awakened the Gum-Gum Fruit to its full potential. So logically, the awakening of that specific Devil Fruit should be the true mark of Joy Boy's return, not possession of some cursed sword.
Did this world operate on different rules? Or was the lore he knew just incomplete?
After everything Marcus had experienced since arriving here, he could be certain of one thing: this world was already drastically different from the One Piece he knew. At the very least, the Golden Lion Shiki, a villain who'd only existed in a movie, had actually appeared in this timeline as a major player.
And it wasn't just Shiki. Characters like Tesoro the Golden Emperor, Douglas Bullet, Admiral Z, and Uta, all of them had been movie-only or filler characters when he'd been watching the series back home. But here, they all seemed to exist as part of the actual world.
It was like this version of One Piece had mashed together the canon storyline, all the movies, and who knows what else into one giant clusterfuck of a timeline. Honestly, if things kept developing like this, he wasn't even sure Luffy could actually become the Pirate King.
No matter how you looked at it, many of the movie villains were simply way out of Luffy's league, at least at his current power level. Take the simplest example: in the movie, Luffy had defeated Shiki when he only had access to Gear 2 and Gear 3. Shiki, who'd been a rival to Whitebeard himself during Roger's era.
Even adding in "movie logic" to explain it, it made zero sense. Even old and with a ship's wheel stuck in his head, Shiki wasn't someone a "rookie pirate" should be able to take down. If Luffy had already developed Gear 4 and reached a high level of Haki mastery, maybe then it would be believable.
But the Gear 2-3 version of Luffy had struggled against the early Pacifistas. How was he supposed to beat someone like Shiki?
Yet in this world, the Golden Lion existed for real. The Flying Pirates might not officially be one of the Four Emperors, but they were damn close to that level.
He rubbed his head, feeling a headache coming on again. Am I overthinking this?
After all, with him here, the whole "Nami kidnapping incident" triggered by Shiki's obsession with her weather prediction talent probably wouldn't even happen. If that event never occurs, there'd be no conflict between the Straw Hats and the Golden Lion's crew.
And without conflict, what did Shiki's strength matter to them? Even if he was incredibly powerful, someone else would deal with him if he caused problems.
As for Shiki's plan to destroy the East Blue with genetically modified monsters... sure, he was strong and his plan was dangerous. But if that actually happened, the ones panicking wouldn't be the Straw Hats, it would be the World Government. They'd send admirals and fleets to stop him before he could execute such a plan.
While Marcus was lost in these thoughts, Robin had been engaged in intense conversation with Nola, learning fragments of information about the Void Century directly from a living piece of history.
However, what the ancient snake knew was far from complete. After all, Nola had been defeated by Joy Boy and then became his companion, so there were many things she simply didn't understand. Who would bother explaining complex historical events and their causes to a giant snake?
"So... the events of the Void Century were actually caused by a war between multiple factions fighting over energy sources?"
Robin had pieced together fragments from Nola's scattered stories, but she found the conclusion hard to accept. It seemed too simple, too mundane for something that had been hidden for eight hundred years.
She'd imagined countless possible explanations for what might have happened during that forgotten century, why the World Government was so desperate to conceal it, what could possibly justify erasing an entire era from history.
There had been many hypotheses over the years, but never any solid evidence to support them. And now, according to Nola, the truth was... an energy war? What kind of anticlimactic explanation was that?
"I mean, even if the World Government seized control of this energy, then what? What did they build with it? What did they use it for? Why would a conflict over resources justify erasing a hundred years of human history? That doesn't make any sense!"
As a scholar, she understood the concept of resource wars perfectly well. Nations had fought over oil, minerals, and territory throughout history. But how could such an ordinary, if devastating, conflict warrant wiping out an entire century from the historical record?
For entertainment? Impossible. There had to be more to it.
"I don't know what the Void Century truly represented," Nola said calmly. "But from my perspective, from what I witnessed and experienced, it was indeed a war over energy. That's all I can tell you."
Robin's breathing quickened, the rush of oxygen making her dizzy. This was a being that had survived for eight hundred years, a living witness to the events everyone else could only speculate about. And really, what reason would a giant snake have to lie? Nola had no political agenda or reason to manipulate the truth. She was just an ancient guardian who'd been lonely for centuries.
Because of that authenticity, Robin felt her long-held convictions beginning to crumble. Her worldview was collapsing like a house of cards.
Just because of an energy war, the World Government erased the truth and silenced history? And her homeland, her mother, Professor Clover, all those scholars, they'd been massacred for this?
But if that were true, it wasn't entirely illogical either, was it?
The Poneglyph in Arabasta had recorded the existence of Pluton, a weapon capable of destroying the world in a single strike. To power such a weapon, energy would indeed be a critical factor, perhaps the most critical.
What if the World Government had erased the Void Century not to hide their crimes, but to prevent knowledge of these ancient weapons from spreading? What if they were trying to ensure that power-hungry Warlords like Crocodile never learned about them?
Such terrifying weapons shouldn't exist in the world. Erasing all knowledge of them to prevent ambitious tyrants from seeking them out... wasn't that actually the responsible thing to do?
Just one vague rumor about Pluton had driven Crocodile to try to destroy an entire kingdom. What if others like him discovered the truth? What if multiple factions started racing to obtain ancient weapons? The entire world would descend into chaos and warfare on a scale that would make the current era look peaceful by comparison.
Robin's eyes lost focus as different possibilities crashed through her mind like waves against a cliff. She began to doubt everything... her beliefs, her purpose, the very reason she'd survived when everyone else at Ohara had died.
Was what she'd been pursuing actually right? Or had she been chasing something that would only bring more destruction to the world?
She'd always believed the World Government was hiding something terrible they'd done, some great injustice that needed to be exposed. But what if they were actually trying to prevent something terrible from happening? What if the scholars of Ohara, in their pursuit of knowledge, had been unknowingly threatening global security?
Confusion, doubt, turmoil... countless conflicting thoughts clashed within her mind, each one pulling her in a different direction.
Naturally, the others on the ship noticed her distress. Her breathing had become ragged, her eyes unfocused, her hands trembling slightly.
But none of them knew how to comfort her. This was beyond their understanding.
The truth about the Void Century, did it really matter to them? Did they even care?
Honestly... it didn't affect their lives at all. They had their own goals, their own dreams to pursue. Ancient history was just that, history. It didn't change the present, didn't affect their journey.
They couldn't possibly empathize with what Robin was feeling.
Any words of comfort they offered would be inadequate, like trying to patch a massive canyon with a tiny bandage.