"Is this... a dream?"
"Usopp, there's no way you and those other guys would show up in my dream."
"Sanji, then what we're seeing... isn't some kind of illusion?"
Above the Going Merry was a sky and clouds like a painting—no, it really was a painting.
Compared to the sea the ship was floating on and the tiny island sitting in its center, the sky and its clouds looked so artificial that they created a bizarre sense of disconnect.
"That sky isn't real. That's..."
"Yeah, I painted it."
"...!"
While Usopp was speaking, an old man appeared from behind the house on the small island.
"A flower?"
"He's a person. He's wearing a headband."
The bespectacled old man who said that had white hair at the back of his head and in his beard, and he wore a headband that looked as if flower petals were blooming around his head.
The old man who answered Usopp then half-reclined on a long chair and began reading a newspaper.
After a brief silence, Zoro stepped to the very front of the ship and opened his mouth.
"Hey, old man. Do you know where we are?"
"..."
"Hey! If someone talks to you, answer them!"
"Don't get cocky, kid... You'll die."
"Who's going to die?"
Meeting the old man's sharp gaze, Zoro broke out in a cold sweat.
"Me, obviously."
"Quit with the wordplay!"
"Anyway, you asked where this is... Are you really asking because you don't know?"
"No way..."
"That's right. You're inside a whale's belly."
******
It all began when the ship, which had flown above the clouds, came back down and rode the slope toward the Grand Line.
Halfway down the slope, when the sea below came into view, Usopp pointed down with his hand.
"There's a rocky island ahead! It's huge!"
"No way, Usopp! Once we get past those Twin Capes up ahead, there's nothing but open sea!"
"Then what is that, Nami!"
As the ship descended, the outline of the rocky island Usopp had pointed at began to take shape.
It had a massive scar-like mark in the center and huge eyes on the left and right.
"It's a giant whaleeeee!!!"
"Bwoooohhh!!!"
With Usopp's scream, everyone saw the enormous whale crying out diagonally below them.
Except for one person.
"Its head alone is ten times the length of the Merry! Is a whale really just some gigantic fish?!"
"No, Marimo! That thing is not normal!"
Meanwhile, the whale opened its enormous mouth and bared thick teeth, and the current down the slope was sucked straight into its jaws.
"No! I don't want to get eaten!!!"
"It's okay, Nami! Just trust this big sis and Luffy!"
"Keep going straight. We're going into the whale's mouth."
"That's Captain Luffy's order! Straight ahead, into the mouth~!"
"What are you doing, Luffy!"
"Actually, I overdid it back in Loguetown, so I haven't fully recovered my stamina yet. I already pushed the ship sideways at the entrance to that uphill slope, so I'm completely drained."
"There's no way to escape that mouth by turning the wheel. Going straight is our best shot."
That was, of course, a lie. He still had plenty of stamina left.
If he forced the ship up into the air, he could probably avoid it somehow, but there was no need to go that far.
There were people he needed to meet inside.
"Everyone, focus! Straight ahead!"
""Noooo~!!!""
And so the Merry was swallowed into the whale's mouth along with Usopp and Nami's screams.
******
After the crew entered the whale's belly and met the old man, Sanji walked up beside Zoro.
"I'm sorry, sir. This guy never learned any manners, so he was rude to you."
"I don't know why you're here, sir, but what did you mean by painting the sky? And do you happen to know a way out of here?"
"Isn't it proper manners to state your name before asking someone else a question?"
"Ahem, forgive us. We are..."
"My name is Crocus. I'm the lighthouse keeper at Twin Capes, seventy-one years old, blood type AB, and..."
"Quit with the wordplay, you damn old geezer! You want a beating?!"
"Where did the guy who was lecturing me about manners go?"
"The exit is through that door."
"There was a way out?!"
In the direction Usopp had been looking, there was a huge metal door with its lower half submerged in water.
On the side near the middle of the door was a smaller door, and beneath it was a platform supporting the main door. A small ladder attached to the end of the platform seemed to be designed so that its lower end could remain underwater and still be climbed.
"Not only is there a door inside a whale's belly, but you even painted the ceiling... Who the hell are you?!"
"Pretty boy... did you really think I'd tell you that so easily?"
"Old man, if you talk nicely, I might even take a photo with you..."
"I don't see women as women once they're over twenty. Seventeen or eighteen is the best."
"I'm not interested in old maids over twenty."
"Have you said enough, you rotten old geezer?! I'll really kill you!!!"
"C-Calm down, Hancock...!"
As Hancock shouted, her face red with anger, Luffy grabbed both her arms from behind and tried to stop her, and Nami spoke to the old man.
"Sir~ We're really sorry for causing such a sudden commotion. Could you help us a little?"
"Hmm~ Now you're speaking properly."
"Luffy! We have to kill that filthy old man who treats a beautiful woman not even thirty as an old maid!"
"If Nami keeps talking to him, she'll get contaminated!"
"It's okay, Hancock, I'm watching from the side too...!"
"No, why is that old geezer making things awkward by talking about his own preferences that weren't even mentioned in the original?!"
"Anyway, the painting I mentioned earlier was just a hobby of mine, orange hair."
"And the Grand Line is a place where incomprehensible things happen all the time. Something like this is common..."
Koooom!
At that moment, the space they were in shook violently.
The water below churned hard, and both the Merry and the island the old man stood on trembled. Usopp pointed at the island and shouted,
"Look under the island that old man's on! It's not an island—it's a ship covered in iron plating!"
"That's right, nosey. Otherwise it would've melted away in the seawater mixed with stomach acid."
"Why would you move a ship here for something like that?! And what was that shaking just now?!"
"Orange hair, do you remember what the whale's forehead looked like?"
"There were... so many huge scars."
"This whale's name is Laboon. Those scars were caused by him repeatedly smashing his head into the Red Line."
"Then this shaking just now...!"
"Laboon is... smashing his head into the Red Line again."
Koooom! Koooom!
Laboon kept ramming the underside of Reverse Mountain with his head from beneath the sea.
"Bwoooohhh~!!!"
"This is... a cry of pain."
"Pretty boy, and yet Laboon keeps ramming his head into it all the same."
"My job as a doctor is to protect Laboon like this, but lately his condition has been getting worse in a lot of ways."
"There were others who came here before you, swallowed by the whale on the downhill slope of Reverse Mountain."
"After hearing my explanation that Laboon is not usually like this, they left peacefully."
"Now I need to calm Laboon down, so you should all head back out..."
"Is there anyone else here besides you, old man?"
"No, Straw Hat. Who else would be in a place like this besides a weirdo like me?"
"Then what about those guys over there?"
"What...?"
Hearing Luffy's words, Crocus turned toward the metal door Usopp had pointed at.
There, stepping out from the small door beside the center of the metal gate and standing on the platform, were a man and a woman.
The brown-haired man wearing a crown on his head and the beauty with sky-blue hair tied back were each carrying a bazooka thicker than their legs on their shoulders.
"You bastards! How are you coming out from that side?!"
"We came in through the whale's blowhole, Crocus! We won!"
"You're still after Laboon?!"
"That's right! Outside, maybe not—but if a cannonball hits him inside his stomach, that whale is finished!"
After answering Crocus in turn, the man and woman aimed the muzzles of their bazookas at the side of Laboon's stomach.
"Usopp."
"Yeah, Luffy."
"Shoot those cannonballs."
"Got it!"
Usopp gripped the rifle on his back with both hands and took aim.
Boom!
"Aaaagh!!!"
The two cannonballs fired from their bazookas exploded in midair before they could even reach Laboon's stomach.
At the same time, the man and woman were thrown back by the force and fell from the platform into the sea of stomach acid.
"Luffy, are they wanted criminals?"
"No."
"Then why did you tell me to shoot?!"
"If they fired bombs inside the whale and made him rampage even worse than before, what do you think would happen to us?"
"You and the others might barely make it out, but we wouldn't be able to save the Merry. This ship was built by you and Miss Merry, remember."
"Wow... your judgment is insanely fast, Luffy."
"It's a captain's virtue."
Of course, he said that to Usopp because he knew those two had just appeared at this point in the original story.
If he hadn't, old man Crocus would have had to throw himself in front of the cannonballs.
At that moment, Crocus, standing at the edge of the island, turned toward the two of them and spoke.
"Nosey, Straw Hat, thanks for keeping Laboon from getting hurt."
"What did I do? Usopp did all the work."
"So what are you going to do now?"
"I need to swim over to where those two just came from. There's a sedative Laboon needs, and a syringe to put it in."
"I can fly. I'll take you there."
"W-Wait...!"
Luffy flew up with Crocus on his back.
Then he set Crocus down on the platform in front of the door the man and woman had just come out of.
"A Devil Fruit?"
"You know your stuff."
"Anyway, thanks. The situation's urgent, so we'll talk more later."
Right after Crocus said that and went through the door, Luffy looked down toward the seawater mixed with stomach acid.
There, in the sea of gastric fluid, were the man and woman from before, barely managing to swim.
"Th-their clothes are dissolving in the stomach acid!"
"We need to get them up fast! If we wait any longer, they'll really be dissolved down to the bone!"
He'd be in danger if he rescued them any later, wouldn't he?
Meanwhile, Crocus climbed the stairs made by attaching iron plates to an iron frame.
Both the wall and the stairs he was stepping on were made entirely of metal, and the place he reached after climbing them was the same.
He needed to make more sedative soon. There wasn't much left.
However, unusually, the center of one wall had no iron plating, leaving Laboon's flesh exposed. In front of it, a giant syringe filled with solution sat on a stand.
"That's enough, Laboon."
Crocus pushed the back of the syringe forward and stabbed Laboon with the needle.
"Bwoooooo!!!"
Koooom!
Feeling it, Laboon cried out and once again slammed his head into the wall.
Crocus staggered violently from the impact, but he grabbed the wall and barely kept from falling.
"That wall in front of you is the barrier dividing the seas of the world."
"Even if you keep hitting it until the day you die... it will never break."
Right after Crocus said that, Laboon stopped ramming his head.
As a result, the sea inside the whale calmed once more, and those on the Merry noticed it too.
"Looks like the whale's calmed down. Crocus must've handled it."
"But why did you bring these guys here, Luffy?"
"I figured it'd be awkward to kill them, so I brought them back for now, Hancock."
On the Merry, the two people who had fallen into the sea were also sitting there, each tied to a rope.
"What are you planning to do with us?!"
"I'll think about that from here on out."
Luffy answered the woman and looked closely at her sky-blue hair.
Her bangs parted to the left and right, falling to frame her eyes, while the back of her hair was tied up.
Like Nami, she still looked young, but she was unmistakably beautiful.
Like the man who had been tied up separately in the stomach acid, the woman had stripped off her outer clothes and was wearing only her underwear.
"Don't look, Luffy!"
"Ghk! Why me...!"
As Hancock swung her arm to cover Luffy's eyes while he looked at her, Sanji was struck in the face by Hancock's elbow and collapsed.
"I've told you countless times that I'll show you everything!"
"Then why are you looking at some half-dressed woman instead of me?!"
"D-Don't look!"
The sky-haired woman, whose face was as youthful as Nami's but whose body was voluptuous and clad only in underwear, felt Luffy's gaze and shouted, blushing bright red.
"Ah... I was staring without even realizing it."
"It's okay, Luffy. Neither you nor I are wrong for being honest about our desires as men..."
"Shut up, Sanji!"
"Gaaah!"
While Hancock kicked Sanji, who was speaking beside Luffy, Luffy kept looking down at Vivi and thought,
"Crocus is important, but there was no way I could skip meeting you."
"Princess of Alabasta, Nefertari Vivi."
"You stop looking too, Luffy!"
"Ow! O-Okay, Nami!"
Nami yanked hard on Luffy's cheek, and Vivi, who had been called a princess by Luffy in her heart, looked up at this chaos with a bewildered expression.
"What on earth are these people?!"