Side: Third-person perspective
A remote offshore island lay in the open sea, far from God's Island.
It sat just beyond the outer edge of Enel's Mantra.
That was why a band of Shandia had been able to set up a temporary camp there now—to rest, to treat their wounds, and to recover from the day's fighting.
At the center of the camp, Wyper, the Shandia leader, listened with his core comrades as Raki—who had only just returned—delivered her report.
"…I see. So Leona is with the Blue Sea Dwellers."
"Yeah… but it didn't look like she was being oppressed or anything. If anything, they treated her like she was precious… like they really cared about her. Sounds like they were the ones who took her in back when she was in the Blue Sea… like adoptive parents, maybe. I didn't ask for every detail, though."
"If she has no intention of returning, then it doesn't matter. Soone without a warrior's resolve is useless to us in the end."
"..."
In the middle of the day's battle, a piece of disastrous news had reached Wyper and the others.
Raki had been captured.
Not by the Priests—the enemies they had been fighting all along—but by a third faction: a group of Blue Sea Dwellers operating on the island.
Even so, the result was the sa. They had lost one of their valuable fighters—one of their most reliable front-line warriors.
Wyper had received the report right as night was closing in. To keep the damage from spreading any further, he had chosen to withdraw for now. They couldn't afford to throw away this once-in-a-lifeti opening—one Priest was missing from the battlefield. He would carry their hopes forward into tomorrow.
Priests or Blue Sea Dwellers, it didn't change the core problem: Raki had been taken by an unknown enemy. And if they didn't even know where she was, there was no way to mount a rescue.
They had been bracing themselves for the worst, thinking she might never return—
And then, just like that, she did.
Alive. Unhard.
And she brought information with her: about the Blue Sea Dwellers… and about Leona, whom even Wyper had t before.
"…So you're saying the Blue Sea Dwellers… as long as we don't provoke them, they have no intention of coming after us."
"Seems that way. They said their goal is gold, and… rare 'Dials.' Apparently Dials don't exist in the Blue Sea. So we don't need to fight them. Not unless we—"
"What guarantee do we have that any of that is true?" Wyper snapped. "Whatever their motive is… if they're trampling over the holand we must reclaim, then they're enemies that should be eliminated. I told you to cast aside your softness and hesitation, Raki!"
"But—! Even when we were fighting the Priests, we didn't have the luxury to pick and choose like that! I'm not making excuses for our defeat, but those people are unbelievably strong! And Leona's with them too—"
"…Leona, huh," Wyper muttered. "So that out-of-control girl is still alive."
At that, Kamakiri—one of their comrades—spoke up, as if sothing had just clicked in his mind.
Braham and Genbo followed imdiately, voices overlapping.
"The village elders said she volunteered as a decoy for her comrades… that she t an honorable end as a warrior…"
"Guess that wasn't the truth after all. …Though I'd suspected it."
"It's ancient history," Wyper cut in. "Don't dig it up now. If the person herself has no intention of returning, it makes no difference. Raki, drop it. One runaway girl doesn't change what we have to do."
"Wyper! But Leona… and Aisa back in the village…!"
"This is a once-in-a-lifeti opportunity!" Wyper's voice hardened. "We felt it—the difference without Satori was real. If we let this chance slip by, who knows when we'll ever see another one like it?"
He spoke over Raki with the blunt authority of a leader who had already decided.
"Everyone, rest for today. Tomorrow. Tomorrow we end this four-hundred-year war once and for all." His gaze burned. "Anyone who stands in our way—no matter who they are—will be… eliminated!"
The Berserker, feared and renowned by allies and enemies alike, was so full of battle lust that even waiting for "tomorrow" seed to irritate him. He stalked back to his tent, radiating restless aggression.
The other companions followed.
Left alone at the end, Raki tightened her grip on the bag that held Vearth.
'Leona… Aisa…! I…'
☆☆☆
Side: Sue
We even built a proper campfire, made a huge racket, and spent a night so loud and cheerful you'd never guess we were camping in enemy territory.
Still, tomorrow was going to be busy, so we didn't stay up partying until morning. We called it at a reasonable point, cleaned up, and everyone turned in.
When it was ti to sleep, I decided—after a long ti—to share a futon with Leona again.
Normally, Leona only lies beside , keeping a respectful distance. But tonight she was being unusually clingy.
She wrapped her arms around and pressed close—so close it was hard to move.
I didn't mind at all. Alice is like this pretty often when we sleep together. But this didn't feel like simple cuddling. It felt like she was holding on because she was anxious, and that made uneasy.
…The way she unconsciously nestled her head against my chest, like she wanted to hear my heartbeat, dragged up mories of Leona from before—back when she'd been on the verge of losing control. Is she really that worried?
It had to be because her mories had returned… because she rembered she was Shandia.
And the way Raki spoke earlier… it sounded like Leona had so ugly mories tied to them.
So I thought I'd just hold her, say nothing, and let her be properly spoiled—
But then she whispered,
"…Mama?"
"Hm?"
"Can you… listen to so stories from my past? From when I was still in Shandia… before I t you?"
"…I don't mind. But are you sure you're okay, Leona? It sounded like you might have painful mories. You don't have to force yourself to rember them, or talk about them."
"Yeah, thanks… but it's kind of the opposite. I feel like I want soone to listen. For so long, I wanted to know about myself, wanted to talk about it… but I couldn't."
If she was choosing this on her own, I had no reason to stop her.
And if she really did have sothing heavy in her past… sotis saying it out loud could make it easier to carry.
The one thing that worried was this: if Leona's past included sothing so vile I couldn't ignore it, I might instinctively label the Shandia as enemies and go into full search-and-destroy mode during tomorrow's adventure.
And judging by Raki's tone, it didn't sound like Leona's relationship with the Shandia had been particularly good…
"M-Mama, please don't," Leona said quickly. "They're my old tribe, and… you know… Wyper and Raki, and a bunch of others I know are there too."
"We'll decide after I hear it," I told her softly. "Go on. Tell everything, my daughter."
"…Daughter… right. I understand."
After a brief pause—like she had to brace herself—Leona began, words coming out in small, careful pieces.
☆☆☆
Side: Third-person perspective
The Shandia were a tribe who lived in the sky, also known as the Guerrilla, or the Warriors of Shandora. Long ago, they had been a people of Jaya, an island in the Blue Sea.
Then, one day, a natural disaster called the Knock Up Stream struck, hurling the entire island—along with the city of Shandora they had protected—into the sky.
Unintentionally brought to the Sky Island of Skypiea, they clashed with the forces of the "God" who sought to claim the Vearth. They were defeated, and driven from their holand.
That was four hundred years ago.
Since then, the Shandia had pursued the recapture of their holand without pause, waging an endless war against the Sky People.
Leona was born into that war, into a bloodline of warriors.
She wasn't exceptionally blessed in sheer size, but her body was sturdy, and she had an innate sense for combat. Even before she had turned ten, the supple, well-trained strength in her limbs was already enough to fight at the level of a true warrior.
If there was a flaw, it was this: Leona herself didn't love battle.
Unlike Wyper and his comrades, she didn't burn with a fierce hunger to reclaim their holand.
She didn't carry the kind of iron resolve that said, no matter how brutal the fight beca, no matter how badly she was hurt, she would reclaim it. And she didn't enjoy fighting for its own sake, either.
That lack of aggression disappointed hot-blooded warriors like Wyper. If only she had the will for it, they said, she could one day match him—or surpass him.
Even so, the adults of the village—warriors and civilians alike—placed high expectations on her. They believed she would beco exceptionally strong soday, and Leona herself believed it too. She thought it was her destiny.
And then tragedy ca to her twice.
The first was the loss of her parents.
Her father died as a warrior in battle. Her mother died of illness. Both vanished from Leona's life with cruel suddenness.
Orphaned, Leona was taken in by her mother's younger sister—her aunt—and brought to live in her ho.
There, one thing saved her from being swallowed by loneliness: she quickly grew close to her slightly older cousin, Aisa. The girl beca like a sister to her.
The second tragedy was this—
Leona ate a Devil Fruit.
Not only in the Shandia's Hidden Cloud Village, but throughout Skypiea, various supplies sotis rode the Knock Up Streams from the ground or the Blue Sea and washed ashore.
Among them were the pitiful remnants of rchant ships and pirate ships shattered by the Knock Up Streams, along with the treasures they had carried.
One day, Leona found a single treasure chest among those remnants.
She opened it, and without understanding what it was, she bit into the strange fruit inside—unintentionally gaining the power of a Devil Fruit.
If that had been all, it would have made her unable to swim. But it also would have granted her trendous combat potential, sothing a warrior might have welcod.
But that power—the power of the Mythical Zoan, the Nean Lion—was far too overwhelming for a child, in body and mind.
In parts of the Blue Sea, it was common knowledge: Zoan-type Devil Fruits carry the 'will' of the animal they are modeled after.
One theory even claid that when a Devil Fruit was fed to an inanimate object, causing it to beco an animal and move, it was because that latent 'will' surfaced.
That 'will' also influenced the Ability User themselves. Those who carried the power of carnivorous beasts, for example, were said to grow more savage when they transford.
And when an Ability User reached Awakening—if they lacked the strength of will and physical resilience to endure it—they risked being swallowed by the Devil Fruit's 'will,' losing their sense of self, and becoming sothing that could only be called a monster: a mindless beast with barely more intelligence than an animal.
Even among Zoan users, a Mythical Zoan's power—and its will—was too potent for a young Leona to control.
Too potent even before Awakening.
Once she activated her powers, she couldn't regulate them. Training sessions left a trail of injuries. Her reason would snap, and she would fly into berserk rampages that didn't care who stood in front of her—friend or foe.
On a battlefield, at least enemies suffered too.
But the casualties among allies were unacceptable. Even basic training beca impossible.
At first, the adults tried to be understanding. They clung to the hope that, because she was so promising, she would eventually learn. Veteran warriors were assigned to supervise her, with the idea that she could slowly learn control.
Months passed.
Then more than a year.
Nothing improved. The damage among their own only grew.
Gradually, the adults' gazes toward Leona changed. Resentnt crept in, like they were looking at sothing loathso. Even within the ho where she lived—her aunt, her relatives—suspicion and disapproval took root.
Leona felt it.
But she also understood exactly how dangerous she was. She knew she was dragging allies into harm, leaving needless injuries behind every ti she trained, every ti she fought. So she endured in silence.
She turned frustration, sadness, and loneliness into fuel, throwing herself into training with the promise that she would fix this soday.
And then, little by little, even her training was t with a command.
"Stay away."
Before long, almost no one dared to associate with her at all.
In the midst of that isolation, God Enel suddenly arrived with his forces and seized control of God's Island from God Gan Fall.
The Shandia's mission didn't change. But the appearance of an enemy even stronger, even more dangerous, left them with less and less room for error in every battle.
Cornered, they made the agonizing choice to cut away their internal burden—Leona.
The decision was made by the elders. They did not tell the younger ones, who still hadn't hardened their hearts enough to accept sothing so brutal.
Leona was assigned a mission that was, in truth, a suicide attack.
They called it a diversionary tactic to ensure the success of the main assault—but the one sent to carry it out was Leona alone, and no reinforcents would ever be dispatched.
To the family who waited for her return, they said Leona had volunteered to stay behind as the rearguard, and then went missing.
Only Aisa cried when she heard. The adults had already begun to understand the truth.
Leona fought in a berserker state and smashed several Divine Soldiers from God's forces.
But she could not match a Priest—an officer of the highest rank.
She was defeated.
Whether by luck or by misfortune, she wasn't killed on the spot. Instead, she was knocked unconscious and subjected to Cloud Drifting.
Set adrift on an imnse Island Cloud with no ans of escape, stripped of everything but her clothes—no Waver, no equipnt—Leona endured gnawing hunger and thirst as her consciousness blurred. The only comfort was the Island Cloud itself, which was surprisingly soft beneath her, like a bed rocking her as she drifted.
Carried by the wind, the Island Cloud floated away from Skypiea, beyond the Stacked Imperial Cloud, wandering aimlessly through the high altitudes.
And then, at so point, Leona fell.
For so reason, she accepted her death with a strange calm.
'Ah. This is the end, then.'
If she hit the ground from ten thousand ters, even her sturdy body would surely die. If she fell into the sea, as an Ability User, she would drown without being able to do anything.
With that thought, she closed her eyes.
There were three things she hadn't accounted for.
First: as the Island Cloud drifted away from Skypiea's unique climate, it gradually descended.
Because of that, the impact of her fall wasn't as severe as she had imagined—though it went without saying that it was still a height that would kill an ordinary person without question.
Second: her body was far tougher than she had ever believed.
Even among Zoan users, the Nean Lion's toughness was said to be among the strongest in raw defensive power. That strength gave her a robustness that utterly betrayed her delicate appearance.
And the third reason was—
"Uh…? Who is this kid? I an… what is this kid…?"
After she had thought she was dead…
A fateful encounter was waiting for her.
☆☆☆
Side: Sue
Leona had already been nodding off halfway through her story, her consciousness wavering, but she still managed to finish—properly, all the way to the end.
The mont she did, she collapsed in my arms, breathing softly. Good girl. You did so well. I'm proud of you, my daughter.
…When I said "my daughter" out loud earlier, she'd made that fleeting, slightly awkward face. It was probably because her family situation was complicated.
Her birth parents died in the war. She drifted apart from the family that raised her. And the only person she truly trusted was Aisa—soone who was like a younger sister to her.
…And Aisa was a character from the Original Work too, wasn't she?
Right. The little girl who was born with the ability to use Mantra—no, Observation Haki. I rembered now. So Leona was related to her by blood.
As expected, her past was heavy.
But at least it didn't sound like she'd been persecuted for no reason.
…Not that that made it okay.
Even if Leona's powers were the cause, she still suffered. In the end, she was practically driven from her holand. Worse, her family—everyone except Aisa—had accepted it.
This might sound harsh, but I think Leona was right when she told during our nightti talk, "I'll never return to Shandia." I doubt there's a place for her there anymore.
Maybe so people feel guilty. Maybe they'd try to take her back because of that.
But it would still be tense. Awkward. Miserable.
If anything, the only real reason to return would be Aisa—the one person who stayed close to her until the end. And if things follow the Original Work, Aisa is supposed to co to this island tomorrow. If we're lucky, we might run into her then.
All right. I'll give them so slack for now.
I won't antagonize the Shandia.
If they attack, we'll retaliate—there's nothing to be done about that.
We'll take so Dials as compensation for the trouble, but we won't take their lives. So… forgive for that.
Okay. Ti for bed.
Tomorrow is going to be hectic.
Gyaaaaaah!
Huh? That was Usopp's voice…
But he didn't sound panicked. That had the sll of a gag.
And my Observation Haki wasn't picking up anything strange. It didn't feel like an enemy attack.
Oh, right—of course.
We camped out on God's Island at night… which ans the Going rry's Klabautermann is going to appear. I totally forgot. So it's today.
Usopp saw it, thought it was a ghost or sothing, and fainted…
Honestly, I hesitated about going to see it myself.
Personally, it's one of my top two favorite mysteries in the One Piece world. I really want to get the scoop—an interview, anything!
But at the sa ti, as a fan of the Original Work, I didn't want to intrude on such a special mont.
…Yeah. Better not.
Maybe the Klabautermann only showed itself because Usopp was with his crew—the people he loves so much. It would be rude to interrupt that.
Besides, Leona is still asleep, clinging to like a koala. I can't move anyway.
I'll just have to be satisfied with interviewing Usopp later.
…Or maybe I could use Heaven's Door on Usopp and read his mories directly…
…Ah. Thinking this much is making sleepy.
Fine. I'll sleep too…
...zzz...
To be continued...
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