CHAPTER 71: CHAPTER 71: NO SPICY FOOD TODAY — THE FLOAT-FLOAT FRUIT

No denying it.

Karl was thoroughly satisfied with Karina’s reward.

Good thing he wasn’t in the habit of using Observation Haki aboard the ship—otherwise he would’ve lost the surprise, the delight, and the thrill of discovery.

Will and emotion make people stronger or weaker. In this world, such unseen feelings can become the power called Haki.

Karina’s surprise electrified Karl, sending his already fearsome battle power soaring severalfold.

He’d thought bringing Nami and Perona in would help share the load on Karina. Instead, he got an even fiercer "beating" that night.

The next morning.

When Karina, Nami, and Perona took forever to get out of bed, Robin cooked a lavish breakfast and went to wake them.

But the three weren’t in their rooms.

Karina and Nami were one thing.

Since joining Karl’s crew, Robin—user of the Flower-Flower Fruit—had long noticed the relationship between Karl and those two, and it was normal for the three to emerge from one room.

Today, though, Perona’s room was empty too.

Remembering the way Perona had looked at Karl lately, and Karina’s behavior yesterday, Robin smiled wryly. They were getting bolder and bolder.

At the same time, a faint ripple stirred in her heart.

Now that even Perona had joined in, it felt like only one outsider remained on this ship.

Would he make a move on her too?

Knock, knock, knock.

With mixed feelings, Robin tapped on Karl’s door.

She knew he must have had a wild night, but when she stepped into the dining room a moment later, feeding the little dragon, she froze with rare wide-eyed shock.

"Hiss... I’m not eating spicy today. When you cook, don’t add chili."

Karina, massaging her sore cheeks, shot a fierce look at Karl—who was eating like nothing had happened.

"Me neither."

"Same here."

Nami and Perona, also rubbing their cheeks, raised their hands weakly, their lips a little swollen.

"Why not eat spicy? Chili’s delicious."

Karl still looked clueless.

"Idiot, go die!"

Karina finally snapped, leaping at him to pinch his face hard.

Nami piled on, mussing his handsome blond hair into a bird’s nest.

Perona, still shy, didn’t quite manage to join the scrum.

Watching the usual morning scuffle, Robin smiled with big-sister fondness.

Karl’s and the little dragon’s slaying of a Celestial Dragon—and his debut bounty breaking a billion—kept rippling outward.

For days, Karl was the world’s darling.

People everywhere, of every race, were talking about him and becoming fans.

Karl’s crew didn’t know or care.

They had a more immediate headache.

"I definitely can’t go back to the Sabaody Archipelago."

On a deck sofa, Karina held a hot egg wrapped in a towel to her lips. "I made history by killing a Celestial Dragon. If I return there, the one coming to arrest me won’t just be an admiral. Mary Geoise might send their own to join hands with the Navy."

"It takes at least three days to coat a large three-masted ship for a hundred people."

"In that time, Mary Geoise and the Navy will have a thousand ways to grab me."

"If I go back, I’ll lose the gold on board and even the golden bell."

She paused, winced, then continued. "Going through Fish-Man Island to reach the New World is a no-go for me, unless I switch to a small boat, or abandon ship and have Little White carry me over the Red Line."

"Fly?"

Karl blinked.

Karina’s mention of flying over the Red Line unlocked a door in Karl’s mind and tugged up a hazy memory of the story.

"Remembered something?"

Sensing his change, Karina asked.

"Yeah."

Karl nodded, a smile tugging at his lips. "You’re right. Flying over the Red Line suits me best now."

"But I don’t need to abandon ship. I can take the whole vessel over."

"You mean you and Little White will lift or carry the ship through?"

Karina looked amazed. "No way—are you really that strong now?"

Karl gave her a pitying look and shook his head.

"What’s with that face?"

Her forehead ticked with irritation at the silent jab.

"On land I can certainly lift a ship."

Karl spoke evenly. "I can even moonwalk with it for a ways. But I can’t carry it into thin air where the oxygen’s low and fly over the Red Line, let alone keep moonwalking while bearing that weight. Get it?"

"What do you mean?" Karina was lost.

Before Karl could explain again, Robin spoke. "He means Little White

can’t fly while carrying a ship that big. With the forces involved, the dragon can’t maintain balance and climb while bearing something many times its size, so flying over the Red Line is impossible."

"I see."

Karina finally understood, then glared at Karl. "Can’t keep balance, can’t keep balance—why make it sound so complicated?"

"My fault?" Karl spread his hands.

"Getting cockier by the day."

Karina pounced again, wrestling him playfully.

Watching Karl let her vent, Robin asked, "Since Little White can’t carry the ship, what was your idea just now?"

"Yeah, what then?"

Karina let go of his cheeks, cupped her own, and asked.

"Borrow a Devil Fruit ability, of course."

Karl took the chance to hug her and grinned. "There’s a fruit in this world that can make not only people, but objects, fly."

Robin searched her mental library and quickly found a candidate. The scale of what she recalled made her uncertain. "A Paramecia..."

"The Float-Float Fruit?"

"Knew you’d get it, Sister Robin," Karl said, giving her a thumbs up.

"The Float-Float Fruit—what is that?" Karina and Nami, still not fully versed in Devil Fruits, looked to Robin.

"Paramecia, the Float-Float Fruit. As the name suggests, it can make the user—and anything they touch—float."

Robin explained simply, then knit her brows at Karl. "If I’m not mistaken, decades ago that fruit had a master. In the last era he stood alongside the Pirate King and the world’s strongest man. The flying great pirate..."

"Golden Lion Shiki."

"Golden Lion?"

Karina and Nami’s eyes widened.

"I know him," Perona said. "Lord Moria called him a legend of the last era, and the first great pirate to break out of Impel Down."

"Right. His escape caused a huge stir."

Robin nodded. "But after his last appearance—a meeting with Whitebeard in the New World—he vanished for nineteen years."

"The Float-Float Fruit can create one or more floating islands. After Shiki disappeared from the sea, everyone assumed he stayed in the sky, likely plotting something."

She fixed Karl with a look. "Don’t tell me you know where he’s hiding."

Karl nodded and pointed upward. "If nothing’s changed, his base is in one of two places. One of them is right over our heads."

"No way."

The women tilted their faces to the blue. Nami gaped. "A legendary pirate above me? For real?"

"This sea isn’t that far from Marine Headquarters. If Shiki moved his base to the skies here, is it to keep an eye on the Navy?" Karina didn’t seem to doubt Karl.

Robin focused on the key point. "And the other place?"

"The other might be over the East Blue, where Karina, you, and Nami are from," Karl said.

He had just dredged up what he knew of Shiki.

Though Shiki was the first great pirate mentioned in the main story, he actually appeared in the film Strong World.

Karl remembered that film clearly; it crowned Luffy the king of movies.

No matter how absurd Luffy’s wins over Crocodile or Enel had been, Strong World was on another level.

A legend who stood with the Pirate King and Whitebeard lost to a Supernova who didn’t even use Haki and had a bounty of only 300 million.

In the Battle of Edd War, a ship’s helm lodged in Shiki’s head, his Haki began to ebb, and by Sea Circle Calendar 1520 he couldn’t use Haki at all. Both legs were cut off in Impel Down’s Eternal Hell, crippling his peerless swordsmanship.

Even so, with only the Float-Float Fruit, Shiki wasn’t someone Luffy should have been able to defeat.

Like lightning and light, the Float-Float is a top-tier Paramecia, on par with the Quake-Quake Fruit.

What the Quake-Quake Fruit can do, the Float-Float can do in most cases.

What the Quake-Quake can’t, the Float-Float sometimes can.

The only thing it can’t match is the Quake-Quake’s unparalleled destructive power.

If the Quake-Quake is the strongest at destruction, the Float-Float is the strongest at control.

In the eyes of the true overlords of the sea, its threat rivals or exceeds even Whitebeard’s fruit.

As Robin said, its power is simple, even singular.

The user escapes gravity and flies freely, and anything they touch that isn’t alive can be made to float.

That includes seawater, islands, blizzards, the ground, mountain ranges.

As long as stamina permits, a Float-Float user can heave seawater into tsunamis, lift the ground into mountains, and drop archipelagos like hammers.

Just the ability to hurl islands makes it a strategic weapon.

How many in this world could withstand an island falling on them?

Let alone a chain of islands.

In the film, the first time Shiki showed the Float-Float’s might, he ripped up a swath of ground and one-shot the Straw Hats.

That kind of power should never have lost to a 300 million rookie. Crocodile and Enel didn’t belong in the same sentence as Shiki.

The timeline of Shiki’s plan to destroy the East Blue sits shortly after the Straw Hats cleared Thriller Bark.

When he kidnapped Nami, he even used the Float-Float Fruit to send the crew back toward the East Blue as a "gift," but canceled the Sunny’s buoyancy mid-flight.

So his floating archipelago was likely over the sea near the Florian Triangle.

But it’s now Sea Circle Calendar 1517. Given Shiki’s twisted love for Roger and his contempt for the so-called weakest sea, he may be stockpiling power for a grand return and an insult to Roger’s legacy by destroying the East Blue. Karl couldn’t guarantee the base was overhead now.

One thing was certain: if not above the Triangle, then above the East Blue.

"I’ll take Little White up and have a look."

Having decided to reach the New World by flying over the Red Line—and with Shiki’s base mostly pinned—Karl vaulted onto the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and shot into the sky.

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