The Going Merry groaned beneath Mario's boots as she cut toward Jaya. He moved along her deck like a man visiting a sick friend, running his fingers over salt-bleached rails, checking knots, tapping repaired sections. She looked better than she had in the manga—maybe because he'd insisted on extra tar, spare planks, and not letting Luffy use the mast as a launching pad—but she was still battered. Scars everywhere. The Grand Line did not care how beloved a ship was.
He stopped at the main mast. For a moment he just looked at it, then pressed his palm against the wood, then his forehead. The grain was warm from the sun, but underneath he could feel the faint shudder of a hull pushed too hard for too long.
"I'm so sorry, Merry," he whispered. "This journey must be hard on you."
It sounded like a prayer. Maybe it was. He knew what waited for her. He had known since the moment he realized where he was. He had tried to protect her—patched what he could, argued for gentler routes, hidden his fear behind quartermaster's practicality—but the sea was bigger than his knowledge. The Grand Line had teeth. Merry was small.
"Man, I can't believe how much damage there is just from some debris!" Usopp came clattering up with hammers and nails, arms full, breath short, anger bright in his eyes. "It's like the ocean is personally out to get us!"
Mario turned, and something in his chest softened. Usopp. Brave, terrified, brilliant Usopp. The one who loved Merry enough to fight the world for her.
"You can fix it," Mario said. "I trust you."
He meant it. That was the cruel part. He meant it, and he still knew.
Usopp blinked, then grinned. "Woha! Of course you do! I am the great Captain Usopp, after all! A few scratches are nothing!"
Above them, Luffy's voice cracked across the deck. "Holy Molly! Look at that house!"
Mario followed his pointing arm. There, on the shore, stood the front half of a house—absurd, stubborn, ridiculous—Mont Blanc Cricket's home. The sight of it made Mario smile before he could stop himself. Cricket. The man who chased the sky. The descendant of a liar who had never lied. It was beautiful, in the way only One Piece could make a half-house beautiful.
"Look again, you dimwits," Sanji said around his cigarette, already unimpressed with their navigation skills.
Curiosity pulled the crew ashore. Boots hit sand and grass. Luffy tilted his head. Usopp squawked. "Gah, look at that! It's only half a house!"
"I don't know if I should be impressed or sad," Luffy said.
Mario said nothing. He drifted a little apart from them, scanning the clearing. He knew it should be here. If this world still followed the shape of the story he remembered—and it mostly did, even when it didn't—then it would be close.
His eyes landed on a tree stump. A book rested there, weathered but waiting.
"Ah, there it is."
He crossed to it and picked it up. Norland the Liar. The title alone felt like a punch. As a hardcore fan, he opened it with the eagerness of a pilgrim touching scripture.
"What did you find?" Nami asked, leaning over his shoulder.
Mario smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Take a look."
The pages told the story he already knew by heart. Noland landed on the island of Jaya. He saved the native Shandia tribe from a deadly disease. He became best friends with their strongest warrior, Kalgara. Before leaving, he saw their magnificent, massive City of Gold—Shandora itself, gleaming in the jungle.
Then Noland returned home and told his King about the gold. When Noland and the King came back, the gold was gone. Only empty jungle remained. The King felt humiliated. He branded Noland a fraud and had him executed.
Noland died as "Noland the Liar," without ever becoming a great warrior of the seas.
Mario shut the book. The sound was soft, but it felt final.
Nami looked at Usopp.
"Why the hell are you looking at me?" Usopp screamed angrily.
"Nothing. Just thinking," Nami said, her eyes still lingering on Usopp with a knowing smirk.
SPLASH.
Everyone's heads snapped toward the shore. Something had hit the water—hard—and whatever it was moved fast. Faster than fast. A blur erupted from the sea and landed in front of them with a heavy thud, water spraying in all directions.
"You got guts barging into another man's home. These seas are my territory!"
Mont Blanc Cricket stood there, dripping wet, wild-eyed, and utterly magnificent. His body was a roadmap of scars and muscle, his spiky hair with....a chessnut?
His stance that of a man who had fought the sea itself and refused to lose. Mario felt a lump in his throat. He had read about this man a dozen times. Seeing him in the flesh was something else entirely.
"You came for my gold, didn't you? OVER MY DEAD BODY!" Cricket growled, and then he lunged—straight at Mario.
Mario didn't flinch. He didn't even step back. He simply watched, calm, as Sanji materialized between them, one leg raised, blocking the strike with a sharp crack of shin against forearm.
Then the world exploded.
A whirlwind of strikes and kicks erupted between Cricket and Sanji. Fists blurred. Legs snapped through the air. The ground cracked beneath their feet as they traded blow for blow. Mario's eyes tracked every movement, and his stomach tightened. Cricket was faster. Not by much—Sanji was a monster in his own right—but on land, with his diving-honed reflexes, Cricket had the edge.
"Careful, Sanji," Mario called out. "It's much easier for him to fight on land."
"What are you—" Sanji started, but Cricket cut him off with an ultra-fast jab that connected squarely with Sanji's jaw. The cook stumbled back, boots skidding through the dirt.
Mario's eyes flicked down. Cricket's hand was moving—not for a punch. For his waistband. For the pistol tucked there.
Soru.
Mario vanished. One moment he was standing ten feet away; the next, he was directly beside Cricket, his hand clamped around the man's wrist, the pistol already in his own grip.
"No weapons in a fist fight," Mario said quietly.
Cricket's eyes went wide. "What the—"
He didn't finish. His eyes rolled back, and he crumpled. Mario caught him before he hit the ground, easing him down with surprising gentleness.
"What happened?" Sanji asked, rubbing his jaw, eyes narrowed. "Did you knock him out?"
Mario shook his head, checking Cricket's pulse. Steady. Just unconscious. "No. He fainted on his own."
He looked toward the little reindeer doctor hovering at the edge of the group. "Doctor?"
"R-r-r-right! I'm the doctor!" Chopper stammered, then bolted forward, tiny hooves kicking up sand as he skidded to Cricket's side.
"Captain?" Mario called toward the water, not looking away from Cricket.
"I got him!" Usopp yelled, and sure enough, there he was—heroically dragging a limp, soaking wet Luffy out of the surf. "Help me, you bastards!"
***
They laid Mont Blanc Cricket onto his bed—a narrow, battered cot shoved against the wall—and Chopper immediately set to work, tiny hooves pressing against the old man's chest, checking his pulse, his breathing, his temperature.
"Diver's disease," Chopper announced, his voice shifting into something professional, almost clinical. "It's a medical condition caused by gas forming bubbles in body tissues and blood when pressure decreases too quickly. Left untreated, or if the dive was exceptionally deep… it can lead to severe, long-term, or even life-threatening complications."
Luffy tilted his head, blinking. "The old man is sick?"
Mario said nothing. He already knew. He had known before they even set foot on this island. Cricket had been diving for years—decades—searching for a city that everyone said didn't exist. The sea had been punishing him for it, one dive at a time.
While Chopper worked, Mario drifted through the house. It was small. Sparsely decorated. A few maps pinned to the walls. A hammock in the corner. Chests of salvaged junk. No comfort, no luxury—just the bare essentials of a man who had given everything to uncover the truth for his ancestor. A man who had sacrificed his body, his health, his entire life chasing a dream that the world had mocked for four hundred years.
Mario stopped at the window. Outside, two large ships were already docked at the shore. He recognized them instantly. The Masira and Shoujou pirate crews. He could see the brothers now—Masira, the orangutan-faced salvager, and Shoujou, the loudmouthed one with the wild hair—both sprinting toward the house at full speed, sand flying behind them.
Mario smiled quietly to himself.
Right on cue.
"BOOOS, ARE YOU ALRIGHT???"
The door didn't just open. It exploded inward.