When the large three-masted ship punched through the cumulonimbus and reached the White Sea seven thousand meters up,
having stayed inside the barrier space and watched those perilous scenes like a movie, Karina finally released the Barrier-Barrier Fruit's power.
Gazing at a world of pure white, Karina barely had time to marvel before her face tightened. "Such thin air. Is this the Sky Island?"
"Not yet. We're still a few thousand meters short of the Sky Island," Karl said.
"A few thousand meters?"
Nami's eyes widened. Looking around and finding the Knock Up Stream had completely vanished, she said, "Without the Knock Up Stream, how am I supposed to climb those thousands of meters to the Sky Island?"
"Relax. There should be a normal entrance for people to reach the Sky Island here."
Karl pointed. "When Little White and I flew up last time, I sensed living auras in that direction. Odds are those are Skypieans."
"Skypieans, huh?"
Robin was intrigued. "Living up in the sky where the air's thin—will Skypieans look different from us?"
"Ufufufu… we'll know once we go take a look."
Karina hugged Nami and directed, "Set out, little cat burglar!"
"Alright!"
So the large three-masted ship sailed along the cloud-road toward Heaven's Gate.
Along the way, Karl wasn't attacked by the Skypiean patrols, nor by the Shandians—descendants of Jaya's residents blown skyward four hundred years ago.
"Karl, how does the sky-sea feel?"
With the ship gliding along the cloud-road, the girls leaned on the rail, watching Karl and the little dragon swim in the White Sea or bounce atop those jelly-like, springy white clouds, and called out.
"Feels great. Not as salty as the Blue Sea."
Doing a vigorous freestyle, Karl shouted back.
"Idiot, don't go drinking random stuff," Karina said, palm to forehead.
"I'm jealous—I wanna go swim too."
At the helm as she had to be, Nami gazed longingly. "This 'sea' looks even nicer than a milk bath…"
Boom!
Before she finished, Nami's voice cut off.
A column of white spray made of cloud blasted skyward.
From its peak, a huge, oddly shaped sea beast—eyes vacant, body bleeding—launched into the air.
It traced a parabola from port to starboard and splashed down. Moments later the carcass floated to the surface.
"Uh… heh-heh, I'm not going in after all."
Snapping out of it, Nami laughed dryly.
"So even the cloud-sea has sea kings."
Karina ran to starboard and peered down at the corpse, clicking her tongue. "Looks different from Blue Sea beasts. Are these natives of the White Sea, or mutates born of Blue Sea beasts the Knock Up Stream brought up?"
"Probably the latter!"
"Alright, there ahead should be the entrance to the Sky Island."
Time slipped by as they chatted.
With the big ship's speed, they soon reached the cloud-road's end.
"Hea… Heaven's Gate? What a creepy name."
"Do Skypieans have a morbid sense of humor?"
"If not for Karl and Little White—or if you were a first-timer coming up here—you could honestly be spooked by that name."
Seeing Heaven's Gate draw near, the English letters coming into view, the girls couldn't help but gripe.
Especially Karina, who patted Perona's shoulder with wicked delight. "Wonder if Skypieans even know what ghosts are. If Perona sent out a Negative Ghost to spook them, would they drop dead right there and pass through the real heaven's gate?"
"Wanna try?"
Perona's eyes lit up at once.
Though her outfits were growing more refined, Perona's temperament hadn't changed a bit.
As a Ghost-Ghost Fruit user who'd grown up on the Thriller Bark, with that Devil Fruit's side effects unknown, she loved eerie, gothic things, loved scaring people with ghosts and admiring their frightened faces.
That little vice was exactly like Karina's.
"Don't. You'll scare the old lady to death."
Just then, Karl surfaced and called out.
"Old lady?"
Karina blinked. "So the gatekeeper of Heaven's Gate is just one person—an elderly woman?"
"Yeah."
Karl nodded, shrugging off his shirt as he headed below. "I'm taking Little White for a rinse. Chatting with the old lady is your job."
Not long into his shower, Karl felt the deck lurch and the ship sway.
Such rocking didn't affect Karl at all; with Life Return he controlled his body perfectly.
After scrubbing Little White down, Karl came out in a custom tee from Water 7 printed with the little dragon.
By then, the big ship had steadied and entered a looping white cloud-road.
"How'd it go?"
Karl slid up behind Karina at the rail and hugged her as if by reflex, chuckling. "No 'incidents,' right?"
"Oh, there were. Skypieans are pretty sly."
Karina couldn't help complaining. "They don't use Beli but a currency called Extol, and the exchange rate is wild."
"To pass Heaven's Gate into the Sky Island it's ten billion Extol per head—one hundred thousand Beli…"
She cut a look at a sheepish Nami. "At first the number startled me, and our little cat burglar even wanted to force our way through. Good thing I asked, or we'd be listed as illegal entrants."
Then she scolded Nami again. "Idiot! If we're hunting the Golden City and get branded intruders, how are we supposed to 'quietly' look for gold?"
"Hee-hee… my bad, all my bad."
Hands pressed together, Nami put on her best pleading smile.
"We're here!"
While Robin and Perona watched Karina lecture Nami with interest,
Karl suddenly lifted his gaze down the cloud-road and cut in.
The big ship had been grabbed from below by an Express Lobster and hauled into a cloudbank like the cumulonimbus layer.
When they burst through and the light returned—
the White-White Sea, and the Sky Island ten thousand meters up, filled their eyes.
"So beautiful!"
First-timers to the Sky Island, the girls were captivated by the otherworldly scene.
Like the bubble culture of the Sabaody Archipelago, the Sky Island had a culture all its own.
"Go ashore and have fun. Little White and I will scout around."
Just before he and Little White left the ship, Karl pressed a palm atop Karina's head and forced her gaze off the view.
Using a warning signal born of the trust they'd trained since childhood, he spoke with his eyes while smiling outwardly. "Enjoy yourselves. We'll be back soon."
"Okay—be careful!"
Meeting Karl's emerald eyes, a flicker of shock flashed deep in Karina's own before her smile returned and she nodded.
"Roar…"
Watching Karl ride the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and vanish into the distance, Karina kept smiling as she and Nami dropped anchor and went ashore, but inside she felt heavy.
That eye-signal was the warning code she and Karl devised at age nine to survive.
Since Karl's first evolution at nine, they'd rarely needed it.
After so many years, it reappeared.
In situations where only the two of them were present, he used it now.
Who—or what—made Karl unable to speak even a warning aloud?
With that weight on her heart, Karina split her focus—playing along with Nami while primed to throw up a barrier at any second.
At the same time, she analyzed.
Karl took Little White along and didn't leave him to guard them.
That suggested the opponent's strength didn't vastly exceed Karl's—and perhaps couldn't break her barrier either.
But the opponent's ability might be like Karl's sensing—able to see, even hear, everything here.
It might be Observation Haki.
Remembering how Karl could read emotional shifts, Karina calmed herself until neither in nor out did she show a seam.
Right then, Karl rode the Blue-Eyes White Dragon toward the Sky Island's sacred land, Upper Yard—once part of Jaya, blasted into the sky four hundred years ago, home to a portion of the Golden City.
"A dragon of legend… a Blue Sea dweller has such a mount?"
Karl didn't know it, but from the moment he'd reached the White-White Sea, Enel's eyes had been on him.
Watching that airborne, blindingly fast Blue-Eyes White Dragon from the God's Shrine, Enel's gaze burned with rare greed—and anger.
Even as a god, he lacked a dragon for a steed. For a mortal from the Blue Sea to possess one—
that was the utmost offense to a god, an unforgivable capital crime.
Enel almost unleashed God's Judgment to smite Karl as he had the islanders.
But God's Judgment might harm the dragon.
His raised hand paused.
"Yehahahaha… fine. This god will take a little time to play."
Snagging a red apple, Enel loosed his signature laugh. "That dragon is this god's. As a reward, I'll grant you a place in the trial…"
"Prepare to delight me for four hundred measures, Blue Sea boy!"
Karl had no idea Enel had set his sights on the Blue-Eyes.
Flying above Upper Yard, Karl had braced himself for that chuunibyou "god" to hurl a long-range strike with God's Judgment.
Though they hadn't crossed hands, once on the Sky Island Karl ranked Enel as the strongest foe he'd faced since Rayleigh.
In sheer awkwardness to deal with, Enel topped Rayleigh.
Because Enel wielded the Rumble-Rumble Fruit.
Among Devil Fruits—of all types—the Rumble-Rumble ranks as nigh "invincible," and deserved Karl's utmost respect.
Other than Enel's lightning, the Logia that stuck in Karl's mind was Kizaru's Glint-Glint Fruit.
The Glint-Glint is likewise a top-tier Logia.
In capability, it mirrors the Rumble-Rumble: one has the speed and power of light; the other, of lightning.
And the Glint-Glint's elementization is the most "unfair" among Logias.
Blended with Observation Haki, even if an enemy strikes with Armament Haki, absent overwhelming disparity they can at best interrupt the "casting," rarely landing a clean hit on the true body—
more obnoxious than Crocodile in his home desert.
More crucially, with light's speed, Kizaru can flee with ease even if he can't win—
the slipperiest of the slippery.
Every advantage the Glint-Glint enjoys, the Rumble-Rumble shares—and in even more all-around fashion.
Even a lucky shut-in like Enel, with no real worldliness, could develop Raigo, an island-erasing thunder globe.
That alone shows how fearsome the Rumble-Rumble is.
Faced with such a troublesome power, even battle-maniac Karl grew uncharacteristically cool.
Though his own speed had reached the realm of "godspeed,"
he couldn't guarantee it would overwhelm Enel's instantaneous movement.
He had to prevent a hit-and-run, or Enel slipping beyond his Observation Haki's range and bombarding him from afar.
Either don't fight—or if you do, leave no future trouble alive.
Karl had no way yet.
So after circling Upper Yard and finding Enel hadn't smote him from range, nor sent the four priests to cause trouble,
Karl rode the Blue-Eyes back toward Angel Beach on Angel Island.
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