Meanwhile, above the East Blue, on the Floating Island of Merveille.
Dr. Indigo paced anxiously through the ruins of the Palace-the dome the Golden Lion had crashed through had yet to be repaired.
Captain Shiki had been gone for some time, and he still had not returned.
Now that Indigo thought about it, the Golden Lion might have left because of the unique Haki perception possessed by the strong. Perhaps he had sensed a threat and gone out himself...
Indigo's heart filled with foreboding.
"Captain Shiki... please, don't let anything happen to you..."
Just as he kept reassuring himself, trying to convince himself that the captain who had once taken the world by storm would never fall so easily-
Rumble...!!!
The entire island of Merveille suddenly began shaking violently without any warning.
It was as though the source of the power keeping it aloft was rapidly fading!
"What's going on?! Shoo?!" Indigo shrieked, struggling to steady himself.
Then, through the shattered dome, he saw something that nearly stopped his heart.
All the enormous islands that had been hovering steadily above the clouds began to tilt.
And with an inexorable momentum, slowly yet surely... they began falling toward the azure sea below!
"No... impossible! Shoo!!!" Indigo's eyes widened, his face filled with incredulous horror.
What did the islands' descent mean?
In everything he had learned over his twenty years following the Golden Lion, in everything the Golden Lion had stressed and drilled into him countless times-
Merveille stayed aloft entirely because of Captain Shiki's unparalleled Float-Float Fruit ability!
As long as Captain Shiki was alive and conscious, the islands would never fall!
Which meant, conversely...
The islands' current descent could mean only one thing.
"Captain Shiki... his... his ability has stopped working!"
And the most likely thing that could completely disable