One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #146

Gale stood before a thick, towering tree, rapier in hand, his expression far too smug for someone about to commit deforestation. With a single flourish, the steel whispered through the air, and the tree fell from the base, crashing in slow motion.

Another flick of his blade, and every branch was neatly pruned away, falling like discarded hair clippings at a barber’s floor.

By the time the trunk hit the dirt, Gale was already slicing again, reducing it into uniform planks as if he were a one-man lumber mill with a flair for the dramatic.

He crouched down, picked up one plank, and held it between his fingers. With a grin, he activated his devil fruit power. The wood shivered, groaned, and then shrank rapidly until it was no larger than his pinky.

Gale turned it in his fingers, snorted in amusement, then flicked it into his pocket like spare change. “Pocket lumber,” he muttered. “Now that’s convenient.”

One by one, the rest followed suit until his pockets jingled like he’d just mugged a carpenter’s guild. He dusted his hands and straightened up, nodding with satisfaction. Having someone like Ebri around—someone who actually used their brain for something other than storing alcohol—was nice.

The old coot only needed one look at Gale’s ability before pointing out that he could use it for more than making things bigger and heavier.

However, shrinking objects for storage? Mind blown. Gale hated to admit it, but he really should’ve thought of that before.

He smirked as he stuffed another miniature plank into his pocket. “Not just practical uses… combat too.”

His imagination ran wild in the most Gale fashion possible. Storing a massive boulder in his pocket? Pulling it out mid-fight and hurling it back at full size? Hell, maybe even bigger than before?

The mental image alone made him snort out a laugh. “Now that’s what I call pocket sand… times a million.”

Of course, part of him also thought about the less… refined possibilities. Like sneaking a whole feast into his pockets for later. Or carrying around a barnyard just to mess with people. But the boulder-throwing thing? That one was definitely making the shortlist for “combat strategies that’ll make people crap their pants.”

He had to admit—the old man might’ve just cracked open the true potential of his fruit. For the first time in a while, Gale was genuinely excited to experiment.

He twirled his rapier again, slicing another tree down with a flourish just because he could. “Man,” he muttered to himself with a grin, “The next guy I fight will have PTSD for years...”

...

With his pockets clinking like a miser who’d just robbed a treasury, Gale hummed to himself as he trudged through the thinning fog, following the faint memory of where the sloop had washed ashore.

Every step sent his “pocket planks” jingling like he was walking with pirate loot stuffed down his trousers, and he found himself grinning. “Forget berries,” he muttered, “I’m investing in the lumber economy.”

Then a lump of green in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He slowed, squinting through the mist.

Sure enough, one of those little goblins was sprawled across a tree branch like a lazy cat, legs dangling, eyes half-closed, wearing the most blissful expression Gale had ever seen on a creature that wasn’t drunk.

Its chest rose and fell in deep, steady breaths, the corners of its ugly little mouth curled up in a smile.

Gale blinked at it, then glanced around at the clusters of peculiar flowers nearby, their pale petals releasing thin wisps of calming fog into the air. Right—this was the section of the island Ebri mentioned, the “chill zone,” as Gale had mentally dubbed it.

The fog here mellowed out the goblins instead of turning them into bite-sized berserkers. That was exactly why he’d come here to chop wood in the first place. Even Gale had his limits for being clawed at like a scratching post every three minutes.

Still… seeing the goblin so serene tugged at his curiosity. He walked up to the tree and, with one hand, plucked the little thing from its branch like it was an overgrown apple. Holding it up to his face, Gale studied it.

The goblin smiled even wider, its eyes glassy and unfocused. Then, to Gale’s absolute horror, it reached out with one stubby hand and gently caressed his cheek.

He froze. Completely froze.

His brain short-circuited.

This… this was not in the manual.

Before he could recover, the goblin puckered its lips, leaned forward, and made a very clear attempt to plant one on him.

Every hair on Gale’s body stood on end. A violent shiver shot down his spine. Instinct—not training, not haki, pure feral instinct—took over. He dropped the goblin like it was made of lava and, without hesitation, swung his foot.

“YEET!”

The little monster rocketed skyward, disappearing into the foggy heavens like a green firework. Gale stood there, sword arm limp, cloak hanging loose, shivering in disgust.

He rubbed his cheek furiously with his sleeve, muttering through clenched teeth, “Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I liked you guys better when you were trying to kill me…”

He turned and walked away a little faster than before, muttering to himself the whole way, as if the act of sheer cringe had physically cursed him.

“First they claw at me, now they wanna kiss me… Next thing you know they’ll be proposing marriage. I swear, this island hates me.”

...

Several days later, the sloop actually looked… seaworthy. Sort of. Its patched hull wasn’t pretty—more like a stitched-up drunk after losing a bar fight—but it would float, and Gale figured that was enough to ask of any vessel stranded on Fog Hell Island.

The only thing left? A new mast.

Which, of course, meant another trip into the forest.

Gale trudged through the trees, rapier already drawn, muttering under his breath. “Yeah, sure, go fetch wood, Gale. Easy job, Gale. Definitely not gonna end up clawed, bitten, or propositioned by pint-sized goblin cavemen, Gale. Nope, not at all.”

He found a tall, straight tree and made short work of it with a few sharp swings, the trunk crashing down in a neat fall. He barely had time to admire the clean cut before his Observation Haki prickled.

Something was coming.

Correction: somethings.

The bushes erupted, and a pack of goblins rushed him, shrieking at the top of their lungs. Gale braced for claws and teeth, only to freeze as the little bastards skidded to a halt, their wild eyes half-lidded, lips puckered, arms outstretched.

“…No,” Gale said flatly.

One goblin lunged at him like a toddler diving for candy, smacking its lips. Gale sidestepped, face twisting. Another launched itself onto his back, trying to plant one on his neck. His eyes bulged as he spun wildly, shouting, “NOPE! Nope, nope, NOPE!”

He swatted them away with his sword flat, kicking one like a soccer ball, another he just grabbed and hurled into a tree. But more kept coming out of the fog, their shrill war cries replaced with horrible, wet smooching sounds.

“This is it,” Gale muttered between frantic swings. “This is my life now. Forget pirates. Forget Celestial Dragons. Forget the treasure. I’m gonna die in the middle of nowhere, kissed to death by horny goblins—WHAT IS THIS ISLAND?!”

A particularly bold one launched at his face, lips puckered like it was aiming for a wedding kiss. Gale’s scream echoed through the forest as he punted it skyward so hard it probably landed on another island.

The forest soon echoed with chaos: goblins shrieking, Gale cursing, the occasional thwack of a goblin being yeeted into the fog.

By the time he bolted back toward the beach, mast dragging behind him, his cloak was rumpled, his hair sticking in every direction, and his expression screamed a man who had seen horrors too great to describe.

And somewhere behind him, the chorus of goblin smooching still carried on, chasing him like the world’s worst love song.

...

By the time the sloop was finished, Gale wasn’t sure if it looked more like a ship or a floating insult to shipwrights everywhere. The patched hull was mismatched shades of wood, the new mast leaned slightly like it had a back problem, and the sails looked like they’d been stitched together by someone drunk, blind, or both.

But—it floated.

Barely.

Ebri heaved the last of his luggage aboard with a grunt, the trunk creaking under the sheer amount of junk he’d crammed inside. “There. My life’s work,” he said, patting it like a prized cow. “Take care with it, aye?”

Risa, kneeling by a crate of dried food, gave him a look. “Your life’s work smells like old socks.”

“It’s called science, lass!” Ebri barked back, beard quivering indignantly.

Gale ignored them, busy checking water barrels, though his shoulders shook like he was holding back laughter. After making sure the corks were secure, he stood, brushing his hands off. “Alright, supplies are good. Should last us until… well, until it doesn’t.”

Ebri, catching his breath, finally straightened and asked, “So, where to?”

“Dunno,” Gale replied, straight-faced.

Ebri blinked at him. “What do you mean, dunno? You’re setting sail without a destination?”

Gale smirked and pulled something shiny from his coat pocket, holding it up. The eternal pose ticked lazily in the misty light, its needle frozen in an unwavering direction. “We’ve got this.”

The old man squinted. “A compass?”

“Better,” Gale said, shaking it once for dramatic effect. “Eternal pose.”

Ebri stared at it like it was a paperweight. “…And where does it point?”

“That’s the fun part,” Gale said, grinning like a man with no sense of self-preservation. “We’ve got no idea.”

Risa groaned and smacked her forehead. “Don’t phrase it like that! You make it sound like we’re idiots.”

“Correction,” Gale said, wagging the pose at her, “I’m an idiot. You’re just along for the ride.”

Ebri rubbed his temples. “Let me get this straight. You’ve patched together a half-dead sloop, stocked it with barely enough food, and you’re planning to sail into God-knows-where because of a shiny trinket that points at… what, exactly?”

“Buried treasure,” Gale answered, matter-of-factly. Then, with a little shrug: “Or at least the island it’s buried on.”

The old scientist stared at him for a long, painful moment. Then he sighed, muttering, “Aye… I really did let a crazy person rope me into my own watery demise...”

“Correction again,” Gale said, stepping onto the deck and throwing his cloak over his shoulder. “Not just a crazy person. The crazy person... besides, death by drowning is better than being molested by these fucking goblins...”

Risa, already climbing aboard, groaned again, muttering, “We’re doomed.”

And with that, their ugly little sloop bobbed on the tide, ready to follow the eternal pose into whatever insanity awaited next.