—Real World—
The plague footage from Syrup Village spread panic across the East Blue faster than any disease could.
The moment the Sky Screen finished its broadcast, ordinary people who had never sailed a day in their lives began hoarding medicine. Apothecaries emptied within hours. Merchants who had stockpiled supplies the night before were already marking prices up by morning — the smart ones quietly, the greedy ones openly. Fear was the most reliable currency in any sea, and right now the East Blue was drowning in it.
Predictably, the scammers followed. Miracle tonics. Secret plague wards. Herbal compounds with no active ingredient beyond sawdust and optimism. The ignorant bought them, took them, and a handful died from the remedies rather than the disease itself. The men behind those stalls counted their coins and cursed their customers for being so easy to fool.
None of it mattered. Those paying attention to the Sky Screen would know the broadcast concerned a future plague in one village. But fear rarely bothers reading the fine print.
The people peddling follow-up content about the Sky Screen's plague sequence made a fortune in those days. They were not ashamed of this. They told themselves they were providing a service.
—Broadcast—
The future Straw Hats had been waiting for over an hour.
Luffy sat cross-legged on a rock, hat tipped over his eyes, achieving something that resembled patience mainly through the absence of visible impatience. Nami and Robin stood to one side. Zoro had fallen asleep against a tree. The patients — meaning Chopper, carefully cradled in Robin's arms — had not changed.
Then the sound of footsteps came through the bamboo, and Kaya appeared at the path's edge, slightly breathless.
"I'm sorry for making you wait so long." She bowed her head, genuinely embarrassed. "It took some convincing. Master has agreed to see you — but please, don't do anything to irritate her."
Usopp straightened immediately. Kaya's cautious tone told him everything about the woman they were about to meet.
She and Usopp led the group forward while the others followed with Chopper. The path wound through bamboo groves and across wooden walkways, passing through what seemed less like a built environment and more like a conversation between architecture and forest — structures that had learned to negotiate with the trees rather than replace them.
They heard the residents before they saw them.
In a wide clearing ahead, a colony of black-and-white bears moved between the bamboo stalks, gnawing contentedly at shoots or chewing through fresh poles. They were portly, round-eared creatures with dark rings around their eyes, and several of them were enormous — the largest bearing a wild tuft of fur sprouting from its head like an afterthought.
Sky Screen Character Note: Mink — Giant Panda Tribe — Po
"They're so..." Nami trailed off.
"Round," Robin finished, with a small, warm smile.
The two women had touched Bepo before — the Heart Pirates' white bear was good-natured and patient about it. These creatures were rounder, softer-looking, and somehow more aggressively adorable. Nami was already moving toward the nearest one before she had consciously decided to.
The largest panda — the one with the unruly topknot — noticed first. He turned, assessed the situation with the particular gravity of a creature who has been treated as a toy before and found it undignified, and cleared his throat.
"Ladies." His voice carried a polite but non-negotiable authority. "Please respect our personal space. We pandas are not here for human entertainment. Pandas will never be slaves."
Neither woman had expected the bear to talk. Neither was particularly surprised that it did — the Grand Line, and even the New World seas, had long since reset the threshold for astonishment. What caught them off guard was how serious he was about it.
Kaya glanced back at the large panda with a look of familiar exasperation. "Po. You're stealing bamboo again and Master already knows. Watch yourself."
"Sister Kaya," Po replied solemnly, "I have thick skin and thicker flesh. After enjoying the bamboo, the worst outcome is a few days in bed. My recovery exceeds all other bears."
Kaya shook her head and kept walking. She had clearly had this conversation before.
Robin fell into step beside the others, but her eyes lingered on Po for a moment longer than necessary. She had made a decision. She would find time to rub that stomach before they left this island.
Po, meanwhile, had the distinct sensation of being watched by someone who meant him no good. He turned — slowly, with great dignity — and scanned the group. Nothing. They were already walking away.
He looked down at his bamboo.
He shrugged.
Beyond the panda clearing, the bamboo thinned, and the treeline opened onto something that stopped everyone mid-step.
A single tree dominated the center of the compound — vast and ancient, its canopy so dense that the sky above was only a rumor, filtered down in shifting flecks of light that moved across the ground like slow breath. The trunk was wider than most houses. The bark had the texture of a story told over too many years to count.
And built into the highest thick branch — seamlessly, as though it had grown there rather than been constructed — was a treehouse.
It sat in the arms of the giant tree the way a bird sits in a nest: naturally, without effort, as though this had always been the arrangement. Vines framed the windows. The wood had weathered to a warm grey. The whole structure gave the impression of something that had been there long enough to belong.
Kaya stepped forward, tilted her head back, and called up through the leaves.
"Master Tsunade — my friends are here!"
A beat of silence. Then the wooden door above opened.
A figure stepped out — and then wasn't there anymore.
The next moment, she was standing directly in front of them.
She was a tall woman, fully mature, with long pale-gold hair tied loosely into a high ponytail that swept behind her. A diamond-shaped seal marked her forehead in deep blue-violet — the kind of mark that did not look like decoration. Her eyes were a warm, clear brown, and the body she wore with complete indifference to the world's opinion was the sort that made it impossible to estimate how old she was by looking at her.
Sky Screen Character Note: The Strange Doctor — Tsunade (Medical Ninja)
She looked them over once. Her gaze landed on Usopp and stayed there for a moment longer than comfort allowed.
"So you're Usopp." She said it the way someone identifies something mildly disappointing. "You're uglier than your photo. Kaya, I genuinely don't understand your taste."
"Master Usopp is a very good person," Kaya said, in the patient tone of someone who had learned to simply let this happen. "Please don't judge by appearance."
Tsunade's expression flickered with something that was not quite sympathy but was adjacent to it. She had watched her apprentice grow up, and she found it galling every time she was reminded that this sharp, capable young woman had given her heart to a man whose defining feature was an extremely long nose. If it came to it, she would do the surgery for Kaya's children at no charge. And if this sniper ever made Kaya unhappy, she had other skills she was not above applying.
"Right." She cleared her throat. "Let's see the patient."
Nami stepped forward from the group, cradling Chopper carefully. Tsunade's eyes settled on the small, gaunt reindeer and did not move again. She studied him in silence — not the silence of examination, but the silence of someone forming a conclusion.
After a moment, she turned away.
"Kaya." Her voice was measured. "Take the others inside. I can't save your furry friend."
She hadn't touched him. She hadn't asked for symptoms or history. She turned her back on the stunned expressions of the whole crew and walked back toward the base of her tree.
In seconds, she was gone — up through the branches and back into the treehouse, leaving nothing behind but the sound of the door clicking shut.
The Straw Hats stood in the clearing.
The hope they had spent so long assembling — piece by piece, ship by ship, island by island — lay scattered on the ground in front of them.
Was that it? Was Chopper truly beyond saving?