One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #148

As Gale hopped off the sloop and landed on the sand with a soft thud, he turned back to see Ebri and Risa on deck, waving at him like doting relatives sending a kid off to school.

“A couple of lazy bums…” he muttered under his breath, waving halfheartedly back before shoving his hands into his coat pockets.

The truth, though? He was relieved they’d stayed behind. Ebri was… well, Ebri. A brilliant idiot who’d probably trip over a seashell and declare it a new lifeform.

And Risa? Brave, sure, but Gale wasn’t used to fighting while worrying about liabilities.

This way, he could focus without the nagging thought of “oh no, don’t let the goblin-swarm eat the old man” or “great, now the kid’s dangling off a cliff again.”

The ruins loomed ahead of him, a broken skeleton of what once must’ve been a thriving town. Cracked stone walls, collapsed roofs, and weeds poking out from between the bricks gave the whole place the vibe of a haunted postcard.

As he approached, Gale suddenly froze, his sharp eyes catching something in the sand. Footprints.

He crouched, leaning in close. The print was clear, edges still firm, not blurred by time or wind. He blew at one, scattering only a little sand. His frown deepened.

“These aren’t old… a day, maybe two,” he muttered.

Straightening, he rubbed the back of his neck, gaze following the trail. The sloop had circled the island twice, and Gale was damn sure he hadn’t spotted a single ship, boat, or even a stray raft. Whoever made these prints didn’t come here by sea.

Which left… option A: they flew here. Which, annoyingly enough, was entirely possible in this bat-shit crazy world.

Hell, he’d seen a guy once ride a cannonball midair just by sheer leg strength. (Not to mention, he himself wasn’t exactly normal, so throwing stones in a glass house here felt hypocritical.)

Or option B: the footprints belonged to a local.

“Though…” he murmured, stroking his chin, “if you can fly between islands, why would you bother walking in the dirt like some common peasant, just to leave footprints behind? Nah. Too stupid, even for this world.”

So, probably locals. Which was also confusing, because from the ship’s vantage point, they hadn’t seen a single sign of life. No smoke, no animals, no movement. Dead quiet.

Gale let out a long, theatrical sigh as he turned his gaze toward the split mountain looming in the middle of the island.

The sight of it, jagged and menacing against the sky, made him mutter under his breath, “With my luck, I probably just stumbled into cave-dwelling cannibal island. Wouldn’t even surprise me if that’s the actual name stamped on the eternal pose.”

He gave a shrug, as if resigned to fate. If it turned out the locals were wearing bone necklaces and roasting strangers on spits, well… that was just Tuesday.

His boots crunched on the sand and rubble as he continued his stride toward his destination: the waterfall streaming down from the mountain’s split peak. Why the waterfall, you might ask? Simple. One universal truth had guided treasure hunters, adventurers, and wannabe heroes since the dawn of time: waterfalls hid treasure.

Sure, the eternal pose was pointing at the whole damn island, and the map pointed at the big mountain where only ore veins would be buried, but if Captain John’s treasure was stashed here, then the big, dramatic waterfall was as good a place to start as any.

Pirates loved dramatic entrances, after all.

“Besides,” Gale muttered, smirking faintly, “if there isn’t treasure behind it, at least I can get a prober wash...”

He continued through the ruins, and the longer he walked, the clearer something became. This town hadn’t been destroyed by war or raided by pirates. No, this was… different.

The houses were wrecks, sure—roofs collapsed, walls crumbled—but it was the kind of damage that came from time and neglect, not fire or cannonballs. The kind of slow death you got when a place was left to rot.

Peering into a half-collapsed home, Gale noticed something else: the inside was bare. Clean, even.

Whoever lived here had packed up and left—no overturned tables, no scattered possessions, no signs of panic.

Just… emptiness.

It gave him the creeps.

“Whoever lived here,” he murmured, “they packed meticulously. No rush, no disaster, just… decided to leave for some reason...”

He ran a hand through his messy hair, frowning at the eerie silence. From the looks of it, the place had only been abandoned a decade or two ago. Which, in island years, wasn’t long at all.

“So, not cannibals… more like… spooky disappearing villagers. Great.”

He shoved his hands back in his coat pockets and pressed on, whistling tunelessly to fill the silence. The whistling didn’t help much—it only made the ruins seem emptier.

“Yeah, this island definitely wants me dead,” Gale muttered.

...

One hour later, Gale was still walking. His boots dragged through dirt and gravel, his cloak catching on low branches, and his scowl only deepened with every step closer to the waterfall.

It wasn’t the walk itself that annoyed him—he’d marched through worse terrain before—it was the footsteps.

They were everywhere.

Every patch of dirt he crossed had them, neat impressions stamped into the earth. Sometimes they vanished when the ground gave way to grass or stone, but without fail, they always reappeared a few meters later, leading in the same direction he was headed.

Toward the waterfall.

“Great,” Gale muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Because what I really needed in my life was competition.”

His frown twisted further the more he thought about it. The owner of these tracks wasn’t wandering—they were purposeful, steady, intentional. Like Gale, they were making a beeline for the one spot on the island that screamed secret treasure stash.

Which meant one of two things: either some local hermit was going home to take a bath… or someone else knew about Captain John’s treasure.

And if it was the latter?

Oh, he was going to lose it.

His eye twitched as he recalled every miserable obstacle he’d already slogged through just to get here: the humiliating beating from those Wolfhowl bastards and their “sacred trial,” the endless flower fart fog and its stupid looping shades, the goblins who went from rabid lunatics to wannabe lovers, and let’s not forget—the goddamned storm.

And now? Now some lucky bastard might have just waltzed in and scooped up the loot while he was busy getting molested by cave-goblins.

Gale’s jaw clenched, and he hissed through his teeth,

“I swear to God, if even one coin is missing, someone’s going to feel my wrath.”

The way he said it, it was less a threat and more a solemn vow, like he’d happily carve it into the Ten Commandments.

Enough was enough.

With a sharp inhale, Gale bent his knees, and in the next instant, his figure blurred. He sprinted toward the waterfall in a burst of speed, the wind howling past his ears as trees whipped by in streaks of green and brown.

Forget admiring the scenery.

Forget pacing himself. Whoever was ahead of him was about to get a very rude surprise.

“Treasure-stealing bastard,” Gale muttered, teeth bared in a grin that was equal parts excitement and murderous intent. “Hope you like rose petals and getting slashed in the ass.”

...

Gale finally skidded to a halt at his destination, boots scraping against damp stone. His eyes narrowed as he took in the sight before him: a waterfall cascading into a stream, its spray casting a fine mist over the rocks scattered through the current.

The rocks themselves were laid out in an almost laughably convenient path, each one within easy jumping distance of the next, all leading straight to the curtain of water.

He scratched the back of his head, lips twisting.

“…Yeah, that’s not suspicious at all. Nope. Totally natural rock placement. I’m sure Mother Nature just really had a thing for platforming sections.”

Still, treasure hunts had rules. Rule number one: waterfalls hide stuff. He’d said it before, and by God, he’d stick to it. With a sigh that carried every ounce of his suspicion, Gale hopped across the rocks, each landing sending a splash echoing through the clearing.

The last leap sent him sailing straight through the waterfall. And the second he did, regret punched him square in the gut.

“—oh, sh—!”

He just barely twisted his body midair to avoid smacking face-first into the rock wall hidden behind the curtain of water. His shoulder grazed stone, and his boots hit slick rock as he caught himself with all the grace of a drunk penguin.

He exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Yup. Perfectly fine. Didn’t almost break my face. Great decision, Gale. You’re a genius.”

And sure enough, tucked neatly behind the torrent of water was a narrow passage. So narrow, in fact, that only one person—two if they were half-starved and greased up—could squeeze through at a time. Beyond the mouth of the passage, there was nothing but blackness.

The kind of blackness that swallowed sound and light whole.

“Fantastic,” Gale muttered, peering into the dark. “If this doesn’t scream ‘dead adventurer hallway,’ I don’t know what does.”

He reached into his pocket and plucked out a stick no bigger than a toothpick. Its tip was wrapped in damp cloth. With a quick flick of his thumb, he released his Devil Fruit’s effect, and the stick shot back to its original size—a proper torch.

“Handy little trick,” he said with a smirk, admiring his handiwork for half a second. “Pocket-sized home improvement kit. Eat your heart out, carpenters.”

From another pouch, he dug out a flint lighter and struck it against the cloth. Sparks danced, the cloth caught, and soon enough, the flame’s glow painted the walls around him in jittering orange light. The wet stone gleamed, and the faint sound of dripping water echoed deeper inside.

Gale took a deep breath, puffed out his chest, and muttered to himself,

“Here goes nothing… or everything. Please let it be everything. Preferably gold, shiny swords, and maybe a nice chair.”

Torch in hand, cloak damp with waterfall spray, he stepped into the tunnel. The flame stretched shadows tall and thin along the walls, and Gale’s grin tugged at the corner of his lips despite himself.

“Classic treasure cave vibes,” he said under his breath. “If I find a skeleton with a map in its teeth, I’m framing it.”

And with that, the darkness swallowed him whole.