As Kairo flew into the cloud, at some point, he felt the need to hold his breath. It felt like he was underwater. That was odd. He hid his presence and kept going higher. At some point, he felt like he was in the range of someone's Observation Haki.
And once more, he did what he did best: used his ninja skills and blended in, using his resonance with the surrounding area, and synchronizing with where he was.
TL;DR: to the man's Observation Haki, he felt like nothing more than a cloud. Kairo calmed himself down. Being one with nature sure was kinda hard.
Oh well, he could manage. Of course, he could manage. He continued going up through the clouds. The sea monsters avoided him; he felt like danger to them. When they tried to attack him, a light blast of Conqueror's Haki was all they needed to feel to know—
Oh shit, I am finna die if I test this bastard.
Eventually, Kairo's head would pop out from the sky. Looking around, he seemed to find nothing. This place was just an endless sea of clouds... if you excluded the guy jumping around with a rocket launcher, blowing up any ship he found in his way.
Well, he needed answers sooo...
As the guy in the mask was flying around causing a ruckus, destroying ships, as he jumped over a gap, he would feel something grab him before being placed somewhere else—on one of those clouds you could stand on.
Before he could act, his weapon was grabbed.
"Who the hell are you?" He seemed very angry, yet paused when he saw those black wings. Whatever caught him was a creature with black wings and fire flowing around him, a kunai pressed against his throat.
Close enough that it drew blood.
"You will answer to me."
"Get off me!" The man struggled.
Kairo pressed his blade closer to the man's throat.
"What the hell is this place? And don't think just because there's something here that can sense everything you are safe. Within this field, whatever's watching cannot sense nor hear us."
The guy paused... wait... did he just say—
"Eneru cannot sense us?" He seemed shocked. Wasn't Eneru like a god or some dumb shit like that?
"His Observation Haki cannot sense us. Nor speak your mind."
This outsider could block the god's sense.
And from sensing Kairo's essence, he felt like Kairo was strong. Very strong.
"We are in the White Sea. Above us is Skypea."
Kairo listened intently.
He asked even about what kind of money they used up here and learned about how transactions were done, getting the basics of how things worked.
So, Eneru was like the god of this place. This guy said he had very powerful Observation Haki, and from the description, he had thunder powers and all that. Kairo got the basic gist of the race that lived up here: they all seemed to possess some wings to some extent and worshiped certain gods, like the forest god, sun god, earth god... you know, the basic stuff.
It didn't take that long—only like 30 minutes, give or take.
Kairo removed his blade from the man's neck.
"I got what I wanted..." He was about to jump into the cloud, but the man stopped him.
"Who the hell are you? Do you come from below?"
Kairo looked at the man before saying,
"I am a member of the Strawhat crew. I will be back soon enough. My duty was merely to check if Skypea truly existed."
After he said those words, he jumped.
The man looked on as he jumped, his mind racing through ideas on who he could possibly be. And if he was that strong and was only like a scout, how fucking strong was the rest of the damn crew?
Because the person working as a scout is not usually the strongest person.
He clenched his fist. The way this guy spoke, he didn't seem all that afraid of Eneru. Maybe he could...
As Kairo dived through the clouds, he grabbed a fish on his way. Coming out of the clouds, he saw it: The Strawhats' boat, though they seemed to be surrounded. Kairo came from the sky and landed on the boat quite gracefully.
"Why the hell were you up there so long?" Of course, he knew who that was.
He tossed the fish at Nami. She paused, looking at it—wait, what? Did he get a fish from up there?
"Skypea does exist. I found those fish in the cloud. It seems like they adapted to live there. They use a different currency called Extol. 1 Berry is like 10k Extol. The entrance fee to Skypea is 1 billion Extol, so that's 100,000 Berry per person. And since there are 8 of us, that's 800,000 Berry."
"It seems like you had quite the fruitful search up there," Robin said.
Kairo nodded.
"Information gathering is my specialty... Where's Luffy?" He noticed their captain was nowhere to be found.
"You're a funny monkey."
"I am indeed the funniest." Tilting his head to the side, he saw a monkey-man next to Luffy. They seemed like two old friends. The hell?
"Who is he?"
"Matsuyu. He called himself the great collector and said he owned these parts of the sea," Nami explained.
He nodded his head along. Cool.
Luffy, upon noticing Kairo was back, jumped onto the ship.
"Let's go to Skypea!"
He seemed excited.
"Dumbass, we can't fly up there. There's no way for us to get up there." Nami snapped.
"Can't we have Kairo carry us there one by one?" Luffy said with a smile.
"What about the ship?" Usopp seemed the most worried about the ship's well-being.
"I know! What if we tied ropes to Kairo and the ship and had him fly us there?"
He seemed like he thought really hard about this.
"There's no way he can support all that weight—"
"I can."
Nami paused. Wait, did he say he can?
"Yuppy, let's do it!" Luffy sounded excited.
"The ship, however, cannot take it. If we do this, it would tear in half. It needs recoating."
Luffy looked disappointed. So there was no way they could go without their ship. Dammit.
"How the hell are we supposed to get the ship up there?" Sanji asked.
"There are several ways to get to Sky Island, though the other ways are out of reach. The only way I've learned of is the Knock-Up Stream." {I am not finna have a whole dialogue explaining it.}
After explaining what that was, Usopp knew the ship couldn't take it. So that was another reason to coat the ship.
"Monkey guy, do you know someone who can coat our ship?" Luffy asked his new friend. Surprisingly, he did.
Cool.
A/N Yes, this how i skipped Blackbeard.
Because if I didn't he would have gotten slime out.
Remember Kairo fight dirty if need be, he is not against throwing a kunai in the ocean and drowning black beard ass