Steer for the Clouds! Capture the South Bird!

Cricket tells the crew that the sudden nightfall they experienced earlier came from a dense cloud, with Skypiea lying directly above it. In theory a ship can ride the Knock Up Stream upward to reach it, but failing to find a landing means crashing back down. By his reckoning the next eruption is due the following day, so the pirates head inside to eat while the Bellamy Pirates close in on his home, hungry for gold.

Reading on from Noland's logbook, Cricket notes that the explorer heard a bell on reaching the sky, then produces three bell-shaped gold ingots and a golden southbird statue he recovered while diving, proof of a lost civilization above. Because the birds always face south, he explains, a captured one can serve as a living compass toward the stream. While Cricket and the two apes refit the Going Merry, the crew splits up to hunt through the forest. Sanji, Usopp, and Nami blunder into tarantulas, Zoro sinks into a bog, and Luffy and Chopper find a bird only to be driven off by a dropped beehive. Outside, the Bellamy Pirates reach the house as Masira and Shoujou ready themselves to fight.

This Jaya Arc installment adapts portions of Chapter 229 and Chapter 230. A running gag has the South Bird actively trying to kill Luffy and Chopper for disturbing its forest.