Chapter 101: Reverse Mountain

Luffy worries that the lighthouse beam should never go dark, treating the lost light as an emergency that might leave them adrift, but Nami reminds him that charting the route is the navigator's job, which is hers. She informs the rest of the crew that the entrance waits at Reverse Mountain, a peak set along the Red Line. The others struggle with the idea of sailing a ship up a mountain, and Zoro doubts a chart pilfered from Buggy. Luffy, delighted by the thought of a "magic" mountain, brushes off Zoro's idea of entering from the south, declaring that the mountain route wins simply for being "cool," to Nami's disgust.

The weather abruptly goes still, startling Nami, who realizes they have wandered into the Calm Belt, a stretch of sea with no wind or current at all. She orders everyone to row, drawing Usopp's reminder that their vessel is hardly a rowboat, and she explains that two windless belts hem in the passage they want. The ship suddenly shudders, and what the crew first takes for an earthquake turns out to be a ring of Sea Kings around them. After a tense encounter with the giants, they slip back into the storm, and Zoro now concedes the proper entrance is the only way through.

Nami spells out the crossing: waves from all four seas meet at the mountain to form a stream that climbs its canal, crests at the summit, and then spills down into the Grand Line, the single hazard being a mishandled rudder that could sink them. Luffy fails to follow any of it, while Sanji marvels at her seamanship.

A huge shadow rises ahead, revealed to be the Red Line wrapped in fog. Sanji and Usopp grab the rudder to hold their course, but the heavy steering breaks under the strain. With no other choice, Luffy puffs himself into a rubber balloon to cushion the ship clear of the gate. After a breathless pause the crew is back on track, cheering their feat, and, awed by nature's spectacle, they finally glimpse the Grand Line opening before them.

This installment opens both the arc named for Reverse Mountain and the Arabasta Saga that contains it. Nami's reveal of the stolen chart shows that the Grand Line sits bracketed by the Calm Belts and that the Reverse Mountain passage is the safest way in. The cover, from the Diary of Koby-Meppo series, shows Vice-Admiral Garp reviving to crush a nearby cannon one-handed, drawn through an oversight without the wound he took from Morgan.