Chapter 218: Why the Log Pose is Dome-Shaped

Trying to convince the crew to take her in, Robin retells what happened inside the collapsing Tomb of the Kings. She had rolled a cure across to Cobra so he might revive the poisoned captain, voicing her wish that he would survive. Cobra pressed her on why she had deceived Crocodile regarding the Poneglyph, which in fact spoke of the weapon Pluton rather than the kingdom's past, and grasped that the Warlord's whole design would have come off had she been honest. Robin replied that no country meant anything to her; what she sought was a Poneglyph bearing the erased history. Sinking in resignation, she urged the captain to abandon her since she had no reason left to live, yet the now-recovered Luffy dragged both her and Cobra clear of the cave-in regardless.

Since he forced her to keep on living, Robin announces she ought to be a Straw Hat, and Luffy consents to the dismay of his crew. She catalogs her past dealings with criminals and her trade as a killer, which frightens Usopp, then tickles the captain and Chopper with her ability and disarms Nami's suspicion with a fistful of jewels.

Fragments abruptly shower down onto the Going Merry, and they turn out to be a full-sized galleon dropping from above. The ship swerves clear of the wreck only to be jolted by the swell its impact throws up, and further pieces tumble down, a skeleton among them. As the baffled crew puzzles over how such a thing could occur, Nami finds the Log Pose now angled directly skyward, which unsettles her. Robin concludes the needle must be drawn to an island floating above the clouds.

The flashback lays out Robin's antidote, her falsehood about Pluton, and the captain's rescue. She casts her crime as being saved against her wishes and her sentence as joining up. Fresh details come to light: she earned the title of archaeologist at eight and has spent twenty years on the run across numerous criminal outfits. A towering ship plunges down from above, the scientist Willie Gallon gets a passing mention, and Robin reads the upward Log Pose as proof of a sky island overhead. This installment kicks off both the Jaya Arc and, on the larger scale, the Sky Island Saga.