AN: I do not own Naruto or One Piece

During the Fourth Shinobi War

Chapter 1: Entering a new world

x-x

Looking over the pebbles on his grid, a pair yellow eyes narrowed. 'I don't like how this is going. I didn't think the two jinchuuriki would be in play so soon or end up meeting those two. I sent them specifically away from most of the fighting areas for later use of their dojutsu. This could be a serious setback if they managed to get captured and sealed,' acknowledged Kabuto as he tried to keep track of all his Edo Tensei ninja and viewing the situation through the eyes of the reanimated Nagato and Itachi, he decided to take a more direct approach.

x-x

Stopping suddenly in the midst of the battle, Itachi felt what little consciousness he had left fading away. Now withe full control, Kabuto ordered the body to find it's target, Uzumaki Naruto, and step things up a bit as the blonde with the yellowish-orange chakra cloak was proving much more formidable then the last time they had met. Activating the Mangekyo Sharingan, Itachi left his fight with Killer B and moved to where Naruto and Nagato were fighting.

"Don't bother attacking that summons. He'll keep multiplying the more you hit him. Attack me instead," Nagato yelled to the youth from his greenish bird mount. He was still had consciousness left and could at least provide some assistance the blonde in thwarting his summoning animals.

Using the chakra cloak to help him start forming a rasengan, Naruto was halted by the arrival of a giant red chakra construct to his left. Eyes widened as he looked over the still forming body, the blonde recalled Sasuke forming something similar the last time they saw each other but that was a very different color. Realizing that Itachi was walking towards him and intended to either double-team him with Nagato or get between then, Naruto continued to form a Rasenshuriken before pulling back and throwing.

The odd whistling of the technique filled the forest as the bright blue attack sped towards the still forming chakra entity that was Itachi's Susanoo. The impact and quick activation of the technique prevented Naruto from seeing whether it was successful as a huge sphere shaped chakra ball erupted from the much smaller initial technique. The fallout uprooted trees and Naruto put his hands up to help block any of the debris, completing forgetting that his new chakra cloak would protect him.

As the technique died down, an expanse of empty area in what was a lush forest was revealed. Naruto was shocked to see the still standing reddish chakra construct. It was completely undamaged and had even formed some kind of armor and a shield around what had been just bones and forming muscle moments before. "No way," he said out loud at the ineffectiveness of his powerful rasengan. Itachi's technique, however was not done yet and a saki jar formed on the right arm with fire emerging to form some type of sword.

Looking to Nagato and finding the white haired man not preparing any kind of attack, Naruto decided that the former leader of Akatsuki was still on autopilot, waiting to make a move in response to an attack and so he decided to face the incoming threat. 'Itachi himself may be able to keep up with me but that thing he's formed is quite slow, he can't even run while using it and is forced to walk,' Naruto thought before coming up with his best option, 'He probably also can't turn around very fast or move his shield behind him to block.'

Seeing B quickly arrive and start battling Nagato, Naruto nodded to the older jinchuuriki as they switched targets for the moment. With a partially developed plan in mind, Naruto began forming another rasengan as he wondered if he could actually manage to grab the shield with his chakra arms and possibly pull it away or make an opening with which to use an attack. Moving at the Uchiha, he hoped that Itachi would give him some kind of advice or warning but he found the raven haired man oddly silent.

'Such an interesting technique, I didn't know Itachi had something like this with his Susanoo,' Kabuto commented as he helped guide and order the Uchiha to move. As Naruto shortened the distance, he had Itachi respond with force.

Dodging the downward strike from the sword, Naruto was about to make a quick movement to move right in front of the armored figure when he made eye contact with the shrouded Itachi. In that moment, he stumbled and came to a halt as he suddenly couldn't breath. His first thought was that something was choking him but that wasn't completely true as he could actually feel something moving inside his throat, specifically coming up from his stomach and to his mouth.

Watching in horror as the head of a crow began to emerge from his mouth, he felt an incoming attack and looked up to find that Itachi had not been as idle as he had. The sword had been pulled back and was already being thrust forward at him. 'Shit!,' Naruto cursed and put his hands up in front of him to block. The chakra shroud around his arms and hands enlarged significantly as the light orange chakra moved to block the attack.

As the chakra arms and blade met, the blade pierced the arms and continued with the thrust, going straight into Naruto's chest. The rasengan he had been holding with a third chakra arm faded with his lapse in concentration and shock. Coldness spread throughout his body and he stopped caring that a crow was still trying to emerge from his mouth. Looking down to the fiery sword that had completely pierced what he believed to be an incredibly strong defense, if not impenetrable chakra cloak, Naruto could only stareh as he continued to try and comprehend what had happened.

Meeting Itachi's eyes, the crow angled it's head to give sight preference to it's left eye and with Shisui's activated Mangekyo sharingan, it fulfilled the purpose for which it had been sealed into the blonde. However, instead of Sasuke who had been the intended target for the activation of the powerful genjutsu, the crow had emerged upon Naruto seeing the reanimated Itachi with a copy of his original eyes.

With his consciousness returning and now having full control of his body, Itachi could only look on at the scene before him. 'This...is the worst possible outcome,' he concluded and his eyes met with Naruto's. The fear that was filled in them was completely different from the determination that he had seen just minutes earlier when they started fighting. All who were present watched as the chakra cloak slowly began to get pulled inside the blade.

"What can we do?" came Nagato's voice which brought Itachi out of his daze but he could only respond with, "I don't know." Right as he finished saying it, octopus tentacles wrapped around Naruto's legs and abdomen as B tried to remove Naruto from the blade. "Don't let the blade cut you!" Itachi yelled and B looked up briefly to nod before he resumed trying to use his partially transformed body to get Naruto free. As B struggled and made no noticeable progress, Itachi tried again to end his Susanoo.

Normally ending it was simple, he either deactivated his Mangekyo sharingan or merely let the technique deconstruct but neither of those options were working at the moment. 'I won't be able to stop the technique until his sealing into the bottle is complete. What have I done?' he questioned, despite knowing full well that he had absolutely no control over his own body at the time. 'That Kabuto had no idea what I possessed,' he thought gritting his teeth and looked back to the blonde who was just starting to be sucked into the sword.

'Kyuubi was removed,' Naruto realized as the last amount of the Bijuu's chakra left his body and he could no longer feel the fox at all. The chakra cloak had been pierced first and now the process was starting with his own body. 'B keeps trying to pull me free but I won't budge and I can't get free from this. It's like my body is frozen. Only my eyes can move right now and nothing in my range of view is anything that I want to see. And this damn bird is still in my mouth,' he raged, breathing through his nose as best as he could while trying to remain conscious and not pass out from lack of oxygen. He wanted to scream or yell for help to anyone that might hear it but was only able to get out pathetic sounds that didn't even resemble either.

Struggling to fully emerge from the blonde's frozen jaw and fly to freedom, the crow desperately tried to escape what was happening but could feel that his own tail-feathers had also been pierced by the blade. Looking towards it's summoner and the person that had ultimately put him in such a situation, he was surprised to see Itachi more panicked and worried than he had ever seen the Uchiha. 'I don't know much about this technique but if he could have stopped what's happening, then he would have done it seconds ago,' thought the bird as it gave up trying to get free.

Looking away from the pleading blue eyes, Itachi looked directly at the sharingan of his still struggling crow summons. Putting his hands in a single handseal, the Uchiha did the only thing he could and activated another technique, saying, "Tsukuyami," out loud and focusing chakra into his right eye. 'I don't know where he is going but I can at least do this,' thought Itachi as the technique took effect.

'I won't be getting free from this and no one can help,' Naruto finally realized. No matter how much B had tried, his efforts made no difference. Nagato was unable to do anything or make any actions and Itachi had given him a look which spoke to the same effect. At some point, he could no longer hear anything happening around him and the cold feeling in his body was replaced by numbness as his world became distorted. Whether it was just his site or merely the fact that he was being sucked into the blade, he didn't know and everything soon turned black.

x-x

Looking to the pieces on his board, Kabuto was confused for several seconds. He had only meant to keep Naruto from the main battle and to keep his two pawns safe but everything had turned out horribly wrong. 'I didn't know Itachi possessed something like that. I'm so sorry Naruto-kun, that wasn't how my plan was supposed to go,' he thought as his control slipped. Currently none of his reanimated ninja were moving as he had completely lost his concentration but it hadn't actually been his shock over what happened to Naruto that had caused it.

'Something else happened,' he thought but reviewing all that he had seen through Itachi's eyes, he wasn't sure. The crow emerging was certainly not something that he could explain but given that he knew Itachi could summon those birds, he wondered if the Uchiha had prepared something before dying. 'Did it do something to me, that eye that the crow had,' he briefly wondered before getting back to his plan.

"What was my plan? What am I doing?" Kabuto suddenly questioned out loud to the cave that he was working from. Though Mitarashi Anko was situated on the ground nearby, she was unconscious and so there was no one to hear his words or answer. Retaking control of his Edo Tensei soldiers, Kabuto pushed aside the strange thoughts he was suddenly having and focused on his main object, 'To protect Konoha,' he said in his head and though it initially seemed very perplexing, it was starting to make sense again and he knew what he needed to do.

x-x

One week later, Once Piece World

Seven Years before Monkey D. Luffy first meets Roronoa Zoro

Naruto is seventeen

x-x

"Oi, is this guy even alive?" said one of the captive pirates that were crammed into a cell. "Who cares. Worry about yourself, fool," said another in response and despite what he had said, he couldn't completely hide his curiosity at the blonde haired captive lying flat on the floor. The young man had not been taken to Enies Lobby with the rest of them for the farce of a trial but instead brought in after they left the Judiciary Island and had stopped somewhere. He also noted that the cuffs around the blonde's hands were of a different make and material, which he believed to be kairoseki, the material used to keep devil fruit eaters from using their powers.

"He seems to be still breathing, but he feels freezing cold and I don't think he'll make the journey in the shape he's in. He's been shot...what...seven or more times maybe and it doesn't seem that anyone has bothered to try and patch him up much," commented a third captive as he looked over the wounds that covered the young man's chest, abdomen, legs and arms. Only a few had been bandaged while the rest were left alone and blood was even dripping off the body and onto the wooden floor. Looking to the head, he also noted the spot of read hair that was on the left side of the blonde's head, just above the ear, but he didn't know if it was a blunt-force wound or from a bullet.

"He'd be better off dying right now if he knew where we were headed. Hopefully we'll arrive before he starts to stink," said a fourth chained man from the shadows of the cell and no one gave a response to his statement as it was only met with bleak silence. The background noise suddenly died down and it took a few seconds before the group realized what it meant. 'We've must have arrived,' they collectively thought and were surprised at how quick the trip had been.

The ship had taken a unique root from Enies Lobby, which was only usable by the World Goverment and Marines. The Tarai Current was a giant whirlpool that was formed by unique conditions in an area of the Grand Line and part of the Calm Belt. Three of the governments important buildings, the judicial island of Enies Lobby, the fortress that was the Marine Headquarters, and the world's largest prison, Impel Down, were all along the edges of the current, forming a triangle. At each of the three locations was a mammoth door which were collectively referred to as the Gates of Justice. The doors were the only entry and exit points for the current and allowed expedited travel between the three important locations.

Their trip along the current had likely ended and they believed as such when they heard the Gate of Justice shut behind them; a very ominous 'dun' sound which told them that they had left the current. It had been ten or more minutes since then. Entering the area of the Calm Belt, the Marine battleship was forced to rely on paddle power because of the lack of wind and just moments ago, they had heard the noise of the engines powering the paddles slow down and then cease altogether.

Though faint, given that they were below decks on the large Marine warship, the experienced sailors of the captives could hear the telltale signs of a ship docking. Slight movements of feet and shouts were muted but still perceptible and identifiable. No sooner than the ship had completely stopped moving and only the gentle sounds of light waves against the hull could be heard, did marching footsteps began. The foreboding sound only halted briefly when a key could be heard being inserted into a lock, turned, and the main door to the cell block level unlocked.

As some light entered the long and wide hallway, a large number of lined cages were revealed. All eyes turned to the figure standing in the open doorway. Dressed in white with a long overcoat on his shoulders, the man stared with little emotion at the confined group.

"Begin unloading procedures," the man said in a gruff and stern voice, though his choice of words and uncaring tone made it seem as if the individuals in the cells were crates or supplies rather than people. "I want no mistakes, lets do this properly," he added, referring to the proper military procedure for unloading and transferring prisoners, either dangerous or not.

"Yes Sir," was the loud and simultaneous response from the gathered soldiers right before they flooded into the room, making two lines down the hall. The stamp of boots on the wood floor was the only noise that could be heard as the uniformed men got into position. The soldiers were all wearing the same outfit. A white cap was complemented with a white shirt, dark blue pants and polished black boots. Lettering was prominent on their caps which read, 'MARINE', in bold and all capitals. As the noise and floor vibration died down from their movement, another person entered the hallway. He was differently dressed but not as much as the one that was still standing in the doorway and had previously given the orders.

Looking at the two straight lines of Marines at attention and facing him, the second highest officer of the group ordered, "Face the cells, guns at the ready," and the soldiers turned to face the cages in one solid motion before all bringing their weapons, which had been held diagonally against their chests, to aim directly at the prisoners in the cell.

"Closest cells first, starting with the port side," said the man once again and as one soldier moved to open the first cell, those that were standing close to him continued to brandish their firearms at the prisoners. With each cell being emptied and the prisoners escorted out through the ship, most of the captives were compliant and waited quietly. There were some exceptions but no extra force besides threats or 'minor encouragement' was needed.

When it was finally time to escort the prisoners in the cell Naruto was in, the Marines allowed everyone to leave but the last three, barring their way with a rifle as one of them spoke, "You three, pick him up and carrying him." The captives looked at each briefly before one of them relented, "Put him on my back, I'll do it."

The two others grabbed the blonde by the arms and easily hefted him onto the other prisoners back and he was surprised to find the young man lighter than he anticipated. Learning forward and making sure the blonde would not fall off, the trio and blonde were escorted out of the prison deck and through the ship. Reaching the uppermost deck, all the prisoners followed a single line across the ship and over to the ramp. Though the lines of Marines watching them were completely straight and orderly, the prisoners formed a staggered line that moved at different speeds bumping into each other as their attention was drawn elsewhere.

Before them, and taking up the entire port side of the ship was a protective stone wall that was as tall as the uppermost masts of the Marine ships that were situated in front of it. The fact that it's height was nearly even with the bluish-green battle ships made it intimidating but everyone's attention was soon taken away from wall with a noise from the starboard side of the ship.

In the distance, a massive creature had surfaced and then gone back under the water, but it's length was so vast that it took several seconds for the yellow and orange striped monster to fully go back under the water. Though not a new sight to any of the individuals present, Marine or prisoner, the size of the Sea King only served to emphasize that they were inside the Calm Belt, the nesting area of such great beasts. The waves created by the creature soon reached the ship and the battleship undulated greatly, causing many of the prisoners to stumble and even the Marines to nearly lose balance. The waves, however, merely crashed against the immovable wall and soon a yell was given for the prisoners to continue on their way as the majority had stopped to stare at the Sea King, having possibly never seen one so large.

The man carrying Naruto, kept walking alongside the rest and eventually made it onto the small dock in front of the only entrance to Impel down, a large gate with sturdy portcullis. The gridded defensive measure was slowly rising in the air and those gathered were forced to wait for the drawbridge from the main building to come down and allow them entry into the most infamous prison in the world. A prison from which no one had escaped for thirteen years.

x-x

The Holy Land Mariejois

Marine Conference Room

x-x

Silently waiting around a circular table, some of the highest ranking members in the Marines sat with the Commander-in-Chief of the World Government. Kong was a muscular man with tanned skin and spiked white hair with a partial beard. Sitting directly across from him was the Fleet Admiral, Sengoku, who was in charge of the entire navy. The only similarity between the two men were the large white overcoats as Kong preferred more normal looking clothing underneath whereas as Sengoku's clothing choice was a white uniform. The Fleet Admiral had far lighter skin than Kong and his black hair was in an afro with a very long and braided beard, accompanied by a normal looking mustache. Oddly, his Marine cap had a large stuffed or fake seagull situated on the top and a small goat seemed to be sitting nearby his chair.

Tension filled the room as the two most prominent members waited with others for news from a serious incident that had occurred only a few hours before on Sabaody Archipelago, which was rather close to their current location. As both men sat with their arms folded over their chests staring at the rooms den den mushi, the remaining members waited with different looks and postures.

"Purupurupuru...purupurupuru...," began the snail creature on the desk and before it got to the third ring, Sengoku picked up the receiver. Being the person in charge of the Navy, it was his show but Kong and the others were there so they could received news directly and be able to act swiftly and accordingly.

"This is Sengoku, report!" the man demanded in a stern voice to what he thought was an Admiral, however, seeing the scared face imitated by the den den mushi, he could instantly tell without even hearing the voice of the Marine that it was not an Admiral.

"S-Sengoku-sama...," the man began, startled by the tone of the Fleet Admiral and the fact that he didn't realize Sengoku would be on the other lines. "Damnit, put Aokiji on!" the Fleet Admiral ordered and the unknown Marine was quick to reply with a stuttered, "Y-yes." Silence continued again as the group was forced to wait until the Admiral took the receiver.

"This is Aokiji," came a much more familiar voice on the other end and the small snail's face took on a more relaxed and calm attitude in accordance with the change in speaker.

"I want a report. Is the situation handled?" demanded the Fleet Admiral once again and he waited a moment before a heavy sigh came back through the receiver, which was mimicked by the den den mushi. "No, it really hasn't been," the Admiral admitted and veins raised on Sengoku's forehead but before he started shouting, he waited to hear a good explanation why. When none came, he started shouting.

"AND WHYT HE HELL NOT? It's been hours since this problem first started. It should be contained by now," Responded Sengoku in an enraged voice as he tried but mostly failed to reign in his anger over the lack of progress.

"Oi, oi, don't just assume I've been sitting around all this time," came Aokiji's calm reply which only infuriated Sengoku more as he thought about something.

"Are you laying down right now?" the Fleet Admiral questioned in a dangerous voice as his hand tightened on the receiver while he pictured what the Admiral was doing at that particular moment. An image of a resting Aokiji instantly came to the forefront of his mind.

There was a brief pause before the Admiral responded, "…...now I'm standing," and the response caused Sengoku to loudly grit his teeth. Most of the other people sitting at the conference table grew angrier, save for a single goatee sporting Vice Admiral who simply started laughing.

"SHUT UP, GARP!" came the Fleet Admiral's loud voice through the receiver of his den den mushi and Aokiji held it away from his head to reduce the noise but his face remained stoic and mostly unchanged by the laughter and shout. Sighing again as he listened to further shouts that weren't directed towards him, the very tall man waited for the noise to die down on the other end and stood patiently on the green grass of Grove 2 in Sabaody Archipelago. Around him, Marines had already removed all of the injured and the wounded were being tended to elsewhere. The only problem he had now was to explain his failure to capture the culprit responsible for the burning building in front of him.

Finally, another calmer voice came through the receiver, "I trust that the entire grove has been cordoned off and injured attended to?"

Aokiji quickly responded with an affirmative but before he could say anything else, the voice continued, "In that case, we need to start identifying the dead and survivors to determine who was there and whether any Tenryubito were present," said the older female voice and Aokiji decided it was better to try and explain the situation he was dealing with before anyone else continued talking.

"Excuse me, I hate to interrupt but that won't really be possible," he said through the den den mushi and a different voice answered him, "Explain," came the deeper voice of Kong.

"While all of Grove 2 has been evacuated successfully, I don't think it will be possible to identify any of the bodies inside the building," said Aokiji and he knew that they wouldn't understand as they simply weren't seeing what he was seeing.

"Why not?" Sengoku demanded in a slightly exasperated voice.

"The human auction house is still burning," replied Aokiji and before he could elaborate, the Fleet Admiral's voice came back.

"Its a Public Employment Securities Office..." quickly corrected Sengoku as that was the preferred terminology for such a building by the Marines and he was soon asking, "...why haven't you put it out yet?"

"Well, how should I put this?...I can't," admitted Aokiji as he stared at the black flames that had engulfed the entire building and which had proved impossible to dowse.

"You can't?" said another voice that the Admiral did not immediately recognize but he quickly responded, "We've been trying to hose it down for hours but the water just evaporates before it does anything. Anything that touches it seems to ignite as well. Even my own Hie Hie no Mi powers aren't able to put it out and I can't get into the building. A few of the Marines here tried and one was touched by the flames...I'm told they had to amputate his arm to make sure it didn't spread after trying everything they could to put the fire out. It's a slow burning but hot flame and it has been hours so far with no sign of it slowing down or stopping. I would say that it's more like the building is slowly disintegrating because of the flames, rather than burning. At this rate, I'm not sure we'll be able to find any bodies when it finally quits."

"What a dangerous ability," commented Sengoku before admitting, "I've never heard of something like that before." He looked around to the gathered group for comments but all were silent for a brief period until someone spoke.

"I'm quite sure that none of us have," concluded Vice-Admiral Tsuru as despite her many years of service and experience, she had never come across a devil fruit that bestowed the user with the ability to use black flames.

"Do we know anything about those inside, are they trapped...or.." trailed off Kong as he didn't like the idea of people being burned alive. "Perhaps they escaped before the flames engulfed the building," someone suggested but Aokiji informed them otherwise, "Witnesses say that no one fled the building when they noticed it was burning. Of the people that went in, I can't say for certain how many but those same witnesses definitely remember seeing two Tenryubito entering and as of my arrival on the scene, I couldn't feel any presences inside. Apparently the building normally can seat over a hundred and the staff could include up to twenty or thirty people as well."

"What do we know of the apprehended person? Is he the one responsible?" asked Sengoku, hoping to confirm that the person responsible for the flames was in custody. A report of an arrest had reached his desk before leaving for Mariejois but he had yet to hear anything since.

"We have no name for him but we're positive he doesn't have a bounty. Unfortunately, his ability had nothing to do with creating fire and it seems he was just a slave that managed to get free," came Aokiji's voice from the receiver and similar looks were exchanged across the conference table as each had the same feeling on the subject. It didn't sit well with any of them that the person responsible had gotten away after likely being responsible for so many deaths.

"We're still searching the groves but we have no idea what the person looks like so the probability of us finding them is slim unless they use their powers again. We've caught quite a few pirates but none seem related to the incident or individual responsible," admitted Aokiji.

"What of the captured person, did he tell us anything?" inquired Kong and Aokiji hesitated for a second before answering, "He really wasn't in any state to tell anybody...anything...when I got here. He did claim that he started the fire but I could tell that he was lying. Per regulations for this type of incident, he's on a ship to Impel Down but I doubt that he'll last the trip."

Frowning, Sengoku wished that wasn't the case as he wanted to know who was responsible but knew that what Aokiji did was right. Standard procedure in such cases that the World Government wanted to erase included the absence of a trial, and other than the imprisonment orders sent with the prisoner, there was no further paperwork generated. Those directly or indirectly responsible just disappeared.

"Why would he claim responsibility?" asked Vice-Admiral Garp and the others stopped to wait for Aokiji to respond. Such a claim would be an immediate death sentence, especially if they knew that Tenryubito were hurt or killed in the incident.

"Some of this is speculation but when our forces were finally able to secure the area and begin searching for a way into the building and evacuating civilians, one of the parties discovered a hole big enough for people to crawl through. It's situated a good distance away from the building and they followed it all the way back to the building but again couldn't get inside because of the flames and were forced to turn around and come back. From the impressions of foot prints and boots at the mouth of the hole, I would guess that many or perhaps all of the slaves inside escaped through there," Aokiji revealed to them.

"Fighting off our forces while probably knowing that an Admiral was coming, he resigned himself to be a distraction and likely managed to buy them time to get away and claimed responsibility in the hopes that we wouldn't find the hole or it would be too late. There are no reports of escaped slaves and without restraints on, there was no way for our forces to know that they weren't just civilians of the grove and they probably escaped in the mass of people when we evacuated the area.

Also, all of the records concerning the slaves are inside the burning building so we can't identify any of them. If the young man does know who started the fire, who was inside the building, or who all escaped, there's no way he would tell us that information," said Aokiji as he informed them what he believed. The receiver on his end was quite silent for a moment before a voice asked another question.

"What about our loses?" asked Vice-Admiral Garp and those in the conference room felt rather foolish as that had not been directly on their minds during the entire conversation concerning the incident.

"Twenty five succumbed to their injuries so far but over a two hundred were injured by the person that was captured and many are still in critical condition," responded Aokiji after he confirmed with a nearby officer. Though no one said anything, the Admiral could tell that they were surprised by the information and the look given by the den den mushi did help him come to that conclusion.

"As I said, the young man's intentions were not to kill everyone he could, merely to buy time for those that escaped," reiterated the Admiral and it seemed that was the end of the conversation with Sengoku, the Fleet Admiral merely asking for a report later on to be sent to him. Hanging up the den den mushi and putting it away in his pocket, the Admiral looked once again at the strange black flames covering the auction house.

Glancing down to his white coat that he had been laying on, he picked it up and frowned slightly at the resin that was sticking to it. The same liquid was excreted by the roots of the massive trees that made up the grove and was the reason why the archipelago's signature bubbles formed. As he froze the resin with his powers and shook the coat to let the ice break off, he looked over the word 'Justice' which was emblazoned on the jacket and thought over the words that the young blonde had said to him.

Though he had come to the island chain wearing the jacket, he draped it over his forearm and decided to carry it back to the nearby Marine base. While passing the auction house and leaving Grove 2 over one of the bridges that connected the island to the adjacent others, he suddenly remembered something. 'Did I have someone fill out the special imprisonment order to send with the prisoner?' he wondered and couldn't actually recall whether he had or not, but was leaning towards an answer of 'I forgot.' Sighing, he wondered if he should complete the form and just turn it in, claiming that it had gotten lost.

'Seeing as it's already so late, I'll worry about it later. It won't make much of a difference. When he left here, he was almost dead and after being frozen with my Ice Time, one way or another he'll die. The paperwork would just indicate that he was to be placed on death row for immediate execution,' he thought and really wanted to get some sleep. It had been a long and disappointing day that ultimately would be covered up with some kind of story.

It wasn't the first time that a Tenryubito had gone missing, was presumed dead, or had actually been killed. Every once in a while, one of the World Nobles would get adventurous and try and embark on a long journey or go somewhere that they had heard about and end up in an accident or disappear at sea. However, it was extremely rare that anyone would raise a weapon to them, much less be responsible for killing two. The World Nobles had the power to call for an Admiral's assistance no matter where they were and this time it just happened to be on Sabaody.

Something similar had never happened to his memory, 'Or maybe it has and I just didn't know about it,' he considered. Such an incident happening so close to Marine Headquarters and the seat of the World Government, Mariejoise, was rather chilling. If people learned that someone had gotten away with killing two Tenryubito, there could be consequences and it was better to report a riot in Grove 3 and the World Nobles dying at sea than the truth, which is what he believed would happen.