Thanks for all the reviews so far! It helps for my plans to steal all the left socks and right shoes of the world. There will be chaos, Muhahaha! Who de feck are you, and how'd you get in here! (Thump,thump,thump,thump…. SLAM!) (sigh) The weirdo's running around today….. Hey where are my left socks?
I don't own either Inuyasha or One Piece. (Or the titles mentioned)
"Words"
"Simultaneous speech"
'Thoughts'
Chapter 3- Luffy's Past! Enter Red-Haired Shanks!
Luffy was draped over the side of the boat groaning in hunger, while Kagome laid on the floor silent, except for the sound of her stomach growling. "So hungry…" Kagome's voice came out weak, "Shut up… you're only making it worse."
Zoro was still leaning against the side of the boat, "When the hell are we gonna' reach land anyway?"
"Who knows?" "Yeah, we normally just drift until we find land." "We might not even reach the land." "No we will someday." Zoro couldn't believe it, out of the two of them, neither had any navigational skills.
"Don't you find it dumb that someone trying to be King of the Pirates doesn't have a single navigational skill?!"
Their replys were casual, "Nope." "Not really. We just drift around." Kagome turned her head to the side to face Zoro, "What about you?" "Yeah, aren't you some famous bounty hunter who sailed the seas?"
Zoro frowned, "I don't have any recollection of ever calling myself a Bounty Hunter." He leaned his head back with a quiet sigh, "I set out onto the open sea in search of just one man, but then I couldn't get back to my village. By that point I had no choice but to go after pirate ships to earn a living."
"Oh, we see; so you're just lost." Zoro swung up into an upright position and slammed his foot on the floor of the boat causing it to sway violently from side to side, causing Luffy to fall forward and his straw hat to fly off into the air. "Don't say it like that!"
All eyes followed the hats progress as it made its way up the sail. "Oh no, not my Shanks hat!" "Ah, the hat!" came the cries of the twins. The hat continued upwards as a memory flashed through Luffy's mind.
It was of a man with red hair, tossing the hat into the air and catching it repeatedly. "This straw hat means more to me than you could possibly know, it's been with in many a fight."
The hat had almost made it to the top of the sail. "It's something so precious that I couldn't even give it to the two of you." It was now on the other side of the sail as the three moved to go after it.
Following as it changed course to the side where Zoro stood as he reached out and grabbed it. The man in the memory doing the same for the last time and placing it on his head, and revealing a man with three scars over his left eye, a thin and small stubbly beard and mustache.
-Time skip, Luffy and Kagome's past-
There was cheering, feasting and drinking all throughout Patys bar as the Red haired Pirates partied. At the bar in the back sat a man with red hair wearing a straw hat eating with a boy sitting on the stool next to him and a little girl on the bar between them, both kids were wearing blue shorts, and white t-shirts, the boy, with an anchor the girl with a star fish and sandals.
"Hey, you gotta' take me on your next adventure shanks, I wanta' be a pirate just like you." The newly named Shanks burst out laughing, "Right as if you could ever be a pirate."
"Why couldn't I?" One of the other pirates steeped in as he lounged back in his seat, the name "Yassop" on his headband, "Look, you might be a good swimmer and all but that doesn't mean you'd make a good pirate Luffy."
Luffy wouldn't give up, "But I'm a good fighter too, my punches are like two pistols."
Shanks had gone back to eating, "Are they now?" Luffy got angry, "WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN!" A large pirate dressed in green and white stripes, wearing red goggles with a gold frame and holding a large bone with meat on it spoke up, "Haha, he means that you're too much of a kid, kid."
"And he's right y'know, I got boys older than you." Yassop agreed. Luffy gained an angry tick mark on his forehead. "I'm not a kid, I'm a grown up!" Shanks looked to the girl on the counter and gave her a small wink then turned to Luffy, "Here have some juice and calm down." He placed the glass down in front of him, and Luffy grabbed it with a smile,
"Wow thanks Shanks." And started to drink it. Shanks slapped his hand down on the bar repeatedly as he spoke, "I don't know one pirate who drinks juice." He started laughing, "You tricked me!" The rest of his crew joining in, "STOP LAUGHING, THAT WAS A CHEAP SHOT!"
His sister couldn't hold it back any more as she laughed right along with them, "TRAITOR, YOU'RE NOT HELPING!" As they calmed down the girl turned to Shanks, "Oh yeah Shanks guess what?" He smiled at the girl's enthusiasm.
"What is it Kagome?" "Check out what I can do." She cupped her hands in front of her and gained a look of serious concentration, everyone stopped to look curious as to what she was up to.
Suddenly her hands gained a pink glow and a small glowing orb with the same pink color grew in her hands. Shanks seemed slightly panicked, "Kagome, you didn't eat any weird looking fruit did you?" She looked thoughtful for a moment then spoke with a decisive, "No." Everyone in the room gave a sigh of relief, though they all had the same thought, 'Then how is she able to do that.'
Suddenly she grinned, "Touch it Shanks." The question came out of the blue and caused the pirates to blink. Noting the mischievous twinkle in her eyes Shanks became wary, "Why?"
"You're not scared are ya' mister big bad pirate?" she said in an all too innocent voice. Shanks threw all caution to the wind as he raised the index finger of his right hand, reached out and touched it.
All of a sudden it was like an electric current was passing through his body, his hair stood on end and puffed out and as he ripped his finger away he slumped back over the bar, he opened his mouth and out came what suspiciously looked like smoked as he stated in a seemingly dazed and out of it voice, "Man... that packs a punch." Causing everyone to burst out laughing again as Kagome let the ball of energy dissipate.
Her ears twitched slightly at the sound of a large amount of footsteps heading towards the bar, causing her to quiet down as she looked towards the door and waited.
She saw some silhouettes on the other side of the small swinging doors when suddenly one moved and kicked one of the doors off of its hinges. The pirates stopped laughing all turning to stare at the newcomers, except for Shanks who went back to his meal, his hair somehow returned to normal.
"Excuse us. So these are what pass for pirates around these parts, looks rather sad to me." a gruff voice spoke. The owner of the voice walked forward stepping on and breaking the door further. He made his way to the bar and pushed Shanks out of the way slightly.
Makino walked forward to the man, "Welcome gentlemen. What can I do for you?" The man smirked at her, he had long black hair, half of it pulled into a topknot, his bangs falling to either side of his face, he had a short black beard and a stubbly moustache. A scar in the shape of an X rested above his right eye on his forehead.
"We're mountain bandits," he seemed to be bragging. "but don't worry we didn't come here to tear your place apart. All we want is some Sake, I'd say… ten barrels should do."
"I'm sorry, but actually I'm out of Sake right now." "Hmm, interesting. These other pirates seem to still be drinking, is that water in their glasses." "No, that just happens to be the last of what I had stocked up." Shanks looked up surprised. He didn't realize they drank so much.
"My apologies gentlemen, looks like me and my friends drank the whole place dry. But…" he held out a bottle of alcohol to him, "You can have this if you want. It hasn't even been opened yet. Go ahead." The bandit lifted his hand as if to take the bottle, but suddenly turned it into a fist and slammed it into the bottle breaking it and splashing the alcohol on Shanks and Kagome.
Makino rushed over to the girl and began to remove bits of glass from her hair then proceeded to dry it with a towel she was carrying. "I'm wanted, there's an eight million berry bounty on my head. One bottle isn't enough for a knight cap, so don't insult me."
Seeing that Kagome was okay, Shanks remained calm. "Just great… now the floor's wet. Sorry about that Makino." He got off the stool, crouched down and started to pick up the broken glass off the floor. "You got a rag I can clean this up with?" She looked down as she finished drying Kagome and made her way around the bar as Kagome hopped down to the floor, grabbing a cloth from the top as she went, avoiding the glass as she made it to the floor.
"Oh don't worry about it; I'll take care of it." The bandit drew his sword and slashed it across the bar, creating a bigger mess and making a gash in the wooden top making Makino stop in her tracks. "Since you like to clean things so much, maybe you'll find this mess more fulfilling." Shanks was now sitting on the floor, his back to the bar. His left arm resting on the stool next to him holding him up.
The bandit sheathed his sword, "Tch, a place with no Sake is a place not worth our time men. Let's get out of here." The bandits left, taunting the pirates. Luffy looked on gritting his teeth and shaking in anger.
Makino made her way to Shanks side as Kagome knelt on his other side, both with cloths in hand, "Captain, are you okay? Are you hurt?" He lifted his hand up, "Not a problem in the world Makino." Suddenly he felt his precious hat being lifted off his head and looked to the little girl who had it in hand diligently drying the alcohol off of it.
She looked up to see his questioning stare and smiled, "It's precious to you right?" He gave her a small smile, "Yeah." His head lowered till his eyes shadowed over and he suddenly smirked, as he and the rest of his crew burst out laughing. Kagome giggling along with them.
"That fella really got you good boss!" "Talk about a loser!" "Hahahahahahaha!" "WHY ARE YOU ALL LAUGHING?!" Everyone stopped and looked up at Luffy in surpise. "WHATS SO FUNNY?! YOU SHOULD HAVE FOUGHT BACK SHANKS! IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW STRONG THEY LOOK OR HOW MANY OF THEM THERE ARE, IF YOU JUST LAUGH IT OFF YOU'RE NOT A MAN OR A PIRATE!"
Shanks responded to him calmly, "Look Luffy, I know how you feel. But the guy just spilled some booze on me; it's not worth getting bent out of shape." But Luffy didn't let it go, "Oh yeah, and what about Kagome then; she could have gotten hurt by all that glass!"
"Luffy." He looked down at her to where she was smiling up at him, "Thanks but I'm okay. It doesn't matter what a guy like that thinks anyway, he was lying about his bounty. I bet he doesn't even have one." Shanks looked down at her and placed a hand on her head, "Ah, sniffed it out did ya'" She started giggling and threw a fist in the air, "Yeah, I'm getting better every day."
Luffy turned to the side, "Whatever." The three on the floor chuckled, when suddenly they could hear loud munching. Looking up they could see Luffy eating something. "Haha, you shouldn't eat out of frustration Luffy." You could hear him say shut up, his mouth full of whatever he was eating.
Kagome's nose twitched as it was invaded with the strange smell of the fruit that was in the opened box, "Hey, I think Luffy's eating that strange smelling fruit." Shanks eyes widened, "Strange smelling fruit… No you didn't, don't tell me you ate the fruit that was inside that box!" He suddenly grabbed Luffy and held him by the ankles shaking him up and down, "Spit it out right now, every single bit." Kagome looked on in shock as Shanks continued to shake him, as the subject of the shaking spoke,
"What are you doing? Why are-you shaking me?" when suddenly his legs stretched and his face hit the floor, flattening out then his legs went back, though his face was still stuck to the floor, causing his neck to stretch, then his head sprang back with an audible boing. "What's going on?"
"Luffy you just ate the Gum Gum Fruit, part of a group called the Devil Fruits, eating any of them takes away your ability to swim for the rest of your life, but the one you ate also turns your body to rubber!"
"NO WAY, IT CAN'T!" "YOU DUMBASS!"
-FAST FORWARD-
The bar was empty and trashed, broken glass, chairs and tipped over tables littered the floor. Almost every surface was covered in spilled booze.
In the middle of town Luffy was slammed into the well by the bandit leader that was making fun of Shanks and his crew, he held up Kagome in the crook of his left arm where she was struggling.
"What is this? We were drinking and having a nice time, until you showed up." Luffy glared up at him, "You let go of my sister and apologize, no-one messes with Shanks crew." He stepped on him with his right foot; Kagome increased her struggles trying to get free.
"I don't think I said anything to offend you directly." He seemed to be purposely ignoring his demand to let Kagome go. "You think wrong, now let my sister go and apologize!"
The people of the village watched from a distance as Makino and the Mayor ran through.
The bandits' leader's eyes shadowed over as he looked down on Luffy. "You should watch your flappin' gums kid. No-one who's made me mad has lived to tell the horrifying and painful tale." He grabbed a hold of his sword with his free hand.
"Wait, hold on!" They turned to see the Mayor and Makino, "Let the kids go! I beg you!" Luffy and Kagome stared at the Mayor having never heard him beg before. "I don't know what happened, and I certainly don't intend to fight you over it. If you'll except I'll even pay you to stop this just spare the poor kids lives, please!" he finished by bowing low on the ground, his forehead laying on the dirt.
"Mayor." Kagome resumed her struggling, "Mayor! Makino!" The bandit smirked at the Mayor 'foolish old man.' "While the older generation may know the way of the world better than us all, I'm sorry but this rotten kid's already made me angry, nothing can save him now." He pulled his sword from it's sheath.
"What are you planning to do with Kagome?" Makino was scared to hear the answer to her question but she had to know. The bandit leader smirked along with his men, "Well, I imagine in a few years this kid could be quite the looker, so I was planning on selling her to the highest bidder." The mayor lifted his head gaining an identically shocked one that Makino and the rest of the villagers within' hearing range wore.
"No!" "Please don't!"
"You're the rotten ones around here." "Yeah guys like you are the worst." With that Kagome bit down on his arm as hard as he could making him flinch. He moved his hand to grab the collar of her shirt and threw her into the side of the well, her back hitting the wood causing an audible dull thump.
"Ah, Kagome." Luffy struggled to speak. "Kagome!" The bandit brought his sword down near Luffy's head as Kagome struggled up onto her arms, glaring at the bandit with as much intensity as her twin. "And you're a lost cause, which you can regret in the next life."
"No!" "Please you have to let them go!"
"I was wondering why the bar was empty on such a fine day." The Mayor and Makino and the Mayor turned in surprise to see Shanks and his crew standing behind them. "So it's the mountain bandits again."
"Captain Shanks!" The leader grit his teeth in frustration at the interruption. There was a stare off between the two groups, till the bandit leader interrupted it. "Pirates, you just now showing your heads, have you been spending all this time scrubbing the village."
Shanks didn't pay attention to the attempted jab and ignored the man in favor of turning to the two kids on the ground, on being held down by a booted foot, the other barely holding herself up. "Luffy, didn't you say earlier that your punches were stronger pistols."
"Shut your mouth." Luffy felt embarrassed as Kagome chuckled beside him, her arms shaking. Shanks walked forward slowly, the bandit leader's eyes narrowing, "Listen, I don't know what you're doing here but you might want to leave, you wouldn't want somethin' bad to happen and I have just the man to deliver this message."
One of his many unnamed bandits pointed his gun point blank range at Shanks smirking as if he had already won. "I'll blow your head off if I have too, but that's up to you my friend."
The rest of the bandits smirked and snickered. The two kids had their eyes glued on Shanks. "Would you risk your life?" His words confused the bandits. "Now that you've drawn your pistol, are you willing to use it?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" He turned and looked into the eyes of the bandit as he pointed to the gun at his head, "I'm saying that guns aren't for threats, there for actions."
A gunshot rang out, and the bandit's life ended before he even had time to register what happened, his body collapsing to the ground, Lucky, the large pirate wearing green and white held a pistol aimed where the bandit once stood, smoke coming from the barrel.
They couldn't believe what they had just witnessed, "You, you're a dead man!" "These guys fight dirty!"
"Dirty?" Yassop questioned. "Who did you think you were dealing with, we never claimed to be saints or anything." Beckman corrected them.
Shanks eyes were shadowed by his hat, "You fellas are staring down a crew of pirates."
"Shut up, we just want the kids, not you!"
"Listen up bandits, whether I'm sprayed with alcohol or doused with food, hell even if I'm spit on most of the time I'll just laugh it off and forget about it." Shanks lifted his head to show the anger that was bubbling up inside of him, "But if you hurt friends of mine, you'll pay for it regardless of your reasons."
'Shanks.' Kagome then dropped back to the ground unable to hold herself up any longer and was lost to the realm of unconsciousness.
Kagome woke up in a panic as she was submerged in water she struggled up to the surface and broke through gasping for air. She looked around frantically to see where she was and saw her brother struggling to stay at the surface and swam over as fast as she could and grabbed ahold of him, now working even harder to keep them both afloat.
They held onto each other as they watched the bandit leader get eaten by a giant brown sea monster. After it was finished it looked up slightly and saw the twins treading water a few hundred feet away from it and went after them.
As it was about to chomp down on them Shanks appeared out of nowhere and moved them out of the way. Both kids held on tightly to him, tears in their eyes. "Shanks."
The sea monster splashed down and returned to the surface where it's prey remained, its eyes met Shanks', "Get lost." and the best way to describe this is that it was scared shitless by the look in them. And it dived down into the sea after a short staring contest, trying to get as far from Shanks as fast as it could.
He looked down at the two children clinging to him, tears streaming down their faces. "I'm in your debt Luffy, Makino told me everything about how you stood up for us, how you were willing to fight and put yourself on the line. And you Kagome are the bravest little girl I've ever met, you did good."
Both kids were shaking as sobs escaped gritted teeth, tears still falling. He smiled at them, "You can't cry, your grown now." Luffy struggled to speak through his tears, "But Shanks.." "Your arm!" Kagome managed to finish.
His smile never faded, "Luffy, Kagome; it's just an arm, I've got another one, I'm just glad you're both alright." (I'll admit the first few times I watched this scene in the anime I cried. Sniffle.)
A few hours later found the Red hair pirates getting ready to set sail, and Two Monkey's smiling again while talking with the captain, "So you're leaving?" "Already?"
Shanks had his back to the two, "Yeah it was a nice extended vacation, but we have to part ways now, I'll bet you two'll miss me right?" They all stared toward the huge pirate ship,
"Yeah." "But this time's different; we won't beg you to take us with you. Cause we're gonna become pirates all by ourselves." He turned his head towards them and stuck his tongue out at them, "I wouldn't take you two with me anyway, you'll never make it as pirates."
Luffy frowned as Kagome's cheeks puffed up, "No! I will make it as a pirate, someday I'm gonna gather a crew even better than yours, and I'm gonna find the greatest treasure in the world, and then I'll be King of the Pirates, I'll show you."
Then Kagome threw her fist in the air, "Yeah and I'm gonna train and get stronger and be the first member of Luffy's crew, you'll see!" Shanks was pleased to hear their words and made his decision, "Ha, you think you both'll surpass us? In that case…" He placed his treasured straw hat on Luffy's head, to both of the twins' surprise.
"I'll leave this hat to you two, it means more to me than anything in the world, so you better take good care of it, ya' hear me?" They both looked down, their eyes shadowing as tears fell once again.
The ship sailed off, the pirates and the villagers waving and calling goodbye to one another, Shanks' last words running through the twins minds as they held their gift between the two of them, 'I want you to bring this hat back to me some day, in good condition. And only once you've become great pirates, that's our promise Luffy, Kagome.'
-Time Skip, back to the present-
Luffy and Kagome sat side by side, staring down at the hat in Luffy's hands as they remembered their promise. Zoro's voice brought them out of their memories, "Hey you two, you're gonna drop that hat again, I thought it was important."
Luffy put it back on his head, "Hehe, It is." Kagome smiled along with him, "Thanks." Zoro suddenly leaned back over the side of the boat looking up,
"Uhhh, I'm so hungry, it's killing me." The two looked at him blankly, having temporarily forgotten their own hunger.
Luffy looked up and saw a bird flying overhead, as did Zoro, "Hey look, a bird." His statement caused Kagome to look up too. Luffy then came up with a brilliant (but only in his own head) idea, "I know let's eat it!" He had an excited smile on his face.
Zoro turned his attention back to Luffy, "Huh, how do we catch it?" Luffy stood up,
"Leave that to me." He stretched his arms to the highest wooden part of the mast and grabbed ahold of it. "Gum, Gum…" Kagome grinned, 'I have a bad feeling about this.' "ROCKET!"
Luffy launched himself at the bird, Kagome and Zoro watching from below. Zoro raised an eyebrow, "Makes sense." Kagome placed above her eyes to get a better look as Luffy reached the bird; however he just stopped there, neither him or the bird coming down.
Suddenly a voice reached them, "AHHHHHH, HELP MEEEEE!" Zoro grabbed the oars, rowing the boat as fast as he could to go after Luffy, "You moron, what the hell's going on now?!"; meanwhile Kagome threw her head back, unable to control the laughter bursting forth, "Luffy didn't catch the bird, the caught Luffy! Hahahaha!"
They then heard voices coming from the water ahead, "Hey, you there, stop, please, man overboard, stop man overboard!" Zoro didn't exactly have any sympathy,
"I can't believe we find shipwreckers at a time like this." By this point Kagome finished laughing and was looking over the side of the boat to the front where she saw three men in the water.
Zoro shouted to the pirates, "I can't stop; you're just going to have to jump in!" She leaned over and gave a carefree smile,
"Do your best!" and leaned back to give them room.
"What?!" As the boat sped by they somehow managed to grabbed on and pull themselves into the boat.
"I'm actually impressed you made it onboard." Both him and Kagome had their eyes on the bird as it disappeared.
"Are you trying to kill us!" They got a look at the girl off to the side and smirked to each other, then he one in the middle pulled out a sword and pointed it at Zoro, "Stop the boat now. The three of us are members of Buggy the Clowns' pirate crew, this boat and the girl are ours now."
Taking his eyes off the skies Zoro turned to the three pirates with a severely pissed off face, and proceeded to beat them up. After the would be boat thieves, were beaten till they were bruised and swollen they ended up being the ones to row the boat as Zoro and Kagome relaxed in the back.
The middle one attempted to apologize, his hands together in front of him, "Ahehehe, I'm sorry, we had no idea you were the famous pirate hunter Zoro, please forgive us."
"Thanks to you three idiots I lost sight of my friend. So just keep paddling. Knowing Luffy he'll probably pull off something once he spots land." Kagome looked over to him,
"Actually the bird took Luffy that way." She pointed a little off to the side of the front of the boat.
"Well, you heard the lady, go in that direction." The pirates were eager to please the dangerous 'bounty hunter' so they turned the boat slightly and continued rowing,
"Yes sir!"
He looked down slightly to the girl beside him, "You and your brother are a lot of trouble." Kagome flashed him a grin that made his stomach do flips.
"Yeah, but it's fun. I'm going to rest now, wake me when we reach where Luffy is." With that she was out like a light.
The pirates then started to talk amongst themselves, "Sooo. Any ideas about what we do now?"
"Good question. If Captain Buggy finds out a girl stole our boat and our treasure we're history."
"I know."
"Huh, so who is this Buggy guy?" Zoro questioned them careful not to wake the girl next to him. This caught the pirates by surprise,
"You've never heard of Buggy the clown?!" 'Isn't he supposed to be a pirate bounty hunter?'
The one in the middle took the lead, "He's the ruthless Captain of our pirate ship, and he's eaten one of the Devil Fruits and above everything else, he is one truly terrifying man."
A sudden shifting next to him caused him to look down at the sleeping girl, a peaceful look on her face her head on his shoulder fell onto his shoulder, and for some reason he didn't mind.
I shall finish here. Poor Kagome, no matter where she is she gets admirers with less than honorable intentions.
Please review even if it's just a small comment, I love to see what people think of my stories. :D
