Sorry for the short chapter, but this was the best place for a stopping point. And, at this point, no Marines are aware that Kuzan has joined the Whitebeard Pirates and they wont know for at least a bit longer. I also may have already written the part where Akainu finds out Kuzan is now a pirate and blows his top. Literally in this case. (volcano puns are awesome, best part of Akainu)

:Oh, and I own neither One Piece nor Naruto, citations will be on the first chapter.

Chapter 3

Life went on after that, and not much really seemed to change beyond Kuzan staying put on the ship. As a matter of fact, it was suspiciously quiet and peaceful, particularly in the New World. Which was cause enough for any old hand in the Grand Line to worry.

And the only ones who weren't getting extremely paranoid about it were Edward Newgate himself, and Kuzan. This of course led to Ace asking about it during one of his bother-Kuzan-while-he's-trying-to-nap-to-get-him-to-do-cool-stuff attempts.

"So," Ace said idly from where he was sitting next to the Ice-Man, having given up on getting him to move and deciding that relaxing in the sun was perfectly valid entertainment, "Do you know why it's been so quiet lately? You seem just as relaxed as normal, so I was just wondering…"

Stopping Ace as he trailed of awkwardly, Kuzan simply said, "Monkey D Luffy." And then got up walked off like he hadn't seriously confused all of the nosy brothers that had curiously listened in along with Ace.

After all, what did Monkey D Luffy the Paradise rooky(even if he was Ace's brother) have to do with the New World being quiet?

Kuzan smirked to himself as he walked off, remembering a kid named Naruto who'd once been his friend, and how Luffy had the same type of luck, charisma, ability to make friends with enemies, and crazy life.

Of course the New World would stay relatively quiet(for a given value of quiet, this was the place where sanity went off to die after all) before the kid got here.

(Elsewhere, Whitebeard smiled as his children wondered the same question at him, thinkin back to a day many years ago when he'd first met the man who would become the pirate king.)

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No matter how much they bothered him about it, no one could get Kuzan to tell them what he meant about Luffy, so eventually they went back to their old stand by of attempting to get Kuzan to join the crew instead.

It got ridiculous fairly quickly, and became something of a competition among the crew.

And all the Ice-Man would say was that he couldn't join their crew. No matter what wacky scheme, bribe, wheedling, or begging they tried his answer was always the same.

Whitebeard himself just seemed highly amused.

Which, to be honest, that was the only reason Marco realized that something was going on. Of course, as First Division commander, it was rather easy to corner the extremely lazy man in an out of the way place(he offered to let the guy nap in his office when it was raining).

"So," Marco said after an hour of quietly doing paperwork, "Why can't you join the crew? I'm pretty sure that I've got the reason, but humor me. I'd like to think we were friends, and I wont tell until you're ready."

At the honesty the Phoenix was giving off, at the realization that 'yes, he could in fact have friends now,' Kuzan grabbed an object he'd hidden away on himself.

Because some things last beyond lifetimes. Loyalty to an idea, to a way of life. And Kuzan had been a Shinobi of Konohagakure, where loyalty was shown through one very simple feature.

If the government had known about his past life, then they would have realized that he had never been truly loyal to them.

Because in Kuzan's hand was a strip of cloth with a metal plate sewn into it. Etched onto the plate was a simplified Whitebeard symbol, and sown into each side on the fabric(as a remembrance and a statement that he had not lost his old loyalty but rather had gained a new one) were two leaf symbols.

"What's this," Marco said softly to the quiet, smart, brother that was a breath of fresh air in the midst of dealing with all of the energetic crazy that made up the bulk of the Whitebeard Pirates(and the commanders especially). Marco didn't know what it was, but the plate was obviously both personally important to Kuzan as well as showing that they guy had accepted the crew as his own.

Which explained why Pops was so amused at the situation.

"It is called a Hitai-ate. I…," And in a rare moment of speechlessness, Kuzan looked down at his new forehead protector with old grief and longing, "I've been deciding on what time would be good to put it on."

"Everyone would be honored if you would show up to dinner wearing it," Marco said gently, "They might even decide to throw a party, knowing those knuckleheads."

Kuzan looked at the First Division commander, making up his mind to do something that would make him happy(loyalty to one's village, team, clan. He had lost them, never found something worthy to have his allegiance since. Just because he was shinobi, did not mean that he was not loyal to the very end).

In the traditional fashion of his village, Kuzan tied his new Hitai-ate to his forehead. Let everyone know his true loyalty at a glance.

A party was, in fact, thrown that night. And when any member of the crew wondered why Kuzan had used the Whitebeard symbol as a headband(as opposed to the more traditional tattoo or stitching it onto an often worn coat), the man would look at them like they were crazy before saying that it was a piece of armor. Obviously.

It was barely a month later when Jinbe sent word that Monkey D. Luffy, now that he was finally in the New World, wanted to see his older brother again. Jinbe amusedly passed on the direction the Rookie had taken.

Ironically, Punk Hazard had been chosen by the young captain, and Whitebeard had seemed pretty happy about meeting up with one of his son's(By proxy. Actually, the old man had technically adopted both the entire Straw Hat and Heart pirate crews. Without telling them, or even caring that they were rival captains, that Luffy kept announcing to the world that he would be the Pirate King, or that Law had been a warlord for about a year by that point. Luffy was the brother of Ace that had given his all to rescue him, and Law had saved his, Ace, and several other critically injured crew members lives before keeling over in exhaustion and being scolded by his own crew for wearing himself out. Whitebeard would track them both down for family bonding, and they would accept being allied at the very least before he let them go… ).

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"Will you be okay going back there," Vista said from next to Kuzan. The flower sword wielder, while he might not be as smart or as intuitive as some of his other crew members, was probably the best at understanding other people. Probably because he could be both weird and normal, depending on his mood(he fought with somehow deadly flowers, and used a sword. Obviously this indicates something about him…).

Kuzan just gave a lazy smirk back, "I did hold back you know, the marines probably think that I still don't have my leg anymore because of the fight. Ahh, but it would have been way too troublesome to have been the fleet admiral. Besides, I made it so half the island is eternally a frozen wasteland, it would be a shame not to visit."

"Okay, yeah, it is an awesome island," Ace agreed from where he walked up behind them, "Let's hurry though, Luffy's probably already been here for a few hours at the least and if I know my little brother he's gotten into some kind of trouble."

"Feeling the love, Bro, feeling the love," Haruta made the jab at his fiery brother, who regularly gushed about Straw Hat Luffy in an entirely embarrassing manner but, while he was a pretty good brother to the rest of them, never treated them the same way. Probably because he didn't practically raise the rest of them, and didn't see them as adorable yet destructive children.

"Oh, hush," Ace muttered with a slight blush as he drove his elbow into Haruta's stomach.

The Whitebeard pirates had barely gotten within sight of Punk Hazard when a fwoosh of releasing gases happened and a cloud of almost certainly poisonous gas seemed to engulf the burning half of the island.

Pops looked at the island contemplatively, not truly afraid for any of his children but worried nonetheless. Marco on the other hand had just slammed his head into his face and began muttering about, "stupid firebrains that tempt fate."

"Kuzan, Ace, Marco," Pops said easily, surveying the island, "Check out the island and the situation, make sure the Straw Hats are alright, and report back as soon as you find out if it's safe for the rest of the crew to visit."

There was no point for all of his sons to walk into a potentially dangerous situation, after all(Kuzan and Ace were logia that either knew the terrain or were heavily invested in some of the people in the island. And it would probably take drowning in the ocean to actually kill Marco, beyond the fact that he would be needed to keep the other two on track, properly motivated, and to actually remember to check back in with the Moby Dick because he was responsible like that).

So three sons of Whitebeard headed onto Punk Hazard with a baby Den Den Mushi to look for the Straw Hat Pirates and make sure that the island wouldn't instantly kill the more normal members of the crew due to extreme temperatures and unidentified gas.

:So, I'm not sure if I can get all of the Whitebeard pirates in character but I am giving it my best shot, if I do something terrible tell me and I'll attempt to fix it. I also like the idea of shinobi showing loyalty through their forehead protectors.