"He just…melted my chakra strings…" Another member Naruto had yet to see was staring at Luffy in disbelief. His eyes were colored and off shade of violet.

Purple eyes Naruto decided

"What is this shinobi?" Boss asked coldly. "He uses strange jutsus."

"We are not shinobi!" Nami interrupted, "we're pirates."

"A woman pirate? That's cool!" Spike laughed, seemingly unconcerned. Nami stared at him.

Naruto went over the members in his head.

It is a jutsu only we seven of the New Dawn have mastered Boss's words came echoing back to him.

So seven members. The skeleton had incapacitated Scar. Naruto started to count of the remaining members. Green eyes, Purple eyes, Plain, Spike, and Boss. That was five of them. Where was the last one?

"Na, na," Luffy said impatiently, "who took Zoro's swords? Tell me or I have to beat you all up."

"You talk big for a shrimp," Green-eyes snapped. He stepped forward, eyes glinting angrily.

"Luffy," Nami called, "you can't get the money for the mission unless you beat these people up. A lot hangs on the money." She flashed her thumbs up. "Fight for the money!"

"Oi, oi," Ussop and Chopper said simultaneously.

"Nami-swaaaan is so cut even when she's being materialistic!" Samji sang.

"Mission?" Luffy turned. "Oh yeah, speaking of that, somebody burned down the entire grass village. We couldn't find anybody left."

"The people who burned down the village were them Luffy," Usopp informed him. "They took the people and killed all of them. Now they fused them with some sort of artificial life technique and forcing them to attack the village." Usopp pointed towards Konoha. "The Shinobi are fighting right now."

"What?!" Luffy's expression darkened. He turned on Green-eyes who was advancing slowly. "So you bastards were the one who destroyed the village."

"Huh. So what? They were all useless." Green eyes slid off his cloak. He held his hands up with a flourish. "I'll take this one Boss."

"Tao, Saru, Ryu," Boss commanded, "Go to Kai and finish things in the village."

Purple-eyes, Plain, and Spike nodded and leaped up into the trees, leaving Boss and Green eyes behind to face the Mugiwara.

"I won't let you!" Sakura bellowed, quickly pursuing them.

"Sakura chan!" Naruto moved to follow her when another wave of dizziness hit him. He was forced back down. Boss's dark gaze bore into him.

Green eyes laughed. "Don't bother. Boss can project Distortions over long distances. And now that four of us are controlling things in the village, this is as good as finished. So shrimp boy," he turned towards Luffy, "you're the only thing left."

"So you're the boss?" Luffy said to the masked figure, completely ignoring Green-eyes. "Great. Then I'll beat you up first."

"Luffy, swords!" Zoro growled.

"Looking pretty dumb there, aren't you marimo?" Sanji sniggered.

"Shut up, damn cook!"

"Both of you quit fighting!" Nami snapped.

Naruto watched Green-eyes with something close to pity.

They're not taking him seriously at all….

"Hey! Don't take your eyes off your enemy!" Green-eyes yelled irritably, charging towards Luffy. His fingers were outstretched in strange positions. He was seemingly weaponless. Naruto wondered what exactly he was playing at, when he spotted a strange warp surrounding Green-eye's hands.

"Distortion!"

"Luffy!" Nartuo yelled. "Watch out!"

It was too late. The Distortion hit Luffy full in the chest.

Naruto stared. Green-eyes stared. Boss stared.

Luffy remained standing, unaffected. Green-eyes stared disbelievingly at his hand as if it had betrayed him.

"Impossible…that should have messed up your Chakra circulation permanently! You should be dead!" he gasped hoarsely.

Luffy's eyes were suddenly cold; two bottomless black depths so different from his usual careless demeanor. Naruto gulped, suddenly glad he wasn't in Green-eye's position.

"I don't know what Chakra is, but you're way too weak." Luffy threw back both his fists. "Armament Haki!" A strange gray material encased his hands. "Gomu Gomu no, Gattling Gun!"

In a blur, Luffy's fists pounded into Green-eyes, sending him flying into the air. Luffy drew back his fist again. "Pistol!"

Green-eye's limp body crashed beyond the remains of the gate, sending him careening into the village. Without pausing, Luffy snapped his arm back and turned on Boss.

"Gear second!" he barked, his skin glowing again. Nartuo stared in amazement as Luffy's speed suddenly increased, way too fast for the human eye to catch.

"Gomu Gomu no…." Boss was thrown back by the incredible force, following Green-eyes through the gates of the village, "JET PISTOL!"

"Oi…he's going to finish this before you get your swords back, Zoro," Sanji said as the crew watched their leader leap into the village after his targets.

"Wouldn't speak too soon." Zoro jumped down to the ground, lightly landing on the balls of his feet. "These things are weaker than they look."

Naruto stared at him. He just broke through chakra strings with brute strength? Was that even possible?

"Yosh!" Zoro started to head off into the forest, "let's get a nice warm up before dinner!"

"It's in the middle of the night and the village is this way!" Nami, Sanji, and Usopp yelled at the same time, pointing to the village.

Nartuo staggered to his feet and stopped where Sakura had laid Tsunade. He bent down and wrapped one of the Hokage's limp arms around his shoulder. His mind seemed reasonably clear now; Boss may have been able to project his Distortions, but they were considerably weaker than when he had physical contact with the target.

"We have to get to the village. They're fighting people who don't die," Naruto called to the Mugiwara.

"Reminds me a bit of Thriller Bark," Sanji remarked, lighting a cigarette, except those zombies couldn't do squat."

"YOHOHOHO! And that's where I joined the crew, is it not?" Brook added jovially. He bowed towards Naruto. "I will protect this village to the best of my abilities! Allow me to offer my heart and soul in this fight. Although I don't have a heart to offer! YOHOHOHOHO!"

Franky snapped his blocky arms together. "Suuuuuper, leave it to me!"

Meanwhile in the village, shocked shinobi paused in the middle of their fight as a great cloud of dust ballooned up from the center of the front grounds which had been turned into a battle field. Before the dust cleared, a second force sped into the cloud, the impact sending cracks running throughout the ground.

"What is that?" Tao, aka Purple-eyes, asked from his post on one of the upper branches. Beside him were his three companions. All four had hundred of chakra strings extending from the tips of their fingers.

"what are you doing?" a voice whispered in his ear.

"I'm controlling the corpses, duh," Purple-eyes whispered back impatiently. Then something hit him. He was the only one on this particular branch…there shouldn't have been anybody behind him. He whirled around but it was too late. With a cry, he was sent flying into the air. He glanced over to see his three companions subject to similar treatment. The four landed lightly in front of the staring shinobi.

"Oho, so what is this about 'controlling the corpses?"

Purple-eyes looked up to see an orange-haired woman staring down at him.

Behind Nami, Robin released her crossed arms. The hands, mouths, and ears, which had materialized on the trees that the New Dawn had been using, disappeared.

The dust had cleared as well, revealing Green-eyes, knocked out cold. In front of him was Boss, deep rivets cut into the earth surrounding his feet from the force of Luffy's arrack. Luffy was also there, glaring at the offenders.

"I FOUND YOU!" Sakura's voice rang out above the clearing. She came flying out of the trees, ready to attack, heading straight towards Spike. He smirked. Two of his fingers twitched.

Three of the Grass-villagers were jerked up into the air. Their hands stretched towards Sakura, and locked together, encasing her in a human cage. Sakura yelped and none too gently to the ground in a confusing mass of limbs.

"Sakura chan!" Naruto appeared from the gate, dragging Tsunade with him.

"Tsunade sama!" A battle-weary Shizune ran out to meet them.

"Everybody from Konoha, please stand back," Nami announced, "we'll handle things here."

"I'll go tend to the injured!" Chopper announced, running back towards the makeshift infirmary after Shizune.

"Oi, let go of that lady!" Sanji yelled. Running towards the struggling Sakura, he knocked the zombies away. Sakura leaped to her feet. She turned towards Nami.

"What do you mean stand back?" she shouted, "we can't just wait and watch while our village is attacked."

"That's why we're asking you to leave it to us," Nami replied cheerfully, "we'll beat them all to pulp."

"Hey! Don't say that when you're just going to force us to do the work!" Usopp protested.

"How! The enemy cannot die!" Sakura shouted. "No matter how strong you are, you can't kill them!"

"That's because they are already dead," Kakashi interrupted. He took a step back. His sharingan flared red. "Stand back Sakura. Right now we can't beat these people. We have no choice but to leave it to the Mugiwara."

"Kakashi sensei!"

"The enemy can distort chakra circulation. It could be fatal. These people don't have chakra in their bodies."

Sakura gaped. "How is that possible?"

"We come from a different dimension," Robin interrupted, "so it isn't surprising the body constitution is different. The people you fight are not actually alive. They are not zombies."

"What do you mean, Robin," Usopp asked.

"Sure enough, they did infuse a small amount of chakra into each of the villagers. But remember Sakura, there are not jutsus in the world that can give life, even artificial life, without great sacrifice."

Sakura's eyes widened. Her memory flashed back to Chiyo-baasan.

"In other words, these corpses are being controlled by an intricate system, like puppets," Robin continued, "they are nothing but dolls in the hands of the New Dawn."

"The fighting level of the grass-villagers went up just a while ago," Kakshi said.

"When the other three members of the New Dawn joined up with the one already controlling them," Robin nodded.

"The chakra strings are so thin, they were nearly invisible, even to my sharingan. The amount of chakra infused into the bodies of the villagers also make the chakra control even easier, since its technically not much different from moving the chakra in your own body. The chakra string are what connects the master to the puppets, so to speak."

"So upon analysis of this situation,"

"we can conclude,"

"that if we beat the New Dawn members, these people will stop moving," Robin and Kakshi ended at the same time.

"Whoa…they're totally in sync," Usopp shivered.

"Suuuppeeer scary," Franky agreed.

"Yosh! So it's simple." Eyes turned towards Luffy, facing off with Boss. "We beat them up and the battle ends there."

"Four people are nothing," Sanji smirked.

"Don't forget our 'puppets' now," Plain, aka Saru, snarled. "Just because you figured this out doesn't mean you can defeat them."

"We'll see about that," Zoro growled. He punched his open palm. "Now, who has my swords?"

"That would be me big boy." The seventh member Naruto had been unable to find, Kai, stepped forward, rust-red hair glinting in the torch light. A dozen villager-puppets surrounding him. "And bad luck for you, I just happen to be the strongest puppeteer."

"Great," Zoro smiled savagely, "I'm itching for a fight now."

"There's about five hundred villagers," Kakashi warned. The exhausted Konoha shinobi were making their way to the sidelines, out of the Mugiwara's way. "They might be a small village but there are only nine of you. Eight, without the shinobi raccoon."

"I'M A REINDEER!" a voice yelled from the direction of the infirmary.

"We've taken on 100,000 enemies before," Usopp replied. He removed his slingshot. "We can do this, no problem."

"The rest of you can sit out. I can take them on my own," Zoro said.

"Don't get too excited now," Sanji smirked.

"Same to you, curly eyebrows."

"Right." Nami raised her Clima-tact. "Let's go!"