OK, time for Chapter 14. Let's see what Naruto can do with his new powers. Also I have an announcement at the end. Enjoy the chapter!
Disclaimer: I own neither Naruto or One Piece
Ch 14: Final Showdown Under the Stars
From within the newly formed crater, Mr. 5 groaned in pain as he pushed himself up with his right arm. The left side of his body felt like it was on fire, heat from the blond pirate's attack still lingering upon his flesh. Which was more of a surprise, and more concerning, then the youth surviving their previous encounter.
'Why is my arm burning,' he thought as he pushed himself up out of the hole, 'I'm immune to fire thanks to my Bomb Bomb powers.'
He brought his right hand to where he had taken the blow. He suppressed a wince as he touched the tender flesh, but frowned as his fingers reported no damage to his attire consistent with a fire attack, and the skin beneath the coat felt smooth.
Miss Valentine drew up besides him as he observed his attacker. The blond pirate stood in a loose fighting stance, his arms wreathed in translucent yellow flames. It wasn't exactly as the notes had said, but it was obvious where the pirate had gained those powers.
"It would seem we were too hasty to write you off," Mr. 5 said, "And you've gone and eaten the Devil Fruit we obtained for the Boss."
"How'd you get it anyway," Miss Valentine demanded of Naruto, "We had it locked up. Filthy thieving pirates."
"That's rich coming from you guys," Zoro said, "Bounty hunting and being a part of a secret organization aren't known for being honest lines of work."
"As if you could understand what being a part of Baroque Works means, you irritant," Miss Valentine derided the swordsman, before she turned to her partner, "Mr. 5, I think it's time to show these lowlifes what happens to those who interfere with Baroque Works!"
Before the bomb man could respond, a cry of "Zoro!" drew the attention of all those present. The bloated Monkey D Luffy stood at the end of the street, fury burning in his eyes.
"Now what," Miss Valentine snapped, annoyed at all the interruptions to what should have been an easy mission.
"Luffy," Zoro addressed his captain, "We're good here. Why don't you go back to sleep."
"Shut up, Zoro," Luffy yelled, "I'll never forgive you! Fight me!"
"What," Zoro shouted back, "What the hell are you talking about? Did you hit your head or something?"
"I said shut up," Luffy bellowed, "You attacked all those people who threw us that party and gave us that great food. You're an ungrateful bastard that needs his ass kick!"
"He has a point," Naruto said, his eyes never leaving the two Baroque Work agents, "You did beat all those guys."
"Luffy listen to me," Zoro tried to explain, "Those guys weren't..."
"I don't want to hear any excuses," Luffy yelled as he lunged at Zoro. The rubber man launched a punch at Zoro's face. The swordsman ducked the punch, which smashed the wall behind them.
The sounds of collapsing buildings and increasing incoherent shouts followed the rumbling pirates as the fought, drifting further away from the standoff between the remaining Straw Hat Pirate, one duck riding princess, and the Baroque Works agents.
"Well," Miss Valentine said, her tone touched with a hint of confusion as she watched the fight as it moved further away, "That was a turn of good fortune, wasn't it Mr. 5?"
"It was," he replied, turning to face Naruto, "Now we only have to deal with one more roadblock before we finish the mission."
Naruto smirked, "Well you seem confident."
"We've never failed a mission," the bomb man stated.
"Well, this isn't the first time I've had to protect a princess," Naruto retorted, turning his head enough to bring Vivi into his line of sight, "And this is a mission. And Uzumaki Naruto doesn't turn his back on a mission."
Naruto rushed forward, fists alight with spiraling, fire. Before he could reach Mr. 5, said assassin thrust his arm to the ground, detonating his hand once flesh met dirt. The blast ripped chunks out of the dirt road. Naruto plunged through the cloud of dust and debris, arms crossed over his face and torso. He emerged on the other side in time to see Miss Valentine shoot up into the air, floating aloft with her umbrella.
'Where'd the other guy go?'
"Look out," Princess Vivi shouted at him. He glanced back towards her, seeing that Mr. 5 had used the smokescreen to put distance between them, and that he had primed another snot bullet. The ballistic employing man smirked as he launched the explosive booger.
Naruto jumped towards one of the buildings to his left, kicking off the side as the nasal projectile impacted beneath him, detonating on contact. Between his kick and the shock wave, Naruto soared over the bomb human, drawing a kunai as he twisted to keep Mr. 5 in his sights.
Even as the familiar sensation of the cloth wrapping brushed against Naruto's fingers, another shot up his arm. The feeling reminded him of the enhanced senses sage and his chakra modes afforded him, a perception of what existed beyond the physical nature of the ninja weapon. As the kunai took on a faded yellow glow, Naruto knew, on a fundamental, instinctive level, the nature of the kunai. From its forging, to how he employed it, he knew the spirit of the blade, And how to draw it out.
He threw the kunai at Mr. 5, the blade coated in a pale yellow haze. Mr. 5 smirked as the kunai flew towards him, raising his hand to blast them away like he had done back at the beach. The explosion ripped through the night air, the plume of fire and smoke obscuring Mr. 5's sight of the kunai.
His smirk faltered as a phantom kunai emerged effortlessly from the smoke cloud and embedding itself into his right shoulder. Pain shot through him as he reflexively staggered back, his left hand shooting up to pull the blade from his flesh.
However as his hand curled around the blade's handle, his fingers passed through it. The spectral weapon wavered like a mirage as his digits tried in vain to grasp it, fading away like an early morning fog.
Mr. 5's fingers found where the knife had bit into him and found no rip in his attire nor blood pooling up from a wound. The pain remained, though it was fading. He turned to face the pirate, pain and rage twisting his face as he glared at his opponent.
Naruto landed, meeting his enemy's glare with his own confident stare, a new kunai held at the ready in his left hand. He thought a moment about his newly discovered ability. It was a somewhat strange sensation, not to dissimilar from when he'd receive a shadow clone's memory, but different enough to where it stood out in his mind.
He already was running that new power into the kunai he held. The blade's spirit sang to him, it's nature to be thrown, to stab and cut filled his mind. As Naruto drew out that essence, it changed as his own nature acted upon it. Despite being trained to kill, the act had never sat well with Naruto. As a naive kid, the idea of killing hadn't factored into his ideas abut being a ninja. It had never occurred to him that the ninja he looked up to, Iruka-Sensei and the Hokage, had ever killed.
Then he became a full ninja and saw how things were for a ninja. He'd seen enemies and allies die. The hardest were the ones who died because of who he was, and who he had contained. He'd fought the ones who killed Asuma-Sensei and Jiraiya, and yet he hadn't been the one to kill them.
Kakuzu had lived through his Rasenshuriken, broken and crippled, but alive. Kakashi-Sensei had been the one to kill him. And Pain, Nagato, he had wanted to kill. The former student of their master, the man who had killed their master, leveled his home, nearly killed his friends. But he couldn't. After seeing his fellow pupil face to face, he chose to follow Jiraiya's path, one that would end in a peaceful existence between the people of the Elemental Nations.
Naruto knew who he was. He would fight for those who stood beside him, or for those he needed someone to fight for them. He would kill if needed, but only as the last resort. That was why the kunai that had been manifested had not cut its target. A kunai could cut and stab, drawing pain from it's victim. But Naruto didn't need to tear flesh and spill blood to beat someone. Pain could stop a fight as much as wounds could. And pain was something Naruto could work with.
The power he had called out of the kunai jumped from the blade and ran up his arm, across his chest and down the other arm. With a flash, a phantom kunai blinked into existence into his right hand, solid enough to be held. Naruto's eyes flashed to where Miss Valentine hovered above the battlefield.
'She's too far away to get the drop on me,' he thought as he tensed, 'But I don't think I could hit her with either kunai. She'll just drop herself before she's hit. I guess I'll have to get her to come to me.'
He pushed forward towards Mr. 5, throwing the ghostly kunai as he did. The assassin, wary of the pain inducing blade, leaped away from the projectile, finger reading his own to return fire. His eyes widened behind his glasses as Naruto summoned, and threw, another phantom blade with his left, the real kunai now in his right.
The second kunai cut into Mr. 5's side, drawing a pained grunt from the man. His footwork faltered and his eyes broke from Naruto reflexively to look at his 'wound'. The whirling sound of displaced air drew his attention back as Naruto had closed the gap between them, his right arm drawn back, yellow ghostly flame spinning.
"Got ya," Naruto exclaimed, eyes aglow with yellow light.
"Grand Spiraling Strike!"
The spiraling, phantom flame coated fist slammed into Mr. 5's torso. Waves of intense, scalding heat rippled through him as he as knocked off his feet and sent spinning into a near by building. The impact shattered the wall, the debris falling on the insensate man.
Naruto kept up his forward momentum, pivoting away right as Miss Valentine came crashing down.
"Ha," Naruto said, a fierce grin on his face, "Figured you try that drop on my back move again."
He rounded on Miss Valentine before she could adjust her weight and ascend above again. He spun on his left leg, his right poised to strike. As his leg neared its target, he focused his new power into it. Ribbons of spectral flame swirled around his shin right as it slammed into Miss Valentine.
She let out a pained yell as the kick ground into her before she was knock off her feet. She rocketed back into another building, the wall cracking upon impact.
Naruto let out a breath as he relaxed his stance, the ghostly flames dancing along his limbs fading.
"Huh," Naruto said as he surveyed the damage Miss Valentine did to the building, "Guess she lighten herself. She did feel lighter than I would have guessed."
He turned and found the princess and her duck staring at him, mouths agape.
"Oh, hey," he said with a lame wave, "Didn't think you'd still be around."
"You beat them both," Vivi said, her voice barely above a whisper, "You just came into the Grand Line and you're strong enough to beat them at the same time."
Naruto took on a sheepish look and scratched at his cheek," Well, I did just eat a Devil Fruit, so I guess that gave me an edge. And Luffy and Zoro could have handled them just as quick…."
The sounds of battle washed over them as said captain and swordsman had returned, still caught up in their pointless fight.
"They're still going at it," Naruto said exasperated, sweat dropping down his head, "Damn, at this rate they'll level the whole town."
"Is everyone on your crew a monster," Vivi questioned, flinching as another building took a critical blow from the feuding pirates.
Naruto shrugged, "I guess Sanji'd be able to keep up with them. Nami and Usopp aren't really the fighting type."
Naruto looked pensive for a moment before he slammed his fist into his open hand as an idea formed.
He looked back at Vivi and flashed her a smile, "Stay put, Princess. I've got just the move to calm them down, and then we can talk about what's going on."
Naruto sprinted towards the fight, leaving a confused Vivi in his wake. He stopped short of where Luffy and Zoro had reached something of a stand still. The fighting had burned off Luffy's recent weight gain, but other than that, neither man looked injured.
He took a deep breath and leaned back. And then he shouted.
"NAMI! LUFFY AND ZORO ARE RUINING YOUR CHANCE TO MAKE MONEY!"
The cry echoed through the now empty town, though only Vivi and Carue seemed to take note what was shouted to the heavens.
"Just what…."
The princess's query was interrupted as an orange and blue blur raced past her, making a beeline to her fighting friends.
"WILL YOU TWO IDIOTS STOP RUINING MY PLANS!"
Nami then slammed her fists into her crew mates heads, cleanly knocking them to the ground. She surveyed the battlefield and turned to Naruto.
"Those Baroque Works goons taken care off?"
Naruto nodded, "Yep, beat them both. And the princess is unharmed."
"Great," Nami said cheerfully, before turning back to Luffy and Zoro, grabbing their collars and shaking them violently. "But you two nearly cost me my 1 billion Beri jackpot."
Vivi had drawn closer to the strange tableau, confusion coloring her face.
"Just what's going on here," she asked, "And why have you gone and save me?"
Nami blinked at the princess's questions, still shaking Luffy and Zoro.
"Oh, I guess we haven't gotten around to explaining things. How about we settle down and discuss the terms of our contract."
"Contract," Vivi said, still confused.
After Nami beat some sense into Luffy and Zoro, she explained to Vivi what Igaram had told her and how he had begged them to assist her. And how Nami offered asked for a billion Beri payout for that assistance.
"I refuse," Vivi said resolutely, "You have my gratitude for helping with Mr. 5 and Miss Valentin, but I can't accept your aid any longer."
"But you're a princess," Nami countered, "A billion Beri shouldn't be an issue, right?"
"I take it none of you know much about Alabasta, my home."
She was met by four shaking heads.
"It was a peaceful kingdom, one of the oldest in the world," she recounted "But over the last few years, there has been a growing faction of revolutionaries that have been stirring up all kinds of chaos. And then I heard about an organization that was instigating these revolutionaries."
"Baroque Works, right," Naruto guessed.
"Yeah," Vivi said, "But there wasn't anything I could do as a princess, so I asked Igaram, my person guard..."
"You mean the curly haired guy," Luffy asked.
"Yes, him," Vivi answered, "I asked him if there was any way to infiltrate their ranks. Because in order to blow away the dark cloud that covers my country, I needed to know just what Baroque Works was up to."
"Well aren't you a brave princess," Zoro piped in.
Nami frowned in thought for a moment, "Igaram was telling me about Baroque Works goal. That ideal nation that Mr. 0 wants to make." She paused as a new thought hit her, "Wait, don't tell me..."
"Yes," Vivi said her tone growing dark, "the true goal of Baroque Works is to take over Alabasta. That's why I have to hurry home, to stop the revolutionaries and inform the people about their activities. Before they reach their end game."
"Guess that's why you can't pay us," Nami said "A country in the middle of a civil war wouldn't have much spare cash."
"Who's this Boss guy anyway," Luffy asked, eliciting a panicked response from Vivi.
"What! The Boss? No no no," she said, waving her arms in a negative fashion, "You don't want to know. His identity is his most closely guarded secret. Just knowing it makes you target. He'd have you killed if you knew."
"That's for the best," Nami said, her survival instinct overruling her greed, "A guy who's gunning to overthrow a kingdom is probably more than we could handle."
"Yeah," Vivi said, her voice heavy with the need for sleep, "That's for the best. You guys might be strong, but there's no way you could stand against Crocodile. There's a reason he's one of the Shichibukai."
It took a moment before Vivi slammed her hands to her mouth in horror. Nami likewise bore a look of pure fright, while Luffy looked more shocked and excited. Zoro only looked disappointed.
And Naruto looked confused.
"Ugh, guys. I get that we're not supposed to know the guys name, but what the hell is a Shichibukai?"
Before anyone could answer, the sound off flapping wings drew everyone's attention. On an overlooking rooftop, an otter and a vulture stared down at them. Naruto tilted his head.
"Haven't I seen that bird before," he mused aloud.
The animal duo shared a glance before the otter leaped onto it's companion's back and took to the sky. Nami was the first to recover, violently grabbing Vivi.
"What the hell was with that otter and vulture!? Have we been found out? Why did you blurt out his name!?"
"I'm sorry," Vivi said, "it just slipped out. I've had a long day."
While Nami continued to throttle Vivi, crying about now being a target, Naruto repeated his question to Zoro and Luffy.
"The Shichibukai are pirates that the Government has basically hired," Zoro explained idly rubbing the scar over his chest, "There are seven of them. We ran into one before we met. Wonder if this Crocodile's stronger than Mihawk."
"Yeah," Luffy added, "It's sure is lucky to have run into one so soon."
"The three of you can shut up," Nami yelled at her male crew mates before she began to storm away.
"Where you going, Nami," Luffy asked of the Navigator.
"I'm running away," she said simply, "They don't know what I look like, so I'm just going to lay low. Bye."
Before she got too far, the otter landed in front of her, a sketchpad and pencil held in its paws. The pencil scratched against the paper lightning fast and the otter tore four pages from its book. It presented four sketches, one for each of the Straw Hats, and in great detail.
"Oh wow, those are great," Nami said before she realized just who had drawn them. The otter had already taken off on it's partner before she could try to steal the pictures.
"Well now they know what we look like," Nami yelled in frustration.
"Guess the four of us are on their hit list," Zoro smirked, "Makes things interesting."
"Yeah, so cool," Luffy added.
"At least this time they're after me for something I did," Naruto muttered to himself.
"I have about 500,000 in savings," Vivi said consoling Nami, "you can have it, if it helps."
"Fear not!"
The five turned to see Igaram, dressed in one of Vivi's dresses, his hair pulled back into a ponytail, carrying four stuffed dummies.
"I haf, ma-ma-ma, have a plan. Everything will be alright."
"Igaram," Vivi exclaimed, "Why are you wearing a dress?"
"Wow, you can really pull off that look," Luffy complimented the now cross dresser.
"My eyes, they burn," Naruto cries covering his eyes, "it's worse than Lee and Gai-Sensei hugging."
Nami sulked, head buried in her knees, "I'm surrounded by idiots."
"Be quite and listen," Igaram commanded, "We don't have a lot of time before Baroque Works sends assassins after you. Since you're now in as deep as we are, you should know that while he has no active bounty now, Crocodile had one near 80 million when he was recruited by the World Government."
Igaram turned to Luffy, "Have you decided to escort the princess back to Alabasta?"
"What're you talking about," Luffy asked.
"He means are we good to take Vivi back to her home," Zoro filled Luffy in.
"Yeah, no problem."
"Yes there's a problem," Nami shouted, "That Crocodile's worth four times as much as Arlong. We are not doing this!"
Igaram ignored Nami and addressed Vivi. "Princess, may I have the Eternal Pose to Alabasta?"
That broke Nami from her fear induced stupor, "Eternal Pose?"
"You don't know," Igaram asked, "A normal Log Pose will attune to an island's magnetic field and then lock on to the next. An Eternal Pose, however is permanently locked to one magnetic field. It will always point there."
Vivi handed him the Pose. "Now," he continued, "I shall head straight for Alabasta, posed as you and the dummies as the pirates. And you go the normal route. It should only be two or three islands between here and home. And I will meet you there."
His plan explained, Igaram quickly set about loading the dummies onto the escape boat. Once the baot was ready he turned to Luffy.
"I hereby leave the Princess in your care."
"Don't worry," Luffy said, "I'll bet you fool them all."
"Who's he going to fool," Zoro said under his breathe, Naruto nodded in agreement.
"Princess," Igaram said, grasping Vivi's hand, "Do be careful. The journey ahead may be dangerous."
"You too, Igaram," came her reply.
Igaram nodded and boarded his ship, quickly catching the wind and sailing away from the island. The Straw Hats and Vivi watched as the ship grew smaller.
"I'm gonna miss him," Luffy said, "He was a funny guy."
"A little too intense thought," Naruto added, hoping to forget seeing him in that dress.
Vivi smiled, "He's always been so dependable. He'll keep them off our backs."
Suddenly the horizon detonated in a violent fiery blaze. The five some looked out in horror as Igaram's boat was consumed by the fire.
"They're already here," Nami said "This is bad."
Luffy still stared out to the blaze, his breath coming in angry snorts, "He was a fine man," he shouted, ready for a fight.
"Nami is the Log set," Zoro asked.
"Yes it's locked it," she responded.
"Then let's get Usopp and Sanji and get out of here," Naruto shouted.
"Vivi," Nami said, "We have to move. We can't waste Igaram's sacrifice."
Vivi simply stood there, eyes fixed hard on where Igaram's ship had been, her lips bleeding as she fought back her tears.
Nami quickly hugged the stunned princess. "I'll be alright," she consoled the girl, "We'll get you back to Alabasta, I promise. Those guys managed to save the East Blue. That Shichibukai won't know what hit him!"
There we go. The Mr. 5 pair are down for the count, but Baroque Works are hot on our hero's heels. Can they get away from Whiskey Peak unscathed? Tune in next time.
So yeah, announcement time. I have closed my poll and the results are in: Side stories are going in their own section. No timetable on when I'll post any side stories, but when the mood hits, I know where to put them.
And how did everyone like what I've done with Naruto's Spirit Spirit powers. I will say there are still some things for him to learn about them. Let me know how you feel about them.
See ya later!