Chapter 49: Have I Ever?

Kenegi: He's not falling behind. It is customary for the Captain to have a highest bounty on his ship.

xxOMGgalxx: Hope this is soon enough.

The Prophet Of Lies: You can choose your family, but you can't choose you friends... or was it the other way around?

KuroHi91: I don't always make a meme references, but when I do, it's to show that I spend too much time on the internet.

Disclaimer: Stop seaching for the truth and lie down for some good fantasy.


After lots of turmoils, cries and cheers. We finally made it to the clouds. Me and Chopper took everything in and looked to see that we were the only ones who were somewhat conscious. I instantly went to see how my student was – teachers responsibility – and the first thing I noticed was that her shirt was soaked. I looked at myself and was surprised to see few wet blotches.

"I'm starting to doubt my teachers mastery over rational physics." I scowled and took off my green shirt. It was the same she previously wore back in the Ninja Island. Only difference is that I wash it regularly and train without a shirt most of the time. That or just walk around half-naked 'till I get shouted by a flushed Nami.

"What are you doing?" Chopper asked after he and Daxter shrugged their furs dry. Wish I had that.

"Just... loaning my shirt to our brave navigator." I smiled once I saw Nami open her eyes.

"Pft, yeah right. You just want to see-!" Daxter's little speech was succesfully stopped by an angry Nami who – much to my fear – gently took my shirt with a sweet smile.

"Thank you."

A small blush crept on my face which I tried to hide from her. "Don't mention it. I don't want to see you get sick is all."

"Your using that excuse way to much." Nami said with a tint of humor in her voice.

"Because its true," I glared back at Nami and poked her nose. "Your like a magnet to fatal illness."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

Thankfully Luffy broke our short-lived bickering by shouted,. "Oi, everyone take a look! Look around the ship!"

Sure enough, there was the same cloud ocean I saw with Chopper few minutes ago. A smile formed in my lips from watching the pirates looking at it. Sure, it was white and fluffy around here. Which made me wonder about something...

"I wonder if these are the cotton candies I've been hearing a lot..."

"Oooh! I wanna taste one!" Luffy shouted and stretched his arm to grab a fluff of cloud. At first I scoffed at him, but quickly gaped at him for actually holding a mass aerosol in his hands.

"How the hell did you do that?" The rubberman gave me a look which was funny as hell. He looked like a giant human-squirrel with the puffed cheeks. "Nevermind, I should've know better."

"Oh no! Usopp's not breathing!" Chopper all but yelled. Luffy and I went to see what happened and spotted a decent sized bumb on his head.

"WHAT! Then do something? Try CPR!" Luffy frantically shouted.

"Yosh! I'll give Nami-san CPR!" Our lovecook proclaimed behind us.

"Sure~ just a word of warning though, her mouth tastes like an old, bitter wine." I chuckled, closely followed by Zoro saying that it suits the witch. Sure I had to dodge fists aimed at my head, but seeing her all red and embarassed was totally worth the tease.

Few minutes later, we got Usopp to wake up, panic and relax. All in that order. It really amazes me sometimes about the guys 'boldness' of doing stupid things. Like this one:

"For his first course Captain Usopp is going for a swim!"

I was also amazed by the two animals and rubberman cheering at him. Not one to miss out of the fun, I leaned forward on the rail and began to observe the sea of the sky for later drawings.

"Oi, oi, oi! Don't do anything stupid." Sanji warned the sharpshooter after his argument with Zoro. "We still don't know the nature of this sea."

SPLASH!

It seems that Sanji's warning went to deaf ears if the short 'splashing' sound gave anything off.

"Coooool!"

"He's so brave!"

"He's so dead."

I shook my head at the two optimist and one pessimist – not accounting myself – and jumped on top of the sea of clouds. It felt weird to walking on it. "Maybe its because the resistance is smaller than that of blue seas."

"You two are so lucky." Luffy groaned. "I wish I could swim... or water walk." He then perked up and stared at me with starry eyes. "Hey! Could you teach us!"

I deadpanned at him. "I told you that your chakra core's already hardened. Unless you can turn into an 8-year-old, then sorry."

"Why do you need a kid to teach that?"

"Because their core's not made out of cement."

"Then how did you learn it?" Chopper inquired.

I scratched my head at that. "Uhm... my late master forced me to do those chakra training when I was eight. With it, he began to teach me martial arts and other things." Though, I am still skeptical about all of this. How did the old man know that I'll need that stuff here and now? He did smile everytime I did those exercises.

Was it fate or did he know there will be a day – like today – that I'll have a use for it. The old senile still remains a mystery, even after his death.

"He's... not coming up." Zoro stated as I looked beneath me. Its already been about 10 minutes since we lost Usopp.

"Just a thought," Robin began with a small sweat running down her face. "Is there a bottom to this sea?"

"Of course not." I said with arms crossed over my bare chest. "My guess is that this... cloud of sea's about 100 meters deep, so... remove the density level of the water and increase Usopp's stupidity..."

"He's dead isn't he?" Daxter facepalmed.


It was a close call, but Luffy and Robin finally got the near dead Usopp out. I shook my head at his way of dying. I mean really, this is the number one most hazardous things that usually happens in my world. Some drunk college monkeys start to go nuts and drown themselves in a nearby lake or pool. Call me a pessimist or anything you want. But I think that the second I start to get drunk, something bad happens to me.

Once the guy was pulled out, there were two monsters – one octopus and a flatfish – that attacked us. I was about to do something when Zoro and Sanji beat me to it. Sighing, I noticed that after the little work-out, the guys – including Luffy – were panting hard.

"Oh yeah, were about 7,000 meters above the ground so there's not that much oxygen here as we're used to." I thought and added chakra to my lungs to breath calmly. I scowled when I noticed that it didn't work the way I wanted.

"Need help?" A feminine voice resounded in my head. I looked around and spotted that I had my hand on Yama's hilt. Probably because I was about to use her to slash the monsters away.

"Please?" I asked with a mental puppy dog-expression I picked up from Luffy and Chopper. So far it only worked on Yama. Hopefully it'll work on Nami once she gets past those violent tendencies of hers.

That or it seems that I lack something cute in me.

Sure enough, my breathing calmed down and fully stood up. "Ah, the laws of science be a harsh mistress." I sighed and stretched my muscles.

Looking at the others, they weren't as lucky as me to have a sweet, sentient katana. "Man... this place... sure takes the breath out of you." I heard Zoro pant.

"Now, this is a weird-looking animal." Luffy said and the rest was ignored by me since they began to talk about the animals popping up like balloons.

I saw Chopper looking through binoculars he retrieved from somewhere and smiled.

"Oi, guys! A ship! And a person?"

"Really?" I inquired and activated the Sharingans. Not that I can see that far, but it lets me spot dozens chakra signatures and one higher a good distance away from us. The little reindeer went pale once the little chakras just vanished into thin air. "That's odd..."

"Oi, What's wrong" Zoro asked us.

"There's a ship! No! I mean, there was, but the ship's gone now! And now there's a bull charging right at us on a square cloud!" A paniced Chopper yelled and tried to explain to us what happened.

"The hell..." Sanji and me looked at a human skating towards us. The odd thing about it was that he or she wore a huge bullmask on their face.

"You know the guy?" Luffy asked me with starry eyes.

A tick mark appeared on my head. "No, do you expect me to know everyone who can walk on water?"

"Yes." Luffy answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oi, someone's coming!" Sanji warned us. "What do you want?"

"I shall reject you!" The bullmasked man yelled. Or so I thought it was a man by its voice.

"The feeling mutual!" I grinned and took out my last fuuma shuriken from my seal tag. The guy quickly dispatched Sanji with a fierce kick that sent him slamming into storage rooms wall. Next was Zoro who was too slow and was also sent crashing to the mast. The masked man then jumped high up and kicked Luffys head on the deck. What surprised me was that the rubber man was bleeding from the area. "I thought blunt force attacks doesn't work on him... that means..."

My train of thought was cut by the bullman charging at me. I was really lucky I had my Sharingans still on at that time. Otherwise the kick I just blocked with the flat side of the giant shuriken would've been my shattered ribs. I quickly reared my left leg back and charged it forward, intent on crushing the guys mask into dust. I wasn't that lucky since the man ducked under my attack and made another kick at me. This was kinda like our spar with Sanji.

This time I decided to grab his leg by the calf and swiftly threw him out of the ship. The bullmasked man righted himself in our rail and jumped high up in the air. My eyes widened when I saw he was about to shoot the huge bazooka at us. I was about to intercept it with a random ninjutsu, but was interrupted by an elderly mans voice.

"That's enough!" I managed to get a glimps of an old man in a knight outfit riding a weird-looking bird. The old man was about to pierce the masked man with his lance, but was blocked with the orange shield he had on his back. After that, the bazooka man pummeled into the water and skied off.

"Oh no you don't!" I gritted my teeth and unfolded the giant shuriken with a swift hand motion. I was just about to throw the thing at him had not these pesky arms not sprouted around me.

"There's no need to do that, Shinobi-san." Robin said with a calm tone that hid the fear behind it. She was still a mystery to me. I'm not really someone to be afraid of. Well, sometimes yes, but were somewhat cool with each other here now.

But I still don't trust her.

I gave the woman a glare and sighed. Sure enough, she let go of the restrains, but I decided to hold on to the shuriken incase the old man tries something. "Whatever." I then walked towards our knight in shiny, rusty armor with a smile. "Yo, thanks for the help. I guess chivalry isn't dead after all."

"I am the Knight of the Sky." He annouced with the weird bird shouting behind him.

I couldn't take it anymore and landed flat on the deck and panted my ass off. I felt my lungs were on fire and as dry as a 10-year-old rag.

"What's going on here? Just who was that?" Nami shot questions after question 'till her eyes narrowed at the three musketeers. "And what's wrong with you guys? That was pathetic! All three of you together couldn't handle him!" She then helped me up, which kinda put me off guard again. "At least one of you knows how to put up a fight, jeez."

"I'll take that as a compliment." I chuckled and fully stood up.

"There's no need for thanks, Shinobi-san." The armor-man said. My eyebrow twitched from the nickname he obviously heard from the giggling Robin. I'm not even from a village for God's sake. "This is just a service."

Sanji, Luffy and Zoro were all panting heavily on the deck. "Man, I'm disappointed." I heard Sanji grumble. Not that I blame any of them. None of them has a wind-sentient katana to help them breath 7,000 metres above the surface.

"My body, I can barely move it at all." A panting Luffy... panted.

"It must be because the air's so thin." Robin explained, not that I wanted to know because I already knew that.

"I see..." grunted Zoro finally breathing regularly.

"Yeah, now that I think about it... are you all Blue Sea Dwellers?" The old man asked as he walked up to the second level of the ship.

Nami frowned at that, "Blue Sea Dwellers?"

The old knight nodded, "Yes, it is the term used to describe those that live beneath the clouds."

"Sounds a bit racist to me." I scowled and felt a light weight on my head.

"Everything sounds racist to you." Daxter said from my head. "But dude, those were some cool moves!" As usual, the ottsel likes to grin at me for a job well done.

A small smile graced my lips, "Everything looks cool to you." We both shared a short laugh while the Knight started to explain something untrivial about the White Sea. And that above this sea is the White-White sea 3,000 meters above us.

"Its no surprise your bodies cannot handle the change of atmosphere." The knight looked at me warily, as if I was a tough riddle or puzzle that need to be solved. That look unnerves me since its what Robin usually does in the ship. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she's hitting on me.

"Something on my face?" I asked the Knight with narrowed eyes.

"No," He answered in a light monotone voice. "It's nothing."

"Yosh, I think I'm getting used to this now." I heard Luffy cheer and pound his chest. After him, Zoro and Sanji also stood up with a bit of support from the ships rail.

"No, no, no, no, no, that's not possible." The old man sweat dropped with a disbelief gaze on us.

"Oi, how come your not affected by this?" Sanji sent a death glare at me which I returned, albeit a lighter one.

"I happen to adapt well to my environment." I lied and gently patted my katana. "I think I was a mouse in my previous life."

"I have to know! How was that guy running on top of the clouds?" Nami asked as I gave her the same disbelief look the old man just made few seconds ago.

"You just saw me walking on top of that stuff." I saw Nami blushed in embarassement and decided not to humiliate her today. "Anyways, I think those skates might have something to do with it."

"Skates?" Luffy asked as Chopper was tending the wound on his head.

I facepalmed at him. "Please don't tell me that no one bothered to catch some odd details from our assailant?"

"What do you mean 'odd details'" Zoro asked as he rubbed the small, red spot on his forehead.

"*sigh* Those kicks of his were fast AND strong." Here I showed him my fuuma shuriken with the added cracks on it. "I had to reinforce this baby so it wouldn't break in half. My guess is that his skates boosted the power on his kicks. I'm surprised you guys are conscious after those hits." I turned to the old man still staring at me. "Unless the people here are some kind of mutatans or evolved humans with evolved contractile tissue."

"I yield, I yield. I can see you all have many quesions for me, but first we must talk of business. I am – afterall – a mercenary. And this is a sea of many dangers. Since you know not the battle of the sky, you will be easy targets for the guerillas or the Skyfish."

"So what, I'll just use them as target practice."

The old knight ignored me and pulled out an odd whistle. "Use this whistle and I will rescue you for a price of 5,000,000 extols."

"What are you talking about, Ossan?" Luffy asked with his head tilted to the side.

"It is a small price to pay, really!" He frantically waved at us. "I will not take one extol less! I have to make a living, you know."

"But what's this extol thing you keep talking about?" Sanji inquired.

The knight was surprised, "You mean you did not come by way of the High West? But you must have at least stopped by one or two islands."

"C'mon, what're you talking about, Ossan?"

"Luffy, cut the old man some slack. He's obviously gone senile."

"Senile?" The Captain blinked at me. "Can you eat that?"

"You can try." I shrugged.

"Hold on!" Nami suddenly shouted. "You mean there are other ways to get to this sky sea? And one or two islands? You mean there's more than one Sky Island?"

"You mean that you-" The knight was interrupted by Robin saying that we rode the Knock-Up Stream here. "Riding that monstrous current? To think there are still souls brave enough to dare to do that."

"That's just a fracture of how bad-ass we are!" I cheered with Luffy.

"I knew it wasn't a normal route!" Nami cried and began to break our party time apart by yelling at Luffy. "I THOUGHT WE WERE GONNA DIE! IF WE'D GATHERED MORE INFORMATION WE WOULD'VE HAD AN EASIER TRIP!"

"That's Luffy alright. Once he makes a decision, we have no choice but to stay the course with stupid." I chuckled.

"Have you lost any of your crew?" The old man – who's name I still don't remember – asked us.

I raised my brow at him and looked under my pants. "Nope, all there."

"THAT'S NOT WHAT HE MEANT!" The pirates shouted at me with tick marks on their foreheads. The only one who didn't lost its composure was Robin who kept giggling. Something she did a lot today.

Even the old man cracked a small smile. "The other routes would not have been so merciful. If you had brought 100 people, it would be a gamble as to how many would survive. But by using the Knoch-Up Stream, either you all die or you all survive. There are few left willing to risk losing everything. Especially in recent years. I have great respect for your brave and trustworthy navigators."

I grew a bit jealous at that. "Oi, get your own student to compliment on! This ones mine!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He held his hands in a placating manner, but I could tell there was amusement shining in his eyes. "Remember, one whistle means blowing sharply into it. I will descend from Heaven itself to lend you aid. I normally ask 5,000,000 extols for future visits, but I shall give you one whistle as a present."

"Wait! We don't even know your name!" Nami shouted at his back. The old man didn't turn, but instead held the lance high in the air with his bird crying.

"I am the Knight of the Sky, Gan Fall. And this is my partner Pierre." What happened next was both hilarious and bizarre as hell. The bird transformed into a winged horse, Pegasus.

"That's one ugly horse." Daxter commented from my head.

"Brave souls, may luck be with you!"

"Who needs luck when you got these!" I shouted and made some weird poses with my muscles. It got Chopper and Robin into another fits of giggles. And soon enough, the ship was back to its normal pace with Sanji and Zoro arguing, the other three fighting over the whistle and Nami navigating us around.


"A gate?" Nami asked Luffy and Usopp after their little episode with the bouncing clouds.

"Yeah, there's a huge gate underneath that fall-looking thing." The Captain explained... or tried.

"Seems legit to me, let's go." I grinned as the ship started to twist and turn around the clouds.

"Ezekiel-kun," Nami reprimanded me. "we need to be careful. Gan Fall told us that there are lots of dangerous things in here."

"I don't remember him saying that." I deadpanned at her, but decided to let it go. No need to argue over a spilled milk. Even though said milk was a chocolate milk. "Hey, think we get to see a Sky cows?"

"Sky cow? What's that?" Luffy inquired.

"Well, we have Sea cows and regular cows down there. What would be the chance of meeting a Sky cow? I hope it milks chocolate milk. I've been craving that stuff for God know how long."

"Why do I keep following you?" Daxter groaned from my head. "Your a serious blow to my self-esteem that its not funny anymore."

"Dude, you hang out with us. You don't have a self-esteem."

"Touché. By the way, what did you do back there? Mock Town was it?"

"K&T one, two." I grinned at the memory.

"You tortu-!" I quickly clamped the ottsels mouth shut when the crew started to eavesdrop on us. It was supposed to be our code. K stands for Killed and the other Torture. What I meant was that I disposed of one and tortured two. That happened ever since the Baroque accident in Lisnor which sorta left me depressed for an entire week.

"What did you do?" Zoro asked with narrowed eyes.

"Nothing much, just chillin' and shit." I nerveously laughed, thankfully it was Nami who broke the staring contents between me and the swordsman. Otherwise it would've looked kinda gay.

"Guys! We made it through!" Nami informed us. The crew ran to the front deck to see a huge gate that resembled a sun. There was also a huge banner saying; Heaven's Gate.

"Heaven's gate? Am I dead?" I pinched my cheeks with both hands. "I don't fell dead. If this is what its like to be dead then being dead sucks!"

"Huh? We're dead!" Chopper looked at me with those shark-like teeth and wide eyes anime-characters do whenever their shocked or angry.

"Well, that would certainly account for all the weird stuff here." Sanji lighted his cigarette with Luffy screaming in the background.

"I don't see my 72 virgins..." I grumbled with my arms crossed.

"The hell? Where did you get that idea?" Usopp gave me a glance to see if I'm okay. Not that I minded the bromance here and now, but he was literally invading my personal space. So to correct that, I flickered his forehead and chuckled seeing him fall down on the deck.

"I wonder if we get a tour to Hell. There's bound to be funtime there."

"Why do you want to go to Hell?" Robin inquired, smiling as she took a spot near the ships rail I lounged.

"Have a tea party with Lucifer, swim in the River Styx with Hades and roast marshmallow in the lowest level of Dante's Inferno while singing Rick Astley's hits." I sarcatically remarked. "Maybe I'll get whipped with a flail by Osiris by the end of the day."

"Look over there! Someone's coming out!" Sanji pointed forward to one of the doors where an elderly lady was taking pictures of us. I jumped on the rail and made another patch of ridiculous poses for her to take while tensing my muscles.

Just so you know, I was still shirtless.

"The life of a supermodel is hard." I grinned and waved at the woman. "Take all you want! There's more where these come from!"

"Look! On her back!" Chopper pointed at the old woman. "W-Wings!"

I looked closer at her and lo and behold. There was a pair of short, white wings on her back.

"An angel!" Luffy gaped at her. "So that's a real angel? She looks like a prune!"

"Oi! Obaachan, are you my virgin?"

BAM!

"Stop. Asking. Stupid. Questions! You damned nutbar!" Nami gritted her teeth. I could only scowl at her. Seems like she increased her training time, a lot.

"You should give more respect to your handsome sensei." I grumbled and this time dodged he fist. "Well, I can understand how people can't get enough of me, but, it's for their own good really."

"I am the appointed lookout of Heaven's Gate, Amazon." The old lady Amazon introduced herself.

"Hi! My name's Vane, Ezekiel Vane. I like long walks on the beach and eating puddings while walking long walks on the beach. My horoscope's pisces. I dislike scorpions, magnets and people who disapprove the mechanics of quantum psychics. Not that it'll happen, but you can never be too sure about that."

"What are you doing?" Nami asked with a rapidly increading tick mark on her head.

I tilted my head to the side in confusion. "I thought this was somekind of interview. And being the devoted supermodel that I am. I have to give information about my status to my fans."

"Why do I bother?" She exaggerately sighed in defeat.

"Are you here for sightseeing or fighting?" Amazon asked.

"S-Sightseeing would be closer, I guess..."

Luffy perked up at that, "We wanna go to Sky Island! Sky Island's on the other side of this gate, right?"

"What do you mean, fighting?" A rather enthusiastic Zoro asked with a grin.

"It doesn't matter which you choose. Just pay the immigration fee, 1,000,000,000 per person, and be on your way. That's the law."

"1-1,000,000,000!" Usopp shrieked and took several steps back in fear.

"There's that extol thing again." Sanji said with a sigh, seemingly not caring about all of this.

"No matter what it is, 1,000,000,000's gotta be a lot!" Our doctor voice out.

"Does it help that we blackmail the old fossil for the picture she took?"

"How is that going to help us?" Luffy asked me.

"I could always sue her wrinkly old ass. No one takes pictures of me and shows it around to people who might take advantage of my vulnerability." I shivered at the fact that some old women start drooling after me. "I can't let that happen. I have to preserve my image."

"Whatever," Usopp shook his head. "Why does it cost that much to enter? That old granny must have her wires crossed-!" His mouth was clasped shut by the Greed incarnate Nami.

"Excuse me, but about the money. If by some chance we didn't have enough?"

"But we-!" My words were cut of by our navigators other hand clasping my mouth shut. "How greedy do you have to be?" Amazon then told us that we can pass or not and that it was our decision not hers. She said that she's not a guardian nor a warrior. "No kidding."

"Yeah! Let's go to Sky Island! We don't have any money, but we're going through, Obaachan!" Luffy shouted, not really caring about the death glare Nami sent at him.

"I see! Nine of you, yes?" Amazon asked and snapped her old fingers with a loud 'snap'. Seconds later, two huge crab pincers grabbed the areas where the Flying Merry's wings and hoisted us up. I heard Amazon mumble something about Speedy Shrimps. The giant crustacean then sped up towards the Milky Road.

"The things fast, I'll give it that much." I nodded while trying to get out of Nami's death grip on my arm. Not that I minded the extra attention, but I really need the blood flowing through it. "Why do I have this feeling that were being screwed by the old woman."

"Your just being paranoid!" Nami yelled to my ear.

"Remember what happened last time I was paranoid?" A silence greeted us when I said that. "Thought as much."

"*sigh* Just... don't get us killed."

"When have I ever?" I feigned mock hurt which got her to giggle.


[To Be Continued]


Woo! Another fast update and we finally broke the 300k mark! Not that I'm on a roll, just extremely bored.

Anyway... leave a review and all that! Otherwise I'll sent Whiskers to your door and force you to write.