Chapter 4
Marineford, an island made of stone and steel, home to the headquarters of Navy and thousands of marines of all ranks, from powerful admirals to a common seaman recruit serving under them, it was one of safest places in the whole world. Situated almost at the center of the world, at any given time thousands of marine officers were stationed on the island. It was a symbol of peace and center of power of the forces of good.
But in the coming week, for a day at least if experts were to be believed, that was going to change, this place was going to be the battlefield of an all out war between the whole might of marines and the great pirate Whitebeard, whom many refered to as the King of the seas, strongest man in the world, greatest pirate of this era, etc among many other titles. Whenever that moment came, this island would no longer be 'one of the safest places in the world' but rather 'one of the deadliest places' to be at. And both sides were preparing accordingly, no one knew what Whitebeard was up to but anybody who was somebody in the Marines had started gathering on the island in response to the summons from headquarters. The civilians of the island were being evacuated to a safe place for the time being, extra cannons were already installed around the marineford bay as a security measure. The general public of the world however, had no idea of the impending war which would probably change the world in some significant way, no matter which side won. Newspapers announcing the capture of 'Fire Fist' Ace along with time and date of his execution would be distributed very soon.
This was the second day of preparations, three large marine ships were taking civilian residents of the island, mainly families of marine officers, away to a safe location, the evacuation was supposed to be completed that very evening by the order of Fleet Admiral Sengoku. Petty officers and seaman recruits were tasked with overseeing the process, each one had a pad in their hands and were keeping track of everyone that was leaving or arriving at the bay. It was a mundane and thankless job but someone had to do it.
"Okay, that was the last of it, ship number three is ready." Mike, one of the petty officer said as he checked the list in his hands. His partner for the day waved a green flag for the crew on board and the ship began to move.
"How many does that make it now?"
"We aren't even halfway done yet," Mike said as he took a seat on a nearby bench in the mostly empty plaza, there was some time until the next ship was ready to be boarded with civilians.
"Man I wish I could go with one of those ships," Bill sat beside his friend.
"Go ahead, you'll be court-martialed, have fun living life on the run then." Mike replied, not even looking at him.
"Do you always have to shit on my dreams?" Bill whined.
"Delusions don't count as dreams my friend."
"Whatever," Bill said as he leaned back on the bench and closed his eyes to catch a quick nap on the job. Just as he closed his eyes, Mike shook him so hard he almost fell off the bench. "Ahh you don't let me whine, you don't let nap, you're a crappy friend!"
"Stup up and look," he pointed at the bay, "Is that guy seriously coming here rowing a life boat?"
Bill followed the direction of the finger and spotted a small lifeboat with a blond guy rowing it towards the plaza. He shrugged and closed his eyes once again, "Who cares? Maybe he was in a ship wreck or something."
"Can't you do your job seriously for once?! I hope Whitebeard gets you first when the battle starts," Mike muttered the latter part under his breath and picked up his binoculars to look closer at the lifeboat, the guy didn't seem like he was through anything like a ship wreck, his black shirt looked pristine and the orange pants didn't have even a drop of water on them to suggest some unfortunate accident at the sea. But that did raise a question in the dutiful marine's mind, Why was that guy coming to Marineford? Was he a resident here? He'd been doing this job for half a decade now and he'd never seen that guy on island before. Was he a marine? Mike decided to ask him directly. It'd be really bad if the blond guy were with the enemy and he just let him walk on the island on his watch. Mike simply got up and walked near the place where the blond was tying up his lifeboat.
"Hey, you there!" Mike spoke in a loud and what he hoped was intimidating tone, "Who are you? State your name and what business you have here."
Naruto finished tying up the boat and turned to face the marine, "Hi," he said with a cheery smile, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, nice to meet you!" Naruto extended his hand.
"Yeah, nice name. What business do you have here?" Mike said, accepting the brief handshake.
Naruto lowered his hand, "I came to join the Marines." he grinned.
The marine simply laughed when he heard that, "Trust me kid, you don't wanna be here."
Naruto just looked at him with blank expression, "And why is that?"
"Oh that's right, the news hasn't reached the papers yet."
"What news?" Naruto was confused. That seemed to happen to him a lot in this world.
"The Navy is going to war with Whitebeard pirates. Trust me kid, you don't wanna be anywhere near here when Whitebeard shows up."
"Whitebeard?! One of the Emperors? But why would the Navy go to war with him now? And why would he come here?"
"You ask too many questions." the marine noticed a frown on Naruto's face, "If you are really that desperate to join us then come back after the war, if the Navy survives. The HQ doesn't have time to even register you right now, they are busy preparing for war."
"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind. Can I stay here for a little bit? My arms are sore from rowing that boat."
"Yeah, sure. Rest up, but get as far away from this place as soon as possible." Mike said as he noted down his name on a piece of paper.
"Thanks." Naruto said as he walked towards the town.
Naruto walked along the main street of the town towards the huge building that had the kanji for 'Marine' on it, he was pretty certain that was the headquarters building, considering it was the largest building he could see and practically dwarfed every other structure on the island. It had huge walls that seperated it from the rest of the town and left only top three floors visible from the outside. The floors had large glass pane windows on them.
The streets were very thinly populated, he'd seen a large ship leave as he coming towards island he didn't think of it much then but now he realised that it was probably an evacuation vessel.
"What do you think?" he said in his mind as he walked past the closed doors of various houses.
"This is good, they're going to war so they won't have many people guarding their records. We can sneak in and sneak out."
"I doubt it. If they are even slightly competent they'll have some other arrangement. Maybe traps in the room or something."
Kurama thought about what he said for a few seconds, "Now that you pointed it out, do you think they moved their archives to a safe location on one of those ships?"
Naruto stopped in his tracks. That was indeed a possibility, and Naruto had not thought about that. If this island was going to be a battlefield then it made sense for the Navy to move their valuable belongings somewhere else. Naruto's response upon coming to that realisation was simple and elegant,"Shit!" he cursed and resumed walking, "That will make things a lot difficult." he put his hands in his pocket, "But even then we can check out the other clues until we find new ones, it's not like we hoped to find some ancient scroll with all the information we need tied with a neat little ribbon, we always knew this mission was going to be a pain in the butt. We'll have to be patient with this."
"This is just the beginning, there's fishman island and Adam tree next. " Kurama reminded him of their potential leads.
"And then every other place that dates back more than a thousand years," Naruto said what Kurama had left unsaid. He let out a sigh.
By now he was pretty deep in the town and at the end of the street he could see the large iron gate decorated with a seagull. There were two guards on either side of the gate with a gun in their hands. They looked relaxed but straightened up once they saw him coming. Naruto saw them tense up but he kept walking. Once he was close enough the guy on the right held out his arm in an attempt to stop him from moving any further.
"Hold it, only authorised personnel can enter the headquarters."
Naruto stopped, "Hi, can you tell me who do I have to talk to about joining the Marines?" he made some pointless conversation with the men. He was only there to see the entrance to building, since he knew they wouldn't have time to recruit anyone anytime soon. There weren't as many guards as he thought there'd be, only two at the gate outside the building and two more at the main door, and that was it. 'I doubt the admirals and vice admirals need security, these guards are probably here to just keep watch.' he said to himself.
"This is the headquarters, you wanna find the administrative building two blocks from here. You passed it on your way here." The guard replied robotically.
Naruto looked at the pointed direction, "Thanks for the help." he smiled and left the guards to their job.
He made sure they saw him leave and turned around the corner. Instead of just returning to Sabaody empty handed when he found out that Marines won't recruit him for the time being, Naruto thought he'd do some reconnaissance on the place he'd be infiltrating as he was already on Marineford. He wanted to see the daily routine of people at HQ, which floor had the most people, which places were mostly ignored, etc. He could have stopped nearby the HQ to do this but that would have looked suspicious if someone happened to see him. They were on the brink of war so they'd be extra alert, Naruto didn't want to make the job harder for himself if he could help it.
A few of the houses in that street were empty, he chose one that had clear view of the headquarters. It was a good five story building with each floor belonging to a different family. He read the nameplates beside each door as he climbed the stairs. Once he reached the top floor, the locked door blocked his way in the apartments. Naruto crouched down near the lock, he gathered some chakra in his right palm and changed it's nature to make fine sand out of it. The small cloud of sand hovered in his hand, he mentally manipulated the sand as it moved inside the lock and filled up the notches and hardened itself, with a wave of his finger the make-shift key turned clockwise and he heard a telltale 'click' of the lock opening. 'Gotta love magnet release!' Naruto smiled and opened the door.
It was a nice two bedroom apartment, most of the furniture was still there but the family had taken what they could with them when they left. There were square spots on the walls where he assumed the family's photos were previously hung. He crossed the living room and entered the kitchen, the pantry was empty as expected, but the appliances were still there. He entered one of the two bedrooms, it was nothing special except it had a balcony in the direction of headquarters, that was all he needed. Naruto moved the glass door and dragged a beanbag chair out on the balcony from the bedroom and plopped down on it, the parapet wall would block the view if anyone from the headquarters happened to gaze in his direction. 'Time to get to work,' Naruto cracked his knuckles and entered sage mode.
He extended his senses and focused on the building, the top floor was almost empty with only two people there. The floor below it had a lot more people on it, and the number only increased as he went down, but the bottom floor had just one person. That was strange, he was certain he saw two guards by the door of the ground floor. Naruto opened his eyes and took out his binoculars, when he looked through it, he saw that the guards hadn't moved from their earlier spot when he last saw them. That meant, there was a floor beneath the ground floor, where he sensed chakra of a person from. That could be the storage room, he guessed. Naruto turned his gaze towards the top floor, he made a half tiger sign with his free hand and gathered the necessary chakra,
"Sage art: Transparency Jutsu!"
Naruto's body became completely transparent, not even an outline was visible to give away his position, and since he was using sage mode he was one with the nature around him i.e. invisible to all sensors except those that could sense nature energy, and he was damn sure there was no one around that could use senjutsu. Only downside of this technique was you had to stay in your spot, if you move the jutsu would no longer be effective and only divide your attention instead of being useful. Jiraiya had originally developed this for his 'research' but Naruto couldn't deny the usefulness of the technique. True, he could have snuck in instead of spying like this, but there was a high chance there might be some high level surveillance system for a place as important as the HQ, like invisible barriers around the premises that would alert someone inside of the presence of a intruder, like the ones around Konoha. When he was younger, he would have charged in without a second thought but he was little more experienced now and the training for sage mode on Mount Myoboku helped calm his impulsiveness a lot. There was no need for unnecessary risks right then, he could come back once everyone was fighting in the war or wait till the war was over and get the information he needed as one of them. If the war dragged on, he could check out other places in the meantime.
Naruto sat still in that place for a while, he had until four in the afternoon till he was supposed to back on the archipelago; after Desire had told him there was one more shop that operated once every month, one of his clones went to find out more about it. The auction was going to start at four that day, he thought about burning down that slave shop before any sort of auction could even take place but he knew they'd just set up shop somewhere else, he had to know who exactly was behind it to get rid of it once and for all. People around there unsurprisingly didn't know who owned the shop, just that a man named Disco ran it for someone very powerful. Sadly he couldn't find Disco anywhere last night so he had to wait until today to get some answers. And while he waited, Naruto figured he'd do something productive. He looked through his binoculars and observed the people of headquarters through the glass pane windows.
Meanwhile Top Floor- Marineford HQ, Fleet Admiral Sengoku's Office
"Close that damn book, will ya?! Who cares if there's another magma user!" Garp said for the third time that day. Ever since Kuma came back with the report from the Thriller Bark, Sengoku had been constantly trying to find out what devil fruit had the ability of magma other than Akainu's fruit. Since he was yet find anything, it was adding on the stress he already had. On top of that, not only did Kuma fail to eliminate the Straw Hats like he was asked to do but brought back a worrying news instead.
"Be serious for once, Garp. This is a big deal, we haven't even heard rumours of someone with that power other than Akainu. What if this is someone like that Blackbeard?" Sengoku knew very well how destructive Sakazuki's devil fruit was, a power like that in the hands of someone completely unknown worried him.
"You mean amassing power under the radar and looking for an opportunity to strike?" Garp said as he opened the packet of rice crackers that was sitting on Sengoku's desk. "Rice cracker?" he offered.
Sengoku didn't even acknowledge the offer of snack and kept reading the encyclopedia. "Whoever this guy was, he helped the Straw Hats, it's safe to assume he's not with us. On top of that, after seeing him in action Kuma became wary enough to decide against fighting him."
"Or he just didn't just want to risk his neck for us," Garp added with a shrug.
"Could be," Sengoku said. "I hope whoever this is remains under the radar, but that'd be me being too optimistic, chances are he's already put a Jolly Roger on his ship and tormenting innocent civilians somewhere on the grand line as we speak." the fleet admiral greet his teeth.
"Another lawless scumbag on the sea." Garp chuckled dryly. "Even in death Roger managed to pull one over us! If it weren't for his last words, so many young men wouldn't turn to piracy!"
"Your grandson is also becoming a pain in the ass, Garp. His first mate injured Moria to the point where he won't be able to fight in the war with his full strength, Moria only barely got away alive." Sengoku said, not taking his eyes away from the book in his hands.
"Did you really expect a pirate to be reliable?!" Garp asked rhetorically as he ate away his friend's snacks. Their mutual dislike of pirates, even warlords wasn't a secret, after a lifetime of fighting them both Garp and Sengoku simply didn't trust pirates. But for the time being the seven warlords were the necessary evil.
"It doesn't make sense!" Sengoku slammed the book shut in frustration, "No two devil fruits are the same, no one else should have the power of magma other than Akainu!"
"Maybe you're overthinking it. It could be something simple that you overlooked, aren't there a bunch of heat based fruits? Maybe it's one of them." Garp felt pity for his friend who was already under a lot of stress and tried to be helpful for once.
"Maybe." Sengoku agreed absently, "Urgh I can't waste my time on ghosts, I have a war to prepare for." Sengoku got up from his chair and paced around his office.
With Naruto
After observing the HQ for a while, Naruto decided he had seen enough and got up from his position. Naruto jumped from rooftop to rooftop, making sure to not make any sound and staying out of sight of the few residents that remained in that area. He stopped on the building he'd seen earlier and the guards told him was the administrative building. There weren't many people there either, he sensed a few that he assumed were either guards or keepers of the archive.
Naruto opened the only door on the roof that led to the stairwell, it wasn't locked or anything. He moved quickly and stealthily and came across a door of top floor, he sensed someone approaching from the opposite side of the closed door. Naruto jumped and clung to the ceiling with his feet, standing upside down he once again made himself transparent. A moment later, an old man in navy uniform and large spectacles came out of the room, he had a buch of files in his hands. The old man closed the door behind him and locked it before he left, whistling a merry tune as he went downstairs. Naruto jumped down, quiet as a cat and dropped his cloaking jutsu. From the files the old man had in his hands, there was high chance that this room was the one he was looking for. Making wonderful use of his magnet release for second time that day, he opened the lock.
Before going in though, he stopped for a moment, 'what if there are video transponder snails keeping watch?!' he wondered to himself. He didn't want to get caught on video tape while snooping in a Marine facility, that would make a very bad impression. Luckily, he had a perfect solution to this problem, Naruto channeled chakra all over his body and transformed into the guy he met at the plaza earlier that day. Satisfied with his look, Naruto walked in like he owned the place. There were five huge shelves that spanned the length of the large room and almost reached the ceiling, all five were stacked with files. Out of the five, two were for the Marines and the rest had files on pirates. Naruto chose to look into the files of marines first.
There he learnt that the people he saw earlier in the HQ were admirals, the one with long curly hair, white suit and a sleep mask on his forehead, Aokiji was sleeping in his office. Another one in yellow striped suit with short black hair and orange tinted glasses, Kizaru spent most of his morning clipping his nails and sipping tea or coffee, Naruto wasn't sure what was in the cup. Their behaviour might have made someone to consider them incompetent or lazy, but Naruto knew better, back home it was like an unspoken rule that the stronger you are the quirkier you became. His own sensei had a notoriously laid back attitude and another was a super pervert.
The older puffy haired guy on the top floor was Fleet Admiral Sengoku and the gray haired man with him was Monkey D. Garp, the Hero of the Marines. There was a profile on another Admiral, one named Akainu aka Sakazuki, Naruto didn't get to see him in the building, maybe his office was on the other side, he thought. There were other notable names as well, like vice admirals Strawberry, Momonga, Vergo, Tsuru, Bastille, Tokikake and Gion among many others. He had heard rumours and whispers about these guys but this was the first time he saw the faces to put with the names. The profiles didn't have much information on them, only the basics, it didn't even include if they had a devil fruit or not. He didn't bother to check the files on anyone below vice admiral level.
Next he moved to the pirate section. There was a label on one of the shelves that said 'the four emperors of the sea'. Naruto wasted no time in picking out the files from that. He took out his bingo book and began writing in it- first was Kaido, King of the Beasts, also called the 'Strongest Creature in the World', and his commanders the three calamities and Tobi roppo. Next was 'Big Mom' Charlotte Linlin, her crew mainly consisted of her many children as her subordinates. At first Naruto thought, he misread the number, but upon checking a second and third time, it ready did say she had eighty five children. 'Holy crap! She really is a big mom!' he read it but he didn't believe it at first. How could anyone have eighty five children?! The file didn't have information on all eighty five siblings, only those that were officers in her crew. Then he read the name of 'Red-Haired' Shanks, who was recognised as an emperor only four years ago. It mentioned that the Red-haired pirates were the most balanced of the four emperor crews. And last was the name he was hearing so much recently, 'Whitebeard' Edward Newgate, who was labelled as the 'Strongest man in the world'. The file also went on to say that he was the man closest to becoming the pirate king and had large territories of the New World under his flag. His large crew was split in sixteen divisions, each one led by a division commander. By the time he was done, his whole bingo book was filled to the brim and he had to write in a new one. Time flew by as Naruto continued write down the information. Finding such valuable information just lying about in the archieves proved that the Marines indeed had a lot of information that'd be useful to him. Now he just needed to be a little patient.
After he finished writing down his bingo book, Naruto left the administrative building the way he came. He spent a lot more time there than he expected because he didn't use any clones to help him. Once back on the roof, Naruto hopped from one building to another as headed straight for the archipelago.
Sabaody Archipelago- Grove 24
With Zoro-
"WAAH!! WHY DID MY BROTHER DIE?!!" a little pink haired girl wailed as she tackled him to the ground. Zoro stayed silent out of pure surprise, 'where did she come from?!' he wondered. She had tackled him in the middle of his attack, of course he wasn't going all out or anything, far from it, but still he'd never have imagined that a child would catch him before he could slice open the guy that pulled a gun on him. "Did you cross a celestial dragon? Then of course you'd get killed!!" the little girl said between sobs and then wailed loudly.
A few feet away, an obese man in a white suit, a skirt that reached his ankles and a bubble helmet on his head looked on in confusion, "Did I hit him?! For a moment, I thought he dodged it." he said. "Well...if he's dead, then it's okay." he shrugged and walked away, dragging one beat up young man in torn up clothes and two ladies in revealing dancer outfits who had collars around their necks. One man in black suit and black sunglasses, two others in metal armours followed him dutifully.
When the man in white suit was out of earshot, the little girl let go of him at once and stood with both hands on her hips, in what he called 'the bossy pose', she was glaring at him. "Why did you interfere?!" Zoro said as he began sit up. He noticed there was some liquid spilt on his shirt and his face. He touched it with his finger and tasted it, 'tomato ketchup?'
"DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT INTERFERING, MORON!" the girl screamed in his face. "JUST WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?! YOU WANT TO BRING DOWN AN ADMIRAL ON US! I THOUGHT WE PIRATES HAD AN UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT!!"
In the middle of her screaming in his ear, Zoro noticed that her voice sounded like it belonged to an adult, he looked up at her, "Wait, you're not a little kid!" he said in surprise. Seemingly ignoring all else she said so far. Which just infuriated the pink haired girl even more.
"Is your head okay?!" she said with barely controlled rage.
Zoro checked his head for a bump, he didn't find any, "I'm not hurt." he thought she asked if he was injured, if he'd paid more attention to her tone of speaking he'd have realised that she clearly wasn't.
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT, STUPID!" she yelled.
Zoro didn't care. He just got up and dusted his clothes. He noticed the guy that was shot earlier. He was breeding freely on the ground and nobody seemed to want to help him. Zoro walked over to the guy and picked him on his shoulder, "Is there a hospital nearby?" he asked the people around him.
"Why do you care? He's a complete stranger!" seemed like the girl's temper hadn't cooled off yet. Zoro continued to ignore the girl, one of onlookers pointed him in a general direction and Zoro walked away without saying a word.
"I give up!" the girl said in frustration, when she saw Zoro take the guy to the hospital, "Whoever heard of a pirate helping people?!"
With Naruto-
It was close to 4 O'clock when Naruto arrived on grove 61 in the district populated almost entirely by the Marines, he could even see the outline of marine base of grove 66 in the distance. He had to hurry if he wanted to make it to grove 1 before the auction was over and everyone went home before he even reached the place, he didn't know how long the slave auctions lasted. He didn't mean to be late, he just lost track of time looking up various marine official and checking out bounty posters of pirates in the archives, there wasn't much besides the basic info on marines and pirates there, no mission reports, not any information on any places of note. But the bounty posters of the Emperors did have a brief information about the territories they held.7 He was going to have to travel this whole world, that meant he'd eventually have to pass through the territories of these Emperors. If they turned out to be hostile, then it'd be useful to be prepared. In his mind he saw a chibi Kakashi reading Icha-Icha Tactics in one hand and one finger of the free hand held up, 'Shinobi rule no. 8- a shinobi must always be prepared'. He chuckled at his own imagination.
Naruto was running at high speeds towards grove 1, he wasn't used to his new clothes but he needed them for this particular occasion. More specifically, he needed a disguise. What he was planning on doing there would definitely make people notice him, so he had to hide his identity for the time being, he didn't want to be in hot water with the Marines, neither did he want unnecessary attention of pirates or anyone else; so he changed his look, he discarded his usual clothes in favor of black pants, black sleeveless shirt and a silver-grey flak jacket, a white porcelain mask in the likeness of a dog with red markings around the eyes, two horizontal curved lines on each cheek and a red line smiling in the place of his mouth, a long black hooded robe over his clothes completed his disguise. He could've used a simple transformation jutsu but one solid blow could dispel the transformation, if he happened to get in a fight, that wouldn't be any good. So he opted for the next best option- the ANBU gear, his sensei insisted he take it with him, just in case, and Naruto was glad that he did. It was Kakashi's own gear, from his ANBU days. When Naruto asked why he was receiving it, Kakashi only smiled (not that Naruto could see) and said, "I have a hunch that it'll be useful!" Kakashi's hunch was correct, 'Like always!' Naruto said to himself with a smile.
He made good time as he arrived in front of a relatively large building in grove 1 that said 'HUMAN'. There just outside the building, by the stairs, sat a huge man that towered over him even as he was sitting. He had a cruel looking face, his forehead had fire-like tattoos on it and a scar above his right eye. His clothes, Naruto could only describe as rags, and he had a collar around his neck that had a chain attached to it.
The huge man observed him silently as Naruto approached him. "Are you a slave?" Naruto asked once he stood in front of the man. He even changed his voice to that of a perfect copy of Kakashi's voice.
The man tugged his chain, making it rattle, "What do you think?" he asked back instead of simply answering.
'That was a stupid question, Uzumaki!' Naruto berated himself in his mind but kept a cool attitude outside. His new look made him look intimidating and cool, he wasn't going to ruin that by acting stupid. Without saying anything, he reached out to the ground with his chakra, what small dirt was there on the roots of the mangrove, he turned it into sand. The newly formed sand rose up at his command and filled the small hole in the collar around the man's neck. A moment later, the collar and the chain fell to the ground. The man checked around his neck with his hand like he wasn't sure of what just happened. If he was happy, his face didn't show it, he just maintained the same frowning look he had earlier.
"What's your name?" Naruto asked.
"Jean Bart." the man replied.
"I need a little help, Jean Bart." Naruto said.
"You took the collar off of me, I'll do anything for you." Jean Bart said in his rough voice as he stood up straight. Naruto had to tilt his head upwards to look at him now.
Naruto created two shadow clones, "Go with them around the building and stand by the back door, I'll be there after the auction is over. Try not to stand out." Jean Bart nodded and did as he was asked.
Naruto climbed the stairs of the auction house and walked in through the door. Looked like he wasn't the only recent arrival, two people in white suits, skirts and a bubble on their head were walking to the front rows of the seats, escorted by bowing men in pink clothes and frilly collars. They had a dog with them too, the dog also had a bubble around it's head.
Just then his attention went to a man to his right who was chuckling to himself. He had flaming red hair, pale skin, goggles on his forehead, he had a long black feathered coat draped on his shoulder, it had three golden spikes on each shoulder. Naruto recognised him instantly as Eustass Kid from the south blue, a man worth 315 million berry. Kid was leaning against a pillar flanked by three other men. One had long light blue hair and stitches on his mouth and chin. The tallest of the group wore a long headdress and a Jolly Roger on his chest, he had a bored almost lazy look on his face. The third one had vertically blue and white striped helmet with lots of holes, he had long blond hair that reached his lower back and some sort of arm guards on both his hands. Naruto knew him as well, that was 'Murder Machine' Killer, first mate of Kid pirates. Kid and his first mate, both were notorious for their body count, so much so that even Naruto had heard of their cruelty and he had just arrived in this world. Naruto thought about grabbing them by scuff of their necks and handing them over to the Marines, but the navy had a base not too far from there, they could do their job themselves, he thought. Plus what he heard next from the red haired man surprised him.
"Celestial dragons...! Slaves...human shops..." he heard Kid say, "Compared to the mighty and their 'pure hearts', the world's villains seem much more humane..." Kid let out a dark chuckle. "Scum rule the world and give birth to more scum. Don't they know that? We may mean to do harm, but we're sorta cute by comparison, aren't we Killer?"
"Definitely," Killer agreed with his captain.
They must have felt his gaze on them, because both Kid and Killer turned their heads to look at him. So far Naruto had been standing so quiet, no one would have known he was there if they hadn't turned his way. Naruto met their gaze and Kid grinned at him. Naruto didn't say anything to them and just took a seat in the last row, just a few feet away from the Kid pirates. What he heard from Kid had definitely gotten his attention, for a man that killed for fun to call himself 'cute by comparison', he didn't know what to think of that. 'What do these celestial dragons really do?' Naruto thought to himself. From what he heard the celestial dragons weren't exactly benevolent rulers, they seemed greedy and arrogant but he didn't know they were this bad. 'Scum rule the world and give birth to more scum,' these words kept ringing in his head. The way Kid said that, Naruto couldn't let it go even if he wanted to. When he heard those things about the celestial dragons when he first arrived, Naruto thought of them as typical kings whose money and title had made them arrogant, but now he had began to think that maybe there was something more to it, much more.
Naruto's attention was drawn towards the stage when multicolored lights began to shine and a man who was dressed like a clown came on the stage with a mic in his hands. "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience! The monthly human grand auction will now begin!!" The man yelled in the mic, "The auctioneer is of course this man! The walking super bazaar, Mr. Disco!"
Naruto watched closely as a man in long purple coat, silver hair, a pink hat and star-shaped goggles came on the stage. 'So that's Disco!' Naruto watched silently as people went sold like animals one by one. He half wanted to just go up there and beat the shit out of everyone, but he remained in his seat for the time being. He had already covered all exits, not a single person would leave that auction house as a slave, he'd make sure of it. Even in this world, slavery was frowned upon everywhere, except on Sabaody, here slavery was practiced openly, without fear of any repercussions whatsoever. Once he got rid of whoever that was pulling strings of Disco, it'll be over, at least he hoped it'd be over, and he could go back to wandering this world without having it weighing on his consciousness. If he had left it as it was, he definitely wouldn't have been able to sleep at night.
A dancer named Pasia of South blue was to be auctioned next. That was when the door to the auction house was opened and Naruto's attention was drawn to the familiar chakra signatures that entered the auction house, 'What are they doing here?!' Naruto was surprised to see the see Straw Hats at a place like this, 'Are they here to buy people too? Was I wrong to think there were nice people?' Naruto wondered. He saw Nami, Chopper, Sanji and Franky, they had a weird looking guy with bandage on his forehead and a starfish wearing a hat with them but their captain and Zoro were nowhere to be seen. The arrived Straw Hats stood only a few feet away from him.
Just a few minutes later, the door of the auction house opened once again, this time a fat man in a white suit and a bubble helmet walked in, he had a chain in his hand that was connected to the collars of two young ladies in rather revealing dancer's clothes and net half masks from the nose down, they were followed by a man in dark suit and goggles and two guards in metal armours. 'Another celestial dragon!' Naruto watched the fat man walk to the front and take a seat beside the other celestial dragons. 'I'll deal with them in a little while,' he said to himself.
Naruto once again turned his attention back on the stage, people were getting sold one by one, a pirate captain that was about to be sold committed suicide on the stage by biting his own tongue. They hastily pulled the curtains after that and tried to play it off as a nosebleed.
"Ladies and gentleman, the product I'm about to introduce will make you forget this trouble in no time!!" Disco said in the mic, "It's our greatest star attraction!!" Just then, all the lights were dimmed and a silhouette appeared on the curtains behind Disco. "Behold this silhouette!! I know many of you have desired one of these! I won't say anymore, see for yourself!!"
When he saw the silhouette, Naruto was very glad that he had a mask on his face, otherwise people would have seen his slacked jaw. 'Holy crap that's a mermaid!!' In the tank, there was a green haired girl in a t-shirt that was fish from waist down, with pink scales and evrything. He'd found out a little about fishman island and knew there were mermaids living at the bottom of the ocean but this was the first time he was seeing one. Even though he knew they existed, seeing one for real was something else. He'd only heard about them in legends back home and in stories when he came here. He wasn't the only one awed by the mermaid, as soon as the silhouette appeared, the entire hall began to murmur excitedly. From the corner of his eyes, Naruto saw the Straw Hats tense up. Like they were afraid or nervous. 'Do they know that mermaid?' Naruto wondered.
As soon as the mermaid was revealed, the fat man Naruto saw earlier stood up in his seat, "I BID 500 MILLION!! FIVE HUNDRED MILLION BERRIES!!!" the man yelled excitedly. The auction hall was abruptly silenced with that. 'You won't get even a hair of that mermaid if I have anything to say about it," Naruto said in his mind. A few moments of silence passed over the hall when nobody even made a peep.
"Time's up!! Today's star attraction Camie the mermaid goes to the world noble saint Charlos for 500 million berries!" Disco announced. No one else even attempted to bid against such a high amount.
Naruto heard Kid chuckle, "That's how the world works. What a farce. Let's go," Kid said.
Before he could move and grab the door though, it was blasted off it's hinges by something crashing in it at very high speed. That something turned out to be a screaming Luffy riding a fish alongside Zoro and some other guy, Naruto didn't know who the third one was.
"Couldn't you land a little better?" Luffy yelled at the man as soon as he got out of the wreckage.
"No! It's a flying fish! You said to dive in!!" the other man yelled back.
They had caused a ruckus and drawn everybody's attention, the hall began to murmur once again. Luffy saw the mermaid and smiled wide, "Camie, I was looking for you! I'm so glad I found you!!" Luffy made to run towards the stage but the weird looking guy that Naruto saw earlier come with Nami and the others tried to hold him back.
"No, stop Straw hat Luffy! What are you going to do?" the guy was saying.
"I'm gonna save Camie!!" Luffy tried to break free of the hold.
'So they are here to save that mermaid! Thanks for proving me right Straw Hat!' Naruto smiled behind the porcelain mask.
In their struggle, Luffy dragged the guy who was holding onto him tightly to the front with him and finally managed to get free. When Luffy ran for the stage, the guy that was trying to hold him slipped and revealed four more arms. They looked like arms of a octopus to Naruto. 'He must be from the fishman island too,' Naruto guessed.
As soon as people saw those extra octopus like hands, they began to freak out, some ladies started to scream while the men tried to get away from the octopus guy.
"A fishman how disgusting!!" someone shrieked.
"Why is a fish-man on land?!"
"Yuck! Why is he that colour?! Why does he have so many arms?!" one of the ladies there scrunched up her nose.
"I'm scared! I'm scared of their existence! Don't get any closer!!" another one cried.
"Go back to the sea, monster!" a random man yelled.
Naruto watched as the poor octopus guy tried to shirk away from everyone's gazes, his heart went out for the guy. Nobody deserved to be treated like a monster just for being different. The yelling and screaming was stopped momentarily with the sound of a gun shot. The stupid looking fat guy had a gun out and the octopus man was bleeding on the ground. The fat man dancing around the wounded guy.
"Hachi!!" he heard Nami yell from the sides, the straw hats had a look of horror on their faces, Nami had her hands to her mouth, Sanji seemed like he had forgotten there was a lit cigarette in his mouth. On the stage, the mermaid was beating away at the tank she was in, trying to somehow get free from there.
"Mwa ha ha ha I killed him! I killed the fish-man!" He started dancing on the spot like a overgrown child. Instead of feeling sympathy for a dying man, the people threw some more insulting comments his way, even going so far as to thanking the fat man for shooting him. Naruto decided he'd seen enough, he got up from his seat and began to walk down the stairs. At the same time, he saw Luffy coming up the stairs with murder in his eyes. Naruto slowed his pace to see what he would do, if he really had the guts to stand up to the celestial dragon for his friend, afterall crossing them was as good as summoning an admiral of the navy. After a brief conversation with the downed octopus man, Luffy did not disappoint him and proceeded towards the celestial dragon. The octopus man and the starfish were yelling at Luffy to stop, if he heard them he gave no sign of obliging. The celestial dragons tried to shoot Luffy as well but before he could move his finger to pull the trigger, Luffy's fist connected with his face and the celestial dragon was thrown across the auction hall and into the wall behind the last row.
Luffy turned to his friends and grinned apologetically, "Sorry guys, now that I punched him, a navy admiral will be here with battleships!"
Zoro who had almost drawn his own Shusui, sheathed it back, "Because you beat him first, I didn't get the chance to slice him."
Nami ran towards the downed Hachi to check up on him. Sanji just smiled and lit up a cigarette.
"We basically have no choice now," Franky pointed out the obvious.
"I think the keys to Camie's collar are somewhere in the back. You go get it, I'll tend to Hachi's wounds." Chopper said as he too made towards Hachi.
"Charlos/ Brother Charlos!!" Naruto heard the two celestial dragons yell from their seats near the stage. "How dare you lowly commoners touch my son!"
"He made the celestial dragons mad! Run!" The people began to scream and tried to get out of the auction hall as quick as they could. It was chaos in the hall, people were running around trying to get to the closest exit.
The older celestial dragon pulled out his gun. "We're descended from the creators of this world! You'll see what happens when you mess with us!" He pulled his gun, but before he even knew what happened Sanji ran over to him and kicked it out of his hands.
"The brat has guts," Naruto heard Kurama say in his mind.
'Told you they were nice people!' Naruto smiled. He felt intense gaze on him, he turned his attention a few rows to the left, there he saw Trafalgar Law sitting with his crew seemingly enjoying himself if his grin was anything to go by. There was a polar bear in orange track suit with him and two other guys in white tracksuits and hats, one of the hats said 'Penguin'. Naruto changed his course and instead of going to the front, he went towards the the celestial dragon that was knocked out cold by Luffy. Naruto put a hand in his right pocket of his cloak and took out a small dark blue-green coloured toad with cream coloured legs and underbelly. The toad jumped from his hand and landed on the floor.
"Revert to your original size," Naruto told the toad. In an instant the small toad became fifteen feet tall and towered above everyone else present nearby. That was when he got the memories of one his clones, the two shadow clones had freed all the slaves that were in the cells and all that had been auctioned had their collars removed as well. The remaining shadow clone and Jean Bart were escorting the freed people to a nearby port with the help of another giant named Stansen. There was an old man with Stansen who declined the offer to come with the shadow clone and decided to stay back instead. He gave off the vibe of a hardened warrior, even though he tried to portray himself as an old man, he had multiple battle scars and was always on guard, Naruto noticed that almost instantly. The shadow clone let the old man be, thinking he could protect himself.
Naruto finished processing all the information he got and returned his attention once again to the task at hand. Four people in heavy metal armours ran towards him with spears in hands. "Stay away from saint Charlos!" one of them yelled.
Just as they got within ten feet of him, his toad swatted them away with a powerful swing of his tongue. The guards were sent flying away, knocked out cold. The noise drew attention of everyone that remained in the hall. "Take him with us," Naruto said to the toad. The giant toad wrapped its tongue around the unconscious celestial dragons and, in full view of everyone present there, swallowed him whole.
Naruto heard Eustass Kid's loud laughter among audible gasps. The straw hats were busy fighting off the guards, Zoro had already cut open the tank the mermaid was in. In the middle of the chaos another flying fish came crashing through the side of the wall. This time it was Robin, Brook and Usopp, Robin glided down with the help of wings made of hands, Brook was able to land gently because he was so light, but Usopp landed butt first on the older celestial dragon, driving him into the ground. Naruto almost laughed out at the comical scene. But sobered up when he saw the girl celestial dragon and Disco walk towards the mermaid, the girl had a gun in her hand.
Naruto jumped on the head of his summons, "Let's go save the mermaid," he said. The toad obeyed and crossed the auction in a single jump to land on the stage, near the mermaid's tank. The toad wrapped it's tongue around the girl and held her place.
"How dare you inferior creatures touch a god?!! I'm the descendant of the creators of the world! Unhand me at once you filthy frog!!" she yelled at him and tried to break free of the tongue.
"A god huh? Interesting, we'll have to talk more. But first," Naruto turned his eyes to Disco who gulped and backed away. Naruto hopped down from the toad, "Disco, mind answering a simple question for me?"
"O-Of course," Disco said with a shaky voice.
Naruto walked closer and put a hand on Disco's shoulder, who was startled by the sudden movement, "Good man. Tell me, who owns this shop?"
"Mr. Doflamingo!" Disco said at once. In his eyes, the guy in the black cloak and white mask was insane, he had no problem lifting a hand on even a celestial dragon, just like the Straw Hats, he didn't want to see what he would to someone like him.
"The warlord?" Naruto tilted his head.
"Y-Yes. There's his Jolly Roger, see," Disco pointed out a crossed out smiley on the wall behind the stage.
'I had no idea that was a Jolly Roger, don't they usually have a skull and bones?' Naruto said in his mind. "Thank you! One more thing, from this day on, this slave shop will be closed forever."
"But Mr. Doflamingo will be angry with me if I close down this shop," Disco tried to protest but a small dose of killing intent his way made him shut his mouth.
"Like I said, this shop will be closed forever. If not, I'll kill everyone involved here, starting with you!"
"Mr. Doflamingo will not accept that lying down," the man tried to low-key threaten Naruto.
"Then that'll be the last mistake of his life. Pass along my message." Disco nodded. "One more thing," Naruto said. Before Disco could say 'what' Naruto punched him in the face hard enough to break his jaw.
"Unhand me at once you filth!" the girl screamed once again.
"You shout too much." Naruto said in an even tone. "Take her with us as well." he said and the toad swallowed her as well.
With that done his toad shrunk to the size small enough to fit in his pocket. Naruto then turned his attention towards the mermaid's tank which was sliced open by Zoro a few seconds ago. When she saw him coming towards her, the mermaid got scared and tried to get as far away from him in the tank as possible.
Just then, the wall behind the stage was blasted open and he felt some powerful chakra radiated in a wave for a brief second. Many people that were fighting in the hall fainted because of the wave of chakra. From the hole in the wall, the old man his shadow clone met earlier in the cells walked in.
"My, there's absolute chaos in here!" the old man said with a grin and took a swig from his flask. "Sorry boys, you're just pirates here for the show. But seeing how you withstood that, you're all quite strong!" the old man said looking at Law and Kid pirates. "Hello again, I thought you'd left?!" the old man said to Naruto.
"I had some business to take care of," he answered. Naruto turned to the mermaid, she was still frightened of him it seemed, his appearance didn't help the matter either the dark cloak and grinning dog mask made him look scary to normal people. He put up his hands to show her that he meant no harm. The old man and everyone else was looking at him curiously. "I can take the collar off of you!" he said and extended an arm. After a couple of seconds of hesitation, Camie took the offered hand. Naruto pulled her out of the tank, supporting her with his one arm, seeing as she had no legs to stand on. He quickly formed some sand with his chakra and filled the keyhole of the collar. A moment later, the collar dropped to the ground with a clank. Before she could say anything, Naruto lifted the mermaid in his hands and body flickered over to the Straw Hats.
"Thanks mister!" Luffy said with a grin.
"No problem," Naruto replied in even tone, "They're your friends right?" he asked Camie. He got a brief nod from her as confirmation. "Then I'll leave you to them." He said as he put the mermaid on a seat by his right hand. Seeing as he had done what he was there to do, Naruto decided to leave. "Do you guys need any help getting away?" Naruto asked looking at Robin. She was pretty important for his mission, it would be very unfortunate if something were to happen to her. He didn't know if there was anyone else that could help him in this world.
"Nah, we can handle ourselves! We are not gonna get captured!" Luffy said as he adjusted his hat. Robin just raised a delicate eyebrow as he seemed to ask her specifically, like he wanted something from her. She became immediately on guard. Naruto nodded but still decided to remain around just in case. There was an admiral coming after all.
Just as they thought everything had quieted down for a second, they heard some marines speaking in a loudspeaker, "RELEASE THE ROSWALD FAMILY RIGHT NOW!!" the man was saying and everyone looked at Naruto, who gave no outward sign of even hearing that. "THE ADMIRAL WILL ARRIVE SOON SO WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU SURRENDER IMMEDIATELY!! WE WON'T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENS, ROOKIES!!" the man with the loudspeaker finished his announcement.
Kid was the first one to respond, "I got to see how crazy Straw Hat Luffy is, I got no complaints!" Kid grinned as he began to walk towards the exit, "But I don't wanna deal with an admiral! The longer we wait, the more marines will get here. I'll go first, I'll save you guys!" he said as he waved over his shoulder.
Both Law and Luffy's heads snapped in the direction of Eustass Kid when he said that. Without saying a word they both followed Kid out, apparently eager to prove that they didn't need anyone's help in dealing with the marines outside.
"They're so childish," Nami shook her head. She knew Luffy would do something like that, but it didn't mean she was happy about it. Franky lifted Camie and the old man was supporting the fishman Hachi, who was still in pain.
Zoro had the opposite look on the situation than Nami, "Let's follow them outside, We'll bust right through their lines!" he said with a smile.
"All right," Sanji looked eager as well. Robin and Brook were right behind them.
Before they went out, Rayleigh stopped them for a moment, "Let's meet at grove 13 if we get seperate." he said as he supported Hachi with one arm.
"Sure!" Zoro was the first one answer. Getting deadpan looks from his fellow Straw Hats.
"You definitely will not get there if we get seperated!" Usopp was the one to put words what everyone was thinking.
Once outside, Zoro, Sanji, Chopper and Usopp formed a perimeter around Rayleigh and Franky who were carrying Camie and Hachi respectively. Robin was a little behind acting as support. She was using her ability to trip and immobilise the marines while the others fought more directly. Naruto was behind the group, keeping a close eye on them. Usopp used various trick shots with his unusual slingshot, Nami had an interesting weapon that caught his eye, she shot a lighting bolt from it at the marines but the rod didn't use any chakra, just some complex mechanism to create lighting clouds. It didn't take long for the combined effort of the Straw Hats, Trafalgar Law and Eustass Kid to clear the blockade. They immediately went their own ways after that, Straw Hats following Rayleigh to grove 13 and by extension, so did Naruto.
Naruto fell in beside the old man, "Who are you? You don't look like someone who'd get captured easily?" Naruto finally asked the question that was bugging him since he saw the old man locked up int that cage. The others seemed to recognise him based on his reputation alone, while Naruto had missed what Kid and Law had said about the old man while he was busy feeding the celestial dragons to his toad, he got the gist that he was pretty famous.
"I was a pirate before, pretty famous one if I say so myself. The name's Silvers Rayleigh, nice to meet you!" the old man introduced himself. Naruto gave a nod of acknowledgement but didn't give his name.
Rayleigh continued, "I no longer go by that name. Just call me Ray, I left the pirate life behind me, now I'm just an old man who coats ships!" Rayleigh said with a grin.
Naruto had a question mark on his face (not that anyone could see) when he heard Rayleigh say that he 'coats ship'. He just shrugged, thinking he'd find out eventually what that was, "Why did you retire" Naruto continued the small talk.
"My captain disbanded the crew 22 years ago, he was later executed by the navy. You might have heard about him, he was the pirate king!" Rayleigh said with a lot of pride in his world.
"You were on the crew of Gold Roger?"
Rayleigh smiled, "Gol D. Roger," he said, "Captain's name was Gol D. Roger, I don't blame you for the mistake though, the government tried to hide the fact that Roger had that rare initial D in his name. Just like young Luffy here!" Rayleigh pointed towards Luffy with his head who was trying to convince Zoro and Sanji that hiding in the amusement park was a great idea. Didn't look like he was succeeding though.
"Why would they try to hide such insignificant thing?" Naruto asked.
"On the contrary, there's nothing insignificant about that letter. They say the 'D' are natural enemies of gods, that wherever 'D' goes, storm follows!"
"I sense a long story here,"
"It is," Rayleigh said. By now they had arrived at their destination, they were at the foot of a huge root, on top of which was a building. They climbed the stairs that were carved in the root and arrived in front of the building. The sign on the building said 'Shakky's Rip-Off Bar".
Naruto hanged back for a few seconds while the others went inside the building, the conversation with Rayleigh started off as mere curiosity but it left Naruto wondering that maybe the old man knew a lot, after all the pirate king was famous for sailing to the end of the world, even he knew that. He still needed answers so he decided to get as much of them from Rayleigh as he could. He went inside the bar as well. Hachi was laid down on a bed with Chopper and Camie by his side, Nami, Robin, Sanji, Usopp and Zoro occupied the couch while Brook and Luffy raided the fridge.
They were in the middle of a conversation when Naruto walked in, "We didn't get captured," Rayleigh was saying, "Roger turned himself in!"
"The pirate king turned himself in?! Why?!" Nami asked.
Rayleigh emptied the glass of whiskey, "We knew our travels were ending," he said. "Four years before his execution, Roger was afflicted with a terminal illness. It was incurable, but Crocus, the lighthouse keeper was able lessen Roger's pain. We begged him to come with us on our final journey. And while prolonging Roger life, three years later, we did the impossible! We conquered the grand line!" Rayleigh finished with a nostalgic smile as Shakky filled his glass again.
Naruto took a seat on the other side of circular table as Shakky put a glass of whiskey in front of him as well. It seemed like the Straw Hats knew this Crocus Rayleigh was talking about, quite fondly if the reactions of Brook and Nami were anything to go by.
Rayleigh talked freely about his captain, from Roger's last words to him to his crewmates, one was an emperor of the sea and other was a small time pirate in east blue. When Rayleigh trip to nostalgia was over, he offered to coat their ship for free, which put big smiles on the owners of the ship, except for Robin.
She had something else going through her mind, "Rayleigh? I have a question." She said. After Rayleigh nodded, she continued, "What is the will of 'D'?" Naruto watched closely, the question had surprised Rayleigh. "Do you know what happened to the world in the void century that started 900 years ago?!" Robin asked.
Rayleigh was silent for a couple of seconds, "...yes. We know." He said finally. "We learnt about everything that occured. But don't get ahead of yourself miss. Take it one step at a time as you travel on your ship, it seems that we and those at Ohara were too hasty." Rayleigh's words were magnet to everyone's attention. Even the stoic Robin looked somewhat shocked after listening to Rayleigh talk, "Even if I told you everything right now, there's nothing you could do about it! The answer you'll arrive at might be different from ours, even after you see the world in its entirety at your own pace! But if you still want to know, I'll tell you everything that happened in the world!"
Whatever surprise Rayleigh managed to get out of Robin had settled by now, she marely smiled at Rayleigh, "No. I'll pass."
Rayleigh seemed glad to hear that answer, "One another thing," he continued, "Roger didn't decipher those ancient writings, he was simply able to hear the voices of all things in the world. That's all"
Naruto's mind kept going back to the void century. More specifically, that he had no clue what it was. Were there a hundred years in the history where nothing happened or something did happen but no one knew what, well obviously Rayleigh and his crew knew and whoever these people of Ohara were that Rayleigh was speaking of right now.
"Excuse me, old man," Naruto said to get his attention. "What is the void century?"
"You've been following us since the auction house, just who are you?" Robin asked.
"Just a curious man looking for answers!" Naruto replied, he was still talking in Kakashi's voice. He hadn't dropped his disguise yet either, he didn't know if he should or not at this point. He decided that the people there were all pirates who wouldn't rat him out to the navy, and he doubted the mermaid and the fishman would care about his identity. He decided that there was no point in hiding his face from these people, especially considering Rayleigh could answers most of his questions, maybe all of them. With that in mind, Naruto lowered his hood and removed the mask, "We've met me before."
There was a glint of recognition in Robin's eyes, "It's you again," she said in her usual calm voice.
A moment later, Luffy was in his face, whose own face was stuffed with food, he was saying something to him in an excited manner but Naruto couldn't recognise a word he said.
"You're the ninja guy Nami was checking out!" from the couch Usopp added his own thoughts, earning him a smack from Nami and a glare from Sanji.
Luffy had picked up his mask and tried putting it on with a large grin on his face and overflowing enthusiasm, "Hey look, I'm a ninja!" Luffy said but the mask didn't stay in place and fell to the ground. Luffy picked it up and tried again with the same results. It didn't have any straps or anything to keep it in place so it kept falling. You had to use chakra to keep the mask in place, Luffy didn't know how to do that so it was very frustrating for the young pirate to try and keep the mask in place, his efforts made everyone laugh.
"What kind of Ninja can't even keep his mask on?!!" Zoro said between laughing. He low-key wanted to try on the mask too, but after seeing luffy make a fool of himself, he changed his mind.
"Urgh how do you keep this stupid thing in place!!" Luffy said in frustration.
"Well, that is...a secret!" Naruto replied with a smug grin, getting face fault from Luffy who was listening very closely.
"Do you know any Samurai?!" Rayleigh asked, getting Naruto's attention.
When Rayleigh asked that, Naruto thought that maybe Samurai were also popular in stories and myths here, "Yeah, I know some of them. Shinobi and samurai usually don't get along very well, but I got to meet some of them in last two years."
The talk of samurai immediately got Zoro's attention, who so far had been drinking sake quietly, "Hey! Do you know who's the strongest samurai?" Zoro wanted to get a name, so he could challenge that guy in the future. He wouldn't be the greatest swordsman in the world without defeating everyone that had a possible claim to that title.
"Of course! Old man Mifune is the strongest. He's a badass, even if he's old they say he can still win against most shinobi."
Zoro got a determined look in his eyes, but before he could ask anything else, Rayleigh spoke up again, "Do you know of a samurai named Kozuki Oden?"
"Sorry old man, I don't know anyone by that name." Naruto thought that maybe that this Oden person was maybe a samurai from this world, how would he know anyone from this world?!
"You're from Wano and you don't know Kozuki Oden?!" Rayleigh raised an eyebrow.
Naruto did not know that there were actual samurai here, and from what Desire had told him, shinobi were also present only in stories and legends. "I'm not from Wano."
There was a look of disappointment in Rayleigh's eyes. "I didn't know there were shinobi somewhere other than Wano."
"Yeah, It's a special place, my home. I doubt anyone here has even heard of it. I'm the first person that came to these seas." Naruto said as he put the empty glass on the table.
"Must be some place if even we didn't encounter it on our voyages!" Rayleigh said.
There was a momentary silence after that, Usopp took to ask his own questions, "Hey old man I wanna ask you a question too," he said as he stood up, "Is the greatest single treasure, the One Piece, really at the last island?"
"USOPP!!" Luffy's was drowned the last part of Usopp's question. He had stood up on the table in the middle of eating and was looking really offended. "I don't wanna know where the treasure is!!!" Luffy said a stern voice, which was very unusual for a guy like him, who was very cheerful and happy-go-lucky person most of the times. "I don't wanna know if the treasure exists or not! I don't know for sure now but everyone out there is risking their lives for it! If Rayleigh tells us anything about it now, I'LL QUIT BEING A PIRATE!!" Luffy's little speech had stunned the whole bar in silence, especially Naruto who hadn't expected anything like this from him. His friends however looked like they expected something exactly like this, Nami, Zoro and Sanji had warm smiles on their faces as they listened to their captain. "I'll never go on an adventure that isn't any fun!" Luffy said.
Usopp remembered at that point, just what kind of person his captain really was and how big of a mistake he was just about to make, "I-I-I'm sorry, I just let that slip through by mistake!" Usopp tried to cover up his slip up, "I don't want to hear about it either! Yeah! I just remembered that I have the 'hear about the one piece and die' disease! Old man, don't tell us anything!" with that Usopp slumped down on the couch.
"Do you think you can do it? The New World far surpasses your wildest imagination, do you think you can conquer such powerful oceans?" Rayleigh asked Luffy.
"I'm not going to conquer anything! The one who is the most free is the pirate king!!" Luffy said with a child-like smile.
"The brat is interesting!" Naruto heard Kurama say in his mind.
'Yeah. We've met people who became criminals because they had lost their way, fugitives who didn't know any better and rogue ninjas who simply didn't have any other choice, but a pirate that became pirate because he just wants to be free, that's a new one. Even for us!'
"What are we gonna do now?"
'Well the old man says he knows a lot. Let's see if he knows anything that would help us!"
"In that case, you might want to hurry. He's leaving!!"
"What!!" In his surprise Naruto blurted that out loud, earning him confused looks from everyone around. While he was talking with Kurama, he missed what they were talking about but everyone looked ready to leave. He smiled sheepishly and caught up with Rayleigh at the door of the bar. Rayleigh had a huge bag on his back with a giant brush sticking out of it.
"Rayleigh, would you mind telling me about the void century?"
"I thought you'd also want to find out for yourself?"
Naruto followed him outside, "Nah, I'm not here for an adventure or anything like that, I'm here to get to know this world as much as I can." he looked at Rayleigh with a grin on his face, "Besides, I've had my fair share of adventures!"
Rayleigh chuckled, "Alright, then I'll tell you everything. You don't mind if we talk while I work on Straw Hats' ship, do you?"
Naruto shook his head, "No, sir."
"That's good to hear. This is a long story..."
With Straw Hats, sometime later at Grove 12
"We can't go together! Split up!" Luffy yelled as ge was hit with shockwave of Kuma's laser attack. They called him Kuma, but they had no idea who or what that thing even was. It was tough like steel, even had steel body but his skin still bled blood. Franky had said that it was a cyborg, a human modified with the help of machines and made to look like an exact copy of kuma for whatever reason. Sanji had read 'PX-4' written on the defeated cyborg, he had guessed that there were at least four copies of these things. Whatever they were, it had taken everything they had to defeat just one, and even before they could take a breather after their victory another one exactly like the one they defeated had arrived, and not alone this time.
There was a large man accompanying this 'Kuma', he looked like a sumo wrestler, carried a huge axe and his outfit consisted of only an apron like red shirt with three tomoes on the stomach and a large red and white rope tied around his waist, that's it. He also had a scar running from his left eye to the corner of his mouth. He had introduced himself as Sentomaru earlier by mistake.
The Straw Hats were spent, everyone was hurt, they were tired and there was an admiral on the mangrove. If they stuck together, everyone would get captured. Thus it fell to the captain, Luffy to make sure that everyone made out of there safely. So he had decided to split up and go into hiding for the time being. When he had a found a moment, he got Zoro and Sanji together, "The three of us should go separately." Luffy told them, if Kuma and Sentomaru happened to chase either of their groups, Sanji and Zoro would be able keep their friends safe, Luffy thought. They both agreed.
"Are you going to be all right?" Sanji asked Zoro, getting an irritated 'shut up' from the green haired swordsman. Zoro thought that Sanji was pulling his leg like usual but Sanji had genuine concern behind his words this time. Zoro still hadn't completely recovered from his fight on Thriller Bark. He could see it Zoro's eyes, no matter how much he tried to hide his pain. Even if they were all injured, splitting up was their best option.
Naturally Sanji went with Nami, "Nami!! I'll protect you even if it kills me!!" he said half dancing, half running with hearts in his eyes.
"Great, thanks! Let's go!" Nami said, she was used to Sanji's flirting by now.
"If you're willing to risk your life, be the decoy for all of us!" Franky had tagged along with them.
"Ladies only, idiot! You're on your own, underwear-man!" Sanji said with a mocking face. The group of Sanji, Nami and Franky was headed in the direction of amusement park.
Despite being heavily injured himself Zoro had picked up Usopp on his back so they could get away quickly, "Zoro, protect me as hard as you can! Pleease!" Usopp practically begged the first mate of Straw Hats.
"Rest assured I'll cover for you!" Brook had decided to go with Zoro. Brook knew Zoro's wasn't in a great condition and decided to help him as best as he could. The group of Usopp, Zoro and Brook was running towards the tourist district.
"Let's go! We'll go that way!" Luffy said to Robin and Chopper as he pointed towards the shipyards district. He had no idea what was in that direction, but as long as it was away from the navy guys and his friends were safe, that's all that mattered to him.
"Everyone, we'll meet in three days at Sunny!!" Luffy yelled at the top of his lungs so his friends could hear him.
"Special attack- super smoke star!!" Usopp created a large smokescreen to cover their retreat.
They must gotten only twenty steps away when Luffy heard another explosion from Kuma's laser, the sound came from the direction of Sanji's group, "He went over there! Are they going to be okay?" Luffy wondered out loud.
"You should worry about yourself!" Sentomaru said as he blocked Luffy's path.
Without any second thoughts, Luffy threw a 'gum gum gatling' his way. But the man was able to predict him precisely and Luffy received a powerful blow from Sentomaru. He hadn't even touched Luffy, but was still able to damage him despite his rubber body. Another open palm strike from Sentomaru sent Luffy crashing through a nearby wall. His blunt attacks were hurting him but Luffy had no time to wonder about the reason behind it, he saw a large explosion in the direction Zoro had went in. Zoro was strong but the explosion still made him worry about his safety.
"You're late! You finally made it over, old man Kizaru!" Sentomaru looked pretty annoyed at the latest arrival on the scene.
"Kizaru?!", as soon as she heard the name, Robin's eyes became as wide as dinner plates. It seemed like only yesterday when they had met Aokiji and escaped a certain death. It was too soon to encounter another monster like Aokiji. If it was up to her, Robin would have prefered to go all her life without meeting another admiral. "Watch out! That man is a Navy admiral!" she shouted the warning for her crew.
"...It's already too late!" admiral Kizaru said in a lazy tone as he stood towering over Zoro, who was lying face down near his feet.
Zoro was injured to the point where he could no longer move from his spot. He could just lie down and cough some blood. There was no way he could get out of the way to avoid the next hit, Kizaru knew that from just a look at him. "Zoro the pirate hunter, with a bounty of 120 million, it took just one hit to knock you out. You must be very tired! It's okay, you can rest now!" Kizaru drawled and lifted his shining leg to crush Zoro.
"Zoro!!" Luffy yelled in worry, he knew he wouldn't get there in time to save Zoro, so he was left helpless and could only watch as his friend was about to get seriously hurt right in front of his eyes. "Zoro's in trouble!!!"
Nami had covered her mouth with her hands, she knew how badly hurt they all were, another beam attack from that range would definitely kill Zoro. Tears had already gathered in her eyes. Brook and Usopp were attacking the admiral but all of their attack went right though the man, Kizaru wasn't even paying them attention as he readied his attack and stomped down on the barely conscious Zoro. Before his leg could make contact though, a black blur picked up the pirate hunter and moved him to safety. Since there was no target, Kizaru cancelled his attack.
The Straw Hats were left utterly surprised as many of them didn't even see what had happened to Zoro. Only Luffy, Robin and Sanji were able to somewhat track the movement of the guy in black cloak who had picked up Zoro and moved him out of harm's way. It took a moment for them recognise tbe identity of the cloaked person as the ninja they had met just earlier that day.
Nearby, Naruto had helped Zoro sit up against a wall. The guy was beaten up thoroughly, it was a miracle that he was still conscious. Naruto quickly pulled out a brown pill from his pocket, "Hey pirate hunter, open up!" he said.
Zoro was not going to be cooperative, Naruto realised, so he forced the pill in Zoro mouth and made him swallow. A couple of seconds later, a revitalized glint appeared in Zoro's eyes and he stood up from his seated position, "What did you feed me?! I feel like I can fight an army by myself!"
"A soldier pill. Eating one gives you the energy to fight for three days straight. Your body is still injured though, I can't do anything about that right now." Naruto told Zoro, "Take your crew and get out of here! Leave the admiral to me." Naruto had been watching Kizaru through the corner of his eye the whole time, the admiral had made no move attack him, he was just watching Naruto with amusement in his eyes.
'He doesn't show any concern about us showing up here, either he's as careless as he looks, or he's so powerful that he doesn't even register us as a threat!' Naruto heard Kurama's deep voice in his mind.
'It's the later.' Naruto replied with a little frown, 'He has that look in his eyes.'
"Does that mean we're going to let loose a litttle for once?" Kurama grinned.
'Yup.' Naruto replied.
"So you're the one that took those two celestial dragons as hostages." Kizaru said as he fixed his glasses, report said that a man in black cloak and white mask was the kidnapper, and he fit the description perfectly. "Sentomaru has been looking all over for you."
"Guilty. Don't worry though, I haven't killed those two yet. You're free to try and take them back." Kizaru wasn't making his move yet, and stalling for time could only be good for him, as it would make escape of Straw Hats easier. Zoro had picked up Usopp once again and was rallying the rest of the crew in hasty retreat. Too bad, Kizaru had no intention of letting them get away, he just pointed his index finger in their direction and shot a powerful beam. Fortunately, Naruto had sensed Kizaru build chakra in his index finger and before the admiral could lift the finger and shoot the beam, Naruto's normal sapphire blue eyes turned golden with cross-shaped pupils. His whole body was covered in Kurama's golden chakra with black line connecting spiral markings on his chest and between his shoulder blades.
In his new form, Naruto was able to move between the laser attack and the Straw Hats, he crossed his arms in front of him and took the beam head on. The sound of explosion behind them made the fleeing Straw Hats stop in their tracks to look behind them.
"Leave it to him, go go go go!!!" Luffy yelled, his friends didn't need to be told twice.
Back with Kizaru, when the explosion cleared, he was more amused than surprised, "Oooh not a scratch on you eh?! That's scary!" Kizaru drawled, his tone of speaking and actual words contradicted each other. "Tell me, have you ever been hit at the speed of light?" Kizaru asked before seemingly vanishing from the sight. He aimed his light speed kick at left side of Naruto's face from behind. But, to his surprise, Naruto ducked at the last moment to avoid the blow.
"No." Naruto cheekily replied to the admiral's earlier question. He body flickered away to get some distance. "And I never will if you attack like that."
"Don't get cocky just because you managed to dodge a single hit," Kizaru grinned and formed a big sword made out of light. "As an admiral of the navy, it is my duty to protect celestial dragons, I'm gonna have to bring you in."
"Feel free to try!" Naruto said as he unwrapped some of the bandage of his right arm, there was a small storage seal on the bandage. In a puff of smoke, a large gray stone sword appeared in his hand. From the hollow ring pommel to the tip, the sword was almost as tall as he was, and the blade was almost as wide as his torso with distinct vein like markings on it. An iron chain connected the pommel and hilt. That was one of the Ishiken, secret stone swords of mount Myoboku, passed down by the elder sages to toad sages, Jiraiya was the previous wielder of these blades and now it was Naruto's turn to inherit them. The stone these swords were made out of had a special property besides being as hard as diamonds and damn near unbreakable, this stone was a lot easier to channel nature chakra through than any other material, like it was an extension of your own body. The admiral was almost twice as tall as him so he already had reach advantage over him and on top of that Kizaru was wielding a very long sword, if Naruto had fought him bare handed like he would have usually, he would have been at serious disadvantage, especially in a high speed fight like this. That was why Naruto had decided to use the Ishiken.
Naruto held the sword with both his hands and took up his position between the admiral and the direction straw hats went in. Kizaru dashed towards him with speed only Naruto could follow, and aimed a slash a Naruto's neck, intending to take his head off in one shot. Naruto coated his sword with massive amount of nature energy and blocked the attack. He was surprised when the sword made of light actually stopped. Since it was made of light, Naruto had expected it to get past his guard and was fully prepared to get out of the way if that happened. But that was not necessary as the sword appeared to be a solid construct. Naruto pulled his sword back and swung his sword at Kizaru's midsection, which was blocked almost lazily by the admiral. The two of them each took a step back and charged each other once again. Kizaru would only go for his head while Naruto would attempt to get his legs or body. This went on for a full minute with neither one managing to hit their opponent. The two were just blurs for the onlookers the whole time.
"I should have known it wouldn't be that easy to hit an admiral!" Naruto said out loud when he pulled away to get some distance.
"Holding your own against me for an entire minute, you should be proud of yourself, whoever you are!" Kizaru had a curious glint in his eyes as he adjusted his glasses. "You're by far the fastest man I've fought." Kizaru praised but seemed to be annoyed by that fact. What he said was true, Naruto was the fastest guy he had gone up against so far in his long and illustrious career as a marine. Everyone that fought Kizaru had to have very good observation haki or they wouldn't even last a few seconds against him, but Naruto was keeping up with his speed without using any kind of haki that he could sense. Kizaru was used to being the fastest and he could feel his opponent was holding back, well so was he but he was an admiral of the navy; for some random nobody to match him for speed was a big deal, he guessed that the masked guy would be as fast as him if they both went all out. Kizaru could only imagine what this guy could do if he was trained in haki. "Alas, that won't be enough."
Naruto agreed, only being fast won't be enough to win against the admiral, he'd have to dig in his bag of tricks. 'Alright, if he wants to play serious, then let's get serious!' Naruto created two shadow clones, all three of them had different stances as they got ready for another round with the admiral.
"Oooh you can make copies of yourself eh?! Scary!" the admiral said mockingly, showing no concern even if two identical clones of Naruto would fight besides the original now. Kizaru waited for him to attack, the original headed straight for the target with a fairly straightforward attack, the clones, however, leaped through the air in the shape of a crescent moon, their speed so great that it left after images, both landing behind Kizaru in his blind spot.
'Leaf style: Crescent Moon Dance!', the original Naruto brought down his sword vertically at Kizaru's head, one shadow clone aimed at the nape from behind while the other attacked the back, all three attacks landed at the same time. Kizaru blocked the frontal attack but even if he had sensed the attacks from behind, he could block only one at a time. The nature energy around the sword blasted Kizaru's head off, with the second clone cutting clean through the midsection. Naruto jumped back and watched the headless body of the admiral stand there as if nothing happened to it at all. 'Did I kill him?!' Naruto thought. As fast as the admiral was, Naruto expected Kizaru to move out of the way before his clones could trap him and even then he didn't expect the admiral to go down that easy. A couple of seconds later, light glimmered where Kizaru's head was supposed to be and reformed the head. Even the midsection joined itself together without any problem.
'Okay what the hell was that! How can he regenerate like that?!' Naruto thought to himself in half surprise and half awe. "Okay I gotta ask, how are you not dead?!" Naruto asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
"Did you really think an ordinary attack like that could kill me?!" Kizaru tilted his head, "I'm a logia, rookie. I ate the glint-glint fruit and became a light-human! You can't win against me!"
"You shouldn't have told me that!" Naruto said confidently, the admiral just shrugged. He sounded confident but inside he was racking his brain to find out some way to defeat a guy made of light. 'You got anything?' he asked Kurama when he couldn't think of anything.
Before Kurama could answer, Naruto had to get out of the way of a horizontal slash from the light sword. Kizaru didn't let up as he followed up with back to back attacks, Naruto dodged some of them, some he blocked with his own sword. Kizaru's aimed another horizontal slash at his neck, when Naruto blocked it with his Ishiken, Kizaru's foot shone bright yellow for a moment and he let fly his light speed kick at Naruto's head. If Naruto tried to move, the blocked sword would break his guard and take his head off, and if he stayed as he was, Kizaru's kick would do the same. He had to get out of the way somehow.
Naruto channeled some chakra at his feet, since he wasn't on normal ground he couldn't use 'Hidden Mole Jutsu', he had to improvise. 'Okay it's now or never,' he channeled wood release for the first time in his life and sank down in the root of Yarukiman mangrove.
"We can't hit him with normal attacks."
'Wow, that's all you got?!'
"Shut up and listen, we can't hit him, that means our only option left now is to seal him. Keep him busy for as long as you can, I'll contact the Tanuki." Kurama clapped his hands together to focus.
'I get it! Leave it to me!' as soon as Naruto finished that sentence inside his mind, he had to get out of the way of a rain of laser attacks. He had been moving around in the root, hoping to get the jump on Kizaru but the admiral somehow knew exactly where he was. The root was shredded by that attack, Naruto had to go into the trunk of the tree to avoid the onslaught. That was when Naruto heard Shukaku in his mind scape.
"Hey Uzumaki, the fox says you need my cursed markings to seal light, the hell did you get yourself into that new world."
'It's a long story, the guy I'm fighting can turn his body into light to avoid damage. So I need your help, there's no one better than you at sealing!' Naruto praised the one tailed Shukaku. The tailed beast had a bit of a ego, a few sweet words praising his ability could get him agree to help a lot quicker. He said that to flatter the tailed beast but it was true, although Naruto was good sealing jutsu, he wasn't that good yet and he would need a seal that could adjust itself to trap the fluctuating light. Thus the need for Shukaku.
"What? Aren't you the strongest shinobi in history?! Can't you do anything by yourself?! Just because old man six paths gave you powers doesn't mean you can boss me around you brat!"
'I'm not bossing you around buddy, I'm requesting your help. I'll owe you one.'
Shukaku thought about it for a moment before agreeing, having Naruto in his debt would be very useful. Plus he could ask for Ninetails' weakness. "Deal. I'll help you this time."
'Thanks Shukaku!'
Outside, Kizaru's right foot lit up with bright yellow light before he fired a powerful beam at the tree. Naruto had sensed Kizaru gather large amount of energy and got out of the trunk just in time. Kizaru's beam hit the mark, destroying the trunk easily in one shot. The tree, having lost its support, toppled over in the direction of navy men who had formed a perimeter around the two fighters. The navy men panicked and hurried to get away from the falling tree to avoid getting crushed.
Naruto watched the scene with anger in his eyes, "The hell are you doing?!! You wanna kill your own men?!!" Naruto snapped at the admiral. The lack of concern from the admiral about the lives of his own men rubbed him the wrong way. It went against everything he believed in, against how he was raised.
"I guess I got a little carried away!" Kizaru drawled out. "Besides, no one got hurt, did they?"
Naruto gritted his teeth. "Alright, let's try this again!"
Naruto created two more clones and all three of them vanished in golden blurs, they coordinated the same maneuver as the 'Crescent moon dance', with the original leading from the front while the clones attacked from Kizaru's blind spots simultaneously. Once again Kizaru blocked the frontal attack but he didn't let his guard down, he didn't think his opponent would use the same attack twice if it didn't work the first time. But then again, unless that guy learnt haki in the last two minutes, there was nothing the masked guy could do actually harm him. If he sensed haki, he'd get out of the way, Kizaru thought.
Naruto repeated his Crescent moon dance with same effect as before. Kizaru's head was blasted by nature energy and midsection was sliced open. A moment later, Kizaru had started to reform with light, same as before. But this time, Naruto formed a swirling ball of sand in his hand with cursed seal markings on the shell.
'Magnet Style: Rasengan!'
The instant Kizaru reformed, Naruto slammed the attack right in his gut, grinding away and forcing Kizaru to turn that part of his body into light. For a moment, nothing happened, Kizaru thinking of it as another powerful but futile attack. But before he could get any smartass comment out of his mouth, the markings on the shell started to spread on his body and the admiral felt like he was frozen in place. He tried to change his whole body into light and escape but the cursed markings would change their size and shape accordingly to not let that light get away.
"Relax admiral, you won't be going anywhere for the next few minutes." Naruto told the admiral.
"You still can't kill me you know!" Kizaru struggled to get the words out. The attack didn't use haki but was still able be keep a logia user in one place with powerful binding, even after experiencing it, it was hard for him to believe. He was definitely going to warn the fleet admiral about this guy.
"I'm not trying to kill you," Naruto said with a shrug of his shoulders, "I was only buying some time in case you didn't notice."
Ironically, it was at that moment that Naruto sensed the Straw Hats fly away from the archipelago at very high speeds. And he knew for sure that none of the crew had the ability fly at all. In fact no one he had seen so far had the ability to fly at such high speeds, the closest thing he could remember wad the that guy on Thriller Bark after his encounter with the giant Oars. His eyes widened when he came to the realisation. He ran towards the place at top speeds, and it didn't take long at all for him to arrive at the scene. From the looks of it, the large bear like guy from Thriller Bark was the culprit behind it, with old man Rayleigh watching from nearby and making no effort to save the crew. Which was very unusual because Rayleigh was telling him the importance of Luffy for the next era and the great war to come. Naruto thought that Rayleigh must have had a reason to let the bear guy send the Straw Hats to god knows where. Rayleigh began walking back towards the Thousand Sunny, probably to finish his coating job, Naruto followed him. Rayleigh had just began telling him about this world when they were interrupted by the admiral wrecking havoc, and Naruto was eager learn more about the strange new world he had come to. He had a lot of things to learn yet.
Thank you for reading!
I apologize for any grammar and spelling mistakes in the chapter, I tried to write as accurately as possible but I'm sure some have slipped my notice. This chapter was a lot harder to get down than it would seem, a lot of the times I hit a roadblock and couldn't get the next paragraph out. But I finally finished the chapter and already started a new one. Naruto will go to Marijoa next.
P.S.- I'll explain in next chapter why nature energy can hit a logia but can't damage it. Thanks!
Have a nice day!