Big thanks to Kishimoto and Oda for creating such amazing works of fiction for us fans to enjoy. I'm a big fan of both of these series and wanted to write a story involving two of my favourite manga. I'm not very experienced at writing fanfiction, I hope this story won't be a complete waste of your time lol. English is not my first language so if you find any mistakes, I hope you'll understand.
On a relatively calm day for the sea of Grand Line, the island of Jaya was experiencing rare peace. Normally, on any given day, you would find dozens of pirates ships anchored at the docks and hundreds of pirates drinking away their time at the island while their log pose reset. And when multiple pirates came together, it was only a matter of time when blood flowed. Thankfully, even lawless scumbags knew better than to harm innocent civilians of the island. 'What's the point of treasure if you can't spend it?' No one knew since when but Jaya had been a safe haven for pirates and criminals for a long time. Probably because the navy and the world government didn't bother to come for the small fry this far in paradise part of grand line, they already had their hands full dealing with criminals from the New World.
Today was rare, because there were only a handful of pirates on the island. So there were no drunken fights, no back alley murders, and relatively small property damage. It wasn't much but for the natives of the island, all the peace in the world was gathered on Jaya. It seemed like a perfect, peaceful day and the citizens didn't expect anything out of the ordinary to happen. But a sudden appearance of a doorway in space-time certainly counted as 'out of the ordinary'.
Grand Line- A Few Miles North Of Jaya
A few feet above the turbulent sea, two men stepped out of a circular black space-time portal, they landed on the water and stood on the sea surface as if it were solid ground. One was wearing a silver-grey vest over black shirt and black pants, a black cape hid a missing left arm while his hair covered the Rinnegan; he had a serious expression on his face, like he was about to march to battle, or just came from one. The second one, on the other hand, had a cheerful smile on his face, completely opposite to that of his partner. He had orange pants and a long crimson coat with black flames near the edge over a black shirt. A red arm band on his left bicep showed the spiral of his clan. He had deep blue eyes and spiky wild blonde hair, a metal forehead protector showed the symbol of his village and his right arm was completely covered in bandages.
"Good luck." the raven haired man said.
"That's all you have to say?" Naruto raised an eyebrow at his friend. "I'm gonna be here for a while y'know!"
"Whatever. Send one of your toads if you find anything." Sasuke completely ignored his words. He wanted to say a lot more but doing so would go against his whole vibe so kept those words to himself.
Naruto sighed, "Yeah, yeah. I'll send a report every month, but you'll have to go back to the village to get it."
Sasuke didn't say anything for a moment, he just stared at the blond. He knew it was Naruto's way of making sure he at least visited the village from time to time. Sneaky bastard.
Naruto noticed Sasuke staring at him and raised a blond eyebrow, seemingly reading his friends mind, "What? You want my toads to wander around the whole continent to find you??"
Sasuke looked away, "Fine." He'd go along with his friends wishes. "I found that cryptex in kaguya's palace in that Ice dimension we fought in during the war, it gave coordinates of this location. This world looks like it's inhabited so be careful. Find out what connection this place has with Otsutsuki Kaguya."
"Yeah. See you later, Sasuke."
Sasuke nodded and turned back to leave, "Just don't burn down this planet while you're here, loser." He waved his hand over shoulder and walked through the space-time portal, his best friend never saw his smile as he left. 'Take care, call if you need help,' went unsaid.
"Well, sensei did say stealth was optional," Naruto said in his mind and got a deep rumbling laugh as a response.
"Now then, let's see what connection this world has with Rabbit granny!" Naruto extended his senses in all directions. He sensed half a dozen abnormally large creatures in the sea, and about two hundred people a few miles to the south. His destination set, Naruto sprinted along the water. It didn't take him long to travel the distance to reach land. It looked like a fairly small island split in almost identical two halves by a bay. Some ships were docked at the port near a town. As he got closer, Naruto got a better look of the layout of the island, there were a bunch of beautiful buildings overlooking the sea, it looked like a resort.
Naruto stepped on land and chose a road randomly, the street was fairly busy and a lot of the men looked drunk. There were a few hotels, some shops and a lot of bars. If he had learnt anything from watching Pervy sage, it was that bars and brothels were the best source of information. 'People talk when they are happy,' Jiraiya used to say. Alcohol had a tendency to loosen up men. Naruto crossed the street and entered a decent looking building. Across the street, Naruto spotted a decent looking two story building called, 'Misty Tavern'.
It was very crowded with only a couple of empty tables. He chose one on the far end, on his way there Naruto intentionally bumped into a man and swiped his wallet, he had lots money in Gamachan but there was little chance they'd accept Ryō here. The poor guy didn't even suspect anything. Naruto chose a seat near a rather loud group, so he could eavesdrop on their conversation.
"...true story. None of the cannon balls we fired reached their ship, they came right back at us twice as fast and destroyed our ship instead. Cap'n sank right before my eyes!" one of the guys was saying.
It wasn't even a minute since he sat down and already Naruto heard some very interesting things, none were related to his mission however, but they piqued his curiosity. A waiter came over to him with a glass of water, "What can I get ya?" he asked.
"Some good sake and whatever's fresh in the kitchen," Naruto replied almost immediately. He wanted to hear more about what the man was talking about.
"Alright..." the bartender said and left him alone. Naruto once again focused his attention on the conversation going on behind his table.
"You're a lucky one to survive, Johnny. That Captain Kid is a vicious one, rumor has it that he leaves a bloody trail wherever he goes. Even his first mate is named 'Killer'!! I mean imagine what he must've to get the name 'Killer'!"
"Wow! Best I got was 'Slippery Dave' when I accidentally slipped on a wet road!" another guy said prompting a round of raucous laughter.
"Yeah and still no bounty for you my slippery friend!!" someone said, promoting more laughter at the expense of their friend.
"The navy has put over two hundred million berry on that Captain Kid's head, and he's a green horn rookie!!" a third guy added once the laughter had died down and their previous conversation resumed.
Their seemingly mundane conversation intrigued Naruto a lot. By the looks of things, the gentlemen next to him were criminals, talking about other criminals. Nothing very useful so far but things looked promising.
Naruto sat there listening to people talk for hours, occasionally joining a random table, buying them drinks and talking about anything and everything. It didn't take him long to realise that each and every one of the customers there were pirates! And the island he was currently on was sort of like a safe haven for them. That surprised him a little. But he decided to keep listening. He spent all the money he stole and then he stole some more again, drunk pirates were easy targets. The men didn't realise it but their casual conversation gave him a lot of information- like, there were a lot of pirates in this world, and the Navy was responsible for keeping peace; there were these things called devil fruits, so far he didn't get much information about whatever that was, just that it gave the user some amazing abilities, that was enough to ring alarm bell in his head. They sounded like chakra fruits, he wondered if there was a tree here like the god tree Kaguya had, if there was then it was almost certain that the fruits came from the Otsutsuki. The thought of more Otsutsuki worried him. Rest of the conversations weren't very useful with just a nugget of information here and there. Naruto sat there for a few hours and then he went to a different bar, until late in the night, he did nothing but eat, drink and eavesdrop on conversations of random people. When he was properly drunk, Naruto decided to go to sleep for the night.
As he laid on a soft feather bed in a hotel room, Naruto went into his psyche plane. Kurama was sleeping with his head resting on his front paws.
"How much did you hear?" Naruto asked his partner/best friend.
"Everything," Kurama answered without even opening his eyes. Naruto walked towards the giant fox, sat down and laid his back against Kurama's finger.
"I really hope I don't find out anything about that Rabbit Granny here," Kurama opened one eye to look at Naruto, but didn't say anything. Naruto knew him good enough to know what his silence meant, so he continued. "Otsutsuki know of this place, we can tell that much from that weird cylinder Sasuke found." Naruto sighed deeply. "Those fruits give me a bad feeling Kurama. I don't want people of any world to end up as plant food. I mean people here are still people and not white zetsu so we can tell rabbit granny wasn't here but we don't know what plans she had with this world or if she had already visited this place for some reason, or was going to come here in the future," Naruto told his friend everything he had on his mind, anything that worried him.
Kurama let out a chuckle once Naruto had finished, which sounded like a mild earthquake, "Relax Naruto, You're worrying too much again. You've been like this ever since the war ended, you don't have to bear the weight of all the world on your shoulders. Whatever it is we'll take care of it! Take Kakashi's advice, pick up a hobby or something."
Naruto laughed a little, "Hey, I have a hobby y'know!"
"I meant something besides trying out new ramen flavors," Kurama had a slightly annoyed expression on his face.
"Aw man, you ruled out the best one! Okay fine, I'll think of something," After a few moments of silence, Naruto spoke again, "How are the others? It's been a while since I talked to them."
"They are all fine. B wanted to know whether you're going to his concert or not, I shooed him away."
"Hehe Looks I'm gonna miss this one too!" Naruto sat there talking to Kurama for a good hour until he fell asleep.
For the next week, Naruto spent all his time on gathering as much information as he could. He would create about twenty clones everyday and transform them in random people. These clones would drink at bars, visit brothels and walk the streets for hours at a time. At night, Naruto would think about all he had learnt during the day. He had asked everyone he met if they knew of a goddess that came from the stars or a divine tree, subtly, of course! So as to not raise any suspicion. But sometimes he just asked bluntly. So far no one had any information on either of them. By the end of the week, he had gathered enough information to know how this world worked- pirates were scumbags, the world government was in charge of most of the world and navy was their strength. He learnt of basic geography and read about some important people and big time pirates and criminals.
Birds dropped newspapers and bounty posters for wanted people, from that he created his own bingo book. He read about the many small battles between Whitebeard pirates and Beast pirates in the New World over some territory, apparently those two were called emperors of the sea. And there were four in total who ruled their own part of the sea in the New World, which was on the other side of Grand Line. They were supposedly so strong that even the Navy was hesitant to go in their territory to confront them.
It wasn't until the seventh day that he heard something that could possibly be a lead for his actual mission. An island in the sky, even the sound of it felt a little Otsutsuki-ish. In a bar, two men were talking about how a warlord of the sea, Doflamingo made a pirate named Bellamy kill his own first mate. The incident had occured just a few days prior to his arrival. Apparently it was punishment for bringing shame to the warlord's flag, whatever the hell that meant! According to the men, Bellamy got knocked out in a single punch by Straw Hat Luffy, after Bellamy made fun of the Straw Hats for believing an island in the sky could actually exist. When asked around the bar where the incident occured, the bartender told him that at first Straw Hat Luffy let Bellamy beat him without so much as raising a finger and later in the night Straw Hat defeated Bellamy. Naruto decided not to think too much about a bar fight between two pirates, even though it intrigued him a little.
For the whole week he was on the island, Naruto never thought that there were people living in the sky right above his head. Who would? Unless you knew there was an island in sky, you wouldn't even think of such a possibility. 'Maybe it's like that hidden sky village,' Naruto thought. He briefly entered sage mode and immediately felt the chakra signatures of hundreds of people about ten kilometer in the sky.
Naruto activated his sage of six paths mode without Kurama's chakra and flew towards the clouds. As he went higher, the people, buildings and then the island itself grew smaller and smaller until Jaya was nothing but a green speck on a vast blue sea. It wasn't long until he passed through a thick white cloud filled with all kinds weird looking flat fishes like kite, huge octopus and weird shellfishes of all colors. Naruto was surprised to see creatures that you would normally expect to see in the oceans below, living in the clouds so high. 'Maybe it's common in this world,' he shrugged.
As he came out of the cloud, the first thing Naruto saw was the huge forest. Sky island was nothing like what he imagined, he had seen a city in the sky before and thought that maybe it was something like that. Naruto had a vague picture in his mind of how it would look like, but he didn't think it would be an actual landmass on the clouds, complete with forest and animals and a giant beanstalk. It was beautiful! Unbelievable, but beautiful! This world was turning out to be more interesting than he first thought.
'First thing's first, let's see what kind of people live here,' Naruto thought and entered the forest, he turned off his sage of six paths mode and headed straight towards where most people were gathered together. He climbed a tree and started to jump from branch to branch. On his way he saw a lot of wild life- a large pack of wolves, some snow white foxes, large insects and huge, colourful and weird looking birds, there were even some roller coaster like clouds that went throughout the forest. It reminded him of forest of death back home, except the trees here were a lot bigger and wildlife even more untamed.
After a few miles of tree hopping, Naruto arrived on the edge of town. There were a lot of tents and huts, and most of the people were busy building new homes. 'Either they just moved here from somewhere or their original homes got destroyed somehow,' he thought. The layout of the town was a simple one, nice average sized homes built at the edge of large ruins of what appeared to be an ancient city. Almost every house had some form of totem pole in front of it. There were some torches burning atop crossed spears as well. You would think of it just another normal town that happens to be ten kilometer up in the sky but even then there were some features about this place that stood out. The first thing that struck his notice and dragged his attention like magnet were wings. Not just any wings, pretty white wings that were on the backs of humans instead of any sort of bird as you would normally expect. 'Holy crap, are they real??!', was his eloquent thought.
And second, at the centre of the soon to be village, there was a giant beanstalk that was cut down and there was a huge golden bell near it. Not just huge, the bell was humongous! To the point that people that were near it looked tiny! The bell was hung above a platform, supported by huge pillars. The pillars, the platform the pillars rose out of and even the stairs that led onto the platform appeared to be completely made out of gold. 'Man that's a lot of gold!' He had never seen so much gold in his life! And certainly not in one place like this! It was amazing!
Back in town, men and women were busy with construction, and some children were playing on a giant blue snake, using its back as a slide. A giant snake was a familiar sight for him back home so he wasn't that surprised. But seeing it behave so friendly was unusual to say the least, the snakes he met so far were total jerks! One of the bastards even ate him! He wondered if this snake could talk. Snake didn't seem to mind in the slightest bit that children playing on it's back, and was actually smiling! Complete opposite to the giant snakes he was used to seeing.
Just then, at the edge of his senses, Naruto felt three people approach him from behind but he made no effort to move or hide. He simply waited for them as he watched the people work. The three men were cautious in their approach, not making any sudden moves. Clearly they were well trained.
"Hey, you!" one of the men said. Naruto turned around to face them. All three men were half naked, wearing nothing but grass skirts and some animal pelts. All of them had a lot of tattoos on their arms, chests and even faces. The one in front looked like he was their leader, he was a tall man with tanned skin and long braided hair that reached his lower back and a tattoo around his left eye and shoulder. He had a huge gun in his hand, and a cigarette loosely held in his mouth. The other two were similarly dressed, one had a mohawk while the other had a cap that hid his eyes. "Who are you? What business do you have in our home?"
Naruto raised both his hands to show them that he wasn't there to fight, "Please, lower your gun, friend. I mean you no harm. I'm just a traveller that's happened to find this land. It's not everyday you see an island in clouds you know, I thought I might take a look around!" Naruto put on his best charming smile.
"You're from the blue sea?" the man asked.
"Yeah, I heard so much about this place that I couldn't help but come here myself. And I gotta say, this place lives up to it's reputation as the legendary Sky island!!" Naruto tried to flatter them as much as he could. "Definitely the most beautiful island I've ever seen!" he added, which was the truth. It was the most beautiful island he had ever seen, the turtle island of Kumo came close but island on the clouds beats island on the back of a giant turtle any day of the week.
The hat guy in the back looked visibly relaxed when Naruto said that, "So the sound of the bell reached the blue sea?" he asked with some happiness clear on his face.
"Of course!! People of Jaya said it was the most beautiful sound they had ever heard!!!" He had no idea what he was talking about. But a little white lie won't hurt. "It's a dream of many people to one day visit this place!" Naruto lowered his hands and took a step forward. When the men didn't stop him or told him against it, Naruto approached them.
He put his hand forward for a handshake but the serious looking bazooka guy didn't take it, so he lowered it. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, I travel around the world writing books about legendary places of the world. For my next book, I am writing about this sky island." Naruto grinned at the men. "If you don't mind, I'd love to take a look around. You know, for my book!" He offered them his best charming smile.
The three men looked at him like he asked them for their kidneys. After a few seconds of what appeared to be some really hard thinking, they lowered their weapons. "You're lucky, blue-sea man. If you were here a few days ago we would have killed you first and asked questions later. Count your lucky stars we've already announce our presence to the world."
"I doubt you'd have gotten much answers from a corpse! hehe I'd have hated to be here a few days back then, you guys look scary!" Naruto laughed as he scratched the back of his head. If they thought him weak and harmless, they might be more cooperative, he thought.
"But don't think for a moment that you're free to do what you please while you're here. You'll be watched every second of your stay here. Kamakiri, don't let him out of your sight," the man in the front slung his gun on his back and walked past Naruto, not even acknowledging him.
"You got it Wyper!" the one named Kamakiri replied.
"Well then, let's go sightseeing!" Naruto said out loud and went into the town, Kamakiri in tow.
He started walking in the town area, people stopped their work for a moment or two to look at the stranger, besides that no one paid him much attention, they were too busy with construction work as they wanted their new town to be completed as soon as possible.
"So...are you guys some kind of police force or something??" Naruto asked his chaperone who was walking a step behind him to his left. "C'mon I feel paranoid with you at my heels! Walk by my side will ya?? I promise I won't bite!"
Kamakiri ignored his words but answered his first question, "Yes, we're Kami's guards. We protect this island in Kami's name." he answered in monotone like he'd rehearsed it beforehand.
"Hm? Kami's guards? So are you guys some kind of badass warrior priests?!!" Naruto had awe in his voice and stars in his eyes. He watched movies like that! People/monks who are normally peaceful but forced to take arms to defend what they love! Even princess Koyuki had a movie like that. And like the rest of her movies, it was one of his absolute favourites. In his eyes, anything that has Koyuki in it, be it a movie, play, musical, etc becomes a masterpiece instantly just by her presence alone! Even now, on a mission so far away from home, he had all the equipment he needed to watch the movies of his favourite actress.
"No! We're not priest!" Kamakiri's reply came a bit harsher than expected, which Naruto noticed right away, his expression sobered up pretty quickly.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean mean to insult you or anything. It's just that when you mentioned 'Kami', I thought that maybe you were a monk or something."
"No, it's fine. It's just that only a little while ago, we had to risk our lives against Enel's priests to get our homeland back!" the Shandian warrior tried to explain, "So it's not exactly a flattering comparison."
"Oh okay," they both were now deep into the heart of ruins, there was a small alter of some kind, it had a figure of sun roughly carved into it's two sides and some sort of bird occupied the other two. Naruto traced the carvings with his bandaged fingers and moved forward to the next. "Who were these Enel's priests?? And why did they take over your home anyway?"
"You ask a lot of question!" Kamakiri clearly must have felt a bit annoyed that the blonde was asking question after question without pause. I mean, it wasn't like he was asking for some forbidden secrets or anything but still... There's only so much a man could talk in a day!
Naruto chuckled a little, "Yeah, I like to have as much information about a place as I can get my hands on. You know, for my book, it's culture, traditions, history and all the stuff that makes a place unique!"
Kamakiri took a long pause as Naruto moved to take a closer look at various figures carved on the broken building and pillars, occasionally writing and drawing in a small notebook. He seemed like he was searching for something but wasn't finding what he was looking for. Kamakiri decided to indulge him, they had already told the whole world where they were the moment that Straw Hat kid rang the light of Shandora, so someone writing a book about their home was irrelevant at this point, "Enel's priests and Enel himself came here from another sky island named Birka about six years ago. They had brought with them their army and took down the then Kami Ganfor without much difficulty-"
"Wait, Kami is a real guy??! I thought you were talking about-" Naruto stopped mid speech when he noticed how annoyed Kamakiri looked at his interruption. "Sorry, that was rude, my bad! Please continue." he bowed in apology.
The Shandian sighed loudly, "Like I was saying, Ganfor was defeated pretty easily but we didn't care much about it as Ganfor was our enemy too at that time. After Enel took over as Kami, the only thing that changed for us was we had to fight him instead of Ganfor!" and so Kamakiri began telling him everything about their struggle for their homeland, how their homeland was thrown in the sky, the history of Shandians with Skypieans, Ganfor's attempts at peace, Enel's rule, about how Straw Hat Luffy defeated Enel and even about Light of Shandora and how for the first time in 400 years Shandora was at peace. Naruto drank in his every word.
"Wow! You guys struggled so much! I wish I was here earlier," Naruto told him honestly, he lived to beat up scumbags, and this Enel guy seemed like he could have used a good punch to the face. "Who would have thought a place this beautiful has such sad history!"
"...things aren't always as they look. When we were kids, our chief used to tell us, 'Brightest lights cast the darkest shadows'!"
"Wise words." Naruto moved towards the largest structure in the ruins, the pyramid like building that the ruins seemed to have built around. Solid clouds had covered a lot of the area and the ruins seemed to go deep. "So how old is this place anyway?" Naruto asked, not taking his eyes away from the carvings, this time he spotted snakes and winged men and evn more symbols depicting the Sun, they were everywhere. He kept looking for any clues about Otsutsuki. Kakashi sensei had said that he should look for symbols like the byakugan, Rinnegan, ten tails or a horned goddess, so far he wasn't finding anything.
"Shandora is 1100 years old," Kamakiri told him, "and it was destroyed in a great war around 800-900 years ago!" Naruto whipped his neck so fast it appeared as a blur. Kaguya came to their home about a thousand years ago right? So these ruins were of perfect age, If there was any clue about Rabbit granny in this world, they would definitely be in some ancient place like this that were more than thousand years old. He'd have to pay extra close attention to these ruins it seemed.
Back at the newly built town, Wyper had wandered back to the bell. After fulfilling his lifelong goal, Wyper wanted nothing more than to keep ringing the light of Shandora. It's sound brought peace of mind to anyone who listened to it, well it wasn't like he needed any excuse to ring the bell, everyone loved to hear it anyways. He hoped the sound also reached his ancestor the great warrior Kalgara and his friend Mont Blanc Noland too.
Wyper spotted a small crowd had already gathered near the bell, looked like people were going to ring the bell without him! He quickened his pace, even used his skates to get to his destination faster, he didn't want te be left out! An eager grin was on his face, not that anyone could see it!
As he got closer and got a clear look at the crowd, his grin faded, replaced by a frown. He didn't recognise those people! There were about fifty of them. First there was that weird blond kid and now this??! What day was this anyway? Were they hostile? He hoped not, it'd be a shame to have to spill more blood. Wyper reached the bell quickly enough. As soon as his skates touched the ground, the biggest one of them turned to look at him.
He was a tall and bulky man, nearly thirteen feet in height, he was wearing monk's robes with a necklace made of big red beads, dark scruffy beard and fire like tattoos on his arm. But Wyper's attention was quickly snatched by his wings. "Birkans!" he grit out. The shape of the wings was unmistakable! Where the hell did they even come from??!
"Hmm looks like you know us! I was getting impatient waiting for someone to approach us," the monk said.
"What are a bunch of Birkans doing here?? I was told everyone was wiped out six years ago??" Wyper eyed the monks companions who had get up similar to the big man.
"Ah so you know about our sad tragedy as well! That's exactly my reason for coming here! Tell me, where can I find the one that calls himself Kami Enel??!" the monk's grin didn't lessen a bit even as he spoke. At this point, Wyper was getting a little creeped out by the stranger, not that he'd ever admit that out loud.
"Probably at the bottom of the ocean! I don't know what happened to him after we kicked him out of here!" Wyper spoke with some steel in his voice. He probably unconsciously tried to intimidate the creepy monk.
"That's a shame! And after we suffered so much to get here!" He clasped his hands together for a prayer, "Looks like Lord has denied us our justice, my friends!" he announced to his crew. "I was wondering something was wrong when Kami Enel didn't attack even after we set foot in his territory!"
'So this guy is an enemy of Enel too!' relief filled Wyper's heart. Not that he was scared or anything but anyone actively looking to fight that psychopath probably wasn't a pushover and his body hadn't completely recovered from that fight in the first place.
"One more thing," the monk's voice snapped him out of his thoughts, "Was it you who took him down?"
"No," Wyper answered, it was probably more helpful to say that he took down Enel, intimidate the stranger ls who clearly knew how strong Enel was, but his warrior's pride wouldn't let him lie about something like that, "It was Straw Hat Luffy!" The monk nodded in understanding and lead his crew to wherever the hell they were going. Wyper remained on edge until the strangers vanished from his sight.
Back at the ruins with Naruto
Spacious streets of the ruins of the city were still relatively intact even a millennia after it's destruction. There were carved stone statues of people long dead and symbol of sun was abundant. There was some strange writing on the walls and some stone tablets, Naruto had no idea what it said.
"Hey, Kamakiri," Naruto called out, the guy hadn't let him get more than ten feet away from him so far.
"What is it, Uzumaki?"
"Can you tell me what's written here?"
"I can't read it," Kamakiri answered with a shrug.
"This is your homeland right? Isn't this your language?" Naruto raised his eyebrow at the man.
"Yes, this is our homeland but this city is more than a millennia old, knowledge of that language is lost to time. There's only one woman in the whole world who can read the script," Kamakiri answered truthfully.
"Who is it? Can I meet her?" he failed hide eagerness from his voice.
"Nico Robin. And you can meet her, if you can find her, she's also from blue sea. She came here a while ago with her crew."
"That's too bad!" Naruto let out a sigh. He got up and moved on to the next stone writings, "Do you have any idea where they might have gone next?? Her crew I mean?" Kamakiri just shrugged. They kept talking like that for a long time, Naruto would ask something amd depending on the question Kamakiri would either answer or just shrug in response.
Naruto searched the ruins for most of the night, occasionally writing and drawing in his notebook. Kamakiri had long since dozed off, he probably thought Naruto was harmless at this point. When he was finished Naruto decided to call it a night as well. He found a nice fluffy island cloud and plopped down on it. He took out his can of instant ramen and poured boiling water in it out of thin air. And quick as that his dinner was ready! After eating the best food in existence, Naruto went to sleep as well. It would be morning soon enough, he would be on way then.
After sleeping a couple of hours, Naruto woke to the sound of strange birds of the jungle. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked around him. The east horizon was tinged pink and the faint noise of denizens of the sky reached his ears. After a quick breakfast of instant ramen, he took all the ink prints and notes he made so far and put them in a single sealing scroll. He took out a paper and pen to write a letter, when that was done, he bit his thumb and went through the practiced hand signs- boar, dog, bird, monkey, ram- and slammed his hand on the ground. A summoning matrix appeared, followed by a small puff of white smoke, when it cleared a small crimson toad with blue markings around his eyes stood before him. He had a kanji for gold on his back and a pair of goggles hung loose from his neck.
"Hey Kosuke, what's up?" Naruto greeted his summons with a smile.
"Big brother Naruto!" Kosuke grinned at him.
"Listen, I need you to take this scroll to Kakashi sensei as soon as possible okay? give him this letter as well, tell him to ask Shiho if she can make sense of the symbols," Naruto handed over the scroll and the letter. Kosuke sealed them away in a storage seal on his right arm.
"I'll be there in no time boss!"
"And one more thing before you go," Naruto said before the toad could go back, "If sensei has any message for me, tell him to leave it with you, I'll summon you in a week."
"You got it big brother," Kosuke saluted and vanished in a puff of smoke. Kosuke was one of the fastest toads of mount Myoboku and had high stamina. When he was given a job, it was as good as done. After emptying a couple more ramen cups, Naruto decided to take a closer look at that giant golden bell and then he'd go back down. He began his trek towards the town, he might have walked only a few yards when he heard the unmistakable sounds of explosions coming from the direction of the town. Naruto broke into a sprint. As he wasn't very far from the village to begin with, it didn't take him long to reach the scene where a bunch of people were fighting, and others were hurrying to get to a safe place.
The three men he met yesterday along with about twenty others were fighting a group of people who were all wearing monk's robes near the golden bell. The men in robes seemed to have the upper hand but not by much, thanks to a huge man carrying a large pillar, who was constantly grinning. Naruto assumed him to be the leader of the group. He was almost twice as tall as Naruto, the man was wearing a necklace of red beads, he had a scruffy beard, white wings on his back and a saffron robe. There were a lot of men lying unconscious on the ground, and more were still fighting. The three men from yesterday were attacking the big guy together with little success. Nearby, an old man in a knight's armor was fighting the men in robes with a lance, he was riding a weird looking horse with wings.
From a quick glance Naruto could see that both sides were using weapons he'd never seen before- a bazooka that fired lazor like blue flames, small shells that absorbed attacks and fired them back, boots that let them glide on the surface, spears that burned red hot. Amidst all this, Naruto's attention was again drawn to the big man with the pillar, of the three that were fighting him, only the bazooka guy was left standing.
Naruto used a quick body flicker to appear a little distance away from the two, now that he was close enough, he could see that Wyper had taken a lot of damage and was barely standing, while the big guy was just grinning like a madman. It took a moment for both of them to notice him.
"You need some help?" Naruto asked.
Before Wyper could say anything, the big man spoke, "And who might you be? You don't look like a sky person," his grin seemed like it was carved on his face.
"Me? I'm just a traveler, these people were nice enough to let me stay here. Now if you don't mind, can you stop beating them, um...?" Naruto waited for the man to introduce himself. Which he did.
"I'm Urouge. I don't want to beat them, I just want that bell, if they let me have it I'll leave in peace!" the man replied in even tone.
"Over...my dead body," Wyper huffed and readied his bazooka once again. Like hell he was gonna let someone just take the light of Shandora!! Urouge lifted his pillar high up to strike the man.
"Hey!" Naruto said a little louder to get their attention, "That bell is very important to these people. What are you going to do with it anyway?" he knew full well why someone would want this much gold, but the man was dressed like a monk so maybe he could appeal to his good heart?
"I need the gold to conquer the blue sea!" Urouge grinned and swung the pillar at Wyper. So much for appealing to his good heart!! The man was only dressed like a monk, underneath that he was just another scumbag pirate! Well, that simplified things.
Urouge turned his attention once more to the Shandian warrior near him, swinging his large pillar with such speed that defied it's size. Wyper jumped out of range with the help of his skates. In a burst speed that defied his bulky appearance Urouge caught up with Wyper easily. The big man swung the huge pillar as easy as one would swing a paper fan, Wyper ducked first blow, second came downward for his head but he managed to avoid it by stepping out of the way, barely. The third time however, Wyper's luck ran out, the pillar connected with his stomach and Wyper was slammed hard into the ground, with enough force to create a small crater.
Urouge lifted the pillar high in the air and brought it down on the barely conscious Wyper with full force. Another hit and the Shandian was as good as dead! Naruto quickly used a substitution jutsu to trade places with the injured Shandian who was now a safe distance away from the action while Naruto stood in the crater as the pillar came to meet him. He curled his bandaged palm into a fist and punched the stone pillar just as it came above his head. With a loud crack, the stone pillar shattered in a thousand small pebbles. The sound reached nearby people as they stopped their individual battles for a moment to look at what caused it.
"That's impressive strength!" even when surprised, Urouge's grin hadn't left his face for a single moment, "but that was my favourite pillar!" The mad monk swung his right fist at Naruto head, Naruto tilted his head a little to his right and evaded the punch by a narrow margin, not moving an inch from his place. He grabbed the extended arm, pulled Urouge over him shoulder and slammed him into the ground. The Monk didn't stay down for long though as he jumped to his feet the next moment.
Naruto lunged towards him and threw a haymaker right at his jaw. The punch connected and Urouge was sent flying. Naruto watched as the big man stood up once again.
"I thought for sure that would knock a few teeth at least," Naruto said. The Monk dusted his robes, ignoring the blood coming from his mouth like he didn't just get punched in the face. Once he rose up, Urouge cracked his knuckles and got ready to fight once again.
"You're a strong one! That's good, I won't feel as bad when you die at my hands!" the monk rushed him once again. His right fist docked and aimed for his temple. Naruto blocked it with open palm without much effort on his part. Urouge immediately threw his left, which was also blocked by an open palm. He wasn't discouraged by the lack of success however, as he kept throwing puch after punch at Naruto's head. Every single one of which were easily deflected, Naruto didn't even have to move an inch or put much effort into it.
'Why does he keep doing the same thing over and over again when it clearly isn't working?? He's up to something!' Naruto became on guard. He didn't want to mess around and drag out this fight. He had no interest in finding out the tricks of Urouge either. When the next punch came, instead of blocking it, Naruto grabbed the monk's arm by the wrist and twisted it. Hard. Urouge let out a scream loud enough to reach every corner of the town. Naruto didn't give him a second to breath, he punched the big guy in the guts hard enough mute his scream and make him spit out saliva. The force of the impact threw the large man more than fifty feet backwards where he landed in a heap.
Urouge coughed a couple more times and shakily got up to his feet. That's when Naruto noticed something about his opponent, "Is it me or did that guy got bigger after that last punch?!" he wondered out loud.
"Thank you for the boost!" Urouge flexed his muscles as his whole body grew in size. He cracked his knuckles and dashed at Naruto once again, this time faster than he was a minute ago. When he got close to Naruto, Urouge jumped in the air as he brought down the now immense fist at him, "And now, Retribution!" Naruto crossed his arms in front of his face, the punch connected with far greater power than he anticipated, it was enough to push him back a couple of inches.
"So you can absorb the force of my punches huh?" Naruto asked with a smile. Urouge just kept grinning. "Alright then, I guess simple taijutsu is useless!" Naruto pushed Urouge back with a burst of speed and back flipped to put some distance between them. He took out two kunai and waited for Urouge to get close. The Monk once again charged him like a wild bull. Naruto coated both his kunai with wind chakra, when the big guy got close enough, Naruto threw both of them as fast as he could just above the armpit where shoulder met the arm. The Monk had no time to dodge and not a lot of things could block a flying swallow, the Kunai pierced the skin and muscle like it was wet paper and came out from the other side.
Pain shot through his arms as Urouge lost the power in both his limbs. The Monk stopped in his track to clutch his shoulders.
"You know I was half expecting you to absorb that damage as well," Naruto said to the Monk. Who just kept grinning, the constant smile was starting to creep him out. 'Is he crazy?!' Naruto wondered in his mind.
"Hehe one good hit doesn't mean anything, I didn't come this far to lose," Urouge took a step towards him, then another and another, "I can still kick you to death!"
Naruto took out another kunai and threw it just above Urouge's right knee, it hit it's mark and remained stuck. The big man stopped in his tracks, stumbled and fell to his knees, clutching the kunai. Naruto walked up to the fallen monk, he opened his bandaged palm and lighting crackled to life in his hand.
Urouge's eyes widened in surprise, "The power of rumble-rumble fruit! Hehehe so Enel bit the dust after all! That bastard!" he laughed. Naruto had a bit of confused look on his face but didn't dwelve on it. He placed his hand on Urouge's shoulder and the lightning was enough to knock him out.
Naruto looked at his surroundings, everyone had stopped fighting and they were looking at him weird! The men in robes had already thrown their weapons to the ground, they lost their will to fight after seeing their captain like that and promptly surrendered, it was clear as day that they were afraid of him. They weren't the only ones to be afraid of him though, the fighters of Skypiea too had fear in their hearts, he could sense it. Was it because of the lightning? Whatever the case he didn't care as he would be leaving soon.
Naruto took out some ninja wire began tying up the unconscious man. The injured Wyper hobbled his way towards him, he had something in his hands, Naruto couldn't clearly see what. When he was close enough, Wyper extended his hand, he had handcuffs made of stone.
"Here, put these on him," he said.
"Thanks but I think I can manage without those. This wire looks thin but it's incredibly durable!" Naruto replied with his usual smile.
Wyper just shook his head, "I saw this guy fight earlier, the way he grew in size...he's definitely a devil fruit user. These are made of sea stone, it weakens devil fruit users. Basically it has the same effect as drawing in the sea!"
"Oh...okay, Thanks!" Naruto took the handcuffs and put them on Urouge. 'So sea and sea stone weaken devil fruit users!' That was a big weakness he just found out. Who would have thought something so simple as a stone or sea would weaken these guys he was hearing so much about! "Hey guys! Can you tie up the rest of them??" He said loudly to the recovering soldiers. It didn't take much time for them to do so.
Naruto grabbed Urouge, "Well, you guys take care. I'll go and hand this guys over to the navy!"
Naruto was about to take his leave when the old man with the weird horse he saw earlier approached him.
"I don't know how to thank you, I thought we wouldn't have to fight anymore again," the old man said.
"No need to thank me grandpa, I was just repaying your hospitality." Naruto said with his usual smile. "That Kamakiri guy helped me a lot!"
The old man chuckled, "He's a good man, his kindness saved us today!"
By now, the civilians of Skypiea had come out of their hiding place and began gathering at their location. Children ran ahead of them without any caution to talk to the guy that took down the evil man.
"Where did you find the rumble-rumble fruit anyway?" Wyper couldn't help his curiosity. It also didn't help that he was incredibly happy to know that Enel was dead. Proof, his devil fruit had respawned.
"Rumble-Rumble fruit?" Naruto tilted his head in confusion.
"It's the strongest logia fruit, whoever eats it becomes Lightning Human."
"Oh yeah...that...um..I found it on Jaya!" Naruto lied through his teeth. He didn't particular feel like explaining what chakra is and what you can do with it, so he just went with the devil fruit explanation. And to his surprise, Wyper bought it.
At this point, the kids started pulling on his clothes to get his attention, 'their patience must have run out,' Naruto chuckled and crouched down to their level.
"Big brother, what's your name?"
"Why is your hand wrapped in bandages? Did you get hurt?"
"How come you look like a cat?"
"Do you have any rubber bands??!!"
"What happened to your wings?" a bunch of them asked one question after another, without even giving him a chance to answer any of them. It made him laugh.
"Everybody stop!" a little girl yelled, "Don't speak all at once! It's bad manners!"
"Thank you kid!" Naruto ruffled her hair, "You can call me Naruto, and as for rubber bands..um...I have something better," the kids looked at him with stars in their eyes. Naruto gathered chakra in his mouth and channeled his lava release, he adjusted the ratio of earth and fire to form vulcanized rubber and spat out a rubber ball. "Here," Naruto gave them the ball and kids ran to play.
When that was done, Naruto once again addressed the old man, "This is a fun place but now I have to get going. I'll take these guys with me," he pointed towards the pirates with his head.
The old man smiled, "You've done a lot for us, Naruto. Even when you didn't have to, let us at least thank you properly!"
"You don't have to do anything, grandpa. Really, I'm just happy to help!" Naruto tried to assure him but the old man didn't look like he would let it go.
"It will bring great shame on the people of Skypiea if, as the residing Kami, I only gave you hollow 'thank you' for your help." the old man smiled, "Come with me," he led the way through the huts and houses towards the bell. Naruto followed the old man, dragging the unconscious Urouge with him and wondering why he was leading him towards the golden bell. One by one, many others followed him towards the bell too.
"You know, when Kamakiri told me that a man from blue sea was interested in ruins of Shandora, I thought you as another adventurer who was searching for the Golden City," the old man was saying.
"Yeah, he told me this was once the legendary golden city," Naruto replied. "But no, I'm not here for the gold if that's what you're wondering."
The man chuckled, "I thought as much. The Shandians protected this city from outsiders for thousands of years. Until recently people fought and died doing their duty." By now they had reached the platform, Naruto followed the old man as he stood in front of the blue stone at the foot of the giant bell platform. "But now the duty is fulfilled, thanks to the pirate king."
"What do you mean?" Naruto was confused a little. He had no idea what the old man was going on about. From what he knew pirate king Gold Roger died more than two decades ago but the old man was talking like it was recent event. And how did the king of pirates fulfill their duty?
"For us sky people gold isn't worth much, but the bell is important because it's sound guides the souls of ancestors to here." The old man said, "In the past, it's sound was a warning to all those who wished to conquer the golden city that Shandian didn't fear them and to show that they are capable of protecting their treasure."
"But you said gold isn't worth much to you?" Naruto asked. 'What is the old man trying to say?' he wondered.
"That's right. It's not the gold they were protecting, it was this," the old man walked near the blue stone and traced the carved letters with his hand. "It's a message from the void century, this city was tasked to protect it. Pirate king Gold Roger already read it when he came here two decades ago and passed it along. This poneglyph has served it's purpose so we don't have to die to protect it anymore."
Naruto sensed relief and happiness in the old man's voice, "That's awesome. But why are you telling me this?" he asked.
"You were interested in the ruins of Shandora, were you not?" the old man turned to face him.
"Yeah, I wanted to know what those writings said," Naruto gestured towards the poneglyph. Besides, he already took an ink print of that thing last night.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that. I can't read what it says. But what I have just told you is basically all you need to know about this ancient city."
'I guess its a dead end then,' Naruto said to himself. "Thank you for telling me this, you have no idea how big of a help it is! That's all I came here for!" he thanked the old man, "I'll take those pirates away with me if that's all the same with you, they won't trouble you again." Naruto waved his hand and began to walk away from the bell. Naruto took his leave of the sky island and boarded the ship of Urouge, seeing as he didn't bring one of his own. The sky people lowered his ship to the sea below with the help of a giant octopus and he was on his way.
Thanks for reading! Have a nice day!