Chapter 2- A New Lead
When he got back on the grand line after the trip to the sky, Naruto realised two things, first- he'd be here for years if he kept on searching blindly. He'd have to infiltrate some place that had access to a lot of information, like the world government or the Navy. From what little information he'd gathered so far he knew that the navy was always looking for new recruits, so he wouldn't have to kidnap and replace anyone either. And second, he'd have to meet this Nico Robin. Those writings could potentially tell him the answers he was looking for, after all an ancient city had dedicated it's whole existence to protecting that blue stone, a poneglyph, the old man had called it, it must be something really really important! If he could get Nico Robin to read it for him that'd be awesome! His mind set, Naruto decided to head straight for Marineford while searching for Miss Robin along the way. But first he had to do something about his guests. Technically, he was the guest on their ship, but right now they were all tied up in a room so it wasn't like they were in any position to object.
Naruto opened the door and peaked inside the room that acted as makeshift holding cell for the pirates. They were sprawled across the room, just as he left them, some were leaning their backs on the wall, their captain was sleeping on the floor, still tied up with ninja wire and sea stone handcuffs.
"Hey, you guys!" Naruto greeted them in a cheerful voice. "How's it going??" Only groans and hungry growls of their stomachs were the response he received. "my, are you guys in a pathetic shape! It's been barely a day y'know!"
"Humiliating a defeated man! How noble of you!" Urouge said from his place, his everlasting grin present even now.
"Yeah I'm gonna be honest with you dude, your opinion means nothing to me! After all you are the guy that was trying to kill innocents for sake of just gold!"
"God created resourses for everyone! If I needed that gold, why shouldn't I take it? It's not like those people were even using it!"
"...Thats the best you could come up with?? Man, that's the most bullshit excuse I've heard…like ever! How are you even a monk anyway?" Naruto waited for the big guy's response but only received silence.
"C'mon, you can tell me! Why not wear regular clothes and call yourself a regular pirate??" Again silence.
"What, do you get a kick outta dressing like a peaceful monk and killing people?? Is that your thing? Hm?" Nothing.
Naruto was getting a bit frustrated by the lack of cooperation from the captive pirate, "Okay tell you what, if you answer my questions nicely and honestly I'll let you all go free!" As soon as he said that the demoralised and hungry group of pirates perked up and looked at their captain with so much hope Naruto almost wanted to untie them! Almost.
But the big guy just scoffed, "Like I'd believe that!"
"...True. I wouldn't have let you go!" Naruto put his index finger to his chin and thought for a moment, "How about this then, if you give me some useful and honest answers I'll feed you guys! How's that sound?"
Urouge actually thought about his offer this time, he glanced at his crew, people who had suffered with him and fought for him, lying hungry, he made up his mind in no time at all, "Fine. What do you want to know?" The look of concern for his men hadn't gone unnoticed by Naruto.
"Well at least you care about your crew I'll give you that much. That's a lot more I could say for you than those guys I saw at Jaya! But that aside, tell me why did you take up a pirate's life?"
"Back home, on Birka I was a priest for our Kami for practically my whole life. Life was peaceful, no intruders, no famine, no crime… basically it was as normal as you could get! Then one day, out of nowhere a young man named Enel showed up at the temple, said he was the Kami from that point, obviously we laughed at this young man's audacity and foolishness!"
"And then?" Naruto asked.
"Then he killed everyone in the Kami's temple!" Urouge still managed to keep his smile intact as he said that.
"But you lived?"
"He let me live. More as a show of power than as a mercy. I was the strongest man in Birka after Kami himself, by letting me go, he had declared that nobody was a match for him, that no one could oppose him! I tried to rally the Birkans to overthrow him, but no one wanted to test the power of Rumble-Rumble fruit! I had to flee in shame with what few people that were brave enough to come with me. Later I found out Enel had wiped out Birka from existence, citizens and all! That day, I vowed I'd kill the bastard with my own hands! But fate is a cruel mistress, just when I had gotten strong enough to challenge Enel, he was nowhere to be found but still I was defeated by that accursed Rumble-Rumble fruit!"
"You mean the fruit that gives lightning powers?"
"Hihihihi Don't act so innocent! You ate it, didn't you? You ate the strongest logia fruit in existence?"
"You still didn't answer why you became a pirate?" Naruto changed the from the stupid devil fruit this guy loved talking so much about.
"Because one day I'll be the Pirate King! Like Roger, I'll have everything the world has to offer! Wealth, fame, power, everything a Kami is supposed to have! I'll be the Kami of this whole world, and then no one will ever hurt my friends ever again!"
"...Well you have good intentions but that doesn't mean you get to kill innocents," Naruto got up from his chair, "You stayed true to your word, you were honest. Do any of you know how to cook?" He asked the room. One of the guys from his left spoke up in affirmation. Naruto walked up to him, he took out a kunai and cut the wire. The man flexed his newly freed arms.
"Go in the kitchen and make something for your crew." Naruto told him. The man practically ran out the room. Naruto once again turned to Urouge, "If I were to free you, will you turn a new leaf? Quit being a pirate?"
Urouge must have sensed the honesty in his words because he too answered honestly, "Once you get a bounty put on your head, it stays like that until you are dead!" Urouge shook his head, "Thanks for the offer but I already took up the jolly roger, I'll die a pirate!"
Naruto sighed, "Suit yourself! Don't say I didn't give you a chance." with that he left the pirates alone.
Naruto got back on the deck and headed upstairs for the captain's cabin. Like most of the ship, this room too had a shrine like appearance, with an alter near the far end. Naruto made his way over to the table, there were a lot of religious symbols on it as well, and a transponder snail was sleeping beside a framed wanted poster of 'Mad Monk' Urouge. Naruto went through the drawers, there were praying beads, detailed maps of both paradise and New World, a journal, a log pose, another log pose with three needles among various other small things, mostly religious.
Naruto chose a map of paradise and stretched it on the table in front of him. He was somewhere east of Jaya, that much he knew, so that meant there was an island named Navarone nearby that had a marine base, it would take him a couple of days at most to get there. Naruto decided to hand over the pirates at that base and continue forward to Marineford. His decision made, he got back on the deck and made his way to raised platform near the front of the ship where the helm was. Naruto was hardly any expert when it came to sailing, but he did have some experience on the high seas. He made that long voyage to that turtle island before the war, that has to count for something right?
Naruto put his fingers in a crossed ram seal and another identical Naruto appeared to his left.
"Okay, so from what I remember captain Yamato moved the sails to catch wind and get the ship moving right?"
"Pretty much."
"Alright then, I'll take the helm and you get the sails."
"Aye aye, captain!" the clone saluted him and climbed the main mast.
Naruto got behind the wheel and took out both log poses and the map of paradise from his pocket, "Let's see…" the log pose with single needle was pointing straight ahead, so were the three needles of the other log pose. The only island in that direction he could see on the map was Navarone. He nodded in satisfaction, "We need to go straight ahead!" He yelled to his clone.
"Got it!" the clone yelled back, "Hey, do you want me to take down these flags??"
"Yeah, take them down. This is not a pirate ship anymore! Besides we don't want to get in pointless scuffles with the navy!" The clone took down Jolly Rogers from both the masts and moved the sails to catch the wind so they could move forward.
When the sails were set, the clone jumped down, Naruto left the clone to man the helm and went to explore the ship. The ship itself was fairly large with two masts, it had a figurehead of a white demon face with sharp yellow teeth, red horns and two crossed blades and a shield behind it. The main mast had a small shrine and crow's nest and two sails on it. The ship had enough rooms to house a crew of fifty comfortably, with a big, fully equipped kitchen, a spacious living room decorated with expensive looking furniture, storage room filled with barrels of booze, tools and timber for repair and plenty of cannon balls with four cannons on either side of the ship.
Naruto was just finishing inspecting the cannons when a small snowflake landed on his hand, melting instantly due to the body heat. "Hm? Snow?" He turned his gaze upwards as more and more snow had began to fall. "What the fuck?! The weather was clear a moment ago!!" He cursed in confusion and frustration. This was going to be his first challenge navigating the treacherous sea known as Grand Line. He quickly created ten more shadow clones so he'd have easier time keeping the ship afloat.
Naruto spent rest of his journey trying to keep the ship from sinking, apparently the Grand Line was a real bitch when it came to mood swings aka weather changes. It'd be a beautiful sunny day one moment and the next moment a storm would appear out of nowhere, if it wasn't a storm then it was a maelstrom, a hail, typhoon, sea kings, whatever, it was like the nature itself was trying it's best to sink everything to the bottom of the ocean! The sea was unpredictable in every sense of the word! Good thing Uzumaki Naruto was master of unpredictable things, once again he proved Kakashi sensei didn't give him that nickname for nothing! He used every trick in the book, from holding the sails together with brute physical power to using precise water manipulation to get away from maelstroms and neptunians, by hook or crook he managed to see out the weathers. On rare occasion that the sea was calm, he spent that time reading the journal of this 'Mad Monk' Urouge and putting some useful things he found on the ship in sealing scrolls, like the barrels of sake he found in the storage room.
The sun was already up in the sky when he finally came near Navarone. It was an island fortress surrounded by cliffs on all sides except for a small entrace which was guarded by a big iron gate. There were watch towers on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Naruto moved his ship towards the gate slowly and deliberately so they would notice him from a distance, he didn't want them to fire cannons at him in panic, thinking they were getting attacked by a suspicious looking pirate ship or something. The sentries spotted his ship and an alarm was sounded. Naruto stopped the ship and waited for them to open the gate.
Instead of simply opening the gate, two warships approached him from either side. They stopped a safe distance away from him and had their cannons pointed at him already. One of the men on the ship to his right came on the prow, he had a large snail with a speaker attached in his hands. Naruto assumed him to be captain of the ship.
"YOU'RE TRESPASSING IN WATERS OF MARINE BASE G-8, SURRENDER YOURSELF OR WE'LL HAVE TO OPEN FIRE!" the man said in the speaker.
'Surrender? He probably thinks I'm a pirate because of this stupid ship!' To be fair, it was his own fault for not changing the sails since they still had Urouge's Jolly Roger painted on them. Naruto walked near the edge, hands in the air to show them he wasn't going to attack and stood on the railings, "I'm not a pirate! I'm here to hand over some pirates I captured!" he yelled at top of his lungs so the marines could hear him.
After a couple of seconds the marine spoke again, "BRING THE PIRATES ON THE DECK WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!!" the man said.
Naruto thought they'd be cautious like that, "Hold on a minute," he said and went inside. He went past the captain's cabin, kitchen and a shrine and reached a room where he'd kept the pirates. Naruto opened the door, the pirates were all looking at him with absolute loathing, even Urouge had stopped smiling.
"I guess this is goodbye," Naruto said to no one in particular.
"You better watch your back, sooner or later I'll come for you!" Urouge said as Naruto lifted him up to his feet.
"Yeah, you have no idea how many times I've heard that," Naruto pulled the whole crew to their feet one by one. Naruto had to push a few of them. When they reappeared on the deck, the marines had already prepared to both board the ship and to fight, depending on what Naruto did next.
When he saw the tied up pirates, the marine spoke once again, "PREPARE TO BE BOARDED, REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE! DON'T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVES OR YOU'LL REGRET IT!" They put a plank between the ships and about fifty or so marines crossed over, guns and swords at the ready, including the captain. One by one, the pirates were led onto the warship.
While the soldiers were busy, the captain approached Naruto. "That's 'Mad Monk' Urouge you captured! What's your name?" the captain asked. He was a tall and muscular man with rough features and large sideburns.
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, nice to meet you!" he introduced himself with a bright smile and stretched his right hand.
The captain shook his extended hand, "I'm lieutenant Drake. Uzumaki Naruto, are you a pirate hunter?"
"Something like that."
"You must be new to this business, I never heard of you before," Drake said.
"Yeah. In fact that's the first pirate I ever captured," he said with a smile.
"First catch and that too a pirate worth over a hundred million berry! That's impressive, and you don't seem to have any partners either!" the man half praised half asked.
"Yeah, I'm really new at this!"
"Well then, you can drop anchor here and come with me," when Naruto looked a little confused, he clarified, "...to collect your reward. Although it's fine if you dont want it!" he joked.
Naruto laughed a little, "O-of course, I almost forgot about that!"
The lieutenant led the way and Naruto followed him on the warship. The marines hurried to take their ship inside, the huge iron gate opened slowly and ship entered the narrow entrance.
As they cleared the entrance, the main island in the centre came into view. Their ship turned and headed for a nearest dock. The lieutenant began yelling orders and the marines hurried to dock the ship. Once they were anchored, even more soldiers gathered at the dock. The pirates were led away one after another in a single file with heavy guard.
"Please, Come with me Mr. Uzumaki." Drake said when they finally set foot on solid land. Naruto did as he was asked. They walked through the long maze like hallways and went deep inside the building. Out of habit beaten into him by Kakashi and later Jiraiya, he memories the layout, the exits, the dead ends and even noted the air ducts as possible escape routes, just in case. They stopped infront of a room and Drake knocked the door. They both heard a 'Come In' from inside and the lieutenant opened the door. Inside there was a man sitting in a chair behind a desk, he had dark brown hair, bushy eyebrows and even bushier moustache. He was wearing regular civilian clothes, Naruto spotted a navy uniform in a corner behind the man's left, it was a typical white uniform with a lot of medals pinned to the chest.
"You must be our guest!" the man said as his eyes crinkled into smile, "You gave our lieutenant quite the scare earlier hahaha!"
Naruto chuckled too, "Yeah, I guess I should have changed the sails."
"Come, come, have a seat! You too Drake," the man's voice was polite, he seemed like an easy going person. Naruto liked the old man so far. He did as he was asked but Drake didn't.
"I'll go get this young man's reward sir," he said as he left the room.
"Ah yes, the hundred and eight million berries for capturing 'Mad Monk' Urouge!" the man waved at his subordinate as he left and then turned his attention back to Naruto, "Sorry, but you'll have to wait a bit until the whole amount is brought here. It's rare for a man worth over a hundred million berry to be captured in the paradise, you see!" he said with a smile.
"It's no problem. He wasn't that much trouble…um?" Naruto scratched the back of his neck.
"Ah where are my manners, I'm Vice Admiral Jonathan."
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto." Now that the formal introduction was out of the way, Vice Admiral Jonathan continued where he'd left off.
"No problem capturing a bounty that big, huh? If that's true then we could use someone like you in the navy!"
"Yeah, lately I've been thinking about it too," Naruto leaned back in his chair, "Can you tell me what do I have to do to join?"
Jonathan smiled, "It's nice to see young men like you wanting to join the navy instead of becoming a pirate, Its rare these days!"
"It's always been my dream to catch bad guys and rescue princesses from evil men!"
The Vice Admiral laughed out loudly at his comment, "Y-you're funny!" He said as he wiped a tear from his eye.
Naruto meanwhile had a genuinely confused look on his face, 'what's funny about that?!'
"But jokes aside, if you're really serious about joining, I can give you the sailors uniform. But Petty Officer is the highest rank I'm allowed to recruit."
"Is that low?"
"Considering you captured Urouge without much difficulty as you say, it might be a little low for you," Jonathan explained.
"So what rank would suit me?"
Jonathan leaned back in his chair as he thought about it for a bit, "I'd guess you'd make a good Commodore or even a Rear Admiral!" he told honestly.
"How high is that?" Naruto had no clue how ranks in the navy worked, but he wanted to get the highest one. Higher rank meant more access to information that some low rank recruit would never get to see in his life.
"Rear Admiral is the fourth highest rank you can get in the navy, Commodore is just below that."
"And what's above Rear Admiral?"
"Ambitious, are we?" Jonathan smiled at that, "Above Rear Admiral are Vice Admirals like me, and even above us are the Admirals, the greatest power in the Navy. Fleet admiral is the one in charge of all of Marines, it's the highest you can possibly go."
Naruto went into a deep think, first of all, he didn't think they'd make him fleet admiral right away, so that was out. Now, the admiral position sounded pretty sweet. 'The greatest power' the old man had called them, didn't he? A title like that would definitely have a lot of influence, he nodded at his own conclusion, "How do I become an Admiral?"
The Vice Admiral chuckled, "You don't settle, do you? I'm afraid no one has been directly appointed an Admiral in the history of Marines. But there have been cases where Vice Admirals have been appointed by the Fleet Admiral, although that's rare too."
"So, Vice Admiral is the best I can hope for?"
"You say that like it's a bad thing! Vice Admiral have a lot of freedom and a lot of authority too, you know!"
That was all he needed, "But you can't appoint someone to the same rank as yourself!"
"No, but the HQ can and I can give you a letter of recommendation." With that he picked up the transponder snail that had so far had been deep asleep on the table. "Drake, can you also grab an eternal pose for Marineford please," he said and hung up. "Give me a minute to write that letter."
"Yeah, yeah, of course!" Naruto smiled brightly. Who knew it'd be so easy to infiltrate the marines! Capture a bad guy and viola, they practically invite you themselves! Suckers must have their hand full!
After some time had passed in silence, they heard a knock on the door. After a 'come in', the lieutenant walked in with a large briefcase.
"Looks like your reward is here!" Jonathan said without even looking up from the letter he was writing.
The marine put the briefcase on the table between them, Drake opened it to show him the berries inside. Naruto nodded in approval and took it in his hands.
"Pleasure doing business with you lieutenant," he smiled.
"Here's the eternal pose you asked for, sir!" Drake put it on the table.
"Give it to Mr. Uzumaki, Drake. He's going to the HQ and become an officer of the navy!" Jonathan folded the letter neatly and put it in an official looking envelope.
"Really?! That's great news, we could always use strong men!"
"That's what I said!"
Naruto accepted the letter and grabbed both the eternal pose and the briefcase, "Thank you for your help, Vice Admiral! And thanks for this...eternal pose, it'll make my journey a lot easier." He bowed a little.
"Ah don't mention it! Just show that letter to the Fleet Admiral when you get to Marineford."
"Yes, again, thanks! I'll take my leave then, if that's all?"
"Yes, yes of course. I'm sure you're in a hurry!" With that, Naruto left for his ship that was anchored outside.
"Are we seriously joining the marines?" he heard Kurama speak in his mind as he was walking through the hallways.
"Yup! That's our best bet. I'm sure these guys carry out missions all over the world so we might find something useful if we dig up their mission reports. Plus we can get some experienced sailers that will help us get places on these seas!" he replied.
"That's good thinking. It's fine with me either way, explore this world as a marine or just go solo, doesn't make much difference."
"Yeah, but we'll waste a lot of time if we wander about alone, you know! We know frighteningly little about this place, any help would be awesome at this point. I want to complete this mission as soon as possible," by now he had reached the docks and a small boat was ready to take him to his ship. Naruto got in the boat and the marine with him started rowing.
First phase of his mission was complete, he had all the basic knowledge he needed to blend in. With eagerness to start the next phase of the mission, he left G-8 marine base to head to his next destination where he can hopefully find out what he was looking for.
Hokage Tower, Konoha
The newly appointed sixth Hokage of Konoha was currently sitting in his new chair, standing before him was a young jonin by the name of Nara Shikamaru who was currently going over the first report they had received from Naruto. As the young Nara read on, he came across a certain part about the sky island and he became visibly annoyed, "That bastard is gloating!"
Kakashi chuckled, "Yes, he probably knew you'd read the report. You have to admit, it does sound pretty wonderful, sleeping on the clouds!"
"Yeah, he is living my dream!" they both shared a small laugh at that.
"Naruto's fun aside, that place can at least give us some information about those Otsutsuki. That's good news." their conversation had once again turned serious.
Shikamaru immediately sobered up, "Those chakra fruits he mentioned...they sound nasty!"
Kakashi nodded in agreement, "A fruit that gives you kekkai genkai or kekkai tota like abilities, they are very suspicious. Naruto's mentioned that the existence of those fruits alone increases the possibility that that world might have some form of connection with the Otsutsuki. Or at least a clue. The only thing we know that can produce anything similar was that God Tree."
"We don't know that for sure though, they sound pretty similar but maybe it's something different." More like, Shikamaru hoped it was something different. Because the first conclusion they came to was really really troublesome.
"True, we'll have to wait until Naruto sends us more information. Hopefully, next time he tells us where those fruits came from."
"Yeah, hopefully." the Nara continued, "Lord Hokage, can I ask you something?" Kakashi gave him a nod. "Why Naruto?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why was Naruto chosen for this mission? That too, a solo mission with indefinite time frame? I'm sure he'd have liked to stay in the village, learn more from you."
"It's pretty obvious, isn't it? He is the only one that I know for sure that can hold his own with whatever unknown powers he might encounter in that world! Plus he's become a master at stealth after his time with lord Jiraiya!"
"That's true and all but somehow I suspect there's more to it, isn't there?" Kakashi knew his question wasn't really a question at all but rather a conclusion he'd come to on his own. "After all, why not send an ANBU unit that specialises in stealth and infiltration if all we needed was information?" Shikamaru added.
The young Hokage chuckled, "Nothing gets past you, does it? My earlier reasoning is true, but there is more to it," he got up from his chair and walked over to the window. His gaze fell on the peaceful village he was responsible for, "Peace is the most fragile thing in the world, Shikamaru. It doesn't take much to break it. The one we have now was earned because we all fought together against a common enemy, it was necessary for us to unite under one banner for our survival. But now that we've won, we don't have any reason to stay together. And if the only thing that's keeping the peace was the presence of Naruto, then it was only an illusion and not the real thing!"
Shikamaru nodded in understanding, "So you sent him away to test the resolve of other villages." It was true, the great villages had no reason to be allies anymore and if they wanted this peace to last then it has to stand it's test. That test being the inherent nature of shinobi. "Does he know?" Nara asked.
"Naruto and I came up with this plan together," Kakashi's both eyes crinkled in smile.
Shikamaru folded the report neatly, "Do you want me to call the Five Kage Summit?" he asked, satisfied now that he had his answer.
"No, not yet. We don't have that much information to trouble the other Kage yet. Just write down a summary of Naruto's report and take it to Allied Shinobi HQ the next time you go there."
"Understood, sir!" Shikamaru said as he took his leave.
Somewhere on the Grand Line
Naruto was on the deck in the middle of the night, steering the ship. It had only been a few weeks since his voyage began but it felt a lot longer than that, like years had passed since he had solid ground under his feet. But he didn't mind it that much, he had quickly gotten used to life on the high seas, it wasn't that difficult as he'd first imagined it to be. It took a bit getting used to, sure, but that was all. Well, his sleep schedule got fucked up but that was about it. Besides, he'd come to appreciate the beauty of this water-y world lately. Like now, a crescent moon was in the sky, and the sea was bathed in cool light of the moon as far as the eye could see. The light reflected on the waves looked like pearls dancing on the water, it was something out of a painting everywhere he looked.
Except to his right, that area was covered in a fog so thick Naruto couldn't see beyond ten feet. The fog itself had a strange and creepy feel to it, it was even hindering his sensing ability a little bit, and that was enough to get his attention.
Naruto channeled sage mode to get the feel of it and noticed hundreds of chakra signatures deep inside the fog. But the one that got his attention was about a hundred feet away from his ship. It was so weak, he wouldn't have even noticed it if not for his sage mode, it meant only one thing- someone was on the brink of death. Naruto jumped off the ship and headed to the position of that chakra. There were a couple of big dead fishes floating in the water, they looked domesticated since they had seats and armor on their backs and they even had weapons mounted on them.
On one of these fish was an unconscious girl, she had flaming wild red hair with blonde streaks, a long blue coat with pictures of ocean and 'Sweet tooth' written on the back. Naruto crouched by her side and turned her over. There were bruises and wounds all over her body, Naruto gently put the back of his hand on her forehead, she had very high fever as well. 'The poor girl must have been in this cold water for a long time,' Naruto thought and picked her up bridal style. He carried her as fast as he could to a bedroom on his ship. He unsealed some of his dry clothes, Naruto removed the wet light blue pants and the white bandages that covered her boobs and exchanged them with a pair of black pants and an orange shirt after drying her with a towel, blushing red like a tomato while doing it. She was a very pretty and he wasn't some saint to not have any dirty thoughts after seeing a beautiful naked girl.
Naruto put her on the bed and pulled some warm covers on her. Then he bit his thumb and went through the hand signs- boar, dog, bird, monkey, ram- and slammed his hand on the floor. In a puff of smoke a small toad appeared in front of him. It was a two feet tall pink toad with white underbelly, yellow eyes and a white kimono.
"Hello Peach," Naruto greeted the toad.
"Boss! It's been a long time," the small toad smiled and bowed.
"Listen, I need a favor." He gestured towards the redhead on the bed, "She's hurt and has a high fever. Can you take care of her?"
"Sure, leave it to me." Peach hopped on the bed and began to check her vitals.
Naruto created a shadow clone, "She'll most likely be in a bad state when she wakes up," he told the clone and got a nod in response. Naruto left the room and stood on the deck for a couple of seconds. He reactivated his sage mode, the chakra signatures he felt before were still there, but this time he noticed something he didn't notice before, two same chakra signatures were coming from two places at the same time. This particular observation surprised him, 'Do the people here know how to use clone jutsu?'. Now he really needed to check out exactly what was the situation in the thick fog. Naruto jumped in the water and started walking.
After walking a few hundred meters, he came across a huge gate shaped like a mouth, it even had teeth and lips! 'Creepy mouth gate in creepy fog,' Naruto jumped over the gate to land in the water on the other side of it. He walked deeper and deeper until he came across a shore. It looked like a fortified island with a stone wall and a deep moat. He again jumped to cross the wall and moat in one go and landed on solid ground.
The fog here wasn't so dense and he could see things from afar relatively well. The island itself was covered in a thick forest but all the trees looked like they were dead, they didn't have a single fresh leaf on their branches. He could see silhouette of a large building in the middle of the forest, he squinted his eyes to get a clear picture. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the light and when they did, Naruto could clearly make out the large mansion in the middle of the island with an even larger mansion behind it. Naruto could sense the presence of about a hundred people a mile away in the forest. He also felt these hundred chakra signatures coming from the other side of island as well. Naruto took to the tree branches and headed in the direction of those people. Jumping from tree to tree, making sure to not make any sound whatsoever, he stopped a safe distance away from them.
What he saw completely took him by surprise, they looked like walking corpses. They were walking corpses, with tattered clothes and flesh rotten off to reveal the bones underneath, the whole package! Most of them had bandages wrapped around their heads to somewhat hide the exposed skull and there were numbers tattooed on them. Why? Naruto had no idea.
"Hey Kurama, are you seeing this? they look like.."Naruto said in his mind.
"..Reanimations, yeah. Never thought I'd see that again," Kurama finished his sentence.
"I know that jutsu too, you know." he reminded his friend. "But yeah, I didn't think i'd see something like reanimation in this world."
"That's different. I know you'll never disturb the dead unless you have no other choice. But this.."
"..Looks like someone wants an army of corpses! But they don't look so strong, their flesh and muscle are rotten, and their chakra is pretty weak as well. Not to mention I feel the same chakra coming from other side of island, are they clones of some kind?!" This time Naruto finished Kurama's sentence.
"There's only one way to know,"
"Alright," he said and pulled out a shuriken from his pocket. He coated it with wind chakra and threw it at the neck of a corpse. Before any of them realised what happened, one of them had his head severed, no one even saw how or why.
When they heard the sound of the head hitting the ground, they looked around to see the cause of sound. Naruto had his eyes fixed on them.
"Hey, your head fell off," one of them said.
"Didn't you fix it properly?" another one picked up the head and handed it back to the owner.
"Thanks, man," he accepted his head, "Those rotten pirates from the forest were running after me with salt! I didn't get much time to fix it!" the severed head was saying as his body was trying to reattach it to the torso.
Naruto watched the scene in confused silence. "...There's no way they are alive," Kurama said finally.
"uh huh, Should I seal them away?"
"Didn't you notice?" Kurama asked.
"Notice what?", Naruto rested his chin on his first finger as he thought about what he missed.
"He didn't regenerate like a reanimation, he just put his head back on his shoulders. No need to seal them, I think some critical damage will get the job done," Kurama explained.
"Okay, let's try it,"Naruto took out a kunai, and attached a explosive tag to it's handle. Still hiding in the branch, he threw the kunai at the corpse who was closest to him. The kunai hit it's mark and remained stuck. It took a second for the tag to burn and then it exploded with a loud bang. The explosion caused the corpse to catch fire and was soon engulfed completely in flames. As the corpse burnt away, Naruto noticed some black substance escape from the fire at high speeds.
"Hey, who did that?!"
"Was it that rotten long nosed punk from earlier?!"
"Hey, who is it attacking like a rotten coward?! You'll pay for messing with us soldier zombies!"
"Its rotten dangerous out here!!"
"It's dangerous in there too you know!" the corpses said one after another.
"...Kurama?"
"Yeah, yeah. I saw that, they're being controlled somehow by that black thing. And fire is their weakness. Burn them, Naruto!" Naruto nodded in his head.
He jumped down from his hiding spot and landed on the ground without a sound. He went through the hand signs- Ram, horse, snake, dragon, rat, ox, tiger- he inhaled as much air as his lungs could handle,
"Fire Style: Dragon Flame Bullet",
he shot large flames from his mouth and manipulated them in the shape of a dragon which was then further divided into three seperate dragons. One attacked the right, one left and the third hit the middle of the targets, turning everything they touched into ash. A moment later, a lot of black shadows escaped out of the fire.
"That wasn't so hard, let's go take care of the others,"Kurama didn't reply, instead he went back to sleep.
Naruto ran inside the mansion, there were chakra signature coming from almost every room. He entered the first room, there were definitely a dozen of those corpse clones here but he didn't see anything outside of mounted heads of dead animals, some pelt on the floor and bunch of weird paintings. He stopped at each one to take a good look, as he was examining a painting of a half lady half bear, creatures of the other paintings, those mounted on walls, used as carpets, everyone leaped out at him, fangs and claws stretched. Even the half lady bear in the painting jumped out of the painting. Naruto just calmly stepped out the way at the last moment, the freaky painting animals hit the wall instead of him.
"Got you," Naruto grinned at them, and went through the hand signs again.
Ram, horse, snake, dragon, rat, ox, tiger- "Fire style: dragon flame bullet"
Naruto followed this routine for every room, he would go into one room, wait for the corpses to attack and burn them. Very soon, almost the whole mansion was set on fire. 'There are a lot of them, and many are scattered throughout the island,' Naruto made a cross ram sign and created twenty shadow clones, each went in a different direction. They already knew their job.
Just as he was busy burning the corpses, he heard a loud voice that came from the direction of the larger mansion, and the sound of something hugh crashing in a building.
"STRAW HAT PIRATES!! COME OUT HERE!" the voice sounded like it came from someone huge, most likely a giant.
Naruto quickly finished burning every room that had the weird corpses in it and ran towards the ruckus. He climbed the stairs to find himself on a bridge that connected the two mansions. It was completely covered in trees, and unlike the rest of the island they were green, the bridge itself was further decorated with various types of plants and flowers.
Now that he was outside the mansion and had a clear view, he saw what exactly was causing the destruction, or rather, who was causing the destruction. Right below the bridge he was standing on, there was a huge giant, over two hundred feet tall at least with red skin, long blond hair that reached his lower back, very large lower canines and huge curved horns. Naruto had heard that there were giants in this world but this one was gigantic! Naruto found the size of him to be a bit misleading, since compared to the size, his chakra reserves were downright puny. Then he looked closer; like the corpses he saw in that mansion, this giant also had patched up, sewn together skin and a number on his arm, Naruto assumed that he was another corpse puppet.
The mansion in front of him appeared to be heavily damaged and that too very recently and Naruto was pretty sure what was the cause of that. As the giant was still climbing on and punching holes through the walls of the building, evidently looking for the Straw Hats as he had their wanted posters on his hand and was looking at them every couple of seconds and then looking inside the mansion, tearing it in the process.
Sure enough, Naruto saw the Straw Hats on the ground below, apparently getting ready to fight the giant. He had some business with them but first he had to incinerate the giant corpse. To destroy someone that big without a trace, Naruto had to use a wide scale jutsu and he didn't want anyone else to get caught in crossfire. He needed to get closer, Naruto channeled chakra in his legs and ran to the ground below, faster than a naked eye could follow.
The Straw Hats were lined up to attack their captain's zombie, Zoro had his fingers near the swords, "I have an idea. How about this time, we throw him around for a change?"
Usopp had his special attack ready, but was still shaking at the prospect of fighting a giant with Luffy's fighting abilities, "What? Throw him? He's so huge!"
Sanji had lit up a brand new cigarette, "Sounds like fun!"
"Keep in mind, he may be big, but he can still move like Luffy. It won't be easy," Zoro warned his crew mates.
"I don't want to see someone like that become Pirate King," Robin was ready to sprout hundreds of arms at the drop of a hat.
"There are plenty of ways we can take him down," Franky cracked his knuckles and picked up his pillar nunchucks.
"He has to have some kind of weak point," Chopper said.
Sanji took another puff of his cigarette, "Standard strategy against a big fish is, you have to weaken it little by little."
Just then, they were stopped in their tracks by sudden appearance of a blond man in red cape between them and Oars. He was looking up at oars and had his back to them.
"Sorry for interrupting, but can you get back please. I don't want my attack to catch you by accident," Naruto said, still looking at Oars who was ready to attack any moment now.
"Who the hell are you?!" Zoro pointed at him with one of his swords. Naruto looked over his shoulder towards the swordsman, but before he could answer he was interrupted by the corpse giant.
"HA HA HA GET CRUSHED!!! GUM GUM..." the giant jumped in the air, "...BUTT STOMP!!"
"Luffy doesn't do that!! RUN!" Usopp yelled. The Straw Hats backed away to avoid getting crushed.
Naruto didn't budge from his spot. He extended his right arm and formed a big ball rasenshuriken. He gave the rasengan the chakra nature of lava and held it straight above his head- "Lava style: Rasenshuriken" Naruto thew it at the air born corpse. The rasenshuriken met Oars in midair, the giant was struck right in the stomach and the attack carried him high in the air and above the mansion. After three full seconds of ascend, the lava expanded and completely swallowed it's target, turning it into ash in an instant.
"Whooaa!!" Usopp looked at the attack in awe.
"He beat that zombie in one shot!" Sanji said as he exhaled a small cloud of smoke. "And now that this matter is taken care of..." He grit his teeth and his eyes looked like they were on fire, "NAMI-SAN!! I'M COMING TO SAVE YOU!" He ran at full speed. Others just watched him go like a man possessed.
"He didn't just beat it, he erased it, suuper!!!"
"What the hell was that?!" Zoro sheathed his Shusui.
"That has to be some kind of devil fruit power. An admiral of the navy can also use lava!" Robin said in her usual calm voice, image of that evacuation ship from twenty years ago was still fresh in her memory.
With Luffy-
Through the circular hallways of the mast mansion, Moria was leading Luffy on a wild goose chase; through this room and that stairway Moria was running and running while taunting Luffy.
"Wait!! Moria! I'm going to pulverize you!!"
"Ki shi shi why are you chasing after me Straw Hat?! While you waste your time here, your friends are getting killed by a zombie of your own shadow hahaha," Moria laughed like a maniac and vanished behind another corner.
"Dammit! I promised I'll get their shadows, I can't fail! It'll be really bad if the sun rises before I can beat Moria, COME BACK HERE GIANT ONION!!" Luffy ran even faster to catch up to Moria.
Both of them were running around all over the place. Luffy was so focused on catching Moria, he didn't even realise that he was outside the mansion and was running through the dead forest. For Luffy, nothing else mattered, other than beating Moria. Slowly but surely Luffy was closing the distance between them, it was only a matter of time.
"Just a little bit more," Luffy compressed his legs like a spring and jumped. He barely got his hands on Moria but as soon as he did, he didn't let go and tackled him to the ground, "I caught you Moria!!" Luffy huffed and tried to catch his breath. 'Moria' turned around and showed completely dark face to Luffy, only white holes where his eyes and mouth were supposed to be. "A shadow?" Luffy was confused at first, then it hit him. "Aw man!!! I got tricked!!"
With Moria-
After tricking Straw Hat into chasing a shadow, Moria made a beeline for Oars's zombie. He would stay in the cockpit in Oars' stomach and make him a lot more deadlier.
"Kishishshi serves you right stupid straw hat!!" Moria arrived on the stairs that led down from Perona's room. There he got his first unexpected surprise of the night. He saw his most powerful zombie, 'the beast' Oars hurled into the sky with a ball of lava.
"WHAAAAT!!!! YOU IDIOT! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE??!!!" Moria screamed in rage. "YOU'LL PAY FOR DESTROYING MY PRECIOUS ZOMBIE!! I'LL KILL YOU!!"
With Naruto-
Naruto was about to turn around and address the pirates behind him when he heard a man scream and yell at him from atop the stairs by the side of mansion. If he were to describe the man, he would have said that the man was shaped like a water drop, he was easily over twenty feet tall with long and thick neck that had multiple stitches on it and two horns on his forehead, he wore black coat and had pale blue skin and red hair. The overall appearance made that guy look scary, yet comical at the same time.
"So he's responsible for the corpses I saw earlier!" Naruto turned around to face the people behind him, "Nico Robin, Do you know who that is?" Naruto asked the only lady present there. He knew who they were from the wanted posters. They were kind of famous on Jaya. And he wanted to meet Nico Robin ever since he learnt that she could read the writings from Skypiea for him. She was wearing a lace embroidered short maroon dress, net stockings and high heels, she had shoulder length dark hair and deep blue-green eyes.
"That's Gecko Moria, one of the seven warlords of the sea." Robin replied plainly.
"Seven warlords?" Naruto knew they were a group of pirates with license to plunder from government but he'd only known the name of one- Donquixote Doflamingo. He hoped that after beating up one of them they'd still let him join the navy. If not, he had other ways to infiltrate.
"He steals people's shadows and uses them to make zombies out of corpses!!" the blue haired speedo guy, Franky said.
"I have something I wanna I ask you..." Naruto said to Nico Robin but got interrupted by the green haired guy with three swords.
"We don't have time to talk! Right now we have some unfinished business with Moria! That bastard is gonna pay for stealing our shadows!!" he held a sword between his teeth and one in each hand. Zoro brushed past him and got ready to attack Moria.
"Um..Zoro," the long nose guy said, "You have your shadow back," he pointed out.
Zoro looked at his feet in surprise, "So Luffy found my zombie at last!" he grinned. "But still I won't rest until I cut that stupid clown into ribbons!"
Just then Naruto got the memories from all of his clones, all the zombies were taken care of, a girl with pink hair and eyes like bushy brows was trying to get off the island, the cat burglar Nami was running around in a wedding dress for some reason and there were some people in the jungle who had about a hundred shadows with them, the clone had set those shadows free and dispelled.
A loud thump brought his attention back, Moria had jumped from the stairs and landed in front of him.
"I don't care about your shadows anymore, you are all gonna die here," he looked really angry. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to find Oars' body?! Years of hard work, my dream, YOU RUINED IT!!" Moria screamed.
Naruto and the others waited for him to make a move, but none came. Naruto was a little confused, he thought Moria was going to do something for sure, all his intent and body movement said so. But Moria just stood there. All confused and looking stupid.
"What is going on??! Where are my shadows!!?" Moria screamed in rage and confusion.
"So that's what you were trying to do! Sorry, I already burnt all the corpses. The dead don't belong in this world, you know!" Naruto said plainly.
"Why you!! You are the one that destroyed Oars too, aren't you?! I know none of these weaklings have the power to do something like that!!"
Naruto was starting to get annoyed with the guy's whining, using corpses for an army already rubbed him the wrong way, he took a step towards Moria. Then another, and another until he stood right in front of Moria, "You know, you talk a lot of shit for someone why can't even tie his own shoes!"
"DUCK!" someone yelled.
Naruto ducked and narrowly avoided a punch from shadow-Moria.
Moria grit his teeth, "You insolent fool! DIE!!"
In an instant, Moria's shadow turned into hundreds of small bats. The bats tried to swarm him but Naruto jumped away to gain some distance. He was about to charge Moria but Zoro ran past him before he could, he didn't want to accidentally kill the guy so Naruto stayed put.
"Three sword style: 108 pound phoenix!" Zoro sword slash got many of the bats but they just merged with the original shadow once again.
"Seis fleur: twist" Naruto heard the lady say and watched with wide eyes as six arms sprouted from Moria's body, two arms held his legs in place, two bound his arms, two grabbed his neck and twisted him backwards in a really uncomfortable position.
"That's a handy ability you have there!" Naruto said and chuckled at his own joke. Rest of them just looked at him weirdly, Naruto cleared his throat and got ready to attack.
Zoro, Franky, Usopp and Robin were attacking Moria with little to no results, most of the attacks were being blocked by the shadow-Moria or he was avoiding being hit by switching with his shadow.
Naruto subtly created a lava clone and switched places with it. Naruto clone charged towards Moria while the real one hid in plane sight transformed as a stone, the shadow moved to intercept just like he thought it would. Hundreds of bats swarmed who Moria thought was Naruto and brought it down to the ground. More than a few tried to bite off chunks of flesh from his body and 'Naruto' screamed in agony.
"Ki shi shi once my bats sink their teeth into someone they never let go, serves you right!" Moria laughed seeing Naruto scream. But that laugh stopped at once when he noticed Naruto's grin just before he turned into lava. The shadow remained unaffected, the lava didn't actually damage it but it managed to create an opening. Naruto knew he couldn't hurt the shadow, he was familiar with most of the tricks and abilities of a shadow thanks spending so much time with Shikamaru. Although Moria used his shadow masterfully it moved somewhat independently, thus it could be taken by surprise, Naruto realised. The lava clone was the surprise.
Naruto undid his transformation and created a rasengan in his right hand and added wind chakra to it.
"Hey, green guy! I'll take care of the shadow, go after the original." he said.
"You got it!" Zoro readied his three swords.
"Wind style: Rasengan Flash" Naruto opened a small hole in the shell of his rasengan and fired it as a drilling beam. The beam hit the target in the chest and the wind around it dispersed the shadow in hundreds of fragments.
By now Zoro had prepared his own attack, he held his two swords at a cross angle with each other and began to rotate them in front of him at very high speeds, "Three sword style: ultimate technique- 3000 worlds!" In a blink of an eye Zoro charged and ran past Moria. The warlord had no time to get out of the way, nor did he have his shadow ready in time to switch places. The three blades struck him at once in the chest and Moria collapsed on the ground.
Straw Hats waited for Moria to get up, a second passed, then two, three, four...it looked like Moria was down for good and they breathed a sigh of relief.
"We beat Moria! Suuuper!" Franky posed with his hands in the air.
Usopp sat down on the rubble of mansion, "Whew, it's finally over. I defeated a warlord of the sea!"
"Where are Luffy and the others?" Robin asked.
Zoro removed the sword from his mouth, "Speak of the devil!" he gestured towards the partially collapsed building. Sure enough Luffy was running towards them with Nami and Sanji and a horde of other people.
"Hey Zoro, everyone!! You got our shadows back!!" Luffy was running towards his crew mates at full speed with a big smile on his face.
"Robin-chan! Thank god you're alright!" Sanji ran towards Robin with hearts in his eyes.
Naruto watched from the sidelines as they greeted each other. They looked like a lively bunch. Their captain seemed to care a lot about his crew, although Sanji and Zoro insulted each other right in front of him, he doubted they hated each other. 'Even criminals care about their own,' He thought, not for the first time. As they were busy talking about what they had been doing so far, Naruto's attention was drawn to the top of the building behind him.
There, a big man was standing, watching them all. A small cap with two small ears on his long curly hair, his black shirt had a white target like design. He was staring right at the people on the ground. And a moment later, he vanished from eyesight. 'Who the hell was that?!' Naruto thought to himself. He brushed the thought from his mind for now but remained alert.
He approached Nico Robin who was standing with her friends, "Hey, do you have a moment?"
"Hm?? What is it?" It was Nami who replied so turned his head towards her.
"I know you guys went to the sky island, people there told me Nico Robin can read the writings of the ruins, can you read some for me?" he asked them directly. He didn't have time to beat around the bush, neither did he want to linger there for long. His thoughts went to the girl on his ship, his clone hadn't dispelled yet so nothing noteworthy should have happened there.
"Oh...Robin, he wants to talk to you about boring stuff," Nami said to her friend who came forward and stood in front of him. Everyone else just resumed their victory celebrations and by the sounds of it, they were planning to throw a party.
"Why are you interested in ruins of sky island?" she asked.
"It's... uh..a bit hard to explain," he scratched the back of his head, "let's say it's very important that I know if there's a legend of a goddess that came to earth from the stars or a tree of godly powers."
Robin stared at him for a good few seconds, like she was looking directly in his soul. It made him blush a little, "No." she answered finally, "There's no mention of a goddess on Skypiea. Neither is there a legend of something like that anywhere in the world that I'm aware of. But there are two trees in the world, that are spoken of like legends."
"Really?!" Naruto asked.
"There's the jewel tree Adam and sunlight tree Eve, these two trees are given an almost mythical status by people because of their properties, and there's also the Sabaody archipelago made completely out of trees," Robin was surprised to see someone interested in the history and mythology of the world, so far she had never met anyone else who cared about the past, she couldn't gauge his motive though, the things he wanted to know were so specific but at the same time, so random.
"Adam tree and Eve tree, huh? There's one more favor I need," He took out a scroll that had ink prints of some of the writings from the sky island, he'd kept a couple of them with him instead sending all of them back home, just in case. He unfurled a long scroll, "Can you tell me what it says?"
Robin looked at the scroll, but before she could say anything, he was interrupted by her captain.
"HEY!! BLONDE GUY," Naruto looked over at the pirates, it was Straw Hat Luffy who had called him.
Luffy stopped in front of him, "Zoro says you got my shadow back, thanks! Stay a bit longer, we're throwing a party!" he grinned like a child.
Luffy wasn't finished yet, "You can take some of our treasure as a thank you, we found lots and lots on this ship!"
Before Naruto could answer though, Nami punched Luffy so hard, he fell face first on the ground and got a splendid bump on his head, "Don't give away my treasure to random people!" she yelled at him. "I'm sorry he didn't mean that! Thank you for helping us though," she smiled nervously at him and offered her hand.
Naruto shook it, smiling at her all the time.
"Relax, I don't want your treasure anyway." Nami looked relieved, she was about to go back to where Zoro and Sanji were when Naruto stopped her. "I said I don't want your treasure but can you at least give me back my Gama-chan please?!" he smiled sweetly at her.
Nami let out a 'Eep' and blushed red at being caught red-handed like that, "I..uh..well..." she couldn't find anything to say in self defence and gave back the frog shaped wallet, avoiding eye contact all the time.
Naruto chuckled, "You're good but not good enough to steal from me! Besides there's nothing worth stealing in there."
"What?! Really? It looked full of money!" Nami exclaimed in surprise, forgetting her embarrassed from a moment ago.
"HEY BROOK!! OVER HERE!" Luffy yelled, interrupting their conversation.
Naruto turned his head to see who Luffy was talking to. There was that skeleton one of his clones found in the kitchen a while ago. It was getting attacked by other zombies of the mansion so Naruto doubted he was with them, which turned out to be true when the skeleton explained his situation.
Robin turned to face Naruto, "What do you want me to read?" she asked.
"Not so fast Robin!" It was Nami again, "It sounds like you need help of our brilliant archeologist!" she said with a grin.
"Um yeah, kind of," Naruto said.
"Then it's gonna cost you ten million berries!" Nami put a hand around Robin shoulders. "Take it or leave it!"
"You're never gonna change, are you?" Usopp asked from the sides.
"Fine, I'll give you ten million berries, will you help me now?"
"Hey guys! Put up a table here, quick!" Nami ordered some of the pirates that came with Luffy and her.
Nearby, some of the pirates ran to get food, some prepared a makeshift kitchen, some carried barrels of booze to the clearing, the skeleton had brought a piano from somewhere and the party began. Delicious smell enriched the atmosphere and everyone was dancing to the tune of 'Bink's brew'. For a skeleton, Brook could sing, Naruto had to admit. Food was delicious too, borderline Ichiraku ramen good.
"Let me see the scroll," Robin extended her hand once they some food in their belly. Naruto gave her the scroll, Robin opened it, her eyes traced the strange letters for a couple of seconds until she finally spoke, "Harvest this year has been plentiful. Aside from a small flu, Shandora didn't face any troubles, We pray next year will be even better."
Robin and her crew mates looked at him to see his reaction, Naruto was just looking blankly at her.
After a tense couple of seconds that felt like minutes he spoke, "Look, I know you don't owe me anything but at least don't lie to my face like that! If you don't want to help me, say so!" Naruto huffed.
This caught Robin by surprise, she didn't show any sign on her face that she was lying, she was that good at it. But still the guy could tell that she was lying. Of course she wasn't telling him the truth, the ink print was of the second last line of the poneglyph of Shandora, it specifically talked about location of poseidon. She would never give away information about an ancient weapon to anyone, she didn't give it to Crocodile in Alabasta, despite knowing that he would have probably killed her for it, and she wouldn't give it away now. "It's not easy to tell the truth to a complete stranger, you know, why do you even want to know about this anyway?" she said instead.
'What's written there that she won't talk about it?!' he wondered. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto," he introduced himself. "There, now I'm not a complete stranger, you know my name. Now can you tell me what the writings say?"
"You left out the 'why'?" It was Nami who pointed it out.
Naruto let out a sigh, he needed their help, she was only one who could read as far as he knew, he couldn't just pass up an opportunity like this so he obliged, "I heard this legend about a clan of godlike beings that go from planet to planet to absorb the life from every living creature there, 'killing' the planet in the process. I want to know if it's true." He explained without giving away too much.
Nami and Usopp shivered after hearing what he said, Zoro went back to drinking but Robin just looked at him passively. She now realised why he asked about a 'goddess that came from sky' earlier.
"I'm sorry I lied earlier, the scroll actually gives the location of Fishman Island. But it doesn't mention any beings like that. There's not even a myth like that in any of the cultures around the world that I know of." She left out the part about Poseidon but rest was true, she didn't know if Naruto could tell though.
Naruto sighed in relief, at last she was telling the truth, partially but truth nonetheless. He got his next lead, he'd have to pay a visit to fishman island next and see what secret it had hidden, "Thanks a lot!" He was relieved to hear that there was no mention of the Otsutsuki but he still had long way to go to complete his mission. "You know, if I find another city like Shandora, I might need your help again, is there any way I can contact you?" Nami did call her an archeologist earlier, so it was a safe bet she'd be able to help him if he found something like this again.
"We have a transponder snail on our ship," Robin answered. "You can give me a call." They both exchanged frequencies of each others transponder snails.
"There, I'll call you if I need your help, alright?!" Robin nodded.
"Great!" Naruto smiled. Today he felt like he took a step towards completing his mission. There was no mention of something like the Otsutsuki, which was good. He had four places to check out next, Sabaody Archipelago, Sunlight tree Eve, Jewel tree Adam and Fishman Island.
"I'll see you soon!" Naruto smiled at Robin and barely took a step to be on his way when out of nowhere, Nami stood infront of him. 'Did she use a body flicker?!'
Hands on her hips, Nami stood in front of him and narrowed her eyes, "Aren't you forgetting something mister?!" she asked.
"...What? Oh yeah, the money!! I completely forgot about that!" Naruto laughed a little. Nami didn't join him in that though so he quickly pulled out another scroll. He unrolled it and channeled some chakra in the storage matrix, in a puff of smoke about thirty million berries appeared in front of him. He sealed away two third of the amount again and offered his hand for a handshake, "It's a pleasure doing business with you!" he smiled at the cat burglar.
Nami took his hand in her own for a brief second, she noticed the bandages wrapped around his hand, "You know, if you have an injury Chopper can fix you up in no time!" she said as she smiled at him. "For a fee of course!"
"It's... uh..," he had a ghost of a smile on his lips now, "nevermind that, I'll see you soon!" he said but before he could activate his body flicker, rest of the straw hats, Zoro, Chopper, Usopp, Franky, Robin and Luffy surrounded him, Luffy was grinning so much his eyes were upside down 'U's.
"Did you.."
".. just take.."
"..the money.."
"..out of.."
"..a scroll?!" Zoro, Chopper, Usopp, Franky and Luffy said one after another, smiling weirdly at him.
Naruto took half a step backwards, "..yeah?" he said.
"THEN YOU MUST BE A NINJA!!" Luffy, Usopp and Franky yelled in unison.
"Yes, I am!" Naruto replied, and immediately wondered if he did the right thing or not. Of course it wasn't a undercover mission or anything like that and revealing his status as ninja wouldn't be a problem for his mission, besides, not like he knew that these people knew about ninjas. So far he's been spamming, 'It's a devil fruit ability,' as an explanation for everything he did, if anyone asked.
"Woohoo!!!" Luffy jumped in the air as soon as Naruto confirmed that he was a ninja. "Hey everyone!! Come here, this guy's a ninja!!" The remaining people who were drinking and eating nearby hurried towards them, including Brook and Sanji.
"Throw some shuriken for us!"
"Meditate under a waterfall!"
"Show us a earth jutsu!"
"Show me a water jutsu!"
"A clone jutsu for me!!" Usopp, Zoro, Chopper, Franky and Luffy practically demanded one after another.
Naruto had a sweat drop on his head, eagerness practically oozed out of everyone there. This wasn't his first time receiving requests like this, from time to time, someone who had never met a real ninja before would come to hire them and they'd then make all sorts of requests, do this and do that, by the time you were chunin, you would get used to meeting people like that. On top of that, for the last two years he'd been teaching at the ninja academy from time to time, so he had plenty of experience with situations like this, where a bunch of people would demand to see a particular skill, the rasengan was particularly famous among the academy students.
"I'd love to show you some jutsu but I really have to get going!" Naruto said but immediately regretted. Everyone there looked like a bunch of children who were denied ice cream or younger him when Teuchi or Ayame would get sick and Ichiraku ramen would be closed. Naruto let out a sigh, "Alright fine, make some space," he said and everyone's frowns turned into smiles and they hurried to make space for him to perform his jutsu. They stood on either side of him, waiting eagerly for him to start.
Naruto cracked his knuckles and went through the hand signs-
Tiger, hare, boar, dog, ox, snake-
"Earth style: Mud Wall!"
he slammed his right hand on the ground and a ten feet tall and two feet thick wall of earth rose out of the ground about ten meters away from him, complete with a small Uzumaki swirl in the middle of it.
"AWESOME!!!" Naruto heard someone yell, their cheers were deafening.
Next, Naruto took out a shuriken from the holster and tagged it with decent amount of chakra. Everyone got so silent to see what he would do next, he could hear rustling of leaves. He threw the shuriken at the mud wall-
Ox, dog, dragon, rat, dog, boar, snake, tiger-
"Ninja art: shuriken shadow clone jutsu"
The one shuriken became a hundred and hit the wall to form a rough likeness of his own face.
"THAT'S SO COOL!!" he heard Luffy's voice above everyone else's cheers as the pirates applauded him again, Naruto too smiled a little.
"And now to finish it," he put a half ram sign near his chest, "Shadow clone jutsu!" In puffs of white smoke, ten more exact copies of him appeared.
Luffy ran directly towards him at full speed and touched every clone if they were real, "GUYS!! THEY ARE SOLID CLONES!!" he yelled to his friends. The remaining straw hats ran at the clones and did the same, even Nami and Robin were looking at the clone from every angle.
"Amazing!" Nami said as she took the red coat in her hands, "It looks and feels like real silk!"
"That's because it is real silk! I'm not a clone," Naruto said to her. Nami let the cape go at once like it was made of fire.
Just a moment ago, she was touching his face and checking his abs, thinking it was a clone and how real it felt. Thinking about it made her blush red, then it made her angry that he let her do all those things without even telling her that he was the real one, "Why didn't you tell me before! I look like a fool now!!" she yelled at him.
It just made him and everyone around him laugh out.
"Nami was totally checking out the ninja!" Usopp and Franky were laughing so hard, they had tears in his eyes. Which of course earned them a punch each from Nami.
"Hey Ninja! Join my crew!" Luffy said to the clone he had his arms wrapped around.
Naruto mentally dispelled the clones, "Thanks for the offer but I have to go home as soon as possible."
"But I want you to come with us!" Luffy said.
"You idiot Luffy, don't be like that, he says he has to go home!" Zoro had his one hand on his captain's shoulder.
"But I-"
"No buts Luffy!" Nami told her captain. "By the way, where are you from?" she asked.
"I'm from the hidden leaf village!" Naruto smiled and pointed at his headband with his thumb.
"That's so cooool!!!" Luffy, Usopp and Chopper had stars in their eyes at the mention of a 'hidden village'.
"I never heard of a place like that before," Robin rested her chin on her index finger.
"Of course you didn't! It's really well hidden," Naruto chuckled. "Now I have to get going! But before I go- hey miss cat burglar," Naruto walked over to her and picked up a small rock that was at her feet.
"What is it?" Nami said with a little edge to her voice. She wasn't completely over the incident from earlier.
Naruto stretched him hand, "Watch this-" he channeled chakra into the stone, there was a small puff of white smoke. When it cleared, instead of a stone, Naruto had a bundle of berries in his hand, "Pretty cool right?" he grinned at her.
"Awesome! Thats my kinda jutsu!" Nami said in amazement, then she realised something, "Wait! Don't tell me the money you gave me earlier were stones!!"
"No, that was real money!" Naruto dropped the transformation jutsu of the stone.
"Oh, thank god!" Nami said in relief.
"Well, it's been fun but now I gotta go. I'll need your help again, Robin. I'll call you guys," Naruto said and vanished in a body flicker.
"You were really friendly with those pirates," Kurama said once they were away from the crowd and in the dead forest.
"I need their help, Kurama. Didn't you hear what that guy in the Sky island told us?"
"That woman is the only person that can read that accursed language!"
"Besides, they didn't seem like the pirates we met so far. They seemed like decent people in bad profession, even you didn't warn me or anything when I was with them," truth was Naruto's gut told him that they weren't bad people, over the years he'd learnt to trust his gut instincts more and more. World wasn't so black and white, he and Kurama knew that better than anyone.
"That's because I trust you, but yeah they had no ill intent towards you," he replied, if they did, then they wouldn't be alive, if Kurama had any say in it.
"Aww I'm flattered that you believe in me, Kurama!" Naruto laughed.
"Shut up!" Kurama glared at him, "Don't wake me up for at least a week!" he said and closed his eyes.
"Okay, I'm sorry! I won't talk like that again!" Naruto tried to apologise but Kurama didn't reply.
By now Naruto was near his ship, he jumped on the deck and went inside past the captain's cabin and directly in the room where Peach was treating that girl.
He knocked and opened the door. In the bedroom, there were a lot of herbs on the table by the side of bed. Peach was busy making medicine and the girl was sound asleep
"Hey Peach!" he announced himself.
The toad stopped working for a moment and turned to look at her summoner,"Boss!"
"How's she?" he asked as he made his way towards the girl. There were fresh bandages wrapped around her head and a wet cloth on her forehead. Naruto touched her cheek with the back of his hand, she still had fever and it had gone down a bit while he was away.
"She's recovering quite fast but It'll take some time for her to regain consciousness. She was in really bad condition when I got here, If you had summoned me a few hours late, she wouldn't have made it," Peach resumed making more medicine.
"If you need anything, tell me okay?"
"You got it boss,"
He sat in the chair at the far side of the room and opened a scroll that had the maps of all the seas. He picked one for the East Blue and stretched it in his hands. He was looking for the trees, Adam and Eve. He looked for them in the East blue, then in West Blue and searched in South and North as well but didn't find any mention of those trees, then finally he read the map of grand line. There he found what he was looking for, sunlight tree Eve was on top of the red line, in the middle of holy land of Marijoa, and just a little distance away from it was the Sabaody archipelago, Adam tree he found in the New World.
"Archipelago is the closest, guess I have to make a final stop before marineford," Naruto stored away the maps.
"Call for me if she wakes up," Naruto told Peach as he got up from his chair.
"You got it, boss," Peach said without even looking at him. Naruto created two shadow clones, one was left it in the room, the other went to get the ship moving while the original went to get some sleep.
Thank you for reading!
I have more than 50 likes on the story at the time of posting this chapter, which is way more than I expected LOL. Thank you for that! Just to clarify, Peach is mentioned as residents of Mt. Myoboku so I took the liberty of making it a medic toad. There are other toads like Gamaspeed that are mentioned but not used in cannon that I'll be using in future chapters. I know Naruto showing his jutsu to other people is a no-no for a ninja but I'm writing this fanfiction because I want to see my favourite ninja interact with my favourite pirates, what will their reaction be if they meet each other? Also, hats off to Oda for that chapter where the Straw Hats meet Raizo, I laugh everytime I read it!
I hope you liked this chapter a little bit!
Have a nice day!!