After the nurses mobbed me—and subsequently discovered that there wasn't anything wrong with me other than a touch of dehydration—I was ejected from the medical bay and into the care of a crewmate who hadn't been on deck when I decided to go for Olympic gold.

"My name is Izo," he said when I asked. At that point he'd had a length of measuring tape around my neck. My body language must have come across as rather jumpy, because the next sentence out of his painted lips was, "Relax and drop your shoulders. You're throwing me off."

"Sorry, I've just, uh, never gotten an outfit tailored." Still, I did as ordered. "Couldn't I just visit a shop on an island and buy clothes? It feels like I'm wasting your time here." Sure I didn't have any money, but I could probably scrounge up whatever the local currency was if I tried hard enough. It would just take longer.

"Have you ever heard the phrase 'if you want something done right, you do it yourself'?" Izo asked rhetorically, measuring across my shoulders next. "Because that is precisely what is going on here."

"Oh," I said, trying not to crane my neck to see what he was doing. "I still feel a bit guilty…"

"The others know better than to tell me what to do with my time," Izo replied to my unasked question. "If I couldn't pursue my hobbies, being in charge of the Sixteenth Division would be a lot less fun."

How many divisions did this crew even have?

My first impression of Izo had been a bit confused. I hadn't expected to find anyone wearing full makeup on a pirate crew, mostly because I could barely see non-specialized products surviving on land, much less at sea. But Izo, with only a single lock of hair dangling out of his intricate coif, clearly had mastered every cosmetic available. Rin could have asked him for tips on the makeup. I was personally more interested in how he avoided wrecking his silk kimono if the Moby Dick got into a firefight, since even my Konoha uniform tended to come out worse for wear after I did much of anything.

"Besides, it's been a long time since I've been able to work on entirely new designs," Izo went on, measuring around my waist after a bit more careful prodding. If he pulled any more of an Ollivander, I would have accused him of witchcraft. "Do you have strong opinions on how the final product should look?"

I looked at Izo's pink kimono, then thought of the other crew members' outfits I'd seen. Well, if this didn't turn out the way I wanted, I would just have to come up with some spares on the next island. "No flowing parts, and I definitely need pants with pockets."

"And the pattern?" Izo asked without looking up.

Very few people had ever bothered asking that question. It was why I had so many scrap-worthy cheap T-shirts. "Waves would be nice." I pursed my lips as I thought. "Also, long sleeves. I didn't know it was possible to get sunburn on top of tattoos before."

Izo nodded to himself, then finished up the rest of the measurements without further comment until, "Grab one of the pairs of sandals, then head to the galley. We're done here."

I stepped off the block, then found half a dozen pairs of plain straw sandals in a basket next to Izo's paired flintlock pistols (and hadn't those been a surprise). After a quick shower to get rid of the beach smell and a change of clothes into old but serviceable replacements in the same style, I was feeling considerably better.

Well enough to actually listen to Izo. I asked, "Could I get directions to the galley?"

"Just follow the crush," Izo replied, already turning back to his design desk.

True to Izo's words, there was a crowd of pirates shooting off toward some collective destination just outside his soundproofed studio door. I waited until the majority of them had passed before sauntering vaguely after them, though my stomach insisted I needed to move faster.

The galley, once I got there, proved to be absolutely huge. Like everything else on the ship. I didn't know if the pirates ate lunch in shifts or not, but it still seemed like a massive crowd of people I didn't particularly want to wade into. While there were about a zillion tables for people to congregate around, the food service section was pretty much cafeteria-style. Hanging out in the kitchen, behind the big serving window, was Thatch.

I made a beeline for him, figuring that as long as I got food, the rest would sort itself out.

"Hey, it's you," Thatch said in greeting when I finally moved my tray his way.

I looked down at the tray for a second, then up at him. "Did you make all of this, Thatch?"

"Yep!" Thatch grinned. "My cooking is my pride and joy."

That was more than I could say for my cooking skill. I'd describe myself as "passable," and I'd only really gotten that much figured out because it was a necessity.

"Thank you for the food, then. I'm sure it's going to be great," I told him seriously.

I looked around at the food, momentarily stymied by the choices. Konoha, for all its many virtues and productive farms, didn't have anything too far out of what old-me would have called a Japanese selection. Apparently, the Whitebeard Pirates somehow had access to corn, Western-style cherries, the recipe for meatloaf, and a hundred other things I hadn't seen in decades.

My stomach was going to stage a revolt.

I decided to save myself some misery and mostly picked items that were more familiar to me. Rice, fish, and pickled vegetables were much safer options. I did think about picking up the world's tiniest slice of cherry pie, just to test myself, but the tin was empty by the time I got there. Giving up since apparently the universe was putting me on a diet, I turned to the galley at large and tried picking a spot to sit.

High school all over again. Or literally every time I ended up in a new garrison, during that one hell year.

I sighed to myself and headed for the door, deciding I could eat outside just fine, when a familiar face flagged me down.

"Over here, Kei!" said Eastwood, waving a hand. Signal locked, I immediately headed toward him and his tablemates—Sinbad and Teach, again. And a pile of plates.

His table groaned under the weight of the plates piled onto it in the approximate shape of a fort. Teach sat tall above one end, so part of the structure had to be his fault. The only person missing from the obvious quartet was Ace, and I could see a hat on top of the leftmost stack that indicated otherwise.

"Ace is playing dead again," Sinbad said with a wave of his hand, indicating the fort.

I leaned forward in my seat, peering over the pile, and spotted the back of Ace's head. He'd face-planted into his plate...after conquering a good two dozen others. The last appeared to include crab legs, which could defeat many an unwary foe. A loud snore confirmed that he was still alive.

"Did he choke," I began, "or is this the same thing as last time?"

"It's the second thing," said Sinbad. "Just go ahead and eat. Thatch outdid himself today."

I ate in relative silence, letting the storm of chatter wash over me. If I closed my eyes and pretended hard enough, I could almost be in one of Konoha's public parks during Tanabata, or some other loud festival.

I didn't really taste anything.

Ace popped back up almost as soon as I finished my plate, with pretty much the entire contents of his plate of fried rice stuck to his face. While I stared across the table at him, he blindly groped for a napkin and failed to find one. His head dropped back onto his plate once as he nearly nodded off again, then he popped back up like a groundhog.

I threw my napkin across the table in the shape of an origami bird and hit him in the face. Not like it made a difference in the overall mess, but going too easy on a pirate would probably be misconstrued as pity.

Look, I'd learned something other than fūinjutsu from Konan over the years.

Teach cackled. "Is that a new fashion statement, Commander? Someone should tell Izo!"

"Screw you," was probably what Ace said, but he unfolded the napkin to wipe his face anyway. The rest of the table burst into laughter again while they waited for him to catch up on what he missed.

I, on the other hand, noticed that there was one untouched plate left at the table. "Is that cherry pie?" I asked Teach.

"Of course! It's the best thing here," Teach replied, grinning and showing off all of his oversized teeth. "And it's all mine!"

My eyes narrowed. Then I'd just have to beat him there next time.

...And there I went, thinking that there'd be a next time and I could form a rivalry over food. I deflated, shaking my head. I would get another chance at trying out old food choices assuming I stayed with the Whitebeards, even if I had to use my shinobi-derived thieving skills next time.

I just wouldn't directly confront him about it.

You never seem to.

Confrontation isn't my thing, I replied, drumming my fingers against the inside of my other arm. Until it is.

"You got really quiet there. Is the pie that important?" Sinbad asked, after he'd waved his hand a bit to get my attention.

I blinked. "Oh, no." I covered my mouth as I faked a yawn—which became real halfway through. "Sorry, I didn't sleep very well last night."

"Cat naps help," Ace suggested. "That's what I do."

"Uh-huh." I gave him my very best skeptical look. This coming from the guy who had face-planted while operating a motorized vehicle, and then again into his lunch. In the same day. Often enough that his friends all knew about it and wrote it off as "it just happens." Rin would have benched him immediately.

The rest of lunch passed pretty much without incident—aside from a food fight apparently started somewhere in the Fourth Division's seating area, which I avoided—and when all the pirates ran around to work on their various responsibilities, I was left to relax.

It lasted about long enough for me to realize I didn't have any reading material or any training I was willing to do. Since my third option after that point would have been to find the nearest person in need of assistance and help out, but I lacked any idea what I could do to help with the running of a ship, this translated to me quickly getting bored.

I didn't know much about furling sails or weighing anchors or whatever other nautical things I'd never had to learn. The size of my ignorance both worried and amazed me in turns, and as a result I just tried to keep out of everyone's way as they went about their chores.

I sat on the railing near the bow, mentally running down the checklist of what I was willing to do to alleviate my boredom.

Then I made my decision.

Thatch, it turned out, was very expressive when it came to jaw-dropping disbelief. I could have put his picture in a dictionary if I found a camera.

Did this world have cameras? Or dictionaries?

Thatch found his voice in time to stop that train of thought before it careened out of control. Still looking baffled, he said, "Wait, you're telling me that peeling potatoes is the only thing you're sure you know how to do on a ship?"

"That's overstating it a bit," I muttered, but I kept peeling potatoes at a speed that probably would have put mechanical peelers to shame. Twenty years of blade skills added up to something, even if Mom had probably never imagined I'd be paying my way across the sea through food prep. "I can cook some basic things if I have the right ingredients or enough time to plan."

"That's not what I was asking and you know it," Thatch said. He shook his head, even as he chopped his way through two racks of ribs. "But really? You don't know anything about ships?"

"I really don't," I replied. "I've never tried to steer anything bigger than a rowboat." And even then, it wasn't like it was really necessary. Hello, water walking and other assorted shinobi cheats. And a total lack of sea-based missions because no one would ever dare let me near Kirigakure. "Didn't I mention this earlier?"

Thatch's voice came out pained. I was a frustrating person to deal with when I was being deliberately unhelpful. "No, you didn't. How did you even get on that island?"

"I have no clue." I finished off the potatoes, then finally met Thatch's gaze squarely. "I woke up on the beach, I ran around until I found that town, and then I met you Whitebeards. This is the extent of my knowledge."

"And you don't have a hometown or something that we can bring you to?" Thatch suggested after a while to digest that. He also kicked a barrel full of eggplants in my direction, presumably for more peeling duty, and I accepted the trade by shoving the potato barrel back at him across the meticulously-cleaned kitchen floor.

I picked one of the fatter eggplants up, inspected it for bruises, and then said, "I doubt you'd recognize the name."

"Try me. I've been almost everywhere since I became a pirate," Thatch said rather more cheerfully.

"Konohagakure, the Hidden Village of the Land of Fire," I said bluntly. If I'd had my headband I probably would have pointed at the carved leaf symbol, but unfortunately I didn't. "City and country, in that order."

Thatch paused, and he was silent for long enough that I started peeling the new veggies, too. He cleared his throat, then admitted, "That's a new one."

"Yeah. It's on a continent that I'm pretty sure isn't anywhere near here." I sighed, pausing in my peeling and plucking the end of the eggplant skin off, allowing the resulting dark purple spiral fall into the garbage bucket. "It's another reason I'm glad you guys picked me up. Even if I don't know anything about boats, it's great to have people around who do."

"You're welcome," Thatch said, with his knife embedded partway through the pig's backbone. When I looked up again, he frowned thoughtfully and added, "But what's a continent?"

I brought the heel of my free hand up to smack solidly against my forehead. Yep. Houston, we have a problem.

"It's a landmass that's a lot bigger than an island," I said once I'd clamped down on the urge to scream in frustration. I couldn't provide too much information about Konoha or the Elemental Nations to just anyone—or indeed, to anyone—but the pirates and I were clearly not using the same frame of reference.

"How big, exactly?" Thatch asked, sounding more curious than anything. He'd even stopped food prep to listen.

"I don't really know what comparisons I can make," I said, frowning thoughtfully. "I think...wait, first, do you use kilometers or miles?"

"Miles," Thatch said instantly. "I don't know what a kilometer is, but it's distance too, right?"

Well, there went a lifetime of retraining my brain to think in metric. Now I had to unlearn it. "It's not uncommon for continents to be a couple million square miles."

Thatch boggled. "What."

"I take it you don't have them here?"

"No, no we—" Thatch shook his head rapidly. His pompadour flailed. "No, we definitely don't. What do people even do with all that land?"

"Fight over it, mostly," I replied, because that was what shinobi had been invented to do. I started on the next eggplant, then said, "But hey, it's home. The ocean really isn't."

The two of us worked in silence for a while. Thatch finally got around to fully dismantling the pig carcass he'd been preparing for the hundredth serving of ribs, while I carved my way through the rest of the vegetable courses' preparation like a devoted lawnmower. Around us, the kitchen did not bustle because Thatch didn't really recruit "volunteers" from other divisions until later in the day.

I had legitimately volunteered. This made me something of an anomaly, but I stood by my assessment that I'd be in the way elsewhere.

Thatch broke the silence with, "Do you think it could be?"

"Do I think what could be what?" I asked distractedly, having forgotten the context by then. In my defense, I was descaling a fish the size of a small rhinoceros, which required more concentration than vegetables did. I liked my fingers where they were.

"Do you think the sea could ever be home for you?" Thatch looked so serious then that I honestly didn't know what to say.

That did not stop me from opening my mouth anyway.

What. "Is this a proposal?" I asked blankly, against the tide of rising what the fucking hell? I liked Thatch as a human being, but no. Just no. All of the no. "Because, well, what? We met literally two hours ago—"

"Not what I meant!" Thatch held his hands up defensively in attempt to stall me before I freaked out at him, though he did forget to get rid of his knife. "Not remotely what I meant!"

"Oh, thank goodness," I gasped in relief, because wow my brain was jumping to all kinds of weird conclusions lately. Once my heart stopped its staccato beat in favor of something a bit slower, I took a deep breath and asked, "So what did you mean?"

"Maybe I shouldn't say anything if Pops didn't…" Thatch mumbled.

I chopped my hand through the air. "Hey, no. I need to hear this if people are making decisions about me behind my back." I'd learned after the last time that had happened and I'd gotten badly hurt as a result. It took months for everyone to forgive Sensei for it, too.

Thatch looked like he wanted to protest, but my glare made him reconsider. He left his knife stuck in another pig carcass, then said, "Pops will probably ask you if you want to join our crew."

Eh? "You're not serious."

Thatch looked momentarily crestfallen. "Of course I'm being serious! Pops always is when it comes to finding new members of the family."

"Why?" I demanded, because this kind of shit didn't happen unless Naruto browbeat his enemies into being friends. Ninja villages trained their own soldiers from the ground up primarily to avoid these kinds of offers ever getting any traction. The exceptions generally either had to lose everything they'd previously cared about to be accepted—like my parents—or were hunted down ruthlessly as missing-nin. "Even if I didn't just admit to being hopeless at sailing, I barely know any of you and while I'm grateful I'm not still on that island, I haven't even told you what my goals are."

As if on cue, my right wrist started to ache exactly where my brand-new mark sat. Dropping my knife into the barrel of vegetable scraps, I rubbed at it and the kanji that was making my life so complicated.

I will find the being that marked you and tear it limb from limb.

Leave some for me.

"Rescuing people gets us a lot of new recruits, actually," Thatch pointed out and in the process ended up totally missing my point. When I started to grit my teeth in annoyance, he got back on topic. "Our crew is our family. And Pops has a tendency to take in people who don't have anywhere else to go. Once you're one of his children, you always will be."

"...That does not actually change the fact that I barely know any of you," I responded in a voice so flat it was nearly hostile.

I didn't need any more reminders of how desperate I was to get home. The captain might've thought he and his crew would fill some of that void, but they were all dead wrong. My family was out there; I just needed to find my way back to them.

My wrist tingled.

I already had my first clue.

Still, I decided to take pity on Thatch and his crushed hopes.

I took a deep breath and said without looking up, "Look, you seem like nice people. But in the end, my family's at home and I need to find my way back to them." Even if my only lead thus far was an obnoxious monster that had branded me to make me dance to its tune. "It's not fair to you if I join your family and then bail at the first opportunity to go back."

There. I'd phrased it as a matter of the heart. I'd taken the captain's feelings into account, or at least tried to. I hadn't used words that implied fault or blame, because neither party was really responsible for my shitty situation. When I dealt with the one who was I'd get my hands around its maybe-existent neck and wring it like a dingy washcloth.

Hopefully that would work.

"So," I concluding somewhat lamely, "I can't join your crew."

"Th-that's…"

I looked up and—was he crying?! I was a monster. "Agh, no! I'm sorry I can't, but I have really good reasons!"

"Th-that's the saddest thing I've ever heard!"

...what.

The next thing I knew, I was comforting a seven-foot-tall pirate as he cried over a barrel of onions. Whether it was the onions or my half-assed sob story that were the worse influence on his mood, I had no idea. I just got him a glass of water and a handkerchief and let him mostly sort himself out.

It was, however, the first time I had ever seen a grown man not use the "cutting onions" excuse when it was perfectly valid. There was even an impaled onion on his cutting board.

Isobu?

Yes?

This place is weird. I passed Thatch another hanky, then amended it to, But it's kind of growing on me.

Like a fungus.

Aside from bunking somewhere in the nurse's quarters—since the smell of antiseptic was almost comforting after the sheer funk of unwashed humans in the crew quarters—my next three days with the Whitebeard Pirates passed more or less in the same fashion as the first day had. Every day there were meals, chores, freak weather occurrences including but not limited to rains of animals, and food prep with Thatch. I got my sea legs quickly, no one breathed a word of any more recruitment efforts to me, and Izo finally came up with clothes he could stand to see me in (which was not the same as "clothes the nurses had to wear").

I wasn't really at first sure if I was allowed to wear clothes from Izo since I'd said I wasn't going to join the Whitebeards, but Izo insisted. And whether because I was a doormat or just grateful that Izo had still gone to the trouble of completing the outfit for me, I complied.

It was nice to have my own shoes again, even if they weren't the sandals I was used to. Flats were a decent compromise.

There were a few incidents, though.

Like getting caught staring at Namur. "What do you want, guppy?"

"I'm sorry, you said you were a fishman?" I asked reflexively, since I'd been caught.

"I didn't say anything," Namur snapped, which kinda just made me feel like I was being an ass. "Never seen a fishman before?"

I hesitated under the weight of his glare, not sure if I was about to screw up epically or not. "No, I have not. I'm sorry about staring."

"HEY!" And both of us turned to find Ace running over. When he skidded to a stop—thankfully not igniting anything—he bowed to me and said, "I'm sorry about the misunderstanding."

Namur and I looked blankly at each other, even though we'd been close to having a very awkward conversation a second ago. Some things ran deeper than mere conversational flubs, and shared confusion was among them.

Namur went first. "About what?"

Ace was still bowing. "Kei, I'm sorry if I offended you by addressing you as a man anytime this past week."

"...You would not believe how often people used to do that back home. Or maybe you would." I scratched the back of my head. Then it occurred to me that that wasn't what Ace probably wanted to hear. "I accept your apology."

Ace straightened up immediately, almost dislodging his hat, and then then looked at Namur. "What were you two talking about?"

"I was just going to apologize," I said, shouldering any responsibility for offending Namur immediately. "I'll stay out of your way, Commander Namur."

Both Whitebeard commanders didn't seem to know what to say to that, or at least didn't manage to come up with anything before I made my escape.

Izo was sympathetic for about five minutes before he told me to get out of his office so he could finish working on the "surprise."

I could take a hint if I was hit hard enough over the head with it. Checking first to see that Namur was cruising the water beside the ship instead of lingering on deck by looking out a porthole, I decided it was probably better to face the somewhat distant music. While the corridors and masts of the Moby Dick were nothing like the forests back home, the deck felt open. Exposed. Heading up there again felt like I was being forced to abandon a hiding spot.

I was still climbing the stairs when the current lookout shouted, "Marine ships, port side!"

I see them. Isobu's chakra slowly turned in the dark waters underneath the Moby Dick until his head was pointed in the direction of the enemy vessel. Do you want to see what the pirates will do in response to an attack?

If it's not too much trouble.

Not attacking is never the trouble. You know that.

And because I didn't want to be a target (and Marco could take care of himself), I slunk across the deck instead of running as the pirates ran all over the place. One of these days, I'd actually be able to deal with being on a pirate ship like a normal individual, but today was not that day.

"Who the hell are the Marines?" I asked Eastwood while he checked his pistols. I was crouched behind Whitebeard's throne, while Eastwood stood tall and proud and perforate-able.

"World Government forces," Eastwood replied distractedly. "And as you might imagine, not too fond of pirates."

"I dunno, pretend I don't have an imagination," I snapped, and once again I internally cursed the fact that nothing in the armory had been a) open for guest use or b) suitable for my use. Haruta had broken the last spare sword recently, according to the quartermaster. And I sure as hell didn't know how to use a rifle well enough to make a difference. "What do we expect from them?"

"Oh, probably a Vice Admiral or two. Someone to get the commanders' blood pumping," Eastwood said, cocking the weapon in his right hand. He pushed the brim of his hat up with the end of the barrel. "Don't worry about it."

I glared up at him, then went to find a spot where I'd be out of the way (or maybe available to help reload). I only had a kunai to fight with, which wasn't gonna be a lot of use in a naval battle. Didn't ships usually kill each other from miles and miles away with massive bombardments?

Isobu was probably busy rolling his eye as he said, What was that phrase before? "In for a penny, in for a pound?" You are traveling with pirates, have become friends with pirates, and are now considering taking up arms alongside them.

I was still being a bit of an indecisive brat about this, wasn't I? Can you blame me for not instantly wanting to piss off what sounds like the only local authorities?

...Do you want me to answer that with any level of seriousness?

I pouted while a cannonball sailed overhead, drastically overshooting the ship. Yeah, I know, shinobi are basically government-sponsored mercenaries. ANBU are worse. I don't have much moral high ground, but maybe I don't want to fight everyone yet. Until I know who "everyone" is.

I could just remove the problem by removing the enemy ships. No one on board either of them would have to know that you and I are in contact, which would suit your need for secrecy.

...Maybe I can just let them handle it. From the sound of things, the Whitebeards were a well-oiled fighting machine, and didn't need a wrench like me getting involved in combat operations.

I finally looked up from my epic wallflower impression as Ace wandered by, apparently unconcerned with whatever new implement of death was flying through the air. Why wasn't he at least paying attention?

"I heard from Thatch that this might be your first sea battle," Ace said. "You holding up all right?"

"I'm fine," I grunted. "It's just been—"

And that was about as far as I got before a cannonball punched through him in a burst of fire. The hit took out the lower third of his ribs, that section of spine, and probably most of his vital organs, but there was no blood.

In fact, he was leaning over and looking a little confused at worst, though the railing behind him had been obliterated and his body was missing significant chunks that were...on fire. What?

"What's with that face?" Ace asked, while I gaped and his entire torso knit itself back together in a roiling wave of flame. "Never seen a Logia before?"

A what? I demanded internally, getting to my feet and feeling my attention trying to jump in six directions at once. Ace getting thoroughly hole-punched was just one of them. My fingers itched to prod at the missing space or maybe stick my hand through despite the flames, as much out of horror, wonder, and surprise distilled into a single emotional cocktail as just reflex. How is he not dead?

Ace still looked confused, probably mirroring my face perfectly. I still couldn't get over the missing chunks problem. "Wait, you saw Marco turn into a giant fiery chicken yesterday and this is what throws you off?"

"I heard that, Ace!" Marco called down from the crow's nest.

"So what?" Ace shouted back up. Then he turned his attention back to me. "I ate the Mera Mera no Mi, you know, a Devil Fruit? Logia-class? Lets me turn into fire?"

"...What." I managed, then smacked my hand into my face. "What the fucking—"

I'd just seen him pull off an automatic dodging ability on par with Obito's Kamui, and it was because he ate a fruit of all things? At least the Transformation technique was a basic Academy skill with a hundred variations. Obito's power was literally unique. The only way to use it was to have one of Obito's eyes.

I was probably freaking out.

It sounds somewhat similar to the process that created the Ten-Tails, Isobu commented. Specifically the part about fruit.

That is not helping!

I smacked my face again, willing myself back under control as Ace completely put himself back together. "...Forget it. Just." Razzem frazzum aaaaaargh.

"You need a minute?"

I automatically ducked out of the way of more long-distance shots in our direction and into cover, though Ace had yet more rounds fly through him to no apparent ill effect. If the shot that had temporarily dismembered Ace hadn't compromised the railing's structural integrity, I might have beat my head against it. Despite the lack of convenient brain-reset options, I still managed to say, "Go. Set the thing on fire."

What kind of hell have we gotten into this time, Isobu?

I could provide a list of the factors that put you on the deck of this ship at this time, and how the situation could escalate. But that is not what you really want to hear.

...No, it's not. I just...I really want to go home. Even if I get frustrated with things there, it's familiar. I pressed my left forearm over my eyes, blotting everything out. If not for the total lack of chakra besides what Isobu and I were toting, I might've been able to pretend just for a second that I wasn't out on a pirate ship out in Middle of Fucking Nowhere, Random Ocean. Or whatever Thatch had called it.

The New World. An apt name, unfortunately.

You said it, I groaned internally.

But there was nothing for it. My wrist ached like an old bruise, a reminder of the thing that wanted me to venture out into this seafaring island-ridden world.

I probably only sat there for a couple of minutes, but eventually the powder magazines on the Marine ships ended up exploding one after another, which put an end to the battle. At that point, I wandered back over to the other side of the ship and watched the burning wreck go down, spitting flame and smoke and leaving lifeboats in its wake.

"That was a bit boring," Eastwood remarked from my left. When I glanced at him, he added, "Only Namur, Marco, and Ace even got close. Usually, we end up boarding, but I guess the three of them got into a competition."

"I missed that part." Because I'd been busy moping. "So, which one did most of it?"

"Oh, Ace. Marco's flames don't actually burn." Sinbad jumped in, having procured a spyglass from somewhere, and handed it to me. "If you look close, you can see Namur throwing marines into the sea from here."

I looked through the spyglass and, on the second ship I scanned, I did indeed see the fishman performing one of the least gentle search-and-rescue jobs I'd ever seen. It kinda looked like...yeah, he was punching them off the ship. I revised my assessment accordingly.

"I can see Marco circling, I think," I said. If I looked close, I could see the simpler version of the Whitebeard insignia on the bird's chest, exactly where Marco's tattoo was. Fascinating, if kinda confusing given that he was made of, well, fire. "...Did Ace's powers really come from eating a fruit?"

"Hm? Yeah. That's what Devil Fruits are for," Eastwood said, oblivious to my continued internal crisis. "Logias are pretty rare already, but Marco's a Mythic Zoan. They say the only other one that's ever been found got eaten by Fleet Admiral Sengoku."

"I think I understood most of those words, but not in context." I handed Sinbad his spyglass back and sighed. "Well, great. I have no idea what's going on anymore."

I never really had, had I?

No.

Sinbad patted my back. "It's all right. I didn't know much about Devil Fruits back when I started out back in East Blue. You'll learn."

"Does kinda raise the question of how you got this far out into the New World without knowing, though," Eastwood mused. "You must have had a weirdly quiet trip."

Does sleeping through it count?

I wandered away without replying and Eastwood and Sinbad both let me. Maybe I'd go and take a nap or something if this was how I was reacting to things outside of my understanding. Or finally request access to the Moby Dick's library, like I'd been avoiding doing because being a meek little mouse of a guest was apparently a thing I did now.

Or I could catalogue socks, I supposed. Hadn't had more than one pair of those in over twenty years.

Turning a corner or five, I found myself staring down the hallway that led to both the medical bay and the nurse's rooms. While I could go and hide in my hammock until everything outside calmed down, the idea only held so much appeal. Being on deck meant I could see what happened to the various pirates, or maybe the Navy personnel, but frankly I wasn't sure I could take another bad shock like the Devil Fruit powers people played with.

I sighed and started to turn around. Maybe I'd find the library if I kept walking around. Better to ask forgiveness than permission or something, right?

I may be wrong, Isobu said, cutting through my wandering thoughts like a hot knife through butter, but I seem to recall humans being capable of floating.

...Sort of? I hedged. We don't tend to have a lot of body fat relative to marine mammals, and I'm sure whales and walruses or whatever can just float by not moving. We're kinda not designed for water. Why do you ask?

I ask because it seems one of your friends has the approximate buoyancy of an anchor.

I took a very deep breath, closing my eyes. Show me.

Isobu's eye view overrode the dark inside my eyelids. At first all I saw was the brilliant blue world he lived in, but then he focused on the comparably tinier flecks of debris and wreckage. I could see bodies, and chunks of the Navy ships that had been gutted by the Whitebeard Pirates. Isobu's view shifted again, and it took him a bit too long to focus on Ace plummeting toward the infinite blue abyss like, well, an anchor. He was already twenty, thirty feet down and sinking rapidly.

Ace was looking directly at Isobu, and he made no attempt to so much as twitch in panic. Actually, the lack of movement aside from his eyes was probably the weirdest aspect of the situation in my opinion. The fact that there was a giant turtle monster in the water just didn't register with me anymore.

And then Namur streaked through the water like a torpedo, scooped Ace up like he weighed no more than a damp kitten, and disappeared. He didn't appear to take any notice of Isobu, who probably looked more like amazingly hostile seabed than any living creature. Or maybe he just wasn't letting it show?

...That was weird, I concluded, once I could see the insides of my eyelids again.

He may have seen me, Isobu said dryly. After a few seconds, I felt his chakra start to move farther away from both the wrecked Navy ships and the Moby Dick. Unlike whales, who couldn't literally control the medium through which they moved, Isobu would leave no waves or other evidence of his existence in his wake.

Unless, like with the sea serpents, he decided otherwise.

If this is the case, your cover as a mild-mannered, uneducated vagrant may be a thing of the past.

I'm not sure I follow, I told him as I headed for the library instead of the deck. I had some reading to do. I mean, if they only see you once, it's not a pattern.

I know you. Sooner or later, the truth will out and you will browbeat people into accepting your strangeness or wash your hands of them.

Do I seem like Naruto to you? I wondered as I headed into the library and was greeted by shelves upon shelves of hard-backed books. It was like an alien landscape.

You do not want me to answer that question.

Given that I'd lost every snark battle I'd had with him for the last week? No, I probably didn't.

So I gave up.

Somewhat later, while I was reading up on some kingdom somewhere called Wano that kinda reminded me of the Land of Iron, I heard riotous laughter and both Ace and Namur shouting, "I'm telling you, there's no way it was a sea turtle!"

I turned a page and let them run off with the context to that punchline entirely unexplained.

Doing some research in the Whitebeards' library gave me a few survival tips. Among them, the three basic categories of Devil Fruits.

I refused to be quite so ignorant again.

Zoan: Animal shapeshifters who could take on traits of whatever their fruit said they could. Marco the Phoenix and Fleet Admiral Sengoku were at the far end of the power scale as far as Zoan-type fruits went, but there were dozens of others. Zoan-type users had three forms: human, human-beast, and beast form, and healed bizarrely quickly compared to baseline humans.

Logia: Elemental shapeshifters, such as Ace's Mera Mera no Mi. Users could produce, transform into, and control whatever type of energy or matter defined by their fruit. There were a couple of notes about other elemental forms—smoke, magma, light, ice—but most of the info I found indicated Logia fruits were the rarest of the lot. Except for Ancient and Mythic Zoan fruits, as Eastwood had told me.

Paramecia: Catchall, basically. Paramecia-type fruits laughed in the face of logic or common sense, ranging from the ability to produce shockwaves in anything (as Captain Whitebeard's did) to sprouting blades out of nowhere and so on. That said, they also contained the largest proportion of useless or even actively detrimental powers.

And for some reason, none of them could swim. I didn't buy the explanation that it was some kind of sea curse, though only because it sounded pat. The note about how it took a minimum of knee-height submersion to cancel out a Devil Fruit user's strength was useful to know, but anything about sea prism stone just made my hands itch. No one apparently knew what it was, which made me want to run experiments with it.

Isobu, make a note. Once I figure out how to use the Coral Palm again, we need to find a hostile Devil Fruit user and start testing. The coral produced by the technique stopped even Sensei dead before, and couldn't be removed by the victim. Maybe it could stop Devil Fruit power the same way it disrupted chakra.

Noted. Though I could test it now if you were not so devoted to the idea of keeping me a secret.

Who the hell were we going to experiment on, the Whitebeards? Even if they did attack Isobu as soon as they saw him in person and Isobu was literally immortal, I didn't want anyone to get hurt in that confrontation.

"You're still in here?" asked a voice, and I looked up to see Haruta looking down at me with an expression of open curiosity on his face.

I mirrored it, because even after seeing Haruta's Shakespearian getup three times, I still didn't get it. Especially the Elizabethan collar. "Uh, yeah. Dinner rush prep was hours ago."

"Did you even eat anything?" Haruta asked, looking around at the mess I'd made of the library table. While I had put books here and there, and taken a mess of notes, there was no plate or cup to be found.

"Uh, maybe," I said, since I couldn't think of anything to say at first.

Instead, I leaned back in my chair and stretched with my arms overhead and my fingers knit together. My shoulders and my spine gave a series of pops, telling me I'd been stuck in one place for entirely too long. Cycling my chakra kept my muscles from falling asleep, but joints were another matter. The second I finished, my stomach rumbled ominously.

"Guess I can take that as a no," Haruta said, amused enough to stick his tongue out at me in the face of my halfhearted glare. "I figured something was up when we didn't see you in the galley at all."

I felt the very tips of my ears heating up, but otherwise the only sign of my embarrassment was how I looked away rather quickly. "I get caught up in reading sometimes."

"No kidding." Still, Haruta led me out of the library and to the galley without further comment on my reading habits.

We didn't spend all that long in there, effectively raiding the fridge and then running away while Thatch was elsewhere. Haruta might've said something about pranks, but I didn't pay all that much attention. I just felt like I needed to go back to the library as fast as I could. It wasn't—I didn't need to do whatever research I could with the kind of feverish devotion I once used for constructing seals I needed but couldn't ask for.

I was stronger than that.

Then you could at least attempt to calm down. You are agitated.

Haruta followed me pretty much the whole time, looking steadily more worried about my mental state until we got back to the library with food in hand. I tried to find the less-heavy fare I'd most likely not regret eating, though I was aware I was playing Russian roulette with ingredients lists anyway.

"Hey, Commander Haruta?" I asked, while I poked at what looked like some kind of onion soup. It had cheese on top, but could I call it "French onion soup" in a world that didn't have a France?

"You don't really need to be that formal," Haruta replied, while struggling to avoid getting any soup on his ruff.

I could be polite, though. "Okay. But I wanted to ask you something."

"Sure," he replied. "Something bothering you?"

"Yeah, I…" Well, a lot of things were bothering me. I'd just have to prioritize. "I don't even know enough to know the right questions to ask. Maybe I should just try later…"

Or not. Drat.

"Would it be easier if you had a chance to visit an island or something?" Haruta asked.

"Being on land doesn't help," I replied, then I gave in and tried the soup. Per Thatch's usual, it was excellent. Given that the recipe was so foreign, it didn't stir any feelings of homesickness—or at least, any more than usual. "The rules are just too different."

Haruta stuck his tongue out again, thinking. Then, "Well, if one of us goes with you—we could be like interpreters, or something! And you could explore the New World a bit? Learning stuff through books is great and all, but it's more fun to actually visit some of the places we look after."

I stared at Haruta for a long moment, my expression blank. At this point, I didn't know why the Whitebeards were still trying to recruit me, but it seemed like they were a stubborn bunch. It wasn't like I had a single skillset—that I'd shown them—that they couldn't already replicate. And I certainly hadn't been all that social, either.

"Uh, Kei?"

"It's nothing, Commander Haruta." I sighed to myself, then focused on finishing the soup so I could go back to studying. It was a bit too hot to slurp, though, so I probably just ended up looking disinterested.

We sat in silence for a little longer, while I finished my soup, until Haruta broke the awkward pause wide open with, "Well, what do you do for fun?"

I didn't know how to answer that. All of my go-to options were a million miles away. A chance glance around the room resulted in my eyes alighting on Haruta's sword. An easy answer came to mind immediately. "Well, uh, I know how to use swords...sort of…"

"Great! Well, I'm not as good as Vista, but we can spar later? I'm sure there are some practice swords lying around, somewhere," Haruta said, with forced cheerfulness.

I rested my head against my hand. Haruta really was trying.

Still, it wasn't a bad idea. I'd been hiding away in the library since the events of the attack the other day, except for when it was time to help Thatch work. Maybe a workout would help...

But not too much of one. "Go easy on me, okay?"

"Ah, don't worry! I'll play nice."

I didn't show off a single one of my advanced techniques during the spar. Really, my loss was an impressive bit of acting, the story of which I decided I would share with my students once I got back home.

I'd been aboard the ship for ten days before reality blindsided me again.

Now, I hung out with Thatch a lot. While I was picking up seafaring terms, I had a tendency to make experienced pirates cringe when they heard me try to use it. Taking this as a sign that I was probably a liability on deck, no one objected to me staying in the galley during chore time and helping feed what amounted to a literal army. No one had said anything to me, but I had no interest in being a total freeloader. Thus, peeling spuds became my new semi-official day job.

And then, one day, he wasn't there.

"You looking for Thatch?" asked one of the pirates who had been shanghaied into food prep. There were consistent volunteers from the Fourth Division (insofar as they really could, given who their commanding officer was), but this guy was a new face to me.

"Uh, yeah," I said, ever the epitome of composure and grace. I'd been getting better since getting used to life on a ship, but I definitely preferred sticking to people I knew. "So, where'd he go?"

"He's out on an expedition right now," he replied.

That didn't mean much to me. It seemed like all the commanders had duties that ranged from "cook everything that isn't actually poisonous" to "check every single cannon on board" to "drown in paperwork." Thatch's mission or vacation or whatever it was could easily have been a common occurrence. I just hadn't been around the crew long enough to know.

"But I can work here without him supervising, right?" I asked, suddenly unsure.

The pirate I'd been talking to used one hook-hand to yank a sack of potatoes in his direction. "Just don't cut yourself or you might end up like me!" he said with a grin.

That certainly answered my question.

One day, you are going to become restless with your mundane life choices before I do, Isobu muttered as I got to work without complaint. Have you forgotten about that creature?

I cut into a potato with perhaps more force than strictly necessary, earning an earful from a pirate about wasting food that I only listened to enough to nod in the right places. No.

We have not made a move to leave the pirates and set out on our mission since you arrived. Isobu was probably four or five miles away, underwater in some kind of trench, and I nonetheless oriented toward his exact position before trying to glare a hole through the wall.

I didn't need the reminder.

You are becoming complacent. Isobu started swimming farther afield, aggravated enough to stir up the local serpents—or Sea Kings, as the pirates called them—and subsequently getting into a fight with them in the abyss.

He needed to work off some stress, too.

I continued butchering vegetables.

You… Isobu's tails lashed, gutting a creature that had not learned the first lesson everything else that fought Isobu would: Fighting him in the water was certain death. Going back to the village may mean I am forced back into the seal. I can almost accept that. But I am also looking out for your interests, not just mine. And you need to go home.

I put down the knife before I stabbed someone. The pirate from before must have seen my expression, because he snuck the knife away without comment.

Isobu?

Yes?

That plan is the one that wants me to basically reassemble the fucking Ten-Tails, I said in a frigid tone. When Isobu went silent, I continued, Even if I didn't know that there are other, stronger, hostile jinchūriki out there—what else could "the Nine" even be—we could actually doom this world if we screw this up!

I was selfish. If I hadn't met the Whitebeard Pirates, I doubt I would have really cared about that point. I would have just wanted to get home so badly that no other considerations would matter. Isobu and I probably would have cut a wide swath through their oceans in order to complete our mission.

But at the same time that I was selfish, I had a heart softer than any ninja should.

I'd been befriended, and now I didn't want to leave what meager comfort zone I'd managed to scrape together. Not in favor of a mission that could end hundreds of lives if I wasn't careful. Especially when I still didn't know enough about how to avoid that.

You really are a soft-hearted fool.

Either that or I'm well past succumbing to Stockholm Syndrome.

I ended up ejecting myself from the kitchen for being a safety hazard while distracted. And I went to go take a nap.

The nap went thus:

YOU HAVE BEEN CALLED.

YOU ARE THE THIRD.

YOU WILL ASSEMBLE THE NINE.

And then I woke up upside-down, one foot stuck in my hammock and my face mashed against the floor, to the sound of a commotion up on deck. My wrist ached again, right where the kanji sat, and even I had to admit that this was getting out of hand.

But hey, the outside world called.

"Did something happen?" I asked from the floor as a nurse ran by.

"Thatch is back!" she yelled, having not stopped to check if I was upright or anything. Which, well, okay. I probably wasn't gonna die of tripping onto the floor.

That was fast. Still, I got up and headed after the crowd, because apparently pirates were like magpies—chasing after something shiny all the time. And I wasn't really any better.

The deck of the Moby Dick seemed to be the party's epicenter, like every other major event I'd seen thus far on the ship. The crowd of pirates focused inward, so I stalked around the outside of the celebration until I could find a better vantage point.

"Yo, Teach," I said, once I found the easiest landmark in the crowd.

"Hm?" The guy had to look down almost until he was staring at his elbow to even notice me, which was a biiiiit pathetic in hindsight. Friggin' giants.

"What's going on?" I asked, peering over people's heads as well as I could.

Thatch was in the center of the crowd, carrying both a travel bag of some kind and a big purple thing that looked kind of like what would happen if an enterprising botanist successfully crossed a durian with a bunch of grapes.

I didn't end up getting a direct response.

"What kind of Devil Fruit is it, Thatch?" I heard Ace's voice ask.

"I don't really know," Thatch answered with a laugh. "I don't even know if I want to eat it. It does look pretty neat, though!"

"One more hammer in a crew full of them isn't going to be a problem," Namur said, though the joking tone didn't really make much sense to me. How many of the Whitebeards were drowning hazards already?

"Hey, I actually like swimming," Thatch shot back at Namur. "I'll have to think about it."

Perhaps it is the fishman's duty to retrieve… "hammers?" Isobu muttered. I still prefer to call it being an anchor.

Sounds more nautical, at least. "I wonder if there's any way to know what type it is?" I muttered to myself.

If there was, I imagine you would have seen it during your research. There were no pictures.

Yeah. Still, I wonder why they can't swim after eating one of those. Is it a question of density? I shook my head. No, that would make too much sense for what I'd seen. Ace could eliminate half his body mass or more by turning into fire, and heat rose. It also didn't explain the apparent full-body paralysis.

At the same time, Isobu sighed. Our theory still fails utterly to explain why. Perhaps it really is a kind of curse?

Honestly, I probably would have left the entire crowd to their celebration so I could go back to pondering the shape of the universe. It was just that I happened to look up at Teach's face, since he hadn't answered me before, and saw the expression there.

I have seen Kurama make less terrifying faces. And I know for a fact that he has ten more teeth.

Even from my bad angle, I could see Teach's pearly whites—well, what ones were left—all on display in a way that put Namur and his shark head to shame. The sheer greed in Teach's maniacal grin was startling in its unexpectedness because I was literally hanging with a pirate crew. It shouldn't have been unexpected.

And yet here Teach was, standing out like the sorest of thumbs.

I looked away, but I kept his face in the corner of my eye just to know when things changed.

As quick as the expression appeared, it vanished like it had never been. Burned into my memory, sure, but probably not into anyone else's. They'd all been focused on Thatch and his Durian of Doom.

Isobu?

If it is about apologizing to this human again, I advise you to retract it preemptively.

No. But it does have to do with him.

I faded toward the back of the crowd, then left.

I just had one more reason to talk to the captain, now.

"YOU'RE LEAVING?"

Once I was sure the yelling was done with, I lowered my hands from my ears and said, "I have to."

Somehow, me deciding to leave meant that all the division commanders who had befriended me were choosing to flip out. I'd gotten used to the idea that my departure might not be greeted with cheers about the time I realized how friendly these people were, but seriously?

Somehow, I'd still been surprised that Thatch, Ace and the others reacted so much.

"Who says? Who's scaring off my best assistant?" Thatch demanded, as though he hadn't been flailing his arms and carrying on a moment ago. He met my eyes squarely and promised fervently, "I'll fight them!"

"Thatch, your entire division helps you out in the kitchen," Haruta said bluntly.

"It's not anyone's fault," I explained patiently, slipping the loop of my sleeve off my middle finger. I pulled the cloth back from my right wrist to show off the mark the Faceless Bastard had put on me. "This mark is a symbol of my mission. And I can't complete it if I don't leave."

"What kind of mission?" Eastwood asked, looking blankly at the mark. It probably didn't mean much to him. Hell, without context even the kanji sitting on my wrist seemed arbitrary.

"It's something I have to do before I can go home," I said vaguely, and Thatch's anger abated despite me not actually explaining anything. He knew how much not being able to go home was hurting me. "It's the price for being able to."

Ace crossed his arms over his chest. "You're not gonna give us any details?"

"It's probably better if I don't." Because otherwise they'd get involved. How to phrase this… I tapped my right index finger knuckle against my lower lip, thinking. How would I get Gai to butt out of a fight? ...Oh, right. Then I said, "This is one of those things I need to do myself."

This seemed to strike a chord with everyone.

"That kind of mission sucks," Sinbad muttered. "What kind of family makes people deal with things all on their own?"

There they went assuming that I even wanted to see half of the other jinchūriki. I'd met Gaara and knew Kushina, but the rest? The Whitebeards didn't need to be involved in the inevitable fights to the death. Not over me.

I just shook my head rather than sharing my thoughts. "I wasn't going to join the crew anyway, Sinbad. I already said so."

"But you're hopeless at sailing!" Sinbad argued.

"I'll be fine," I insisted. I wasn't a part of their crew's hierarchy and thus didn't really need to obey their orders anyway.

Just because I'm getting a boat doesn't mean I'm gonna be using the thing.

I will meet up with you the moment you are out of their sight.

Even I didn't have the ability to fail so utterly at sailing that I could capsize before Isobu could eat it. I could drift and do better, even if parts of the New World oceans had such unfair features as loop de loops.

Izo looked around at all of the worry on his crewmates' faces and said, "You know very well that we can't force anyone to stay if they don't want to. If Kei decides to go elsewhere, then that's her choice."

...God dammit why was I always a sucker for being guilt-tripped into things? I gathered my willpower and still said, while looking down at the floor, "I'm going to leave tomorrow morning. I'll send you letters, if I can." Then I bowed deeply, adding, "Thank you for taking care of me."

"Don't make a big deal out of it," Haruta said, and I gave the commander of the Twelfth Division a crooked smile when he stuck his tongue out to soften his words. "Seriously, though, if your mission gets too tough, you can come back. It's not goodbye forever. It's more like 'see you later.'"

Assuming I ever managed to find my way back to them without any chakra markers? "Sure. You've got it."

"Good!" Haruta replied, clapping his hand on my shoulder. "You're the biggest clumsy goof of a landlubber we've ever met, but you're our friend!"

"Do I get any say in this?" I asked, only half-joking.

"NOPE!" everyone replied.