Banaro, as it turned out, was a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. Literally banana-shaped mountainous structures probably gave the island its name, making for yet another example of weird topography in the Grand Line. There was even a town on it that kinda looked like something out of an old Western movie, which probably explained why fashion choices like Ace and Eastwood's hats were even a thing. And sitting right at the docks, apparently there for perfectly innocent reasons, was a particularly fat raft.
It was flying a flag depicting three skulls and four crossed bones. What information Ace had managed to gather about the Blackbeards had, of course, included their flag. There was no mistaking that design.
"That's it," Ace snarled, and then Striker shot ahead and across the Nautilus's nose. Ace was entirely out of earshot in a few seconds at most.
"Yugito?" I prompted, since I was still steering the Nautilus. Yugito was perched on the vessel's bow, ready to throw herself into the fray.
Keeping in line with my companions' decisions, I was going to hold off on entering the fight until I could get Utakata to a safer—since nothing was safe—spot. Isobu's stomach sounded about right. And even afterward, I'd be mainly defending the populace caught up in all of this. Hopefully, that would be enough to cover our bases until we could handle other problems.
Our second planning session had established that much, at least. And despite his worry, Saiken didn't get to veto that without picking a better option. And he didn't have the power to open his mouth wide enough.
"Have fun watching us kill him," Yugito told me, with her tone as dark as Ace's had been and her eyes flashing green and gold. With that, she leapt off the boat and ran to shore across the waves, barely taking the time to cover her approach with her heat genjutsu.
Hotheads, both of them.
I steered the Nautilus out of a trajectory that would bury its bow in the island's sole town and into Isobu's range. I didn't want him being spotted by any of the Blackbeards before it was time to take out the trash.
My partner surfaced like a prowling shark, far enough offshore that his body was mostly hidden by the waves and random surface detritus. With only his head showing because of the angle, he kinda looked like an all-devouring whirlpool of doom. With teeth.
"Take care of the Nautilus, okay?" I said, as I cut the power to the shell-engine thing. "And if Utakata wakes up…"
I will let him panic for ten minutes, or until Saiken takes him off my hands.
"...I was gonna say you should tell him what's going on, but okay."
Get going. Saiken is watching the situation progress without you.
I nodded, though Isobu couldn't see me, and let the Nautilus drift into Isobu's mouth while I stood on the water's surface out of immediate gulping range. Once I was sure Isobu had swallowed it without any trouble—protecting Utakata and all our supplies in one go—l let myself drop through the waves.
Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet. Never having used the technique from underwater, there was no real way to know what would happen.
The dragon's head formed first, swirling around me nearly invisible except for its glowing yellow eyes. I had a second to give a thumbs-up to Isobu's submerged face before it enveloped me in its coils, then its body, and I was shooting off toward Banaro Island like a torpedo.
The dragon's path let me curve around underwater obstacles as they appeared, following the flow of the ocean around us, and I reached the shore almost faster than I would have if I'd run. Certainly much stealthier.
When I emerged from the water, I shrouded myself in another transformation as though this was any random island. Even before I layered the usual water-based refraction genjutsu on top, I looked nothing like myself. I'd go so far as to say I looked more like the Anko-Rin hybrid I'd pulled off back in Nanohana. If it was just another island, then I didn't have to worry about my companions' safety. Just another day at the office.
And if Teach thought I was dead, I planned to keep it that way.
Someone needed to look after the people who lived on this fucking island while Yugito and Ace tore the place (and Teach) apart. Given the state of the town even at a glance, everyone in it was either unconscious or dead or soon would be. But there was a chance that not everyone across the island would get caught up in the S-class fight. Some of them had to have gotten away from the initial blast radius, right?
So I headed for the only part of the island that hadn't been hit just yet, making Water Clones to reach the parts of the island that I obviously couldn't take care of without being in more than one place at the same time. Thank goodness for clone techniques. All of them.
There were people dressed in clothes that reminded me instantly of Eastwood. Cowboy hats and all. Some were on stretchers, being carefully hauled away from the ongoing battle I was studiously ignoring. I could see black smoke rising in the distance, which sent people aflutter, but I didn't especially need to worry about that.
Ace and Yugito could handle themselves. Pirates were all about posturing.
I pulled my four seals out of my hip pouch. Putting myself between the townsfolk and the town itself, I quickly mapped out the barrier parameter in my head, charged the seal with a lot of chakra, and planted it squarely on the ground.
Elsewhere on the island, my Water Clones did the same as soon as I was sure we were all organized into a perfect square.
Four Corner Barrier Formation. Or at least that was what I called it. I'd apologize to Genma later.
Using the seal as an axis, two glowing lines traced outward at a ninety degree angle from each other. From the seal at my feet, the seal's form linked up with two of the other seals, creating four perfectly straight and apparently razor-thin walls that glowed and shifted like soap bubbles in the sun. As soon as the walls were fully formed, I stepped back. With my hands still locked in the Snake seal, I let the barrier flare to true life and watched the walls climb higher and higher in order to form a cube. The shape's lid slammed into place, sealing the outside world and its effects out and the inhabitants of the island in.
Nothing would cross it besides me. And even then, creating a separate doorway would take more energy than my clones could easily maintain.
It was secure.
In the rainbow-tinged view through the barrier, I could see the column of black smoke rise higher and higher into the air. While I could sense Yugito's chakra, I had no way of checking Ace's position relative to, say, a random rock on the ground. Not without moving my hands, not when we weren't far enough apart to trigger it automatically.
"Uh, ma'am?" asked a rather brave islander, in what...yeah, that was a Texas accent. What the hell, why not? "What...what's happening?"
"Pirate grudge match," I said, glancing over my shoulder. "We're safe in here."
Poor guy. He was probably completely out of his depth. "That smoke, though—"
"What about it?" I asked, turning to face him as best I could without standing up. I hadn't felt Yugito start using Fire Release yet, and Ace's powers were loud. What was he talking about?
The man was very clearly scared out of his mind. Not that I blamed him—this pirate crap had my brain turning itself into an illogical knot most of the time. And Teach had just hit this town.
"Th-the pirate just—the sky went dark, like the sun went out," the poor man stammered, eyes locked on the smoke in the distance.
"Did he happen to say anything before he did it?" I asked, eyes narrowing.
"N-no, he just held out his hand and the s-smoke…" the man shook, then sat down with a thud next to my active barrier. Which, uh, probably said a lot about how nasty of a shock today had been that no one really seemed to be reacting. "Our island…"
People really didn't need to be caught up in this. "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't—"
And that was about as far as I got before people started screaming. Blinking in shock, I recoiled and then whipped my head around to see what they could possibly be looking at.
Through the slight distortion of the barrier, the ground in the still-visible town was...black. Exactly as black as the column of smoke from before, but it was spreading like ink or some kind of particularly active slime. The black wave wove under houses and swallowed entire streets, heedless of a burst of fire—Yugito—that tried to fend it off and failed.
"What…?" I trailed off, staring openly.
It looked like a Nara had gone on a rampage, but there wasn't a trace of chakra on the entire island that didn't belong to Yugito or me. And a Nara would never be so imprecise about placing shadows, no matter how much chakra they had to spare. Producing a fraction of sheer volume would kill most of the clan's members outright.
"Th-the darkness…" someone wailed, though not the same person as before.
The darkness reached so far outward from the center of the town that I worried about my barrier's integrity. Shadows weren't technically matter, and I'd never personally tested the barrier's physical strength other than by punching it. There was no guarantee Teach wouldn't be able to bullshit his way past it if his powers worked under different rules.
It was up to Ace and Yugito.
And then things started to…well, the best way I could think of to describe it was "go crunch." Any building, wagon, or other object over a patch of shadows started to deform under its own weight, with boards splitting every which way. The cacophony of splintering wood and groaning metal rose into a unified shriek as the aboveground parts of the entire town sank into the shadows as though pulled.
Yugito and Ace were in that.
I couldn't sense Ace, but Yugito's chakra flared in pure shock that shifted rapidly to fear. Her inner fire managed that for maybe a second before she vanished entirely from my range. Her light went out, swallowed by unforgiving darkness.
When the sun finally shed its light on Banaro Island in full again, the town was nothing less than a giant, clean crater with support holes for building foundations, Teach standing under that column of smoke, and the orange-hatted figure of Ace perched on top of a pile of rubble. That rubble was the closest thing to "intact" left for a quarter-mile around Teach.
I covered my mouth with my hands, but refused to break the hand seal. Wh-what just happened?
"I-it's gone! Our homes—oh no, no no no…" someone else behind me wailed as reality sank in.
Yugito was gone. Everything except Ace and Teach—all of it had vanished into the dark.
A thought struck me. I couldn't perceive Yugito's chakra, but maybe her partner could. Isobu, can Matatabi—?
Matatabi says her partner is still alive, but in great pain.
I'd take the "alive" part and just have to disregard the rest. But why had Teach's attack avoided hitting Ace…?
I got an answer a moment later as the black cloud pulsed in a heartbeat rhythm. Teach shouted something—damn near anything with four syllables, given how little noise made it through the barrier's walls—and the cloud rippled as though struck.
From the middle of the crater that encompassed all of where an entire town used to be, the smoke reared like a snake, opened its figurative jaws, and disgorged everything. Wood, nails, canvas, cloth in a hundred configurations, shattered beams or wheels—everything sucked up in the last round, spat out to make a pile higher than any of the buildings had been.
And Yugito's chakra reappeared, wailing in pain and rage, and I could nearly see her tumble out of the undirected storm of broken buildings. I had to hope she wasn't hurt so badly that she needed a rescue, but if she was conscious enough to even be angry, it was something.
But it didn't feel like Yugito would be participating in the fight now. Her power was less designed for defense than mine, and neither of us were prodigiously fast healers. While she could still hide herself under a genjutsu—and I felt her doing so with Matatabi's power—her only options were to either summon her partner or bow out.
I knew what she'd do, and was unhappily right. There was no great surge of chakra bringing Matatabi to the field, and there wouldn't be if Yugito's pride had anything to say about it. Instead, I felt the gentle pop as Matatabi summoned Yugito away for her own safety.
The rest was up to Ace.
I pressed my lips together until I was certain they'd gone white, still turtled away behind my barrier. Isobu, did Matatabi if Yugito is going to recover? Or where she is?
I needed to distract myself somehow.
They will be waiting for us on the next island over. Matatabi intends to rejoin the attack personally if it is still ongoing by the time Yugito recovers.
Fat chance of that happening, I thought as I watched what I could see of the fight. While I saw the green firefly lights Ace had used in our one fight, there was a distinct lack of Teach dying that set me to worrying again. I knew things were going to go wrong before the flames went out.
And they did, but not in the way I expected.
Kei! Utakata is awake—but he is not conscious. Isobu coughed—a noise I'd never heard from him before—and I could feel Saiken's sudden shriek of rage even though the barrier continued to muffle sound. I was forced to eject him.
Shit. I'm gonna have to go after him.
I could feel Saiken's chakra mixed heavily with Utakata's, likely running his body on its own out of sheer survival instinct that bypassed cognitive processes entirely. Because of course Utakata, even if he was berserk, would head for a populated area. Not out of any personal malice, but solely because I was the only detectable threat in the immediate area and my luck was that bad.
Utakata was heading across the back part of the island, treating the banana-mountains like his personal highway. At the rate he was moving, he'd hit the Four Corner Barrier Formation's back wall within a minute.
If I didn't intervene, Utakata would kill everyone here that Teach and Ace's fight didn't. So much for keeping an eye on—on anything. On being able to control jack shit.
I drew my sword and drove it through the top edge of the seal, pinning my tag in place until I could create a Water Clone to hold it for me. There was no way the seal would hold onto its shape for as long as it would if I was here powering it, but I had five minutes of leeway before the clone would pop.
Five minutes of charge on a barrier this big took a chunk out of my reserves, but I could go without it. My newest clone would just have to hold down the fort until I could take the burden back up.
I had to.
My new Water Clone picked up the slack as soon as it swirled out of the air, leaving me free to grab my katana.
"Wh-where are you going?!" squeaked the bartender man, as I prepared to cut a hole in the barrier and intercept our extra guest.
"If I'm not back in five minutes, hide in the forest," I said, rather than answering. Either fight could level Banaro Island, but both of them needed to be handled.
Yugito was gone, and I was the only one who knew how to shut down a rampaging jinchūriki anyway. It had to be me.
I pointed the tip of my katana directly at the barrier's wall, just over my clone's shoulder, and made the Seal of Confrontation with my other hand. The sword started to glow like a torch as the steel picked up on the chakra I was channeling through it.
Isobu, whatever happens—keep an eye on the Blackbeards.
I happened to send that thought along just as Teach and Ace both decided that their best tactics involved creating massive balls of fire and darkness that looked like nothing less than a Spirit Bomb fight. Teach's powers ate ambient light and shrouded the former town in darkness, while Ace's flames fought that leeching effect directly and were nearly as bright as the full noon sun.
Make sure Ace makes it, I thought. Please.
Deal with Utakata before Saiken intervenes, was all Isobu said in response. If I did not, well, there might not be anything left afterward for him to monitor. And if Isobu had his hands full with his brother… Crap. I needed to move.
Curve of the Moon. The barrier tore wide open with the sound of ripping plastic sheets, giving me a gap wide enough to leap through before my clone automatically closed it.
And then I was on an intercept course.
Utakata was a mess. His posture was more like that of a zombie than a person, lurching around with his hair covering his orange eyes and making it hard to tell what exactly he was looking at. Add in the reddish chakra cloak forming a six-tailed silhouette around him, and I knew I was in for it.
I didn't even know it was possible to go from a controlled, trained jinchūriki to a berserker in V1 alone. All of my moments where I'd lost self control either involved V2 taken way too far, complete with burning my own epidermis, or with the complete piece of shit seal I'd had at the very beginning. Utakata, to my knowledge, suffered from neither problem.
But he'd nearly died yesterday. Yugito and me throwing chakra around could have woken him into this borderline-mindless state. Theoretically.
"Utakata," I called, to get his attention. I needed him to try and kill me. Focusing on me, ultimately, gave him zero room for anything else.
Honestly, I could have probably said anything. Anything at all. Using Isobu's chakra made me the biggest threat he could perceive. Teach, Ace, Yugito, Isobu and Matatabi and Saiken—everyone else was background noise. Nothing mattered past the instant Utakata lunged right for me.
Utakata's voice—supplemented by Saiken's, twisted into something animalistic—came out as a wordless screech as he attempted an overhand hammer-blow that would have killed a normal person four times over.
My V1 cloak up and already active, I lurched sideways as though yanked by a tow line thanks to the power of Isobu's chakra. Utakata's pounce planted him headfirst in the ground, which buckled under the force, and I drew all three of my chakra tails to the front of the cloak in preparation for—
Utakata's legs bunched up underneath him, his single visible eye alighted on me, and he bared all his teeth. With human teeth—and the fact that Saiken's were all on his tongue—it was not as intimidating as it could be.
"Missed me!" I said in my best approximation of a taunt, under the circumstances. I slipped into Gai's favorite starting stance, since I didn't want to use kenjutsu and risk actually hurting him, and crooked my fingers at him in a challenge.
Utakata roared, hurling himself at me with his six chakra tails trailing behind him. I ducked under a wild roundhouse, feeling my V1 cloak disperse above my head just for a moment from the force of the blow. Then, before Utakata could fully recover, I slammed a sledgehammer-shaped projection of Isobu's chakra into the back of his head like a baseball bat, sending him sprawling.
Utakata landed hands-first, but still plowed through the boulder I'd launched him into. To his credit, he took the headlong slide into solid rock like a champ—he was trying to throttle me with the chakra tails alone before he'd even gotten to his feet again. It was like being attacked by a corrosive octopus until I could slash, bite, and kick my way out of his grip.
We landed a few meters apart, but that separation only lasted for a few seconds.
"If chakra tails"—duck, weave, backflip over the lashing limbs—"are all you can do, you're not going to win," I told him, even as tails three through six merged into a single tail four times the length, and swung at me like a sword.
I Body Flickered out of the way, cursing on-the-fly inventiveness. I should sue your ass for copyright infringement!
Utakata followed me as I tore away from the town, into the Banaro Island mountains from whence he'd come. While the stone was already warping from the heat and force of Ace and Teach's fight, I didn't honestly care. Under V1, Utakata and I could survive the kind of force that would level the island, and even keep trying to kill each other afterward. We didn't fear the sea.
How long until you can subdue him? Isobu demanded, his chakra and Saiken's occupying nearly the same space.
Unfortunately, I said as I leapt from one rock to another while Utakata's impact immediately afterward devastated the structure, I left my Chakra Suppression Seals on the Nautilus. I'm gonna have to hit his back with the Five Elements Seal instead.
Doing so will cut Saiken off from him, Isobu thought "aloud."
The other seal wouldn't do any better. I landed on all fours on the side of the biggest banana mountain I'd yet seen, three chakra tails arrayed out behind me and clinging to the stone.
Then the sun went out.
Utakata paused, wild-eyed, as the ambient light dimmed to a dull twilit version of itself. When I looked up in a panic, the sun was still there, but only as a circle of light about as bright as the moon. The black smoke of Teach's whatever-the-fuck power reached upward from the center of the former town, just like before, sucking up light just the same way. From outside of my barrier seal, the view was much more worrying.
Utakata spat a miniature, half-formed Tailed Beast Bomb at me that missed and blew the top off a rock spire (and four after it). And it was on again.
I dodged, dropping like a stone from the mountain face as I cut the chakra sticking me to it. As I fell, Utakata obliterated much of the structure above me and sent a cascade of broken stone and rock dust down after me.
My set of chakra tails stretched outward, punching through the first layer of remaining stone and anchoring me in the air for a confused half-second. Then I let myself drop down again, treating the excess of the chakra cloak like a swing and whirling through the open air.
I soared halfway around the width of the banana-rock before the anchor slipped and I hurtled downward. The chakra cloak wrapped around me, forming Isobu's spiky shell and tread-like tail spikes until I was essentially the head of a reddish, translucent cannonball.
I bounced, ricocheted off another banana-mountain, and smashed Utakata into another boulder on the rebound.
Across the island and back in what used to be a town, the sky seemed like nothing less than an even split between day and night. While the sun overhead was no brighter, a miniature star shone a little above the lip of the crater. From the wash of heat and the orange glare, the entire thing was about the size of a fully formed Tailed Beast Bomb—but without the precise chakra mix that tore through life forms like a combine harvester through wheat.
Ace really was holding back, was my immediate thought. Isobu had called us both on not taking the sparring match seriously months ago, but I hadn't really understood it until there was a second sun right in front of me.
Just so, Isobu put in, but…
...You don't think he's going to win, I thought, even as I finally caught Utakata's arm and twisted him into a joint lock. The sooner I dealt with Utakata, the sooner I could go see what was happening with Ace.
I think that Saiken will kill everyone on this island out of sheer stress if you do not sort the situation out now. Considerations past that point will have to wait.
I slammed Utakata's head into the stone to stun him for the second time, with my knee digging into his back. Hyperextending his shoulder despite his chakra cloak tails bouncing off my head, I pinned his limb in place with one arm and one leg.
If he'd been thinking, he would have been able to wiggle out of my grip. Saiken's chakra conferred some of the physical contortion abilities of a slug when it was used on purpose. But Utakata wasn't thinking much and thus couldn't escape.
Behind me, there was a flash of mingled light and dark—and heat and pressure that made my ears pop—just as I slammed five fiery fingertips directly into the seal on Utakata's back.
My ears popped again, prompting a wince, as Utakata's chakra cloak faltered and died. I was left holding a still-bandaged, unconscious jinchūriki before my chakra cloak faded out. I turned him over as gently as I could still manage, checking his pulse and respiration on automatic.
"Fine" was a strong word. But Utakata would live, and as a jinchūriki he'd fully recover. He'd been through worse.
Saiken cannot sense his partner now. Did you succeed?
Yeah. I-I've got him now, I replied unsteadily. My heart hammered in my chest.
Not because of anything Utakata could do—he was going to be out cold for long enough to not be a threat—but because the battle behind me had also gone quiet. Aside from the sound of stone falling nearby, Banaro Island's trembling, and the distant buzz of my still-active barrier seal, the area around us was eerily silent.
Though he was taller than I was, I picked Utakata up in a fireman's carry and headed back for town. I went only slowly enough to avoid injuring him further, but otherwise put my shinobi speed to work. Body Flicker.
"Ah, she's—wait, who are you?" asked the bartender-looking guy from before.
Must've dropped my Transformation Jutsu in the fight. Whoops. Even through the Four Corner Barrier Formation, the size and feature differences were hardy subtle. "It's still me, sir. Lemme just…"
I reached out and rested my hand against the soap bubble wall, killing it wholesale as I drew my chakra out of the barrier and out of all the clones. The entire cube collapsed under my hand, and I sighed as what chakra remained dispersed into nothing. I wouldn't be getting much back at the best of times, but this felt like such a waste.
"Look after him for a minute, okay?" I said, as I dropped Utakata on the ground at the barkeep's feet.
"I-I don't—"
But I didn't have the kind of time needed to argue. I walked over to where my clone had been standing and cut the barrier seal in half to complete the deactivation sequence. Then I sheathed my sword one-handed.
Isobu, I thought as I Body Flickered away from the place I'd protected, status report.
Trees and rubble of various kind was strewn all over the island, and the crater that had been the town was now scorched on one side in addition to everything else. I honestly didn't know what I was expecting to find, not like this, but Utakata had distracted me for long enough. What had happened to my team?
Yugito is conscious, but in Matatabi's care on the next island, Isobu responded, as I felt his chakra move farther and farther around the curve of the island, underwater. My sister is trying to determine how she can most easily rejoin us without forcing us to give up the hunt.
I nodded absently as I landed in the middle of the crater after a particularly long leap. Heat from what I presumed was Ace's massive fireball radiated up through my shoes, but a dash of Isobu's chakra prevented me from taking any injuries from the still-smoking ground. And Saiken?
Saiken is currently awaiting Utakata's return, was Isobu's response as I poked through the rubble.
Utakata will be unconscious until tomorrow, minimum, I replied to his unasked question. Saiken and Isobu knew what had happened and what I'd had to do to subdue Utakata, but not for how long my "solution" would be screwing with him.
…I notice that you have not said or asked anything about our pirate companion, Isobu said after a long pause, in which I kicked over a random boulder and sent it rolling down into the center of the crater. Just because it was upright when nothing else was.
It's kind of obvious what happened, isn't it? I asked Isobu. If my voice had been working, I might've managed a shaky tone, but as it was there was a knot built up in my throat that I didn't even want to deal with. He's dead.
Obliterated, possibly. The tracker I'd given him wasn't even providing a weakened signal. There wasn't—
I blinked, focusing on a patch of orange in my wavering vision. Not no trace, then.
With shaking hands, I made my way over to the spot where Ace's hat sat abandoned, upside-down and partly crumpled under its own weight. I picked it up and placed it on my lap, brushing away bits of dirt and a few splinters off the leather.
Its owner would never fuss over it again.
Isobu was silent for a long time, letting me sit there and just—
Komushi is getting a call.
Every muscle in my body seized up. The only people who ever called Komushi were the Whitebeard Pirates. We'd gotten the snail to block most Marine numbers within a few days of meeting it, and—
Fuck.
I pulled my long coat sleeve down over my hand and pressed it against my eyes. Not enough time. Needed to—I needed to focus.
I-Isobu, what happened inside your stomach? I asked. Last I remembered, we'd left Komushi on the Nautilus.
Utakata's initial outburst destroyed the ship, but my clones saved the snail, Isobu said, and I sighed again. Today was… It was—
I took a deep, steadying breath. My chest shuddered anyway.
Today had happened, and I had to deal with it.
Get Utakata back here, and we will plan. We will regroup. Isobu sent me the sensation of being suspended in open water, weightless, and I closed my eyes briefly. He certainly couldn't hug me, and it was beneath his dignity to try, but it was something. And we will succeed on our next encounter.
I couldn't even dredge up the energy to look forward to tearing Teach in half. Lengthwise.
With a silent exhale, I turned Ace's hat in my hands before placing its cord around my neck, so the hat itself hung down between my shoulder blades. I'd keep it safe until…until I could see the Whitebeards again and give it to them. For now, I had work to do.
Body Flicker.
I reappeared almost exactly where I'd left. The barkeep was even there, still, and jumped when I basically teleported right in front of him, from his perspective.
"Do you have a snail you can use to call for help?" I asked brusquely, even as I hauled Utakata up and onto my back like a child. I'd drag his ass around until I could fling him at Saiken, maybe.
"I, I, uh—" The barkeep swallowed hard, pupils blown wide by fear, and managed to say, "Y-Yeah, I'm sure someone does!"
"Then go and call the next island for help. Hell, call the Marines," I tossed out, my temper badly frayed. "If you can't find a snail, I'll call them myself."
The barkeep ran the hell away from me in short order. I blinked rapidly, but the itch in my eyes didn't fade. Must've been pulling on Isobu's chakra enough to get his eyes, then.
Utakata wordlessly groaned into my ear. I ignored him, irritated but unwilling to leave until I was sure the Banaro Island townspeople would be able to get along all right. If I'd burned my chance to actually save Ace's life for them and for Utakata, I needed to see it through, didn't I?
Isobu, did you tag Teach's ship somehow?
I got the original the first we saw of it, Isobu said, and I got a flash of one of his little clones latching onto the keel of the glorified raft. He stole another ship, so I had to send a clone over to it as well. It is hanging on.
Good, I thought, but without a scrap of enthusiasm. I forced myself to say, We'll deal with him after...this.
My thoughts exactly.
Once I got confirmation from a terrified citizen that they could call Marines on a snail several minutes later, and had done so, I vanished with Utakata via the Body Flicker technique. A few quick surges of shinobi speed later, and I arrived on an isolated stretch of coast just in time to relinquish Utakata to his sobbing slug partner.
"I'm so sorry! Uta, Uta, this never would have happened if I hadn't been impatient—" Saiken was wailing, already turning back out to sea. Utakata couldn't respond, but if he traveled on top of Saiken's head and under a stalk-eye, I didn't honestly fear for his safety. "I promise, I'll never—"
Isobu, next to him, just cast the pair a long, dark look from his single open eye. He sank lower into the waves as I approached, my chakra tucked in tight due to the sheer number of techniques I was using to keep myself steady in the face of this disaster.
Tuning the rest of it out, I stepped into Isobu's open maw and slid down to his stomach as we left Banaro behind.
I slowed halfway down, coming to a stop just past the point where Isobu's stomach really got weird. Catching myself on one of the spikes, I felt a headache on the horizon as soon as my eyes adjusted to the amber light and could see what had changed in here. Along with all the other unpleasant sensations swirling around in my system—chakra drain, physical fatigue, grief—I was belatedly surprised I could even notice it.
But Utakata's rampage had gutted the Nautilus, tearing the mast in half and cracking the engine so badly that the shell just kept spewing water until the bow of the boat slammed into a spike. The Nautilus was impaled, entirely unseaworthy, and everything on it was either ruined or waterlogged to hell and back. Loose boards and splinters floated on the water Isobu had taken in not half an hour ago, almost like blood.
Fucking dammit.
I shook myself, then got back to business. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I called, "Komushi?"
Isobu's stomach rumbled, and his mini-clones emerged from the spiky walls of his stomach. From a far-off dark corner, a whole legion of the dog-sized ones trooped out and into the orangeish inner light that lit the strange space. On one of their backs, emitting a "purupurupurupuru" noise, was the pink-shelled Komushi, safe and sound.
I took a deep breath, then headed for the other shore in a quick hop or two. Bounding off the water's surface felt…dull, when I knew I'd have to be the bearer of bad news. No one else could. No one else was here or conscious and—
When I arrived at the other side, with Komushi still ringing, one of the Isobu clones bit me. Gently, but with enough intent that I looked down at it in surprise.
Be strong.
I'm trying, I responded instantly, looking down at the clone's gold-on-red eye. "I'm trying…"
Don't try. Do.
Yoda at me again and I'm not speaking to you for the rest of the day, I snapped at him. I picked up the microphone. "Hello?"
"Hi!" said Thatch's bright voice, and I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. "It's Thatch again, but I'm sure you could tell. How've you all been?"
I bit down on my tongue for an instant, then said, "It's...been a long day. You?"
"Ah, Kei!" Thatch's expression mirrored on Komushi's face, showing a warm smile. "I'm fine, but the fact that Ace isn't on this call means he must be sulking again, right? Did Yugito do something?"
The nails on my left hand were digging into my right arm as I fought to keep myself under control through pain. In my right hand, receiver creaked as it was caught up in the same attempt. "You could say that."
She'd failed to stay in the fight long enough. I'd failed to join fast enough.
Fucking hell.
"One of those kinds of days, huh?" Thatch's voice seemed unconcerned. Or perhaps my control techniques were working all too well.
"Yeah," I mumbled, pasting a neutral mask over the grimace I wanted to make. "What's going on over there?"
I was stalling.
I understood the concept of death perfectly well, especially after a long and illustrious career of making people dead. But for some reason my emotions were just refusing to let me articulate what my head already understood. Too many of my feelings were tied up in shock and disbelief.
How could I lose someone just when we were almost on the cusp of victory?
Thatch answered, of course. He didn't know what I was thinking. "Well, we've got the Red Hair Pirates visi—"
"Who are you calling?" asked a horribly familiar voice, and my breath caught in my throat a second too late.
"K-Kushina?" I asked, even though that voice could belong to no one else.
There was a pause on the other end as Kushina processed the sound of my voice. The other room was so quiet that Komushi didn't seem to know what face to make. And then, as Komushi's eyes turned violet, Kushina's voice screeched, "KEI?!"
Thatch's voice followed nearly immediately. "Hey, give that back!"
"Kei, what happened?" Kushina demanded, and going by the sudden sound of steel hitting steel, she and Thatch were fighting over the snail on their end. "Why do you you sound like that? Where are you?!"
My vision went blurry. "K-K-Kushina…"
Even though I outranked Kushina, and had for years, hearing my surrogate big sister's voice reached into my ribcage and clamped down on my heart. It was like being fourteen again, right after Mom died, and the effect was only magnified by how long it had been since I'd seen her.
Where had my self-control gone?
"Kei, Kei, come on," Kushina said in a much softer tone, even as the sound of her chains hitting Thatch's swords got louder. "Something's wrong, isn't it?"
That would about sum the situation up, actually. Yugito and I screwed up, Ace may or may not have, but it didn't matter because he was dead. Kushina probably didn't even know who Ace was, and she couldn't have known that I knew him because I didn't let anyone know. No one outside of the Whitebeards would.
"Who are you and how do you know Kei?" Thatch yelled over the line. While I didn't answer due to the knot in my throat, he seemed to have noticed the problem.
"I was about to ask you that," Kushina's voice responded, "because I saw one of her sumi-e paintings in your galley."
I'd almost forgotten about that. It seemed like I'd painted it such a long time ago, back when I'd actually expected to not get caught up in pirate business.
Thatch stumbled. "That—how do you even—"
And then Ace had come crashing back through my non-plans, and things finally got rolling. I didn't like Yugito much, but she was an (unfriendly) ally and getting her onboard had put us ahead of the curve and—
And then everything went downhill.
"Kei's art is awful, but I'd recognize her handwriting anywhere," Kushina said, focusing on Thatch. "Not to mention the tracker seal she left there. I know her work." The sound of clashing metal stopped. "Kei, what's going on?"
"I-I wanted a way to find my way back to the Moby Dick," I said, surprising myself with how steady my voice sounded. I only stammered a little. "And, uh, I made the painting as a get-well present for Thatch."
Back when I'd thought things would be okay.
How naïve of me.
"Who's Thatch?" Kushina asked.
"That would be me," said Thatch.
This, apparently, was all Kushina needed to pretty much forget the previous few seconds had happened. "Oh, then that's all right. I'm Uzumaki Kushina. Kei's my little sister."
They may have been shaking hands. I didn't know. I just heard Thatch say, "Thatch, Fourth Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. She saved my life."
I covered my eyes with my free hand. And my hesitation had gotten Ace killed.
"So what's wrong, then?" Kushina asked, having clearly not forgotten her original inquiry as she turned her attention back to me. "You sound upset, and the snail looks like it, too."
Ah, that. Right. Expression mirroring went both ways.
I touched the little demon-shaped sigil hanging from Ace's hat's cord. After a second, I grasped it between shaking fingers. This hat had to make it back to them. Unscathed.
"Kei?" Thatch's voice asked.
"It's—it's been a…" I trailed off, unable to even fully voice the thought. "I-It's…"
The other end of the connection was silent, but I could see the open concern reflected on Komushi's little face.
"W-we found Teach," I said, after I'd taken a breath to steady myself. Two of Isobu's clones nudged up against me, and I reached down to rub one of the left one's head spikes. "It didn't go well."
Komushi's face adopted a look of horror that didn't fill me with any confidence, but they needed to hear this. I needed to finally fucking say it.
"Yugito—Kumo's Yugito—she got hurt, and Matatabi pulled her out," I said, because it hurt less to talk about her. She'd be okay. Matatabi wouldn't allow her to be any less. "She's on a different island, but I'll meet up with her in a day or two."
"And Ace?" Thatch asked, his voice almost painfully soft.
"He—" I began, and then cut myself off with a choking noise.
Not because I couldn't talk. Not because of the devastated look that Komushi had to be copying from Thatch's face. Not because I couldn't feel the tracker seal at all and the emptiness ached.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Ping!
Ace's tracker seal was active. It had been interrupted, perhaps, but the thing still existed and I could feel it again. The signal couldn't tell me what condition he was in—it was only designed to provide a signal to follow—but I didn't care.
I scrambled to my feet, microphone still in hand, and bellowed, "Isobu, can you feel that?"
Through you, yes. Isobu's entire stomach rumbled as he growled. And it is coming from a direction I am already familiar with.
I let out a growl of my own, resonating with Isobu. Teach.
And apparently I'd made a spelling error in the seal tag I'd given Ace, because the signal had only activated when he was ten kilometers away. Of fucking course.
"Kei, what happened? Is Isobu with you?" Kushina asked, having probably shoved Thatch aside.
"Yes—he's with me, we're—" Oh, fuck it. "Thatch, listen! Ace is alive, but we got separated. I'm going to go after him right now."
Komushi did its best to explode at me in Thatch's voice. "THEN WHAT WAS ALL THAT DRAMA FOR?!"
"I thought he died," I replied, but not nearly as loudly. In a tone that failed to keep my frustration internal, I explained, "Yugito and I got separated from him and he took on Teach while I had to go beat Utakata's face in! When the tracker seal didn't activate, I thought there was nothing left."
"Why are you—nope, never mind, I'll get the story later," Thatch cut himself off, Komushi mimicking his scowl. "Where is Ace now?"
"I'm almost—" Isobu rumbled ominously, and I said instead, "I'm sure I can ask Teach that question. And get an answer." I growled, "Ace is likely a prisoner on Teach's ship. Isobu and I are going after him."
"Kei, you're going to use Isobu against a ship?" Kushina cut in. "You'll kill everyone on board!"
"Who the hell is Isobu?!" Thatch demanded. "And what's that rumbling noise, anyway?"
"The answers to both questions are the same." Kushina sighed. "Kei, you know perfectly well that using Isobu—"
"Isobu considers Ace a friend. We're both going after him," I said in a cold tone. At any other time, I would have been astounded at my own gall, but today had been a bad day. "Whether any of you approve or not. Whitebeard isn't my captain, and it's my mission, Kushina."
"Ace isn't Obito!" Kushina yelled back, and I flinched. "If you're going to launch a rescue, you need to think it through before you end up getting hurt!"
So what if he wasn't? I'd known Obito was being kept in Madara's basement for six fucking months, and I hadn't had the power to do anything about it. I'd been a thirteen-year-old chūnin who flubbed so badly that history repeated itself uninhibited, just because I was too bullheaded to ask for help. And once he was there, the only thing we could wait for was his captor getting bored.
But Yugito had been blindsided by Teach's techniques, whatever they were, and so had Ace. I escaped any damage during that fight because I hadn't been in it, instead duking it out with a battle-crazed Utakata. And then—to top it all off—I'd failed to make the connection between Yugito's chakra cutting off once she got sucked into the shadow and my own tracker seal either failing to activate within the same environment or suffering from the idiot behind its construction.
The former was a data point I'd need to complete my assessment of Teach's powers. The latter was a caution against rushing in like Ace and Yugito had.
Still, Ace had been alive the whole time and I'd missed that. If I'd been on the ball, I could have rescued him immediately. Or at least twisted Teach's arm until he either let Ace go or I tore it from his body.
I massaged my temples with one hand. "It doesn't change the fact that Isobu and I are the only ones close enough to do anything."
"I… You're right. I'm sorry. That was out of line." Kushina sighed, clearly trying to reorganize her thoughts. "I keep forgetting you're in another sea."
"Yeah, that," I murmured. But I needed the reality check.
"Even so, you said you can get Yugito and Matatabi. And you mentioned Utakata as well, so that must mean Saiken, right?" Kushina asked, now that I'd apparently cooled down a bit.
I nodded, though she couldn't see me. "Saiken's on board, but as for Yugito… I need to ask her what she saw. And experienced. I didn't get a good look at Teach's fighting style."
Kushina just asked, "Even so, what did you see?"
"Darkness, basically," I said, frowning at the vagueness of the statement even as I voiced it. I needed to be more specific than that, and I had a couple of shorthand hints. "Think of…some kind of mix of Shadow Paralysis, the Deva Path, and Kamui. I know gravity went weird."
I heard Kushina swallow, with Komushi adopting a very concerned expression. She knew perfectly well what each of those techniques could do in the wrong hands. I didn't need to paint her a picture. "…That is terrifying."
"I don't know exactly how it all fits together," I cautioned her. "But I'll ask Yugito for hints."
"Kei, do you know how to fight that?" Thatch asked. I imagined him wringing his hands, out of worry for both Ace and my decisions. Hopefully, I wouldn't do anything to make him cry again.
"I have no idea," I admitted. My ideas for fighting Shadow Paralysis basically involved being too strong to hold, and I'd never gotten beyond theoretical tactics when it came to the Deva Path. "But Teach is still sunk if I can kill his ship on the open ocean. I'm fast enough to get Ace out one way or another."
My main plan thus far involved Isobu ripping the ship in half, me darting into the rubble via Water Dragon Bullet train, and then grabbing Ace before I took off. It was vague as hell, and I certainly didn't know the Blackbeard Pirates' skills or even their members' faces. I would be going in as blind as I had ever dared.
But I had to try.
"...Kei, I'll approve on one condition," Kushina said finally. Her voice was heavier than I'd heard from her for much longer than the last time I'd heard her voice. Maybe the distance from home was weighing on her. Or maybe she simply had a very good idea of the risks I'd consider "acceptable" when saving a friend.
"Name it," I responded automatically. Not that her permission mattered. I was still going.
"Get Yugito as backup—but call back. Killer B will want to talk to her," Kushina said. I was already nodding when she went on with, "Actually, we're only here because Shanks wanted to warn Whitebeard about Teach, and have him call off the hunt. So I'll handle telling Shanks what happened today, all right?"
I winced again. "I…I should probably…" Do what? Write a report?
Thatch saved me from needing to scramble for a way to describe the situation. "I'll tell Pops. He needs to know." He added, "But seriously, Kei, call us if you need backup. We might not all be as fast as Striker, but you know the rule. Attack one Whitebeard Pirate, and you attack all of us."
...Was that what Teach wanted out of this? Shaking off the sudden worrying thought, I said, "I'll check in, I promise. Once I get a location, I'll go straight after it, but I'll give you a bit of warning."
Kushina sighed, and Komushi looked utterly exasperated. "Don't get yourself in over your head. And here's our snail number, okay?" Kushina recited a string of digits, which I quickly memorized. "Take care of yourself out there."
"I'm starting to think that's all I can do," I muttered, before hanging up with a click. I patted Komushi's shell, turning back to face the wreck of the Nautilus.
She did not mention Yin Kurama, Isobu commented as I sat down on the internal beach.
I kicked one of the shattered planks back into the water. I think she's been hiding Yin Kurama the same way Yugito hides Matatabi. Killer B might have more leeway with Gyūki, though.
Isobu sighed, making his insides briefly contort. Kei.
Yeah? I tossed a loose stone onto the Nautilus's shattered deck.
We will get him back.
I drew my knees up toward my chest, then rested my folded arms on top. Then we had better get Yugito and figure out what Teach can do.
With Isobu's clone hanging onto the ship the Blackbeards used, and my tracker seal once again active, we had enough leeway to visit the island Matatabi and Yugito were trapped on. We lost a day reaching Water 7's little collection of overpopulated rocks, but I had been cautious of the place even after just hearing about it. Unlike most of the islands we'd visited, it was both populated and densely so, and there was no way in hell a giant flaming cat was going unnoticed.
Which she had solved by dropping the entire island into a massive genjutsu. She tucked her tails around her feet and was preening when Isobu drew close, clearly unbothered by the people milling around her paws. They didn't appear to notice the giant cat they were all automatically avoiding, and that enforced obliviousness included the local Marines.
"It is time for us to bid this place goodbye, dear," Matatabi said, twisting her head around to look over her shoulder.
Yugito appeared—worse for the wear, but alive—from amongst Matatabi's flames. She took one look at Isobu's shelled form poking out of the water, sighed, and leapt onto his head without a further word. With Matatabi on his back, Isobu and I maintained the Hidden Mist technique long enough for us to head out to sea, and then it was time to talk.
I wasn't looking forward to it. That feeling was probably why I let Yugito go more than an hour without speaking, though we were both sitting on Isobu's head less than six feet apart.
"I'm still in pain, thank you for asking," Yugito said coldly, breaking the silence.
I glanced at her, frankly out of energy for any of this shit. "You can take a nap if you want. We're going to be out here for a while."
Yugito had been hurt—there was a tremendous amount of blood soaked into the bundle of clothes she'd brought back with her—but she'd clearly healed since then. From the patches I'd need to repair, she'd been impaled through her leg and stomach, but the damage was almost imperceptible now. It was good to know, even if I didn't want to know how she'd managed to remove the objects without passing out.
In response to my dismissive tone, Yugito gave a noncommittal grunt. Then, "Someone had to test him."
"Someone did," I agreed mildly, staring out to sea. "What did you find out?"
"He manipulates gravity somehow," Yugito said, still clearly irritable. At least she was playing nice with me. "Anything that gets caught in the shadow gets sucked into this...compressed space."
Kamui, I thought again. Only Obito's technique didn't even have an explicit suction component—people could and did get out of it if they were forewarned. Or fast enough. It was just that a partial success generally amputated extremities.
"It felt like I'd been crushed in the Eight—in Gyūki's hands," Yugito went on, frowning. "If not for Matatabi…"
If not for Matatabi, Yugito would have died and I could have had that weighing my conscience down. As much as I didn't care for Kumo, it did help to know that Yugito would survive due to Matatabi's attentiveness. In more than one sense.
I didn't want to think about what state we might find Ace in. He wasn't a jinchūriki.
"I was quite worried about you, dear," Matatabi said, lowering one of her paws so it could rest next to Yugito on Isobu's spikes. "In that moment, I couldn't feel your mind or your heart at all."
Which matched with what I'd felt when the tracker seal had disappeared. Maybe that shadow acted like the aperture of Obito's Kamui, and what was behind it was some kind of high-gravity dimension? If so, Teach had a truly frightening range.
"I still feel like a giant bruise," Yugito admitted, probably mostly to Matatabi.
"That is because you are one," said Isobu.
"Isobu!" Matatabi scolded instantly.
"My partner is the only one to emerge from that fight unscathed," Isobu reminded all of us in a pointed tone. "It was a fiasco."
"Well, mine wasn't supposed to be in that fight at all," said Saiken, from somewhere around Isobu's elbow. He was still carrying Utakata on his head, and he hadn't woken up since I'd slapped him down the other day.
I also hadn't unlocked the Five Elements Seal. If I had to deal with a hostile Utakata, I'd do so while he could barely walk in a straight line unassisted.
"Did you get caught up helping civilians the whole time?" Yugito asked with undisguised disgust. "You've been quiet. Are you ashamed of spinelessness?"
"I fought Utakata when he went berserk," I said in a flat tone, closing my eyes. And the only reason I'd won was because Utakata's Wristband of Doom put a cap on his power output. Otherwise, I would've had to call Isobu in, and everyone would have died.
I could almost see Yugito scowl, and I could certainly hear it in her voice as she said, "That was after I was forced with withdraw. What were you doing before then?"
My voice, on the other hand, only grew colder. "I was protecting civilians, as you asked. 'Watch us kill him,' wasn't it?"
If she wanted to play the blame game, I had plenty to throw around. Most of it was rightfully mine, I thought, but I could catch Yugito in it as collateral damage.
"All I did was go protect people from the consequences of fighting on a populated island," I said, still not looking at her. "I was out of your way."
And right in the perfect spot to intercept Utakata. If I'd stayed on the Nautilus, maybe it wouldn't have been destroyed, but hundreds of innocent people would have been killed by Ace and Teach's attacks hitting each other and radiating outward. Utakata's berserk V1 form, running around unopposed, would make quick work of whoever or whatever survived.
"You shouldn't have sent a civilian to do a shinobi's job," Yugito hissed, and I opened my eyes to glare at her. She went on, "Ace just stood there as Teach used that shadow attack. When his first direct strike failed to kill the man, he should have followed up immediately."
I didn't have a good argument against that, other than the detail that I was not and had never been Ace's commanding officer. It wasn't like I'd been there. Still, I said, "I already knew Ace didn't—doesn't—have much of a killer instinct. But you do."
"It wasn't just that." Yugito scowled. "The more I used my jutsu, the less his flames did anything."
Oxygen starvation? Or something else?
I sighed. I'd have to ask someone who'd actually been there the whole time. "We'll find out what happened when we find him. But Yugito?" How to put this...? "Honestly, you should have stayed out of it."
Yugito bristled. "What?"
"Ace and I are the ones with the grudge against Teach," I said, my voice astonishingly level. "Teach tried to kill me and almost murdered Ace's friend. I should have been in there, and you should have been the one making sure no civilians got hurt."
"I don't have any techniques that would work for that," Yugito snapped. Her nails lengthened somewhat, but I didn't flinch for once.
"Then I could have given you the barrier seal," I retorted, fighting the urge the grind my teeth.
"And I am not an expert on your techniques or their use! You could have made some kind of effort to instruct me, if that was your goal!" Yugito got to her feet, looming somewhat ineffectively over me even though she was clearly furious. "You didn't. Why?"
I glared back at her, my eyes itching as we both got our Tailed Beast chakra flowing. "Because I was weak." While Yugito bared her claws, I went on, "I didn't want to fight with you over something I thought you could handle. Especially after we've fought over damn near everything else."
"You didn't have the slightest idea what I could do," Yugito snarled, while I heard Matatabi give a rumbling purr. Distinctly not soothed, Yugito continued, "And you didn't dare spar with me even once while we traveled. Maybe if you had—"
"Do you trust me?" I countered, and my eyes itched more. "Because I sure as hell don't trust you to hold back, or to listen, or to even know when to stop. The first time we met, I had to knock you into the ocean just to get you to stop trying to kill me!"
We might've continued to argue for a while longer, both gearing up for a fight, but Matatabi's paw swiped across Isobu's head and knocked both of us into the ocean.
Being underwater in a cloud of bubbles, I couldn't swear out loud, but I gamely kicked my way back up onto the surface just as Isobu lifted a hand for me to grab onto. I pasted my air back against my head as I got my bangs out of my eyes, still unhappy, but at least I'd stopped being angry enough to shout. About forty feet away, I saw Yugito being lifted out of the water via one of Matatabi's flaming paws, and the urge to scream at her died.
"That is quite enough out of the both of you," Matatabi said firmly, even as she lifted Yugito onto Isobu's back. Once the blonde woman was secured between her paws, the giant cat went on, "Now, let us take care of the business ahead of us. Slinging blame will not help us now."
Isobu allowed me to climb back onto his head from his hand, then said, "Sister, did you find anything of use on the last island?"
Matatabi tilted her head to one side. "I did not, but my partner saw some reports of a human sort. Dear, if you would?"
Yugito, by way of response, hurled a tightly-bound roll of paper at my head. I caught it one-handed recognizing the outside layer as a local newspaper. It was remarkably unscathed, given how Yugito was mostly enveloped in Matatabi's paws.
Isobu, I'm gonna head inside to get Komushi and see what all of these are, okay? I gripped the newspaper in one hand as I climbed down the side of Isobu's head. My partner, who was far more obliging than I honestly felt I deserved, opened his mouth and let me head inside.
Once inside of his stomach, I let Komushi climb onto my back and unrolled the newspaper. A series of bounty posters, clearly grabbed blindly from a stand, rolled out.
"Straw Hat" Monkey D. Luffy: Three hundred million beris.
"Pirate Hunter" Roronoa Zoro: One hundred and twenty million beris.
"Cat Burglar" Nami: Sixteen million beris.
"Sniper King" (probably Usopp): Thirty million beris.
"Black Leg" Sanji: Sixty-six million beris.
"Cotton Candy Lover" Tony Tony Chopper: ...Fifty beris. Okay, then.
"Devil Child" Nico Robin: Seventy-nine million beris.
"Cyborg" Franky: Forty-four million beris.
Well, we hadn't explicitly told Yugito that Gaara was with the Straw Hats, but perhaps she'd gotten them by accident. I pushed the paperwork aside and dug around until I found two odd posters out.
"Red Sand" Gaara: Forty million beris.
And last, but certainly not least, a picture of a grinning green-haired teenager with orange eyes.
"Silkworm" Fū: Ten million beris.
...That certainly explained where the hell Fū was. There were no details on the poster of how the Straw Hats had run into her, but it was damned clear that she'd joined in when they went to invade some place called "Enies Lobby."
I bit my lip briefly, then packed up the posters and handed them over to one of Isobu's clones for safekeeping. Then Komushi and I headed up Isobu's throat and into the world again.
Despite the glare Yugito leveled at me for appearing on Isobu's back in front of her, I still set Komushi down on the shell surface and started dialing Shanks's number.
"What do you want?" Yugito demanded, from inside the flames. For Yugito, they might as well have been foxfire, but I still didn't want to touch them.
"While you were on Water 7," I said, "I got a call from the Whitebeards. The Red Hair Pirates met up with them, and Kushina got in on the call."
She scowled again. "And?"
"And Killer B wants to talk to you," I explained, watching Yugito's face morph from that scowl to a wince. "He's probably just worried."
I didn't even know why I was bothering to reassure her. It wasn't like Yugito believed me. At this rate, we'd still be bitching at each other until doomsday.
"Oh, I doubt that," Yugito muttered, not making a move to take the receiver from me.
Komushi perked up, twisting its face into a grin. "Hey, I never get calls from the Marines. Who's this?"
"It's Kei," I said, though the person on the other end hadn't identified himself. "I promised Kushina I'd check in with her about...a day ago?"
Shit, time really did fly.
"Oh, right! She told me about that," said the voice. "Only I think I might've been drunk. Oh well. HEY KUSHINA, YOU HAVE A CALL WAITING!"
Kushina bellowed back, from what sounded like the other end of the ship, "What the hell took so long?!"
"I DON'T KNOW!" was the shouted response. Then, in a less ear-splitting voice that probably could stand to be used more often, the-guy-who-was-probably-Shanks said, "What did you need to talk about?"
"The call's actually for Killer B, if he's around," I said, though I held the receiver a ways away from my face. I got yelled at enough last time. "Tell him Yugito needs to talk to him."
Yugito was rapidly shaking her head.
Too fucking bad. I clambered up Isobu's sloping shell, set Komushi down closer to Yugito, and held up the microphone.
"He's actually right here." Which did not stop definitely-Shanks from shouting, "HEY, B, TAKE THE CALL!"
The sound of beatboxing took up the other end of the line, and then it sounded like someone had dropped the receiver on the Red Hair Pirates' ship. Though I had some idea of what was coming next, I still didn't know for sure.
"Hey-hey-hey, 'sup Nii Yugito," said a voice that could only be Killer B. Komushi had even morphed itself a pair of sunglasses. "Been some time since we up and meet-o."
"B, try being serious," Kushina suggested, but she didn't seem to mean it all that much.
Killer B, per usual, ignored this. "Can't stop the flow, in my head, in my toes!"
"Dahahahaha!" Of course, Shanks laughed his head off in the background. I got to listen to that while Kushina and Yugito both groaned.
"I'm almost sorry we've only got one snail," I muttered, while Komushi contorted its face again and again. Can we be a bit more serious for a second?
Given what you and I both know about Gyūki's host? Likely not.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Point.
"Kei, you can call back later," Kushina put in, while Yugito pretty much cowered. "You and I don't need to hear about too many Kumogakure things, right?"
"Right," I agreed, mostly to get away from the conversation. The sheer pain involved in Killer B's rhymes was enough to drive me to consider drinking, if there was any booze around. Not that it'd work. "I'll catch up with you later."
"Talk to you soon!" Kushina said cheerfully.
We need to plan for how we will attack the ship, Isobu said as I skittered down his shell and toward his head again. Far enough down, the sea would drown out Killer B's voice. I can show you a projection of what it looks like, if you want.
What would I do without him? Thanks, Isobu.
AN: Posting a bit early this week. Generally, you should expect one chapter per week on Fridays unless something happens. Welcome to my attempts to maintain a schedule.
Whoopsie-daisy. Kei might be missing her foreknowledge now, huh? Guess it's time to gear up for a more extreme option, despite that little pep talk from last chapter. This is what happens when the heart of a group gets ripped out.
Also, the song for this chapter is a mashup of "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons and "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)" by Fall Out Boy.
And finally, what'd you think of this chapter and the fact that One Piece's plot has kicked in?