AN: The song for this chapter is "The Wild Card" by Really Slow Motion.

The sea was vast, but not so much that there weren't people or places to avoid. So we came up with new, better strategies for doing just that as a group.

Yugito and I eventually retreated to Isobu's stomach for convenience's sake, though she complained and I had to drag Utakata along despite Saiken's protests. Once there, we could rely on hundreds of eyes to keep track of Utakata's condition, and also to keep Komushi safe from the elements. Isobu's clones were also convenient that way.

Out of respect for Matatabi's wish not to be separated from Yugito again for a number of reasons, Saiken blew a stream of bubbles until he could engulf his fiery sibling. Then, once a super-bubble had been assembled out of the froth and Matatabi could curl up safely inside it, he dragged the bubble underwater with half of his tails hanging onto it. He kept up with Isobu while effectively towing Matatabi.

Isobu, for his part, manipulated the water around his siblings so that they could easily keep up with him. When I asked, it didn't seem to bother him any more than it would a school of fish, so I left him to it.

And while we were under the waves, Utakata finally woke up.

Yugito and I were pointedly Not Talking at the time, though we were also folding the Straw Hats' wanted posters into really terrible origami. As such, we noticed only because one of the Isobu clones let out a loud "Wah!" when Utakata started to stir.

"…huh?" was Utakata's first word. Wasn't even really a word, in my opinion. "Wha… What happened…?"

Yugito and I met each other's eyes, not drawing on Matatabi or Isobu's chakra, and left our "game" to the side as we stood to go check on him.

Of the two of us, Yugito was the one who wore her village emblem openly, since she actually had her headband. I suspected that it had been early morning in Kumo when she dropped out of the world, as opposed to the middle of the night in Konoha. I, on the other hand, had only the various sea iconography that Izo's style choices had picked out for me. Under my recent tan—mainly as a result of traveling around on the Nautilus and Striker—even my scar didn't seem as prominent anymore. Therefore, I found it quite unfair that Utakata reacted to my face and not hers.

"YOU!" Utakata snarled defensively, backing away until he bumped into Yugito's knee. He didn't get all that far because, by silent but mutual agreement, we'd decided to sit on opposite sides of him. Oops.

"Yo," I said, my expression completely flat. I did not move my hands, because the motion could be taken as a threat. "Can we get the arguing out of the way right now? We have better things to be doing."

"What?" Utakata looked around wildly. "Where the—where am I? How did you get here?"

"What is the last thing you remember?" Yugito asked, looking impassively down at him.

"I don't—" He spotted her headband admirably quickly. "A Kumo-nin?"

"Answer the question," Yugito bit out. Seriously, he recognized me and not her?

Utakata looked around again, possibly expecting a sympathetic face or maybe some hint that he wasn't in hell. Given all the little Isobu clones, me, and Yugito, he got no reassurance whatsoever. Because I knew his chakra control was still completely ruined and the little fact that he was covered in new bandages, he didn't exactly have a lot of options. He still moved like an old man.

"…How did I get here?" Utakata asked at last, rather than answering. He didn't quite glare up at us from behind his bangs, but he probably would have tried if his situation was less unnerving.

"Saiken brought you to us," I said, and he blinked. When he opened his mouth to ask a question, I held up one hand and just said, "You fought someone who used Lava Release and lost. Saiken panicked and came to Isobu and me to make sure you'd live."

Utakata's mouth closed with a snap. There was a storm behind his eyes. After a few silent seconds, he said in a much quieter voice, "I…see."

"I helped patch you up," was Yugito's answer to his unasked question.

While Utakata digested that, one of Isobu's clones dragged itself to my side and rested its spiky chin against my thigh. I raised one hand and rubbed at the soft spot along its neck.

"Why?" Utakata asked, finally. Looking between Yugito and me, he said. "Why would you bother saving me?"

In spite of the bad blood between me and Kirigakure in general? I didn't like to see people die in front of me unless I was the one responsible. And even then, I tried to resolve situations peacefully for the most part. Not always well, but I tried.

It was part of what had made me so ashamed of myself when Ace had called Yugito and me out for our attitudes before Banaro.

"You are one of the few fellow shinobi in this ocean right now. We are stronger together than apart, especially when our power is hidden behind these seals," Yugito said, since I couldn't figure out how to phrase what I wanted to say. She even lifted her wrist to show Utakata what she was talking about, at which point he picked at his sleeves to examine his own. "Have you also been having that recurring nightmare?"

Utakata's wrist marking had his, Yugito's, and my jinchūriki number designations in plain view. The rest of them were still invisible under pure black not-ink.

"I…I believe so," Utakata said, turning his hand over. Then he looked up, still clearly skeptical. "A strange voice that the 'Nine' reassemble…"

"More or less," I muttered, while the Isobu clone heaved itself onto my leg. "'You have been called. You are the whatever-numberth. You will assemble the Nine,' right?"

"…That is eerie," Utakata said, staring at me.

"All of us are getting it," Yugito said, drawing Utakata's attention back to her, which was a relief for me. Her expression was faintly haunted. "They get more persistent the longer you ignore them."

Having face-planted on the ground when roused from one of those dreams more than once, I just nodded along. I hadn't been helpless in the face of that persistent message for more than a single day, and I already knew I wanted nothing to do with that entity unless it was to confront it.

And yet here I was, assembling along with everyone else.

I still didn't know what would happen if all eighteen of the other people involved in this got together in one spot, but I was leaning toward "a very large explosion."

"And this suddenly makes village relations not matter anymore?" Utakata asked, but not in an accusatory way. He was staring at me pointedly despite the lack of anger, sure, but I could brush it off.

Yugito looked away, shamefaced.

"They do matter, but do you see any villages around?" I asked him, exasperated. "We're so far away from home that barely anyone even knows what ninja are."

I was so sick of putting up with village relations bullshit when we jinchūriki were nearly alone in a clearly hostile sea. There were hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of miles between us and the politics that had made us, with no chance of going back or of even having enough power to survive if we didn't cooperate. If coming out on top meant I'd have to work with people like Utakata—who had every freaking reason to hate me short of mutual attempted murder—then I'd do it.

I didn't say any of that. Utakata had already learned the painful part of that lesson.

Utakata pinched the bridge of his nose, even through his drooping bangs. "I take it that means we have to stick together to survive."

"Technically speaking, no, we don't," I admitted. I didn't know of any jinchūriki who had actually died on their own in this world, though I worried. "But most of the others have formed groups or teams by now, because it is easier."

Utakata's orange eyes met mine. "Explain."

"The Nine-Tails and the Eight-Tails host have joined local pirates," Yugito said, and really, Utakata might as well have been a spectator at a tennis match. "The One-Tails and the Seven-Tails are a part of a different crew. And while we've met the Five-Tails' host, he didn't want to join our group."

"And you two," Utakata said, his gaze flicking to either of us. "The Two-Tails and the Three-Tails, then."

"You're currently in Isobu's stomach," I pointed out, holding up the Isobu-clone in my lap. I also gave him a perfect view of my kanji-adorned right wrist, which had more numbers exposed than Yugito's thanks to my meeting with Gaara. "He's carrying us to our next destination."

Utakata's expression remained blank for a while. "No pirates?"

"We…had one," I admitted, and it hurt to have to say that. We'd get Ace back. "We're on a rescue mission at the moment."

"I didn't hear that right," Utakata said, visible eye widening. Oh right, Kirigakure was the only shinobi power that even really had any pirate problems. The rest of us had bandits, and generally not for long. "A rescue for a pirate? You?"

"I got the same reaction from Isobu before we met him," I responded, tapping the Isobu-clone's shell for emphasis. "But Isobu likes Ace, so we're all gonna go and tear the world apart until we get him back. And he also helped us care for your wounds while I was making sure your seal didn't break."

That was…probably overstating things, overall. Utakata may have survived without our intervention. But I needed to get him on our side.

"I…see." Utakata crossed his arms, though I was sure I saw his hands twitch toward his seal. "Do I get any say in this?"

"You do," Yugito said in a cool voice. "Kei can undo the lock on your seal, and then you and Saiken can swim off into the sunset having accomplished absolutely nothing, plagued by the nightmares as they go on."

"And I won't be your problem anymore?" Utakata asked, deeply sarcastic.

"No, you'll be our problem one way or another," I said. When he looked askance at me, I just shrugged and explained, "The only difference is whether you join up now, or if other jinchūriki hunt you down in a few months to recruit you anyway. I already told them we'd met you."

"Joy," Utakata muttered. While Yugito clearly considered this the end of the conversation and moved off, I continued to sit next to Utakata as he finally hauled himself into a sitting position. "…You're nothing like your reputation suggests, Tidal Blade."

"Everyone keeps telling me that," I replied, shrugging. I picked up the Isobu-clone and set it on the ground, where it wriggled across the space between Utakata and me and set its chin on his leg.

Utakata lifted a bandaged hand, paused, and then started petting the weird little monster.

"If you want, I can ask Isobu to let you out so you can travel with Saiken. We just went with Isobu because we could fit ships inside him," I explained, though he hadn't asked. "Not that we have one of those anymore."

Not only was the Nautilus a lost cause, I hadn't seen Striker since Ace had taken off toward Banaro Island. However long ago that had been, technically. Given the damage he and Teach did during their fight, Ace would need a new ride.

Utakata glanced up, then said, "I…would prefer if you could undo whatever you did to destroy my chakra control, first."

"No problem," I said, drawing another shocked look before Utakata smothered it under a mask of indifference. I shuffled closer on my knees, checking for the exact position of the seal on his back. My Five Elements Seal had done its job, but we no longer needed its stopping power.

Five Elements Unseal, I thought, and my fingers lit up with blue flames. Applying the key far less violently than the lock, I undid Utakata's binding.

Utakata heaved a sigh of relief as his chakra flowed, once more unimpeded.

"Just let me know if you want to leave," I said, leaving Utakata to sit there. I instead rejoined Yugito at her origami station.

While turning Zoro's poster into a giant origami frog, Yugito looked up. "Kei."

It was the first time she'd addressed me directly in almost a day. "Yugito."

Yugito stared at me for a long moment as I sat down, then sighed aloud. "Errors were made, during the fight with Teach."

"Yugito, I—" I said, about to apologize, but she would have none of it.

"Shut up," Yugito interrupted. "I was wrong and I should have done better. I should have known better." Her fist clenched against her leg. "I am better than that."

It wasn't like I disagreed, but… "There's no way you could've—"

"Stop interrupting me!" Yugito said, flinging the half-finished frog at me. I fell silent. "This is embarrassing enough as it is. Quit making things more difficult."

I almost opened my mouth again, but stopped when I saw the look on her face. I mimed zipping my lips shut instead, like a five-year-old.

Yugito's left eye twitched. But still, she continued, "I wasn't careful enough. And now Ace is suffering the consequences of my—our—carelessness. We will not fail again."

I nodded. "…Maybe I can tell you some of what Isobu and I decided on?"

"That would be helpful," Yugito said, still somewhat formal, but we could work with that.

Kurama is here.

My brain screeched to a halt. Which one?

Kushina couldn't have possibly made it out here so quickly, could she? Not without bringing Killer B and the Red Hair Pirates along.

Yang Kurama, Isobu said, while the Isobu clones inside his stomach all screeched at once in alarm. That means the boy will be nearby.

I put my head in my hands. Why now of all times?

We'd been following Teach for what amounted to two straight days, and I'd slept so little that I would have been better-served by Yugito's frequent catnaps. The problem was more paranoia than anything. While I could sense the tracker seal, Isobu couldn't on his own, and there was always a chance that Ace could be separated from the Blackbeards' ship somehow. Teach had to have taken Ace alive for a reason, and I wanted to know the instant we got a hint of what that reason was.

And most annoyingly, Teach's ship never quite stopped moving. Isobu had more than doubled the length of our trip by heading to Water 7 to pick up Yugito and Matatabi—though it was necessary—and I had no idea how long Isobu's clones could last outside of his body and neither did he. Even if Isobu didn't sleep, catching up to the apparently quite fast ship was a constant battle.

So, I'd worked myself into quite a state by the time Isobu interrupted my shadow-boxing meditation.

"When it rains, it pours," more or less. Isobu sighed and his cavernous belly expanded briefly. When just looking for the others on our own, we could not find anyone. And now that we have a time constraint, fate deems it an appropriate time to fling everything at us.

No kidding, I thought miserably. At the same time, though, there was no way in hell I'd leave Naruto out in the world on his own.

"Yugito, Utakata, we have another jinchūriki to pick up," I announced to the other occupants of Isobu's stomach.

"Maybe I'll get V2 back this time," Utakata muttered, from somewhere under a pile of miniature Isobu clones.

At some point over the course of the last day or so, Isobu had decided to let his little mini-monsters act as something like a number of hot water bottles for Utakata's sake. He slept better with a crowd of them around him, despite their squirming. I didn't.

"Do you happen to know this one?" Yugito asked, cleaning up a pile of paper stars she'd made out of the wanted posters. She swept them all into a sea-chest I still had from the first nameless boat I'd gotten from the Whitebeards, then stood up.

"Yeah, I do," I said, stilling my shaking hands with sheer force of will. I'd been awake for longer before this and still been combat-ready, dammit. "It should be pretty simple."

"Well, what number are we looking at?" Utakata asked as he sat up, dislodging an Isobu clone that was sitting on his chest four seconds beforehand.

"It's the Nine-Tailed Fox, Kurama," I said, bracing myself for a shout of surprise. "And likely his host."

"That…" Yugito blinked. "But I thought that the Uzumaki woman was in the other half of this Grand Line. If she was here, Lord Killer B would be here, too."

All of us sucked at geography, here, but Yugito had a point. Utakata was peering at us suspiciously, like he didn't trust either of our senses of distance. Which, okay, was probably fair.

"Kurama," I said carefully, "had an accident over a decade ago. And he got cut in half."

Both Yugito and Utakata shuddered. It probably wasn't because of sympathy for Kurama—who made a point to be fairly difficult in all senses of the word—but because if someone could cut Kurama in half, perhaps the other Tailed Beasts could survive the same treatment. It didn't take a genius to realize that once people figured out how to mimic that procedure, things would go to hell for jinchūriki and fast.

And there was no way a jinchūriki could live through that without the absolute truckload of luck that Kushina possessed.

"One half of Kurama is with Kushina." In some form or another. I had no idea how she and Yin Kurama would be able to hide their involvement in the Red Hair Pirates' business, but that was a problem for another time. I held up a finger and said, "The other is the one we're going to pick up."

"…Let me guess—if we tell anyone who the host is, you'll kill us?" Utakata asked in a bitter voice.

"Of course she won't," Yugito scoffed.

"I wouldn't, but not for the reasons you'd think," I said, sticking my hands in my pockets. When I had their eyes on me, I went on, "You're better people than that. Both of you."

Yugito blinked, then huffed a laugh under her breath. "Has being actively hostile toward the others ever worked out?"

I smiled somewhat crookedly. Not especially.

How about never?

"Exactly," Yugito said, nodding to herself. "Utakata, we can show you how this works."

"I don't really care how it works," he said, then reached up to sweep his bangs toward the left side of his face. "I just want to get enough power to never have to worry about getting melted again. And paying that giant bastard back tenfold."

"Luckily, you also won't be facing that Marine alone if we do run across him." I cracked my knuckles. Sure, I had no doubt that fighting an Admiral would suck, but it seemed like jinchūriki were trouble magnets. It was best to get used to it. "No matter how much magma he spits out, he's not immune to the drowning in seawater. Nobody with his class of powers is."

"Is that how their power works? In that case, I look forward to it," Utakata said, quirking his lips into a distinctly anticipatory smirk. Now that he had some of Saiken's chakra back, he'd be far more dangerous whenever we ran into the Marines again. "So, where are we meeting the newest…recruit?"

Isobu? I prompted.

My partner sent me an image—however blurred by the sea—of a vast orange-red creature heading in our direction. Based on the tails and the pounding thrum of his chakra and his human-like arms and torso, it could only be Kurama. He is swimming out to meet us from the nearest island. Brace for impact.

Screw that, I thought, and dashed for Isobu's throat. I needed to see if Naruto was all right.

Isobu happened to be on the surface of the water, and thus spat me out automatically though he clearly hadn't wanted to. I hit the water's surface in front of him and skittered out of the way as he continued to press onward through the ocean, trusting his brother to be able to keep up.

I darted up onto his head as he opened his mouth to let Utakata and Yugito emerge, and as Saiken and Matatabi came back to the surface. Matatabi's bubble popped, sending her scurrying for relatively dry space on Isobu's back.

In the distance, Kurama's damp orange shape continued to close rapidly with our little convoy, cutting through the waves like he was built for it. Or just too big to let mere physics stop him, I supposed.

And bouncing all across his back, arms waving wildly, was Naruto.

"KEI-SENSEI! ISOBU!" Naruto screeched as Kurama finally drew up next to us.

Using one of Kurama's whipping tails as a handhold or something, he hurled himself across the gap between our two Tailed Beasts. Naruto hit Isobu's sloped shell and rolled back to his feet, running to meet me even as I braced for—

Oof! Naruto latched onto my ribs with bruising force, and I returned the desperate hug. "Naruto, Naruto, I'm so glad you're safe!"

"I missed you, Kei-sensei!" Naruto buried his face against my shirt, and the fabric grew damp as he held on for dear life. I knelt so he could shift to grip my shoulders instead, and I bonked the top of his head with my cheek.

"I missed you too, Naruto," I murmured into his hair, rubbing circles into his back. "I've missed you so much."

Naruto shoved his way into my arms, forcing me to sit down hard on Isobu's back and jolting right up my spine. I squeezed him as hard as I dared, because he hadn't let anyone hold him like this since he was an Academy student, citing a dislike of being called a "baby" by Sasuke. If he felt a bit bonier than I remembered and seemed more clingy, well, I both didn't mind and was planning on burning the world down to get back at whoever had done this to him.

"I can see why you thought we'd be better than…that," Yugito's voice said from over my shoulder, and I finally looked up.

Yugito and Utakata both sat nearby, with Utakata keeping a more cautious distance. Yugito tilted her head to one side in open curiosity, her eyes a bit wider than usual, as she clearly bit down on the urge to actually approach.

Naruto wriggled around in my arms until he could see Yugito fully. His chakra felt more cranky than afraid, so I didn't make any move to stop him before he asked, "Who's better than what? Who're you?"

"Nii Yugito," was her response.

Naruto tilted his head to one side, mirroring her. "Hey, Kei-sensei, is she your friend? Even though she's from Kumo?"

I met Yugito's eyes over the top of Naruto's head and caught her minute wince. Still, my lips quirked into a somewhat hesitant smile. "Close enough. Be nice."

Naruto, who was probably making his signature fox-faced scowl, abruptly brightened. "Okay, Yugi! Old Man Yang was talking about how his brothers and sisters were out here and we had to go see them and I guess you're sorta like that?"

Yugito blinked. "…Yes?"

"Have you ever tried teaching the boy restraint?" Matatabi asked either Yang Kurama or me. "Or manners?"

"Bah! Trying to teach him anything is like talking to a wall!" Yang Kurama scoffed, his long ears nearly flat against his back.

"You're just a bad teacher, Old Man!" Naruto yelled back down at the gigantic fox, making all three of us adult ninja wince.

On the other hand, Isobu rumbled in agreement and Yang Kurama automatically snarled at him.

"Who the hell is this kid?" Utakata asked, taking his fingers out of his ears.

"I'm Namikaze Naruto, and don't you forget it," Naruto told him sharply, of course pointing right at Utakata's face. His manners must have died of neglect in the time he'd spent with just Kurama for company. "So who're you supposed to be?"

"Utakata, the host of the Six-Tails," Utakata replied somewhat defensively, making a sweeping gesture to point out Saiken's stalk-eyes, just visible over the edge of Isobu's shell.

"Then you're Uta," Naruto pronounced, while Saiken's eyes bobbed in agreement. Then he blinked. "Hey, you're both from other villages. What's going on here?"

I finally let Naruto up, at which point he clambered onto one of Isobu's spikes. While Naruto didn't really seem to have trouble paying attention when he was interested, he liked to be doing something while waiting for people to explain much of anything. Balancing on a spike seemed about normal for him.

"Some kind of…monster-thing dragged all the jinchūriki and all the Tailed Beasts to this ocean," I told Naruto, who nodded along. "We're the only shinobi out here."

"So does that mean Mom's around, too?" Naruto asked, instantly jumping to the option that would make him the least homesick. I suppressed a wince as he went on, "Old Man Yang said he can feel Old Man Yin a long way off, but it was too far when I asked him last time and we keep running into jerks so we can't go that way."

"What kind of jerks?" I asked, concerned.

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno, like, these guys in white? I know the sign said 'Marine' but I mean, isn't everything on the ocean sorta marine? Like, by definition?"

"You're…not wrong," Yugito said cautiously, drawing Naruto's attention back to her. "They are the Marines, soldiers of the World Government. And we already know they will put bounties on…children."

Oh, so that had bothered Yugito. I'd wondered about that.

Naruto scowled for a second. "Then they are jerks. Oh, and there are these guys who keep carrying these skull flags around," Naruto added, scratching his head. "Old Man Yang said I was supposed to sink those if I saw them, but none of them came close."

I snuck a glance at Yang Kurama, who was suffering through Matatabi grooming his long ears. Yeah, I could definitely see why people would avoid the angry fox the size of an aircraft carrier.

"That was lucky," Utakata commented, and I caught him picking at his bandages. He ought to have healed fully, so I needed to check those again.

Naruto paused, then practically teleported to Utakata's side. "Did one of those Marine guys do that to you, Uta?"

Utakata nearly jumped—Naruto could be fast when he wanted to be—before saying somewhat grudgingly, "Yes, one of them did. I'm fine now."

"Naruto," I said, and he made the fox listening face at me again. "We're on a mission right now. Are you going to join in?"

"A mission?" Naruto whirled back over to me, sitting in a pose that reminded me almost perfectly of Ace's brother. He leaned forward eagerly. "What kinda mission?"

"What in the world can you possibly have to do in this ocean that counts as a 'mission'?" Yang Kurama wanted to know.

"Finding the rest of us is a start," Matatabi said, smoothing down Yang Kurama's ear-fur with her paw. "I believe we have mostly succeeded as we found more and more of each other. The only one of us who remains lost is Son Gokū."

Yang Kurama shook his head, splattering his sister with seawater, and she hissed. Ignoring that, he replied, "That overgrown monkey will turn up sooner or later."

"Are we saving a princess?" Naruto asked, while the Tailed Beasts sniped at each other.

"Um, we may be killing a villain!" said Saiken, both eyes focusing on Naruto. "I'm still not clear on what he looks like, but does it matter?"

"Oh, we are definitely killing him," Isobu growled, making his shell tremble with the force of it.

I slapped my hand down against the bone-like structure. Give it a rest for a minute, okay? Naruto needs to know what he's getting into.

Isobu subsided with another growl, but at least he didn't argue.

"To answer your question, Naruto," I said, "we're saving a friend." And that was as far as I got.

"Then I'm in," Naruto agreed instantly. However, the gravity of the moment was ruined by his stomach giving a ferocious growl.

I took in his shabby appearance again—not enough food, had clearly been yanked out of our world in his pajamas and stolen more clothes to make up the difference, and was about as sleep-deprived as I felt—and made a decision. I definitely had a lot of stored food, which was mainly a side effect of putting up with Ace's appetite, and maybe my spare clothes would fit him for now.

Though I did wonder how the hell he'd learned how to wear a cravat, or when he'd gotten used to close-toed shoes, at least the orange-tinted goggles were somewhat consistent with his usual choices.

"Naruto, come with me. I have food and things stored in Isobu's belly." While he slumped a bit, I added, "And you should call your mother. She needs to hear your voice."

"Y-you can call Mom?" Naruto stammered, his eyes wide and suspiciously shiny. I was nearly certain he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from crying.

Well, he'd already cried earlier. What did it matter? "We can. Now, let's go."

Inside of Isobu's stomach, I tracked down the sea chest I'd been storing some of my supplies in. While I dug around for snacks he could store for later, Naruto devoured a selection of fish and rice that I'd scrounged up on the last island before Banaro. I kept one eye on him to make sure he didn't choke or make himself sick, but as far as I knew our robust systems could handle worse than refeeding syndrome without much trouble.

I came up with a truly worrying amount of food. Apparently, I'd stockpiled for a nuclear winter at some point and never really noticed, because Ace ate that much.

"Kei-sensei?" Naruto asked, after he'd finished eating. There were at least four empty plates beside him, and there went everything I'd actually cooked recently. Whoops.

"Hmm?" I asked distractedly. I'd found the giant red coat with the Whitebeard Pirates symbol and was frowning at it, since I didn't know when the hell it had gotten into my stuff. Maybe Izo had snuck it into my luggage at some point? I didn't know when he would've found the time, but I was pretty certain I had put this particular item back amongst the spares before leaving the Moby Dick.

Naruto poked me in the back, getting my attention for real. "Whose stuff is this?"

I finally looked up, and realized Naruto was referring to the drying lines I'd stuck to a couple of random spikes inside of Isobu's stomach. Sure, nothing dried in here, not for real, but Ace's clothes had been among the things on the Nautilus when it met its ignoble end. Naruto, who had a boy's eye for items with a story, had his attention fixed on the big black coat Ace had worn when we visited Drum Island.

"That stuff belongs to the person we're going to rescue," I told Naruto, setting the jacket aside for later consideration.

Naruto cocked his head to one side. "I thought we were gonna rescue a friendly princess? Isn't that too big?"

Pff, Naruto had no idea how big people around here could get. I wouldn't be surprised if there were literal giant princesses.

"Actually, he's a pirate. He was showing Yugito and me around the ocean, but we got into a fight with another pirate and he got kidnapped," I explained, since the idea of not rescuing a princess seemed to disappoint Naruto a bit.

"Oh," Naruto said, scratching his head again. "I guess that makes sense. After I talk to Mom, can you tell me about him?"

"We can both trade stories," I said, eyeing him carefully. I still wanted to know where Naruto had been for the past however many months, because he seemed considerably more put together than Yugito had. Who had he been spending time with? "But for right now, someone important is waiting to hear from you."

"Okay!" Naruto burrowed into the jacket because it was there, sticking his arms into the sleeves and flapping them around like wings. The coat made him look absolutely tiny. "How are you gonna call Mom?"

"Just a second. Isobu, can I get Komushi over here?" I asked the stomach at large, and then the rumbling of the Isobu clones on parade began again.

"When Old Man Yang ate me, nothing inside was this cool," Naruto commented, picking up the smallest of the Isobu clones. "So which one is Komushi?"

I picked up Komushi's pink shell from among the crowd of Isobu clones, turning the snail and its transceiver around so it could emerge facing Naruto. "This is Komushi."

Komushi obligingly bobbed its eyestalks in greeting.

"Wow!" Naruto set the Isobu clone down and scooted up to the snail's side. "This is a way bigger snail than the ones back home. Do you think they feed them weird stuff?"

"…Maybe? I never did ask," I admitted, while Naruto rummaged around in his pockets. "Why?"

"'Cause this one's kinda tiny for a talking one," he said, as he pulled out a snail shell on a leather strap that had clearly been ripped off someone's wrist. It looked like a type of top-shell that had been turned into a living watch. "Cool, isn't it?"

Komushi extended its neck, peering at the device as the conical top shell flipped open, revealing a jet-black transponder snail no bigger than a pinecone. It yawned widely, then spotted Komushi and bared its tiny teeth. The larger snail recoiled, eyestalks wobbling.

"It's certainly something," I admitted. Like, for example, "a bit unfriendly." "Well, let me dial the Red Force and see if your mother's around."

Naruto set the black snail down on his knee, bouncing in place as I punched the numbers in.

"Oh, hey, it's the stolen G-2 snail again!" Did Shanks have his ship's snail in his cabin or something? "Hello, Kei! Are you calling for Kushina?"

"Hello, Captain Shanks," I said, with one hand on Naruto's shoulder as he started to tremble. "Could you tell Kushina that Naruto's calling?"

"Eh? Sure." I held the receiver away from Naruto's ear as Shanks bellowed, "HEY, KUSHINA, SOMEONE NAMED NARUTO IS CALLING FOR YOU!"

"WHAT?!" came Kushina's answering shriek. Though she was clearly shouting from a different deck, the sound of crashing wood made it clear that they weren't staying separate for long. On the other end of the line, Naruto and I could both hear Shanks's crew starting to shout in concert, and perhaps Killer B started laughing during the chaos somewhere. "Naruto? Speak to me, please!"

Naruto burst into tears. "MOM!"

While I did bundle Naruto up in the Whitebeard jacket as a makeshift blanket as he continued his (shouted, screaming, crying) conversation with Kushina, in the end I left them to it for the most part. I packed up some of the things that Naruto had discarded, storing them safely away until next time they were needed, and rescued the black snail from the throes of an Uzumaki reunion.

The weird part, though, was that the black snail never stopped talking.

"If I knew where you were, Naruto, there was no way I would have—"

"—Mom, I missed you so much, it's been so weird—"

I didn't want to listen in on their conversation, but neither did I want to bring the black snail back so it could repeat the entire soundtrack back to them. Instead, I gently pushed it back into its shell and headed out of Isobu's stomach.

"Loud reunion?" Yugito asked, once I emerged and climbed back onto Isobu's shell.

"Everyone shouts over snail calls," I griped, though I didn't mean it maliciously. It was just that my ears would be ringing for months at this rate. "I don't know why."

While I'd been busy, all of the Tailed Beasts had fallen into formation with Isobu and we continued to steam onward. Yang Kurama was the least streamlined of the group doing their own swimming, because Matatabi had gone back into the bubble. He could only really swim effectively at the surface, which was why Isobu was still half-exposed to the air and Saiken's eyestalks were all that was visible.

"That boy is…excitable," Utakata said, after a silent moment of just lying on his back on Isobu's shell, one hand behind his head. "He's the Fourth Hokage's son, isn't he?"

I nodded.

Utakata sighed. "He needs to be more cautious than that."

And who out here would want to kill him over who his father was? If there were any takers, I'd sort them out personally. Assuming that Kushina didn't beat me to it.

"I guess." A thought occurred to me, and I tossed the black snail to Yugito. "You were messing with Komushi when we got it. Maybe you can figure out how to make this thing repeat something other than Naruto and Kushina's conversation."

"Is it a parrot or something?" Yugito asked, as the black snail pushed its way open again.

"I have no idea," I said, as the snail opened its mouth.

"—been eating your vegetables, Naruto?"

"Mooooom, I've been on the sea! And like four islands! I didn't have time for—"

"Make it say something else," Utakata suggested in a sharp tone, while Yugito extended one claw-nail to fiddle with the side of its shell.

The snail belted out a series of clearly intercepted broadcasts in rapid succession as Yugito's nail moved.

"—supplies are running low on G-5—"

"—only good pirate is a dead—"

"—which one of you decided to drop our last hammer?!"

Utakata rolled his eyes. "Well, that's useful."

"I wonder what this creature's range is?" Yugito muttered to herself. She moved her nail another millimeter, and the snail glared up at her before opening its mouth again.

"—Zehahaha!"

I jumped and Yugito flinched, nearly dropping the snail. Utakata sat up, more startled by us than by the laughter, which was spine-chillingly distinct to the two of us.

"What the hell was—?" Utakata began, but Yugito and I both shushed him hurriedly.

What are the odds that more than one man can have that particular hideous laugh? Isobu wondered to me.

I'm hoping they're low, I thought, and then shushed him too for good measure.

"You'll receive confirmation of your new appointment once we've transferred Fire Fist Ace to Impel Down," said a much colder voice. Sounded like a Marine. "But for right now…"

"Zehahaha! You're looking at the newest Warlord!" Teach's voice rang out. I bit down on a snarl, and Yugito's nails grew out to a solid four inches. "Don't feel like congratulating me, Ace?"

"Go to hell, Teach," Ace's voice growled. Something was off about his breathing, though. Did he have broken ribs? But even as I worried, the fact that Ace was still alive sent my thoughts awhirl. I hadn't known for sure and Isobu's clone hadn't been able to confirm his survival, but hearing his voice was both relieving and immensely frustrating.

We still weren't close—wait.

Isobu, is there any way for your clone to attack? I asked, while my heart thudded in my ears.

Unfortunately, no, Isobu replied, and I felt a faint pulse of guilt from him. They are too small to be able to carry much of my chakra, and this one is likely at the end of its lifespan. They are not designed to last for days without being regrown.

Which meant we probably wouldn't be able to track Teach at all once Ace went into Marine custody. I couldn't see Teach hanging around a Marine ship for long, or the Marines tolerating him all that well. Even if my tracking seal continued to work for the next however long of a timespan until we finally rescued Ace, Teach would get away again if we didn't kill him first.

The snail recorded the sound of some kind of scuffle for a little longer, and then it rattled off a string of coordinates that I couldn't hope to recognize. We didn't even have a freaking map—that had been on Striker and definitely gone down with the ship. Even if we did have it, Ace had been our navigator by default for a reason.

Then the Marine said, "Be there tomorrow for prisoner transfer."

We'd just have to hit them before that.

As the snail finally fell silent, I flopped back against the surface of Isobu's shell. Knowing that Ace would be stuck with Teach for another half a day or so didn't make me feel any better exactly, but I had a timetable. I could work with that and possibly inflict maximum casual—

No.

The goal wasn't to kill everyone. It was to get Ace out. Everyone who'd get hurt in the process was collateral damage, not a set of bowling pins for my personal amusement.

I rubbed my eyes with my right hand, trying to clear my thoughts.

You have not slept in two days.

I'm aware, I thought miserably.

Rest now and you will be more able to help tomorrow, Isobu suggested. His voice was rather soft, even considering that he was one of the Tailed Beasts more aware of human tolerance limits for a lot of things. He was trying.

That drew a sigh from me. He was right. …I'll try.

After telling Yugito and Utakata that I'd be up in a while to try and help them strategize (while admitting that I'd be useless at it for the moment), I headed down into Isobu's stomach for a nap.

Naruto latched onto me the second he saw me. "Mom says she can't come and meet us yet, but she wants us to be careful."

I sighed again and rested my head against the top of his. "Sounds like a plan. Naruto, I'm going to sleep for a bit. Do you need to rest?"

"…Maybe a bit." He resettled the giant jacket over his shoulders and bundled himself up in it. "I'll go up and bother Yugi and Uta if I get bored."

"Sounds fine," I murmured, as a pile of Isobu clones clustered around us.

I took my cat nap, which was only briefly interrupted by the usual horrible bellowing (though the wording was YOU HAVE FOUND—ASSEMBLE THE NINE and only unlocked half a slot) and glowing wrist problem when Naruto happened to touch my right hand with his. I had to tell him to go and directly bother Utakata and Yugito about it while I slept, trusting Isobu and Yang Kurama to keep him safe.

We'd promised, after all.

We finally came within striking distance in the early afternoon the next day.

I sat inside Isobu's stomach with my fellow jinchūriki, eyes screwed shut as I tried to think up some kind of plan for our attack.

For one, Naruto's black snail—which he'd named Kuromushi, just to be confusing—continued to belt out as many different data sets as there were snail calls across the sea. Yugito was managing its signal, with the threat of her nails going somewhere soft, while Utakata took notes on what we picked up. The other two adult jinchūriki were less synchronized with their partners, so our visual data from the outside world came down to what Isobu would let me see. Naruto, who had learned fūinjutsu at his parents' knees, was making one hell of a contingency plan.

And not just for the obvious reasons.

"Kei-sensei, I told Mom this already, but I wasn't just there in the middle of the ocean because I wanted to be," Naruto said, settling his new goggles more firmly on his forehead. He took a moment to fluff out his hair, like he would when wearing his Konoha headband at home, and then sat down next to me.

"Why were you out swimming with Yang Kurama, then?" I asked, while I cleaned my katana with an improvised sword-cleaning kit. I was a pretty good scrounger when I had to be.

"I kinda got a mission from the the people who got me these," Naruto said, and I looked over to find him holding onto the goggles again. Then he tugged at his cravat with his left hand, undoing it and stuffing it into a pocket. "And the neck-napkin thing here, but I think Uncle Sabo called it something else. Though I wish I had more orange and maybe less blue. I feel like Sasuke here."

Naruto made a theatrically disgusted face for a second. It faded in favor of a more glum look as he recalled that he hadn't seen his best friend in months, but Naruto had always been good at putting up a cheerful front. And this just made me worry more about this mysterious new 'uncle' he'd picked up.

Did I need to break a man's nose? And legs? And every body part of which he had two?

"What mission did this 'Uncle Sabo' give you?" I asked suspiciously.

"Uncle Sabo didn't give me the mission. I mean, even if he's Chief of Staff or whatever, I can just call him that and piss him off. And he's only a little older than Itachi, so it's funny. But he did give me the goggles, so maybe I shouldn't do that as much," Naruto rambled freely, unaware of my misgivings. "And the mission, uh, that was another guy with these tattoos all down the left side of his face! Everyone called him 'Dragon.' Or 'Sir.'"

And that was how I found out that Naruto had been spending the last few months with anti-World Government forces known as the Revolutionary Army. On the plus side, the Rebel Alliance had fed and clothed him for a decent stretch of time, and didn't seem to mind the fact that he was an abnormally cheerful princeling of a child soldier. On the other hand, they had also allowed him to single-handedly tackle a Marine patrol after seeing what he and Yang Kurama could do, which I wasn't sure I could forgive them for. Even if Naruto took "many hands make light work" to a new and terrifying extreme with the Shadow Clone mobs he could create on a whim, that was not cool.

Naruto also still owed them a black transponder snail and a mission report. And possibly an "I'm not dead" notice.

Maybe the Revolutionary Army would end up being useful to us. I didn't know for sure, and since Naruto had effectively disappeared into the wind by their standards, I had to wonder if he'd accidentally severed all ties to their faction through impulsiveness. He certainly didn't seem to remember a snail number with which to contact them again.

It was probably going to be a problem later.

As for our non-Naruto options: the Tailed Beasts were coordinating—Yang Kurama was in a bubble now, to his immense and vocal displeasure—and turning themselves into what was effectively a combat-operational submarine fleet. While the Marines were powerful, as far as I was concerned Yang Kurama and his Yin counterpart in the New World were close to invincible. Add in the distinct reliance most people had on ships, and well…

Yeah.

Still, it felt like we were waiting on a sign of some kind.

"I think I have something." Utakata set his pen down and flexed his fingers.

"What is it, Uta?" Naruto asked as he gathered his completed seals into a huge pile and stuffed them into the Whitebeard jacket's pockets. Oh, those would make terrifying confetti.

"The little snail—"

"Kuromushi!" Naruto insisted.

"—fine, whatever. It's been spitting out snippets of Marine activity every time Yugito moves her nails," Utakata said, jabbing the end of his pen at the Kumo-nin. "And nearly every one of them has been taking new orders or talking about some place called Banaro or Impel Down or whatever the hell these stupid islands are called."

Yugito and I exchanged looks as soon as Utakata named the location of our last spat with Teach. We'd filled both Utakata and Naruto in on as much as we'd learned about this world, from snail telepathy and major powers to Sea Kings and Devil Fruits, even if neither of them believed all of it. Our collective grasp of geography and navigation, however, remained poor-to-middling at best, no matter how many islands we'd visited in our separate journeys. Naruto hadn't had time to learn to navigate even with the Revolutionaries, and getting him to stay still for that long was a losing prospect at the best of times.

We were all hopeless at memorizing the names, too.

"I…think I've heard…" I paused, racking my brain for any kind of data that we couldn't simply overhear. The problem with being in a brand new world was that there was so much context missing, and people would instantly peg us as foreign (or Luffy-grade oblivious) the second we asked about things that were basic facts to them. Even if we never actually talked to anyone besides the worried Whitebeards or the Red Hair Pirates.

Utakata was being really patient about the whole situation, but I had to wonder if it was because he'd had it burned into him. Come to find out that he'd actually killed an entire pirate crew (by having Saiken flip their ship over) for screwing with him at the wrong time, and the battle drew the attention of Admiral Akainu's personal flagship and two other battleships. Not as easy of a fight. Not even close.

And I had no doubt the story wasn't that simple. He and Saiken were too cagey about details.

"I think Impel Down is one of the three World Government strongholds in Paradise?" I tried. I needed to call Thatch or someone else to confirm that, but at least it was a name. It was a start. "I know I read that the Straw Hats knocked Enies Lobby down. But…"

"Ah!" Yugito said, holding up one finger. "The other one is Marineford. I believe I…yes, I remember. 'The judicial island of Enies Lobby,' and then the 'underwater prison Impel Down.'"

"I've heard of it," Naruto said, frowning a little as he thought. "That's where a whole bunch of Revolutionaries got thrown a few years back. But I think Dragon can still contact them."

Sounded like Alcatraz on steroids. Or the Blood Prison. With a possible termite problem.

I bit the edge of my thumb as I thought.

I didn't know how the World Government tended to roll with regard to big-name pirates beyond their payout policy for live ones, but I had a couple of ideas just based on how shinobi dealt with criminals that were caught instead of summarily executed. Combining that with what I remembered of the usual secondary appellation for pirates and bandits of a land-based nature—"enemy of all mankind" was a good start—and it didn't take much of a logical leap to come to a grim conclusion.

Ace was going to end up at Impel Down or Marineford, probably be tortured for information about the Whitebeards' activities, and then be killed. Possibly in public.

And I was busy agonizing over if I'd be able to save him while accompanied by a battle group that had four Tailed Beasts.

I kept the tracker seal's signal transfixed in my head. It and the Isobu clone's signatures could diverge at any moment, but I needed to pay attention to this conversation too. "Yugito, if you want to hit Teach again, do you think you could succeed this time?"

It was perhaps a bit of a pointed question, but Yugito's eyes blazed at the thought.

"On the ocean, he would need to worry about seawater and his ship's integrity," Yugito murmured thoughtfully. The expression that crossed her face was nothing short of vicious. "Oh, I believe I have a few ideas of how to keep him occupied."

"That ship is never making it to another island," Utakata said, and his eye glowed when he looked up. Red, instead of the orange glow Isobu's stomach usually offered or the orange of his usual eye color. He blinked slowly, then added, "Saiken and I will keep it from escaping, no matter the result."

Given Saiken's ability to produce enough sticky slime to strangle an armada, I wasn't worried that they'd fail.

"Yugi, are you gonna set them on fire?" Naruto asked.

"Likely, yes," Yugito said with a nod. "We at least need their sails to burn. It should keep them from being able to move."

Naruto frowned thoughtfully, then nodded to himself. Then he reached inside a hip pouch I'd lent him and dug out two fistfuls of exploding tags. "You're gonna want some of these, then. Kei-sensei won't let me near the fight, so I can help like this, right?"

And knowing Naruto, he'd stuck more than a few ship-destroying seals inside the stockpile. I probably never should have taught him demolition seals, but it burned an afternoon once upon a time.

"Thank you, Naruto," Yugito said, though I doubted she had any idea how much firepower a twelve-year-old could make given enough time. She just tucked the seals away into her pockets, as though humoring him.

"Then I'll do what I have to," I said quietly, carefully stretching my fingers. In a darker tone, I said to Yugito, "It'll be Hidden Mist or genjutsu at first, then I'll be inside the ship looking for Ace. As soon as we're clear, kill all of them."

Yugito's eyes glowed gold and green. "Finally, an order I agree with."

The Blackbeard Pirates were partying when we arrived.

Isobu didn't let Naruto leave his stomach—the boy could get in so much trouble the second I took my eyes off him otherwise—but Utakata, Yugito, and I were all ejected just as Matatabi wove her genjutsu. Since a simple "notice-me-not" compulsion wouldn't interfere with Utakata's aim or Yugito's fire, I approached the anchored ship at a casual stroll across the water's surface.

Saiken started laying down the sticky slime the instant Yugito and I slipped over the railing.

Yugito, in an admirable show of restraint, waited until one of the Blackbeard Pirates passed the main sail before she set it on fire.

While the pirates got to panic over an apparently spontaneous ignition, I slipped belowdecks in the wake of a general fire drill scramble. Though the corridors in this ship were far narrower than the halls of the Moby Dick, I barely had to press myself to the wall to avoid being stepped on or bumped into. Some of the pirates were so stinking drunk that they wouldn't have noticed the extra presence even if they had tripped over me.

Where are you, hotshot? I wondered, channeling chakra into my feet and hands to muffle the sounds of, say, occasionally stepping on a creaky board.

Ace's tracker seal felt more distinct here—possibly because it had jammed in the "on" configuration—but I didn't know much about the structures of ships. I didn't know if I was heading to the brig or to the pantry and wouldn't until I got there.

Above me, Yugito continued to torch random components of the ship while apparently invisible. Because she hadn't directly targeted a single pirate, none of them seemed to quite know what to do. There was a lot of undirected shouting going on, and the pounding of a dozen differently-sized feet on the deck didn't help.

As I traversed the length of the ship from mid to stern, I felt Isobu and Kurama moving around the open ocean. Saiken had glued the bow of the ship to a mass of coral Isobu grew for that exact purpose, and was finishing up the rest of the ocean-to-gelatin conversion as I went.

Isobu, how are things going out there?

Naruto is not causing trouble, and Yang Kurama wants to know if or when he should tear the ship in half.

I think that honor belongs to someone else, I told Isobu, taking the last few steps toward a locked door.

The padlock on it was about the size of a human hand, made of slightly rusted iron, and was in my way. I could feel my own chakra making up the signal I'd made. I pressed my ear up against the wood, expecting some kind of sound. Some sign of life.

I heard metallic clinking, at most, as the ship jolted to a stop in Saiken's slime trap. The shouts of pirates overhead didn't help my concentration, but I couldn't worry about that. Yugito had it in hand.

Coral Palm, I thought as I brought the blood-red chakra cloak to life over my right hand. My fingertip against the keyhole, I grew a coral key and gently turned it in the lock.

The padlock popped. My heart was already dropping before I heard the first metallic ringing, and it landed somewhere around my toes when the door creaked open.

All I'd managed to find was the Blackbeard Pirates' treasure room. Right on top of the pile of gold and silver, flung there carelessly by a cruel hand, was the thigh holster on which I'd crafted my seal. Taking the leather band in my hands, I turned it over and found my tracking seal, still intact and broadcasting faintly.

How utterly useless.

Isobu, I said distantly while rage pounded at my temples, the next time I give Ace a tracking seal, I'm going to be adding to his tattoo collection.

Does that mean he is not here?

…Not necessarily. I strapped the empty holster around my leg and slammed the treasury door shut, not caring who I startled. I'll do one last sweep of the ship.

Very well. Isobu sent me the image of the topsails and the rigging, burning merrily away under Yugito's care. Teach wasn't visible just yet, but I knew who Isobu was looking for. You may have enough time to interrogate him.

I wasn't sure I needed to, but I appreciated the offer to get my shot in. Instead of replying, I drew Isobu's chakra up through my seal and bared my teeth. With V1 cloak up, I didn't need to stop for mere walls, either.

Dynamic Entry, jackass.

Ten violent wall-demolishing strikes later, and it was clear Ace was nowhere on the Blackbeards' ship. I'd done two sweeps of it, tearing through structural supports and rattling the entire vessel down to its keel more than once. Much more damage would cause the deck to collapse under its own weight, or so Isobu's ship-knowledge informed me.

Good.

I cut the cloak and headed up again.

"Ah, so nice of you to join us," Yugito's voice greeted me once I appeared at the base of the stairs and started heading up.

I didn't respond directly to her. Instead, I climbed up to where she was and surveyed the deck.

In the mere minutes I'd been gone, Yugito had sown utter hell across the ship.

The main and mizzen-mast were burning wholesale, as was much of the deck and an entire barrel of what was apparently pitch. Yugito sat out of the way while the Blackbeards scrambled to try and put out the fires, utilizing more than one bucket chain, and would stealthily set yet another spot on fire the moment that the pirates doused one blaze.

She'd also set two pirates on fire, just on principle. I was pretty sure one of them used to be the Blackbeards' sniper, given the eight-foot gun, but at the moment he was doing double duty as a human torch. The alcohol that was omnipresent at pirate parties did not appear to be assisting anyone in putting them out.

Yugito's eyes narrowed as she took in my appearance and the distinct lack of Ace. "He isn't here?"

I shook my head. My hand was on the cord to Ace's hat, which I was still wearing.

Yugito's chakra—Matatabi's chakra—sprang out of her coils and enveloped her in the signature red-orange aura of a pissed-off jinchūriki. "Then we might as well introduce ourselves, don't you think?"

I snapped my fingers and the general buzz of genjutsu dropped from the ship. Not because I could control what Matatabi did, but because Yugito had a sense of dramatic timing.

And at once, every flame on the ship went out.

The Blackbeards froze, unable to decide what to make of this, until Teach spotted us sitting in plain view on the deck's steps.

"YOU?!"

Aw, he shouted just like everyone else.

How irritating.

"Did you think you had killed me?" Yugito asked first.

I was a bit busy drawing up enough of Isobu's chakra to deflect bullets. Just in case.

"You? I don't even know your name, Blondie," Teach said, dismissing Yugito almost entirely. Her nails did not lengthen, though I could tell it was a close thing, before he spoke again, "Kei, though—I killed you already!"

I rested my head on my knuckles, my eyes narrow and itching as Isobu's chakra made itself known. "You were mistaken, Teach. I survived, and so did Thatch." I tilted my head to one side. "And you've made enemies you can't even imagine."

Teach ignored that, because how could he even comprehend the shitstorm about to descend on his head? He looked up at the damage done to the ship, while his crewmates mostly tried not to catch Yugito's attention. Given the sparks still flashing intermittently from around her hands and mouth, it was kind of obvious who'd been setting their ship on fire.

"Well, well, well, the old man picked up a real monster this time, didn't he?" Teach asked, rubbing the stubble on his chin. "Freakish endurance, eye colors changing…"

As he moved, I finally took in his appearance while mostly ignoring his words. He had picked up a captain's coat, along with a set of pants that actually fit his massive girth. Around his waist was a belt, and a sash, and I focused on two particular trinkets standing out among the jewelry and other random shit he decided to wear.

"I'm surprised you have my kunai," I said, having not processed any of what he said in the last ten seconds. Next to my kunai was the hilt of Ace's knife.

The bastard collected trophies.

Teach's face pulled into a massive frown. "That was you? And here I was just making my recruitment speech!" The deck started to go black beneath his feet. "Say, tell you what—my crew always has use for monsters. If you can take a hit and fight, well, so much the better. We'll start by taking the World Government for a ride, then move on up to the old man! What Devil Fruit did you eat, anyway?"

Isobu's chakra nothing, I wanted to kill him entirely on my own merits. A growl bubbled up in my chest as I gripped the handrail and splintered it. "What did you do with Ace?"

"Only what I had to!" Teach said, as though the danger in my tone meant nothing to him. "He refused to join my crew, so I just turned him in for the Warlord title and the bounty. He's been on his way to Impel Down for hours!"

For—and I hadn't—

Next to me, Yugito let out a noise that sounded entirely inhuman.

"But hey, maybe he could use company before the Marines cut his head off," Teach taunted us, his grin widening. "It can't be long now."

Distantly, I could feel my chakra cloak start to form Isobu's signature spikes. Yugito's chakra cloak flared blue in places.

"Zehahaha! Come at me and see what the Yami Yami no Mi can really do!" Teach cackled, raising an arm that was already half-enveloped in shadows. "What's a mere monster to the future King of the Pirates?!"

"Oh, you ain't seen nothin' yet," I promised him, malice coloring every word.

"Monster?" Yugito murmured, sounding faintly offended. Her glowing eyes narrowed. "I will boil the blood in your veins."

"Try it!" Teach grinned wildly, slamming one hand into the deck of his own ship. "Black Hole!"

Darkness started to leak across the deck from beneath Teach's feet like liquid tar, setting my internal alarm bells ringing before Yugito lashed out with her right arm and bowled me off the ship. She followed a moment later, landing like a cat on the water's surface and darting out across the waves as a gunshot bounced off her chakra cloak.

A second shot bounced off my cloak, above my eye. Someone had pretty good aim, even if it wasn't going to help him much.

"Get back here!" Teach snarled. "Black Vortex!"

How about no? Seawater shot upward from beneath us like the world had turned upside-down, but a quick Water Dragon Bullet dragged me and Yugito out of the firing line until the water settled again.

"Liberation!"

All the water that had been sucked into Teach's pocket dimension during his first attack made an abrupt reappearance, blasting out of the shadow like a single massive Water Release: Gunshot from Gamabunta's mouth.

I drew my katana. Water Release: Displacement Wave Sword.

I carved the incoming flood in half by sending a chakra-based shockwave up its accumulated mass. Water didn't compress all that well, and the power of Teach's Kamui ripoff didn't change that. He should never had tried to use the basis of my nature transformation affinity against me.

Yugito and I dashed in opposite directions, with Yugito wheeling around at the Blackbeards' bow and setting their sails on fire with another four-meter-wide fireball mid-spin. Before a retaliatory strike could head her way, whether it was a barrel thrown by their pro wrestler giant of a crewmate or another well-aimed shot, Yugito vanished underwater.

I tracked the progression of inky darkness as Teach's third attack also amounted to nothing, then ducked underwater like Yugito had. I even saw her clinging to the bottom of the ship, cutting through the hull with a narrow, intense flame that worked like a cutting torch. She'd be starting a fire in the hold from what I was fairly certain was the powder room.

There'd be very little time to make our point to Teach before his vessel sank beneath the merciless waves.

Using my chakra cloak to propel myself, I shot forward like a missile and clamped onto the hull, then scrabbled up the side of the vessel inside a shell of seawater. The instant I made it over the edge of the deck, I lunged at the first crewmember I saw with both my real hands and Isobu's projected teeth.

I ended up dragging a horse and its passenger into the sea, tearing them to bloody pieces with repeated passes of Isobu's shell-spines before they could mount an appropriate response. While I was no saltwater crocodile, I could spin in the water like one, and I could also launch near-simultaneous Rasengan strikes from any point of the cloak. The effect was similar to cramming a living creature into a jet engine.

Two living creatures, perhaps.

I felt more than saw Yugito burrow into the ship, tearing a flaming hole into the hull at the opposite end relative to my position, just catching her two lashing tails as she disappeared into it. Plotting her approximate trajectory in my head, I lurched up from the depths and reappeared on the Blackbeard Pirates' deck just as Yugito tore the wood apart from below and did the same.

Of the pirates that remained, no one looked happy. The mime was gray where white had been before, the sniper was scorched, the hulking helmsman was trying and failing to keep the ship level in the face of the damage Yugito had done, and Teach looked like he had no idea how the hell anything in the past five minutes had happened.

But he gave it a half-decent shot, even with his ship falling apart around him.

"Black Vortex!" Teach shouted.

Yugito and I automatically slammed our respective tails down and looped the appendages around the hull. We'd decided ahead of time that we wouldn't be yanked around again, and our respective demon limbs worked just fine for that purpose.

Teach thrust his hand out and while gravity did go weird, the effect was not heralded by either Yugito or I being pulled through the air.

No, instead it was the sound of the ship groaning against the strain of that tightening constriction and then shattering under our feet that really made up the soundtrack.

In that time, I let go of the ship, spun in midair, and met Teach's face feet-first. I shoved as much chakra into the strike as I could, making certain to inject it through the points of Isobu's spiky aura. His head snapped back, leading his entire bulk backward and sending him crashing into the weakened deck, splintering it.

The deck tilted under my feet when I landed, the keel cracked and the supports already weakened from my earlier rampage. I clung to the wood anyway, refusing to budge.

"Captain!" screamed someone else. Probably the huge bastard supposedly steering the damned ship. Not that it was going anywhere.

Teach coughed, spitting up blood from me knocking his face more or less inward. Maybe I'd dislodged some of his teeth. As he heaved himself up on his elbows, beady eyes meeting mine, he scowled up at me with all the anger and cruelty of the overambitious mass-murderer he was. "So, that's your answer?"

I growled again, chakra tails ripping through the deck even as I started circling him. The crackle of flames from Yugito's burning chakra cloak was so loud that my voice came out almost inaudible, despite the tone I borrowed from Isobu. "You tried to kill me."

"Hah! If the Whitebeards had someone to blame for Thatch's death, like their passenger, would they'd have even noticed me disappearing? It was nothing personal!" Teach staggered back to his feet, and I could already see the first signs of chakra burns starting to obliterate the skin around his mouth. When he went to wipe the blood away with his sleeve, he flinched and had to stop when his flesh began to quiver. "Ow, ow! What is this?"

Like I cared to tell him.

Then there was real screaming, because whether the crew's mime had wings or not, or the exact nature of Teach's powers, it didn't really matter in the face of Yugito's snarled, "Cat Fire Bowl!"

And then the entire ship was on fire all over again.

Perhaps learning from his earlier failure to hurt us, Teach decided to forgo his powers and aimed a devastating punch at my head with his right hand. Our relative sizes ought to have ensured I was either launched off the ship or had my skull smashed to pulp under his fist.

I caught his punch in one open hand. The impact shockwave traveled across Isobu's chakra rather than up my arm, and the nearby ring of fire briefly went out as displaced air rushed through it.

"I have you now, you…" Teach trailed off, staring down at me. He'd grasped my entire lower arm with one hand after my casual block, engulfing it, and failed to crush my bones into shards despite his best efforts. At most, I was aware of pressure, but it didn't mean anything more than water did nowadays. "You shouldn't still be glowing. Why can you still use your Devil Fruit?"

So this was his last, best trick. Ace couldn't have known Teach could cancel out Devil Fruit powers. As Teach suddenly realized that I wasn't playing even by his expanded rulebook, I let Isobu's chakra cloak flare bright and loud, blasting Teach away from me with chakra burns blooming across his entire front. He hit the burning mizzen-mast and plowed through it with a shriek of surprise, and I tore straight down through the ship to reach the sea again.

I had nothing to say to him or any of his little friends.

Yugito and I left the Blackbeards' ship to burn, while Matatabi and Saiken picked off every crewmember that survived the blaze with either flaming claws or high-pressure blasts of water that hit like cannonballs. The scattered explosive seals Yugito left as party favors made certain that no piece bigger than a human hand would ever be seen again. Our destruction of the ship and crew was almost complete, with one glaring exception.

And underwater, after watching him sink like a stone for a minute or so in apparent apathy, I approached Teach while he sank like a stone toward the sea floor. With three chakra tails spinning behind me like propellers, I picked Teach's long captain's coat open and plucked my kunai and Ace's dagger from his belt. He wouldn't need those ever again.

Turning, I kicked off from his belly in time to give my partner his free shot.

Isobu rose from the depths like an ancient god of the primordial ocean. While I wove among and past the spikes scattered across his shell, he crushed Teach between his hands like a bug.

When our battle group all surfaced again, Naruto came tumbling out of Isobu's mouth and onto one massive armored palm with both snails stuck to him. He looked around at the rapidly-sinking carnage, probably not even noticing all the burning corpses, then took in our appearances as we stood around watching the debris sink.

Naruto instantly shot to my side, and I knelt so he could easily throw his arms around my shoulders.

"Ace wasn't here?" Naruto asked, when he pulled back. He'd done the head count.

"No. He's been gone for a while," I admitted, my voice still rough from Isobu's chakra infusion. "We missed the transfer."

Because I'd been careless, again.

Naruto bit his lip. "It's not over yet, though. It can't be over."

"It's not," Yugito said, while Utakata hopped down off Saiken's head to free his Tailed Beast partner up to clear the ocean of slime. "We have yet another location, but it's one we don't know how to find on our own."

"So call someone who does," Utakata put in. He crossed his arms, eyeing the burning wreckage of the thoroughly overkilled ship. "Not that their navigator would have been trustworthy, but…"

Yugito shrugged, deflecting blame. "I don't even know which one was their navigator. They all needed to die, so what does it matter now?"

I sat down on Isobu's shell, running a hand over my face and shoving my bangs out of my eyes. Once I felt more human, I crooked a finger and said, "Naruto, can I make a call?"

Naruto plopped Komushi down on my bent knee. As I started to dial, he asked, "Who're you gonna call?"

Help, for one. I punched in the number I wanted.

"What is it?" Komushi asked, with Marco's voice.

"Hey, Marco," I said, while the snail mirrored an uncharacteristically wide-eyed expression on the usually stoic Zoan. Maybe he'd never expected to hear from me again after the realization we had been going to confront Teach? So much for that. "Teach is dead, but Ace is being taken to Impel Down. We're gonna need some navigation help. Whatever you can tell us will be fine."

There was the sound of someone smacking their head into a table. The call picked up Jozu's voice and expression instead of Marco's, while someone who sounded an awful lot like Thatch swore in the background.

"For the love of…" Sounded like we'd managed to frustrate the Third Division's commander, too. "All right, Impel Down is in the Calm Belt…"

So it turned out that the Calm Belt was something we were already familiar with, in the silliest way possible. Isobu and I, for example, had actually been running around parts of the West Blue during our two-month hiatus from the Whitebeard Pirates, because the Calm Belt and its lack of wind and abundant Sea Kings meant nothing to a Tailed Beast. Utakata and Saiken, in their adventures, had passed through part of the East Blue twice without apparently noticing. Only Yugito and Matatabi hadn't left the island they'd landed on—even Naruto and Yang Kurama had run wild for a bit.

Really, it was amazing that none of us had managed to get bounties before the pair with the Red Hair Pirates. Just through sheer carelessness.

"You're going to have to deal with the defenses on your own," Marco admitted, once we'd exchanged as much information as we dared over open channels.

Since meeting Kuromushi, we were much more wary of other black snails possibly listening in. It wasn't like Naruto had found the creature in the wild. He'd kicked six shades of shit out of a Marine to get it, instead. That meant there could easily be more of them in Marine hands.

"That's okay," I said. While the other three passengers on Isobu's back nodded along, I added, "We'll manage."

"I'm sorry we don't have any more information for you," Marco said, while Komushi drooped somewhat to reflect his lack of satisfaction with the issue. "But if you can hold the position for a few days…well, we'll see what happens."

I didn't know what kind of mustering would need to take place before the Whitebeard Pirates would be on this side of the Red Line again, but it wouldn't be fast enough for my purposes. I'd seen a good twenty or so other crews' flags on a wall in one of their halls, and though those subordinate crews could be anywhere, we wouldn't get any further along by waiting around.

"Hoist the colors or whatever, I guess?" I said with a shrug, though my air of casual indifference was ruined by the way I gripped the receiver so hard the metal components creaked. "In a few days, it'll be over one way or another."

Meaning that whether or not the rescue mission a success, the World Government would be feeling it. No matter what.

AN: Whoops. Nice try, everyone, but "your princess is in another castle," to quote a Mario game or two.

Some of you in the audience, it seems, are going to get your wish. Next stop: the underwater prison known as Impel Down!

And a question: If I start writing up some of the alternate POV sections I have bouncing around in my "bonus scenes" doc, should they go in the main chapters as they become relevant or should they all get piled into special bonus sections after the main plot is over?