AN: Hi, everyone! You get the chapter about twelve hours early because I work tomorrow.
The songs for this chapter are "Ninmu (Mission)" from the Naruto Shippūden original soundtrack, and the Mission Impossible main theme. You'll probably be able to tell when the mood shifts from one to the other.
I don't think you understand what "knocking" is for.
I tested the structure for stability.
With your forehead. At what Utakata tells me is not a safe speed for ships.
I tested it thoroughly. Isobu sent me a sensation of pure smug, then added, And I have discovered two additional details.
…Okay. What are we working with, here?
First, both the material of the Gate of Justice and the Impel Down main structure can serve as adequate locations to place explosive seals.
Oh, goodie. Then we could blow up everything once we got Ace out. My long-atrophied morals were already screaming at the thought, while Isobu had never been taught the concept of valuing human life and treasured his ignorance.
Second, jamming or destroying the Gate of Justice will prevent sailing vessels from arriving at Impel Down. While I grimaced at the thought of having to deal with the apparently Marine-based superstructures that we'd passed on our way into this misbegotten overgrown whirlpool, Isobu just said, The Tarai Current only maintains a triangular circuit between Impel Down, Marineford, and Enies Lobby because there are three functional structures. Without access through this Gate, the Marines will need to sail around their precious oceanic disaster.
And the sad part was that Isobu was the closest thing we had to an expert opinion. Saiken hadn't cared to learn about the actual makeup of the Grand Line, preferring instead just to travel through it while fussing over Utakata, and the others didn't have any particular Water affinity. Isobu, on the other hand, was the sort of person to follow through when he made vows of vengeance or spite—and in this case, that meant he could read and control most of the water in his immediate area.
The Whitebeards hadn't been able to warn us about the Tarai Current and other fun things in a way that would have actually made us stop. We weren't experts on sailing or navigation, but we were pretty good at being able to break everything we got hands or claws on in blissful ignorance.
So, we jam it shut. By any means necessary. There had to be a set of controls around here somewhere. I just wasn't sure if any of us would recognize them without a big red button of doom.
That is only the beginning. Speaking of, have you come up with an approach for the interior? Because Yang Kurama wishes to inform you that a low body-count will be unacceptable.
Of course he did. I pinched the bridge of my nose before back to work on our actual plan, while Isobu made his way back up to the surface. I didn't ask him about explosives just yet, because he wouldn't plant them before we were ready to blow this taco stand sky-high.
Whether it was years of reading missions and reports or a distinct role as the informal second-in-command of all of Kirigakure, Utakata found the prisoner transfer paperwork within five minutes of entering the top floor.
Prior to this point, he and Saiken had glued every battleship defending Impel Down—all ten of them—to each other. Then Yang Kurama shoved them all out into the Calm Belt without their sails or any of their transponder snails, which were all under Naruto's care at the moment. While Isobu watched the nearby sea for signs of Sea Kings or other hostiles (and threatened to atomize all of the Marine ships in his mind), the three adult jinchūriki in our group headed into the very top level of Impel Down. Matatabi, meanwhile, sat on the prison's roof and curled into a giant fiery ball, broadcasting a notice-me-not genjutsu on everyone who got too close to the island.
Naruto was with the Tailed Beasts now, scribbling last-minute seals on Impel Down's approximation of a dock. As much as that kid wanted adventure, I had no intention of allowing him to get into the kind of trouble that Kushina wouldn't approve of. Infiltrating a supermax prison was kind of on the list of things Kushina would instead kill me for allowing her kid to try. Especially given some of the personnel files Utakata was turning up.
Ah, well. At least we'd managed to hit the entire administrative floor with a series of Water Prisons and basically suffocated everyone into submission. Made the whole infiltration thing a lot easier when everyone was too unconscious to put up a fight or raise an alarm. Isobu's ding-dong-ditch routine had at least gathered most of them into easy reach.
"Well, we have a problem." Yugito pulled a file out of apparently nowhere and slapped it down on a table, frowning. "We missed the warden."
I scanned it with my brain mainly on a different problem. Something, something, nineteen-foot-tall asshole with the Doku Doku no Mi. Was he a Paramecia or a Logia? I didn't like the idea of fighting another poison-user who seemed to be more dangerous than Sasori, but he wouldn't give us much choice if he wanted this prison intact by the end of things.
I could only hope that all of us had the same blanket immunity to poison that Isobu had given me. If not, this would be one hell of an unpleasant way to find out.
"Any idea where he is?" I asked, while still digging around for some kind of blueprint. I didn't actually care about how the levels were put together, except to find a way around having to walk through the interestingly-named Hells. Did the staff use elevators or something?
"No idea." Utakata looked down, then kicked one of the guards who'd almost drowned a bit earlier. "Do either one of you know how to conduct a genjutsu interrogation?"
I shuddered inwardly. Utakata was talking about the kind of behavior that my village left to Torture and Interrogation, and for good reason. Out at sea, Isobu crunched a Sea King between his jaws with perhaps more force than strictly necessary.
"It was not a part of my training," Yugito said, unfazed.
"Then we will have to find the warden and deal with him," Utakata muttered, and flipped through intake paperwork again. "Whatever else is down there can't be worse than a man who oozes poison."
Oh, but we had a mess of other descriptions to work from.
Level One: Crimson Hell, where apparently the very plant life was devoted to evolving into razor blades.
Level Two: Wild Beast Hell, because of course there needed to be a minotaur level in a place based on the mythical labyrinth. They hadn't deliberately fed a bunch of Athenians to a particularly nasty monster, but probably only because this planet didn't have an Athens.
Level Three: Starvation Hell, for when just punting people into an existing desert wasn't enough, and the World Government needed to build their own.
Level Four: Blazing Hell. Where the fuck had they gotten enough blood to make a boiling lake?
Level Five: Freezing Hell. Ha-ha, you thought being too hot was bad? Think again.
And that didn't even get into the mounds of reports on at least a hundred different methods of torture inflicted on the prisoners. Flogging, dangling prisoners above the flames of Level Four, letting them get eaten by wild animals, freezing them to death… Some of them might've even deserved extreme punishments, but my brain stalled out when trying to imagine Ace being put through any of it.
It would have been kinder just to hand out summary executions. Which there were no shortage of, either. Warden Magellan's Devil Fruit powers likely made such a process far less expensive than lethal injection, too.
"The good news is that he's only being held until his execution," Utakata said, while I silently freaked out. As I shot a glare at him, Utakata added pointedly, "If they don't plan to keep him here long, then the World Government won't bother with more than the usual precautions. No custom prison cell, for example."
I bit the inside of my cheek. "Do they really need one? Sea prism stone handcuffs could handle Ace's Logia powers, and if not, they could just dunk him in seawater."
Which, given that this facility was located in the middle of the ocean, would not be a difficult process.
"You're asking practical questions of an oceangoing society that nonetheless insists on its greatest soldiers being as buoyant as fishing weights," Utakata said, shaking his head. "No, I imagine they just crammed him somewhere impossible to escape—for him, anyway."
Shinobi were quite a different matter, starting with a lack of compunctions about ruthlessly exploiting said weaknesses without giving up any of our own. Utakata and I, for example, were basically immune to drowning. I, in particular, had enough of a simmer on my temper that I was nearly willing to blow holes in the underwater structure to achieve the result I wanted. A very unpleasant part of me was looking forward to seeing how well the various Devil Fruit users among the prison staff would fare against the Coral Palm and Utakata's Giant Water Prison.
It was such a pity that the government torture facility's tendency to inflict pain would mean any genjutsu we tried to apply en masse would be dispelled almost instantly from the prisoners, who we couldn't trust. Guess we had to be a bit less subtle and leave fewer prison guards intact.
I might have been reminded that I wasn't a weapon, but there were times when it was useful to think like both mobile artillery and a soldier. Peacetime-me could take a load off for a while.
"I'll find the lift device after I gather a few more supplies," Yugito said, jamming her set of papers back into a filing cabinet and idly slamming it shut with a sharp swing of her hip. "If nothing else, we can drop a small Isobu clone down the shaft to see how far it goes."
I would not object. One would hope they can remain useful, was Isobu's dry reply, though I repeated it for Yugito without the sass.
She nodded, then said briskly, "In that case, I will return in a moment. Keep searching for information."
When Yugito left, I glanced at Utakata and his growing pile of transfer paperwork before sighing in resignation. There were a number of reason I never wanted to be Hokage, and a similar paperwork gauntlet was one of them. Still, if we were going to get any information about this hellhole of a prison, the only way to do so would be to roll up our sleeves and keep digging.
Kei? Isobu asked, at the same time I picked up a piece of paper about someone named "Buggy the Clown."
What is it? Admittedly, my attention was only half on what I was supposed to be doing, since Utakata was mowing through the files while sitting on one of the unconscious prison workers. It wasn't like I was really helping in any case, so Isobu was a welcome distraction.
You already know I have been in contact with Shukaku, Isobu said slowly.
I did. But Isobu wouldn't have brought it up unless he was trying to make a point. The slow creeping feeling of impending doom, of the same stripe I used to feel when my students showed up for training with glitter in their hair, settled over me. What did you do?
I…may have told Shukaku about the modifications to our mission. Isobu sounded uncharacteristically hesitant, and I knew instantly there was much more to what he said than just that. Specifically, of our decision to save Ace from Impel Down.
"Fuck," I said aloud as I banged my head on the wall, and Utakata jerked out of his reading to stare at me.
"What is it?" he demanded.
And Shukaku told Gaara, who told his captain. For all that they were in the Sabaody Archipelago, they are now heading this way. At speed.
"We have allies heading this way," I growled.
Utakata got to his feet, dislodging all of the paperwork that had been sitting on his lap. Both of us were already running out of the office and toward the artificial harbor we'd clogged to the gills with Saiken's slime. We needed to clear it out if the Straw Hats were going to dock.
Still, Utakata was not any happier with that minimalist explanation. "Who?"
Specifically, Chōmei is taking the Thousand Sunny and all of the Straw Hat Pirates here, Isobu admitted, sheepish. I didn't know where the Going Merry had gone if the Straw Hats had a new ship, but clearly some things had changed since the last time I'd been able to personally talk to any of them. Not what I intended to happen.
"The Seven-Tails and the One-Tailed Beast," I said for Utakata's benefit, once we'd cleared the trees.
"I'm not sure if that counts as convenient or hideously unlucky when we are trying to be subtle," Utakata muttered, following me.
We darted up the walls and then hurled ourselves across the gap to the outer ring of Impel Down's fortifications. The arcs of our respective jumps put us halfway up the other wall, and we had to dart up and over those too. Whoever had decided on the scale of the prison's design had clearly been thinking of giants, not humans.
Isobu sat just outside the walls, spitting out a series of cat-sized clones for Yugito's use while Naruto clambered up the wall and toward the lounging Yang Kurama, with suspicious lumps in his borrowed jacket. My partner bobbed in the only free patch of sea left after Saiken had gone to work, and Utakata and I dropped from the fortifications like stones to Isobu's shell.
"Isobu informed me of what he's done," Yugito said, and handed me one of the Isobu clones once I'd bounded over to her. "Seeing as our mission may have changed once again, all of us will be carrying these clones to act as transponder snails as a precaution against black snails."
Isobu's clone climbed around in my jacket until it was clinging to my shoulders like a living backpack and then wrapped two of its tails around my waist. The other Isobu clone Yugito was carrying had already attached itself to her, and the last one crawled up Utakata's pant leg to do the same. Isobu coughed, and three more clones slammed into the ground near us.
"Uta, Uta, did something happen?" Saiken asked as he emerged from the ocean like the gargantuan slug he was. It was a little like watching a whale breach, but without crashing back into the water. His voice was a little muffled by the layer of slime pinning his eyestalks to his head, though.
"We're going to need to clear the ocean, Saiken," Utakata said, still eyeing the Isobu clone backpack with some suspicion. "I know you enjoy being faster than Isobu and the others with all the slime, but… Well, we have friends heading here, and we need somewhere for them to put their ship."
"Oh, okay. It's a bit sticky for ships, I guess." Saiken twisted his head around, looking at the warships he'd tangled up before. "Maybe if I just shove it all over there, no one will notice."
And with that, all of the thoroughly disgusting seawater started moving away from Impel Down. Isobu needed to duck under the water to avoid being slimed, and us shinobi retreated to the fortification walls to watch the strangely-textured parts of the ocean flow away and bother someone else. Saiken actually started to hum while the slime moved away.
Yugito looked down at Utakata, then said, "Your Tailed Beast counterpart is considerably less serious than you are."
"And I believe we should clear a landing area now," Matatabi put in, from above us. When we looked up, her lamp-like eyes narrowed as her ears twitched. "I can hear our brother's wings already."
Utakata, Yugito, and I all scrambled up the side of Impel Down's walls, reaching Matatabi's dangling paw just before we hurtled over the crenelations. She shifted her weight, settling herself with her tails wrapped around her feet.
"Ah, the incessant buzzing," Yang Kurama grumbled, flicking an ear. He lounged across the outer wall of the prison, on the opposite side from Matatabi, and looked bored at best. "Another thing I did not miss about his existence."
"I can't hear anything!" Naruto shouted from Kurama's head. Was I seeing things, or was he covered in transponder snails?
"Oh, you will," Yang Kurama told him, and put his hands over his ears.
Above my head, so did Matatabi.
So, I have a question, I said silently as Yugito dove into Matatabi's fiery fur and Utakata created a water bubble in his hands. And then crammed it over his ears like a pair of ear protectors.
Ask it, Isobu responded.
Somewhere out there in the bright, cloud-free sky, there was a dark shape. Given the distances involved, there was no way that was any ordinary bird. As I covered my ears and stuck my feet to the masonry with chakra, I asked, What is Chōmei's top speed?
…As strange as it feels to say this, I never asked him. Then Isobu ducked his head underwater at the same time that, out to sea, Saiken sank up to his eyestalks in slime. Here he comes.
The dark shape in the distance resolved itself into the biggest bug in all of existence at a speed that was outright terrifying. Only the armored beetle section of his body was blue, built like a cross between a knight in armor and a rhinoceros beetle. Six spindly legs radiated outward from a strangely humanoid torso, and the lowest two pairs clutched a proportionately-tiny ship in the claw-like ends. The other half of its body swept down into an elongated abdomen resembling a wasp's, with six green-and-orange wings radiated outward from its tip like fan blades. After all that, the plain whiplike tail trailing behind for balance was clearly an afterthought.
Overall, it was amazing that his fly-by didn't throw anyone caught in his wake into next week. Then I remembered that Chōmei, like Shukaku, was probably a Wind-aligned Tailed Beast. If he couldn't control how air moved around him, he probably wouldn't be able to fly with wings that far back on his body.
Now if only he'd somehow packed ear protection for everyone at the landing zone, it would have been a perfect flyover exercise.
Chōmei flew probably another five miles or so around as he tried to shed speed, wings slowing and somehow getting louder as he approached. Maybe it was just that I could hear the individual wing-beats through my hands as he slowed down.
And yet, as Chōmei flew overhead a second time and started to imitate the world's biggest helicopter for the landing—kicking up a hell of a lot of wind, dust, and debris, to the point that Utakata, Yugito, and I all activated V1 cloak just to stay where we were—I looked up. In the midst of the Tailed Beast's furious wingbeats, a blue-clad shape had nonetheless leapt out of the lion-faced ship in Chōmei's claws.
I had just about enough time to think, Fucking hell, Luffy!
And then there was a crater on the front step of the keep we'd just left.
I bunched the chakra tails under my body and threw myself at the inner keep as though on a spring, hitting stone nearly as hard as Luffy had. Ace's little brother had just about ruined the entire concept of stealth forevermore, and I just barely managed to remember to drop the V1 cloak and snatch him up with a Water Dragon Bullet's fangs before he could dash into the prison.
"Hei?" Luffy asked, despite being held upside-down in the air by his ankle. "What are you doing here?"
Given that he'd just survived a hundred-meter drop with no trouble, I chose to cancel the Water Dragon Bullet and drop him on his face when the water exploded into passive liquid once again.
I crossed my arms while Luffy got back to his feet. "I'm here to help break Ace out."
"Eh? But I thought you and Wasabi—"
What.
What.
"Isobu," I corrected automatically, though I boggled internally at Luffy's nickname choices.
"—got lost?" Luffy asked, continuing like he hadn't heard me. He cocked his head to one side.
"…I'd call it more, uh, getting a crew together for the job," I replied, scratching my head. Why did I suddenly feel like I was planning a heist? This wasn't Ocean's Eleven. "Yugito, Utakata, and Naruto are…not all joining in, but you're definitely not taking your crew in there alone."
Matatabi's genjutsu is still active. You have a little time to coordinate.
Thank you. "Let's just get everyone down here so we can figure out who's going where," I suggested, with a wary look directed into the depths of the prison. We didn't want to kill everyone, and I still didn't know for sure what long-term effects a Tailed Beast's chakra could have, even in a form as light as genjutsu.
Luffy looked up to where Chōmei was still figuring out how to safely lower the ship to water level, then nodded. "Okay. But I'm going in, no matter what."
I did not expect anything less.
It probably went without saying that the Tailed Beasts would need to stay outside of the prison. Aside from Shukaku in sandstorm form, none of them could so much as fit inside the front door. When it came to weight, I didn't even want to think about it. There was no way the prison would be able to stand up to a Tailed Beast running around man-made floors. Further, having multiple giant monsters would mean they'd take the brunt of the Marines' inevitable counter-offensive and spare the Thousand Sunny from needing to bounce cannonballs back. Since that was apparently a thing ships could do.
The Straw Hat Pirates had picked up four new members since the last time I'd seen them in person. I finally got a good look at them when the lot of them disembarked.
The first, Nico Robin, was a woman whose Devil Fruit ability was to create limbs in her line of sight. Her composed temperament could be an asset, but I trusted the Straw Hats to have a better idea of what she could do when she got going. I just didn't like the idea of stacking too many sea prism stone weaknesses to any single team. The prison was practically swimming in the stuff.
The second, Franky the cyborg (which still didn't make any sense to me, given local tech levels), had cola-powered super strength. Not knowing how to address that, I didn't. Once again, the Straw Hats had a better idea of what they'd be capable of doing.
And the third was a walking, talking, afro-adorned skeleton who had asked to see Yugito's panties, and had subsequently gotten his skull punched off for the remark. While Usopp helped him look for it, I found out that "Humming" Brook was the Straw Hats' second swordsman and the musician that Luffy had spent so long looking for.
The last was Fū, jinchūriki to Lucky Seven Chōmei. Tiny, green-haired, and orange-eyed, Fū was… Well, I wasn't really sure what I'd expected. Perhaps I'd thought she'd be a bit like Gaara, given how most people in Hidden Villages tended to treat jinchūriki. But no, instead she was more or less a female counterpart of Luffy.
"The outside world is so big," Fū said, grinning widely. "Going back to Takigakure would be so squishy if I tried it now. Or maybe the word is…'tiny?' I don't know. Something like that!"
"It's a familiar feeling, whatever it is," Gaara said quietly. "Keisuke, I think that I should go into the prison."
"Okay," was all I said in response, because hell if I was telling the Straw Hats—any of them—what to do. I'd already realized just from reading newspapers that they tended to move as a single chaotic force of destruction and wouldn't listen to orders even if I was halfway qualified to command them.
"Why does Gaara get to go in when I don't?" Naruto asked, slinging an arm over Gaara's shoulder. He was, as I'd suspected, carrying ten adult transponder snails around. I didn't exactly understand how, given that Naruto was still fairly small, but apparently the creatures didn't slow him down any more than his training weights did.
Unsurprisingly, the Naruto and Gaara were fast friends. Equally unsurprisingly, Fū was included in their group by virtue of being fourteen and therefore the next-youngest of everyone here. Besides possibly Chopper.
I met Naruto's eyes squarely and said, "Because if I did, your mother would kill me."
"Mom's not here," Naruto argued, glaring up at me despite the way his scowl pulled his eyes into his foxlike thinking face. And the way a snail was chewing on his hair. "And it's not like I'm gonna be that much safer outside once those Marine guys start figuring out what we did."
The main risk wouldn't be the Marines, whether from beyond the Gate of Justice or trapped on the battleships. It would be the Tailed Beasts "dealing with" any sign of rebellion.
"Seems to me like the little guy's super determined," said Franky, patting Naruto's head with one massive hand. He practically disappeared under it with only a token protest. Franky then turned his attention to me and added, in a lower tone, "…'Sides, Marine battleships these days are no joke."
I sighed. "I suppose I'll be able to keep a better eye on him down there…"
And I'd faced worse. I'd faced worse with fewer escape options before. And if things got too hairy, Naruto could be reverse-summoned out by a protectively-inclined Yang Kurama. I'd love to see anyone attempt to get past him, because there were some kinds of people whose bullheaded determination needed to hit a brick wall.
"Fine," I said grudgingly, and Naruto gave a whoop of joy, springing off Gaara and doing a quick victory lap of our group. "But the extra snails are staying out here!"
"You're a lot less scary than your name makes you sound," Fū commented, hands behind her head. I could feel her chakra circulating around her back, in preparation for our inevitable charge. "We have a bunch of ways out, but we need to knock all the defenses down to get to Ace. So, we will."
"It won't be quite that easy," Zoro said, tying a bandanna around his head. "Never is."
"But none of that matters," Chopper said, in a form that looked approximately like Hulk Hogan crossed with a reindeer. "Because Ace is our friend and Luffy's brother."
"I assure you, whatever human trickery these Marines attempt will not get past us," Matatabi said, with her two tails lashing through the air. "Really, you should have more confidence in our strength by now."
"And I want my shot at that human who burned Uta," Saiken broke in, his fists clenched. "I'll make him sorry he ever met us!"
"Pah, getting involved in human squabbles when your host can't handle himself?" Yang Kurama scoffed. "How undignified of you, Six-Tails."
"Shut up!" Saiken's entire frame shuddered with suppressed anger, sending waves rippling across the Calm Belt. "You're always like this, every time we meet!"
"…It's going to be a fucking massacre if the Marines somehow show up for real. And not for our side," I muttered, my hand over my face while Yang Kurama argued with everyone else. "Can I at least get everyone to agree to picking a combat buddy? Someone who can complement your skills and act as backup."
Everyone looked at each other. The collective reaction I got was along the lines of "Naaaaah."
Look, I tried. But the first step in any plan involving the Straw Hat Pirates was also the first step in not following the plan. Sure, normally the rule of thumb was "no plan survives contact with the enemy," but the Straw Hats were unique because there didn't even have to be an enemy. They just didn't work like that.
Given that all of us jinchūriki were now more than halfway through the bands on our wrist—Yugito and I up to six-and-a-half, and each of the others with up to five-and-a-half numbers revealed—we were probably about as close to combat readiness as we'd get. Utakata and Yugito could both use the complete V2 cloak as well as partial transformations, while Gaara could summon parts of Shukaku as needed from his gourd. Fū could pull off enough of a partial transformation that she could fly on demand, and while Naruto still wasn't old enough to handle more than a one-tailed V1 cloak, he'd gotten an expanded chakra reserve out of the deal.
(And yes, I did get all of them to demonstrate a bit of that power before we dared consider ourselves ready to head in. Somehow, I had wrangled something akin to operational command, and thus needed to be certain.)
We could handle ourselves for the most part. All I could do to add to our repertoire was to give every jinchūriki a free Isobu backpack to keep our communication lines open. There was no way we'd be able to rely on snails inside, but I refused to sacrifice what remaining tactical advantages we had solely because we could power through.
And I very specifically meant the jinchūriki when I thought that. The Straw Hats could not have enough power, even across their entire crew, to tackle Impel Down on their own.
Sure, we didn't know what we'd really be facing farther down into the prison. We had the brief descriptions of each level, half a flashcard of information on some of the staff, and enough determination that I'd have genuinely worried if we were any other group. But as it was, we were probably more of a danger to ourselves than anything in the prison would be.
Ah, well. C'est la vie.
Luffy slammed his fists together, then cracked his knuckles. "Nothing's gonna stop us. Not any Warlord, not the Marines, and not any warden."
This drew a cheer of bloodthirsty enthusiasm from everyone except Yugito, Utakata, and me. Yugito did smile, though, and Utakata briefly closed his visible eye before nodding. We were all in this together.
"By the way, Luffy," I said, before the two of us got started storming the castle. When he turned to me, I had both Ace's hat and his thigh holster in hand, holding them out to him. "These are your brother's. It may be best if you return them to him."
"Huh?" Luffy blinked, tilting his head to one side. "You've been carrying them this whole time, right? Then you should be the one to give them back."
"I was the one who failed to keep him safe," I argued, but quietly. The others were already going on ahead. "It's not my right."
"Ace won't care about that," Luffy said, and it was my turn to stare. "You're here now, and we're here, and we're gonna get him back. Simple." He nodded to himself. "So, let's just do it!"
We were heading into the very jaws of death, and yet…
And yet…
I believed him.
I settled Ace's hat at the back of my neck again and reattached the thigh holster as a sort of improvised belt over the one I was already wearing. Then we walked into the gates of hell as one team bent on utter destruction.
I'd never read Dante's Inferno, or any other book in the Divine Comedy. Closest I'd ever gotten was knowing that Hell was supposed to have circles, and even then I didn't know what they comprised. Thankfully, the information Utataka pulled from the intake office gave us a fairly good idea of what we were in for.
We skipped the sterilization process by virtue of having disabled everyone on the top level ahead of time, because fuck getting chucked into boiling water when half of our party couldn't swim. Besides, we weren't planning on staying long enough to need to go through a wash cycle. Yugito and Usopp took the time to disable half the water mechanisms in the area in case we needed to come back through after the prison staff had woken up.
Yugito also decided to jam the Gates of Justice closed by sacrificing the katana I had long since lost faith in. With that strip of steel impaling the control panel and Monster Trio attacks destroying any consoles we could find, no one was moving the gigantic contraption anytime soon. Usopp and Naruto rigged the generator powering the control panel (and the prison's ventilation system) with explosive notes in case we needed to break everything on our way out.
And then it was off to the races.
First up, Crimson Hell.
The first level of Impel Down was more or less a forest, but of the sort of cosmic design that could only happen in the Grand Line. The plant life itself was basically a hundred different variations of saw ferns taken up to eleven. The trees' leaves were razor blades, the grass was made of needles like particularly evil Astroturf, and I had no interest in being perforated by either. Worse, the entire place stank of fear, blood, and rot, and every few seconds screams of agony would ring out across the structure.
"Gaara, you're up," said Zoro, eying the "greenery" with a deeply skeptical expression.
Gaara stepped forward, looking placidly out from our landing zone to the depths of the massive, blood-soaked room. Then the gourd on his back started dissolving into free-floating sand, complemented by the subtle shaking below our feet as Gaara eroded away some of the stone beneath the hostile plant life. He'd been creating more sand the hard way since arriving at Impel Down—just enough not to compromise the strength of the structure—and now it was time for the magic carpet ride.
"Desert Suspension," Gaara murmured, as the sand settled underneath our feet. Without either hand seals or even an errant twitch, he lifted our entire group into the air and we were flying off into the depths of the forest.
"People are totally going to take potshots at us," Naruto said, from somewhere around my knee. I'd shoved him toward the middle of the group upon remembering that he couldn't form a V1 cloak on demand, and Gaara's sand shield didn't auto-parry for anyone other than himself.
"I doubt any of the prisoners here would be in any state to attack," said Robin, perfectly serene as we took the Desert Caravan route. "Now, the guards on the other hand…"
As she spoke, Usopp fired two shots into the trees, knocking a pair of guards right down into the…ow. That had to hurt.
"Or the other defenses…"
At that point, a giant spider lunged out of the trees and was promptly nailed in the face by Sanji's foot.
"Robin, can you please stop?" Nami asked, her face a mask of carefully-balanced fear and irritation.
"I just find it nostalgic." Robin smiled. "Don't you?"
"Breaking into a big, scary World Government building to save a friend?" Fū asked, grinning. "Sounds familiar to me!"
Gaara's sand automatically blocked a rifle shot from the front, sending a rippling shockwave harmlessly over our heads. He had the best windshield this world had ever seen, even before Shukaku got involved.
A split second later, Usopp leaned out from behind the shield just far enough to get a shot off with his polearm-sized slingshot, eliciting another shout of pain from the defenders.
And then there was more screaming as someone fell into the vegetation again. Oops.
"Yugito, did you ever manage to find the elevator shaft?" I asked, now that the thought occurred to me once more.
"No, but at this point I doubt it matters," Yugito admitted, shrugging. "We're going to storm directly down the middle, are we not?"
I took stock of our group, the fact that the guards were shooting at us, and the distinct lack of Matatabi's chakra filtering down from above us. Whether because she'd decided the guards couldn't take more without being cooked inside their skins, or something else had come up outside of the prison's walls, I didn't know. Given Yugito's lack of concern, I decided I didn't care either.
Still…
"I'll keep the guards here from following you or reporting in," Gaara said, as we approached the hole in the ground.
His sand flared out around us like a massive wave, throwing literal tons of material around us and into the air. The rest of our group found our collective feet, with Nami stumbling a bit on her heels. While the guards continued to pour shot after shot into the sand shield, it held and let us sort things out in our own time.
"I don't like the idea of leaving friends behind," Luffy objected, crossing his arms.
Zoro and Nami, coming up behind him, smacked him hard enough to make his head rattle like a bobblehead figurine. Zoro punctuated his punch with, "Trust in your crew, Captain."
That was certainly one way to keep the Straw Hats' captain on track. Given that he ignored blunt force anyway, the worse Zoro could do barehanded was knock his hat off. Maybe that was why Luffy didn't react other than to push his hat backward off his head, letting it sit at the nape of his neck by its cord, in a perfect mirror of where I wore Ace's hat.
"We can keep in contact with Isobu's clones," I said, while the aforementioned creatures attached themselves more firmly to the team's jinchūriki members.
Gaara's sat up on his gourd and waved its left tail.
"Th-The Great Captain Usopp will stay with you," Usopp stammered, even though his knees briefly knocked together from sheer nerves.
"I'll stay here, too," Nami said, sticking the multiple sections of her Clima-Tact staff together.
"Are you sure?" Gaara asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked up at his two teammates with wide eyes, as though he'd expected to be left behind with no comment just because he could handle himself.
But these were the Straw Hats.
Nami put her hand on his shoulder. "Of course we're sticking around." With a slightly nervous look on her face, she went on, "Anyway, uh, can you keep the guards from shooting us?"
Gaara nodded. "Easily. Leave the defense to me."
Gaara's sand shot up over our heads, forming a massive dome for just a second. I could feel approximately half of the sand pooling underneath our feet as Gaara took more and more material out of the prison's structure, treating it like any random chunk of earth. From outside the safe darkness of the sand dome, I could hear the sound of glass shattering, stone grinding together, and more than a few of the strange razor-trees exploding into splinters.
In comparison, the bullets hitting the shield sounded like rain in comparison.
That was one hell of a remodeling job.
"All right, one last thing before we head down," I said, while we were contemplating the leap down into Level Two. When I had everyone's attention, I asked, "How many of you can either summon or be reverse-summoned by your partners?"
Utakata and Naruto raised their hands, though Gaara and Fū just looked confused. Utakata had been introduced to the concept through Saiken, and I knew Naruto was still training to be worthy of the toad summon contract as judged by Gamabunta.
And, well, the Straw Hats hadn't seen this before. I didn't ask for their opinions.
As succinctly as I could manage, I explained the concept of summoning, which thankfully everyone in the group was at least vaguely familiar with. Reverse-summoning was the idea of getting yanked to one's partner's location, rather than summoning an animal or spirit to the contract-signer's location. Though I didn't want to think of the possibility, there was a chance that we wouldn't be able to fight our way out of Impel Down. And there was no way in hell I was letting anyone stay behind when there was a simple solution to our tactical mobility limitations.
"I'm sorry that we don't have any time to train with this," I said. Really, I should have made sure we practiced with this before now, but there was no use crying over spilled milk at this point. Spilled blood would be next. "If we need to evacuate everyone at once, it's going to be a scramble. All I can do is ask is that you do the best you can."
"My easiest route would just to be smashing my way out with Nami and Usopp," Gaara said, eying the spot in the sand dome that would lead to the front gates of Impel Down if he shot a sand bullet that way. "We will see you on the outside once our mission is complete."
"And besides, Gaara can, uh, just call Shukaku in if things get scary, right?" Usopp suggested. Then he paused for a fraction of a second before muttering, "Wait, that would make things even more scary…"
Yeah, they'd be fine.
While Sanji delivered a last lecture for Usopp's sake about keeping Nami safe, the rest of us leapt down into Level Two.
"108 Caliber Phoenix!"
"Gum-Gum Bazooka!"
"Strong Right!"
"Clutch!"
"Scale Powder Blizzard!"
"Why do you people call your attacks?" Utakata demanded, while the Straw Hats took a collective boot to the collective faces of the monsters on Level Two.
Sanji took a long, slow drag from his cigarette, then responded with, "Why don't you?"
This, of course, after having kicked a so-called manticore into submission. And literally kicked the asses of about three others.
Really, this hardly seemed fair.
Resting on your laurels will not get Ace out of there any faster, Isobu reminded me.
What's the situation like out there? I asked, while Sanji and Utakata got along as well as water and a grease fire.
Thus far, we have discovered that the Marine ships were placed here to guard against an attack by Whitebeard. Saiken heard them panicking that Whitebeard did not attack, and that we did. Isobu snorted. So much for their resolve as soldiers.
And the guards? I didn't have much to say about the sheer existential terror Tailed Beasts could invoke in humans that weren't acclimated to their presence. Isobu knew perfectly well what the Marines' problem was.
Actually, now that I thought of it, this was the first time in even our history that so many Tailed Beasts or hosts had been directed at a single target. No village had more than two field-ready jinchūriki at a given time, and no one was generally stupid enough to waste the strategic potential involved by deploying them to the same front. Even knowing that half our number were children, and I couldn't use the full V2 cloak, the aura of concentrated overkill involved had to be palpable to everyone who'd be assigned to try and get past the six Tailed Beasts outside.
Matatabi says that while the guards are awake due to the disturbances you have created, she has control over all of the adult transponder snails. On the other hand, baby transponder snails have much shorter ranges, and are still active. Isobu sent me a sensation of something akin to scorn, either at the Marines for using animals in such a way that they were every bit as important to shoot as security cameras or at Matatabi for her squeamishness. I wasn't sure. You should be able to hear them if you use Kuromushi.
Thanks, Isobu. "Hey, Naruto, check to see if Kuromushi has anything to say," I suggested.
Aside from tossing a few explosive notes here and there, and picking the occasional lock, Naruto hadn't been doing all that much besides sticking to me like glue. So he jumped on the chance.
"Right!" He rolled up his sleeve and uncovered Kuromushi, who immediately popped up out of its shell and bared its little teeth in a growl. "Hey, Kuromushi, can we listen in on everyone else?"
Kuromushi made a hiss-click noise, then blared, "IT'S A DISASTER! THE FIRST BREAK-IN IN HISTORY AND IT HAD TO BE A WHOLE GROUP?!"
"A hundred beri says that's the guards," I said flatly.
"Sucker's bet," Robin commented, while her hands sprouted out of shoulder pads and lapels to choke the various prison guards unconscious.
"Let's see what they have to say, then," Naruto said, holding up the snail.
"The Straw Hat Pirates are invading!" screamed Kuromushi.
"Not just the Straw Hats," Fū said with a wide grin as she buzzed past our heads.
"It's more of a collective affair at this point," Brook remarked, extending one bony finger to point at our…friends.
See, the level known as Wild Beast Hell was indeed built like the Labyrinth of ancient Greece. Every wall we'd passed thus far seemed lined with cells, each containing a couple of inmates cowering in the back because of the dozens of roving monsters patrolling the level. They ranged from manticores to Puzzle Scorpions (whatever the hell those were), to even just loose prisoners, since running for their lives all the time made people fairly desperate. Enough so that clearing the hallway encouraged some of them to emerge from their cells (which Robin had unlocked) and commence a brutal beatdown of the prison guards.
In fact, one of them was desperate enough to join our little band of raiders.
"Isn't this the guy you said got eaten by a crocodile?" Fū asked, pointing at our newest recruit.
"A bananagator," Zoro said, directing his usual scowl at the just-identified Mr. 3, formerly of Baroque Works.
He even had his hair styled into the shape of the number. What the hell.
"Right, that. So why isn't he dead?" She crossed her arms over her chest and her chakra buzzed in agitation. "If you're one of those Broken Works guys, didn't your jerk of a boss try to kill all of you?"
I could only assume she'd gotten the story from Luffy, because that was definitely not the organization's name the last I'd checked. Also, hadn't Fū joined the Straw Hats after they kicked Crocodile's ass? Their stories must have been compelling.
"I believe Crocodile only attempted to kill Mr. 3 and myself, out of those in his employ," was Robin's input. "And if I recall correctly, the bananagator spat him up."
"Yes, well," Mr. 3 muttered, adjusting his badly broken glasses. "I didn't expect to see you here, Miss All-Sunday."
"Nico Robin," she corrected, "since Baroque Works no longer exists."
"That's all well and good, but we need to get to the next level down," Yugito interrupted, before we got even further off-track. "Our options are, once again: the elevator we can't locate, the stairs, or to simply tear a hole through the floor and hope we don't land in a trap."
As if a single trap could hold you.
True.
Kuromushi chose that moment to blare, "WHO THE HELL IS SUPPOSED TO BE ON LEVEL TWO?! WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GUARD POST?!"
I did a quick head-count. And then noticed a giant damned hole in a wall nearby, still filled with billowing brick dust from the initial smashing, which no one else had called out either. There was something to be said for communication in a team this large.
I put a hand to my forehead. "Has anyone seen Utakata or Sanji for about five minutes?"
"You called, Kei-ki~?" Aaaand cue the Category 5 Love Hurricane.
Guess that answered that question.
"Sanji, did you find or break anything important?" I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose.
"Ah, there was a small group of guards with visual transponder snails networked to the ones on the walls, but they were no match for your white prince!" Sanji swayed in place, clearly unaffected by my indications of annoyance. Then he snapped back to normal to admit, grudgingly, "And I guess that slug-bastard helped, too."
Utakata emerged from the clearly-demolished guard post, shaking dust from his clothes. "The more of these outposts we disable, the less the guards will be able to coordinate. It's just common sense."
"You weren't saying that a minute ago," Sanji snapped. "All I heard outta you was 'and this is for…' over and over again."
Utakata ignored him, instead focusing on me. "Yugito and I will take the first attack against whatever monster lives at the end of this level. Unless you have a good argument against it."
"DEPLOY THE JAILER BEASTS! MINOTAURUS HAS TO BE ON LEVEL THREE, RIGHT?"
Utakata sighed. "Of course, there are always other options."
Sanji was already running to where yet another giant goddamned monster had appeared. This one was a winged lion with a human face—a sphinx, apparently.
He reached it at the same time that Zoro and Luffy did. There was an explosion as all three of the ironically-named Monster Trio (given who else was in our raiding party) launched simultaneous attacks. The result was enough to blow a hole down through Level Two's floor, taking the giant lion-monster with it.
"Three Sword Style Gum-Gum Diable Mouton Jet 600-Caliber Phoenix Cannon!" Fū's eyes shone as she identified the combination technique. "It's just as awesome as Luffy said it would be!"
What a mouthful. Sensei's technique naming scheme wasn't nearly that complex, and he'd been banned from naming a lot of things since I'd known him. Like his own kids.
…Wait, how had Luffy remembered what that technique was even called when he couldn't remember most people's names?
Naruto put his hands behind his head, frowning while Kuromushi continued to ramble on with every intercepted snail call it could overhear. He glanced at me, clearly a bit hesitant. "Guess we're going to Level Three. There are going to be more fights, right?"
"Probably," I said, "but don't throw yourself into anything you can't handle."
He looped both arms around my waist. "I'm gonna be okay. You know that."
I nodded, running one hand through his hair. "But it's a big sister's—and a sensei's—job to worry. Let me do that much, at least."
"Fiiine," Naruto said in a whiny tone, but it was ruined by his grin a moment later. "You're more of an aunt anyway."
I flicked him in the back of the head before he could make a clean getaway. Then the kids and I headed over to the newest security breach we'd put into Impel Down.
"It feels like it's gonna be hot down there," said Fū, peering down into the giant hole the Straw Hats' Monster Trio had blown in the floor. "Like…a desert?"
"Well, this should be familiar to some of us," Robin commented.
"I've never been in a desert before," Fū mumbled. "And I don't think I wanna try that right now."
"That sounds like a good idea," Robin said, and a hand materialized on Fū's shoulder to pat it.
"Are you staying up here, Robin?" Luffy asked, looking back. "Fū?"
"Yeah, I think we should," Fū replied, flaring her orange wings out again. She grinned widely as she said, "Robin can handle the cages, and I can keep anyone we don't like tied up."
"I'd use even more cola down there," Franky said contemplatively, while Fū landed on his shoulder. "Besides, someone needs to help Robin look after Fū, and a super someone is the best option."
"I can look after myself!" Fū protested instantly, lunging at Franky's hair.
I didn't exactly doubt her. I just worried anyway, since Fū was the third-youngest jinchūriki and by far the most naïve of us. Then again, maybe she'd had a chance to really get her feet under her in the months since landing in the midst of the Straw Hats' adventure. Maybe she'd be able to use V2 to keep everyone safe and not go berserk.
And if not, Robin was a mature sort, and Franky was at least another five years older than she was. Hopefully, the two of them would be able to help Fū keep from getting in over her head.
From the looks of things, half of the Straw Hats had already made their leap of faith into the depths. Only Chopper was still standing at the brim, and given that Chopper was a reindeer I didn't imagine that his heat tolerance had gotten any better. Maybe we ought to leave him up here?
Then Chopper hopped down into the hole.
Or not.
Once more unto the breach, I supposed.
Starvation Hell, aside from the obvious problem presented by being the middle level in a multi-story underwater prison that had no business being so big, was…boring. If I could forgive it for obviously hating human life, anyway.
Alabasta was generally hotter, sandier, and about as full of giant killer creatures. And a minimum of two-thirds of our heist crew had either endured Alabasta or had to train in desert survival at some point. Utakata probably would have had the hardest time out of us shinobi if he wasn't the host to the fifth-strongest Tailed Beast, since his hometown wasn't anything like lacking in water. The few traps left didn't mean much, either.
As for the pirates? Chopper wasn't unconscious, at least, but all that fur had to make this level an oven for him. Everyone else was dealing with it.
After giving the Level Three guards an epic beatdown—courtesy mainly of the Monster Trio, of course—we actually did find the stairs. For once. Not that I would have minded blowing a hole straight down through the prison until we found Ace, but there was such a thing as a small victory even among a bunch of larger ones. It was similar to the feeling of satisfaction upon, say, finding a matching pair of shoes in a pile after searching for a while.
The stairs were blocked by…a minotaur.
"I think that's the Minotaurus," Naruto said, from the back of our group. At the same time, Kuromushi continued to ramble about every snail signal that crossed its range.
The cartoonishly disproportionate creature stood there in the middle of the hall like its feet had been nailed to the floor. If the creature—assuming that it wasn't a Zoan—hadn't been something like twenty-five feet tall and clearly built like a brick shithouse, none of us would have hesitated to knock it into next week. As it was, Yugito was playing rock-paper-scissors with Sanji and Zoro to see who'd get the first shot at it.
Sure, Luffy was busy hugging someone he referred to as Bon-Bon—yet another attendee in the Baroque Works reunion—but the rest of us were at least making a show of trying to focus.
"DAMMIT!" said Sanji and Zoro at once, interrupting Luffy and Bon-Bon's heartfelt reunion.
And then Minotaurus got a ballistic Yugito to the face, nails extended.
"I think we're going to have to think about splitting up," Utakata said, while Yugito commenced the latest beatdown in her V1 cloak. To the backing track of extreme violence, he went on, "While some of us can fold space-time to end up back outside of the prison, the longer we can maintain chaos the longer we have to escape."
Naruto made a show of looking around, then tugged Utakata's sleeve. When the adult jinchūriki looked down, he said brightly, "I can make things explode!"
Utakata, who was not fooled by Naruto's "innocent little kid" act, frowned at him. "Has anyone ever told you that you're too young to have that as your first option?"
"You want a distraction," Naruto replied, unfazed by Utakata's disapproval. "I can be really distracting. Anyway, most of my explosives aren't that big."
"I have the ones that are," I said, so Utakata could turn some of that glare on me.
Instead, he just sighed. "I can't decide if you're a bad influence of some kind, or if you're just enabling his destructive tendencies."
Naruto grinned widely. "Come on, Uta, live a little. Explosions are cool!"
"More like hot," I put in, solely to be a bit annoying.
Utakata threw his hands in the air and walked off. "I can't work like this."
Yugito, who had wrestled Minotaurus's club out of its hand, swung the spiked monster of a weapon directly into the beast's gut as the prisoners nearby managed a ragged cheer.
Wham!
Aaaand then into its head.
Naruto bounced in place without taking much notice of the violence, then said, "So, Level Four is up next. Are we ready?"
"Considering that Level Four is even hotter than Level Three? Maybe we should think about not all jumping in," Yugito said as she walked back over to us, still carrying the Minotaurus's massive mace over her shoulder. The beast lay unconscious or dead behind her. "Further, the next level contains Warden Magellan's office. Most of us will not be able to fight him effectively."
Behind her, prisoners were starting to peek out from behind unconscious beasts and destroyed scenery. Unless I was lip-reading incorrectly—which was quite possible—they were saying things like "That's her!" and "Our great goddess has arrived!" and "Kitty!"
That last speaker was probably going to get Minotaurus's mace in the face on Yugito's next backswing.
"Pardon my saying so, young lady, but you seem to be implying that you still can," said Brook, and I still wasn't sure how a skeleton was walking and talking. He didn't have lungs.
"Utakata will last longer than most," Yugito said, in the tone of someone stating an absolute fact. "Even if he fails to subdue or kill him, we can both be retrieved by Saiken and Matatabi at a moment's notice." She stared directly into my eyes, and I suppressed the urge to look away. "It's more important that we complete our mission than do so as one mob."
"You're staying here?" I asked.
Yugito glanced back over her shoulder, to where Minotaurus was staggering back to its feet. "Mn, yes. I think so."
She turned to face the beast with the club still in her hand, swinging it to smack solidly into her left palm as though it was just a baseball bat. Her slow strides back toward the probable-Zoan were backed by the sounds of yet more faint, exhausted cheering from the prisoners in the nearby cages.
"Our goddess is here!"
"We're saaaaved!"
"Kitty!"
Once again, I would not have wanted to be the guy who thought that last line was a good one. Because, to be frank, Yugito wouldn't be busy with Minotaurus forever. And now they were audible.
"The rest of you should be able to get past while Magellan is distracted," Utakata said, not minding being volunteered. Perhaps he viewed it as practice for facing Akainu again?
Sanji scowled, then stepped forward to reinforce Yugito's attack run. "Not all of us. I can't leave a beautiful woman to face a monster alone."
Even if Yugito could turn Minotaurus into a bunch of steaks faster than Sanji could? I had no doubt that Yugito, between her jinchūriki power and willingness to set everything else on fire, was perfectly capable of soloing this floor.
"I won't say no, but be careful," Yugito said to Sanji, her tone just a touch more concerned than usual. At the same time, though, her hand on the club burst into a flame that traveled up the spikes until it looked even deadlier than before.
"Thank you, but you've heard the phrase 'If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen,' right?" Sanji asked.
Yugito nodded slowly.
"I don't have any problem with heat, in any sense of the word," Sanji replied, and his foot caught fire as he drew it back to aim right for Minotaurus's face. At the same time, so did the cigarette dangling from his mouth. "I'd call us a match made in hell, wouldn't you?"
And here I thought I was the only one making that many puns about it.
Yugito just sighed, perhaps too used to me and entirely sick of it. "Utakata, Kei, just go. Find Ace."
We did leave, since there wasn't much else to do, but not before Utakata pulled me aside to suggest a countermeasure for any traps lying in wait for us. And it was an angle of attack that no one without his durability would think about.
The stairs were trapped, in a way.
It seemed like the entire prison garrison was out in force, trying to kill or subdue us just as we were trying to do the same to them. The group mostly consisted of mooks with spears, which Luffy and Zoro made short work of. Chopper hung back, nearly insensate in the heat, and both Mr. 2 and Bon-Bon had been drafted into our group for the sake of compensating for the environmental bullshit we needed to put up with.
That didn't mean that they refrained from using whatever they had on hand to make sure the guards stayed down. And if the two former Baroque Works agents were a bit less merciful than the Straw Hats, I didn't consider that a problem worth mentioning.
Naruto and I barely had to do more than kick a few people because, as soon as Magellan emerged, the party got started for real.
Utakata, in V1, dove down from the lip of the pseudo-volcano on Level Three on the power of his explosive chakra alone. Looping his red chakra tails around the lip of the structure to control his descent, he was already rushing to engage the nearest opponent that the Straw Hats hadn't dropped. In his case, that meant the greatcoat-wearing Warden Magellan on the scaffolding near the other wall. By the time Utakata actually reached him and met an oncoming wave of poison, he was well into V2 cloak.
Utakata plowed straight through the wave of viscous purple liquid, followed it all the way to the source, and bowled Magellan into the floor. The scaffolding popped loose from the wall and screaming steel followed them down.
"I already know I should be immune to poison, but be careful," Utakata had told me, in a low, conspiratorial tone. "None of you need to be caught in the backwash of either his poison or mine. Just complete the mission."
Good luck, I thought, while Utakata did his best to bring the house down. Prisoners and guards like scattered in the wake of the two poisonous titans doing battle.
Luck is for those who cannot manage on skill, Isobu put in. Utakata will be fine.
Sure, Utakata was dwarfed by the warden even if he was channeling enough chakra to lose the ability to speak in favor of a low, bass growl. But I wouldn't have put money on Magellan.
In the meantime, the Jailer Beasts were still up and meandering their way over from the other set of stairs. The three of them were just as disproportionate as their counterpart one floor above us, and I had no doubt at all that they were probably about as durable. If Minotaurus could survive Yugito working it over with its own club, I needed to pick a less friendly option to make sure its comrades stayed down.
"Naruto, get ready," I called out, and then I kicked off the stairs with Isobu's chakra bubbling up out of my coils.
I launched straight into a V1 cloak, then smashed into the rightmost Jailer Beast—a zebra the size of a giant—in a bastardized version of Isobu's Shadow Stroke. It was a little like being an Akimichi, only I was in total control of the demonic Zorb and didn't need kunai to form wicked spikes. Given the Jailer Beasts' weapons and the relatively smooth floor of Level Four, the spikes were both poetic and practical.
The hit toppled all three of the Jailer Beasts like dominos, sending the guards into a panic that was not helped by the pink dominatrix lady screaming at everyone.
While they slowly got to their feet, Naruto dashed up and cupped his hands over my left one while I concentrated with my right and one of Isobu's chakra tails. Naruto didn't need to be in V1 to be so close to me, thanks to whatever resistance he had to Yang Kurama's chakra, and I tossed him a quick grin as he formed a Rasengan for me.
I still wasn't as quick on the draw with my left hand, not even for the Rasengan, but Naruto was always eager to help.
Naruto's Shadow Clone poofed away just as I brought all three attacks up and basked in their strength for just a second. I'd been holding back for a very long time. While this still wasn't my maximum strength, it felt a lot closer than what I'd been playing with before. Even against Teach.
"What are those supposed to be? Lamps?" asked one of the prison guards.
I smiled unpleasantly. Just because the Rasengan glowed didn't meant that was all it did.
The Jailer Beasts got to their feet. The zebra's vacant eyes snapped back to focus as well as a creature with such a wide field of vision could, and it lifted its club before charging straight at me.
Big Ball Rasengan, I thought as I ducked the initial swing and drove the left Rasengan into my opponent's solar plexus from below
It was a perfect shot. The zebra took the spinning orb of chakra directly in the stomach, which carried it backward at a forty-five degree angle that quickly turned into an arc for the opposite wall.
His comrades got the right and the tail-balanced Rasengan slammed into their throat (the rhinoceros) and groin (the koala) hard enough to blast all them to the opposite side of Level Four and into their previously-launched buddy. The stonework probably looked like absolute hell afterward, as though someone had dragged a backhoe along it, but that was all three of our "biggest" roadblocks subdued. Temporarily.
What was Utakata doing on the ceiling? He wasn't Spider-Man, and Magellan could still aim fairly high.
Utakata and Saiken want me to tell you that Magellan's poison is having no effect. He can hold this position as long as you need him to.
Then that works.
From the sound of explosions and something dripping down the stones in the distance, Magellan was still putting up a fight despite the V2 jinchūriki taking potshots at him. There was no doubt he was tougher than the average staff member around here.
Still, we weren't home free just yet.
"Mmmmm, that's enough!" The aforementioned pink dominatrix lady finally decided to get off her ass and fight us, apparently. "You've all been so, so naughty! Take your punishment! Mistress Sadi demands it!"
"Sadi…" I blinked. As in "sadism?"
But no one had time for my musings, it seemed.
"Gum-Gum Gatling!" was Luffy's response to this argument. His skin darkened to pink as his heart hammered blood through his body in a pace no ordinary human would have been able to take. His fists flew fast enough that I could see where the technique had gotten its name, but it wasn't enough.
The woman dodged reflexively, cartwheeling across the floor and ducking past each hit that cratered the ground behind her. Her whip cracked, drawing a bloody line across Luffy's knuckles as he retracted his arms. Blood shot from the cuts, which made no sense at all until I remembered that there had to be a drawback to using his physiology that way.
Brook yanked Luffy back, snagging his bony fingers in Luffy's vest collar. The nine-foot skeleton had one hell of a wingspan on him, and was probably the only person who could have made that call fast enough.
Immediately after, Naruto joined in, dogpiling him with clones wielding improvised bandages. Chopper hadn't been dealing with the heat well, but Naruto could act in his stead at least some of the time. At least in this capacity, and while his other clones lobbed explosive seals (attached to rocks) everywhere across the immediate area, buying us a bit of time.
"108 Caliber Phoenix!" Zoro shouted (somehow), slicing through the dominatrix's whip like nothing. Though the snap-back on the leather caught Zoro in the face, I had no doubt he'd been put through worse.
"Rude!" the dominatrix replied, yanking her half-length weapon back before Zoro could turn it into scraps.
"Screw you, lady!" Naruto snapped, and I swore I saw a red gleam in his eyes for just a second. "Take your animal-abusing crap and go to hell!"
That was… Uh. Not what I would have concluded. Given the outfit, the whip was probably more of a…
Fuck it. I wasn't explaining that to anyone, even under threat of torture. Kushina would eat my soul with a side of rice.
And that was about when one of those loose bombs exploded under the woman's feet, blowing a heel off her shoe. Then Zoro's next whirlwind of sword shenanigans ripped straight through her whip and launched her into a wall that had already taken multiple Jailer Beasts, and the collapse of the bricks was pretty much inevitable.
I clapped my hands, startling the Straw Hats still frozen in something akin to pure, distilled awkward and shock. Except Zoro. "Okay, Level Five right the fuck now. Utakata can handle himself."
Luffy hadn't even been surprised by any of what had happened, despite the mass of bandages around his hands. I wasn't sure he noticed innuendo in the slightest. "Let's go! Ace is still waiting for us!"
And off we went, leaving one of our own to handle the heat.
Level Five, like Level Four, posed a problem. Not because it was too hot, of course. Rather…
"It feels like there's a Winter Island past here," Chopper said, placing a hoof against the iced-over door. He'd recovered admirably quickly once we were out of the glorified oven one floor up. "I'll be fine, but we don't have enough winter clothes for everyone to go past this door. Anyone who isn't protected would succumb to hypothermia within half an hour."
And the Straw Hats were all dressed for a tropical archipelago, not a walk-in freezer. I wasn't much better, of course, but chakra circulation could get me past most of what my Drum Island gear couldn't. So much for survivalist paranoia being useless, huh?
Naruto helped me unseal as much of my winter clothes as I could find.
"How long do you think this might take?" Zoro asked, sheathing all three of his swords. It was a bit obvious that he wasn't going to be coming along into the arctic environment.
"Given Ace's vivre card, it shouldn't be more than an hour," I said, as I piled my Drum Island winter gear back on. I'd never thought I'd need it again after Drum, but the world had a way of rewarding those who were prepared. That, and Ace had bought the gear for me, and I'd always been taught never to toss a gift. "The levels aren't so big. And once we break Ace out, he might be able to neutralize the ambient temperature."
"Ace can?" Luffy asked, as I unrolled the scroll still further. With a series of pops, the scroll coughed up Ace's coat from Drum as well.
"It didn't snow on Drum the day we were there," I said, and offered Luffy the coat. There was no way in hell this kid would be leaving the end of the rescue mission to me and Chopper. Not after coming this far. "Here, wear this while we're down there."
Luffy didn't fight me on it, perhaps remembering some other bad encounter with cold that had him curbing his enthusiasm, and with some distant apprehension I noticed that his frame hadn't filled out enough to fully fit the coat. He was a pirate, yes, but he was also a kid and—
Ah, fuck it. We'd come this far already. Pity I didn't have winter boots for him, though.
Then we just had to decide who would stay and who would go. Neither option was really safe, but at least the dangers of Level Four were known, and a fighter from our side was the biggest threat in that giant room. And any group with a jinchūriki had an instant way out, if they needed it.
"Naruto," I began, but he was already shaking his head.
"I know I'm not going, Kei-sensei. You don't have to say it." Naruto stuck his hands out and wiggled his fingers, showing off his total lack of gloves, coats, or other suitable clothes. Besides that, he didn't have a biofeedback technique of any kind without accessing Yang Kurama's chakra. His expression was slightly sheepish. "If I'm not outfitted for the mission, I can't go, right?"
"Right," I said, and patted his hair. Then I picked up the Isobu clone that I'd had to set on the floor, letting it cling to my coat instead of trying to fit underneath it. "Keep the others updated on the enemy movements. Don't let yourself get caught. And if you have to, grab the Straw Hats and ditch us."
Naruto didn't flinch. "You're only saying that because you know you're going with Luffy, and you don't lose."
"You got it, Naruto," I said, smiling faintly.
"Good luck, all right?" Holding the enemy to a standstill was probably the worst role in any combat situation. No one ever knew when relief would be coming, or if it would arrive at all. And yet I wasn't volunteering myself for it because I knew I was one of the best strategic withdrawal options we had.
…Now I knew how Obito felt whenever he had to stay in reserve during this kind of operation.
Brook raised a hand and ran a finger along the frost-encumbered door. "I do believe this door would be giving me goosebumps…if I had any skin!" The skeleton grinned. "Yohohoho! Skull joke!"
I felt a smile threatening to creep onto my face, and Luffy's snickering got louder.
To make a long story short, Brook ended up on the Away Team along with the recent addition of Mr. 2 Bon Clay (who wanted to head into Level Five for his own reasons). With the five of us all venturing into Freezing Hell, I...really hoped we'd find Ace and just get out. We'd been avoiding the real hazards of each of the levels in here by virtue of sheer power or taking advantage of convenient biological quirks.
…We were still doing that, in fact. Chopper had even turned into a full reindeer (with pants) to complete the transition to tundra travel mode.
"Luffy, let's use your vivre card," I said, as Zoro and Mr. 3 pried open the doors leading into what might as well have been Niflheim. "I doubt anything else works down here."
Luffy fished around in the band of his hat for a moment or two, and then extracted the piece of paper. It sat flat on his palm for a moment, looking a little singed at the edges, before starting to move insistently forward.
Highly creepy, but I'd take what I could get.
"That way!" Luffy said cheerfully despite the cold blasting out from Level Five, and we set off.
AN: Well, well, well. Hello "Butterfly Effect," my old friend. The timeline here's totally borked thanks to Tailed Beasts.
Also, should I write Yugito and Utakata POV sections? I sort of have the basic framework for...one of those, and the other is a bit up in the air, but I also want to know if those scenes should be set in this chapter, or in a different one. Actually, what kinds of bonus scenes/alternate POVs are you readers most interested in seeing? (No guarantees, but they could go on the List.)
Oh, and there's new concept art of Kei, Yugito, and Utakata in the CYB sideblog. It's called CYB-by-Lang, if you wanna see what they're wearing in this chapter.