AN: Sorry for the delay, everyone! Work kicked my ass this week, so the required edits weren't completed until like twenty minutes ago. I hope this chapter slips by this site's most recent tech kerfluffle so you can all see it!

The title from this chapter is "Odds Are" by Barenaked Ladies, because it's an uptempo song with dark lyrics. Fun times.

Isobu's Reverse Summoning Jutsu took us outside of the prison in a single mind-bending leap through space-time, and the four of us in my group landed in his hand some fifty feet away from the front gates of Impel Down. Isobu, it seemed, had managed to not just get to the surface in time to accommodate us, but also put himself in the best position to help anyone still stuck in the prison. Sure, he probably didn't care about most of them, but Gaara was already making a sand bridge stretching from the Thousand Sunny back toward the prison. Seemed like Chōmei had managed to get the ship clear after all.

There were no takers, but that was a minor detail. I could see Fū flying Franky and Robin back over to their ship, so the situation was proceeding as planned.

"The sun is much brighter after so much time spent in the dark," Jinbe commented, leaning back to take in the bright, clear sky. This happened to put his back in contact with Isobu's thumb, but neither party minded much.

He was probably the only person under twenty feet tall who was that composed, and not just because of the giant monsters.

I didn't have a particularly close view of anyone except Inazuma, Jinbe, Luffy, and Ace from my vantage point on Isobu's upturned, armored palm, but I couldn't imagine that anyone's physiology had taken the altitude change and space-time ninjutsu all that well. Add in the possibility of chakra poisoning because the Tailed Beasts had been the ones to call two of our larger constituent groups to the surface, and you got a bit of a mess.

"Disgusting! I will throw all of you into the ocean!" Yang Kurama roared in the not-so-great distance.

Like I said.

Ace leaned over the gap between Isobu's thumb and forefinger and dry-heaved, while Luffy just drooped across the rest of Isobu's fingers and made miserable noises while his body took on the approximate consistency of an overcooked noodle. Luffy's reaction was familiar if I pretended he wasn't made of rubber, but Ace's ragged, empty coughing told me that the guards—and Teach before them—hadn't bothered to feed him.

I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to rouse Luffy, stowing rage-filled thoughts for later.

"That sucked exactly as much as last time," Ace groaned at last, rolling until he was flat on his back in the middle of Isobu's palm, with Luffy draped across his stomach a second later.

His brother looked just as miserable, his eyes almost rolled up in his head. "Uuuuugh. Make everything stop spinning…"

"Queen Ivankov would be our best bet to deal with this issue," Inazuma said quietly, pushing his sunglasses more firmly onto his face. "Unless you had another option?"

"I'm sorry, but I didn't bring any candied ginger. We didn't stop at any islands," I admitted, slumped against Isobu's bent pinky. "Not since Water 7."

After the week I'd had, where a lack of sleep and inconsistent food intake due to stress marked the majority of the experience, I wasn't feeling all that great myself. I'd be able to fight, but Sensei would've probably told me to sit out a mission if I looked like this back home. Rin definitely would have dragged me to a clinic session to make sure I hadn't caught some kind of horrendous disease. In both cases, I'd deserve that concern and need to take it on the chin. Here, I couldn't.

Nonetheless, it was honestly amazing that I'd been able to snap all of the pieces back together and form a coherent battle plan out of the mess. And carry it out.

Are you well, Kei? Isobu asked in a tiny whisper of his real voice.

"I… I think I'm down to sixty to seventy percent of where I should be," I admitted, getting to my feet again with only the slightest stumble in my step. "But I can still fight if I have to. I need to check on everyone who can't."

The lines around Isobu's eye deepened as he mimicked the eye-smile Kakashi was really more known for, but Isobu couldn't do it the way humans did with his mouth for more than a few reasons. Good. In a more brisk tone, he added, We have some stragglers in the prison who cannot seem to decide if they want to come with us or die. They likely find our features… intimidating. You should assist Yugito in forcing them to make a decision.

I shaded my eyes and peered off toward the prison, where a crowd had gathered. From the stripes, most of the people in the milling-around camp were the inmates we had sort of rescued as collateral…er, something. There had to be a term for the opposite of collateral damage, but I was too keyed up from adrenaline to think of it.

"Fringe benefit?"Isobu guessed. He huffed, nearly blowing all four of us off his hand, then said, Though we hardly need this many extra mouths to feed. And there is no guarantee they are any more trustworthy than Crocodile.

"Wasabiiii," Luffy whined, before I could take off toward my new interim goal, "why're you talking without using your mouth? None of us can hear you when you do that!"

Isobu's eye narrowed. You do like having eardrums, correct?

"Luffy, don't push him," Ace said, still lying down. He had his hat over his face in an attempt to blot out the sun.

"Can you understand him?" Jinbe asked, looking from us to the giant face still staring down at us.

"If he bothers to talk, sure," Ace responded, while Isobu made a scoffing noise. "Otherwise, he just talks to Kei and uses her as a mouthpiece."

I will move this group to the Sunny, Isobu said, before I could ask. We weren't accomplishing anything like this.

I gave my little group a last considering glance—and though Jinbe looked a bit shaken by the realization that three of us were communicating with Isobu, Inazuma, Luffy, and Ace were fine—then leapt down to the calm sea from Isobu's hand. Once again, people needed to play to their strengths, and mine was apparently "being scary." As soon as I was on the water, Isobu swept his three tails in an arc and turned toward the Straw Hats' ship.

The Calm Belt really did deserve its name, because the water was no more dangerous than any lake in Konoha as I ran across. Sure, Sea Kings were probably a hazard for normal people, but Isobu had a way of being… strict with them that tended to dissuade repeat offenders. And first offenders. And theoretical ones, too.

I made it to the front gates of Impel Down without so much as a vague sign of any problems. In fact, as I got closer, I started to hear the sounds of…cheering?

"Get out of my way, dammit!" Yugito yowled, from somewhere among the thirty-strong throng.

The next thing any of us knew, the prisoners had hoisted Yugito up into an impromptu crowd surfing session. Given that I'd never attended a concert in either lifetime, and due to Isobu's lack of experience with "celebrity" as both a word and a concept in any non-ninja sense, it wasn't that surprising he'd identified Yugito's followers as a cult. Upon actually seeing their scruffy, joyous features and the general cheer, the revised word that would do a better job to explain their behavior was "groupies."

I leaned against a slightly scorched part of the inner wall, unsure if I was allowed to interfere. On one hand, there was very little chance anyone in that crowd could pose a threat to Yugito. On the other… Well, perhaps this was a bit embarrassing?

"You've saved us all, Yugi-baby!" Sanji cheered, while the other resident kunoichi turned steadily redder. He was in a full swoon, minus the optional detail of passing out artistically.

"We're free!"

"Thank you so much!"

"You truly are a goddess among women!"

"Did you see what she did to that cow-bastard?!"

"Hip-hip, hooray!"

"Put me down already!" Yugito's foot met someone's face, and a man collapsed in a brief burst of blood from a crushed nose.

...Seemed like she was handling things all right. Maybe I ought to stay back to avoid the inevitable beatdown?

"Her anger is awe-inspiring!" Dammit, Sanji. "She could crush me under her heel anytime!"

"Damn straight!"

"Oh, I get it! Because she's wearing heels?" Smack. "Ow!"

Double dammit. I reached into my pockets for my small(er) explosive tags, preparing to clear the crowd out before the Admirals showed up in the middle of this improvised parade and killed us all.

FWOOOOOSH. In a thick column directly around Yugito, the air exploded into blue-black fire high enough to clear the walls around Impel Down. The force of the sudden pressure change swatted the crowd to the ground as though Matatabi herself had stuck a paw into the mosh pit.

…I missed my cue.

The flames swirled away, leaving Yugito standing in the middle of a circular scorch-mark with only Sanji still on his feet in any sense. Even he was a bit singed, because Yugito's fire jutsu ran on different rules than anything native to this world.

Yugito, on the other hand, strolled forward and into the crowd in a deliberately casual manner. She flexed her fingers as her nails extended as far as a tiger's would, and the crowd parted before her as though she was still aflame. Sanji wavered in her wake, while Yugito reached into the mass of her followers and yanked a man out of the group with her claws in his collar, so she could loom over him. As one of the smaller prisoners, Yugito didn't have to strain in the slightest to manhandle him.

"Cease celebrating this instant," Yugito said in a voice as sharp as I'd ever heard from her. Her gleaming eyes shifted from the man's profusely sweating face to mine, over his forehead, as she went on in a more conversational tone, "That is why you are here, right?"

I nodded. "Isobu says your group's the last one out. And Saiken's getting you a ship." I waved a hand, searching for a word and failing to find it, before saying, "And we probably don't want to be here when Impel Down goes boom."

"Very well," Yugito said, and idly dropped the prisoner on his ass. To the group at large, she snapped, "What are you waiting for? Do you want to die?"

Conveniently enough, Saiken finally got the battleship close enough for Yugito's groupies to make their way onboard within a few seconds of stampeding. Enough of them were former pirates that she could leave the ship to them once the initial panic about Saiken was over. When offered the chance to board, Yugito dismissed them with a cool, "I need to speak with Kei. Goddess business."

"Seriously?" I asked, while the pirates waved back to us with handkerchiefs flailing. I didn't even know where they'd gotten them, since most of the appropriate theatrical supplies were in the hands of the Newkamas.

"Not especially," Yugito said, her frigid expression fading. Her brows furrowed as she asked, "How was your section of the mission?"

I shrugged. "It could've been worse. Ace is with Isobu, heading for the Sunny, and none of our group got hurt aside from the usual summoning sickness."

"I'm not sure that's what that is," Yugito murmured, eyeing Sanji, who was still next to us. "Incidentally, Sanji, you were helpful."

"For you, Yugi-baby, I'd do anything!" Sanji swooned at the lukewarm compliment.

Yugito wrinkled her nose. "How about you save your breath and never call me that again?" Before Sanji could protest, she added, "Let's just leave before the others become impatient. I could give you a quick lift."

"No need, Yugi—Yugito," Sanji said with only a slight stumble, after taking a long drag on his cigarette. Sanji sank into a brief crouch, then leapt off the path as though he was a born shinobi. I felt the air shift around us, and then Sanji was on an arc toward the just-departed groupie ship.

"…Huh." Yugito tilted her head to one side, looking thoughtful. "That was higher than Level Three's ceiling."

"Maybe," I said, since it wasn't like I'd spent much time there. I reached out and clasped Yugito's shoulder. "You should check in with Ace when you have a chance. I'm not sure he believed me when I said everyone was all right."

Yugito's eyes darted out to sea. And then she vanished in a burst of ninja speed and flame.

At some point, she will realize she does not need to pretend not to care, Isobu said, while I started pacing the length of the gate.

I'm honestly not sure if I should look forward to it or not, I admitted as I planted a total of thirty footprint-laid explosives. I probably only needed fifteen to twenty, but we were all ready to overkill the shit out of this place. What was one more drop in the bucket?

Once I finished, I ran across the waves to the Thousand Sunny to get clear.

Aside from the Straw Hats, there were also a couple of "new" faces in the form of Bon-Bon, Mr. 3 (who hadn't elected to join the Revolutionaries so far), and…a guy with blue hair and a huge red nose. I wasn't sure when he'd shown up, but with more than fifty escapees to keep track of, I elected not to worry about it. Especially while they were all reeling.

Well, except for Naruto, Gaara, Yugito, Fū, and I. While Utakata was nowhere in sight, I could still sense him. I chalked the problem up to chakra systems and shrugged.

Out of all the Straw Hats, Chopper recovered first from being put through the space-time wringer, shaking from head to hoof and making all of his fur poof out. "That was…something." He put a hoof to his forehead, then staggered to the side of the ship. Isobu lurked just off the bow, his mostly-underwater form utterly dwarfing the Sunny and indeed, every other ship. "Kei, did you notice any symptoms after that…space-time displacement?"

I ran a hand through my hair and nodded to Chopper, because this was entirely too much for one day. Or week. Or fucking month. Better that someone else do the thinking for a bit. "For me, my ears popped thanks to the pressure change. That's it."

Chopper nodded to himself. "Then maybe the altitude difference is what's causing this."

"Kei-girl, I'm told you have some idea what is affecting everyone?" Ivankov called down from the battleship on our other side, while Isobu dove back underwater again.

"It's probably something called chakra poisoning," I shouted back, picking my way across the deck and avoiding the sprawled-out Straw Hats. "Or at least I think it is. The energy I use causes symptoms similar to motion sickness at low intensity."

Ivankov tapped his worryingly-pointy fingers against his chin, then leapt down to the Sunny's deck from the battleship despite the shouts of protest from the other Newkama residents (or at least those who had recovered). As he did, I belatedly realized that his fingers had transformed into hypodermic needle-points. And that his head had somehow gotten proportionately even bigger, though he was still the same height.

"And what does it do at high intensity?" Ivankov asked, while I backed up a step or two to give him some room.

"If I start doing the glowy-eyes thing, I can melt human flesh at a touch," I told him. I scratched the back of my neck while Ivankov produced the largest thoughtful frown I had ever seen. "Bon-Bon says you're a miracle worker, and between your Devil Fruit power and your intelligence, I'm sure you have a better idea of what's happening than I do."

"Oh, you're adorable when you think you can flatter me into helping," Ivankov replied, patting my head like I was a particularly clever dog. "Lucky for you and all of these pirates, you're already doing more than I can repay by breaking Impel Down."

"Don't you mean breaking into Impel Down?" Chopper asked, as his crewmates started to rouse themselves.

"Not…quite," I mumbled, a little embarrassed of my vehemence in hindsight. While I still didn't have any problem with dropping as many explosives as I could make into Level Six, this was going to mean a lot of deaths. "I'm pretty sure Utakata killed Magellan, even if that wasn't our goal, and Isobu…well, the Tailed Beasts want to make things final."

We will still have plenty of time for all of you to get away, and for the admirals to find the prison sinking. Isobu couldn't smile or smirk or even make most subtle expressions with his somewhat fixed features, but I nonetheless got the impression that he was eagerly anticipating the looks of horror on the Marines' faces.

"Nonetheless, Kei-girl, you're mistaken," Ivankov said, after eying the now-distant prison with a touch of trepidation. "It's called 'the bends,' dear. Or decompression sickness to the medical community at large."

Behind him on the Newkama ship, I swore I saw (the currently female) Inazuma give a little victorious grin.

I paused, my mouth slightly open and one finger extended. Then, sheepishly, I said, "I'll admit I never thought of that."

"I think I'd feel better if I could examine everyone," Chopper said, clicking his hooves together for a second. "It never hurts to be sure."

And then a medical frenzy ensued, because Ivankov's needle-fingers were terrifyingly quick on the draw. They also got results far faster than any ordinary treatment, because Devil Fruit powers were, as always, total bullshit. He made the average medic-nin look like a chump.

Sure, most everyone had needle-marks at the end of it, but at least they weren't going to suffer a random air-clot. Or whatever the technical term was.

I looked around at the deck of the Sunny, as Sanji clambered back to his feet and swayed for a second, then trooped into the depths of the ship and presumably to the kitchen. Zoro, meanwhile, seemed to decide that the best way to solve the problem was by compounding it with alcohol poisoning, and acquired an entire jug of sake that had apparently been pulled from nowhere.

I bit my lip, still not sure if I trusted Ivankov's verdict all the way. Then again, radiation exposure was treated with vodka in some extremely…low-budget areas. Or maybe I was stretching that metaphor too far.

Luffy sat up from the spot where Isobu had presumably dumped the both of them, elbowing Ace in the gut as he did so ("Oof! Luffy!"), and wobbled for a second like a bobblehead. Then he straightened his hat atop his head and said, "Iva, we're gonna run from the admirals. Are you gonna come with us?"

"You can't tow a ship while using the boost," Franky informed Luffy, from the ground. Given that so much of him was metal, I had honestly expected him to suffer a bit less from the chakra poisoning symptoms, but apparently my hypothesis was unfounded. "Especially not a bigger one."

"Uuuuugh, you flashy bastard!" groaned the guy who looked like a clown. Unless my eyes were deceiving me, the guy was literally in pieces on the deck. I half-wanted to ask, but instead just let him talk. "After that crazy trip, you think we're going to be able to stand another flashy plan?"

Luffy blinked. "Eh? Buggy, when did you get here?"

"YOU'RE JUST NOW NOTICING?!" demanded the rest of his crew. Gaara did not, because he had slightly more dignity than that, but it appeared that no one else had noticed the stealthy clown. Or cared to point him out.

That idea bothered me about as much as it could, but I'd reached a previously unknown threshold of being Done with things. The idea of a clown ninja couldn't do more than irk me.

"Give me a few seconds to check my charts," Nami said, shoving herself to her feet. She swayed alarmingly, only be caught by a pair of disembodied arms. "Thanks, Robin."

"It was nothing," Robin replied, her actual hands occupied pressing against her temples to stave off the headache and nausea that affected everyone. Still, she pasted a smile to her face. "I'll…I'll join you in a moment, Nami."

"I wouldn't head down yet if I were you," I said, before the Straw Hats could take off. "You'll miss the light show."

I got a couple of stares, including one from the hollow-eyed Brook that was more baffling than anything because he was still a skeleton. Sure, the Straw Hats were used to Tailed Beasts, but I had to imagine that over-reliance on any one crew member felt strange to them. Or maybe all of this was too much high-level crap for them to deal with easily.

What technical terminology, Isobu said dryly.

Give me a break here.

My gaze skittered off to the side, where Isobu's profile was still lurking ominously beneath us. "The others want to cut loose a bit."

Luffy, surprisingly, grasped my half-articulated thought first. "Oh, I get it! With Coconut—"

Chōmei, Isobu corrected silently, surging away from our ride as the Calm Belt began to rumble. I almost give up on my own name with this human.

I could feel Saiken and Isobu's chakra at the heart of the storm, pushing the ships we actually cared about (and the one occupied by Marines) away from the soon-to-be ground zero. Yang Kurama had climbed onto the prison while the rest of us were talking, joining Matatabi and the hovering Chomei in the new target area.

They'd be fine. No one else would.

"—and Wasabi, we can get wind and a current!" Luffy grinned widely, despite still looking a bit pale as the ship shot along the sea at Isobu's direction. While his crew was openly uneasy, he rambled on, "Okay, everyone, let's get everything together—"

And I'd presumed wrong. Luffy didn't know what was going to happen.

Utakata arrived on the Sunny with a splash, landing next to me and cutting off whatever Luffy had been about to say with his entrance. Likewise, Yugito appeared as though from nowhere and leaned against the railing, her eyes on our partners as they sized up their stationary target. Naruto, overhead in the ship's rigging, spoke softly with Gaara and Fū, but they wouldn't miss this view.

Ace's voice reached my ears at the same time his hand landed between me and Yugito. "Kei, what's—?"

One instant, all of the available Tailed Beasts were eying the prison structure like a juicy piece of meat, and then each of them opened their mouths if they had them. All of them formed the signature titanic black spheres in front of their heads, gathering red and blue energy as they sought the correct mix of Yin and Yang chakra. Across the sea, tiny voices shrieked as the pressure changed yet again, and my ears popped as the Tailed Beast Bombs got bigger and bigger as more chakra swirled into the storm of power.

"The Tailed Beast Bomb is the strongest attack they have," I heard myself say as Ace sucked in a breath on reflex. It didn't take a chakra sensor to know that shit was going down.

"Then that's—" Ace began.

Utakata, channeling enough of Saiken's chakra to briefly flare with reddish-orange light, formed a series of water bubble shields over the ships just before the bombs detonated.

The Tailed Beast Bombs made my spiteful little explosive seals look like party favors.

There was no sound at first. Isobu's last shove had moved our group almost ten miles away from Impel Down and out of the Tarai Current's range, so we saw the flash and the expanding sphere of brilliant golden light before either the sound or the impending wave hit us. The shock rippled over our bubble shield, momentarily blotting out the sun as the impact wave crashed over us to no effect.

When we emerged in the light again, it was because the sea was gone. Abandoned fish of a dozen weight classes flopped around, bereft of their defense against gravity, on the ocean floor. Two Sea Kings, a whale or two, sharks of several types… And most of all, the bare stone, sand, silt, and mud that no pirate would have ever have a clear view of again. A huge bowl-shaped crater had been carved out of the sea floor, centered on what used to be Impel Down, the sea still in the process of closing over that wound and the catastrophic pressure bubble from the initial blast. Even the Gate of Justice sat with its base exposed to the air for the first time since its presumed construction.

Aside from the still-hovering Chōmei, all of our partners lounged on the bare seafloor, watching the water rush back in toward them.

"Fuck," Ace whispered, staring wide-eyed at the carnage.

While we were safe in Utakata's Saiken-derived bubble shield, nothing else had been.

The silence lasted long past the moment when the seas were calm again.

Utakata didn't let the shields drop until Saiken rejoined us, towing Yang Kurama and Matatabi in their usual travel bubbles. They popped as easily as mere soap once he decided to stop reinforcing them, all in a row.

"You had Saiken save a battleship for the Marines," Utakata said into the moment of pure shock, clearly not caring. "What did you want to say?"

"At this point, I'm not sure it matters," Yugito replied, turning to look over her shoulder at the stunned pirates, prisoners, and Revolutionaries. The Marines barely factored into things.

We had witnesses now.

By the light of all our burning bridges—

"THE NIGHTMARE IS OVER!"

—Eh?

While I stared in abject confusion, a wild cheer went up among the former Impel Down prisoners, even as the more distant Marines screeched in horror. Gaara and Yugito had both startled badly at that first round of non-explosive noise, unused to positive reinforcement of this kind, while Utakata rubbed his temples and backed up automatically. Fū danced through the air on orange wings, laughing her head off while Naruto dangled from her arms. And as though drawn in by the energy, the visible Straw Hats had joined an impromptu dance party on deck.

"Are they in shock?" Yugito asked, her tone somewhat strangled.

This did not compute. Our team had just killed a fuckton of people—

"Impel Down was hell," Jinbe said, drawing Yugito's attention to him. "To see it destroyed… I imagine some of the people here have been dreaming of that ending for years." He twisted his head a bit to the left, looking toward the Tailed Beasts, then added, "I think those five may find themselves worshipped as the saviors of pirates everywhere."

"We weren't aiming to save pirates everywhere," Yugito replied. She turned to the still-gaping Ace and said in a lower voice, "We only wanted to save one."

Before Ace could pick his jaw up off the deck to respond to Yugito's uncharacteristically heartfelt contribution, Yugito disappeared with the Body Flicker technique and a cloud of chakra smoke. Her chakra fizzed with embarrassment even two floors away, while I bit down on the urge to snicker.

"Cat got your tongue?" I teased.

Ace shut his mouth with a snap, then grumbled, "You need new material."

"So, you're Luffy's big brother?" Naruto asked, while helping the Straw Hats batten down the hatches or something. There were a few naval terms I still didn't understand and didn't dare use aloud for fear of embarrassing everyone. Nevertheless, this unspecified ship task put him in the rigging above Ace's head, and upside-down to boot.

"You got it, kid," Ace said, and then winced as Chopper started applying what smelled like antiseptic to the half-dozen shallow wounds that made Ace look like a murder victim. There was a lot of dried blood. "Naruto, right?"

"Yep! Namikaze Naruto," Naruto replied, still dangling. "And you're the guy Kei-sensei wanted to break out of prison."

"Naruto," I began, and then remembered that it wasn't as though Kushina went by that name here. Or ever. And unlike at home, her clan name was the one that he'd have to worry about handing out. Somewhat lamely, I just waved a hand and he went back to talking.

"That place was freaky," Naruto went on, pulling a frown. "I mean, me and Old Man Yang went to a few different islands for missions and saw a lot of crazy things, but there were all kinds of weird stuff in there in one spot. But once Kei-sensei got us in, it wasn't that tough. Razor plants and indoor deserts are small-time." He twisted and said, "The desert wasn't that bad, though. I told you about that, right, Gaara?"

Some ten feet away, Gaara shrugged. "Alabasta was likely hotter. Even if that heat came from boiling blood."

Naruto nodded. "See? No big deal!"

"Can't argue with confidence like that," Ace agreed, while Naruto bobbed in place. Ace reached out carefully, still mindful of Chopper's work, and poked at Naruto's goggles. "Where'd you get the stylish gear, Naruto?"

Naruto somehow managed to make even shrugging boisterous. "I don't remember the island's name, but they got ordered special since I passed all my tests. It's kinda nice to have something to wear on my forehead again, and they're even orange!"

"Orange is the best," Ace said, and won himself a friend for life.

With one last grin, Naruto flung himself out of the rigging and bounced over to Gaara. Just a little less literally than Luffy would have.

There was a brief moment of silence, filled only by faint background conversation and Luffy's cheerful cackling from the figurehead. And the rush of waves and wind, of course.

"I'm…not sure if I should be more or less worried that you let Luffy come along, or that you let three kids into Impel Down," Ace said, once he was sure the kids were out of earshot. While Chopper carefully wound bandages around his head, causing him to briefly wince, Ace had a moment to school his thoughts into some kind of order.

"Naruto is the youngest jinchūriki. He's stronger than he seems, and it's my responsibility to look after him," I said, though it wasn't really an explanation. Certainly not a good one. With a sigh, I sat down on the lawn next to Ace and Chopper, balancing my head in one upraised hand. "As for the other two…"

Meanwhile, Gaara and Fū flew Naruto over to the Revolutionaries' ship for a mysterious reason I was willing to bet had something to do with Kuromushi. For all that our factions were all doing different things and had disparate goals, we seemed to get along just fine.

The kids were going to be all right.

"The other two are a part of Luffy's crew," I concluded, as though nothing more needed to be said.

Chopper tied off the bandages, then proceeded to Ace's shoulder and neck.

Ace slowly let his gaze shift from the tiny gaggle of adventurous jinchūriki already making a mess of the Revolutionaries' ship, across the crowded deck of the Thousand Sunny and the Straw Hats at work, and then leaned back to look at Luffy. Then he said, "None of them would let you leave them behind, would they?"

"No," I replied, running my free hand over my face. "I was already heading in, but involving this many people? Saving this many people? Really, any attempt at stealth was doomed the second your brother got involved. And he had the right to make that choice for himself."

"And we had the choice to follow him," Chopper said, pressing one hoof against Ace's tattooed bicep. "Gaara and Fū are Straw Hat Pirates, just like us. We got involved because our captain needed us for once, instead of the other way around."

Ace's gaze softened, perhaps more than it had since Alabasta. "Thanks for looking out for Luffy. You're definitely the best crew for him."

If Chopper hadn't had fur, he would have been blushing. Of that, I was sure. His eyes watered, then he said in a flustered tone, "D-don't think that makes me happy, jerk! We're just doing what any crew would do!"

Ace smiled, but there was a touch of bitterness in it. "Not all of them." He lifted both of his arms, as best he could, and let Chopper reach his ribs. "Anyway, let's finish up here. I've gotta talk to Kei for a bit."

In the end, Chopper diagnosed Ace with internal bruising, a couple of cracked ribs along with a broken one, surface lacerations, and one hell of a near-miss when it came to his neck. This, on top of his Luffy-like metabolism not really getting enough fuel for the past few days, led to Chopper declaring that Ace should rest, dammit. Relatively few people were injured in the escape, and so Chopper moved on to the next patient on his mental roster. Whether he disappeared into the ship to help Sanji or get more supplies, I didn't know.

I just knew that Ace and I needed to talk.

By mutual, silent agreement, we decided not to hold our conversation in the open. Quite aside from the sheer number of people, neither of us were interested in having to rehash everything that had happened over the past week. Especially when the people on this ship were some of the ones most likely to interrupt or introduce tangents—or at least, unrelated ones.

We headed into the Sunny, taking note of how different the ship was from the Going Merry. Far larger, for one, and equipped with everything the Straw Hats wanted or needed. I passed a fully stocked infirmary, dining hall, and several other vital features of a ship like this one, following some unknown urge down the stairs and into the ship proper.

I stopped when I reached a room with dim lighting, more curious than anything. Pushing the door more firmly open revealed a room that, for the purpose of a quiet conversation, was perfect.

It was more of a lounge than anything, with leather sets running around the outside edge of the room like in a sit-down restaurant. There was a fully stocked bar, complete with liquors I couldn't recognize, and the second-brightest glow in the room came from a back-lit aquarium that spanned the entire back wall. A number of fish lurked in it, and a particularly fat one of some variety seemed to have Yugito's name on it.

She sat at one of the chairs at the central column, eying the fish. She gave us both a cursory glance when we entered the room, but turned away rather than sparking up a conversation.

Good enough. She could choose to get involved when she wished.

"So, who talks first?" Ace asked, picking a spot at the bar with as much of a casual air as he could manage when looking like a two-bit mummy. It might've worked if his eyes weren't a bit wild around the edges. "Do I talk first, or…?"

"I'm sorry," I said, ignoring Ace's nervous rambling. It was the least I could do.

"Wha—?" I appeared to have stumped him. His eyebrows drew together, then he asked in utter bafflement, "The hell are you apologizing for?"

"Banaro, mainly," I admitted, fixing my gaze on the available bottles. I couldn't get drunk, or even be affected by alcohol, but I liked looking at the designs.

A flicker of motion out of the corner of my eye drew my attention back to Ace, who'd flung his less-injured arm over his face. "You can't be serious."

"Of course I am," I told him, drawing one knee up to my chest and draping my arm across it. "That battle went from 'cakewalk' to 'catastrophe,' and I didn't react in time. After Yugito had to retreat, I was your only backup on the island."

I felt Yugito's chakra coil in on itself, and when I let my gaze shift for a second, she was looking even more pointedly at the fish.

"Once again, I can take care of myself," Ace replied, annoyed enough to sit up fully. Then he remembered the exact sequence of events that had brought us here to the Thousand Sunny, and to him wearing more cloth than he had in the entire time I'd known him. Grudgingly, he admitted, "Mostly."

"You're both forgetting someone," Yugito said, from her spot across the room. When we both looked at her, she turned her head slightly and said, "Utakata woke up on Banaro and went berserk. Without me, handling him fell to you." To Ace, she added, "And I didn't realize my tactics could adversely affect you. That was my mistake."

"Uh…thanks?" was Ace's somewhat confused response. When that got him a set of narrowed eyes, he said, "I mean, thanks. For the apology."

"Learn some restraint," Yugito told him in a flat tone, and then she got to her feet and walked over. Drawing level with us, she grasped my shoulder reassuringly.

Her expression was far softer than I'd seen in some time. In fact, I'd only seen the briefest flash when she'd realized that my group had gotten out of Impel Down unscathed, with everyone I'd wanted to pull out of there (plus a few more). It was the same gentle look she'd used with Ace half an hour ago, before running away.

Yugito hugged me, with one arm, and let go almost instantly after I attempted to return it. Before either Ace or I could call her on the previous incident or on this one, she swept Ace into a much less hesitant embrace. Given that he was sitting down, Yugito's arms easily wrapped around his shoulders and neck, and his arms automatically gripped her waist after a split second's baffled pause.

This also meant that Ace's cheek was pressed directly into Yugito's chest.

I very pointedly said absolutely nothing.

"And take care of yourself better," Yugito admonished gently as she let go, and Ace seemed totally unable to meet her eyes.

Then she vanished in a burst of ninja speed.

Ace and I looked at each other.

"First: We never speak of this again," Ace said, coughing awkwardly. His entire face was red. "Second: What the hell?!"

"You missed a few things while you were gone," I said, grinning crookedly. "And by the way, your nose is bleeding."

Ace swiped hastily at his face with the bandages attached to his left wrist, only to realize that the linen came away clean. "Hey!"

"Just teasing," I assured him, while he huffed indignantly and slumped against the bar. Psych!

"Aren't you cheery today," Ace grumbled, while his skin tone returned slowly to some semblance of normal. He paused for a second, then blinked. "Hey, wasn't she wearing your clothes?"

"Yeah," I said with a shrug. "There was too much blood in her best set to wash it all out, so I let her have mine." When I caught Ace's expression falling, I deployed a conversational parachute with, "Besides, despite Izo's best efforts, she fills them out better than I do. Don't you agree?"

Ace coughed again, his gaze darting from my chest toward a perfectly boring spot of the aquarium glass. Opposite him, an empty-eyed fish burbled back. Given the fish's lack of capacity for suggestive comments, it probably was a better friend at the moment than I was. At least for the time being.

"All right, look," Ace said, when I failed to come up with anything else to say in the lull, "Can I ask you something?"

Hoo boy. Few pleasant conversations started out like that. Still, I said, "Sure."

"There was…something. Something bothering me," Ace admitted slowly, frowning as he forced the words out. He sighed. "I don't get it. Why would the Tailed Beasts destroy Impel Down? Nothing there could hurt any of them, and…"

Oh.

"I didn't hear any of you ask them to flatten the place, which I know doesn't mean you didn't, but if they decided on their own," Ace said in a rush, catching my expression, "then I don't see why. I barely talked to Saiken or Matatabi, and I'd never met two of their brothers…"

Oh, Ace.

"I was…I was honestly…half-hoping Isobu was going to end it all when we heard him hit the wall," Ace shook his head as words failed him, biting his lip.

"Isobu wouldn't have done that with you still inside," I told him, "but I'm not sure you'd understand why."

"Try to sum it up for me."

I bit down on the urge to sigh, trying to figure out how to explain any of the myriad issues that the past week had brought to the forefront of my mind. Obito's "death," any of my brother's injuries, the oath I'd made to protect Naruto on the night he was born, and half a dozen other memories all came to mind, but all they told me was that I was a mess. Isobu felt the effects of those scars through me even if he didn't care independently, and would take them seriously. And most of all, Ace's last shouted conversation between Yugito, me, and him had left such a deep mark that I needed to establish the sheer scale involved in our combined view.

Best to start with the big thing, then. Ace was still concentrating on Isobu, who rarely spoke directly to him. "The last thing you said before we went to Banaro was in our shouting match, right?"

Ace nodded, though he remained in a slumped position. "Right."

"You know how long it took you to decide Isobu and the others were people worthy of respect?" I asked. Before Ace could do more than open his mouth to answer, I said grimly, "You treated him like a person within half a minute of meeting him."

"Yeah, but—" Ace tried to interrupt, perhaps to downplay his opinion and its worth.

I cut him off again, extending one finger and pressing it against his forehead. "People back home still haven't figured that out, and it's been over a thousand fucking years."

"I…" Ace imitated the fish he'd been staring at earlier, then fell silent for a few seconds. "It… I didn't think it was that special?"

And that was the important part, Isobu said. While Saiken bobbed next to him in the ocean, Isobu explained, If we had thought the words were empty reassurance, nothing would have come of them. But we heard his words and all agreed to help.

I hadn't gotten that particular memo at the time, but in hindsight, it explained Yang Kurama's bizarre cooperative mood fairly well. The Tailed Beasts had so rarely been able to work together—or willing to—that there had to have been some common drive to unite them, beyond their atrophied sibling bond.

I repeated the gist of things for Ace's ears, because it looked like he needed to hear it.

Ace closed his eyes, as though the words physically weighed on him. When he finally spoke, his voice almost sounded like it was coming from a hidden core inside of him, something that neither Isobu nor I had ever heard even if the words were strangely practiced. "So you're saying… You're saying they wanted me to live? That hearing that made them feel a little better?"

"Of course," I said firmly, though I hid my alarm well. What had happened to make Ace dig up that kind of thing? What context was I missing?

"…So. What happened after Banaro?" Ace asked, because of course he did.

Anything to end the awkward moment, I supposed.

Still. I chose to let the topic lie because he clearly wanted to, and moved on. I had a few things to get off my chest anyway.

"Before or after I thought you'd been killed and spent half an hour in shock?" I grumbled, mashing my face into my hand. I wasn't proud of my behavior then. Even if Ace had died, I'd thought I still remembered how to subsume grief into fuel for rage. Apparently not.

Something strange crossed Ace's face. Like disbelief, but deeper. "Start where you have to?"

"Well," I began, holding up my hand and counting down on my fingers. "First, I had to finish panicking, since the tracker I put on you didn't work for about half an hour after that. Then Isobu told me the Moby Dick was calling us." At this, Ace winced. "So I fumbled my way through that conversation, and Kushina interrupted the call."

"The same one who's with the Red Hair Pirates?" Ace asked, blinking. "How the hell…?"

I nodded, still counting down. "Funnily enough, Shanks was there to warn us about Teach. So when Kushina found the tracker I left with the ship—don't ask— she barged right in." I shook my head. "And to make a long, pathetic story short, I found out you weren't dead at about the same time I was about to have to tell Thatch and Kushina what the hell had happened at Banaro."

Ace was staring at me.

"It was a bad day," I said, because that…about summed it up. In the least adequate way possible.

"Sorry for causing you that much trouble," Ace responded, half on automatic. It sounded rehearsed, but I'd seen Ace bounce back to that type of behavior with Isobu. It was, at least partly, what he did when other options failed him.

"None of that was your fault," I assured him. "And Utakata, Yugito and I learned a few life lessons"—mainly involving coordinated ambushes—"while we went after Teach."

"And you killed him." Ace's expression was totally unreadable, and so I hesitated.

I'd set up the situation for Teach to die, regardless of if I won a fight or not. On a ship, the sea lurked just under the boards no matter which way he turned. With Saiken still hopping mad about Akainu, I hardly needed to point before he'd set up another World Government lackey to die as an appetizer. Yugito's injured pride (and well-hidden heart), Matatabi's frustration, and both Isobu's and my grudges took care of the rest.

"…Yes," I said finally. I still wasn't sure how he'd react to that little detail. "I lost my temper, and then Isobu got him. Teach only got to be a Warlord for a few hours."

To my surprise, Ace just huffed and rolled his eyes. "Damn. I guess I lost to that turtle after all."

I got very little satisfaction from the experience,Isobu put in. Other than the surety of knowing an enemy was dead, we were too preoccupied with your safety to bother celebrating.

I repeated that sentiment to Ace, over Isobu's embarrassed grumbling.

Ace covered his surprise fairly well with a teasing, "Aw, so he does care."

But I could see the tips of his ears turn faintly red, and Ace averted his gaze after a second or two. He didn't turn his face away quite enough to hide his slight smile. Though I still didn't have any real idea of what Ace's past had been like before he joined the Whitebeard Pirates, aside from what hints I could glean from his interactions with others, I got the impression that he was still unused to honest concern from other people.

And then his head dropped onto the bar.

I caught him before he could slide off the barstool and onto the floor, since it seemed that this wasn't one of the episodes where his muscles completely locked up. Looking around for a second, I decided the booth seats weren't suitable. It would be best to get him to the infirmary one floor up the stairs, but I wasn't sure how to easily do so without aggravating his injuries.

Conveniently enough, Jinbe walked through the double doors right after I completed that thought. "Oh, I didn't think anyone else would be here."

"Yugito just left," I offered, "and I need to get Ace to the infirmary."

"I was just there. Can I be of any help?" Jinbe asked. Come to think of it, he was wearing a different-patterned kimono than he had been earlier, and his head and shoulders were about as heavily bandaged as Ace's were.

Well, he was bigger than I was and probably wouldn't even notice Ace's dead weight. My limbs, on the other hand, wanted to turn into jelly. "Please."

Ace let out a loud snore as Jinbe picked him up as though he was a child. Without so much as wincing as a result of his injuries, the resident (former?) Warlord strode out of the room with me trotting at his heels. We went up the stairs, passed the kitchen (and I was fairly certain Ace's nose twitched), and ended up sort of pausing for a moment.

The infirmary was not really designed with someone Jinbe's size in mind.

"You're back already?" Chopper asked, angling his head back and taking in Jinbe's appearance. Then he noticed Ace. "Ah! He passed out?"

Jinbe and I were going to leave Ace to be fussed over by the Straw Hats' resident doctor, because frankly this kind of thing was beyond both of our skills. I heard the word "concussion" and idly corrected it with "probably narcolepsy," but that was the sum total of my contribution.

"Kei, hang on for a second!" Chopper said, before I could make good on my escape. "Have you been eating and sleeping properly?"

Oh, no. Not the medic problem again.

"Uh." I perhaps hesitated for a bit too long, unlike when I'd run from Janey on the Moby Dick. Instead, Chopper turned his big, worried eyes on me, and I caved. I was a complete sucker, whether they were anthropomorphic reindeer or cute dogs. "No, I guess not."

Chopper guided me to the exam table, while Ace continued to snore on the bed. "Describe how you're feeling right now, please?"

Jinbe made his escape.

I ended up falling asleep in the infirmary and waking up sometime closer to sunset than noon. At some point, someone (probably Chopper) had left a blanket over my shoulders. I pushed it aside gently, folding it up to leave at the foot of the empty exam bed, and then got to my feet. My stomach gave a mighty growl as soon as I found my center of gravity again, and I cracked my jaw while I did a quick self-exam.

For a start, I had enough chakra back to take on Impel Down again, if it hadn't already been permanently dealt with. Thanks to my bond with Isobu, any minor aches and pains had been healed, and my only real complaint was that I was finally, ravenously hungry for the first time in days. After eating like a bird for most of that, it wasn't really a surprise.

I rubbed my eyes, clearing sleep dust, and looked outside through the porthole window.

Hell of a fog, I commented to Isobu.

My doing. The island does not generate worthwhile mist on its own.

Thanks. I paused for a second, then asked, There aren't any people here, are there?

Just us, thus far. The crews are still deciding where to go next.

And the pursuit?

The admirals never had our trail. Of course, turning the Tarai Current against them was only a minor contribution to the general confusion.

I smiled unpleasantly. Of course. And I'm sure the crater had nothing to do with it.

Perish the thought.

My stomach growled again. With that contribution to the discussion taken care of, I headed to the kitchen to see what was available. Given Ace and Luffy's presence on board the Sunny, I was only cautiously optimistic that there would be anything.

"You're awake, Kei-ki?" Sanji asked when I wandered in, while he was washing dishes.

"Probably," I said, rolling my shoulder until it popped. Just to be sure I was fully recovered. "And I feel like I haven't eaten since…yesterday."

The expression on his face was best described as "aghast." "I'll get something for you right away, Kei-ki! Just one moment."

Sanji darted to the fridge, which had a padlock that put everything I'd seen in Impel Down to shame. Since he'd vacated the sink, I shrugged to myself and pushed up my sleeves to continue where he'd left off. It was really the least I could do.

"Did I miss the dinner rush?" I asked, while Sanji carried an armful of vegetables to his freshly-scrubbed cutting board.

"Not at all! But I could never let someone go hungry," Sanji replied. Then he realized what I was doing. "You don't need to help with those. You're a guest."

"I need to keep my hands busy," I told him. Even if that meant being up to my elbows in soapy water instead of, say, sparring with Zoro or working on fūinjutsu. Or something else. "Besides, I'm sure that you have better things to work on than getting prune hands."

"Doesn't mean a beautiful woman should do it for me," Sanji said, chewing on his cigarette as he expertly julienned an entire cabbage. "But at the same time, with with our captain and his brother…" Sanji bit down on the cigarette. "No one goes hungry on my watch."

"That's very generous of you. And besides, you don't wanna see what happens when I try to cook," I joked, though in truth I was at least passable. I'd somehow managed to keep myself and Hayate alive through our mid-teens, after all. As I started piling up dishes on the nearby rack to dry, I asked, "Did any of you get hurt in there?"

Sanji kept from swooning, barely. "That's—ahem, uh, it's kind of you to worry, but none of us were hurt." He was nearly trembling from the suppressed urge to go totally gaga. "Let me just finish this—"

Once he had a chance to turn his attention back to the stove, vegetables in hand, I finished with the dishes and let it all dry. Still, we'd need the soapy water later, so I held off from pulling the plug as I dried my hands. "So, what are you making?"

"Just a vegetable stir-fry," Sanji admitted, while the stove flashed and oil sizzled. "I hope that sounds good?"

Hell, my mouth was already watering. I wanted food.

By the time Sanji put the dish in front of me, I fell on it with gusto that would have at least surprised people who hadn't already been familiar with Ace and Luffy. Despite the lack of chopsticks, I was really too hungry to be fussy about implements. As I expected from Sanji, the vegetables were perfectly crunchy and the lingering sauce at the bottom of the dish was great. Sure, I was eating too fast to taste any kind of subtle flavors, but I didn't care much. It really hit the spot, despite the lack of meat (and I knew exactly where that had gone).

Sanji just chuckled before heading back into the kitchen proper to finish cleaning up.

I did not lick the plate. But it was a close thing.

"We're not in danger of running out of food, are we?" I asked, as I somewhat sheepishly returned my dish and cutlery to the sink.

"I would say yes, but Isobu dragged a Sea King to shore earlier," Sanji replied. "We're probably fine for a few days, Kei-ki. In fact, I need to get back to supervising that before that cabbage-headed moron does something to ruin it."

Thank you, I told Isobu, while Sanji shooed me out of the kitchen.

It was no trouble. That was the first of the creatures to attack me in days, so it was clearly volunteering.

I bit down on a dry chuckle, and as such, I heard the first few uncoordinated thuds of Sanji hitting Category Five Love Hurricane mode. And then, "Kei-ki is so kind and great and beautiful!"

I vacated the premises very quickly after that.

While I was up and about, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. The sounds of the various former prisoners at work emanated from an open porthole that faced the island, but I didn't feel like joining in even if I could hear Naruto and Luffy's respective gleeful cackles. They'd be fine. If they weren't, there were plenty of other people who could solve that situation, given that every other chakra signature besides mine was also on the island.

Maybe it was time I just spent some of my concern on myself, at least for a bit.

With that in mind, I picked up a spare set of clothes from the storage chest I'd left in Isobu's stomach and headed to shore to see what I'd missed.

The last I'd seen of Ace, he had conked out in front of me and spent the rest of the time snoozing until I'd taken a nap myself. I didn't have the means to track him down the same way I would most of my other companions, but a quick question aimed at a random former prisoner—a Newkama, going by the fishnets—pointed me in the right direction in short order.

At first, I couldn't see much at all. I knew the sea had been in relatively plain view before, past Isobu's mist, but Shukaku had erected a massive sand barrier to create a sheltered cove that hid any evidence of the pirates' presence. With Isobu's coral forming a waterproof base for him to build from, the Sunny and the stolen battleships had effectively disappeared. I could feel the other Tailed Beasts loitering around the island, including the ever-glowing Matatabi, but clearly precautions had been taken.

I found Ace with Luffy and Naruto, sitting on a chunk of beachhead in the midst of the mist. Naruto, like at Impel Down, had multiple snails climbing on him as well as around him on the sand. Aside from Komushi, he had four more Marine snails and an apparently wild one, and one of them was making a concerted effort to eat Luffy's hat from the top of his head. While Luffy sat up and talked nearly as much as Naruto would, keeping his hat out of the snail's reach by blind luck alone, Ace was lying flat on the sand with a contented smile on his face.

"Having fun?" I asked by way of greeting as I sat down near them.

"Kei-sensei, I named all of them!" Naruto said, holding up one with a checker-patterned shell and holding it in my face. "See, this one is Aomushi!"

Luffy, however, had other ideas. "No, it's Lion Bear Tiger—"

"It's not!" Naruto argued instantly, scrunching up his face.

...Well, its flesh was blue, at least. Sky-blue, even. Past that, no comment. I gently eased the snail back into his grip to put the animal between the two shōnen protagonists, then asked, "So, has anyone actually made any calls on them?"

"No," said Luffy. He tilted his head to his side, then asked, "Why?"

"We could call the Whitebeards to let them know we all survived," I said in a voice drier than Alabasta.

"They'll find out from the papers," Ace muttered, and I fought down the urge to grab his earlobe and tell him to stop being a brat.

"If you're worried they'll scream the island down, how much worse do you think it'll be if you don't call them?" I wanted to know. While Ace raised an eyebrow, I went on, "Because last I checked, Impel Down was garrisoned like it was because they thought the Whitebeards would smash them otherwise. And the day before we hit the place, Marco said they needed a few days to get everything together."

"Oh, so they'll be really pissed off now if they don't hear from anyone," Luffy said, nodding to himself. "Makes sense."

"Therefore, we are calling them now," I said to Ace, because he dragged his heels worse than anyone I'd ever met with regard to snail calls.

…There were so many things wrong with that thought.

Ace pouted at me, though perhaps not as effectively as his brother could have. Nevertheless, I had won our little battle of wills by being a nag.

"Oh, oh, tell me the number," Naruto volunteered, retrieving Komushi from his back. "Mom told me about some of them, and I wanna hear this!"

I recited the relevant eight-digit code as Ace finally sat up stiffly, due to his bandages. While Naruto and Luffy fidgeted in place, I sat crisscross on the sand and settled in as the snail started making noises akin to a dial tone. Komushi, far too used to this particular routine, bobbed its eyestalks in time with its noises.

Then it opened its mouth, saying in Thatch's voice and with a tone of forced cheer, "This is the Moby Dick, but you probably already—oh, to hell with it. Kei, did you find Ace?!"

One of these days, they'd find someone more composed to man the comms room. I genuinely hoped that day never arrived, even as Komushi started to bite its lip in a clear imitation of Thatch's expression. Somewhere past him, the sound of several people shouting at once dominated the background noise, as did the sound of rushing footsteps. On our end, the mist muffled most background sound and light, but we could still hear people complaining about shore work in the afternoon gloom nonetheless.

"Present and accounted for," Ace replied with a cheeky grin, while Thatch's expression crumpled. Upon seeing this, Ace swapped tack immediately. "Wait, shit—"

But it was too late.

"YOU ORANGE-HATTED PYROMANIAC JACKASS!" Thatch roared, causing Naruto and me to reel back from the snail to protect our hearing. While Luffy and Ace winced, Thatch shouted, "Do you have any idea how worried we were?!"

"Someone get Thatch away from the snail before he strangles it," suggested someone, who sounded like they did not want to be volunteered for the job.

"Thatch, hand over the snail," said Marco's voice with just the thinnest strand of patience left.

"YOU CAN HAVE IT BACK OVER MY DEAD BODY," was the response.

"Thatch, everyone's all right," I tried to assure him, while the argument went on in the background. From the sounds of things, at least one punch was thrown and a brawl might've kicked up, but Thatch seemed to retain control of the snail. "We got Ace out with no trouble."

"But… Didn't you just tear a hole in Impel Down?" asked Jozu.

Aaaaaand I realized belatedly that going incommunicado when I'd ordered it meant that the Whitebeard Pirates didn't know what we'd planned to do, much less what we'd actually done.

Ace and I exchanged looks over the snail, while Naruto trembled with suppressed laughter. Luffy, likewise, started to snicker openly.

"Uh, sure. Tore right through it," Ace said unconvincingly.

There was another pause.

Janey's voice piped up next, drawing a shudder from Ace and me at the same moment. "…Kei, what did you do?"

"…Nothing Captain Whitebeard wouldn't have," I replied after another moment's pause, while Naruto keeled over and into my lap, shaking with near-uncontrollable laughter.

"You hesitated," Thatch said in an accusing tone.

Vista broke in with a frantic, "And do you have any idea how long that list is? That's not very reassuring!"

"Pfft, no!" Naruto cackled, "Kei-sensei did something way better!"

"Who's that?"

"Is that a kid?"

"We fought all the way down all six levels!" Luffy declared. "There was no way I was gonna leave Ace in a place like that, and neither would anyone in my crew!"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, while Ace lunged across the snail and tackled Luffy to the ground to put him in a headlock. It seemed that Ace's half-dormant big brother instincts were kicking into high gear at the reminder of the ludicrous risks Luffy thought were no big deal. Or perhaps he thought of them as always acceptable for his precious people.

"And then we blew up Impel Down," Naruto added, grinning at the terrible wordplay. Rolling over so he could put his weight on his elbow, Naruto allowed me to set him back on the ground. "There's a big hole in the ocean floor where it used to be, so no one's ever gonna be stuck there again."

Several different voices said, "What."

I dropped my hand onto Naruto's head and started ruffling his hair a bit too quickly to be comfortable. "You just had to say it, didn't you?"

"But Kei-sensei, you were so cool!" Naruto protested.

"It also represented the utter destruction of one of only three Marine strongholds important enough to have Gates of Justice attached," I told Naruto, trying to pretend I wouldn't have a headache by the end of this conversation. "It's not meant to be something you use as a joke."

Haruta said, "No, see, speaking as a pirate? It is absolutely something to joke about and put on a wanted poster. It's both awesome and hilarious."

"You're not helping, Haruta," Ace complained theatrically. After a brief pause to think it over, he admitted, "...Though it was pretty fuckin' cool."

"Hei pulled the whole front of the cage off!" Luffy said, "And we beat up a whole bunch of guards and stuff before that, since if we'd gone through an outside wall everyone would've drowned and half of us wouldn't have been able to fight."

"We seem to be a bit overdue on introductions. Who are these children?" Izo's voice asked.

"Well, one of them calls Kei 'Kei-sensei,' so…" Thatch puzzled for a bit, then continued, "One of her students? But how did they find each other out here?"

Ace blinked. "Did we forget that part?"

"I call Kei-sensei that because she's a teacher, not because she's my teacher," Naruto said. "I'm Namikaze Naruto, from Konoha! You're those pirates who wanted to hit Impel Down first, right? Well, we beat you to it!"

Half a dozen introductions ensued, until…

"My name is Monkey D. Luffy," said Ace's younger brother, "and I'm gonna be the next Pirate King!" He leaned forward with a grin, continuing, "I have to fight all the Emperors if I'm gonna reach my dream, so don't take it too hard if I have to beat you guys, too!"

"Luffy!" Ace scolded, but a bit too late.

"Isn't that the Straw Hat kid?"

"Ace's little brother! I remember him!"

"Hey, that should make him our brother too, right?"

And while his fellow commanders and crewmates dissolved into an entirely separate conversation, Ace groaned aloud. "Dammit, Luffy."

"If you wanted a controlled conversation, you should have kicked these two off the call," I told him.

"I know, I know," Ace grumbled. "And I don't see you volunteering to do it."

I shrugged.

Any further conversation on our part was postponed for a while, because a familiar rumbling laugh burst from Komushi's mouth. The snail's features took on a more weathered look, and though it couldn't shift its face enough to mimic Whitebeard's iconic facial hair, it sure tried.

"It's good to hear from you and know you're both safe," Whitebeard said in a soft voice, at least for him. "Are you all right, my son?"

"Hey, Pops," Ace said, his voice coming out a weaker than before, due to a lump in his throat. "We're—I guess I got a few scrapes, but we're all okay. But Thatch probably told you already."

"I heard Thatch say it, but I wanted to hear it from you," Whitebeard said. The old man chuckled warmly. "And now that I have, I know I feel better. It's been too long since your family heard your voice, even over another snail call."

A raucous series of shouted agreements followed, too many to individually identify. Ace wasn't wearing his hat, so he couldn't hide his watering eyes at all. Instead, he covered his mouth with one hand as Luffy looped his arms around his brother three times and did his best to win some kind of award at hugging. Naruto, after a second's thought, climbed over me and joined in while paying just as much careful attention to avoiding Ace's remaining injuries as Luffy did.

"It's okay to cry when you're happy," Naruto said, as Luffy's hand did another loop and pinned him in place.

"Everyone loves you, Ace!" Luffy told him, and if his semi-permanent grin had gone a little wobbly, that was fine. "And I'm gonna keep reminding you until you don't forget it anymore."

I reached over and tried to pull Ace into a side-hug, but, given that he was already effectively pinned by two younger boys and their combined weight, it was probably not one of my more brilliant ideas. Ace toppled with a choked-up laugh, and the entire group sprawled across my lap like they didn't weigh some three hundred pounds grouped together like that.

Could I have dislodged them? Sure. But between carding my fingers through Naruto's hair and murmuring gentle reassurances to Ace while Luffy took care of the louder, more enthusiastic version, I was content.

"We'll see you again at Fishman Island. Take care of yourselves until then," Whitebeard said, and signed off with a click.

It was not a good day to be a Marine. More specifically, it was a terrible day to be the Fleet Admiral or anyone near him.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'IMPEL DOWN IS GONE'?!" Sengoku roared into the receiver attached to a cowering snail. "We stationed ten battleships around it! Even if the Whitebeard Pirates brought everything to attack, they should have at least managed a distress call!"

"The Whitebeards never showed," was the ragged response from Vice Admiral Onigumo.

As one of the few officers above captain rank who hadn't needed his jaw wired shut after being attacked by an unknown group, Sengoku was inclined to trust him. But still…

"Continue your report," Sengoku said, keeping his voice level through sheer force of will.

The only positive aspect of this situation was that Garp had finally found a situation too serious to laugh at. Hundreds of men were dead or presumed so, with the site itself reduced to a crater the likes of which hadn't existed except in the form of Enies Lobby prior to this afternoon. The Gate of Justice had been permanently disfigured, showing new cracks from the seam outward, and several Marine battleships had just vanished in the wake of the attack. Oh, the men were all there, but bedraggled and defeated and oftentimes injured. Some of them had been trembling in shock, and those that were couldn't be convinced to speak.

It was a nightmare.

"At thirteen hundred hours, the fleet came under attack by an unknown force," Onigumo said, his voice still cracking from weariness. "A giant monster appeared from nowhere and trapped our ships before we could respond, and none of our attacks had any effect."

"A Sea King?" Vice-Admiral Tsuru asked, frowning.

"No Sea King I've ever met could spit acid or invulnerable slime," Onigumo said, and the snail grimaced. "It was a sea slug, but in the same weight classification as a Sea King. Worse, it wasn't alone. There were five animals of the same size, total, but… I can't explain it, sir. They felt wrong."

"Describe the feeling, vice admiral," Sengoku ordered. He didn't have time for pointless wavering like this.

"They were sizing us up," said a new voice. Going by the faraway tone, this was one of the men who'd been shaking himself to pieces earlier. "It was like… like they were thinking. And they were angrier at us than any animal's ever been at a human."

"The fox-shaped one talked, commodore. Everyone knows they were intelligent. Just look at the damage on the Gate of Justice!" snarled Onigumo, while the snail turned red. "Sir, it felt like they were using haki. The level of coordination was as unreal as the destruction they caused afterward."

"And what about the reports we've had of humans attacking?" Sengoku heard himself say, past the throbbing rage-induced headache pounding at his temples.

"We saw two directly." Onigumo paused, and the snail's eyes darted around in a mirror of the vice admiral's expression. "One was a man with black hair over one eye. I can get the men to come up with a description."

As though that didn't describe possibly millions of people across the damned globe!

"One of the other monsters brought a pirate ship to join the attack, we think, but we couldn't see the symbol," said the same shaky Marine from before. "And when they got out, they had dozens of prisoners with them! They appeared out of thin—"

"SOMEONE GET THAT MAN TO THE INFIRMARY!" Sengoku roared again, his patience snapping. Taking a series of deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself in front of the cowed vice admirals—again, except for the surprisingly silent Garp—he growled, "Vice Admiral, you're telling me you let the Impel Down garrison be utterly destroyed, on the eve of our war with Whitebeard, by a handful of unknown pirates and their pet monsters?!"

"P-p-pet monsters with conqueror's haki," corrected someone else, and Sengoku felt a vein in his head do its best to rupture.

"I don't care what you think a bunch of overgrown animals could do. You're dismissed," Sengoku said in a low, deadly voice. To one of the vice admirals in the room—or all of them—he said, "Get the Kuja Pirates on the line, and while you're at it, dig the Blackbeard Pirates out of whatever hole they fell into before we need them. Then send them to find that group and end them."

AN: And now: a brief look at Marine shenanigans. Quite overdue, really. Incidentally, Kizaru hasn't turned in his report about Sabaody yet. Once he does, Sengoku may have words with him.

And er. Well, the Tailed Beasts may have let a certain few details regarding the Gate of Justice slip past their partners' scrutiny. In the form of writing. (ex. "KURAMA WUZ HERE" "YOU CAN'T SPELL" "SHUT UP")

EDIT 5/7/17: I knew I lost someone in the editing. Welp, Inazuma, now you're back in.