AN: The song for this chapter is "Handclap" by Fitz and the Tantrums.

(There are author notes at the bottom.)

"Now, what happens next?" asked Hancock.

Utakata peered down at her notebook, then said, "Step three should be to make chocolates, I think."

"Chocolates?" Hancock repeated, a faintly puzzled frown on her face. "Is this a part of some ritual I don't know of?"

"There's a few local holidays, at least from what Rosie told me, but my point is that your paramour thinks with his stomach. It may get you as far as a date." Utakata held out his hand, "May I have the pen for a moment?"

"Oh, of course." Hancock's fountain pen looked like a serpent, of course. While Utakata scribbled something else in her notes, Hancock leaned her head to one side and on the knuckles of her right hand and said, "So, what exactly is a 'date' and how does it help me marry the man of my dreams?"

I could see Utakata visibly pause at that. He finished writing, handed the pen back, and then sat on the railing next to Hancock. "I'm too sober for this conversation."

"You're about the only one who is," said Ace, while handing over a massive mug of what was probably heavy-duty ale of some kind. "Here."

"I'm almost sure we can't get drunk," Yugito commented, while Utakata downed the entire drink in a few gulps. "You'd drown first."

"Can't drown," Utakata replied. "It'll have to be one or the other, and I choose 'drink.'"

"Oh, this could easily be step four!" Hancock concluded, and went back to writing in her notebook. "Drinking…contest." She leaned back against her massive snake lawn chair-slash-throne and shouted, "More drinks!"

"Does she know that this isn't how this is supposed to go?" I asked Jinbe in a careful whisper.

"Honestly, I'm not sure how 'this' is supposed to go anymore." Jinbe sighed, leaning against the red rails of the Kuja ship. "So much for a plan."

Ah, yes. Straw Hats. Plans. Five-second rule. Worse, it was even contagious.

How the hell did we get here?

Several hours earlier…

"I just wanna get this out of the way right now," Ace said, peering across the waves at the Kuja Pirates' ship. And pointedly not setting it on fire, though he was perfectly capable of lining up a shot and immolating everything at this range. "For the record, this is a bad idea."

"We keep records?" Naruto asked, hanging from the rigging by his ankles. Today was apparently a day for being a spider-monkey.

"We have a captain's log," Luffy said, "but I don't really write in it. Nami and Robin have a lot more to say on paper. I like doing things!"

"Not the point." Ace arched an eyebrow at the exchange nonetheless, then turned his attention back to Jinbe, whose suggestion had sparked this whole discussion. "We could outrun them or we could outfight them. I'm not sure we can out-talk them, not when Hancock can apparently turn just about anyone to stone."

"That's only a guess," I said.

"But it's one of your guesses, Kei-sensei, which basically means it's right," Naruto piped up again. Before I could stop him, he continued, "That's what you always do for Dad back home, right?"

I did my best to shrug casually when I felt Yugito and Utakata's eyes on me. While I didn't recall if Yugito had any special rank or links to the administration of her village, I knew Utakata did. As the Fourth Mizukage's husband, he ended up having a voice in Kirigakure when the previous Mizukage might have told him to sit down and shut up instead. And he, of all people, was probably more aware of my actual role in village politics than most of the other jinchūriki. After all, his village had been awfully determined to recapture Isobu for much of my childhood.

As though I would go willingly, Isobu said, rolling his eye.

I'm sure they weren't going to ask.

"What does that really mean?" Ace asked, while the rest of us sort of stood around and didn't say anything.

"Is it like Gaara's secret?" Luffy asked Utakata, who stared back at him with a blank expression.

"Should I have the slightest idea what you're talking about?"

"Maybe not!" Luffy brushed off the brusqueness with his usual ease. "Anyway, we can go to them or let them come to us. Which one is it? Because the Cuckoo—"

"Kuja," Ace corrected on reflex.

"—Pirates are really strong, right?" Luffy concluded, not apparently noticing. "My crew is strong, but a lot of the other guys are really weak. They shouldn't fight."

"Bringing too many people to a negotiation can be seen as hostile," Jinbe commented, as though he hadn't been the one to suggest our new strategy. While I admitted that maybe killing everyone and leaving no witnesses wasn't great for getting a message across, Jinbe was the one who brought up the idea to actually treat with the Kuja Pirates and their capricious captain. "Besides, we are in a powerful position. Isobu and the others make that, at least, a certainty."

"We could try something more interesting than pure negotiation," Yugito suggested, since my plan to blow up the ship had been vetoed and neither Ace nor Yugito were allowed to set it on fire. "Just to mix things up."

Utakata eyed her warily. "I thought you said you weren't trained in genjutsu interrogation."

"I'm not, but that is not what I meant."

As Yugito's gaze swept across us, I had to wonder what she was thinking. When her eyes landed squarely on Ace, I wondered a little less.

Ace looked like a man trying to brace for impact. "This had better not involve me going one-on-one with another Warlord when I don't have to. Been there, done that, don't need a repeat."

Yugito tilted her head to one side. "In a sense?"

Utakata very slowly reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. With his voice a little muffled by the sleeve over his hand, he said, "You're talking about seduction."

"What's seduction? Is it something you eat?" Luffy asked before anyone could get a word in edgewise, while Ace started to blush all the way to the tips of his ears.

"No, that's what it's called when lightning travels from one end of a power line to another," Naruto said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Like with Lightning jutsu, right? Right, Yugi?"

"The word you're looking for is 'conduction,' Naruto," I corrected him.

Luffy, of course, got stuck on something else. "What's a power line?" Then, "Ace, your face is all red!"

Ace sputtered as he got his voice back. "Hell no. No. No, no no no, no." He managed not to flail his arms, but only because he looked squarely into Yugito's face with his hands on his hips and finished with, "No."

Oh, goodie. Thoroughly off-track once again.

Yugito sighed. "That is not what I was talking about. Get your minds out of the gutter." This last was said with a pointed glare at Utakata, whose cheekbones were very faintly pink.

"Then what were you talking about?" I asked.

Jinbe looked like he wanted to jump into the sea and take his chances with the Sea Kings. He'd get more consistent focus out of them, even if it mostly amounted to perpetual hunger.

"I was going to suggest that we use a Shadow Clone under at least one Transformation layer to scout our enemies," Yugito said in a voice drier than Gaara's sand. "There's no sense in risking ourselves in the initial meeting. At least, not until we have our enemy's measure."

"Pretty sure the only one who can make those is me," Naruto said, frowning a little as he thought. "I don't know what happens if one of my clones turns to stone, though. Do I get the chakra back, or is it like when they blow up too far away?"

"I have no idea," I said, because I'd never heard of anyone turning a Shadow Clone to stone.

Paths of Pain? Sure, with a bit of Sage Mode shenanigans. People? Also confirmed, though I didn't know the name of the ninjutsu that caused it and the technique was at least theoretically reversible. Past that, anything that could forcibly modify the chemical or physical composition of a human against the subject's will tended to be life-threatening to the victim at minimum. I knew of at least one person who'd died after his chest had been hit by a "flesh-to-stone" effect, and that death had been agonizing by any measure.

"That still doesn't explain why you were looking at me like that," Ace said, having recovered from his most recent bout of embarrassment. With a cough to clear his throat, he added, "So, what was that about?"

"You have the highest bounty out of any of us, and thus a Shadow Clone in your likeness would attract the most attention." Yugito shrugged. While she cast a glance at the red ship that was slowly drawing closer, she didn't seem too concerned. "I also think that you were the one that the World Government was most interested in executing out of everyone in Impel Down, which may be a consideration in how the Kuja Pirates behave."

Luffy blinked. "So… What about—?"

This is taking too long, Isobu interrupted, rising from the depths like the giant sea monster of legend he was. While everyone on the Sunny could see him just by looking over the railing, he was careful not to allow his shell to breach the waves and reveal his position to anyone else. The Kuja Pirates wouldn't be able to see him on their approach until they hit him. Are we going or not?

Or until he hit them.

"That's our ride," I said, already hopping up onto the railing. "Do we know who's going?"

"Can I—"

"No, Naruto. You're staying here."

"This sucks!"

In the end, the actual group heading to visit the Kuja Pirates numbered seven. I was going, since I was a nosy busybody and one of our group's tanks. Utakata and Yugito were both curious and basically indestructible, so they got a free pass on the Isobu express, too. Luffy wanted to come along and no one could really tell him "no," given the lack of any higher authority to appeal to, and Ace was in the same boat. Figuratively speaking. As well as trying to keep Luffy out of trouble. Jinbe had to come with us because the whole parley was his idea, and there was no way to hold us all to it unless he was within arm's reach.

And finally, our insurance policy against betrayal or attack.

I heard that, Isobu complained.

Am I wrong?

…No.

Like I said. We were off to meet the Wicked Witch of the West. Now, if we all got turned into flying monkeys, the situation would match perfectly.

Boa Hancock. Oldest of the Gorgon sisters, leader of the Kuja Pirates, and supposedly the World's Most Beautiful Woman. On a ship pulled by hundred-foot-long sea serpents that were apparently so terrible even Sea Kings wouldn't bother trying to eat them.

And we were going to meet her on what amounted to her home turf, or at least a seagoing approximation of it. While traveling on the head of a giant crab-turtle monster that could tear their ship in half in a dozen different ways before even needing to open his jaws.

So, first impressions were kind of a thing.

Since Isobu traveled pretty low in the water when he was imitating a Nile crocodile, we were within sight of the...phalanx? Company? There were a lot of bows pointed in our direction, going by the stances the various crew members held as we approached. In a world that had discovered gunpowder and mass-produced personal firearms as well as naval cannons, I was honestly interested to see what this particular group of pirates could do.

As we got closer, I could also start to pick out the crew. The Kuja Pirates were an all-female crew according to both Jinbe and Utakata. I was seeing an astonishing number of bikinis on a dozen different body types behind the...holy hell their bows were alive. They were all the size of large constrictor snakes, but there was no way to be sure. Between Konoha's Forest of Death, the Land of Rainforests, and whatever biological bullshit had gone on in this world, my limited herpetology experience was less than useless.

Why couldn't my homeland have anything cooler than that? Friggin' oceans…

"How the hell do they string those?" I wondered aloud, before I could stop myself.

"String what?" Yugito asked distractedly.

"Their bows," I said, glancing over at her when she didn't really respond. "Which are made of snakes." In case anyone had missed that.

"I'm sorry, have you not noticed that they are all aiming at us?" Yugito said in response to my stare.

It took more effort than I'd admit to avoid rolling my eyes. "I noticed, but I don't really care." I sat down and crossed both my legs and my arms, looking almost like I was meditating on Isobu's head. "I also don't know who I should be looking for."

"Wouldn't it make sense to look for the most beautiful woman?" Utakata asked, looking bored. "That ought to be the captain, right?"

"How can you tell?" Luffy asked. He tilted his head all the way to one side. "No one here's done anything so they're not really hags or anything—"

"Do any of you hear what you're saying?" Ace demanded, while the rest of us continued to puzzle over pointless conundrums. So, really, it was like any other day on this trip.

"I am starting to regret not just taking care of this alone," Jinbe muttered.

"HEY," shouted one of the Kuja Pirates, "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

Ace slapped a hand over Luffy's mouth before he could answer.

"Thank you," said Jinbe, who was more diplomatic than any of us put together.

"We're…" Oh, crap. I couldn't lie on the spot to save my life. And yet I'd opened my mouth.

Thankfully, Yugito took over. "We're the vanguard of a larger fleet. Who are you?"

...Or not.

And so, the Kuja Pirates' first impression of us was probably that we were a bunch of lucky fools, not people who could flatten islands single-handedly. Sure, we were riding on a monstrous turtle, but Hancock's crew didn't fear Sea Kings if their homeland was literally smack in the middle of the Calm Belt. They were strong enough not to need to, even if I pretended that they didn't have overgrown sea snakes as draft animals pulling their flagship. And out of everyone on Isobu's wild ride, only half of us had recognizable mugshots in any local newspapers. Finally, the three who did were all men.

To the Kuja Pirates, we were probably too silly to be a real threat.

So their captain, when she appeared on deck in an exaggerated saunter, had nothing to fear from us.

Let me preface this next bit: Boa Hancock was beautiful. I could see why people would swoon over her despite her reputation for never leaving survivors and for being a freaking Warlord. From the top of her head to the points of her high heels, from her serpentine companion to her picture-perfect catwalk strut, she owned the persona attached to a title like "the World's Most Beautiful Woman." Very few people I'd ever met could or would put so much force of personality into being sexy.

It just didn't mean all that much to her intended audience.

"Identify yourselves, trespassers!" Hancock demanded, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she confronted us.

Speaking of first impressions…

"I swear, does no one read wanted posters anymore?" Yugito complained quietly.

"Silence!" demanded one of the other Kuja Pirates, for the sake of her captain.

"This is your last chance!" Hancock said, ignoring her underling. Crewmate? I was starting to get the idea that almost everyone was an underling to this woman.

Now, I wasn't the world's foremost expert on body language by any means, particularly on a planet to which I had certainly not been born. But Hancock's choice of pose to emphasize her point was a bit…odd. Rather than glaring or perhaps attacking for our collective non-response, she leaned back and continued to point at us, turning the entire idea of looking down on another human into something just weird. Looking down so much that she ended up looking up didn't really make any sense from a pragmatic standpoint, but perhaps her confidence was justified.

Is there not a small, ugly bird that drowns if it looks into the sky like that? Isobu asked. One with a wattle.

Turkeys. You're thinking of turkeys, I thought, resting my chin on my hand. And I'm pretty sure evolution wouldn't let them have that as a trait.

Do I particularly look like I care?

Given that I couldn't see his (lack of) expression from this angle…

"Doesn't that hurt her back?" Luffy asked, having escaped Ace's death grip on his head. While still wriggling out of anyone's control, given that he had almost all of Isobu's back as space to flee to, he added, "That kinda stuff is supposed to bother people who don't have bones made of rubber, right? Only Sanji can kinda—"

"Shut up!" Ace snapped, taking off after him.

Jinbe probably didn't deserve to be subjected to the hash we'd made out of negotiations. I felt sorry for him, really.

Hancock and all of the Kuja Pirates had gone silent at this.

"Sorry about that," I said, while everyone seemed to be either prepping sarcastic commentary, stunned, or sliding into despair at our various antics. I raised a hand and added, "And while the commander is busy, I'll extend apologies for trespassing in the Calm Belt on behalf of the Whitebeard Pirates."

Yugito blinked.

Jinbe stared at me.

"Not the Calm Belt alone. You are within the territorial waters of Amazon Lily." Hancock's eyes narrowed, while I internally swore at my and Isobu's total inability to navigate political boundaries. "This is a discussion best left for the same table. You have permission to come aboard… Some of you." Hancock pointed to me, Yugito, and then Jinbe. "You, you, and you. The rest stay on the turtle."

While Hancock turned to the other Kuja Pirates and started allowing her lieutenants to bark orders, Yugito and I exchanged looks with Utakata.

"I'm not worried about being left out, if that's what you're worried about," Utakata said, shrugging. "If things go well, we'll all be able to visit. If things don't, it won't matter."

"Okay. Keep Ace and Luffy from drowning while we're gone," I replied, though with perhaps a bit of teasing in my tone.

"It'd be a shame to have both of them die when we've put in so much effort," Utakata agreed. Then he got to his feet and climbed up Isobu's shell to supervise the brothers' impromptu sparring match more directly.

"Well then," Yugito said in a huff, though she cast a glance back at the other half of our negotiating group. "Shall we?"

"If it gets this meeting moving along slightly faster, we should," Jinbe said, though I was sure Yugito didn't really need that input. Without waiting for an answer or acknowledgement, Jinbe leapt from Isobu's head and down toward the deck of the Kuja Pirates' ship.

Yugito and I landed a moment later, bracketing Jinbe on each side in two near-identical crouches. While we were from different countries, some shinobi training seemed consistent.

Hancock lounged in the coils of her massive pet constrictor snake thing, treating it like a throne more than a pet. She, likewise, was flanked on either side by a pair of Kuja Pirates who were a bit unusual. One of them was approximately thirteen feet tall, with long green hair, a wide face and a forked tongue poking out of her nearly-as-wide mouth. The other was probably closer to eleven feet tall and built along the same parameters as Jinbe, with a portion of her long orange hair done up in Princess Leia buns on steroids. If their capes and bikinis hadn't been nearly as elaborately adorned as Hancock's, I probably would have written them both off as bodyguards.

Hancock's eyes, meanwhile, were assessing me at the same time. She had to know who Jinbe was, since at one point they could have probably been called "coworkers," but Yugito and I were unknowns aside from our association with the Whitebeards. It didn't pay to be reckless.

"Jinbe," Hancock said finally, crossing one leg over the other. "You weren't at the meeting."

"The World Government didn't like the idea that I refused to fight in their war," Jinbe replied, squaring his stance though it didn't seem like we were heading for a fight. "Impel Down is nice this time of year."

Hancock shifted her weight onto her heels. "Don't tell me you escaped?"

I took back everything I had said about non-hostility, even in my own head. Yugito had picked up on it too—while her chakra had gotten subtler over the last month or so, her nails sharpened when she got tense.

"Jinbe, Marineford is…in a fragile state," Hancock said, and if there wasn't a hint of satisfaction there I'd call my ears a pair of liars. Her voice was much more serious as she continued, "Sengoku himself ordered me to find out who had attacked Impel Down and dispose of them."

"'Attacking' implies that we were unsuccessful," Yugito replied icily. "And that the prison still exists."

I was in the wrong position to elbow Yugito, but she got the hint when I glared at her. While I pinched the bridge of my nose hard enough to leave a mark, as was all too common ever since coming to this planet, Yugito at least didn't dig us any deeper.

"Impel Down is gone?" burst out the woman on Hancock's left, with the long green hair. "Sister—"

"I know," Hancock interrupted in a quiet voice. As her serpent reared up behind her head and she scratched under its chin, she said, "Sengoku kept that tidbit a secret, didn't he?"

"As he has many other things," Jinbe remarked darkly. "Tell me, did the meeting discuss why all seven of us were being called to Marineford in the first place?"

"The five of us," Hancock corrected, "were asked to fight the Whitebeard Pirates in a single, final confrontation." She leaned forward, lacing her fingers together under her chin as she took on a contemplative look. "Or at least that is what the World Government believes should happen. You clearly disagreed, and the last of our number failed to show. He was dismissed in absentia, afterward."

Jinbe nodded slowly. "He won't be a problem."

Mainly because nowadays Teach was doing time as fish food. If anything would even bother to eat him a week after being squished like an errant fly.

Hancock didn't say anything for a moment. Then, "A Warlord, Impel Down… You're clearly interesting people. Perhaps enough so that I can pretend I didn't see anything. You were never here."

Now, we might have resolved the situation with little more contact or comment, aside from possibly exchanging transponder snail numbers. Hancock didn't have a lot of information about the outside world if she lived in the Calm Belt, and I doubted we'd get much of anything from inside the Calm Belt once we left. But hopefully something would end up coming of this nonviolent confrontation.

"GUM-GUM—"

And then Luffy happened.

"—ROCKET!"

A split second later, all of us could hear Ace shout in the distance, "Dammit, Luffy!"

Hancock's head jerked to the side as, one after another, everyone on the Kuja ship prepared for an attack that was really more Ace's overenthusiastic little brother's idea of getting around in style. She leveled her arm as though cocking a firearm, taking careful aim as a translucent pink heart appeared at the end of her fingertips.

"Pistol Kiss!" And Hancock shot Luffy square in the chest with her finger gun.

How the shit was that a sentence even in my head?

Whatever was supposed to happen didn't, though—instead of reeling or flinching, Luffy continued obliviously on his little flight path, bowling straight into Hancock with a mere "Ow!" after being shot. Hancock got knocked over the back of her snake throne with a surprised shriek, and the Kuja Pirates flew into a complete tizzy.

"We should have left him on the Sunny," Yugito said with a sigh.

As Hancock's two sisters sorted out the chaos—the green one picked Luffy out of the mess and held him out at arm's length, while the orange one barked orders—Jinbe, Yugito, and I mostly tried to stay out of the way. I had no idea why every single non-confrontation we got into was bound to have something go wrong, but it seemed to be a pattern as firmly set as the sun traveling across the sky.

"Luffy, was that really necessary?" Jinbe asked, when the green lady dropped Luffy from high enough that he bounced.

"I'm the captain," Luffy said as soon as he'd recovered. "Even if you're not a part of my crew, I'm responsible for my ship and my crew and Hammock is the biggest Warlord around here and she turns people to stone." He stood up and went on, "And Uta let me borrow his spyglass, and Sanji is a statue!"

I stared at him, and so did everyone else in the immediate area. …What?

"My sister didn't even aim at your ship!" said the orange sister, as scales started to appear on her arms and face. Holy hell, a snake Zoan? A were-snake? Were those a thing? Or was there a possibility of a were-human?

Gah, I needed names.

"Then explain why Sanji is a statue!" Luffy shouted back.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Hancock's voice rang out, cutting through the crowd noise without a problem. She got to her feet and her heels clicked on the deck as she stalked directly to Luffy. Given that she was about eight inches taller than he was, he had to look up quite a lot to see her face.

Knowing that some men and women wouldn't have bothered, I gave him a ten out of ten for focus.

"Why weren't you turned to stone?" Hancock asked, her expression puzzled. "That was a direct hit."

Luffy blinked. "It was the thing Marines use, right? Finger Pistol? That doesn't turn people to stone, it just hurts."

This was going to go well.

Hancock frowned, then made a hand sign. With her fingers arranged into the shape of a heart, she said, "The penalty for touching me without permission? Oh, you'd wish for death, but I am merciful! Mero Mero Mellow!"

Oh, for fuck's sake. It was like a cavalcade of shōnen bullshit to see even professionals call out the names of their attacks.

Heart-shaped energy—which I was beginning to sense was a theme—burst from Hancock's hands and swept across the deck in a style reminiscent of Sailor Moon's signature attacks. Ever-expanding hearts engulfed all the non-Kuja people on the ship before blasting up and across Isobu's shell. If anyone besides Isobu had been truly in the blast radius, I couldn't have guessed what might've happened.

As it was, we all stood around after the pink light show was over, kind of confused. Only Jinbe had his hands over his eyes, which was probably a decent precaution against a gorgon's stare if any of the mechanics had made any sense. As it was, I could almost see floating question marks over everyone's heads.

"I'm—wait, did you say Noro Noro?" Luffy asked, though the energy had blown straight through him. He relaxed his arms from their defensive stance. "...Shouldn't I be slow now?"

"What just happened?" Yugito asked, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.

"He—they just stood there?" said a blonde Kuja, looking shaken.

"Someone resisted our sister's power?" said the orange-haired Kuja. "Sandersonia, what's going on?"

"It—It must be their fear! If someone is in fear of their life, lustful thoughts might not have any room to fester," said the finally identified green-haired sister. "Don't worry, Marigold."

Hancock, confused but unperturbed, tried again. "Mero Mero Mellow!"

While the pink washed over us again, I lifted a hand to my chin and tried to think it through. If "lustful thoughts" was the determining factor for being turned into a statue, I was suddenly glad that Kakashi was back home. But did they have to be aimed at Hancock? Or did the Devil Fruit power not care who the victim was thinking about?

Yugito stepped forward as everyone continued to look a little puzzled, her nails growing into meter-long claws in an instant. "That's quite enough. You've launched three attacks on us, one of which is forgivable. You should all leave now."

"Forgive?" Hancock tossed her hair over her shoulder again. "Don't you understand? Is this too much for you? No matter what I do, or who I hurt, I will always be forgiven!"

"Why's that?" Yugito asked in a flat tone.

"Because," Hancock said, leaning back once again as she looked down on Yugito so much she was looking at the sky instead, "I am beautiful!"

Every single one of the Kuja Pirates swooned. There was clearly a severe shortage of fainting couches in the world. Particularly on this ship.

"...That's it?" Yugito's voice was so unimpressed it bordered on hostile.

Oh boy.

"I don't care about any of that," Luffy said, bounding in front of Yugito before my Kumo counterpart could show off her claws and other people's organs at the same time. "Just turn Sanji back to normal!"

Not helping, either.

Hancock, of course, gave no shits about either confrontation. Instead, she pointed squarely at me over Yugito and Luffy's heads and said, "You. How are you avoiding my power?"

"I'm not attracted to strangers," I said bluntly. "And I don't know you except by reputation and what you've done here, which is mostly ugly."

I couldn't have hurt her pride so badly by stabbing her. Hancock went pale with horror. "U-ugly!"

"Trying to turn people to stone is disgusting," I said, as my eyes glowed faintly gold. They were itching again as Isobu lent me chakra for the sake of agreeing with me. "As is arrogance."

Hancock hauled her damaged pride up like a shield, which it wouldn't be if she kept this up. She turned to Yugito and demanded, "And you?"

"You're an enemy," was Yugito's equally rude reply.

"I had my eyes shut," added Jinbe helpfully.

"And them?" Hancock pointed at Ace and Utakata, who were still on Isobu's back.

"Ever heard of dodging?!" Ace yelled back down. And likely not in the usual Logia way, if he was taking his vow to train himself up to his own standards seriously.

"Married to a woman hotter than you!" Utakata shouted in response. The sad thing is that I was sure he wasn't trying to make a joke. He was being literal.

Hancock looked like she'd been hit in the face with a fish. With a trembling finger, she indicated Luffy. "And him?"

"Pretty sure he's not attracted to anyone," I put in.

Luffy crossed his arms. "If you're not gonna turn Sanji back to normal, there's no way I'll forgive you."

Without a further word, Hancock collapsed onto her throne. "S-So many…"

"Sister!" shrieked Marigold and Sandersonia at once.

Yugito blinked, then her claws shortened back to normal. "...That's it?" she asked, in quite a different tone from before. "Did she faint?"

"I think we broke her," I mumbled, scratching the back of my neck.

"Someone get fans!" Marigold shouted, and some Kuja hopped to it. While they ran around, she turned a glare on us. "You should get back to your turtle right now. Our sister will deal with you when she recovers."

I got the feeling that this was the Kuja equivalent of being treated with kid gloves. I mean, we weren't being shot at, and we were allowed to leave on Isobu. Though Sanji was still a statue, from what Luffy said, at least he wasn't a statue on the Kuja ship, right?

…That has to be one of the greatest wastes of time I have ever had to witness.

Sorta leaning that way myself. I frowned. But for now, we'll wait and see.

"You're married?" demanded just about everyone once we got back to the Thousand Sunny.

"…Is it really that surprising?" Utakata asked, tilting his head to one side in a manner slightly reminiscent of Luffy. With his arms crossed over his chest, he mostly looked huffy, but he'd loosened up over the past week or so. At least now he was playing along.

Speaking of playing along, Hancock did unfreeze Sanji from extreme long range after about an hour. When he instantly turned to stone again upon looking into the spyglass that he'd already had pointed in her direction, Nami had to make sure to steal it before she unfroze him the second time. After that, Sanji was bustled off to the kitchen to avoid a repeat until Hancock was already out of sight. Good enough for now.

"You kinda don't ever talk about your home," said Fū, perching on Franky's shoulder.

"Also, hotter than Hancock?" Ace added skeptically. "I don't see it."

"And I'm so jealous you have no idea," Sanji hissed, while perhaps chopping through vegetables with more force than purely necessary. Outdoor barbecues were fun, at least when looking in the wrong direction didn't auto-petrify our chef. "Goddamn lucky slug-bastard…"

"I meant it literally," Utakata said, because of course he had. I did, in some small way, have him pegged. "Mei has both the Boil Release and Lava Release bloodlines. She is explicitly hotter than someone without powers related to fire."

"Everyone says she's beautiful," Saiken put in, from just above the waterline. "The most beautiful Kage of all!"

"That, too," Utakata agreed, nodding. Then he thought about it. "Well, then again, the other four are men…"

"Sensei is pretty as hell and you can't convince me otherwise," I told Utakata. In a sage tone, I said, "Until Mei became Mizukage, he was the fairest one of all."

"You're talking about my dad here," Naruto complained loudly.

"Wait, wait," Nami interrupted. "Kage… You're talking about those village leaders! Gaara says one of them is his father, right?"

"The Fourth Kazekage, yes," Gaara said. "My siblings and I are his children."

"But we already knew that, though. Gaara said, months ago," Luffy said, thus proving that Gaara trusted Luffy more than he had probably ever trusted another living human. "Though I didn't know you had siblings, Gaara. You should've said!"

"We're…not that close. Not like you and Ace are," Gaara admitted, and was immediately swept into a hug by his captain. This seemed to be commonplace enough that the Straw Hats ignored it.

"We're getting off-topic," Ace said, while his brother did as he always did. Looking puzzled, he went on, "Are all of you related to the Kage of your villages?"

"Not all of us," Yugito replied. She tapped her chest. "I'm the cousin of the current C of Kumogakure. B is the Raikage's brother and partner." When this got a lot of blank looks, she added, "Kumogakure's leadership take on single-letter titles, such as A, B, and C. The Raikage's name is A, now. It wasn't until he succeeded his father."

"Fourth Hokage's student," I said, raising my hand. "But I was an accident. Usually the relationship's closer."

"Fourth Hokage's son!" Naruto said, bouncing in place. "Mom's also one of us, but most people don't know that."

"Third Mizukage's nephew, Fourth Mizukage's husband," Utakata added, looking bored as usual.

"And I'm the ward of Takigakure's village leader," Fu said, kicking her legs idly. "See, we're all kinda connected."

"Not hearing a 'something-kage' on that one," Zoro commented as he dodged Fu's flailing feet.

"Only the five big nations get to call their leader a Kage," Naruto explained. He took on a thinking pose as he thought back through his history classes. "'Cuz they were the first after the First Hokage started making Konoha, and they gathered the most clans together. Other shinobi villages might have land or a military that's strong, but those five are the only national armies with full daimyo backing and everything. No one else. It'd be like… Uh. Like making a new Emperor? Though there's already four."

Well, someone had passed his history class.

"Smaller countries generally try to pick a bigger one to ally with," Gaara added in a low voice, though Luffy was still squeezing him. "Except for Takigakure."

"Taki's never been invaded even once!" Fū crowed, puffing her chest out with pride.

Mainly because no one could figure out where it was. Takigakure was stubbornly isolationist at best and viciously xenophobic at worst, which made sense for a nation whose territory sat between the Land of Fire and the Land of Earth. If their home base could be found and besieged by a major village with a chip on its collective shoulder, Taki would be little better off than Amegakure during the gap between the Second and Third Shinobi World Wars. Border countries rarely did well when the bigger powers decided it was time to throw down, even when they weren't directly targeted.

Small wonder Fū hadn't realized that this wasn't even our old world. They'd probably hid her under the biggest rock they could find so she'd be guaranteed to reach adulthood.

We might have kept discussing who was related to which non-local powerhouse, but Isobu interrupted with a fairly pointed, "You do not have to shoot me to get my attention."

Which drew some screaming from the Kuja vessel, of course. While they were used to Sea Kings, apparently no one was used to the idea of talking to them. It had been a long time since a large group of people reacted nonchalantly to Tailed Beasts, and I missed those moments. Though with Isobu floating between the Kuja ship and the Thousand Sunny as a hundred-meter buffer, at least we only heard a little bit of the total decibel count.

"Oh, be quiet. I can hear you perfectly well without the shrieking."

At least he was having fun.

"Bro, does that mean we can all talk to the humans?" Saiken burbled, his eyes poking over the other side of the Sunny. "It's boring just listening to Shukaku and Matatabi hate water to death."

"I love how every time we try to pretend to be a normal bunch of pirates, everyone gets too impatient to bother," Nami grumbled, smacking a hand over her face.

"It wouldn't be half as interesting if we did," Robin replied, patting Nami's shoulder with a disembodied hand. As soon as Nami stopped acting quite so frustrated, Robin added, "Besides, I can't wait to see how this collapses into chaos."

"Do any of us have an actual plan here or are we just making shit up as we go?" Ace asked, with a somewhat dry tone reserved for Jinbe, now.

"This is so far out of my hands that it's practically in the New World."

How reassuring.

"If you want to visit the ship, you have to abide by the same rules. Threatening anyone aboard the Thousand Sunny will mean I kill all of you."

…Somehow, that was genuinely reassuring.

"It has been an hour. Why would they still be on my back?" There was a pause, presumably as one of the Kuja replied. "She should have thought of that before trying to turn people to stone. Does she promise—in truth—to conduct herself appropriately?"

"I'm starting to feel a little irrelevant," Jinbe commented, but without annoyance. He seemed relieved that we'd managed to avoid sparking a massacre on either side.

"Story of our lives," Usopp replied. "Sometimes I wonder if we're getting into fights way too big for us."

"I think that's been the last week. All in a row," said Chopper. "First it was Sabaody, then Impel Down, and now this."

"I have a question," Saiken interrupted, though quieter than he had when speaking to Isobu. "Has anyone read the most recent newspaper?"

"What, like today's?" Franky asked. "I'm pretty sure your answer there is 'no.' We've been out of the main trade paths for too long."

"Oh. Well, then I wonder why the human is asking Isobu about them?" Saiken mumbled to himself.

Franky frowned. "You can hear that?"

"Sort of." Saiken's eyes bobbed up and down."My brothers and sisters and me all used to be part of one being, so sometimes we can share eyes or ears like now. I just want to know if the newspaper is important. We went over old ones two days ago, and they were boring."

"There's news every day, though!" Luffy said, drawing both of Saiken's eyes to him. He'd let go of Gaara some time ago, but that just meant he could bounce with all four limbs. "That's why it's called 'news,' 'cuz otherwise it would be 'olds!'"

"Oh, that makes sense!" Saiken said, nodding in understanding. "So there must be 'news' today and 'olds' yesterday. Then I think they're talking about olds."

Utakata sighed. "I give up."

"It took you this long?" Zoro asked.

Utakata made an annoyed sound that didn't quite make the transition to words, then stormed off.

"Yes, he is," Isobu said to an unheard question from one of the Kuja. "Which is why he and his entire crew have been pursued by Admirals on multiple occasions." Isobu's left tail curled into a question mark shape. "No, we are not afraid of being attacked by them. One close call does not make a pattern."

"I get the feeling he's talking about Sabaody," Nami said. She bit her lip. "That was a close call."

"They are. I still don't know what makes a Celestial Dragon so special, but the olds talked about it!" Saiken's tails made their first appearance in the conversation, waving back and forth. "But it sounds like the Kuja aren't mad, just surprised. Does no one punch the little bubble-head humans normally? Because it seems like they should."

"Oh, believe me, we're all very aware of that," Sanji said, almost biting his cigarette in half. "It's just that actually doing that means you get an admiral up your ass. Kizaru was one hell of a close call, like the lovely Nami-swan said. We almost didn't get away even with Shukaku slowing him down."

"…So, if Uta and me want to get Akainu out in the open, we should just find one of those bubble-humans and kill him with lots and lots of witnesses!" Saiken concluded happily. "That's a lot easier than what I thought we'd have to do."

"I'm not sure if I should be horrified or not," Usopp said slowly, "that the most cheerful giant monster here is that casual about the next best thing to sacrilege."

"It's best to ignore it and move on," Yugito suggested. As her gaze slid to Isobu's still-speaking shape, she added dryly, "Besides which, your captain has actually committed that particular sin and gotten away with it. Or so Isobu has been informing the Kuja."

"…Yeah, that's not helping," Usopp said, scooting away from her.

Isobu turned slowly in the ocean, trying to avoid killing multiple ships with an errant tail-flip. Then he said, "The Warlord wants to meet again."

Zoro rolled his eyes. "Should we take that as a good thing or a bad thing? Because if that's an open invitation, we're going to get to use the love-cook here as a coat rack."

"Screw you, marimo!"

I idly wired Isobu's hearing into mine, so he could pick up what the two were saying at such a distance.

"It is not. She wants to see the same group as before." Isobu's eye focused on me. Particularly Utakata and Luffy.

Oh, I have to hear her reasoning for this one.

As do I. This will be amusing.

It turned out that Isobu was officially the world's least-likely wingman. Saiken was a close second.

While none of us has been paying attention to the Kuja Pirates' reactions to his terse statements, the results were quite beyond what any of us had expected. During the time our groups had been forcibly separated so Hancock could recover from her fainting spell, her sisters took a chance to read the newspaper that Saiken had obliquely mentioned. In it, they discovered the story of the epic punch that got the Straw Hats chased out of Sabaody with Kizaru on their collective tails. "Saint" Charloss was apparently still stuck with a wired jaw to go with his earlier glass one.

As for Utakata? Well, Hancock had heard that "married" remark and taken it as a sign that he could help her accomplish the same. She said it with her usual level of imperiousness, at least while her attention was on Utakata, but melted whenever Luffy so much as wandered into view—between each stage of the eating contest he and Ace had been in, with the Kuja Pirates as both spectators and fellow competitors.

And that was about the long and short of it.

Naruto, who wasn't old enough to drink but had somehow snuck over to the Kuja ship anyway, said, "She keeps giving Luffy that same look Sakura gives Sasuke when she thinks no one's looking." To emphasize his point, Naruto changed his entire body language to mimic a lovesick preteen girl. In a falsetto not much higher than his actual voice, he squealed, "Oh, Sasuke, you're so cool!"

I sighed. "Naruto, cut it out." In a lower voice, I added, "At least, where Hancock can see you."

"Pff, like she's even looking," Naruto said, flapping a hand dismissively. "Her eyes are so stuck to Luffy they might as well be glued there."

"Even so," I said, while ruffling his hair. "That's no reason to be rude."

Hancock had also pulled Jinbe aside to discuss something with him. While I didn't hear anything—and Jinbe made it clear that he wouldn't appreciate eavesdroppers—some tension left both of them after the talk. It was a little like the time I'd (distantly) heard Sanji shouting at Jinbe due to an event in Nami's past that I wasn't sure our resident fishman had anything to do with. Neither situation was my business, and thus I didn't stick my nose in it.

One never knew when it could end up being bitten off.

"I'm surprised more of you weren't left on the hook for Impel Down," Sandersonia commented, her voice hissing on the 's' syllables. It was more because she was allowing her serpentine side to show than anything, and because Fū found the effect hilarious and awesome.

"The Marines seemed too stunned to do anything other than cry," Utakata said, balancing his mug on his knee. He shrugged and said nonchalantly, "I'm honestly amazed they managed to put enough together to get my poster done."

"And what a terrible picture it is," remarked Marigold. "But are you sure you want us to send a proper one to the Marines?"

"As long as you don't get Luffy's crew caught up in this, I don't think anyone will mind," Yugito said, sharpening a long claw against a steel file. The file was losing.

"I would never," Hancock said immediately, even as she gestured for a Kuja to provide even more food for the bottomless brothers. Clutching at her face as she gave a lovelorn sigh, she went on, "My brave, sweet Luffy needs to be stronger to face the World Government all together. He doesn't even know how to use haki yet! Can you even imagine?"

"Eh? Did ya say somethin'?" Luffy asked, when he briefly came up for air.

"Oh, he spoke to me!" Hancock swooned, falling back onto her python throne dramatically.

Well, this was certainly a thing.

"Say you killed the rest of the group that hit Impel Down, including escaped inmates," I suggested, scratching the back of my neck as I thought. "But the big targets got away. Given what we did, you could probably swing it."

"And say that this was the flag," Utakata said, pulling a piece of paper out of his sleeve. When he unfolded it, I recognized the Crimson Carnations skull flag, which he presented with grim purpose. "Akainu should recognize the sigil."

"It still doesn't seem like a good idea," Marigold said, after examining it. "And are you sure you want that man's attention?"

Utakata nodded.

Oh, did he ever. Whenever he finally managed to get Akainu to rise to the challenges, I was going to be watching the results through a telescope. Nothing closer would be safe. Assuming, of course, that I wasn't right there with him and helping the revenge plot go through.

"We can do that," Sandersonia replied. Her tongue darted out of her mouth again. "Honestly, anything to tell the World Government to go screw themselves seems like a plan to me. Right, Sister?"

"I have no objections." Hancock didn't really seem like she had any attention for anyone but Luffy, but the rest of us took that as the next best thing to enthusiastic assent. Which it was, given the circumstances.

Despite the bit where Hancock supposedly worked for the World Government, it was pretty clear that we were still all pirates here. Therefore, the general sentiment remained "fuck the police" in fancier clothes. Not a bad attitude to have, I thought, given the local constabulary.

Before we were able to say goodbye to the Kuja, however, Hancock had something to say.

"Please come and visit me," Hancock said, leaning down a little so Luffy could speak to her eye-to-eye. "Before or after you become Pirate King, I'll have a feast prepared. One made with my own two hands!"

"Is it gonna have meat?" Luffy asked.

"Only the best for my love!" Hancock promised.

"Then I'll come back someday, and tell you all about my adventures! And eat!"

"The sad part," Ace said slowly, while we fled the Kuja Pirates' immediate vicinity once everything was sorted out, "is that he will, and he'll have no idea why she wants him back so much."

"Hopefully, it won't be for a while," Yugito remarked, eyeing the Straw Hats' captain as he sat on Isobu's head and talked about all the adventures he was sure to have before he came back to the Calm Belt. "Then again, how long does it take to become something like the Pirate King? Are there other contenders for the throne?"

"Plenty," Ace said, crossing his arms. "Line starts with Pops and circles the Red Line, twice."

While I wasn't sure that Whitebeard cared about the title, since he was in his seventies and had been a pirate for so long that he could have probably grabbed One Piece any time before now, I knew Teach had been on that list. For all I knew, everyone else who'd gotten huge bounties at the same time as Luffy was going to be heading for the same prize, too.

Now that I thought of it, the only people who didn't care much about the whole Pirate King were probably Marines.

Utakata shrugged and leaned back on Isobu's shell. "Who cares?"

"I do, if we may run into them later," Yugito said. "But I can see why you would not. After all, you're after the head of the living volcano."

Utakata's visible eye narrowed. "He hit me at my weakest. I'm ready now."

"I'm not saying you're not. But we will be there when you do face him," Yugito told him, echoing my silent promise on that topic.

And we sailed away toward a different reunion.

"Dahahaha! You're kidding! All of that and what gets you a poster each is a photo op?" Shanks's voice said over the snail call.

"Well, for everyone over the age of seventeen," Naruto complained. "I wanted one, too."

Technically, it hadn't been a photo op. Rather, a Kuja with decent art skills had created rough sketches that were later filled in once their crew got back to Amazon Lily. For mugshots, they were as good as snail-derived photographs. Sure, the World Government was probably going to be howling for everyone's heads, but now they had names to faces and bounties to both.

Good.

"Save it for when you're an adult, Naruto," Kushina's voice cut in.

"There's plenty of time to commit a crime!" Killer B added, making the snail almost shapeshift a pair of shades. "Just give the Marines a bit to scream."

"Later," Kushina concluded, while Komushi glared at an unseen person. Probably B.

We'd already called the Whitebeards about the news, and thus the only people left to inform were the Red Hair Pirates. Mostly for the sake of Kushina's heart health, given that Naruto didn't have a poster and it was well within a mother's abilities to assume the worst if we didn't.

"Shanks, Shanks, did you see my bounty go way up? I'm almost caught up with Ace!" Luffy said, leaning on Naruto's shoulder while the blond elbowed him to no effect. "Soon, I'll catch up to you and you'll see how great a pirate I can be."

Ace mashed Luffy's hat down onto his head. "You're not there yet, Luffy. You haven't even been a pirate for a full year."

Yugito coughed at the same time that I did.

"Oh, shut up," Ace added for our sakes.

I had to admit, the Marines had gone all out. While I wasn't quite sure, the exchange rate between ryō and beri was something like one to ten, at least if I guessed based on purchasing power. So, if Asuma's bounty back home was thirty-whatever million ryō, it was over three hundred million beris. That would put Kushina's beri bounty pretty much in the same weight class, at least before the "rampage" or whatever Shanks's crew had done while Impel Down was going up in the form of miniscule particles.

"Cobalt Lioness" Yugito: Three hundred and fifty-five million beris. Unfortunately, her title also tied her irrevocably to her band of admirers, to her everlasting embarrassment.

"Tidal Blade" Kei: Four hundred and thirty million beris. There was something to be said for sticking to a consistent nickname. Mine was already established in the heads of people who were from my world. With any luck, they'd find me later.

"Carnation Prince" Utakata: Five hundred and seventy-five million beris. He was the only one of us who hadn't made a request for a specific title, and the result was Marigold's creation. Still, he'd beaten Ace's bounty in one (recorded) incident. Two posters for one massive crime.

For our first bounties, they weren't bad at all.

Once again, you have been thoroughly cheated. You masterminded the attack. The highest bounty should be yours.

Oh, Uta's will be even more inflated by the end of this. He's the one who wants to bring down an admiral. I was more of an accessory. In the same way a silencer accessorized a gun. And besides, I'll catch up if I keep associating with dangerous people.

Isobu huffed, but he let the issue go.

"I'm glad you at least remembered to keep your family names out of it," Kushina's voice said after a while. "I didn't think that one through."

"I'm not using your name out here, though. It's okay, Mom," Naruto replied.

"It was still an amateur mistake, Naruto," she argued, but gently. Komushi shook its head along with Kushina. "Imagine if Nagato had ended up out here just a few days ago and introduced himself to a Marine? He'd be fine, but there'd be trouble wherever it happened."

"Nagato doesn't even use it," Naruto muttered. "But I get it. I'll try not to get in the papers too much. 'M a ninja and a Revolutionary, not a pirate."

"I'd prefer if you didn't get in the newspapers at all," Kushina muttered.

"But you know what an army's for," Killer B added. "'If you seek peace, prepare for war.'"

Sanji stared at the snail. "Did you get that out of a fortune cookie?"

"Hey, that's not an original line!" Naruto exclaimed, disappointed.

"It's late. They can't all be great," Killer B replied in mild annoyance. With a complete lack of a decent beat, he explained, "The Marines at Marineford are raising their sword. Can't take that back now with a fight off their bow. Their bait for Whitebeard is gone, but they'll think up a new one."

"How'd you even get info on that?" asked someone else from Shanks's crew.

"We have our sources," Kushina said in a faux-dramatic voice.

"Killer B has a partner in crime, Gyūki!" Naruto suggested, and his rhyme was…not great. But then, none of ours were.

"B, your imaginary friend is contagious."

"Ahem," Yugito coughed. "Two words: Summoning jutsu."

From the other side of the call, there was the sound of two hands meeting two foreheads.

"Boar, dog, bird, monkey, ram," Utakata supplied helpfully. Or as helpfully as he could sound while also being kinda condescending.

"Why didn't we think of that?" Kushina asked the universe at large.

"Hell if I know, but hey, let's go!"

There were two simultaneous shouts of "Summoning Jutsu!" an explosion, the sound of rushing water, and then a lot of screaming. Over the top of the cacophony, cutting through human voices, were two much larger voices saying in unison, "What the hell was that for?!"

Click.

Oops. I rubbed the back of my neck. "Probably should've told them to do it away from people, but…"

"They can figure that part out," Utakata said.

Naruto, Luffy, and Ace were all too busy laughing to contribute further.

AN: And since I am now, officially, out of buffer chapters and other pre-written stuff, updates will slow down. This time I had to take two weeks to update, for which I apologize since it seems slow compared to what I was managing before, but sometimes that's what has to happen.

Also, I'm working on a small batch of side-snippets that may end up being Tumblr-only for now, so keep your eyes peeled for any mention of either fairy kingdoms or (even more) irresponsible consumption of alcohol.