"Nico Robin," said the man looming over them all, "What is your relationship with Akatsuki? I need to know everything you told them. Think about what you're going to say very carefully, because your answer today will determine whether or not your friends live to see the inside of a cell."
Robin's earlier fear was augmented by a sudden bewilderment. "What?! What are you talking about? I have no relationship with them, unless you count antagonism!"
"Really? You're practically following in their footsteps, though. We've already seen both of your groups at the Poneglyph found on Jaya. I'm supposed to believe that it's not a coincidence, when Akatsuki also has a man who is capable of reading the Poneglyphs?"
"W-What?!" shouted Robin, mouth agape and her face a portrait of shock. "But- they shouldn't have any connection to such things! They've only just left the sealed island!"
The rest of the crew was left puzzled, muttering their confusion. Half of them had never even heard the word Poneglyph before, and the odd bits and pieces of cryptic lore dispensed by Robin during her scholarly musings hardly qualified the others to understand the significance of this conversation.
Aokiji, for his part, gave a puzzled frown and scratched his head.
"Oh, my… Huh… That's an interesting response... So you really didn't know that, did you? Even after the Commodore's report I had half expected he was a second survivor from Ohara, but if there's no connection on your part, then… well… you know… it's just that… well, never mind, it's not important."
"FINISH YOUR GODDAMN STATEMENT!" shouted half the crew in unison. Naruto and Sasuke shared a perplexed glance at the uncharacteristic unity. It was as if they had all rehearsed it beforehand.
"Hey, come on, now," the Admiral said, raising a placating hand out in front of him, "It's not like it matters, right? Sure, there might not be a connection now, but you'll be trying to join Akatsuki soon enough. Won't you, Nico Robin?"
Robin still looked stunned, barely able to respond. Nami was the first one to speak.
"What are you talking about? Joining Akatsuki, that's outrageous! They've done nothing except to try and kill us! They nearly killed her back on Jaya!"
"I'm afraid you just don't know enough about who this woman is, and you definitely don't know what she'll do in pursuit of those stones. She's the last survivor of a cursed clan. She's been in and out of numerous pirate organizations throughout the last two decades, and one thing has remained a constant." Aokiji's face was now cold and impassive. "Every single group she's in falls, and she remains the only one still standing at the end."
The others remained focused on Aokiji, but Sasuke turned his head to regard her with a new eye. Her earlier statements to him on the ship made more sense now. The combination of shame, pride, frustration, and righteous anger twisted together in her expression was very familiar to him.
"Still," the Admiral said, crossing his frosted arms over his chest, "even though you are all sure to be taken to pieces by her treachery, I can't really just let this situation go. How can I be sure that this woman didn't get a chance to read the Jaya Poneglyph? You might all have to die. It's a shame, particularly for you, Straw-Hat. You really remind me of your Grandfather."
"Eh?! You know Gramps?!" shouted Luffy, suddenly shaking in terror.
"Wait!" interjected Naruto, before things could get silly, "Okay, while I really, really can't imagine this guy having a Grandfather, what the hell did you mean about us all having to die?"
"Oh, she hadn't told you?"
Naruto growled out his response, grinding his teeth together, "No, you smug asshole. She doesn't have to explain. I'm asking you."
"Oh my, my, that's something of a long story. The World Government has forbidden all knowledge and study of the Poneglyph stones. They can, and have, destroyed entire islands to keep them away from prying eyes. Just like we destroyed her home. The scholars of Ohara didn't know when to leave well-enough alone. They grew obsessed with it, you see, and she inherited their will. Oh, she tries to hide this obsession from the people that she associates with, but the fact is that she'll betray anyone if it gets her one step closer to that forbidden knowledge."
Robin was shaking now, and the mood was darkening rapidly. The Straw-Hats looked like they were ready to kill the man as he continued to speak, his voice low.
"You certainly won't be the first who die because of her, but hopefully after I'm done here you'll be the last."
"Why are you doing this?!" Robin shrieked, "If you're really so set on instigating matters, then I don't have a choice but to fight you!"
Robin crossed both of her arms, and numerous copies of her limbs sprouted all over Aokiji's ten-foot-tall frame, pulling the lanky man's head back and bending him almost in half.
"Oh my! I'm disappointed in you, Nico Robin. But, in the end, I suppose neither of us really did have a choice in the matter, did we?"
Then, Aokiji shattered, his body breaking into fragments of ice that fell to the ground in shards and lumps. There was no sign of blood.
"AHHHHHHH!" screamed Usopp, "YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED AN ADMIRAL! QUICK! GET TO THE SHIP! NINJAS, HIDE THE BODY!"
Robin backed up casting her eyes from side to side. "Everyone!" she called, "We need to get away from here! This might be the only chance we have to run! Please-"
Screams of warning interrupted her as, with a quiet cracking noise, Aokiji rose up from the ground behind her, forming out of frost and ice. Robin had only a moment to take one look back at him before he wrapped both arms around her as if in an embrace. His breath fogged in the air.
[ICE TIME]
In an instant, Robin was enveloped by a cocoon of frost, her features still caught in the act of calling out in surprise.
The Straw-Hats began screaming her name.
"Relax, everyone," Aokiji said, tapping her frozen head with one finger, "I've got excellent control, and she's still alive under all that. If you were to get her some help right away, she'd be fine." Then, he raised his foot, bringing it above the frozen young woman. "Unless, of course, someone were to hit her like this, which would be pretty bad for her condition."
Sanji pushed off the ground, leaping into melee, already spinning as he landed at the Admiral's feet. With a twist and pivot, he kicked the man right behind his knee, halting his execution strike. Grinning, the Admiral reached out to touch Sanji, which is when Zoro arrived, aiming for an amputating blow. His sword struck an icy arm yet somehow failed to cut through. Frost shot down the sword, freezing Zoro's hand to his blade. Meanwhile, Sanji yelped and retracted his leg, his shin encased in ice where it had made contact with the Admiral's body.
Then, Luffy was there with them. Ducking between his two comrades, he moved to strike the Admiral's unprotected torso. Aokiji moved his remaining arm to intercept, but a thrown kunai shot through the smallest of openings between the fighters, heading straight for the Admiral's wounded abdomen. Apparently, the thought of being hit with the kunai bothered him, and his last free limb darted down to catch the knife, letting Luffy strike his chest with both fists.
[GOMU-GOMU BAZOOKA]
The impact drove Aokiji back half a meter, then Luffy screamed and pulled back his arms. Both hands were red and covered with frost.
The giant man in front of them seemed completely unharmed by the attacks. Sanji, Zoro, and Luffy took a step back. During the confusion, Usopp had charged in and grabbed Robin's body, carrying her out of the immediate combat area. Now carrying their injured friend, he made a headlong dash back toward the ship, with Chopper and Nami following behind.
"Oh my," said the Admiral, "I thought so. You all really are willing to go to bat for her. That's dangerous, see, because the only reason I've been able to leave her alone so long is that she's been so unsuccessful at keeping a team."
Breath fogging, Aokiji turned to look at Naruto, who was now leafing through his little black book. "You there. I recognize that weapon you use. The last time someone threw one of those at me, it exploded. I suppose you must be another one of those ninjas. From the looks of it, I'd guess your friend there is, too." He nodded at Sasuke. "Your bad luck for getting involved with the Straw Hats, though it's actually quite convenient for me. Stick around after I deal with the rest of these pirates, will you?"
"HEY!" shouted Luffy at the top of his lungs as he stepped forward aggressively, "YOU WANNA HURT MY CREW?! YOU AND ME! ONE-ON-ONE! NOBODY ELSE!"
The Admiral frowned. "I refuse," he stated simply. "Sorry, kid, I admire your guts, but I'm not going to restrict myself when there's this much at stake."
Naruto shut his tiny book with a loud clapping noise, then brought both hands together. Behind him, a rotund toad that was about twice as tall as the young ninja appeared in a puff of smoke. With wrinkled skin and a faded red coloring, the toad had an immense wooden barrel strapped to its back that was emitting steam and a fragrant smell.
Aokiji watched with interest as Naruto spoke to the new arrival.
"Mister Furogama! My friend went that way," he said, pointing, "She's frozen and she'll need some warm water."
"Ey-Yes!" shouted the toad in a thickly layered accent, "Nothin' like a warm bath in the winter! But first I gotta think of you, Naruto-boy! Two hot baths, comin' right up!"
Hopping up and down, the frozen earth under the old toad's feet caved in with magical swiftness. Slapping both wrinkled hands together, a thick stream of hot water poured from his mouth, filling the basin in seconds. Finally, he tipped some of his barrel into the newly created pond, covering the surface of the water with fragrant medicinal herbs. Job done, the toad leapt off to intercept the medical team on their return to the ship.
That should give Chopper something to work with.
"Oh my," said the Admiral, "You ninjas really are full of tricks, aren't you? I'm kind of curious to observe them now that I don't have most of Akatsuki breathing down my neck. But, you know, it's dangerous to just toss someone hurting like that into hot water."
Naruto smirked. "Hey, there's a pretty smart reindeer who knows a lot about frostbite working on the problem, you know? I think he'll figure it out."
Aokiji lowered his stance slightly. "But it's all meaningless if I don't let anyone else leave."
Naruto made a hand seal, and then the area was littered with shadow clones, the cloud of smoke obscuring the location of Naruto's real body.
"One distraction, coming right up!" shouted one of the Narutos. "Guys, if you wanna warm up, now's the time!"
The swarm of clones attacked, roughly half of them jumping in to engage the Admiral in close range, with the others hanging back to attack with thrown kunai.
"Oh my! Some sort of duplicator?" Aokiji said, amiably dispatching clone after clone, "I'm pretty sure we have a fruit like that under our control! Maybe you do have something to show me after all. You ninjas have the strangest variety of abilities!"
Initially, the Admiral seemed curious, but it didn't take long for being bullrushed by clones to grate on the man. As Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji warmed their frozen limbs, Sasuke watched from the sidelines, his Sharingan carefully analyzing their opponent's movements. What he saw concerned him deeply. Before he could speak, one of the Narutos nearby muttered something.
"This guy's ridiculous... He can see me from every angle, even when he's not looking- and it's like he's not even trying!"
Sasuke decided to test this, waiting until the man turned his back to throw a kunai straight at his head. The Admiral swatted it out of the air without looking.
"Shit," cursed Sasuke, beginning to scan the landscape, "He's got some way to see attacks coming, and he hasn't taken any damage from any of our hits so far. That has to be a fake body- some sort of ice-clone. He's watching us from somewhere."
"I hate to break it to you," said Sanji, rubbing his legs frantically, "But that's just what a Logia type fruit user is. They're pretty much invulnerable. They don't need your fancy ninja misdirection."
"What- even the blind-sight? How does ice control give him something like that?"
"Don't ask me! Luffy was the one who fought Crocodile!"
Sasuke turned to Luffy. "What weaknesses do these guys have? How did you beat the other one?"
Luffy was gnashing his teeth as he dunked his frozen arms in the hot water, blood dripping from the broken skin. "That sand bastard couldn't handle getting wet. That let me beat him up."
Nodding, Sasuke spoke to a nearby Naruto, who was probably a clone.
"Naruto, how about we heat things up a bit?" He asked.
Naruto grinned and tapped his black book. "Hells yes. I've got just the thing, too! We'll make this a three-part attack."
"Let's make it four," said Sasuke. "Zoro! Give us that wind move of yours!"
Once more, Naruto clapped his hands to summon a toad out of thin air, this one with dull-yellow skin. Naruto, Sasuke, and the toad, Gamatatsu, huddled together for a moment. Then, Gamatatsu stepped forward and vomited an intense stream of dark fluid into the melee.
[GAMA-YUDAN] - [TOAD OIL BULLET]
At the same time, the two Konoha teens flickered their fingers through a number of seals, before leaning back and taking mighty breaths.
[KATON: GOUKAKYUU NO JUTSU] - [FIRE RELEASE: GRAND FIREBALL TECHNIQUE]
[FUUTON: KIRYU HOU] - [WIND RELEASE: AIRSTREAM CANNON]
Lunging forward, Sasuke shot an immense jet of flame from his open mouth, meeting the stream of toad oil on its way to the target. The blaze leaving Sasuke's lips intensified upon setting the oil alight. An instant later, Naruto joined in, blowing a tightly controlled maelstrom of swirling wind into the mix. Seeing the attack begin, Zoro added his strength, sending a triple-helix of wind chakra straight into the flames.
[HYAKU-HACHI PONDO HOU] - [108-POUND PHOENIX]
When the four attacks met, the storm of fire began to burn white hot, quickly expanding and covering the distance between them and the preoccupied Admiral. Aokiji's eyes widened for just a moment, seeing at least a dozen of Naruto's clones smirk before vanishing under the rolling cloud of flames that now covered an area almost two hundred feet wide. The man pivoted on the spot to deal with the incoming blaze.
"Oh my, what's with all the fire-users today? Let's see if you're as hot as the last guy who tried to make me melt! Wait, let me rephrase th-"
Then, the world was engulfed in a hellstorm. The non-ninja component of the Going Merry watched in horror as the three shinobi fighters plus Zoro covered most of the battlefield in fatal flames.
"That's so awesome!" said Luffy, eyes alight in the reflected fire.
"Holy hell," muttered Sanji, mouth agape as as he finished warming his leg. "Remind me not to ask them for a light. That guy's gotta be in bad shape after something like that..."
"No, I don't think so," murmured Zoro.
Sure enough, as the flames began to recede, the form of the Admiral remained, reforming from solid ice, thick droplets of meltwater the only sign of the intense heat he had just endured. Well, that, and the fact that he was now grabbing his already wounded side.
"Okay, I'll admit," he said, wincing, "-that was better than I had expected. Not as good as what that other fire and wind guy tried, but I didn't enjoy-" Aokiji's words were interrupted as several Narutos behind him whipped kunai in his direction, aiming for his bloody abdomen. He knocked them out of the air, then flicked shards of ice like bullets to disperse the clones. In moments, even more Naruto clones had swarmed him. Naruto's summoned toad disappeared amidst the mayhem, disappointed by the failure.
Sasuke watched the aftermath of this with a growing terror. The man was invincible. That was literally the most powerful fire attack he had, and if that wasn't enough to hurt Aokiji then he only had the Tsukuyomi left.
Would it even matter? Sasuke had never really considered the Tsukuyomi to have a weakness before, but now one was staring him straight in the face. Use of the technique in combat assumed that you were capable of killing your opponent after they were thrown off-balance, and Sasuke wasn't sure he could kill this man even if he were to lay down and take his attacks without fighting back. That assumed that he could even handle torturing a stranger in the first place, which… he wasn't sure about.
Despite his earlier words, the man seemed to be holding back, and the one thing Sasuke was certain of was that if he tortured this man for three days inside the Tsukuyomi then when he came out he would be mad enough to kill them for real.
No, more importantly, why was he considering wasting Itachi's eye if running away was a better option?
"Luffy, do we run?" he asked.
The captain answered with a fierce nod. "Everyone! Let's scram!"
"Oh, no you don't," chastised the Admiral, stomping his foot. When his foot impacted the ground, numerous spears of ice shot up, stabbing through each and every one of the Naruto clones that remained in close combat.
Sasuke winced, never being completely sure which clone was going to turn out to be Naruto's real body, but they all exploded in puffs of smoke. There were only a few clones left by Sasuke now.
Suddenly free, the man bent over, and a line of crackling ice shot out in the direction of their ship, miles away. As the ice moved it forked once, sending another line straight to the the hot-spring that Zoro, Sanji, and Luffy had just been using to heat up. At the same time, far out of sight, the Going Merry stopped rocking in the waves as a bridge of ice froze it to the shore.
The Admiral stood back up before them, looming over the battlefield. His breath froze the air, and he now looked no worse off than when they had started.
"Ahhh…." he moaned, "My motto is Lazy Justice, and I'm tired of this already. Look, I just froze your ship in place, so take a hint and stop running around for a second, alright? No, on second thought, you know what?" Aokiji interrupted his own sentence by disappearing, and Sasuke whipped his head to the side, barely able to track him with the Sharingan. In an instant, Sanji, Zoro, and Luffy were all frozen over.
It was only Sasuke and about a dozen assorted Narutos left standing now. Looking bored, the Admiral waved them over.
"Hey, you can take your friends off to the other bath now, alright? I left that one unfrozen, so just get them out of here and I'll let them live. They're out of this fight either way, and there's a convoy of Marines ready to land in just a few minutes. Let's just chill for a moment."
The assorted Narutos shared a glance, and three of them darted off to carry away the frozen trio. As they did, the Admiral rubbed the back of his neck.
"Ugh... This is such a pain. Look, I don't think you two ninjas have anything more to show me that Akatsuki didn't already try, so it's about time we ended this. I'm quite capable of freezing this entire island from the ground up, you know? I highly suggest you surrender now."
Sasuke clenched his teeth as he glared back at the other man. "If you're this powerful," he asked, "then why didn't you stop Akatsuki from leaving the island like you did us?!"
The man sighed, scratching his head. "Because I still don't know how they managed to hurt me, that's why. I'm hoping that you two can shed some light on that. I was skirmishing with several of them quite handily until the man in the driftwood mask arrived, and then all of a sudden… well… you know… it's like he was… You know what- never mind, it's not important."
This guy, Sasuke decided, was really pissing him off. Time to try something. The Tsukuyomi was a king among genjutsu for its power, but the Sharingan could generate other illusions as well. Ironically, it might be a lesser genjutsu that saved them this time. Concentrating, he began to prepare an illusion. First, he turned to the few remaining Naruto clones near him. "Naruto, I need to know which one of you is the real one."
Each of the assembled Narutos looked apologetic for a moment. "Uhh, yeah, about that…"
"I'm not playing around, Naruto!" yelled Sasuke, still forming his illusion in his mind.
"I'm not playing around either," said the tall man across from them. "In fact, I'm seriously about to start hurting you two. You have five seconds to surrender."
Well, it was now or never. Taking a moment to concentrate on the illusion, he looked Aokiji in the eye and established a link with his chakra. It was easy. The man didn't even know he wasn't supposed to meet the eyes of an Uchiha. A second later Sasuke felt a disruption in the man's chakra system and then Aokiji blinked, a haze of confusion glazing over his eyes as he began to see what Sasuke wanted him to see. It wouldn't last long without Sasuke staying to reinforce the illusion, but they had an opening.
Slowly, Aokiji began to crackle and snap as his body turned to ice piece by piece, some automatic reflex still protecting him.
Sasuke turned to a surprised Naruto. "Let's go! We're leaving!"
"The real one's not here, dude! I'll tell him we're ready to go!" Swiftly, the clone moved to disperse itself and return the information it had learned to the original body, but it was too late.
The ground beneath the Admiral exploded, disgorging a screaming blond ninja. In his hand, he carried an enormous swirling ball of air that tore a ragged hole through the earth as it seemed to pull him upwards all on its own.
[NINPO: OODAMA RASENGAN]
It was like seeing ice-cubes being fed into a shaved-ice machine. The ball of wickedly-spinning chakra tore the Admiral to pieces, shards of frost scattering everywhere in the chaotic windstorm. When it was done, the real Naruto gave Sasuke a thumbs up and started running his way.
Sasuke saw the attack incoming, but didn't even have time to open his mouth. Two hands emerged from the rapidly-freezing ground, grabbing Naruto's legs.
[ICE-TIME]
In an instant, Naruto's body was frozen over, both legs frozen to the ground. His body didn't disappear like the other clones' had.
Aokiji straightened up gingerly, still favoring his side, ice crystals fogging from his mouth.
"I told you both how this was going to go..." he murmured, brushing scattered dust off of his jacket.
Deep in a chamber of abyssal darkness, a slumbering beast stirred and opened one malevolent eye.