-Earlier-

-Main Gates-

Knives flashed in all directions as the fighting between Sasuke and Flounders continued in the shadows of the Main Gates. Altering his fighting style, the Commodore had slowed his more-or-less constant transformations in favor of his new hybrid form, and Sasuke got his first real taste of what a Zoan-type Devil Fruit was supposed to do.

While most other Zoan Fruits seemed to focus on boosting the user's size and power, this one seemed to push his efficiency and flexibility, increasing his strength while keeping him more or less the same size. This allowed him to perform his aerial maneuvers and attack with knives in the same form, something he had been forced to transform back and forth to accomplish before. The mouse-man was darting here and there, constantly leaping off the air, the gates, the ground, and anything else that let him circle around to get behind his opponent.

After surviving the cannon bombardment from the Marine Battleship, Sasuke was only now recovering from the aftermath of using Tekkai for the first time. Still bleeding from a number of light wounds, he regained his stride just in time for Flounders to finish warming up.

Sasuke was now regretting his idea to mimic his opponent's fighting-style. The Commodore's technique had evolved when he transformed, but the Sharingan was helpless to copy the Devil-Fruit-enhanced changes.

All of a sudden Sasuke missed a step in the constant dance and the mouse-man shot past him like a bullet, blades spinning. A quick parry was enough to see that he only got nicked by one of the knives.

Okay, that was enough. He had to switch back to the sword. It hurt the young ninja's pride after he'd made such a big show of it, but this just wasn't working. Dropping his kunai to the ground, he unsheathed his own well-trained weapon.

"Well," said the scratchy-voiced man as he continued to circle at high-speed. "Progress at last."

With that, the mouse-man flickered into existence on the underside of the great archway where Sasuke had earlier stood and jumped straight down to land directly next to Sasuke. The ninja struck out with the sword, his superior reach forcing the man to parry, but that appeared to be just what the Marine had wanted. Flounders' long, wrinkled tail snaked out and wrapped itself around Sasuke's leg, pulling him off his feet.

He hit the ground in a roll, narrowly dodging the stabbing daggers that punched holes in the dirt before leaping back up into a combat-ready position.

Now it was the Commodore's turn to push the offensive, stepping in and slicing with greater speed than he had used before. Steel struck steel, and Sasuke struggled to regain some control of the fight.

This man was just plain more experienced than he was. It reminded him of the few occasions where Kakashi just couldn't be bothered to go easy in combat training and had instead arranged for him to spar with the first random Konoha Jounin who passed by the training area.

His new skills had let him overwhelm the Commodore at the beginning of this fight, but now he was exhausted and the Marine was more powerful than ever. Time to switch this up.

Pushing himself to his limits, Sasuke attacked fiercely, forcing the mouse-man to go on the defensive for a moment. Right when his opponent switched stances, Sasuke leapt back, using the momentary advantage to instead gain some space. His fingers flashed through several seals.

[KATON: GOUKAKYUU NO JUTSU]

[FIRE RELEASE: GRAND FIREBALL TECHNIQUE]

Flounders had already resumed his earlier advance, but now his eyes widened as a great blossoming explosion formed between them. Skidding to a halt, he leapt backwards in a desperate attempt to avoid the clawing flames

When they cleared, Flounders' clothes, fur, and whiskers were singed, but he had managed to avoid a fiery death. Not wasting any time, he dashed straight back into the fight.

That was when they heard Luffy scream.

Startled by the odd presence that washed over them, they both turned to see the pirate captain shooting up to the clouds. As he called out his attack at the top of his lungs, Luffy's limb expanded greatly in size. Still shouting, he brought his massive foot down in a monstrous axe-kick.

The noise was startling, even this far away. An immense impact that shook the island, and then Flounders turned back to the battle. Sasuke was still watching the scene in disbelief.

Lips twitching in amusement, the Commodore dashed forward, slamming the young ninja in the base of the skull with the pommel of one dagger. Sasuke looked briefly surprised for just a moment as he passed into unconsciousness, and then he disappeared in a puff of smoke. What fell to the ground instead was a large chunk of masonry.

Cursing, Flounders looked around in confusion at the unexpected disappearance, and the mystery was soon compounded as a dark chuckle echoed from the shadows in a way that seemed to be coming from nowhere at all.

"Well now, that was a mistake... It's pretty dangerous to take your eyes off of a ninja..."

The Marine eyed the shadows, whiskers twitching up and down but not saying a word.

"While it is a little surprising that he can do that, people making their limbs giant isn't all that new to me…"

Yeah, keep talking, kid... As the boy slowly continued his monologue, Flounders began to sniff using the heightened senses he had been given as a beast. If there weren't any Zoan-type Fruit-users when he came from, the kid wouldn't be used to dealing with scent-trackers.

Another chuckle echoed from nowhere. "Of course, I suppose that means things are looking pretty bad for those assassins, doesn't it? Everyone's still fighting up there, but even Rob Lucci hasn't been able to put that rubber moron down for the count…"

One last twitch, and he found it. Sasuke was hidden in the stones of the inner gates, somehow adjusting his coloring to match the shaded stonework. He didn't pause, launching immediately into the attack, leaping and spinning with both knives aimed for his target. Flying in like an arrow, he stabbed, pinning both of the young man's shoulders to the stonework. Once again, he heard a gasp of pain, and then the boy exploded.

As smooth as silk, a second, unseen Sasuke fell from the stones above to land directly behind him.

Flounders had been ready for something like this, already spinning in place to engage the newcomer, when a tremendous cracking and crushing noise echoed across the island. He stumbled for just a moment before slashing out with both daggers and Sasuke took advantage of the distraction to duck underneath.

Flounders had overextended himself, so Sasuke kicked upwards, striking him in the chest hard enough to send him flying.

Wincing from what felt like a cracked rib, the mouse-man spun in mid-air to look down at his opponent.

Sasuke was gone.

He barely had time to react to this before the ninja flew in from the side, bouncing off the gate to deliver a spinning kick to his unprotected soft vitals. The pain drove his breath from his lungs, but Sasuke wasn't done, dashing forward in mid-air to attack again.

The Commodore slashed outwards half by reflex, but Sasuke struck first, knocking the dagger from his hand with a vicious chop. Then the ninja took a deep breath.

[KATON]

Flounders' eyes widened, seeing the preparation of the point blank fireball as a sign of his approaching death. Abandoning the battle he jumped away, desperate to reach the safety of the ground before the flames came.

His dash came up short as Sasuke grabbed his tail and pulled him close.

Flounders had one startled moment of fear before he remembered that ninjas need both hands to use their techniques. Unfortunately, by that point it was too late. As the Commodore was pulled violently by his tail, Sasuke spun, his foot lashing out with techniques refined by watching Sanji to strike directly at the man's kidney.

[TAKA NO TSUME]

[EAGLE TALON]

Flounders hit the ground coughing up blood. Convulsing from the pain of the brutal strikes to his side, it was only moments before his mouse transformation ended. Before even that, Sasuke was by his side, sword now pricking at the man's throat.

He just tried to keep the trembling weakness in his legs from showing.

Outside, the shuddering reverberations of the island's crash-landing settled just in time for a torrential spray of water to darken the skies. Underneath the gate they were dry, but all around their shelter it was as if a sudden and unexpected rainstorm had sprung up from nowhere.

Half a minute later, the man had recovered enough to breathe normally, and Sasuke kept a careful eye on him, watching for the slight changes in chakra that signified a transformation. Slowly, weapons discarded, the Commodore sat up, his formerly neat clothes covered in cuts, dirt, and spattered blood.

Eventually, the island's rumbling stopped entirely, and the rainstorm ended as quickly as it had begun.

"Well," said Flounders, still breathing painfully, "I thought that idiot Spandam might screw this up somehow, but never in a million years would I have imagined Straw-Hat would blow up the island. Absolutely unbelievable. You've signed on with one monster of a captain."

"Yeah, I'm honestly not sure how he managed that, myself," said Sasuke, sword still held to the other man's neck.

"So," said Flounders, turning his head to stare back at the man who would decide his fate, "Pretty damn incredible moves there. You didn't kill me, so I suppose that means I'm safe, huh?"

Sasuke raised one dark eyebrow. "I haven't killed you yet. I think there's still something you can do for me." There was a pause as he watched the Marine's confused face. "Wait, you think I can't go through with it?"

The Commodore blinked in surprise. "What? You sound pretty certain there... The Admiral said you seemed like a good kid when it all came down to it, but you've killed before?"

An enemy Chuunin's eyes widened for just a moment before he disappeared beneath an incoming wall of fire.

Sasuke exhaled a short, sharp breath through his nose. "Yeah. We're ninjas. I've been on more than a dozen high-ranked life or death missions already. Of course I've killed before."

At this, the older man actually looked up into the sky, sighing openly. "You know what? That's just so damn sad. Even I never had to kill someone till I was nearly thirty and it still tears me apart to this very day. Barely three months into my service as a Marine and some dumbass pirate who couldn't have been any older than you pulls a gun during a raid on a merchant ship. The kid's so scared that we caught him that he's on a hair-trigger, and then some civilian gets up and tries to be a hero... I had to put a knife into that kid's temple from thirty paces..."

Now he looked back into Sasuke's eyes, even knowing of the dangers involved in eye-contact. "And that's normal for you? What the hell kind of country do you come from that trains kids to do something like that?"

Sasuke wasn't impressed. "You learn to stop being a child pretty quickly, I suppose. Look, you seem alright as far as the Marines I've seen, but I don't think you have a leg to stand on here. If you want to talk about children, then what the hell kind of country puts a bounty on an eight year old girl?"

The older man shook his head. "I'm not trying to be holier than thou. I'm just trying to make sense of a shitty world. The World Government isn't a monolith, and I'll be the first to admit it has problems. Thing is, this is the kind of world where a person's gotta work hard just to protect as many people as they can, even if it means stepping in, taking responsibility and doing something where both choices are so terrible you know that either one is gonna leave you covered in blood."

The young ninja's eyes narrowed at this, and his sword pressed closer against the man's throat. "I don't think you want to start preaching about the 'greater good' to me. That's the kind of thinking that got my entire family killed right before my eyes."

"Fucking fantastic…" swore the Commodore with a heavy slump that brought wrinkles to his face. "What the hell kind of mess are we gonna find on your island anyway? So your family was murdered and then they train you to kill? Please tell me you did it with your fancy ninja magic and not like this, standing right next to them where you can see it all happen?"

Danzou coughed up blood as Sasuke drew the blade against his throat, and Sasuke realized his own hands were trembling.

Suddenly drawn back into the memory of his time in the Tsukuyomi, a shiver ran down his spine and his mood soured. "I don't appreciate you treating me like a child," he said, "and frankly I don't really see the difference. Whether you get your hands dirty or even order other people to do it- it's all the same in the end, isn't it? They're dead either way."

Flounders looked deeply sad as Sasuke continued speaking. He had caught the younger man's hesitation during that response. "Sure it's the same to them, but it's not the same to you. No… no, it's not the same at all… It changes you- being right there. It really does. Maybe you had no choice, or maybe they even deserved it, but there's something base and biological about the act, and in the end it either comes down to whether you're going to live thinking about it for the rest of your life…" Pausing, the former criminal looked back into Sasuke's eyes. "...or, maybe even worse- that you don't. I bet you know some people like that, don't you?"

He sat in his room inside the illusion, crying as his brother tortured his own killer, doing what Sasuke hadn't been able to manage. It should have been so easy to take revenge for his family. Was he really so weak? Danzou thoroughly deserved this. Why had torturing his family's murderer caused Sasuke more grief than killing a nameless, forgotten footsoldier during a mission?

Sasuke's hand twitched, causing the Marine to flinch slightly as the sword pressed into his neck, but then the blade was pulled back.

"How foolish is this," asked Sasuke, pulling his sword to the side in a halting motion. "I'm being moralized to by a criminal who only started killing people after he entered law-enforcement. I'm done talking about this, which means you are too. There's no point to tying you up only to have you shrink to escape it, so give me a good reason you won't interfere with us and I'll let you go. That's it."

"I can think of three," responded the man, something like resolve returning to his features. "First is that I'm already wounded and you could beat me again."

"Give me another one. I can't rule out you trying something against Robin before I could stop you."

"Second is that once I return I can convince my ship not to fire on you and yours."

Sasuke glanced at the battleship looming in the distance. The current commander had ordered it out to sea once it had become clear that Enies Lobby had lost, but it was still in range of cannonfire, as they had seen earlier.

As he focused his perfect vision further he could see something else. Though it was still far out at sea, there was a much smaller ship heading their way bearing a flag with a straw-hatted skull.

He smiled. Looks like Naruto had pulled through for them after all.

He turned back to the Marine.

"As appealing as that is right now, I really have no reason to think you won't change your mind as soon as you're out of sight. I hope you saved the best for last."

"I think I did. Truth is, I don't really care much about this whole 'information war' or whatever, but I do care about my subordinates. This whole collapsing island business is the biggest clusterfuck I've ever seen. Right now there's only one way out of this situation that ends up with us still holding our jobs at the end of it."

"Oh?"

Now Flounders allowed just a bit of a smile to reach his face. "Pretend we stayed out of this mess entirely, that's what. We were ordered not to interfere no matter what, and if someone says they saw a mouse skittering around on the island, well... somehow I doubt that you'll decide to illuminate matters for them."

As the man spoke, Sasuke watched him with the Sharingan. Though he'd never been properly trained, it analyzed all the movements and micro-expressions of the man's face. While he was far from a human lie-detector he felt as though he had become pretty good at reading people.

Smirking, Sasuke sheathed his sword and turned to the docks, passing out of the shadows of the gates and into the everlasting light of day.

"Sasuke," said Flounders.

The young ninja paused.

"Enjoy the life of a young outlaw while you can. Take it from me. It can't last forever."

As Flounders began the long, wounded walk back to the docks, Sasuke decided to go guide in the Merry. A quick check revealed it would still be several minutes before the main group arrived, so he might as well use his time productively. Robin and Chopper would be safest inside the gates.

Dashing to the right side of the docks, he made it all the way to the pier only to be accosted by none other than Franky.

"Yo! Disappearing boy!" he called out, causing Sasuke to stop and look past a dockside refreshment stand.

The cyborg was battered and dented, but he was lounging on a deck chair, sunning himself without a care in the world. With his colorful shirt, speedo, and dark sunglasses, he looked very much like he belonged in the seaside scene. Where exactly he had gotten the chair, Sasuke wasn't sure, since there didn't appear to be any others around.

"My name's Sasuke, and I'm officially through with being talked down to today," he said, idly fingering the sword at his side. "Just for your information."

Franky gave him a thumbs up, then levered himself out of the deck chair, standing up and stretching himself. "No problem, Sasuke. Couldn't agree more. So, we gonna get going, or what?"

Sasuke frowned. "I really have a number of questions for you. I'll leave out how you got here before me or why you didn't help in that fight right now and move straight to why you're leaving your friends behind."

Franky raised his eyebrows behind the sunglasses.

"Hey, don't get unreasonable on me. My guys and gals can handle themselves. 'Cause all these soldiers and assassins? They don't give two shits about the rest of my gang. They're after me and your pal Robin over there, and no one else. The sooner us two get away from this island, the sooner everyone else stops being in danger."

"Fair enough," said Sasuke. "It's the Captain's decision, but I think he'll say yes. I'm going out there to bring the ship in."

Sprinting forward, he broke away from the cyborg and the pier, leaping onto the surface of the water. The water here was more turbulent than usual given its proximity to the ocean waterfall, but it wasn't a problem for him. He was soon on his way to meet the Merry. Despite being banged up and hurt, she was a sight for sore eyes.

-Meanwhile-

The invaders swarmed through the Main Gates on their approach to the docks.

The Marine Battleship loomed in the distance, having launched from the port and settled in a holding position. Slowly, its main guns swiveled to reorient on the incoming form of the Going Merry.

Back near the gates, Usopp stopped for just a moment, taking aim with his sling-staff and then releasing a shot. It soared unerringly out into the ocean to land directly inside one of the cannons' barrels, exploding on impact. An instant after that, the entire array of guns detonated, showering the ocean with shrapnel and sending Marines diving to the deck.

Usopp was beside himself. "LOOOOCK! OOOOONNNN!" he screamed, singing along to some unheard tune.

On the bridge of the battleship, Captain Weber cursed as the explosion washed over the deck. Vaguely thinking about taking another shot with a battery that wasn't covered by the sniper, he was surprised by a sudden ringing of the Commodore's personal Den-Den-Mushi line.

As Weber lifted the receiver, the snail transformed to reflect the caller, taking on a serious expression to go along with its suit and vest

"Captain Weber," said the snail, mouthing along to the words, "Cease firing on the invaders and give them room to leave."

"Cease firing, sir?" Weber asked. There were a number of reasons he might want to stop, but…

"That's right. You heard me. Right now our top priority is to preserve our command and offer rescue operations to save the lives of as many people still on the island as possible before it is engulfed by the waters. Get to a safe distance and don't let them board you."

Weber paused for a moment. Then, uncertainly, he said, "Sir… pardon me for asking this, but how do I know this isn't just what we talked about earlier? The boy's unknown hypnosis ability?"

The snail said nothing, just taking a deep, deep breath, and then letting out a long, drawn-out, and very tired sigh.

Weber nodded. "Understood, sir. It's a good plan anyway."

Replacing the receiver, he began giving out orders.

Sasuke made it on-board the Merry, ready to throw out a cloud of steam to cover his advance if Flounders went back on his word, but the ship stood down and began backing away. That settled, he gave the caravel a look over. It was more or less exactly the way he had left it when he went to break everyone out of prison half a day ago.

"Hey!" he called out, walking across the empty deck. "Naruto! You here?"

No response. A quick scan with the Sharingan indicated no humanoid chakra signatures on-board.

Funny, the clones must have really been on their last legs if they let go the instant they saw him.

A moment later, something else caught his eye. A note was pinned to the main mast, held in place by a kunai. Sasuke picked it up and read the barely-legible handwriting.

Hey, Naruto here. I guess you found the ship alright since you're reading this. I weighed anchor and did up the sails and everything, cause I didn't have anything left. I'll probably make it back just fine, but just in case I didn't, Sasuke knows where the stuff is hidden.

Here's hoping we kicked some ass!

Sasuke frowned. The reference to the hidden stuff was almost certainly referring to the gold and other valuables Naruto had hidden in some of the storage seals as a precaution against searching Marines, but what about the other part of the message?

He looked around. Anchor up. Sails unfurled. The ship that had until just now been arcing unerringly towards the island was now drifting rather aimlessly.

So… what?

He did another scan for any other life in or around the ship, but found nothing.

What the hell?

Rather bemusedly, Sasuke piloted the ship back into port. The Straw-Hats had made it there faster than everyone else, so now everyone was gathered and ready to carefully load Luffy on-board. Franky joined them as well, tossing a final wave to his still-distant compatriots with their two King Sea-Bulls being carried by the two immense giants of Enies Lobby.

Together, the Straw-Hats plus Franky piled onto the Going Merry and sailed off into the blue sea, following the rails of the Sea-Train.

As they left, they soon noticed a new arrival. Chugging dutifully down the tracks was the Sea Train.

Approaching it on the port side, Franky was quick to call out to the conductor, a blonde woman with a face straight out of everyone's nightmares, who was leaning out the window.

"Hey! Granny Kokoro!" shouted Franky, waving his massive arms. "You mind giving some of our boys a lift back there?!"

"Franky! You're safe?!" the woman called back.

As the train passed them, he tossed her a wild smile.

"Granny, I haven't felt more SUPER in my whole damn life!"

-Half an Hour Later-

-Going Merry-

They had escaped. The Marine battleship would be busy performing rescue operations for the foreseeable future, which meant there was no one free to even look for them. Now it was time for the victors to lick their wounds.

Chopper was in excellent condition, having avoided fighting entirely, but he had his hooves full with the crew's many injuries.

Luffy was half-dead, having barely survived his climactic clash with Rob Lucci. Despite being almost completely unable to move, he was laughing and joking with everyone else on deck.

Zoro was bandaged all over his body and sitting in deep meditation. It seemed as though he had discovered something unusual during his fight with Kaku.

Naruto was still nursing his broken arm, although a combination of Chopper's attentions and his own regeneration was already working wonders.

Sanji was being treated for some chest wounds and was favoring one leg, but had otherwise survived his encounter rather intact.

Usopp was in good health, unless you were worried about how he was now muttering to himself in the corner while bent over his new mask with an assortment of tools.

Nami was relatively unscathed, having handily defeated her opponent with very few injuries, though she still wouldn't say how, only tossing the occasional glare Naruto's way.

Sasuke was aching all over and somewhat low on chakra. Still, even though his legs were twitching from the over-exertion, he had survived far worse. He had gone below-deck to the womens' cabin to help Robin.

Robin was exhausted. After the emotional turmoil of the past several days she had gone nearly comatose from the relief. Still restrained with the Sea-Stone cuffs she had been kept in, she was now being aided by Sasuke, who knew a thing or two about even such complicated locking mechanisms. These ones were a great deal more complex than the cuffs he had been restrained in, but he was confident that it shouldn't take too long to release her.

Finally, there was Franky. He had run out of Naruto's scavenged cola- his normally super blue hairstyle flopping lifelessly down in front of his face- and he watched everyone on-deck with a strange expression.

"So... anyone gonna tell me how this ship got out here?" he asked. "I'm not seeing any extra crew on this thing."

Everyone else on the ship looked equally uncertain. Naruto in particular looked a little freaked out.

"Thought not..." mused Franky. "Listen, I wanna thank you guys for saving my keister back there. You people have guts and you've got something special to go along with it. You guys can let me know any time you're in Water-7." He grimaced, flipping his hair out of his eyes. "Anyway, now that all the mushy stuff is done with, do you all actually know where you're going?"

This startled Nami into motion. She stood up from her spot in the corner in a panic. "Oh no! The Log Pose! It broke when we got captured!"

"Yeah, I didn't think so," said Franky, as the rest of the crew looked up in shock.

Nami collapsed with a moan, "Even if we did have it, it'd just be pointing all the way back to that island where we were captured... We never stayed anywhere long enough for it to set!"

Franky was quick to reassure her.

"Hey, I didn't say it was a problem, lady. I just wanted to know what we were working with." Franky grinned beneath his sunglasses, pointing one of his massive thumbs to his chest. "I can get you out of this."

"You can?" asked Sanji. "What's the deal? Got a spare or something?"

"No, man. My very own Franky Family came to pick me up with two giant Sea Bulls, and they can navigate back to home just fine. Beasts like that can hear underwater from super far away. They'll hear our wake and come to meet up with us, no problem. Let's call this a partial repayment, huh?"

Nami, who had just finished being relieved, suddenly launched right back into a panic. With a sharp intake of breath she stood up and dashed below deck. The others shared confused glances until she returned a few moments later.

"GOLD! THEY TOOK THE GOLD!"

Naruto was quick to raise his hands. "Whoa, Nami, hold on, no, they didn't."

"Explain," she ordered, spinning to stare him down.

"Look, when everyone got captured back on that island, the Marines started looking like they were gonna search the ship, right? So all of my shadow-clones that were gathering parts from those puppets went and grabbed the gold and stuffed it in one of my sealing scrolls, then we all just transformed into random junk until the Marines were done."

"So it's all still here?"

"Yeah," he said, picking a scroll out of his jacket, "First thing I did when I got on-board was grab the scroll. I was kinda worried about the Marines taking your maps and stuff, so I threw pretty much everything that looked valuable in here. Sasuke or I can get it out, no problem." With one hand he hefted the scroll. "Until then, it's a hell of a lot lighter that way."

Nami frowned. Even though the two ninjas were now officially Straw-Hats, it still made her nervous to rely on anyone else to retrieve her possessions, loot included.

Meanwhile, Franky, who was craving some cola, stepped uninvited into the ship's kitchen, intending to check the refrigerator. Irritatingly enough, after some searching it looked like these savages didn't keep any cola in stock, a state of affairs that Franky could hardly conceive of. He gazed around the room in frustration, and gradually took in the multitude of patches and haphazard woodwork that had been done on the ship. Eventually, morbid curiosity set in and he descended below, investigating further.

"What the shit?!" he cried out several minutes later, his shipwright's blood howling in pain as he burst back out onto the deck. "Who the hell did these repairs- VANDALS?! What have you people been doing to this ship?"

There were some uncomfortable, tired glances. Eventually, Usopp spoke up. "Look, buddy, it was mostly me and Naruto here doing the best we could after we ran into this crazy bomber-man, alright? We're not trained shipwrights, or anything like that. There's no one on board who has that kind of talent."

"You want to talk about talent? It takes SUPER talent to screw up so reliably! Most newbies have the occasional fit of competence, but you managed to bend every single nail I've seen! What, did you have the shakes or something when you were working?"

"Hey! Lay off of me, alright?! You think it doesn't hurt me to see the Merry look like this? I've been wanting to get her fixed up properly for ages now, but we've been busy running from one horrible encounter to another!"

"He's right," added Naruto, "I've only been with these people for a little while now, but I know they love this ship."

Now, Franky turned to look at Naruto. "Well, if he's the one with no talent, I suppose it was you who fixed up the gash in the ship's port forequarter? That was one of the only places I saw that looked like someone had done anything right."

Naruto looked confused for a moment. "Uhh… port… what?" He glanced around. "Which way's 'port' again?"

Rolling his eyes, Franky faced the front of the ship then pointed left.

"No…" said Naruto, "That was Usopp."

"What?" asked Usopp, "No, I thought that was you!"

"No, man, it wasn't me."

Franky turned his gaze on the rest of the crew, but received only blank gazes in response. Finally, Usopp freaked out and stood up.

"Ah-HAH! I knew it! I told you all! It was that ghost I saw working with my tools after we left from Jaya! I heard it hammering and when I went to check it was hanging around that area!"

"Usopp, you were on painkillers then," said Nami, "We already told you it was a hallucination."

"But it wasn't!"

The argument continued as Franky glared at them in silence. Finally, he asked, "This 'ghost' or whatever. What did it look like?"

"Like I already told everyone else, it looked like a little kid in a raincoat," insisted Usopp.

Suddenly somber, Franky walked over to the nearby bulwark and ran his huge hands along the side. Looking over the edge, he cast a critical eye here and there. "Klabautermann," he said.

"Kla... wha?"

"That's its name. There are a lot of legends, but what I've heard is that it's a sort of spirit that takes up residence in a well-loved ship. You usually only hear about them when a ship's been hurt."

"What?!" asked Chopper, immediately shivering in fear, "The Merry's haunted?"

"Maybe, maybe not. The legends are confused as to whether they're supposed to be helpful or mischievous, but if this one was helping fix the ship, then I guess I take back what I said. You may be utterly useless at carpentry, but you must have been trying super hard to keep her in good shape." He stopped looking around, turning to face them again. "Congratulations. This is the first time I've seen something about it I could believe. The good news is that the ship's still seaworthy. Look me up when we get to Water-7 and I'll fix you up for real, on the house."

"You're a real shipwright?" asked Luffy, looking at him intently.

Franky grinned. "Damn straight I am. And this week I'm feeling SUPER good about getting my hands on a ship that really needs it. If ever there was a lady who really deserved a Franky makeover, this is the one."

"Why don't you just join us?" asked Luffy.

Franky blinked, then started laughing. "Hahahahah! Ah, man, kid! No way, HELL no! In case you didn't notice, I've got my own gang to take care of. Besides, I said I'd fix your ship for you, but this lady isn't mine. I'm not going out to sea again, but if I WERE it'd be on a ship I SUPER constructed with my own two beautiful arms."

Then he flexed, giving each one of his massive forearms a kiss.

Luffy continued to pester him to join the crew, but really no one else wanted to disturb the little bit of normalcy they had earned. They really had been jumping from one encounter to another for days now.

Usopp put the feeling into words.

"Hell, we've been either fighting or in prison for what feels like the last month, and I can hardly keep track of what's what," said Usopp. "I'm really looking forward to some down-time."

"Yeah, there's so much we have to replace," agreed Nami. "I'm still nervous about not having a Log Pose right now."

Soon, everyone was rushing to put in their own two cents.

"I want a good meal!" said Luffy.

"Yeah, I'm with you on that," said Zoro.

"I want a bath," laughed Nami.

"I just want to go one week without getting a rib cracked," said Sanji, nursing his side.

"Or being blown up," said Usopp.

"Geez, stop saying things like that!" chided Nami, "You know complaining about it is going to make it happen!"

"Yeah, that would really suck, un."

"You said it, man," said Naruto.

"I wonder if they'll have cotton candy when we get there?" asked Chopper.

"Oh, totally, un. They just got done with a big festival over on Water-7 and it's still party time in the streets."

"Wait," said Usopp, "Who's talking right now?"

Everyone on deck looked around, and then they looked up.

The mad bomber from Jaya was standing in the crow's nest. By the time they realized what was happening, there was already a sizable clay-creation falling to the deck.

"SURPRISE, DICK-HEADS!" he screamed, and then the main mast exploded.

A/N: I'm sorry about this. Just one last time. The real final chapter of Enies Lobby comes tomorrow.

Also, the morals expressed by the traumatized teenage ninja and the former criminal working for the oppressive government are not necessarily those shared by the author of this story. For that matter, if it was confusing, the Commodore was NOT trying to tell the ninja that killing is just bad, because that's a really stupid thing to tell a ninja. It was just an older man worried about the fate of a teen who maybe reminded him just a little bit of himself.