The bomb detonated directly next to the mast. As everyone dove for cover, the explosion sent a fine scattering of burning splinters and shrapnel out into the sea. Narrowly avoiding serious injuries, the Straw-Hats pulled themselves together for one more battle.
Laughing, the bomber leapt off the toppling mast and through torn rigging, raising a hand to grab onto his gigantic white bird as it flew past. With a nimble feat of acrobatics, he spun himself around the bird's trunk to land on top, soaring back up into the sky.
Even wounded, Luffy reacted without delay, stretching out both arms to grab onto the bird as it flew away. Each of his movements seemed significantly more sluggish than they normally did, but he still pulled himself up, getting his balance and punching at the blond bomber from close range. The bomber swiftly evaded the attack, spinning in place like a dancer and then tossing a small explosive directly into Luffy's face.
As the concussive blast stuck, Luffy went flying off of the bird to the ocean below, completely unconscious.
Not hesitating, Franky detached half of his right arm on a chain system that sent his fist shooting out like a rocket. Grabbing Luffy before he could fall into the blue sea, the cyborg reeled the man in.
"Shit, man, you just kicked Rob Lucci's ass. Take a goddamn break for a second, will you?" said Franky, as he dropped Luffy to the deck. "Geez, who the hell is this guy? Of all the frickin' times to be out of cola!"
Laughing, the bomber wheeled through the air, Usopp already taking aim with his new staff. Before he could fire, a swarm of the clay bird bombs they had seen earlier detached from the belly of the mount-bird, opening their wings in unison with a snapping noise that was audible even from the ship below. Whereas before the bomber had used waves of a couple dozen, this time there were more than a hundred.
Each of the birds split up, arcing downward like a murderous cloud that swarmed the Merry from every direction. Recalling long and painful days spent repairing the ship and himself after the last bombing run, Usopp began firing. He fired until his hand was a blur, sometimes stuffing two or three pellets into the sling at a time, each of them splitting to hit a separate target. The dawn light came alive with explosions that cast their shadows down upon the ship below in a sick parody of a fireworks display, leaving tremendous clouds of acrid smoke in their wake.
The bomber was now hidden from sight by the clouds, but his laughter was still clearly audible. It sounded nearby, as though he had approached closer to the ship.
"Hey! So, right now I'm really glad I volunteered go out scouting the area around Enies Lobby, and I'm even more glad I found you shitheads for a rematch. But let's not mix business and pleasure, huh? I'm looking for a lady named Nico Robin who I'm told was with you chumps. Anyone with that name on this ship?"
Below-deck, Sasuke continued frantically working to unlock the bed-ridden Robin's unbreakable seastone handcuffs. Hearing the explosions, both of them knew that the bomber had returned to finish what he had started weeks ago.
"If Nico Robin's here," the bomber continued, barely audible through the port hole, "Then she should know that our group has a job offer for her, un! Come help us understand the context of the stone tablets, and you'll have pay, safety, and everything we know about what's on them. That includes the one hidden on our island, and apparently it was a doozy!"
Sasuke glanced up into Robin's eyes.
"Got anything to say about that?" he asked.
Even through the dirt and bruises of her long escape, Robin was softly smiling.
"I'd like to tell him that there's no one here by that name," she said.
Sasuke grinned then returned to work. He almost had it.
-Outside-
"No? Nothing? Okay, no problem with me, un!" called down the bomber. "I don't really give a shit!"
Something was different from the last time they had fought this Akatsuki member. Before, his bombs had exploded relatively cleanly, leaving very little smoke behind. Now, each of the bombs from the first wave had left behind a thick and pervasive cloud of smoke. Even with the sea-breeze and the motion of the currents, the smoke was still spreading around and refusing to disperse. Everyone, Usopp included, was trying and failing to locate the bomber, or even their friends who were more than fifteen feet away.
"Hmm-hmm-hmm… I've been looking forward to meeting you again in particular, sniper. I see you've constructed a new slingshot, un," chuckled the bomber as his voice spun invisibly around the ship, "-but you're not the only one with a new weapon. True art comes from adversity, and I'm thankful that I got to meet an opponent that was so well-specialized for taking on my beautiful, fleeting creations."
There was a wingbeat from the port side and Usopp whirled in place, firing a shot. The ball whistled through the smoke but hit nothing.
The bomber continued to speak. "It's a pity that the answer was so simple! Smoke bombs have been a shinobi favorite for ages untold, but no one can construct a bomb like me!"
The seven fighters still standing on deck looked back and forth with increasing desperation. Every one of them was hurt, exhausted or both. Then, without warning, a tremendous shape soared straight across the deck right over Usopp's head, dropping a single clay bomb as it passed. Reflexes sharpened by terror, Usopp spun in place and shot it down, face burning from the short-range explosion.
As the laughing madman flew away, Franky tried to grab out for him with another chain-link punch, but he caught nothing but smoke.
"Nami! Naruto!" Usopp cried out, "We need some help with this cloud!"
Nami nodded, flipping out her Clima-Tact and beginning to spin. The chakra wind-function was too short-ranged to be of use here, but if she could create a cloud above the smoke then she could probably disperse all of it.
Naruto, however, flicked his fingers through a number of seals and then clapped his hands together.
[FUUTON: REPPUUSHOU]
[WIND RELEASE: GALE PALM]
With intense focus, Naruto became something like an air broom, sweeping left and right to tear the smoke from the air around the mast-less ship in an area of around fifty feet. Unfortunately, that only cleared up some of the smoke, and as soon as the technique ended bombs began arcing inward from every direction, forcing Usopp to spin wildly about and snipe them from point-blank range. Even more unfortunately, some of the bombs were approaching from just above the water, and soon one of them impacted on the hull of the Merry itself.
"Shit," cursed Sanji, grinding his teeth at his inability to help, "This is just goddamn unfair. I can't see a thing! He can't see through the smoke either, right?!"
"Yeah, but we're standing still!" called out Nami, spinning her staff. Before long she would have a windstorm formed that could disperse this mess.
Or, at least, that had been the plan, until there was an explosion from above where the cloud had been forming.
"No thank you, lady," said the invisible bomber, "I saw what you did the last time we gave you time to work on those clouds of yours. You wanna mess with hot air? I guarantee I can do it better than you."
Nami frowned, lost in frustration. This guy was just playing with them!
All of a sudden, Franky grabbed Sanji by his shoulders. "Hey! Cook! I can get rid of this smoke no problem, but I need some cola!"
"Cola?" asked Sanji, "What the hell?"
"I've got no time in my schedule this week either for nonsense or explaining myself, man," said Franky, opening his chest cavity to remove an empty bottle, "Cola! I'm out of it! Do you have any in storage? 'Cola-Yes' means no more cloud! 'Cola-No' means I can't do shit!"
Sanji shook his head, looking down at the empty bottle with a thoughtful expression. Seeming to reach a decision, he grabbed it from Franky's giant fists and dashed off to the kitchen.
"No, we don't carry any of that unhealthy stuff in my kitchen, but I always serve what the customer needs. If cola's what you need, cola's what you'll get!"
Looking inside the semi-transparent bottle, Sanji saw there was still one single drop of cola hiding at the bottom. Upending the bottle, he smacked it until the tiny droplet splashed onto his outstretched tongue. Immediately, his taste buds began analyzing every one of its ingredients.
With a single motion, Sanji threw open the ship's pantry, exposing the wealth of carefully-hoarded materials and devices inside. Franky watched the man get to work with demonic speed.
Outside, more and more explosions shook the air, and not all of them were missing the mark. With less than a second to react to a bird darting through the smoke and colliding with its target, Usopp was barely able to keep up. The ship shook from impact after impact.
After a quick conversation, Naruto and Zoro began their attack. Naruto and a small group of clones spat bullets of wind, and Zoro shot columns and ribbons of slicing air out into the smoky clouds. Every one of their attacks punched holes in the smoke, occasionally letting Usopp catch just a glimpse of a bomb or the black-cloaked bomber himself.
That was when Sasuke burst from the lower-deck hatch with a newly-freed Robin climbing up after him.
"What's happening?" he asked. "We're taking on water!"
"HE WON'T STOP BLOWING US UP!" screamed Usopp, tears streaming down his face. "I CAN'T MAKE HIM STOP BLOWING US UP!"
Robin closed her eyes so that she could summon a number of her duplicate eyes all across the ship. When she had finished, her expression was grim.
"We've got at least six holes below the water-line already," she said, "I'd give us five minutes at best before we have to abandon ship."
"I won't abandon the Merry!" shouted Usopp, still shooting down bomb after bomb. "I JUST WON'T!"
Robin nodded. "If I can get a good look at him then I can lock him down."
Suddenly, an explosion sent a spray of water up from below the waves.
"Shit!" cursed Zoro, sending another slice of wind up into the sky, "He's got bombs under the water now!"
"I can do something about that," said Sasuke, darting over to the side of the ship and leaping onto the ocean waves. He noted with dismay that the Going Merry was definitely sinking beneath the waves, and any more bombs would certainly accelerate the process. Hopefully he could put a stop to that.
Placing one hand into the ocean, lightning chakra flashed through the conductive seawater. Moments later, several of the low-density bombs floated to the surface. A few seconds later each one of them detonated, but it was significantly weaker than he had expected. His eyes widened.
"His explosives are weak against lightning!" he shouted back to the ship.
"Aw, thanks a lot, man," muttered Zoro, as he cut another hole in the cloud that surrounded them, "I'll get right on that."
This wasn't working. They weren't making any progress, and the bomber's laughter echoed from above as a constant reminder of their weakness.
Chopper had watched most of this battle feeling relatively helpless. After attending to the unconscious Luffy, he hadn't really had much to do. For that matter, he didn't have any long-range attacks or any ability to deal with the cloud hovering around them.
ll he could do was watch helplessly as this terrible man blew up the Merry.
His hooves went to the pack that held his Rumble Balls. He hadn't used that medicine at all during the fight on Enies Lobby, so he could do something with it now… but how would it help? It sounded like Sasuke had already found out the bomber's weakness, and everyone else was trying so hard…
He had to try something, and it was now, or never. He pulled out a Rumble Ball and broke it in his teeth.
[RUMBLE]
[BRAIN POINT]
Chopper felt his processing power heighten rapidly as his mental faculties sharpened. The bomber had them on the ropes, and was simultaneously denying them any means to engage him. They had to find a way around this problem or they'd keep sinking.
Wait… As he focused on the problem, something else rose to his attention. Just like he had felt when Naruto had taught him about his chakra element, now he could feel that energy flowing through him. He'd always felt it when he used the Rumble Ball, but now he could feel it for what it was- chakra rushing through his body far more powerfully than blood. It throbbed in his brain, asking to be used.
The Rumble Ball unlocked new potentiality from his Fruit and gave him access to levels of control that no other Zoan-type possessed. Now that he had deepened his connection, was his Fruit guiding him somehow?
As if in response to that thought, Chopper felt a connection to the deck underneath his hooves. A wave of energy flowed out from him, and he could feel every inch of the wooden ship light up in his mind.
It was torn and broken, open to the sea in at least eight great holes. His power seemed to be asking him to do more, so, tentatively, he brought his hooves together, completing the circuit. He pushed, and one of the deckboards sprouted a bifurcating branch that grew leaves right before his eyes.
Oops. Hopefully no one saw that.
Focusing on one of the wounded areas that was taking on water he pushed again, and the holes began to twist and warp as numerous tendrils of flowing wood joined together. In just ten seconds, the hole had closed. Unfortunately, branches were sprouting from everywhere around the wound, and the patch itself didn't look anything like how a ship was supposed to look.
Chopper felt like crying. Sorry, Merry!
After a moment, his enhanced brain started piecing together a plan. Wood floats, so the method of keeping them afloat that would cause the least permanent damage to the ship would be to grow large amounts of wood underwater so that they would stop sinking. They could cut off his additions and patch the holes later.
Path decided, he went to work, a network of wooden branches growing out into the water like a wide root-system. He'd need to go very wide if he wanted them to avoid tipping over. Despite his wishes, the wood seemed to have a mind of its own, and it kept wanting to spread upwards, shooting branches and leaves up and out of the water.
Chopper had four more minutes before the Rumble Ball ran out and whatever skill he had gained with controlling chakra went with it, so he had to make it count.
Sasuke looked around him as a small forest began to grow in the environs of the ship. Clearly, Chopper was experimenting with something, but Sasuke knew just enough about the history of Wood-element ninjutsu to know that the greatest thing about the First Hokage wasn't that he could make a forest grow—it was that he could make it grow according to his wishes. Without incredibly precise chakra control, years of training, and an iron-clad will, the wood would grow according to its own natural inclinations instead of following orders.
Still, it might just keep them afloat until they could finish this fight.
Actually, the bombs were slacking off a bit, but he could see that was only to prepare for the next wave. Having temporarily destroyed the explosives in the water, he decided to return to the ship to aid Naruto and Zoro. He had an idea.
The two of them were still peppering the sky with long-ranged wind attacks, supported by Naruto's anti-aircraft clones. Up in the sky, the Sharingan could track the chakra signature of the bomber as a burning silhouette dancing through the smoke.
"Hey," he spoke, low enough to not be heard by the bomber, "I can see him through that cloud. Follow my lead and I'll point out where he's going."
The wind team hurried to follow along, changing their aim in a single moment to focus on Sasuke's directions. Seven attackers reoriented in a moment to cover a shifting cone in the sky, blasting the smoke in a small area into pieces.
It also revealed the slightest glimpse of their target. Hair blown back from the narrowly-avoided wind attack, the bomber looked surprised, caught in the middle of extruding another bomb from his left hand.
This was what Usopp had been waiting for. He fired the shot.
Riding the turbulent air currents perfectly, the gunpowder ball struck the explosive that had just emerged and it detonated in a storm of fire. The clay went with it, engulfing the man's arm in the explosion.
"AHHH! FUCK!" screamed the bomber, suddenly obscured again.
"Did we get him?" asked a Naruto. "Is he dead?"
"YOU PIECES OF SHIT! I'LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THAT!"
Sasuke shook his head. "No, but watch out. There are a lot of bombs out there, and I think- Shit, here they come! I've got the starboard side! Naruto, you've got the stern! Usopp, try to cover the rest!"
While the bombing had slackened, the Akatsuki member had been busily at work. From all directions at once a cloud of birds burst through the smoke.
Sasuke exploded with the wide-ranged lightning technique that had worked back at Jaya. Naruto filled the air with wind. Usopp shot down everything he could in front of him. Zoro and Nami helped knock out some of the ones that made it through, and all the while Chopper kept both hooves together, focusing on keeping them afloat. Detonations responded around the ship, but still some explosives made it through.
Just in time to save the day, Franky and Sanji burst from the tattered remnants of the kitchen.
"Alright screwballs, I'm supercharged and ready to go! Watch and learn!" called Franky, raising both fists into the sky. A moment later they swelled to great size.
[COUP-DE-VENT]
From Franky's palm blasted a gale of wind that roared like an explosion. The ship rocked from the force of the recoil, but the cloud of smoke fared far worse. It ripped the obscuring cloud from a wide section of the sky, revealing the bomber, who was hurriedly bandaging his own amputated arm.
This was more than enough of a look for Robin. She crossed her arms, summoning phantom limbs to wrap the bomber in a submission hold, binding the wings of the bird at the same time. A single one of her arms reached out and pushed the struggling man off his mount, and the psychopath fell through the obscuring clouds. Below, there was a splashing noise as the he hit the waves.
"Robin, did you get him?" asked Nami.
"I don't… know…" she said, eyes closed, "Something's... weird in there and my eyes can't see…"
That was enough for Sasuke. He jumped off the deck and sprinted out into the cloud, using the Sharingan to hunt down the bomber. The man's energy was unusual, pooling in odd places that didn't make much sense, but that was probably a result of the body modifications he had received. Sasuke would get close and then attack with lightning, hopefully preventing him from using more explosive techniques.
The area around the ship was beginning to look like a mangrove forest, with numerous trees sprouting from the ocean for hundreds of feet around. As Sasuke watched, chakra continued to pulse through the wood, filling it with the energy it needed to absorb mass from the air around it, growing the sea-forest even further.
As Sasuke's feet slapped against the water, he noticed something else. The trees weren't just pulling in air to add to their mass—they were pulling in the smoke as well. As the trees thickened, the smoke cloud near the water's surface was lessening.
It didn't matter much to him, but…
Behind him, Sanji leapt from the ship as well, landing on the water with a firm kick and a hard splash that actually kept him from falling. Instead of sinking, Sanji kept running, each footstep crashing into the waves with a hammerblow and a blast of chaotic chakra, burning energy like wildfire just to keep above water. But it was working, and Sanji followed him into the cloud with a scream of rage and a curtain of splashing water, glaring at Sasuke as if daring him to speak.
A moment later, Naruto joined in the attack as well, giving the quick signal that Sasuke knew meant he was the real body.
The three of them actually saw the bomber through the smoke at the same moment he saw them. The blond man in the Akatsuki robes was bloated, slowly expanding like a balloon, even as Robin's arms struggled to restrain him. Finally, what Sasuke saw in the Sharingan made sense, and he realized that they'd been had.
This was a clone. An explosive suicide-clone. His clay-clone was so lifelike, and the bomber's chakra so odd that it had taken him a while to pierce its illusion, but now they were running headlong into a bomb.
He yelled back to Robin. "Get rid of your arms!"
She didn't question him, and the arms immediately disappeared as Sasuke drew his sword and assumed a low stance. Holding the blade in both hands for a second, lightning began dancing down the surface. Then, he kicked hard off of the water several times, sending up a spray behind him.
[CHIDORI HAYABUSA]
[THOUSAND BIRDS: PEREGRINE]
He might not be as fast on the water as he might have been on land, but Sasuke still shot past Sanji, closing with the bomber clone in the blink of an eye. The blade ran it through, lightning dancing across the thing's skin as the clay clone began losing detail and definition.
"Sanji!" called Sasuke, removing his blade.
Still screaming his war-cry, Sanji approached in a hail of sea-rain, kicking the clone between its bloated legs as hard as he could. It soared up, up, up into the air, and then the dancing lightning finally wore off.
The bomb exploded, and for a moment it was brighter than the sun. As the two closest to it, Naruto, Sanji and Sasuke all dove for cover under the water. Back at the ship, everyone covered their ears and opened their mouths as the shockwave washed over them, the Merry itself rocking and groaning as wind rushed through its now-numerous branches.
As the shockwaves died down, the three of them resurfaced, looking around.
"Damn straight!" said Sanji, "We got him!"
"No… No, that was a clone," said Sasuke, breathing heavily from the exertion. "The real body's still around somewhere... I was watching him from the moment until the bombs came in and then again after he hit the water, so he must have split off some time in the middle there."
"Shit," cursed Naruto, "Where the hell is he, then?"
Sasuke was finally hitting his limit. The final lightning technique had drained him almost entirely of chakra, and his legs felt like they were dead. He honestly didn't think he could manage another use of any of the superhuman techniques.
Still, he scanned the waters, looking all around the ship, which the two of them were now fairly distant from. Eventually, the bomber answered their question for them by emerging from the water just eighty feet behind the ship. Sasuke's eyes widened.
This one wasn't a clone, but his chakra was distributed in the same fashion, his body bloated and still expanding. There were a scattering of trees between them, but the three Straw-Hats had a clear line of sight.
Cursing, Sasuke pulled himself above the water with his hands, preparing himself for another run at the man, when the bomber called out to them.
"Oh no you don't! Don't any of you take another step towards me, or I'll detonate myself right now. You know what that'll do at this range, don't you?"
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Even assuming this suicide-attack was no stronger than the one they had just seen, an explosion at that range would certainly destroy the Merry and everyone on it. Knowing at least a few things about the weaponization of water himself, it also seemed unlikely the three of them could avoid fatal shockwave pressures by hiding under the water.
Beside him, Naruto muttered something. "Sasuke, Sanji... My clones on the ship have a plan to get him but we need to keep him mostly focused over here."
"What are you up to? How long?" asked Sasuke.
"Don't worry about it, and just a minute or two."
The other two nodded, neither of them looking back to the ship.
The Akatsuki bomber laughed, desperation and madness infecting his voice. "You see, no one ever really gets the upper hand on me! I've always got a trick in my back-pocket. My art is explosive, ephemeral, and beautiful in its sublime impermanence, un!"
Still treading water, Sanji spoke first. "Art, huh? So, what, you're calling your bombs art? Your bird? I'm trying to figure out what the hell you're talking about, cause after you've blown it all up there won't be anything left."
"Oh, so ignorant! That's the point, you see? Cherry blossoms, falling snow, a flash of lightning in a summer rainstorm... True beauty lasts for but a moment, leaving behind only the bittersweet memories of its passing! I've built my life around such things!"
Sanji shook his head, muttering, "Holy hell, that's the most stupid thing I've ever-"
"Sanji," said Sasuke, "Say that to him, not us."
Now he rolled his eyes, raising his voice. "I said that's the most stupid thing I've ever heard of! Did your brain not develop properly or something? There aren't gonna be any bittersweet memories if everyone's dead you ignoramus!"
The bomber chuckled to himself, still expanding into a spherical shape. "Heheheh… I know better than to rely on ignorant swine to appreciate true art. I do this for myself! And once I'm dead I won't give a damn what anyone else thinks!"
Now Sasuke stepped into the conversation. "Now hold on a second. I was always told that art is something that sends a message, and the greatest art is that which can still send the same message even if it's viewed a hundred years from now."
The bomber's face twitched angrily for a moment, and Sasuke continued.
"Besides, there's a tree that grew in our family compound that was three hundred years old, and it still blooms every spring, again and again. It'll keep doing that after I'm dead, won't it? Isn't the tree more valuable than a single bloom?"
"Alright, asshole, enough trying to be clever," growled the now-spherical bomber. "I see what you're doing. If you wanna postpone the inevitable then I can understand that, but it was a goddamn figure of speech. You there, guy in the orange, I suppose you have some smart-ass thing to say too?"
With a poof of smoke, Naruto transformed into a horrible rendition of the spherical bomber that floated on top of the water. His face was fat and deformed, his eyes wide and idiotic, and the red clouds on his robes looked more like piles of dog poop than anything else.
"Durrr! My name's so-and-so! We don't even know cause no one ever cared enough to ask! I'm a crazy man who's into super lame stuff! I blow up my own farts!"
"Okay, yeah, thanks, you can stop now. You're only embarrassing yourself, kid."
"Durrr! I have the same hairstyle as this one girl from Konoha! I think it looks super cute!"
The bomber snapped. "ALRIGHT! THAT'S IT! WE'RE DOING THIS NOW!"
Interrupting him, there was a noise like crackling lightning as a Naruto clone on the Going Merry finished his final task, overloading the elemental seal inside Nami's Clima-Tact that regulated its lightning output.
The bomber turned in surprise to see several of the Straw-Hats set up at the stern of the ship. Though Luffy was still unable to move, Zoro and Franky each held one of Luffy's legs as Usopp pulled the rubber-man back by his waist. Nestled in Luffy's arms like a spear, the Clima-Tact sparked and coursed with electricity that failed to harm him.
The bomber's bloated jaw dropped just as Usopp made his final aiming adjustments to his impromptu ballista. Deidara triggered the detonation at the same instant that Usopp fired.
[GOMU-GOMU-NO-RAILGUN]
The bomber began to glow with a deadly light as the rubber man with the lightning spear shot across the ocean like a siege weapon, striking the gigantic balloon-bomb dead-on. The electrified weapon pierced through the bomber's skin as if it wasn't even there, stabbing straight into his heart. He gasped in pain, blood gushing from his lips.
Slowly, the glow began to recede as the bomber deflated bit-by-bit, his mouth opening and closing as his muscles convulsed.
"You... little... fuckers...!" he bit out.
Face cast in anger, Luffy was pulled away as Franky grabbed him with a chain-link fist. As the captain disappeared, he left the staff behind.
Then the bomber was left alone among the trees, lightning still dancing across his body as he sank below the surface of the sea.
"Art... is... a..."
Then he was gone.
-Ten Minutes Later-
The Going Merry was broken. The hull was shattered and rent, and you had to look quite hard to see the shape of the ship at all through the branches and roots warping the planks and deckboards. The new growths flowed out from the ship, spreading out into the seawater and sprouting leaves where they came back above the surface.
Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper were frantic and in tears, running over to Franky and falling to their knees. Chopper couldn't stop crying long enough to speak.
"Can you fix her?!" cried Luffy.
Franky's jaw dropped at the sudden request. "Wha- You want me to fix this?!"
"Please! We've got lots of gold! We'll pay whatever you need!" shouted Usopp.
"I… geez! What the hell are you… I mean, look at her! Are we seeing the same thing here?!"
"It's okay," said Usopp, brandishing a heavy-duty saw, "We can take off the branches and then we can just replace the planks, right?"
"Kid, I…" for a moment, Franky was lost for words. "Guys… There's no 'ship' left- the tree-parts are the only things keeping us afloat."
Chopper finally stopped sobbing for long enough to get a sentence out, frantically searching through his packs. "I-it's okay! I- I can fix it! I can fix it! I just gotta take another pill!"
Taking out a second Rumble Ball, the young reindeer broke it between his teeth and swallowed. In seconds he had begun transforming randomly, changing sizes uncontrollably each and every second, all the while crying with frustration. One thing that was sorely lacking was any effect at all on the wood.
"Why won't you help me?!" asked Chopper, apparently to no one, "You're my fruit! You helped me grow the wood! Why won't you help me now?!"
Naruto quickly grabbed hold of the kid, trying desperately to keep him from knocking himself into the sea with his frenzied struggles and transformations.
Chopper's Rumble Ball couldn't be used more than once in a six-hour period without serious consequences.
"I'M SO SORRY, MERRY! MERRY! I'M SORRY I DID THIS TO YOU!" he cried as the others watched with worried eyes.
Everyone looked over the ruined ship that had served as their home for so long with different reactions. Some had tears in their eyes, while some looked on stoically, watching in silence at what they knew could no longer be salvaged. Usopp and Luffy held on to Franky as they continued crying, punching his metal body with clanging noises. Thankfully, Luffy was wounded enough not to seriously harm the man.
Eventually, Franky reached his limit. He raised his head to regard the crew.
"I'm sorry to make you face facts… but your ship is dead. She's beyond any hope of repair, not just by me, but by any shipwright in the world. I think you all know that deep down, not that I blame all of you for grieving..." Gingerly he grabbed Usopp by his head and moved him to the side. When he spoke again, his voice was serious. "You need to give her a funeral pyre. She worked hard for you, and she deserves that much."
This set the still-transforming Chopper into new pangs of anguish, screaming about how he had killed the Going Merry.
Naruto wrangled the young boy until his transformations subsided. Then he set him forward and grabbed him by both shoulders. "Hey! HEY! Little dude!" he said, staring directly into the boy's puffy eyes. "You didn't kill her, 'cause she isn't dead."
"No, no she's-"
"HEY! Listen to me! Look around you." With that, he picked up the tiny Chopper and carried him to the broken side of the ship, facing out to the ocean. Before them they could see a small forest of new-growth trees that had sprouted leaves, popping up here and there through the seawater. The forest spread for a hundred feet in every direction around the ship. Somehow whatever magic had created the trees in the first place had allowed them to absorb the salt-water and thrive.
"You see that?" asked Naruto as he looked out over the sea-forest. "All that's from the Merry, you know? It all grew right from here. If this ship really wanted to keep you all alive, then what it wanted most of all was a way to stop us all from sinking. And you gave that to her. We'd all be dead without your help."
Chopper didn't say anything, still sniffling as he looked out over the water.
Naruto turned to Franky and regarded the rest of the crew with an iron gaze. "We can't burn this ship. It's still alive." His voice was sure and confident.
Franky looked back like he thought Naruto was crazy and opened his mouth to say something, but Naruto shot him a glare and cocked his head back towards the young reindeer. Sighing, Franky shook his head and walked away.
Usopp and Luffy's eyes were red as they took in Naruto's words.
"Y-yeah!" said Usopp, struggling to control himself, "T-That's right! I'm glad Chopper saved us!"
"It's that damn bomber's fault!" yelled a still-sniffling Luffy. "If I see Akatsuki again I'm gonna rip 'em to shreds! But the Merry's still alive!"
As others hurried to offer their own opinions, the crew's minds became set. No one was sure if the ship was still alive, or if she had ever been alive at all in the first place...
But at least it was better to believe.
Franky watched all of this with a scowl from his position on the sidelines, unable to stop himself from understanding the two things that were going to happen next.
First, he was going to build these wonderful people a new ship.
And then he was going to have to try to convince himself not to come along with them when they left.
The Franky Family Sea-Bulls eventually arrived at the location of the Merry's forest grave, having reunited with the boxy ship that Franky and his thugs used as conveyance. The crew's valuables and all the personal belongings that remained were recovered, and all of a sudden Nami was very glad that Naruto had stored her gold and maps safely. She also bullied a few shipwrights that had tagged along from Water-7 into helping her recover the surviving tangerine trees for later replanting on a new ship.
As they worked, the sun began to set. Or, as Nami was able to correct them, the truth was that the sun was actually rising. The ocean currents had carried them far enough from Enies Lobby that they were resuming the normal passage of day and night, and they had fought through the night and into dawn.
Eventually it became time to leave, and most of the crew couldn't bear to watch as they left the small forested patch behind in the falling dawn. However, several minutes later, Robin spoke up, saying just a single word.
"Look."
The Going Merry had changed. In just the few minutes it had taken them to set off, the newly-formed trees had blossomed, every tree and every branch adorning itself with pink flowers. They caught the dawning sunset light reflected off the water, dyeing them a brilliant red.
Everyone, related to the Straw-Hats or not, stopped and stared at the sight. Chopper began crying again to see the trees that his mentor had dreamed of.
Sasuke watched the beautiful scene as well, keeping both his eye and his brother's wide open.
As the great sea-bulls drifted slowly back towards the living island, Robin looked down, seeing something in the water. A hand sprouted from the side of the creatures' hide, and she carefully plucked a small round item from the ocean waters, a number of other arms bringing it back to her position on the ship. She examined it carefully, then smiled a sad smile.
Walking over to Chopper, she knelt down beside him and placed the object in between his tiny hooves, clasping them together.
Sniffling, Chopper looked down to see a single small cherry, red and bright- the seed of a new tree.