-Meanwhile-
-Sabaody Archipelago-
Though the Straw-Hats had long since escaped the island, Bartholomew Kuma watched the aftermath with desperate focus. Things had gone... wrong. First Moria, then the Straw-Hats, and then Fire-Fist Ace… all of them had acted in ways that boggled the mind, and all at the same time. The only people who had remained scrupulously absent during the entire encounter… were Akatsuki.
Akatsuki, who he had seen just last week invade Thriller Bark. Akatsuki, who had been the subject of an unprecedented number of emergency snail-calls in the last month. Akatsuki, who had almost certainly been the ones to kill Admiral Akainu.
Not that he was complaining about that last point. And he had no plans for outing their accomplishments to the World Government just because he had happened to witness what seemed to have been a perfectly-executed assassination.
But now Akatsuki had turned their eyes here, and he didn't know why. If anything, they had put even more effort into this operation than they had for their last one, and if the planned rewards were proportional to their effort then this was something the Revolutionary Army must be told about.
Not for the first time, Kuma considered that being a spy was incredibly difficult work, especially when you were a thirty-foot tall war-machine with spotted clothing.
He maneuvered through the devastated groves of the archipelago, monitoring everything around him with care as he approached the Marine command and control post. As stealthily as he could, he came within distance of his technologically enhanced hearing. It helped somewhat that the ten or so android Pacifista soldiers that had been deployed to the island looked exactly like him in every way.
Nearly half a mile away, an immense man with an equally immense broadaxe was making a ruckus, and he listened intently.
"You want us to do what?!" exclaimed Sentoumaru, lead of the Government's Science Department and bodyguard of the genius Doctor Vegapunk. He was shouting into a snail with no small measure of disbelief. "But the Pacifistas are working perfectly! They've almost pinned down every single pirate on the island! Why are we pulling them away now?!"
There was a moment as Sentoumaru listened to the headset connected to the secure Den-Den Mushi in his hand. Theoretically, the installed listening device meant that someone could receive messages without having the snail shout out loud for the whole world to hear, though this wasn't very effective when the recipient chose to simply restate everything he was told at the top of his lungs.
"So what if old Admiral Aokiji's gone rogue?! He's practically the living definition of AWOL! What's he going to do in the next hour that means we can't clean up here first, huh?!"
Another moment of silence.
"Classified?! Whaddayou mean, 'classified?' I'm head of the applied prototype division! I eat classified intelligence for breakfast! Look, I'm responsible for these Pacifistas, and I'm not sending them off the island if I don't know where we're going! Old man Vegapunk would kill me!"
The silence stretched on and on. When the man spoke again, his voice was low and threatening.
"Hey now… what the hell is this…? You want me to stay behind and send the Pacifistas up the Red Line alone?! Is this some kind of a joke?!"
Pause.
"Classified AGAIN?! Listen, I'll have you know that there's nobody out there that's better than keeping secrets than I am! Like that time we recorded that footage of when Garp accidentally sunk that battleship just outside Marineford! You know, that time when he got pissed at Central Intelligence and threw a fit?! I didn't tell a single soul about that!"
Another pause.
"No, I didn't just accidentally let that info leak, you idiot! I deliberately chose to tell you that just now! That was a favor! A favor! Listen, I don't care what our orders are, I'm not allowed to give control of the Pacifistas over to anyone else unless you've got authorization from at least-"
A sudden interruption.
"Oh, wow, okay. All the way from the top, huh? Fine, see if I care. I won't be the one explaining this to Vegapunk, though. Send them on their secret mission. See if I care. Whatever. Sentoumaru out."
The call ended, and soon the Pacifista team leader sent out a command-and-control signal recalling all of the android units. Kuma felt the signal wash over him, uncomfortably aware that it wouldn't be all that much longer before his transformation would be completed, and he would begin obeying orders like that unquestioningly. Instead, he turned away and headed in the opposite direction, teleporting his body through high-speed Devil-Fruit-powered pushing.
He needed to hurry. Something big was happening, and his only clues were the Pacifistas.
The Pacifista program had not, in fact, been designed first and foremost to create powerful warriors. He'd seen enough of the design process to know that that had been a secondary concern. Long thought on the matter had led him to the conclusion that the primary objective of the program was to create a legion of soldiers that were perfectly loyal, and whose memories could be altered as required by the mission. The ultimate in independent superweapons that could never spill their masters' secrets. Not through betrayal, carelessness, or even drunken indiscretion. They had been designed from the ground up to defend the World Government's most vicious secrets.
In the end, that was why Kuma had volunteered his critical services as a guinea pig for developing the program. Whatever it was that the government wanted these soldiers for, it was clear that there was a secret that they were scared to death of coming to the surface, and so all of his effort had gone to the end of cultivating his persona as the perfect, self-sacrificing martyr to the world order. And now his usefulness as a prototype was rapidly reaching its end. Once the Pacifista Project had proved its worth, he himself would finally be 'decommissioned', and his martyrdom made official.
It didn't matter. Whatever it was, that forbidden secret was something that the Revolutionary Army absolutely needed to uncover, even if it meant Kuma had to die to obtain it. Was this sudden, off-the-books, Pacifista mission related to that secret? Was this just related to Akatsuki's unknown plan? At the moment, he had no way of knowing. But he did know that he would be long-dead before he got another shot at uncovering the truth.
So, it was time to gamble. It was now or never. Should he risk being uncovered as the Revolutionary spy that he was, all for a mission that might or might not even be related to what he was looking for?
He made his decision with disturbing speed.
He sent out a quick digital query and discovered a Pacifista android returning to the muster point from the eastern side of the island. Kuma departed to meet it at high-speed. He intersected with the returning Pacifista in the lawless area of Grove 17. None of the hooligans here had dared approach or interfere with the deadly creation, a fact that suited him just fine. At his approach, PX-7 sent a pulse of greeting, acknowledging Kuma as experimental unit PX-0 and accepting provisional orders from him just so long as they did not interfere with its primary objectives.
Looking at the thing was always disturbing. Officially, the reason that Doctor Vegapunk had made every single one of the Pacifistas identical in appearance to him was to allow the Government to disguise their prototype program tests as simply more unusual Shichibukai activity. Kuma had come to know the genius inventor well enough that he was sure that the real reason was because Doctor Vegapunk was as odd as a fifty-two Belly bill.
Still, he was thankful. If it weren't for that resemblance, he wouldn't be able to do what he needed to do now.
There was no delay from the shock of betrayal as Kuma attacked. The machine switched smoothly into combat mode as Kuma thrust a palm forward, obliterating a section of its armored skull in a single strike and deftly removing the transponder held inside. The android reeled from the devastating blow, attempting to call for the help of its brethren with hardware that no longer existed. When this failed, its mouth began to glow with the telltale indication of its hull-shattering beam-cannon.
Kuma tapped the thing with one paw-printed hand and pushed. The Pacifista disappeared with a popping sound, gone as if it had never been there at all.
Kuma felt fairly certain that regardless of what he discovered here today, the Revolutionary Army would greatly appreciate the gift of one fully-functional Pacifista android delivered straight to his normal intelligence dead-drop on a far-off island. The thing would soar through the air for days until it landed safely at Monkey D. Dragon's Den.
A slight moment of guilt gripped him as he realized that perhaps he should have sent a warning of some sort before teleporting an android superweapon onto their doorstep, but that feeling passed soon enough. They could handle it, and he had more important things to worry about.
A few minutes of savage self-modification later and he was ready. Kuma returned to the muster point to present himself to Sentoumaru.
"PX-7," growled the angry man. "You're late."
Kuma responded with a series of well-admonished chittering beeps.
"What's this? You've been hurt! Who the hell managed to do this?"
Some slightly more apologetic beeps.
"Whatever. We'll go over the footage later. Get in the lineup."
So disguised, the newly re-christened PX-7 entered the formation alongside his nine new siblings.
They would be ascending the Red Line at maximum speed, whereupon new orders would be made available. Then he would finally discover what was going on.
-Bridge of Soaring Clouds-
Usopp skittered across the slick stones of the misty bridge, listening nervously to the sounds of swords clashing in the distance as he did so. The mist was thick enough to make him doubt his footing with every step, but he knew he had to hurry.
He had finally come up with a plan that was sure to win the day, and he was already halfway done with its preparations.
He gulped. Honestly, he wasn't used to the idea of having a plan he was confident would work. He didn't even want to think about it too hard, lest he jinx in the customary fashion. Besides, the hardest part of the plan was still ahead of him. Though his previously bulging backpack was now significantly lighter than it had been, his feet were gradually turning leaden. The reason was simple: before this point he had been running away from the fighting, but now he was running towards the fighting. The noise of battle was escalating as he approached, and from time to time surges of water buffeted his shins, threatening to send him toppling over. He was really getting close now.
A crash echoed out of the mist and he winced, ducking reflexively to the ground. Nothing else happened, and there were no other noises except for his quiet and solitary whimpering.
"Usopp," whispered Robin's mouth on his shoulder. "You need to hurry."
"I know!" he hissed, directing a silent curse in Robin's direction, wherever she was hiding. "Hurrying won't get me anywhere if I get disemboweled before I get to the other side of the bridge!"
He reached blindly for where he thought one of the bridge's thick fence-posts would be and breathed a sigh of relief when he found it. Keep close to the wall and keep hidden. That's the ticket. He took a quick breather before scampering along the railing to the next hiding place. Every tenth post or so the builders had decided in their infinite wisdom to skip the safety railing for a few feet, which meant he was never quite sure when he would find himself skirting doom. This time, however, he was safe. When his heart quieted down he realized the sounds of battle had disappeared. He looked around in fear.
"What's going on? Where are they?"
"I can't tell exactly," said Robin. "Every time I find Kisame I try to lure Zoro in his direction, and I think he's growing irritated with me. Kisame, that is. Though I think Zoro is finding me irksome as well. Either way, it's getting more and more difficult to sneak my creations near the fight. Kisame's sword disrupts them somehow and it almost feels as though it's getting more and more used to my presence."
"He- he could be anywhere?!" Usopp ducked behind a pole. "Oh man, oh man, oh man! Robin, I can't do this if you can't keep an eye on him!"
"Yes, you can," said Robin. "This is a wide bridge and Kisame isn't focused on you. Just keep moving forward and you'll bypass both of them."
He ducked his head and scurried on through the mist, hands grasping blindly until he reached the next pole.
"Yeah, says you! You get to stay hidden while I do the hard work! Can't you just fly me across like you did before?"
"As a last resort, perhaps," said Robin. "The bridge is too long to do it in one go, and this Akatsuki fighter seems at least somewhat able to see through this mist. If he noticed me moving you then he might choose to come after you, or worse, destroy the limbs I was using to carry you."
Usopp gulped nervously as he imagined the long, long drop below him. He scrambled to another pole. When he reached that one an idea struck him and he rummaged around in his much-lightened pack.
"Wait a sec, maybe I have something in here after all… Ah-hah!" He withdrew a set of large suction cups and elastic bands. "I've always wanted to try these. I can use these to sneak along the sides of the bridge and no one else will be the wiser."
"...Why did you bring suction cups and rubber bands with you for this attack?"
"I didn't 'bring them with me,'" grumbled Usopp, continuing onwards into the mist. "I just forgot to take them out of my pack from the last time."
"...At what point have those ever proved useful at all to you?"
"Well, they haven't yet, but just you watch." He reached out and felt the wall beside him, noting its lack of easy egress. "Hmm… not here though… I'll have to go a bit further…"
There should be an open spot in the railings soon, if his memory served him right. He stuffed the suction cups into his pockets and scampered away, following the wooden guides while looking for an opportunity to exit it.
A frustrated roar that sounded like Zoro echoed in the distance, startling him slightly. Man, Zoro sounded pissed. Usopp dashed forward a little faster as he looked around in confusion only to bash his nose as he collided with the next post earlier than expected. Squeaking with surprised pain, he fell back on his rear.
"Ack! This damn fog! It's like trying to navigate through a goddamn marshmallow! Ugh, I think I cut myself on that thing..."
"Usopp!"
Usopp's blood froze when what he had thought was a pole reached down with one long arm and grabbed his leg, lifting him up off the ground and into the air. His vision slid up and up until he could see the fish-man's pale face grinning down at him, its sinister owner lounging against the railing. Usopp squawked in fear before trying to salvage the situation.
"Ummm… truce?" he asked, hope springing eternal.
Kisame's fist struck Usopp a hammerblow to the gut, expelling all the air in his lungs in a gasp of pain that was too quiet to be called a scream. The Akatsuki warrior dropped him to the cold stones in a heap, and the unfortunate sniper immediately began wriggling in agony.
"Usopp! Usopp!" exclaimed Robin.
The man bent his knees and lowered himself to the ground, balancing on the balls of his feet as he smiled down at his prey with distinct malice. The scales on the sword at his back shivered, and the various hidden pieces of Robin decorating Usopp's body disappeared into puffs of blossoms until there was nothing of her remaining. He was all alone with a killer now.
"Sorry about this," said the man, watching the sniper's weapons and packs carefully with a practiced eye. "But you really don't belong in this fight, do you? I don't know what it is you've been running around doing, but that bitch is already being annoying enough as it is. She doesn't need any more help."
Usopp wheezed pathetically as the Akatsuki warrior seemed to consider his next words.
"Speaking of that… before I kill you, you wouldn't happen to know where that horrible arm-woman is hiding, would you? My sword here eats chakra from anything nearby, but it's been next to impossible to run any water clones with her disrupting them as soon as they leave my sight."
Kisame's hand blurred, grabbing his sword and sweeping it to the side, disintegrating a chain of grasping limbs that had been clawing out of the mist even though the blade never made contact. He smirked and returned the weapon to his back.
"The creepy bitch is really starting to annoy me, you see. Tell me anything you know and I'll make this quick for you."
A faint whimpering whisper emanated from the fallen lad. Kisame strained to hear, but had no success. Eventually he grabbed Usopp by his hair and pulled, lifting his head off the ground.
"What's that? You're going to have to speak up."
The murmuring grew slightly louder, though it was still still inaudible, so Kisame lifted the head a little higher. He looked down. There was an elastic band stretched taut between Usopp's fingers, and his eyes widened slightly for just a split-second. This turned out to be a mistake, since the rubber band snapped out and struck him dead in the eyeball.
[USOPP RUBBER BAND]
Kisame shouted in pain, dropping his captive and clasping his sword just in time to see a second rubber band pull back and lock on to his one remaining good eye. He stepped backward and raised his free hand to block the incoming annoyance before it could completely blind him.
A second passed without incident as nothing happened. Usopp had abandoned the feint in favor of scrambling further away from the fight. Growling, Kisame recovered and swung his sword down like a great hammer that shattered stones and made the bridge itself shudder. It would surely have been fatal, but it did not make contact before a chain of linked arms snatched the sniper from certain death, dragging him away through the mist. Kisame clenched his jaw and dashed after the escapee.
Visibility in the mist was poor, even for him, but it was augmented somewhat by the fact that all of the supernatural water vapor was composed of his own chakra, letting him sense things that were near him as the result of a great deal of practice. Ahead of him, he could feel the mist move as Usopp staggered back to his feet, and Kisame leapt forward like a thrown dagger, cleaving the sniper in half with a single strike of Samehada. There was a tearing sound and a loud explosion of air.
He blinked in surprise, sight returning to his eye as he turned to inspect the corpse of his opponent. There, littering the ground, were the torn remains of an inflatable, Usopp-shaped decoy.
"Oh, that cheeky son of a bitch," he growled, dashing off after another noise in the mist. "Trying to pull the clone trick on a ninja, huh?" He brought his hands together, dispersing all of the fog in an area about forty feet around him just in time to see his long-nosed quarry get pulled violently over the edge of the bridge. The sniper disappeared from sight with a slithering squeak of terror.
Moments later, just as Kisame was contemplating the wisdom of going after the lad, the bloody form of Roronoa Zoro dashed into view, immediately attacking the fish-man with everything he had. Grunting, Kisame prepared for another round of skirmishing as he considered his options.
Usopp, meanwhile, was not finding his rescue very enjoyable. The very moment that Robin had pulled him over the edge of the bridge he had tried to scream in fear, an action that Robin had vetoed by slapping a hand over his mouth. This, compounded by the altitude and the recent gut punch he had taken was making it a bit difficult for him to breathe, but he didn't seem to have a choice in the matter. Robin continued ferrying him to his unknown destination without delay and entirely against his will. He was now traveling along the underside of the bridge being passed from one set of limbs to another like the water in a bucket chain, watching the mist stretch away underneath him, all the while knowing that that same mist was obscuring nothing except empty sky and horrible death by sharp, unyielding rocks.
Above, Kisame's voice was still audible. "You evil bitch!" he shouted over the sounds of battle. "I've had about enough of these games!"
Robin's voice spoke quietly from beside him. "Yes… I believe he's growing quite thoroughly upset."
Usopp gulped. The guy sounded pretty angry. What had Robin been doing to him all this time to piss him off that badly?
There was no answer to his question, because he was unable to speak it. The hands continued to cart him upside-down on the underside of the bridge, his heart thundering as he was passed from limb to limb, each time wondering if this would be the time Robin accidentally dropped him into the abyss. Finally, after nearly two minutes of this treatment, he stopped. The mist was silent, and he looked about uncertainly.
"Usopp," said Robin, her voice coming from half a dozen places at once.
There was some other strange noise that he'd never heard before coming towards him. He looked up, or possibly down. Something upside-down and spider-like was crawling towards him in the mist. His eyes went wide when it came into view.
Quintuple-jointed legs bristled with fingers that clutched at each other in a twisting mass of flesh, shifting in unnatural ways as he watched. It was a nightmare made real, creeping forward in fits and starts as it carefully maneuvered itself in a dance that should not have been allowed to exist. Hands and arms sprouted from the stones as anchors as the creature advanced, a golem built from spare limbs. It took step after horrible step, and all the while Usopp was held in place against the stones, mouth gagged. His heart pounded alarm drums in his chest as the flesh-beast approached within a few feet of him, and then part of the creature's 'front' unfolded before his terrified eyes to reveal Robin's inverted face looking at his with distinct concern. Then, with a rustling noise, her face rotated smoothly around inside the spider-cocoon until it perfectly matched his orientation.
"Usopp, what's wrong?" she asked. "Did he hurt you somewhere?"
His eyes rolled up into his skull and he blacked out.
He awoke a few seconds later being shaken into consciousness by the spider-horror, took another look, and then blacked out again. The third time Robin seemed to get the message, and turned him around to face the wall as she retreated back into the mist. This only barely helped him.
"I have seen t-things that were not meant to be s-seen," gibbered Usopp. "The horrors of oblivion beyond the ken of mortal man..."
"I'm sorry about that," she said, speaking once again from a summoned mouth. "But I do think you're overreacting."
"The darkness comes for me," moaned Usopp. "It rests in my nightmares from now until forever!"
"You do understand I'll have to silence you if you keep this up, correct? As you can see, I've been hiding down here. That will only last as long as it takes for our opponent to search the underside of the bridge, which is why I wanted to avoid bringing you underneath as long as possible."
Usopp nodded shakily, still getting his bearings as he focused on the boring stones of the bridge's underside. Anything at all besides the horror he now knew was lurking just out of sight. Robin was, as always, the most terrifying of the Straw-Hats, but he'd never felt it so keenly as he did now.
"I believe he's close to figuring me out, though. As soon as he manages to elude Zoro again he'll come down here to kill us, which means we need to be elsewhere."
Usopp took a deep breath. He wasn't certain, but it was entirely possible that he'd never been more frightened in his life. But this, in the end, was his element. Though he would never admit it openly, he did his best work when terrified for his life. Maybe… just maybe… there was a way to use this horror for good.
"N-no," he stuttered. "We've still got our t-trump card, and we don't need to give that up. What you need to do is lie to him. S-so here's what you need to do…"
Up above, Kisame cursed as he felt his newest water clone explode. Zoro screamed in anger somewhere in the distance, not having noticed the exact moment when Kisame switched out, but it didn't matter. The Akatsuki killer wanted nothing to do with a swordfight until that meddling arm-witch had been dealt with permanently.
He grinned, though there was a bit too much tooth in it for it to be pleasant to look at. Honestly, hunting her down might turn out to be even more fun than killing Roronoa Zoro. Anyone who managed to be a wanted high-value bounty for twenty years wouldn't be easy to deal with no matter who you were. It was just too bad that there was so little information on her. Even her bounty poster showed a young girl of no more than ten years of age rather than her current mature beauty.
"Where are you…" he muttered, reviewing his encounters so far in his head. Most Devil Fruit users he'd seen would have had problems projecting their power over extreme range, and she seemed no different, which means she was likely to be close. But, he'd sensed no other movement in the mist during his fights, and he'd moved quite some distance as things had dragged on. She wasn't just hiding, then. She was well-hidden. There was a difference.
And, come to think of it, there were really very few options for being well-hidden on this bridge if you didn't have a ninja's skillset. One place in particular came to mind…
His thoughts were interrupted by a feminine laugh that chimed from nearby. Moments later it was duplicated in several other places all around him. The discordant noises were deeply disquieting, and if she was capable of synchronizing their speech then she wasn't trying very hard.
"Something funny?" he asked of the mist. "You don't have much time left, Nico Robin. I suggest you use it well."
"Time? Me? Why would you say that?" asked the disturbing woman, feigning an artful surprise.
Slowly, Kisame walked to the nearest opening in the bridge's safety walls. He could feel the wind whistling around him, though it didn't disturb the enchanted fog in the slightest.
"I'm out of patience, Nico Robin. You've made this much harder than it had to be, and it's time for that to end."
"Oh?" she tittered. "Upset about my interference? I do so sincerely apologize."
"Hmph," said Kisame, smirking as he stood at the edge of the foggy abyss. "As a ninja I'm the last person who gets to complain about a fair fight. But all that doesn't matter. Your real body's underneath this bridge, isn't it?"
There was silence for a moment.
"I thought so. Unfortunately for you, your green-haired friend won't be able to follow me underneath." His shark-toothed grin intensified. "That means there won't be anything to stop me from making your death slow."
There were a few choked sounds from mist behind him, and his smirk turned into a grin. It was always a good idea to knock your opponents off-balance before engaging them. That went double when dealing with a woman like Nico Robin, who would be all too easy to underestimate in a fight. If he didn't stay on his toes, literally in this case, then she could easily rip him off the underside of the bridge and toss him into the unforgiving sky in a single instant of distraction. Best to treat her with the caution she deserved, and that meant throwing her off-balance before she could throw him off-bridge.
His grin twisted somewhat when the choked sounds from the mist resolved into gentle laughter.
"Oh, how cute!" exclaimed the woman's many mouths. "Of course, of course. I keep forgetting how new you people are to the way things work out here. You're still thinking you can kill me, aren't you?"
His eyes narrowed as the woman's creepy laughter echoed all around him. "Anything can be killed, and I've taken on a lot worse than you, lady."
She laughed. "Oh, of course you have. You're quite the frightening killer, after all. And normally I'd be happy to let you give it your best shot, but this game of hide-and-seek is growing irksome for both of us. Continue avoiding Zoro all you like, but it's not going to help you stop me."
"Oh?" he said, inching closer to the edge. "I think it's been working out for me well enough so far."
"Has it? Has it really? Look, Mister… Hmm, I'm sorry, I've quite forgotten your last name, but it doesn't really matter. Haven't you ever heard of the properties of a Logia-type Devil Fruit?"
His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.
"The owner of one such fruit dissolves their entire form, becoming their Fruit's power in entirety, body and soul. Though I can't say I'm much of a fighter myself, I've never had to be. My Devil-Fruit is one of the strongest out there, and I have no body for you to attack unless I want to."
The fish-man waited for a moment before a chuckle burst forth from him. "No body to attack, huh? I know about how annoying Logia fruits can be, true enough, but I also know just how rare they are. Claiming you are one when you really aren't would be quite the convenient little lie… now wouldn't it?"
"By all means," said Robin, "-feel free to test your hypothesis, my good man. But by now you don't really have a choice in the matter, do you? Though your vaunted… 'sword'-" a pair of limbs appeared beside him to provide the finger-quotes before a swift swipe of Samehada obliterated them. "-has kept you safe so far, you've wandered unawares into the depths of my flower-garden, and I do so love to entertain bold strangers…"
Kisame's grin ticked upwards a notch. The lady certainly knew how to spin a story. "Good to know we're on the same page, then. We'll see where you're really hiding when I pull back the veil a bit."
He joined his hands together in a seal, chakra exploding from his body as he pushed back the mist technique for hundreds of feet all around him. Below him, the wooden supports of the bridge stretched downward, and he prepared to step off into vertigo. He froze when he saw what was now visible.
There were limbs blossoming from the stones every several feet in all directions around him. They covered the entire surface of the bridge, sometimes extending several arms high into the air to get different views of things. They seemed even thicker below. Adorning each and every one were eyes, ears, and mouths, twisting and wriggling on the end of their unearthly human stalks. Abruptly, a snapping noise echoed through the area as every single one of the arm-sensors reorientated to face him, thousands of eyes locking onto his position as they blinked in their unceasing watch. Breath hissed in or out from ten thousand mouths in ten thousand rhythms, and a low, discordant hum filled the air.
Oh… I see you now...
Kisame paused for a moment with both hands still held in the seal that had pulled back the mist. He looked blankly around at the sighing garden of observant flesh for several seconds and then shrugged.
"You know what?" he said. "...Fuck that."
Then, with another pulse of chakra, the mist pulled back in, obscuring everything once more and hiding him from sight. Kisame took a deep breath and then let it out again.
"Lady," he proclaimed to the mist. "I killed my entire graduating class, drowned families because I was told to, and even slept in the same room as Orochimaru, so please understand the full meaning of what I'm saying when I tell you you're creeping me out."
A faint skittering noise in the darkness was the only response.
"Yeah," agreed Kisame. "No offense, but I'm pretty glad you turned down our recruitment offer."
It was fifteen seconds of disturbing silence before a blast of wind cut through the solid mist like a theatre curtain being split by a knife. Roronoa Zoro stepped once more into the scene, three swords at the ready and looking for all the world as though he wished to take vengeance upon the universe itself by brutally murdering the very next person he saw, no matter who it was. Dark green ribbons of clawing wind lashed out from his body. He locked eyes with Kisame, who immediately sighed with something that might have been relief.
"Yeah," said Kisame, nodding resolutely. "Tell you what. I'm going to fight you instead of her."
"Finally someone's talking some sense here," growled Zoro.
The minutes passed as Zoro and Kisame began to fight for real. Robin watched over her friends, straining every ounce of her focus to do so. In truth, she was exhausted. Never before had she pushed the limits of her power to such an extent, and the real fight was barely even starting.
Not for the first time, she breathed a silent sigh of relief that Kisame hadn't immediately called her bluff. While her power seemed quite willing, almost eager, to coordinate the movement of many thousands of her limbs at a single time, it was clearly balking when it came to managing a similarly comprehensive sensor suite. Even now, though the thousand viewpoints and audio feeds trickling into her mind were dampened by the thick mist, she still felt overwhelmed to the point that she was basically just responding to any odd feeling in the mass and then narrowing down her focus from there. Making matters worse was that as Kisame began to fight seriously, the radius that his sword was draining from increased, leaving her no options to observe things at close-range. Like this she could only catch scraps of the fight.
A grinding crash of steel on scale. A blast of wind revealing a man with three heads and nine swords. A splash of blood on the stones. Then, nothing for a time, until she began to grow fearful of Zoro's defeat. A column of wind three meters wide blew the side off part of the bridge, and battle resumed.
She sighed in relief, though she had to remove even more of her limbs from the battleground. Zoro's fighting capability had exploded upwards in the last several minutes, but he had grown correspondingly indiscriminate with his wide area attacks. Regardless, she couldn't help him anymore. Instead, she changed her focus to where Usopp had finished his sprint down the bridge and had reached entrance to the great temple. Finally, they could put Usopp's plan into action.
Robin was well aware that her more idealistic friends would speak here of the need to trust in Zoro, but the concept of trust still meant something slightly different to her than it did to the others. Luffy, she was sure, would trust Zoro to win this fight no matter what. Most of the crew would agree with him, even Sanji, though she knew the cook could never admit it. She had a rather different perspective on things. She trusted him to go beyond his limits and fight an unwinnable challenge even if it killed him, but she also knew that Zoro would fight this battle alone. And though he was fighting with all of his monstrous strength and skill, she didn't believe he would win alone.
When fighting this battle, the Akatsuki murderer drew upon his superior fish-man strength, his legendary sword, and what was probably an extra decade of brutal combat-experience to form an opponent that seemed to have no weaknesses. Every swipe of that sword stole from Zoro's vitality, even if it missed. Every hit made him bleed more surely than two similar strikes from a smooth blade. Kisame was, if anything, even more specialized for superior longevity in the face of a battle of attrition than Zoro was, which was saying something.
So no, she didn't trust Zoro to win alone. That's why he had friends to help him, even if his pride meant that they had to do it from the shadows. But together she trusted the Straw-Hats to defeat any opponent. That is what that trust meant to her. And so, if their opponent was impossible to beat in a fight, then they wouldn't fight him at all.
They'd simply blow the bridge out from underneath the two fighters and save only Zoro when he fell.
Several of the Straw-Hats seemed to have some respect for the idea of a fair fight, but neither she nor Usopp were one of them. She smiled cheerfully at the thought as Usopp began to plant the last of the explosive charges at the other end of the bridge, mirroring the set he had positioned at the opposite side at the beginning of the fight. Slowly, her web of walking flesh began to carry her towards safety.
As she did so, she returned her focus over to Usopp's end, where he was clinging to the stones with his odd suction cups as he fiddled items from his pack into place at one of the critical support structures.
"Usopp," she said, startling him slightly. "How do you plan to detonate the charges at the other end when you're done here?"
He looked momentarily sheepish. "Err, well, you're going to have to help with that, because in all the excitement I kind of forgot to leave what we needed over there."
"I see. Will any source of fire do the trick?"
He shook his head. "Nope, 'fraid not. See this material here?" he asked, pointing to a rough blob of some clay-like substance sticking to the bridge. "I got inspired by some of that asshole bomber's weapons back from when we fought him and found out all about this lovely stuff. Good explosive material, but it needs more than fire to set it off. In order to do its job it needs a short, sharp shock, like from an explosion or a jolt of lightning. Then Kaboom! But boy is it a big kaboom!""
He held up an odd device that looked like a fat metal tuning fork plastered with wires and one of the paper charms the two ninjas sometimes worked with. She couldn't help but notice that he kept the device far away from the explosives he was working with.
"This here is the Usopp Remote-Detonator, and I only really had time to make up one of them so we have to make it count . You stick both ends in the bomb, roll out the wire, and then press the button when you're behind something sturdy and far away. You won't have that problem, but be careful nonetheless."
She reached out and carefully took the detonator from him, then began passing it from arm to arm down the length of the bridge. "I can carry this to the other side. You can detonate this side without the detonator?"
Usopp nodded, patting his ammo pouch with one hand. "Yep. An explosion in just the right place will do the job, too. Get that detonator over there and be ready for the signal."
That crucial exchange managed, they resumed their work, with Robin focusing mostly on the swift and careful passage of the detonator from one hand to the next, each handoff a rhythmic beat in a chain thousands of links long. Above her, the fight between Zoro and Kisame raged on with increasing intensity.
Half a minute into her work, the bridge shuddered, and for a moment she thought that one of the explosives had detonated early. But no, a quick check confirmed that both sets were still intact. She cast her sight around and her eyes in the sky quickly discovered the cause. Zoro and Kisame were visible again.
The two men clashed on the bridge at the center of a whirling green vortex of wind that had cut away the mist for hundreds of feet in every direction. For a moment, the fish-man and the three-headed demon stood apart, facing each other with grim determination, and then the winds exploded once more. When the chaos cleared, the two warriors had switched positions.
Zoro staggered in place, blood dripping from dozens of wounds. The winds stopped for just a moment, and then he sheathed his swords.
Kisame saw, or perhaps felt, the true attacks coming. Invisible blades of wind slashed at him in quick succession, and he twirled in place, blocking almost everything with his living weapon. Scales shredded off the blade, but it endured. When the last attack struck, Kisame had suffered only light damage.
Looking at them clearly, her worst fears were confirmed. Zoro was a mess. He was bleeding from every part of his body, skin shredded brutally by the fish-man's shark-skin sword. He panted, struggling for a breath that seemed to elude him, an exhaustion like none she had ever seen on him before filling his movement. Finally, with no warning at all, whatever vitality has kept him going failed and he collapsed to one knee, the three heads and six arms fading away like a daydream.
Kisame saw this and smiled, shouldering his great weapon. The man's shark-sword was more wounded than he was, scales torn and ripped from the fierce melee, but the weapon shivered with what seemed like pleasure. It had drank deep today. Kisame's own body was peppered with a collection of mostly superficial wounds here and there, robes cut open and dyed with dark blood, but the victor was clear.
Zoro had lost this fight.
"Usopp!" exclaimed Robin, speaking to the sniper finishing his work on the bridge. "Zoro has lost! Hurry! It has to happen now!"
Off in the distance, Usopp began scrambling up the side of the bridge to get away from his prepared explosives. The detonator she was carrying was only halfway across the bridge at this point, but they'd have to start early. Robin returned her attention to the two swordsmen, summoning chains of limbs to try and delay the inevitable.
To her shock, all of her summoned constructs disappeared the moment they came within twenty feet of either of them. On Kisame's shoulder, Samehada continued quivering with barely-restrained pleasure.
"You gave me a hell of a show," acknowledged Kisame, ignoring Robin's futile attempt at a rescue. "What a world of difference this was between just now and what you showed me down at the archipelago. You're like a completely different fighter. I'd ask you again what the hell that three-headed technique of yours was, but I guess by now I know better than to expect a useful answer out of you. A pity. You have added something to the world of swordsmanship that may never be reproduced."
He shifted his own weapon again, staring across at Zoro with something far different from the disdain he had shown at the beginning of the fight.
"I'm sure it won't mean much coming from me," said Kisame. "-but I witnessed your skill. For a moment, you reached true greatness. But it's over now. There were too many years between us. You have lost, Roronoa Zoro."
Robin cast about her for options. Perhaps with a large enough set of hands she could hurl a chunk of rubble that would-
Back at the fight, Zoro chuckled, drawing his weapons again though the motions caused him visible pain. "I haven't lost yet. It's not over until I've dropped my swords."
Kisame grinned, raising Samehada for a killing strike. "Well said."
An explosion rocked the bridge, the noise oddly dampened by the pervasive mist. An instant later the ground shook, and she felt it through all of her summoned limbs. For one horrible moment she nearly let the detonator slip out of her hands, but she managed to regain control just in time to resume her ferrying chain.
Above, Kisame and Zoro looked stunned, caught unawares in the moment when death had seemed certain. The fish-man looked around in confusion and then disappeared into the mist at high speed, leaving Zoro on his own. Several seconds passed before a voice called out.
[SUITON: KIRIGAKURE NO JUTSU - KAI]
The mist disappeared between one second and the next, revealing everything on the bridge as it was finally exposed to sunlight again. The artful wooden siding and railings had been ripped to pieces all across its length, and long furrows had been cut in the stone here and there. Also revealed at the same moment were a mess of clones, more so than she had seen any ninja use except for Naruto. Each one moved with its own purpose, eyes scanning the terrain as they spread out over the suddenly-unstable bridge. Abruptly, a swarm of them disappeared over the sides.
She realized what was happening with a sinking sensation. Kisame had switched his target, and she wasn't yet clear of the combat zone. At least a dozen reached the underside of the bridge at the same moment and saw her barreling away towards safety. Robin's eyes widened deep inside her flesh-armor just in time for the nearest ones to place their hands together and begin forming seals.
Quickly, she began blossoming arms and attacking the clones with savage ferocity. Though each one of them possessed a copy of Samehada, she didn't feel the same draining aura that the real one possessed, which meant they were fair game and her life depended on her stopping them now when they were at their most vulnerable. She ripped and tore, dragging the clones from their perch on the stones and hurling them off into the open sky. She wove back and forth as her spider-armor clawed its way out from underneath the bridge and up the side, dodging sudden and stone-shattering blasts of water as she moved.
She reached the top of the bridge and dispersed her armor, landing lightly on the stones as she prepared for battle. She looked for other copies of the water ninja and found several heading her way, though a quick scan revealed that none of them possessed Samehada's telltale energy drain aura, letting her breathe a sigh of relief. Clones she could handle, but the real Kisame could quickly deal her serious harm.
A check of the detonator's position showed her it was nearly three-quarters of the way to the end. Perhaps another two minutes and it would be in position. Once she blew the bridge she would win, so she just had to hold off against the powerful ninja until then.
Setting about her grim work, she began attacking the clones en masse. Each of them would disappear into blobs of water when they were harmed, so she immediately spawned arms and legs from their bodies, seeking to trip them up and lock their movements at the same time. Unlike the ones below, these clones had the leverage to fight for real, and they reacted with inhuman swiftness to her every attempt at attack or incapacitation, sometimes assisting each other by destroying a problematic limb before it could deal a fatal blow.
Nevertheless, the clones disappeared one after another as they raced towards her. Six, then five, then four, then three, then two… The last surviving clone was just thirty feet away when one of her summoned hands punched it in the kidney.
She realized the truth of what had happened the very moment it was finally too late to fix things. The real Kisame had discarded his sword and disguised himself as a clone. He shrugged off the rather weak strike and closed the final few feet between them in an instant, grasping her throat and lifting her off the ground.
"Agh!" she choked out, as Kisame raised her until she came face-to-face with the far larger man.
"Well, well, well," he said, beady eyes boring into hers from inches away. "If it isn't the storyteller in the flesh. Good to see you still alive. How convenient."
She looked around, desperate for something to help her regain the advantage, but Kisame's grip tightened until she felt her throat creak.
"Careful, Nico Robin. No games now. Try anything and you die immediately. I'm just holding you hostage until I'm sure your friends won't finish what they started with the bridge." He chuckled. "Oh, I can see it on your face. You thought you really had me, didn't you. The really funny part of this is that you seem to think nobody's tried dropping a bridge out from underneath me before."
His grip loosened just enough to let her take in a gasping breath of air. "Heh…" she choked out. "You really expect me… to know every little detail… of how you ninjas try to kill each other?"
Kisame smiled. Robin had just come to the realization that the attack on her real body had seriously distracted her from guarding the detonator when her distant limbs exploded. The last thing that her eyes in the area saw was one of Kisame's clones bringing the real Samehada down in a contemptuous swipe, and then the detonator disappeared into the open sky as it slipped from her fingers. Back at her real body, her eyes widened in horror, and Kisame saw the moment of her loss. He smiled, and squeezed just a little harder.
"No, you horrible, horrible woman. I expect you to die. And it sounds to me like your time is up."
Lacking any ability to respond, she shifted her focus over to where Usopp was waiting for the second explosion, a nervous expression on his face. "Usopp," she said, focusing on her final words. "He stopped me from using the detonator. I'm sorry. Tell everyone that… I loved all of you. You were the family I never had."
She didn't hear Usopp's response. Back at her real body, Kisame chuckled. "Goodbye, Nico Robin. If I see you in hell, I'm going to pretend I don't know you."
His grip tightened further around her throat, and then a blade of slicing wind impacted his arm like a throwing axe. Blood sprayed from the wound, and Kisame shouted in pain, dropping her to the stones in a coughing and gasping heap. The fish-man whirled to face the swaying figure of Zoro in the distance.
"You son of a bitch!" cursed Kisame, clutching the surprisingly shallow wound. "You just don't know when you're beaten!"
Despite looking as though he was barely remaining conscious, Zoro managed a weak grin. "I told you… our fight wasn't over… until you made me drop my swords…"
"That's a problem I can fix right now!" yelled Kisame.
Suddenly, Robin flicked her sight sideways, though she didn't immediately realize why. Far off in the distance one of her last remaining sets of eyes saw Usopp raise his slingstaff, take careful aim, and fire. She saw the pellet fly true, rocking up and down through the shifting air-currents. It darted downrange, finally reaching her location…
...and then passed them by. Kisame saw her head track the shot and then heard the whistling of its passage through the air. He watched it go with a blank expression. It seemed to be heading straight towards the other end of the bridge. The end where the explosives were still deployed.
"No…" said Kisame, watching the shot in confusion. "That's almost half a mile… Nobody could make a shot like that without…"
He glanced towards Robin and Zoro. Whatever he saw in their faces spurred him into action like the gunshot that starts the race.
Kisame spun towards the temple and started running full out.
Robin turned to Zoro. "Quick! To me!"
Extending her awareness, she began summoning limbs as quickly as she could. She strung arms out from herself, grabbed onto Zoro, and jumped off the bridge.
Then Usopp's shot hit its target. The other end of the bridge exploded. The noise crashed out through the air far louder than when the mist had been dampening it before. The stones at the center rumbled, twisted, and then began to collapse.
Robin swung rapidly through the air, chaining her swings one after another like a trapeze artist as she flew towards safety. As she and Zoro approached the temple, they passed Kisame sprinting at high-speed in a desperate yet futile attempt to outrun the stones as they fell out from underneath him. Finally, she and Zoro landed upon the platform before the temple's entrance, setting down next to Usopp who was crowing with victorious glee.
"YEAH!" shouted Usopp, sticking a finger in the running man's direction. "Eat it, sharky! Best damn sniper in the world?! This guy! Usopp the Great wins again! Let's see you ninja your way outta this, asshole!"
Perhaps two-hundred feet in the distance Kisame roared in anger as the bridge fell away beneath his feet. Then something unusual happened. His feet stuck to a falling rock like glue until he kicked downward with all of his strength, pushing the rock down as if it had been shot from a cannon and sending him flying just a little bit further up into the air. Screaming with effort, Kisame used all four limbs in a similar manner, kicking and hurling the rocks underneath him with everything he had as he clawed his way closer and closer.
"HOLY CRAP!" screamed Usopp. "STOP IT! STOP NINJA-ING YOUR WAY OUTTA THIS! WE'RE IMPRESSED ALREADY! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP IT!"
Stunned almost into inaction, the Straw-Hats nonetheless prepared to attack the rampaging fish-man from range, but it turned out not to be necessary. Barely fifty feet from safety, Kisame finally fell, screaming, into the abyss.
They watched him dwindle away into the clouds below, panting from the adrenaline of the fight. Slowly, they shared a look.
Then Zoro fell over, unconscious.
-Inner Sanctum Group-
Naruto, Sakura, and Hinata all had a great many very important questions for Sasuke after his enigmatic yet confident proclamation, but it all had to be put on hold. After running back out of the horrifying and increasingly fatal tag-team match between no less than four legend-class combatants, they found an accessible window and escaped to the outside of the temple, running sideways on the wall through the cold winds as if they were born to it.
Chopper, however, had not been born to it. In his opinion, running along the outside of a building when you were five kilometers above the clouds was something never to be done under any circumstances, saving the world included, and he expressed his displeasure by screaming at the top of his lungs as Naruto struggled to keep him still. The boy only quieted down once they had bypassed the ambush site completely and reentered the temple further down the path. This part of the temple corridors was lit by dim candles, illuminating the doors that had likely once housed the monks of this order. Hinata kept them on track. There was nothing for them off the beaten-path, so they moved onward. As the young reindeer recovered from his harrowing ordeal, the others finally had a chance to grill Sasuke about his thoughts.
"Okay, so what happened back there?" asked Sakura. "-and I don't want you to brush me off or say anything vague and unhelpful. We need to know that we're not running straight to our doom."
"Yeah," agreed Naruto. "-and what the hell did you do to Gold Roger?! Seriously, I'm freaking out here!"
Sasuke considered his words for just a second. "Well, long story short, Itachi had a jutsu buried inside the Tsukuyomi set to activate when I saw Roger. Itachi broke the spell controlling him, and I spent the last three days training under the Pirate King."
"Holy crap!" shouted Naruto.
"Wha-?!" exclaimed Sakura.
Hinata merely looked confused. "Itachi was… your brother, right? Somehow he knew you were going to meet Gold Roger…?! Even though he died before we could even leave the island?! How could he possibly guess that?!"
"Uhh, not exactly," said Sasuke, suddenly aware he had spent far less time associating with the young Hyuuga woman than he might have in the recent weeks. "I think he had a lot of ideas that might have happened, and this was coincidentally the first one that triggered. Anyway, he was a huge dick about it, but it doesn't really matter anymore because that was a one-time-only trick. I can't rely on his help ever again, and I don't want it either."
Naruto and Sakura blinked in surprise. It was an odd statement from their friend who had only ever had good words to say about his elder brother. Surprising all of them, Chopper stopped whimpering long enough to ask a question. "D-do you mean that was really the real Gold Roger? It wasn't just a fake zombie?"
"Yep," confirmed Sasuke. "One-hundred percent the real deal. And before you ask I think it would be a really bad idea to get him and Luffy together in the same place. But enough about all that. Because of Roger's training I'm a hell of a lot stronger than I was just a few minutes ago, but we still need a plan if we're going to get through this alive."
Sakura winced. "I thought you said you had a plan already."
"I have some ideas and the confidence that we have what we need to win this, but… okay, let me put it this way. We need to all agree on the same plan if we want to win. First, I need to get some information. Naruto, how confident are you that Tobi will hold back if he's up against you?"
Naruto shrugged. "Dunno. The more I think of it the more I think he really is as weird as he seems, but I dunno for certain if he'll keep acting that way if everything's on the line. Pretty sure he won't go all out at least for a little while, I guess. You want me to try and keep him occupied?"
"You got it, man. Can you and your toads handle him?"
Naruto considered that carefully for a few moments as the hallway went on and on. Finally, he said, "I think so. I mean, I need to know if that whole goofy shtick he put on was just an act or the real thing, you know? I guess I'll find out pretty quickly one way or the other when we start fighting for real."
Sakura, Chopper, and Hinata looked deeply worried by this proclamation, but Sasuke just nodded. "Alright. You got this. But I have just one question for you, Naruto."
"Yeah," said Naruto, not really making it sound like a question at all.
"Are you going to kill Tobi if you have the chance?"
Naruto was silent for a moment longer. "...I dunno."
"You don't know?" asked Sakura. "Is there even a question here? I thought the idea was that this guy was going to kill himself if we didn't do it first. He dies either way! The only difference is whether or not he summons a big bad from the past before it happens."
"Maybe," said Sasuke. "Maybe not. But hold on. I want to hear what Naruto has to say about it."
Time passed in silence before Hinata murmured Naruto's name. He started speaking a few seconds later.
"Yeah, I know the deal, alright? He's a killer, and what he's planning now sounds like it'll turn out even worse than anything he's done so far. And I'm still super angry with him. I know he probably deserves anything I can hit him with and more for what he did to me… and Konoha… and lots of other people besides. But when I think about it…"
"What's there to think about?" asked Sakura, glancing sideways at Sasuke in confusion when he failed to step in. "It wasn't just your parents- do you know how many people died when the Kyuubi went berserk that night? It was a lot!"
"I know, alright? I know!"
Chopper piped up. "You said Tobi said he was sorry about that, right? Do you think he really meant it?"
"It doesn't matter if he said he was sorry," interrupted Sakura, alternating her glare between Naruto and Sasuke as the Uchiha continued to remain unexpectedly silent. "-or even if he really meant it or not! He's still doing all this stuff that's getting people killed! No matter what morality system you subscribe to you still have to actually stop what you're doing before you can expect people to forgive you for doing it!"
Hinata reached out and touched his shoulder. "Do you actually forgive him for it, Naruto?"
"No! Hell no!" exclaimed Naruto. "I don't forgive him for one little bit of it! That's not what this is about! But I feel like I might understand why he did it, and that's making it all…"
"Yeah?" asked Sasuke, staring sidelong at Naruto as they continued their sprint down the hallways. "Continue. I want to know why you think he doesn't deserve your revenge."
"This isn't about him or whether he deserves it or not," insisted Naruto. "It's about me. I dunno how to put it, but if having terrible shit done to me as a kid means I have to hate him and kill him and be happy about doing it, then I just don't get the point, you know? I can't figure out why I'd wanna do all that. I mean, I wanna be the Hokage someday! A hero! What the hell kind of hero goes and kills a dumb dude who buys you drinks and dinner, helps you with your problems, and then calls you his only real friend and means it? More importantly, what kind of hero kills him and then says 'yeah, I'm really glad I did that'? I dunno what kind of person I'd become after doing something like that, but I don't think I'd like that Naruto very much."
He sighed, mussing his own hair in frustration as the others listened. "I mean, I'll do what I have to if it looks like it's between that and losing everything here, but I don't wanna think I'll enjoy it. I don't think revenge was made for guys like Tobi."
There was silence for a time, with no sounds besides the air running past their ears and their feet hitting the stones. Eventually, Sasuke chuckled. "I don't think I could make that choice if I were in your shoes, but I guess that's why you're you, isn't it, dork?"
Sakura looked at him with an odd expression. "Sasuke…"
"Don't get me wrong," he said, hardness returning to his expression. "Danzou won't get that kind of mercy from me. I may not be as cold as my brother, but I won't shed one damn tear if that bastard dies in pain today."
There was a moment of silence, but Sasuke detected no disagreement from his friends.
The corridor ended, opening up into a dark room flickering with hundreds of candles set upon a multi-tiered stone pagoda. Behind the immense, glowing structure a massive door could be seen in the distance.
"Wait," interrupted Hinata, white eyes pulsing with chakra. "There it is. I think they must have left the door to the inner chambers slightly ajar, and I can finally see around whatever was blocking my sight."
"What's the deal in there?" asked Naruto.
"Is Ace okay?!" exclaimed Chopper.
The others listened intently. Eventually she nodded. "Ace seems physically fine. No obvious injuries or signs of poison. But, he looks… weaker than he used to, and all of his chakra is flowing into the tree. Looks like we were right about that ritual after all."
Chopper looked ecstatic, but Sasuke was quick to push for more information. He asked questions quickly, as if he had been preparing them for days, which, in fact, he had been. It was swiftly determined that there was a second non-human sacrifice besides Ace that was filled with lightning chakra. Both of the sacrifices had already been drained to a fraction of what was probably their original strength and suppressed with seastone. As for their guards, Orochimaru was using some special jutsu to hurry the chakra transfer along, Tobi was sticking close to the Divine Fruit, and Danzou was watching the door. They had clearly been warned and were expecting a fight.
"So, surprise is out," mused Sakura. "Still think we have a chance here? We'll have to get through Danzou first."
Sasuke scowled. "I can take on Danzou alone. With everything I learned from training under Roger I feel like I can finally challenge him on equal footing. I might not be able to kill him, but I can at least keep him occupied for long enough for all of you to get what we came for."
"...Okay," said Sakura, though she sounded skeptical. "But Tobi's right by the fruit. No offense to Naruto here, but even if he's keeping their leader busy, if the rest of us go after that fruit then Orochimaru and Tobi will probably both stop whatever they're doing and tear us into messy little pieces."
"That's why we don't go for the fruit," insisted Sasuke. "They'll be expecting us to try and steal it once it's ready, but they shouldn't expect us to go for Ace first."
Hinata was the next to speak up. "Okay, so... that is something I've been wondering about. It sounds to me as though nobody can decide whether or not we're trying to save Luffy's brother or trying to get the Fruit before Akatsuki or the World Government can get it."
"She's right," said Sakura. "I hate to say it, but those two things might be mutually exclusive. If we save Ace then we stop the ritual, which means sooner or later the World Government is going to get that fruit for themselves. In other words, we lose."
Naruto looked sick. "Shit... so our choices are save Ace or save the world? That's not good at all."
"What?!" shouted Chopper. "No! That's not right! We can't let Ace die! Luffy's trusting us to save him! There's gotta be a way to do both!"
"I don't see one," said Sakura, brow furrowed with intense thought. "But if that fruit is left to ripen naturally then that's game over no matter what we do. And we can't get access to it unless we let them finish what they're doing to Ace."
"There has to be a way!" insisted Chopper. "If Luffy were here then he'd save Ace and save the world!"
"Yeah, well Luffy isn't here," said Sakura. "He got gut-punched back into the stone age by the First Hokage, and I'm telling you that I can't find a way to make this work! For that matter, without the power of that fruit, Akatsuki will probably kill all of us! As much as it sucks, we know the decision we have to make here… and if Luffy can't make the right choice then-"
"DON'T SAY IT!" screamed Chopper, exploding from Naruto's grip as he transformed into his massive brute-form. Naruto suffered a total and complete loss of coordination from the instant transition between holding a tiny fuzzy kid and grappling with an eight foot tall reindeer-man, causing the both of them to topple to the floor in a heap. The rest of them stopped running, turning to face their two fallen friends with concern.
Chopper was the first one to struggle to his feet, an anguished grimace on his face. "Don't you dare say he wouldn't make the right choice! There's a way to do both and he'd find it! That's the right choice, so shut up about it already!"
Sakura, for her part, looked increasingly uncomfortable arguing with the emotional boy. "Chopper, I get that you believe in him, and maybe Luffy would be able to come up with some magical solution to this problem, but it's just us here now." She frowned, and tried another tactic. "Listen, you're a doctor. Hell, when it comes to the fundamentals you might be a better 'doctor' than I'll ever be. Surely I shouldn't have to tell you that sometimes you have to cut off an arm to save a patient."
"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT?!" roared Chopper, tears beginning to soak his fur. "Of course I do! But my dream is to become a doctor that can fix anything, and how the heck am I supposed to do that if I just let my friend's brother die because it was a bit easier?!"
"Easier?! Show me how the alternative is possible at all before calling this 'easier!'"
"Of course it's possible! Anything's possible! I've seen medicine that can cure an entire country all at once! And I've seen Luffy do even bigger things than that! You think that what we need to do here is really obvious, but that's only 'cause you're thinking like a ninja instead of like a pirate!"
She boggled. "But- but I am a ninja! Of course I'm thinking like one! And for that matter, the only 'pirates' out here that think like that are you people!" She turned to look around her. "Sasuke, back me up here!"
She froze. Sasuke was smiling. Smiling softly, as if he was remembering something that made him genuinely happy, rather than one of his normal smug smirks. She raised an eyebrow in surprise. "...Sasuke?"
"Luffy isn't here," he said in response. "You're right... But I think I know what he'd say if he were." He glanced from face to face, each of his friends watching him in their own way. "He'd say that there's no point to thinking up some clever trick to save both Ace and the world at the same time. So we don't even bother. First we save Ace. Then, if the World Government wants to take the fruit in a few years time, we come right back here and make them regret it."
He spread his arms in front of him, his smile becoming a little more straightforward than it had been. "He'd say 'if we wanna do both then we just gotta do both.' That's all there is to it."
Naruto started guffawing. Chopper started bawling. Hinata stared wide-eyed.
Sakura's jaw dropped. "Holy hell... This idiocy is contagious! I knew it. When the hell did you become like these bozos?"
His grin progressed to shit-eating. "Let's just say that as of yesterday I'm in training as a pirate-ninja, and leave it at that."
"Dude, that's awesome," laughed Naruto. "Pirate-ninja? That's dumb enough to be something I'd say!"
"So you're fine with risking the fate of the world on this?" asked Sakura, looking more resigned to the decision than anything else.
"Don't get me wrong," said Sasuke. "I think our chances of getting this done the easy way are a little bit better than they might appear. I've had days to think about this, after all. See, this whole energy transfer thing looks like a gradual process, which tells me something very important. Clearly, Akatsuki decided that a single sacrifice wasn't enough power for them, so they grabbed two. But what are the odds that two was exactly the right amount of chakra to get the job done?"
Hinata spoke. "You think that they captured more chakra than they need?"
"I am, in fact, pretty sure that they did. Now, I'm just... 'thinking like a ninja' here," he said, tossing a meaningful glance towards Sakura, "-but there's no way they would jump straight into this plan of theirs unless they were sure they had more energy than they needed. I sure as hell wouldn't if it was my plan. And if I'm wrong and they didn't get enough energy to make the fruit ripen, then we never had a chance of stealing it anyway so we might as well go for broke."
"So, if we grab Ace..." began Naruto.
"Then there's at least a chance that they'll still have enough oomph left to finish the transfer with the other sacrifice. And if Ace is still in good health, then we have a path to victory." He clenched his fist in front of him. "Everything I've heard says he's the equivalent of an S-rank ninja all on his own. Even weakened, Ace might still be stronger than we are. We get Ace free and our chances of victory go up dramatically. Sakura, Hinata, Chopper, that means that while Orochimaru is distracted by his work you three should ignore the fruit and go after Ace. While that happens, Naruto and I will keep Danzou and Tobi busy. If either of you two fine doctors can get Ace free and back on his feet then we can still do this."
"I'm in," said Naruto.
Chopper fiercely nodded his agreement, and Hinata followed suit.
Sakura massaged her forehead for a while, lost in thought. Finally, she looked up. "Yeah, we've got a shot. I don't like the fact that we're splitting our forces so much, but hell, I never wanted to live forever anyway."
She turned to focus on Sasuke. "And Sasuke… for what it's worth… I don't dislike this new you. This ocean might be driving you crazy, but…" She tossed a rueful grin his way. "-at least I know you're in good company. Just don't go overboard fighting Danzou, okay? At the end of this fight I'd much rather have you alive than have him dead."
"Yeah…" said Sasuke. "You know what? Me too."
Five brave men and women, some more bold than others, readied themselves for the battle that might determine the fate of the world. When the moment came, they burst through the door at full combat readiness, taking in the ridiculously huge room inside the inner sanctum that hugged the trunk of the tree itself.
The first thing that grabbed their attention was a brilliant object that could only be the Divine Fruit at the very center of the room. It hung low from a branch that could be reached by climbing to the top of a high platform that was styled more like a grand altar than anything else, with wide stone steps that ascended nearly fifty feet into the air. The Fruit itself was a glowing ball perhaps half the size of one's head. It pulsed with energy, but it's true form was obscured by a thick skin that shone like shimmering steel.
The second thing they noticed were the guards. Standing before them like a watchdog, Danzou glared at them in supreme irritation. Tobi turned from his position atop the altar far off in the distance, though his mask made it difficult to tell how he felt about the matter. Orochimaru was lurking near a mess of arcane-looking equipment and seals near the tree's trunk, where his two captives were bound. One of the two was a mess of tangled black strings that occasionally sparked with electricity. The other was Ace, his limp body propped up against the trunk. Ace looked up in a stunned torpor as they entered the room.
"Alright, guys," said Naruto. "Everybody ready? We're probably gonna die here, but we're gonna be big damn heroes doing it."
"Ready," said Sakura. "The fate of the world's at stake, even if it is a lot weirder than I'd ever imagined it."
"I'm ready," said Sasuke, locking eyes with Danzou and then smirking as the man began studiously avoiding eye-contact. "Chopper, don't forget to try opening that fruit if you get a chance."
"I can try," said Chopper, "-but no promises."
"Hinata?" asked Naruto. "You ready?"
"I'll do my best," said Hinata. "Everyone's depending on us. We've got to make this count."
Naruto grinned. "Alright. We're going in on three. One… Two… Thr-"
There was a pulse of power from some unidentifiable location, and then time stopped. The Divine Fruit glowed with a warm energy in their sight, and then everything went black.