Tales From The Blue Sea

by Tarhish

Following the Poneglyphs led Gold Roger to an island lost to the world for a thousand years. Inspired as a child by Roger, Itachi makes a different choice that results in an early friendship between Naruto and Sasuke. Years later, the boys take an unsanctioned mission to chase Akatsuki out into the ocean on the only ship available. (Naruto/OP Fusion)

71. Giants in the Playground

The Temple of the Celestial Dragon shook and creaked as Tobi began growling and grunting, struggling with all his might to move the ancient limbs of the Divine Tree. Despite being a genetic derivative of the First, as well as possessing the Rinnegan, actually controlling the source of life itself was beyond even his instincts, and at the moment all he could manage was twitching his branches. It wouldn't matter for long, however; his enraged attempts to control his new body were quickly becoming more and more successful. And more and more violent. Tobi's wooden face screamed, and although the sound was nearly deafening from where they stood, it was pretty clear they were safe for the moment.

Up upon the altar, Sasuke, Naruto plus toads, Ace, Sakura, Hinata, and Chopper shared uncertain looks. They needed no words to express that none of them had even the slightest idea about how to stop this. Each of them had already seen the branches of the Divine Tree take powerful attacks without even a scratch, and nobody had any illusions about their chances of stopping a kilometer-tall sentient tree made of invincible wood.

"Guys, we need to retreat," said Sakura. "Every one of us is hurt, and I can't do anything more than basic first aid until we're safe."

She was right, of course. Naruto and Sasuke, however, had something more important to accomplish.

"Everyone," began Sasuke. "I know we don't have a lot of time, but long story very short, Naruto and I were given a message from the Sage of Six Paths right before this fight began. I wish we could say he told us how to stop all this, but he didn't. We might have a clue, though." He pointed off to the rear wall of the great room. "There's a storeroom filled with relics created by the sage, and it'll open its doors for Naruto and me."

"Naruto and you?" asked Hinata, ignoring the many questions she almost certainly had. "Not anyone else?"

Naruto nodded and stepped forward to grab her hands. "Sorry Hinata. It's a long story, but I promise I'll tell you later. We gotta go, but we'll catch up to you, so make sure Luffy and the others are okay, yeah?"

She swallowed back her words, searching for something in Naruto's eyes, and then nodded.

"Yeah, that's great and all," interrupted Ace, sweat still covering his skin, "-but I'm gonna try figuring this one out on my own. I do my best work when I can't get anyone else caught in the crossfire, if you know what I mean."

"Ace!" exclaimed Chopper, reaching out one hoof as the man turned to leave. "No, wait! You nearly died! If you push yourself further you... you-!"

Ace paused only long enough to toss a rather tired-looking smile over his shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I could hardly call myself one of Whitebeard's sons if teetering on the brink of death bothered me. You kids keep yourselves safe, though. Whatever happens, I… and the Whitebeard Pirates… owe you a huge debt. You saved my life, and I can't pay it back if you go dying to some dumb tree."

Sakura looked like she wanted to add something, but the room shook and rumbled as Tobi made another grunting effort to take control of his branches. When the shaking calmed down, Sasuke spoke up.

"We're splitting up for now. Sakura, Hinata, get Chopper to the rest of the crew. We'll follow right behind you."

There really wasn't time to argue any further. They split, with Sakura and Hinata carrying Chopper out of the room as Naruto and Sasuke went in the opposite direction, the floor shaking and rumbling as they ran. For just a moment Sasuke stumbled as his legs lost power, but he regained his pace after his false-start. Naruto gave him a worried look, but he waved it off and they began running for the far wall.

They soon reached a great stone door flanked on both sides by two imposing statues. The one on the left was very clearly Hagoromo, the Sage of Six Paths, which presumably meant the other statue was of his brother, Hamura. At least, they certainly hoped so, or else there was a third mystery super-ninja that was somehow relevant to all of this. Or possibly a fourth? At this point they couldn't rule out anything. They'd barely gotten close when a seal inscribed on the door glowed into existence, flashing brightly before burning away like paper set aflame. Just like that, the door separated in the center, groaning open as they watched. It seemed the sage's words had been true. This room responded to their chakra.

"Hmm," began Grandpa Fukasaku, from Naruto's shoulder. "I sure don't know what to make of this. What in blazes happened to you two? All that talk about the Sage was more'n just hogwash, then?"

"Yeah," said Naruto. "I just wish he actually had some help for us, instead of just dumping another quest in our laps. You'd think he'd have- whoa!"

As they stepped through the door and their eyes adjusted to the dim light, they all caught sight of a blood-chilling silhouette. An intricately detailed wooden statue emerged from the ceiling above them, reaching down with two twisted and knotted hands as if to rip them from the floor and rend their flesh. The great, warped beast gazed at them with a solitary crimson eye as it screamed silently in their direction with an open maw filled with more than a hundred needle-thin fangs, each one longer than should have fit in its closed mouth. Curling and crawling from behind its body were ten freakish tails.

Despite themselves, they gulped nervously, having taken a step backwards without realizing it.

"Shit, man," muttered Naruto. "Hate to run into that thing in a dark alley. What the hell is that thing?"

"Don't ask," stated Kurama's thoughts, with the tone of someone who wasn't going to answer any further questions on the matter.

Sasuke grimaced. "Sure sounds like someone forgot to tell us an important piece of the plot, but whatever. It's just a statue. Let's split up and find what we're looking for."

Outside, the shaking and crashing of Tobi's struggles were growing louder and louder as he got used to controlling his new body, so they hurried onward. They passed underneath the statue, moving further into the storeroom. The musty reliquary was stuffed almost to bursting with knick-knacks, scrolls, and strange objects of all types, each and every one of which looked like it could have served as the seed of a mysterious adventure all on its own. Mostly, however, what they saw was mere dilapidated junk. However all of these things had been made, most of them clearly hadn't been meant to withstand a thousand years of sitting in storage, and had gradually disintegrated into the dust that covered every surface in here. The air was hazy and thick with its scent, which may have been why they didn't notice the room's other occupant until Naruto sensed his chakra.

"Someone else is in here," thought Naruto, spinning around in the dim room.

No sooner had he shown his suspicion than a bolt of lightning shot from a darkened corner, spearing through the intervening distance. Naruto dodged the attack with startling reflexes, but it was so poorly aimed it probably wouldn't have hit him anyway. Sasuke immediately engaged the Sharingan and lunged forward, only for Naruto to interrupt.

"Stop!" he shouted, adding mentally, "The guy's so close to dead I could barely sense him. He's not a threat."

Sure enough, when Sasuke's eyes pierced the darkness he could take in the bloodstains on the stone floor leading up to a man who seemed so old he could have been enshrined as one of the relics stored on these shelves. His uniform, however, was familiar. He was wearing the same robes that had clothed the bodies of the temple monks. The exertion of casting that Ninjutsu had reduced the elderly monk to a deep fit of bubbling coughing, and it was clear that he was straddling the edge of death regardless of what they did.

"Don't-" said the monk, before resuming coughing, "-don't you dare touch anything, murderers!"

"Wha-? Murderers?!" exclaimed Naruto. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

Sasuke looked closer, his eyes cataloguing the the pallid color of the monk's skin, the terribly faint signature of his chakra system, and the almost vacant milky eyes. The old man was either so ancient or so close to death that he was almost blind, which could become either an unacceptable delay or a blessing in disguise, depending on how they handled this. The question was… what act should he put on? He took a chance, summoning arrogant condescension into his voice as he spoke.

"We're not part of the rabble that did this to you, monk," said Sasuke, his words cold, "-and we have no time to entertain your threats."

"Dude, what?" thought Naruto.

"Pretending I'm working for the nobility. Play along." That message communicated, he continued to speak. "An attack on us is an attack on the Celestial Dragons. I'll forgive one transgression due to your… condition, but lash out again and we will not be so forgiving."

The old monk's face did a number of contortions as Sasuke spoke, and he caught the barely imperceptible twitch of muscles at the words 'Celestial Dragons' as the monk's head reflexively bowed ever so slightly.

Yeah, this could work.

"The… the Celestial Dragons?" asked the monk. "But… who are you? How… how did you get in here? The door is sealed to anyone besides..."

"We're not just any random passersby," interrupted Sasuke, making sure his sneer was audible to the nearly blind man. "We're descendants of the Sage of Six Paths."

"Wait, we are?!" thought Naruto, as the toads gawked in surprise. "I thought that was just some weird spirit thing! I'm not literally descended from that kook am I?"

"I don't know whether it's literally true or not. Just go with it for now, alright?" Sasuke continued speaking without showing a hint of their mental conversation. "The nobility always had a plan in case you lot were to suffer a catastrophic loss. That backup plan was us."

"A… backup plan…?"

Sasuke nodded, then remembered the old man was blind. He took a step further into the room, scuffing his shoes to make a sound, and when the dying monk didn't move to attack he knew that doubt had taken root.

Naruto looked like he wanted to offer the old man aid of some sort, but Sasuke quietly resisted. The ruse would only work if the monk thought they were affiliated with the nobility, and that meant keeping their distance. Naruto spoke anyway.

"You're not looking too good, man. Save your strength and stop trying to shoot us. What's your name?"

The old monk looked briefly uncertain. "My name…?" He shook his head. "There's no time for the full thing right now. Call me Freddy, if you must."

The room rumbled and shifted, tilting almost thirty degrees to the side in a sudden motion that sent a gaggle of priceless and irreplaceable artifacts toppling from the shelves. Naruto dodged a globe of fine glass that exploded when it hit the ground, freeing a great cloud of roiling vapor that clawed outward like a living thing. He scrambled away before he could breathe any in, which was probably a good thing, as the gas abruptly solidified into a brilliant bouquet of flowering vines before wilting away in the next second.

"I'm afraid none of us have much time for chatting," agreed Sasuke. "The last remnants of Akatsuki have taken control of the tree, and we need to know the location of certain artifacts that will help us reclaim the temple."

With that, Sasuke described the artifact that the Sage had said was still locked away here, as well as inquiring as to the whereabouts of any item capable of damaging or otherwise impeding the tree. Abbot Freddy shook his head, and for a moment Sasuke feared their request had lost his cooperation.

"Damage the Divine Tree? It can't be done, or, at least, not by anything here. We simply… tend the thing… The tools here are for encouraging or limiting its growth... or gathering data on the fruit... not pruning it. There might be something like that among the relics whose true purpose has been lost to time, but I…"

Sasuke saw the old man fading. Finding a silver bullet to deal with Tobi would have been a long-shot anyway, so he gave up on that and pressed on. "The vial then. Where is that?"

Freddy hesitated only a moment before extending a finger in the direction of a carved stone case about the size of a jewelry box. Since he was blind, it must have been from memory. Naruto stepped up and clasped the box while Freddy spoke.

"I couldn't possibly… guess why you need it… just a curiosity… nothing more…" he took a deep, shuddering breath. "Promise me that you'll… make them pay... for what they did…"

"That I can promise, monk," said Sasuke.

Seconds later, the light faded from the old man's chakra system, and he slumped slightly against the wall.

Another sharp tremor shook the room, rattling glass as the sound of the temple's collapse continued outside. This room was built of sturdier stuff, but it clearly wouldn't be long before the whole thing fell apart. Even now it was swaying violently back and forth.

"We need to get out of here," said Sasuke.

Naruto nodded and opened the case. Inside, nestled in a bed of decayed velvet, was a delicate-looking crystal vial banded with rings of smooth seastone. It caught the light in odd ways that suggested it was made from no ordinary glass, and according to the description the Sage had given this was what they were looking for. The Phial of Unfolding Waters.

"What in the world…?" asked Ma.

"We'll explain later," said Naruto. It seemed they'd been saying that a lot recently.

With no further ceremony, he reached into his pack and took the tiny chunk of seastone that Sasuke had purchased down at the archipelago's shops, placing it inside the vial. The instant the stone fell through the first ring of stone bands it began crackling and fizzing with a noise like falling sand as effervescent water poured from its disintegrating surface. Finally, the stone dissolved entirely, the vial now filled to the brim with a fluid that bubbled and foamed like the crests of beach waves. An indescribable scent made their heads spin.

According to the Sage, this was Mother Ocean Water. The one thing that, when swallowed with a fragment of the Divine Fruit, could reconnect a demon of Kurama's strength to the infinite sea of the Earth's chakra. If it worked, Kurama would give up a large portion of his power to the Earth, but in return he would gain the freedom to live in the manner that Devil Fruits did, roaming the spiritual plane freely and only binding to humans when it suited him. It would also mean that Naruto might effectively become an abnormally powerful mythical-creature-type Devil Fruit user, but that was a concern for another time. Naruto stoppered the vial and packed it away. He wouldn't be able to use this until he had a piece of the Divine Fruit, anyway.

The two boys turned to each other and nodded, sparing one last glance to the dead monk before leaving the way they had entered. They opened the door once more and dashed outside.

What awaited them was chaos. The temple barely deserved its title anymore; the walls and most of the floor had collapsed, opening the entire area to the mountain air. The only reason this reliquary had lasted so long was because it had been anchored to the tree with stone clasps so enormous that they could only have been made with ancient Earth Ninjutsu. It clearly wouldn't last for long, though. A veritable forest of branches both thick and thin were waving and swinging through the air, smashing into each other with distressing regularity. Sasuke and Naruto got their bearings as quickly as possible and then set off away from the trunk, hoping to find some hint to their comrades' location.

"Heh…" chuckled Naruto. "After all that we're back to jumping between huge tree branches again."

"Yeah… just like home..."

"Yer not out of danger yet," insisted Ma, from Naruto's shoulder, pointing a warty old finger into the distance. "That way. Focus on the journey. The Hyuuga girl left that way, and you best be sure she knew where she was goin'."

"How can you even tell that?" asked Naruto. "Everything's waving around all the time."

"Plenty of ways to sense your surroundings if you just pay attention to the natural energy around you, Naruto-boy. Above!"

The two boys dodged rapidly, narrowly avoiding being crushed to death by a flailing branch. In the distance, Tobi screamed at someone, but it didn't sound as though the maddened Akatsuki leader had tried to hit them on purpose. The fact that he had gotten so close to smashing them just from random attacks was bad enough.

Without warning, the branch they stood upon dipped in place, coincidentally affording them a better view of the battlefield.

"Holy shit," said Naruto.

The temple was basically non-existent now, with only a few patches of stone here and there that were at all intact, leaving everything else open to the air. Sasuke took in the view. Despite taking place on what was technically a single tree, their new battlefield was massive enough to cover almost a cubic mile in gnarled limbs and roots, with a phalanx of majestic branches to protect the trunk that was still anchored to the wall of the Red Line. The tree itself rocked and swayed its limbs in motions that were destroying every last piece of the temple, and wherever the branches struck the Red Line it gouged out great furrows of rocky debris that fell to the ocean far below.

A flash of some sort of violent explosion caught his eye, and he turned to look. The noise of the explosion followed a second later, just in time to take his breath away as the sky split in two. Flames wreathed in lightning stabbed forth like a sword into the trunk of the tree, and despite everything he'd seen of the Divine Tree's invulnerability the attack clearly left a charred furrow in the holy wood. As Tobi screamed and writhed in either pain or rage, the smoke cleared enough to make out the First and Second Hokage, suspended from a distant branch and preparing for another bombardment.

The tree groaned as Tobi pushed it into action, but just before the branches could smite either Hokage from the sky, the First sent a bloom of wood element chakra out into the aether that washed over the tree and drastically slowed its limbs, buying them time to dodge nimbly to another branch. A few seconds later, another explosion tore through the sky, but this time Tobi seemed ready. The Rinnegan absorbed at least half of its fury, dispersing the attack without much harm.

"QUIT IT!" screamed Tobi. "NOT TAKING IT FROM ME!"

Naruto and Sasuke had been so stunned they had forgotten to move.

"Oh man…" sighed Naruto, wowed into a sort of reverence. "I never got a chance to see a real Hokage go all out in a fight before, much less two of them. Do you think the old geezer was this powerful?"

"The Third? I… I don't know. But supposedly these revived bodies are weaker than the real First and Second would've been, so..."

"Shit…" muttered Naruto. "Man, we're really lucky we didn't get ourselves killed so far, aren't we?"

"Yeah… talk about a mission above our pay grade..." Sasuke scanned the area briefly. His Sharingan was having serious trouble taking in the battlefield due to the overwhelming chakra aura of each of the Divine Tree's leaves. "Speaking of… if the Hokages are fighting Tobi, then where are Roger and Rayleigh?"

As if he had been summoned, the Pirate King plummeted from the open sky at those words, crashing into the branch they were standing on with enough force to shake their teeth. He stood up and gave Sasuke a small nod.

"Told you everything was gonna go to shit," he declared without prelude. "This quest-line was waaay too important to end without some big damn monster causing a ruckus."

"And I told you life doesn't work like a storybook, you delusional zombie," retorted Sasuke.

"And yet… here we are!"

"Uhh, hey," interrupted Naruto, who hadn't actually met the revived man yet. "So, Gold Roger, huh? Nice to meet you, I guess. You look like a real badass."

"That's 'cause I am one."

Rayleigh's voice called out from atop a higher branch. "Don't encourage him, young man! He's like a dog! He'll eat any scrap of praise you give him and then crap all over the carpet!"

"Well, that's that image stuck in my head," muttered Naruto.

Sasuke coughed, exercising what little control he had over their link to avoid mental contamination. "So... what happened with the First and Second?"

Roger shrugged. "Eh, the other two zombies stopped fighting us when the snake-man ordered us all to recover the Fruit from your pal, Tobi. I declined to participate on account of that order being more useless than tits on a cactus."

"What on a what?" asked Naruto.

"Orochimaru's still alive?" asked Sasuke.

"He grabbed Danzou and disappeared among the branches somewhere before we could stop him," said Roger. "That sourpuss didn't look too healthy either, so good job beating up an old man, I guess."

Sasuke cursed. If Orochimaru had him, then Danzou could conceivably survive the injuries he suffered during his failed coup, but there wasn't even time to deal with all of that now. Up above, Tobi's screams of rage and loss continued to be interspersed with the explosive bursts of noise that accompanied the First and Second's cataclysmic Ninjutsu bombardment. The two former Hokage were deftly dancing from leaf to leaf, dodging Tobi's furious yet unpracticed attempts to swat them out of the sky, and although Tobi was rapidly gaining complete control over his new body it didn't look like the zombies were in danger of being struck down anytime soon.

Much farther from the trunk he saw what he was looking for. The Straw-Hats, every last one of them, were climbing, clambering, and being lifted by Robin's summoned hands, from branch to branch.

He smiled. "Everyone made it out alive," he thought.

"Awesome," thought Naruto.

When he turned back around, Roger had disappeared. A quick search revealed that the Pirate King had jumped back up to a higher branch to talk with Rayleigh. Sasuke turned back to his friend, who was exchanging a few words with the toads.

"Come on. We'd better meet up with the gang and come up with a plan."

"A plan for what?" asked Naruto, frustration stressing his voice. "That's what me and the old toads are trying to figure out. If talking and fighting didn't work on him before then they're definitely not gonna work on him now."

"Just… just a plan, alright? Someone has to have an idea, even if we don't."

Naruto gave him a funny look, but followed after him when he left, jumping up higher into the branches in pursuit of the distant figures of the Straw-Hats. As they passed, they caught a scrap of Roger and Rayleigh's conversation.

"So… why's that kid up there glaring at me like I owe him something?" asked Roger.

"That's… uhh…" mumbled Rayleigh. "-So, about that…"

At those uncharacteristically uncertain words Sasuke glanced upwards again and froze in place. Up among the distant branches, Ace was staring down at them with murder in his eyes. Though they were maybe a quarter of a mile away, Sasuke could very clearly read his lips.

"Gold fucking Roger," mouthed Ace. "Well, if it isn't my lucky day."

That said, he began jumping from leaf to branch, descending towards Roger as his flesh burned with an ever-increasing rage.

"Aww, six bats up a baboon's arsehole," muttered Roger. "That's Ace, isn't it?"

"Yep."

"Oh, come on! What the hell am I supposed to do about that, huh? Does the kid have a beef with me?"

"You could put it that way…" muttered Rayleigh.

Sasuke blinked, casting an uncertain glance between Roger and the distant figure of Ace. The Sharingan analyzed facial features with ease, prompting a double, triple, and then quadruple-take.

"Holy hell, he is your son!" exclaimed Sasuke, bursting uninvited into their conversation.

"Wait, what?" asked Naruto.

Roger rolled his eyes. "Of course he's my son, try to keep up. Listen, you're friends with Ace, right? Acquaintances? Why's he looking at me like he's gonna try to tear out my spine and shove it straight up my-"

"I don't know, alright?!" interrupted Sasuke. "He's never mentioned you, not even once! I don't think the whole father-son thing is common knowledge, either, or else he'd be known as- as 'Gold Ace' or something, instead of 'Fire-Fist.'"

"Hah. Maybe that's the problem, then. If my dad had cast that large of a shadow then I wouldn't have made it through my teenage years without trying to push him off a cliff."

Rayleigh nodded soberly. "Yeah, it's... it's something like that. I've tried to keep away from the kid myself, but he knows he's your son and by all accounts he doesn't like it very much. Got himself adopted by old Whitebeard."

Roger raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but didn't say anything before the implications caught up to Sasuke. "Wait a damn second! I thought Luffy was Dragon's kid, but if Luffy's his brother... then does that mean-"

Roger scoffed. "I don't know anything about no Luffy, and I didn't have much time to get two semi-official kids going neither." He paused, adding, "-unless they're twins. Oh, hell, not twins..."

"No…" said Sasuke, analyzing his stored images of the two ridiculous pirates. "No, now that I think about it I don't think they're related at all. Luffy's actually descended from Dragon and Garp, which means they're not really brothers."

Roger turned an almost disappointed glance in his direction. "You of all people should know that you don't need to share blood to be true brothers."

Sasuke winced at the implied rebuke, and automatically glanced over at Naruto, who looked awkwardly back at him. The reflexive urge to jab at each other to deflect those words was rather useless when their feelings were being communicated in real time.

Ace was getting close now, so Roger turned to his first mate. "Alright, so it doesn't matter what it is, but I need to do something good for him, 'cause a father's gotta bequeath something to his kid. I didn't manage it the first time I died, so it's doubly important I get it right this time round. Rayleigh, what's the one thing a bastard kid like that wants most of all from a bastard dad like me?"

"...Honestly?" asked Rayleigh, "The best thing you could give him is a clean break. Ace already has a father-figure, and as much as I hate to say it a walking corpse shouldn't be splitting people's loyalties. You need to give the kid up for good while you still have the chance."

Roger tugged his mustache. "So… you're saying I should…?"

"I'm saying that you should be the worthless sack of shit I always knew you could be, Roger," he said, sounding oddly sincere as he placed one hand on his friend's shoulder. "Be the very worst you can be and prove he made the right decision to ditch you."

Naruto's jaw dropped to hear this, but Roger simply nodded before flashing a wide smile. "Now that's something I can manage."

Ace arrived in a hellstorm, hitting the ground in a three point landing that burned the air around them. He stood up slowly, tongues of flame escaping from his mouth, and if he looked exhausted from his recent ordeal, he also looked pissed off in equal measure.

"Rayleigh," he said, and even through the flames his voice could have frozen nitrogen. That was all the acknowledgment he gave the old pirate before nodding to Sasuke and Naruto. "You two. So. What's the deal here? This is that ninja thing, isn't it? The one where they bring a guy back from the dead, yeah?" Ace spat on the ground, and there was a small explosion where it struck the wood. "Only… when Akatsuki did this to Teach, he came out like a mindless corpse… so why is this zombie freakshow eyeballing me like that?"

Naruto tried to say something, but Roger got there first. "Technically it's more 'giving you a funny look' than 'eyeballing you,' kid."

"Okay, so it talks," said Ace, redirecting his glare. "And it thinks it's funny, too."

Roger nodded, short and sharp. "Yeah, I'm a barrel of laughs. Listen, I didn't exactly get a lot of warning you'd be coming, but I've been working on my dad jokes for just such an occasion and I've got some good ones. Like... 'What did the zombie pirate give his kid for his birthday?'"

"Oh, is this what we're doing now?" asked Ace.

"Nothin'!" barked Roger. "'cause he wouldn't even know what fucking day the bastard was born on, would he?!"

Ace's stare hardened, and Roger started cackling. "Hey, come on! Laugh it up! What are you, dumb?! It's funny 'cause the joke's about you!"

In the past, Naruto and Sasuke had both suffered direct mental assault by enemy Genjutsu, but even so, nothing they'd experienced up to this point could ever compare to the sheer heart-stopping awkwardness of this moment. Sasuke looked over and Naruto was actually grimacing with teeth clenched and both eyes screwed shut.

Ace wasn't amused. He turned to fully face Roger and stepped forward, approaching the grinning king without a hint of weakness.

"Yeah… okay… so... 'son'? No. No way. You don't get to call me your 'son,' you shitstain on history's asshole... you don't even get to think about me like that..." He stopped when they were less than a yard apart, the grinning king staring down at his enraged progeny. "I'm not your fucking son, and you're not my father!"

Roger chuckled, seemingly unfazed by the sizzling heat washing over him. "Son? Of course you're not my son. I'm the fucking king of all pirates, and you're just a nobody." Although the grin stayed fixed in place, his voice dropped to a threatening hum as he leaned in even closer. "If you were really my son you would've surpassed me by now. You sure as hell wouldn't have settled for becoming a little nursemaid that minces about changing Newgate's catheter every day, you spineless slug of a-"

Ace's fist snapped out, only to be caught in one of Roger's palms, his undead skin taking the flames without pain. Roger just kept chuckling.

"Well, something in there sure pissed you off. Was it the daddy issues or are you just so in love with that white-mustachioed runner-up that you-"

"Don't you fucking finish that sentence," said Ace, "-or we're both gonna find out just how long a corpse like you can burn."

"Okay," interrupted Naruto, unable to stop himself from interfering. "Enough is enough! Do you two even know what's going on right now?! This isn't the time for fighting each other-"

A blast of solid charisma exploded from Roger's soul, striking Naruto an invisible gut punch that made him freeze in place for a moment before shaking off the effects of the Haki. "Sheesh, okay, whatever. Have it your way."

The two pirates resumed arguing, raising their voices to be heard over Tobi's distant screams when necessary. Rayleigh watched on with almost fatherly concern, but Naruto and Sasuke were just flummoxed. Frankly this entire setup was way weirder than they were equipped to handle.

"I just don't get it, man," thought Naruto. "I mean, if I got to meet my dad for the first time, I sure as hell wouldn't waste my time in an argument with him, right? What the hell do they think they're doing?"

Sasuke sighed. "I have no idea at all. Maybe this makes more sense to pirates, because it sure doesn't mean anything to me."

"Shut up," growled Ace, interrupting the smooth stream of insults rolling effortlessly from Roger. "Shut… the fuck… up…" He paused to exhale, and wisps of flame came out with his breath. "You know what? It's not something I ever wanted, but I'm glad I got to meet you. I could have spent my whole life wondering if I was being disloyal to your memory or something. Could've wondered just how much of me came from you, but now…" He shook his head in disgust. "No… I'm nothing like you. You're a foul, loathsome turd who should have had the decency to stay dead! Whitebeard is gonna become king of this ocean, and if you think that you ever compared to him then you- you… you're disintegrating!"

"I'm disintegrating?!" shouted Roger, stabbing out with a finger that was rapidly turning to dust, "-you're the one who's falling apart over a bunch of pansy-ass…" He trailed off, glaring down at his crumbling hand. "Ah, shit, I'm actually disintegrating here. Hold on a sec."

As the legendary pirate continued deteriorating, the onlookers found themselves a little too surprised to do anything other than watch with their jaws hanging open.

"A little bit ago that snake-asshole figured out I'm not one of his loyal slaves anymore," elaborated Roger, "-and it looks like he finally stopped trying to uselessly order me around and skipped straight to ripping my soul outta my body."

"That... sounds pretty dire," remarked Rayleigh.

"Eh. I've had worse."

"Roger, I've been there for your worst, and I'm pretty sure you haven't."

"Remember that witch that was causing trouble back on Hollandberry? She was worse."

"What? Witch? You mean the 'Soul-flayer?!'" His eyes went wide. "We stopped in that city for one night and you pissed her off without me hearing about it?!"

Roger rolled his one eye that was still intact. "Duh, mom… you would've made a fuss."

"A fuss?! Roger, she flayed people's souls!" Rayleigh paused, angrily working his jaw for a moment as everyone looked on in shock. "Is that why the papers said she was found dead just after we left the port? You went and got your soul sliced up and then you killed her?!"

"Yeah, see, this is why I was keeping it a secret. You freak out about every little thing."

"Every little-!"

"Look, in fairness, she only flayed me a little bit, but I killed her really hard in return. Hell, I even made it home on my own afterwards, even if I was a bit loopy at the time."

"You told me that was a hangover!"

"Yeah, and you believed me, so who's the-"

His words were cut off as his mouth dissolved. That said, he closed his remaining eye, shifting in some nigh-imperceptible way before another wave of power crashed out from his body. Unlike all the other pulses of Conqueror's Haki Sasuke had felt from Roger and Rayleigh, this one seemed much more restrained, as if he was somehow being excluded from its fury. When the moment passed, Roger's body immediately began reforming itself from dust in the customary fashion. If any negative effects lingered then they weren't immediately obvious.

He nodded. "Yeah, Snake-Man Joe can take his dark necromancy mumbo-jumbo and shove it straight up his hoo-ha, I'm not dyin' to this shit."

"H-hoo-ha?" asked Naruto.

Sasuke snorted. "Does that mind aura of yours fix literally every problem you run into?"

"What, this kind of stuff? Damn straight it will. Should keep me running long enough to deal with this tree business anyway." Satisfied, he whirled on Ace, who had been watching with a sort of bizarre fascination. "Anyway, disregard all that. We were talking about the problems with idolizing the dead."

"Were we?" asked Ace, sounding irritated beyond belief. "Pretty sure I was talking about Whitebeard."

"Yeah, I know. That's what I said."

Ace narrowed his eyes and shook his head in frustration as Roger started up again. It was clear that Ace, at least, was done with this conversation.

"You want to make Whitebeard the Pirate King? Do you really think that festering corpse of a captain has what it takes to be the Pirate King now?! He was tripping over his own saggy sack when I knew him and he's had twenty years to wrinkle further!"

"He," said Ace, "-knows how to inspire loyalty. Even if he were to die you can be damn sure his crew would carry his fucking coffin all the way to the end of the Grand Line. A hell of a lot better than a certain someone whose fleet disintegrated the instant he screwed off and surrendered to the government."

"Ouch!" exclaimed Roger. "Finally getting some actual spirit in these barbs. But here's where you're really wrong, Ace! You can't just choose to make someone else a king, you dumb kid! The only thing that does is hold you back! Follow after him? Make him the greatest? If he was really gonna be a true king then you wouldn't have had a damn choice in the matter. You'd have been pulled along in his wake whether you liked it or not!"

Without warning, a series of wooden, vine-like tentacles sliced out from the open sky and latched onto Roger, lifting him up into the air and holding him in place as they wrapped tighter and tighter around his limbs. Far in the distance, the First and Second appeared to have suffered similar fates, suspended helpless to react. Whatever had happened, Tobi seemed to finally be gaining control of his newfound strength.

"Don't think I'm done with you yet," hissed Roger, putting venom into his next words as he hung suspended in space, "-you second-in-command loser!"

"H-Hey!" yelled Rayleigh, and then the tendrils pulled Roger away into the sky. Suddenly missing the target of their ire, Ace and Rayleigh turned to the ninjas.

"Alright, what the hell's going on here?" asked Ace.

"It's one of those Akatsuki folk," stated Rayleigh, massaging his forehead in what was probably a very nostalgic manner for him. "They've got some way to resurrect the dead, but it backfired when they tried for Roger."

"Yeah, I figured that out, asshole. They already tried that shit on me before, which is why I'm stuck in this mess in the first place. What I haven't figured out is why their leader turned into a big invincible tree and is tentacle-snatching zombies out of the sky. So let's keep it simple. What's Tobi doing with that lard-brained captain of yours?!"

Rayleigh winced, looking like he really wanted to speak up in Roger's defense, but it was the toads that answered instead. Pa spoke from Naruto's shoulder. "He's bein' sent back to the afterlife. Right now the souls of those three are unnaturally bound to an earthly sacrifice, which means they're only truly vulnerable to techniques that can sever that bond. Just so happens that wood element chakra's the best at that kind of thing, and Tobi possesses the Rinnegan which can alter the flow of souls between this world and the next. On top of all of that, the Divine Tree is the ultimate bridge between divinity and the mortal world, and its solar chakra could be capable of unbeatable purification."

Far off in the distance, Tobi's immense wooden face strained with effort as the holy wood finished entombing Roger and the two Hokage inside a cocoon of roots. Then, spears of braided wood rained from heavensward, each one piercing the glowing cocoons until all three Edo Tensei were pinned to the sky. Arcane seals that seemed forged from sunlight itself burned into existence in lines and rings that encircled each of the wooden prisons. Supple branches, each one massive beyond imagination, wound themselves back and forth in front of Tobi's face in a manner reminiscent of the hand seals that were used by shinobi. The chakra this tree was molding, however, was utterly alien to mere humans.

"What we're looking at are probably the most powerful sealing arts in existence," stated Ma. "Only the First could even hope to stop this, but nothing short of his full power and undominated will could manage it." She turned her head to regard Ace with a solemn stare. "I know you've got yer differences, but if you have any last words fer yer birth father, now's the time to swallow yer pride and get 'em out there. Roger won't be comin' back from this'n."

Ace looked stricken, though whether it was from even the thought of filial loyalty or just from having the object of his irritations suddenly snatched away forever Sasuke couldn't say. The young pirate didn't say a word, just clenching his fists and teeth as he watched the distant exorcism. Slowly, the root cocoons began to unwind, revealing the figures inside. The Second slumped against the spears piercing his body, his outer shell dissolving rapidly into a dust that left behind only the corpse of one of the former temple monks that had been used as a sacrifice. Seconds later, the First dissolved as well, emotionlessly following after his younger brother into the afterlife as the sacrificed bodies were discarded to fall to the clouds far below.

Then, just as the third cocoon began to unravel, the world tore itself apart. Sasuke flinched, bringing hands to his ears to muffle the unbearable sound, only to discover it wasn't a sound at all. It seemed as though the very air itself burned. No, not the air, it was their minds that were burning away, thoughts shutting down as they were rendered down into ash. Had his heart stopped, or was it beating hard enough to escape his chest? He couldn't begin to tell. There wasn't any point in even trying to quantify the brilliant feeling of overwhelming power, or even to compare it to anything they had felt before from Luffy or Rayleigh; it was nothing less than absolute. It expanded in a great dome from the Pirate King's airborne coffin until it covered everything in sight. Every fighter on the field aside from Rayleigh, Ace, Naruto, and Luffy was borne to their knees by the immense pressure, and Chopper, Nami, and Usopp actually collapsed to the ground unconscious.

When Sasuke could finally think again, he realized he had expelled all of the air in his lungs screaming, and he took a deep, gasping breath. Over the mental link he could hear Naruto arguing with Kurama, who had taken the barrage of Conqueror's Haki as a direct mental assault.

One thing was now absolutely clear. Neither the Tsukuyomi nor the Kotoamatsukami could have truly bound Roger for long. Whatever this power was that he was wielding, it would cut through any will-affecting Genjutsu or Ninjutsu he wanted it to with ludicrous ease.

Tobi kept screaming as well, loud enough to shake the mountains, and the coffin of roots wriggled and twisted before exploding into splinters. Roger descended from his former prison, using his greatcloak to direct his fall to another branch and then kicking off like a rocket to rejoin the rest of arrived just as Tobi's screams settled down, zeroing in on Ace with manic determination, and for once, Ace actually looked somewhat intimidated as the zombie touched down on their branch.

"And another thing!" exclaimed the Pirate King, who seemed unfazed by the recent attack on his soul, "Doesn't friggin' matter where you losers carry Whitebeard's coffin if you can't find Raftel in the first place! And no offense, but that just ain't happening!"

No one else seemed interested in carrying on the previous conversation. They just stared in horror at the man who'd set the world on fire with his mind. Vaguely, Sasuke was aware of Pa grumbling from Naruto's shoulder.

"Okay, or maybe the most powerful sealing techniques in the world just don't mean squat anymore. Just go ahead and break outta it, see if I care."

"Holy cow," exclaimed Naruto. "Can anything actually kill you?! I'm serious here!"

"Hey, shut up, junior! I'll die when I feel like it, okay?! And I was talking to my son, here, not you. I mean, ah fuck, I didn't mean my son-"

"YOU!" screamed Tobi, interrupting Roger's hurried corrections. "I REMEMBER YOU!"

"Aw, hell-shits," said Roger, redirecting to face the tree's trunk.

"YOU'RE THE STRANGER IN THE RED CLOAK!"

"Yeah, hi, what do you want?"

"WHAT DO I WANT?! YOU KILLED MY FAMILY! AND I DON'T LIKE THAT KIND OF THING!"

"Hey, I also spared your life and fed your scrawny ass dinner, so how about a- oh crap!"

A branch that was as thick as a house crashed through the air where Roger had just been standing, clipping his legs hard enough to break them off at the knees. Naruto and the others barely dove off their branch in time to dodge the hit. While they were recovering, the Pirate King regenerated his body and began fighting properly, jumping from branch to branch as Tobi frantically flailed tree limbs in his direction, each attack pushing Roger farther and farther away from the rest of them.

"RRROOOOGER! EVERYTHING WENT WRONG AFTER YOU SHOWED UP! EVERYTHING WENT WRONG AFTER YOU KILLED THEM! STOP DODGING AND DIE!"

If Gold Roger was worried about being Tobi's primary target then he hid it well. Instead, before he left their range entirely, he shouted, "Don't worry, guys! I've got a plan and you're gonna love it! Trust me!"

The horrified look that the three young men and two toads saw in Rayleigh's wrinkled face was proof enough that Roger's boast was perhaps somewhat less than perfectly trustworthy.

"Oh man," moaned Sasuke. "I can see it now. He really does act like Luffy."

Rayleigh nodded, sighing. "God, twenty years since he died and that kind of statement still chills my blood. It's precisely when he says something like that that you know you should be worrying." He turned to the rest of them. "Look, I hate to say this, but this fight is a little too high-level for most of you. Go to your friends. See to their wounds. If you can, get off the tree alive. Just because I can't see a way to beat this tree-man now doesn't mean one won't show up later, but I won't be able to keep you all safe while I'm doing it."

"You're gonna be okay, old dude?" asked Naruto.

Surprisingly, it was Pa who answered, after nudging him in the side of the head. "Don't you go and underestimate the toughness of an old hero, Naruto-boy. Stop insulting him and let's get going. We're not done here yet."

Ma nodded along with her husband. "I can't see any way this Tobi fellow brings about an era of positive change, which means the prophecy's still unfulfilled. There'll be a chance to make yer mark, don't you fret none."

"Yeaaahhh," started Sasuke, "-about that whole prophecy thing-"

"No way, man," interrupted Naruto's thoughts. "Like he said, don't underestimate the stubbornness of an old toad. Let's not argue. Just go with it for now."

"...Never mind. Let's go find the rest of them," finished Sasuke.

Ma and Pa muttered their agreement before addressing Naruto once more. "Boy, we're leaving for now. We're in for the long haul, but who knows what kind of help you might need before the day is done. Conserve yer energy but make sure you call us when things get tough again."

Naruto agreed, and soon the toads disappeared back into the aether.

The two boys set their sights on the Straw-Hat's location and then left as well, heading further and further up the branches. Tobi still seemed to be having trouble controlling more than a small part of the Divine Tree at a time, so everything settled down as Roger led his attention further afield. Ace, meanwhile, glared one last time off into the distance, then jumped off after the ninjas. He caught up fairly quickly, but didn't say a word.

"So-" began Naruto.

"Don't ask him about Roger," thought Sasuke. "Seriously."

"...weren't you going to fight alone, man?" he finished, changing his question despite his curiosity.

Ace shrugged. "Tried and failed. This friggin' wood is too damn tough. What the hell is going on here, anyway?"

Together, Naruto and Sasuke did their best to explain the truth of what was happening to Ace, leaving out a lot of the mystical crap that seemed to be determined to make their lives harder. Fighting a life or death battle over a fruit that granted godhood to one who consumed it was pretty much everything important.

"Oh, great, so I just got to play the part of the fainting sacrifice, huh?" asked Ace.

"Pretty much," said Naruto. "Sorry, but if it's any consolation if it wasn't you it would've been someone else. Those dudes were seriously strong."

"Whatever… just glad I survived."

Sasuke looked at the older man carefully. The Sharingan gave him the full picture when it came to his chakra system, and something seemed very strange. "You're not as fast as you were the last time I saw you. You alright?"

"Besides, couldn't you fly before, man?" asked Naruto. "You still loopy from the ritual or whatever?"

Ace was quiet for a moment, working his jaw before responding. "Yeah, something like that."

"Something like that?"

"... I don't know. I feel fine, all things considered. Certainly not like I just nearly avoided death or anything… But when I try to use my powers, it's like I'm stuck on low burn. I can't transform right, either."

"Shit, man. How long do you think it'll take to get back to full power?"

"...Dunno…"

In the silence that followed, Kurama's voice wormed its way into the link between the two boys. "It won't get any better. Not in his short lifetime, at least. Although those demons can pull endless energy from the earth and ocean, it is not truly their own. The demon's energy itself simply makes up a shell composed of pure life chakra. It processes the energy it receives into its own flavor before passing it on to the mortal it lives inside. Growing the Divine Fruit requires the same energy used to create it in the first place, which means this ritual Akatsuki performed must steal chakra directly from the demon itself. This… cripples it."

As Naruto processed this, Sasuke thought back. "That fire fruit will be weaker forever?"

"Unknown. Perhaps if being connected to the earth really is as beneficial as the Sage made it out to be, then it could recover after leaving the mortal world for a while. Regardless, I doubt it can repair itself while hiding inside that boy's body." He chuckled inside their minds. "He'd better have some genuine skill to back up that reputation of his, because his life relying upon the demon's strength is over."

They continued to leap from tree branch to tree branch as they considered this, dodging Tobi's semi-uncontrolled flailing as they did so. That gloomy and uncertain mood lasted until they reached the gang.

---

They found the Straw-Hats, plus Trafalgar Law and a couple of ninjas, resting on the back of a gigantic leaf further out from the trunk. Although the longer branches got a lot more momentum at the tips when Tobi swung them around, he so far seemed unable to control some of the thicker ones, which for the time being made this a suitable place for a base camp. The resident medical specialists had taken the chance to begin treating some of the worst wounds. The first thing he saw was Zoro being aggressively bullied into accepting a full complement of stitches from Captain Law, and it seemed as though the nearly unconscious swordsman had suffered the worst wounds out of any of them. Sasuke recognized the signs of skin regrown from medical Ninjutsu too, which meant Sakura had already helped out and moved on. Actually, looking closer, those wounds seemed ludicrous when you realized they'd all been gained in the same battle. Whatever had happened back on that bridge had been brutal, but the man had survived, which was a fact that spoke volumes about his vitality. As Sasuke watched, Zoro twitched.

"What the hell are you doing back there?! I could stitch myself up better than this!"

Trafalgar Law continued scowling into his work as he ignored their arrival. "If that arts-and-crafts project on your chest is your handiwork then no, you couldn't. Stop fidgeting or I will remove your arms before continuing."

Confident that was proceeding well, they moved on into the camp, where others shouted cheerfully to see them. Sakura was now working on treating their rubber captain, who seemed to have gotten himself cut up, abraded, and a little bit impaled here and there, but still had the animated energy to gesticulate wildly in Ace's direction. Sakura just sighed and waved as they approached. They waved back and went to say hello, before Chopper stopped them.

"No you don't," insisted the reindeer, who was finishing a splint that would fasten Brook's broken tibia until it could mend itself. "Stop right there until I get a look at you."

"Me?" asked Naruto. "I'm-"

"No, not you. You, Sasuke." As Sasuke blinked in slight confusion, the boy elaborated. "You're dead on your feet."

"I'm not-" he was interrupted when two arms pulled his legs out from under him, with another set cushioning his fall. His reflexes were so dulled by the near-week of subjective time spent fighting that he had been caught totally off-guard. He looked up to see Robin smiling at him in the distance, though she spoke to him right next to his ear.

"Well done, hero. You fought well, but I think it's time for you to rest for a spell, don't you? Listen to the good doctor Chopper, or else I'll make sure you take your medicine the hard way."

"Fought well?" he asked. "I don't know if you noticed, Robin, but we lost."

"Did we?" she smirked from her distant position. "We fought a crew of world-caliber warriors and survived. The others sometimes get over-inflated expectations when it comes to these matters, but I expect better from you. You're supposed to be more pragmatic than that."

He snorted. "The fight's not over yet, you know. There's still time to get ourselves killed."

"And time enough for victory as well. Give it some thought. I shall be disappointed in you if you don't."

Her summoned constructs faded away in a fragrant puff of flower petals, and the conversation was over. He sighed. She really had missed her true calling as a kunoichi.

"Man, you've got it bad," remarked Naruto, who had overheard some of the conversation.

"Sorry, what?"

"Don't you 'what' me," said Naruto. "I'm in your head now, you know? You can't hide this crap from me anymore."

"Y-yeah? What are you…?"

"Wow, you don't even know?"

"...I think you're making this out to be more than it is."

"Sure, fine. I mean, what do I know, I can just read your mind, that's all."

Their conversation was thankfully interrupted as Chopper drew close, his expression drawn inward as the well-practiced professionalism of his duties overrode his natural fears as to their predicament. He looked like he was trying to avoid thinking about the fact that they were trapped on top of a colossal god-tree that probably wanted them dead. This wasn't made any easier by Usopp, who was following behind the reindeer boy with a terrified countenance.

Chopper quickly went to work stitching, cleaning, and bandaging Sasuke's numerous sword wounds, while Usopp did his best to gather information from them.

"Okay," he said, "-so I was asking Chopper what the hell happened with you guys, but he started telling me all about how some zombie super-ninjas came back from the dead and nearly killed all of you until undead Gold Roger appeared from out of nowhere and started shooting up the place, and then there were these giant snakes and poison and guys with flamethrower breath, and then Naruto, you got beat up by a giant carnivorous giraffe, and then some weird inexplicable bullshit happened so now Tobi's an evil tree that's gonna kill us all." He took a deep breath before finishing with, "-so what really happened, please?"

Naruto shrugged. "Pretty much all of that, I guess."

"We don't know if the giraffe was carnivorous or not," added Sasuke, holding still through the stitching.

Naruto interrupted. "That monster took a big bite outta one of the toads. Don't know where Tobi pulled that hellbeast from, but it was super-carnivorous."

"Alright," said Usopp, nodding decisively. "Excuse me. I'm going to go throw up now."

Before he could do that, Usopp was roughly thrust aside as Luffy barreled up to them. Despite his numerous bandaged or half-bandaged wounds, his eyes were shining and alive. "You did it! Ace! You all saved him!"

"Yeah," said Sasuke, smiling as he got caught up in Luffy's cheer. "Well, thank Sakura, Hinata, and Chopper more than us. Naruto and I were really just the distractions."

"Shut up, you asshole," ordered Chopper, though he sounded quite thrilled by the praise. "Hold still, please."

Luffy laughed. "Man, I wanted to save him myself, but I got distracted by that stringy jerk. Did you get the other Akatsuki guys?"

Naruto shook his head. "No, we just tried to stay alive, really. They're still out there somewhere, which really sucks. What about you guys?"

"We got Stringy and Bloodman," said Luffy. "Really tough, but we got them in the end. I dunno about Sharky."

"Really?" asked Sasuke. "You killed Hidan? How? Isn't he basically undying?"

Luffy stared back blankly, and Sasuke made a mental note to follow up with someone else later.

"Well… Kisame then? Usopp, is he gone?"

Usopp's terror metamorphosed temporarily into bravado as he cleared his throat. "I'll have you know that I shot down the legendary ninja Kisame myself! There we were, face-to-fish with the towering figure of-"

Robin's voice interrupted from a nearby mouth. "Zoro did all of the actual fighting, to be terribly honest. Kisame made the two of us pretty much useless right from the get-go, and it stayed that way until we dropped him into the ocean."

Sasuke did some quick mental math based on his memory of the mountain's staggering ascent before nodding. Even if Kisame had survived he wouldn't be making it back up here for hours at least, so he moved on.

"Zoro fought him alone? That's pretty damn impressive."

"Isn't it just? I'm simply glad for our glut of capable doctors."

"Yeah… me too… so we did it, then… we all lived. Talk about beating the odds."

"So, I've been wondering," said Usopp. "These guys were some of the strongest ninjas on your island, right? And they even managed to take down big bounties out on the ocean, right? So… does that mean we're in the big leagues now? How does that work?"

Luffy rubbed his stomach uncomfortably. "I don't think the ones we fought were the strongest…"

Sasuke grimaced, recalling a memory of Luffy being gut-punched by the First Hokage and rocketing out of the room. "No, they aren't the strongest. But they were still world-class foes."

"So that makes us world-class now?" asked Usopp. "Makes me kind of nervous."

Sasuke shook his head. "No. I wouldn't say that either."

Luffy stared back at him with the expression that he had come to associate with intense focus. It seemed as though their captain was looking for the real answer here, so he started listing out facts.

"First off, we outnumbered them immensely, and we can't ignore that. But also… Akatsuki… was crippled. There's no other way to put it. Kakuzu was working with only half of his abilities, we countered Hidan's strongest techniques with a team built specifically to take him on, we brought Silvers Rayleigh along and somehow lucked into getting Gold Roger's help too, Orochimaru spent all his time playing defense for his sacrifices, Tobi didn't even want to fight Naruto, and as much as I hate to admit it, Danzou was nearly blind in one eye and I still couldn't beat him, even with Roger's training. Then, right at the end, when things could have gotten really bad for us, most of Akatsuki betrayed each other. It sounds like the only one of them who was able to fight with everything he had was Kisame, and you guys had to drop him off a bridge to get rid of him. We had every possible advantage and we still only managed one confirmed kill..."

There was silence. It was clear that the others hadn't thought of it like that. He continued.

"In a fair fight we all would've lost. No, scratch that. In a fair fight it wouldn't have been a 'fight' at all. We'd have been annihilated. Even worse, if it weren't for our intel combined with the Byakugan then they would've been the ones ambushing us. The fact that Zoro's still alive is amazing."

Luffy nodded. "Then if anything had gone wrong, Ace would've died."

"We all would have died."

Sasuke glanced to the side. Ace had caught the gist of the conversation and meandered over, slapping Luffy on the shoulder when he arrived. "Hey, bro. Not that I needed the rescuing, but I appreciate it. Coming all the way up here to meet me? You're alright."

"Ehhh?! No way, you totally needed our help! We had a team ready to save you and everything!"

Ace spread his arms wide. "Yeah? Did you see me in trouble back there?"

"I didn't see you at all!"

"I rest my case," he finished, tossing a wink in their direction. "Anyway, I gotta figure out how I'm gonna hunt down all those Akatsuki bastards- the ones that aren't trees at least- so I'll be heading out shortly. Take care of yourself."

Luffy watched his adoptive elder brother go with a curious expression, one that Sasuke hadn't seen before.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Luffy made a small grunt and waited a few seconds before saying, "These ninjas we beat really were a lot stronger than us, huh… But Ace…" He trailed off without saying anything more. If anything, he looked even more confused than before.

"Well, he's alive though," said Naruto. "Just… watch out for him, okay? He's lost a lot of his strength, and he might not ever get it back."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I mean when Akatsuki beat Ace they took a lot of his power away. He's a lot weaker now."

"Weaker… than who?"

Naruto blinked. "Weaker... than he used to be?"

"But… Ace is strong," insisted Luffy, who looked uncharacteristically nervous.

"Alright, I can tell this is one of those conversations that ends with me totally freaked out and confused, so I'm just gonna end it here, okay?" asked Naruto. He gave Sasuke a bewildered expression, but received only a shrug in return.

It wasn't long before Chopper gave Sasuke the okay to move again, before slapping a compact ball of something into his hand. Nutrients and medicines that had clearly been inspired by conversations with Sakura. He did his best to eat the thing without tasting it, but, as was usual, he failed.

That done, he got to his feet against the protests of his abused muscles. A shudder in the leaves followed by a distant explosion proved that Roger and Rayleigh were still engaged in combat, so rather than letting himself wind down he pushed onward through the Straw-Hats' makeshift campsite. Everyone seemed to be handling things as if nothing dramatic was happening at all. He passed by Sakura, but decided not to interrupt, given that she seemed deeply busy on three fronts: repairing Brook's fractures, healing the burns on Nami's skin, and fending off Sanji's attentions.

Here they were, having just finished duels to the death with some of the greatest ninjas in the world, sitting atop an immense god-tree as it assaulted the Pirate-King, and everyone was acting…

Just about normal.

Honestly, it was enough to make you smile.

He turned as a presence approached him. Franky gave him a wave with his one good hand.

"Hey, buddy, I need to talk to you about that trick you did the first time we met. The one where you reshaped metal without a forge. You got a minute?"

Sasuke glanced down at the cyborg's busted arm. It looked as though the outer shell of the pressure chamber he used to prepare his attacks had crumpled outward before exploding, leaving a jagged wreck where there should have been smooth armor. He looked back up into Franky's eyes. "What happened there?"

"Blew up a bitch," stated Franky, before giving him a thumbs-up. "Fun times, but now I'm disarmed, and I kinda get the feeling I'm super gonna regret it before too long, ya know?"

"Yeah… this day might just get worse and worse. I can do something about that arm, no problem. You want me to help you fix it right now?"

Franky's grin slammed back into its rightful place. "Radical. Yeah, let's get this done right now. Lemme tell you, I built this bodacious figure of mine myself, but doing serious repairs in a tree up on a mountain was not in my friggin' plans at the time I designed it."

Sasuke chuckled before moving close to lay his hands on the scrapped arm, looking at the various tubes and components underneath. "Well, you're lucky it's just the plates that blew out or you might been in real trouble. I wouldn't want to try fixing any of this other crap in here." He took a breath and gathered his chakra. "This is gonna get a bit hot, so it might hurt… Wait, do you actually feel this, or-"

"Just get to the good stuff already," ordered Franky. "I installed this stuff in the first place, didn't I? I'm not some fainting whiner over here. Let's go!"

"Fair enough." That said, he made several hand seals and pressed both hands to the cyborg's arm. It seemed to reach cherry-red coloration in an instant, though in reality it wasn't nearly that hot. He pressed and bent the magically-pliant metal with Franky's supervision until, five minutes later, it was once again smooth and intact.

Franky flexed and hammered the repaired limb experimentally before giving him a thumbs-up. "You're super alright, amigo. You're super alright."

And that was that. Sasuke said his goodbyes and left soon afterwards.

Everybody was mostly treated and approaching good shape at this point, which meant it was time to start coming up with a plan. A plan to do… something… He still wasn't sure what, if anything, they could hope to accomplish. He made it over to where everyone was gathering just in time to feel the tree shudder again. This time it was more violent than anything they'd felt before, and a moment afterwards came the noise of something that sounded as though part of the mountain had just broken off. Several of the Straw-Hats stumbled or were tossed into the air, only to be caught by Robin or Luffy's ready arms. Far from interrupting whatever conversation had been going on beforehand, this event only seemed to spur Usopp on.

"No, look, it's simple," insisted Usopp, speaking desperately to the crowd, complete with enthusiastic pantomime. "We just climb down the tree and get the hell outta here! Sure it's a long way down, but we can figure it all out after we're off of this exploding murder-tree! Let the experts handle it!"

Robin coughed, politely interjecting. "And… where exactly will we find a safe way down from the tree?"

"The roots! I checked earlier! They're hooked right into the mountain."

"No offense, Usopp," said Sanji, his face paling as he looked over the edge of the leaf, "-but you, uh… you might want to take another look before we go through with this plan of yours."

Struck with a certain dread, Sasuke dashed away towards the edge and peered over. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn't this.

The last shuddering rumble had been more than just Tobi causing a ruckus; The reason it had sounded as though half of the mountain had been torn apart was because that was precisely what had happened. Totally uncaring of the devastation he was causing, Tobi was even now finishing the dirty work of ripping his root system from the mountain bedrock. The Sharingan saw Earth and Wood element chakra coercing, crushing, and blasting stone out of the way as every little tendril was pulled free, a feat that became even more frightening when he realized most of those things were as big around as a sailing ship.

"What?!" screamed Usopp. "He's uprooting himself?! Why?!"

"YOU CAN'T ESCAPE FROM ME, GOLD ROGER! STOP RUNNING AND DIE ALREADY!"

Barely audible in the distance, Roger's raucous laughter could be heard, and Usopp began pulling wildly at his own hair.

"Oh, right, sure, 'cause that makes sense! The evil ninja tree god wants to kill the pirate king zombie! I want out of this crazy dream already!"

Alas, Tobi wasn't listening. With a lumbering, stumbling gait, Tobi began to climb the Red Line. His roots writhed and clawed at the rock face, finding purchase when available or creating it when it wasn't, all the while picking up speed as Tobi screamed and cursed. The wind picked up as their conveyance gathered speed, and all they could do about it was watch in mounting horror. They were climbing the Red Line whether they wanted to or not.

"Geez," remarked Naruto. "Sure hope Rayleigh knows what the hell this guy is doing and what we're supposed to do about this."

This ephemeral hope was broken just a couple minutes later when Rayleigh arrived among the rest of them and revealed that he had no idea what the hell Roger was doing or what any of them were supposed to do about this. So... so much for that.

"Well," thought Sasuke. "Roger did say he had a plan… but one thing's for sure… I'm not feeling happy about it right now…"

Just what in the world was Roger doing, and would they survive whatever the final result turned out to be?

---

Tobi climbed and climbed, ascending the miles of mountainside with a truly surprising speed that could never hope to be matched by merely human efforts. Roger, however, defied all attempts to classify him as merely human, scurrying up the mountainside as he forced Tobi to chase him, seemingly without any objective beyond drawing the great tree to the top of the mountain. The Straw-Hats and friends, meanwhile, did their level best to rest and recover, with Chopper, Sakura, and Law continuing to treat the numerous horrible wounds their companions had suffered during the fights against Akatsuki.

All said, it still took nearly ten more minutes to reach the top, and they were forced to listen to Tobi screaming curses all the while as Roge led him onto the wide plateau atop the Red Line.

"I'LL DESTROY YOU!"

Roger's response, whatever it was, was too distant to hear. A quick discussion with Robin, and she resolved to keep a distant ear on his actions.

"STOP MAKING FUN OF ME! I'LL DO IT!"

The world shook as the tree shuddered in place. Something seemed to be building in the air.

"I'LL DESTROY EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE! EVERYONE THAT CAN GET CLOSE! EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING THAT CAN SEE THE RED LINE! THEN NO ONE WILL TAKE IT FROM ME! NOT YOU OR ANYONE ELSE!"

"Oh man, that sounds really bad," said Sanji, still massaging his legs after submitting himself to Sakura's successful medical treatment. "I kinda think if this lunatic wants to blow up a city then he can probably make it happen."

Rayleigh nodded soberly. "I don't know about all of you, but I'd prefer it if Sabaody didn't get crushed by a giant tree today. That's where I keep a lot of my stuff."

"Well I don't know what his great plan is," mused Usopp, "-but if Roger's gonna do something then he'd better do it quick."

"I'm more worried of whatever he thinks sounds like a good plan, to be honest…" said Rayleigh. "Some of my very worst days weren't caused by an enemy at all, just whatever it was that struck his fancy at the time." He paused. "Some of my best days, too, come to think of it…"

Sasuke sighed. "Well, knowing our luck, hoping for a good one probably won't get us any… hmm?"

Sasuke interrupted himself as he saw Luffy twitch. Their captain stood somewhat further away from the rest of them, staring at Gold Roger's distant figure with an unreadable, almost blank expression, but jolted when Roger started laughing in the distance.

"Here it comes," muttered Rayleigh. "Miss Robin, what's he saying?"

Robin cleared her throat, repeating what she heard from her distant deployed ears. "Hey, Woody," she said, her matter-of-fact tone obviously not matching Roger's flamboyant delivery, "You really want to destroy something? I've got an idea I think you'll love. Why don't you start with a fantastic little city not too far from here. Name of... Marie-fucking-jois… That's M-A-R-I-E-fucking-"

"I KNOW HOW TO SPELL IT! I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU!"

"Robin, maybe you don't need to include the swearing," said Nami. "Just give us the gist of what he's saying."

Robin nodded in response. "Now he's making the case that the Nobility want the fruit more than anything else. He's saying that they must know by now that something's wrong with the Divine Tree and they'll be sending their strongest fighters to take it back. Now's the best chance Tobi will have to destroy them before they make it out of the city."

There was a moment in which Tobi didn't speak. It would've been wrong to call it silence, given the noises of wind and crumbling rock, but he was clearly considering it. The tree shifted and twisted atop the mountain as Tobi weighed his desire to assault the nearly uncatchable Roger against his supernatural compulsion to safeguard the Divine Fruit.

Finally, he made his choice. The sense of gathering power seemed to intensify.

"THEY WANT TO TAKE IT FROM ME, HUH? THEN I'LL TAKE CARE OF THEM BEFORE I DESTROY YOU! AT LEAST THEY WON'T BE ABLE TO DODGE ME!"

"Mariejois?" asked Sakura. "That's the capital city, right? Is he close enough to see it from here?"

"Roger's laughing quite hard now," added Robin. "Guffawing or chortling might be a better word for it."

"Heheheh…" chuckled Rayleigh, barely even seeming to register the rest of them as he laughed along with his distant and long-dead captain. "Oh, you glorious bastard… you finally went and did it, didn't you…? You found a way to… oh, I can't believe this… even in death you surpass your own legacy…"

As the magnitude of what was happening began to sink in, the Straw-Hats began arguing, laughing, pondering, and quaking, depending on the individual. Tobi was about to attack the capital of the world, and it wasn't clear if they could do anything to stop it. Or if they'd even want to.

A sudden scream from Hinata stopped any response. "Everyone! Get off of the leaves! Hurry!"

Though several of them moved without delay, it was Robin who ensured everyone made like a tree before the leaves began glowing as if they were filled with a suddenly reawakening fire. Her hands snatched everyone who moved too slowly away, flipping them through the air to fall onto a lower branch.

"Run!" shouted Sasuke, putting actions to his words, "Get further in towards the trunk! He's doing something at the leaves, so don't stop running!"

The glowing fire was rapidly growing stronger and stronger, and everyone did the only thing they could do. They charged down the ever-thickening branch, feeling heat on their backs as they fled an uncertain demise. In every direction, leaves shone with golden light, and the only hope they had was fleeing inward to where they were less thick.

"What's he going to do?!" cried Chopper, easily keeping pace in his four-legged form. "He's going to destroy a city?! The capital?! Can we stop him?!"

"More like, 'should we stop him,'" said Franky. "-and the answer's no!"

"But it's a whole city! Those people can't all be bad, can they?"

"Save the Nobility? Kid, if he manages to take out those pustules of humanity then he'd be doing the world a favor. Seriously."

Sanji snorted. "Not that I don't agree, but how's he gonna do it? It's a tree, not a battleship. What's he preparing with this glowy shit?"

"Gotta be a beam," said Luffy. "It's a beam! A beam!"

Law shook his head, scowling as he ran, still recovering from his overuse of his power. "How the hell is a tree going to fire a laser beam? Goddamnit, how did I get into this mess?"

"Umm," began Brook, "-it might be a bit presumptuous of me to say this, but I've come to the conclusion that the Straw-Hats have slightly different ideas about piracy than I was used to in my old life. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but-"

"You're just realizing this now?!" screamed Nami.

"It's coming!" shouted Hinata.

The leaves of the great tree were shining, so overflowing with chakra that they were difficult to look at even to those without magic eyeballs. Everyone dove to the ground just before the world went white.

Motes of chakra emanated from every leaf, gathering in the sky in front of the tree. Energy drawn from a millennium of stored sunlight. It coalesced until it formed a golden ball that far outshone the slowly setting sun.

"I'LL SHOW THEM," roared Tobi. "I'LL SHOW THEM ALL JUST WHAT IT MEANS TO TRY AND TAKE MY STUFF!"

The second sun erupted, forming the energy into a horrifying beam of power. The beam cut through the air like a golden needle, somehow managing to look almost unimpressive until one could remember that the attack had started more than a quarter of a mile away. Heat from the backwash burned against their skin, and only then did the sound of the pressure wave reach them.

---

-Mariejois-

The golden beam shot across the many miles between the Divine Tree and its target. Just within a stone's throw of the city's outer walls it crashed into a shining barrier that formed out of nothing, the golden light crackling and spitting as weaponized sunlight crawled over an iridescent wall of transparent energy that had been completely invisible until the moment of impact. All throughout the capital city, people startled and cried out in fear to see and hear the massive, jolting impact.

This was nothing less than the greatest defensive mechanism created by Doctor Vegapunk himself; the final shield against the threat of a high-powered Logia opponent that might be capable of city-scale destruction without any warning. Generators whirred and sparked, spinning up and kicking into high gear as they struggled to repel this assault, but this was indeed the very threat that it had been built for. Even if Whitebeard himself were to scale the heights of the Red Line, the idea went, he would be unable to break the capital's defensive barrier and destroy the city before Admiral-class opponents could be mobilized against him.

And yet all told, the shield lasted only about three seconds before cracking like an eggshell. The golden light spilled through the cracks and fragmented into a prismatic spray of color that tore across the towers and mansions of the capital, incinerating everything its tendrils touched, blasting stone into dust that rushed into the air on a great cloud of rising heat.

Then the shield failed completely, and the golden spear of sunlight struck the furthest quadrant of the city, obliterating it from the map in a burning cataclysm. The beam pierced onwards, drilling through the mountain itself, continuing onward to strike the ocean somewhere far off in the distance.

---

Back at the Divine Tree there was very little indication that anything untoward had happened to the distant city. They had more immediate worries starting about five seconds after the beam began firing.

Faster than Sasuke could believe, a tremendous shimmering wall of ice rose from the Red Line. If it weren't for the Sharingan, he might not have even caught its crystalline appearance, or the way it distorted the light that shone through it. The solar ray smote the shining wall of ice, the beams refracting and deflecting in wild patterns as the icy mountain began exploding under the catastrophic heat. The light passed through the ice after splitting into a million separate rays, each one cutting into the rocks, melting and rending the cliffside like a great, clawing beast. Steam gusted forth in great clouds, and for a moment it even seemed as though the wall would hold.

Only for a moment, though. The solar cannon continued to fire mercilessly, drilling a hole through steam and ice alike before resuming its bombardment of distant Mariejois. Finally, fifteen seconds after it had started, the attack stopped.

Then the shockwave hit them; an unending explosion that tore the air apart and threatened to send them flying from the branches themselves. Robin quickly formed hands to anchor each of them to their perches. In the distance, gigantic steam clouds rolled towards them like the harbingers of apocalypse.

"Listen up everyone!" shouted Nami, her voice oddly muffled following such a cacophonous assault on their eardrums. "That steam is going to roll right through us! It'll roast us alive unless we stop it! Ace and all you ninjas, we need fire and water of our own to change the air pressure and redirect that cloud!"

It seemed as though even miles away the collateral damage from Tobi's solar beam might still prove fatal.

"I can change the air pressure, Nami!" yelled Naruto, summoning Ma and Pa to his side once more. "Just tell me what you need!"

"We need a wall of hot, rising wind to redirect the steam!"

"Got it!" yelled Naruto, as Ma and Pa whispered in his ears. Moments later he had summoned two tremendous toads that suspended themselves from the branches.

Speaking quickly, Nami began listing off orders, sending her elementally-infused teammates forward as the roiling steam came closer and closer. Finally, everyone was in position.

"Wait for it…" said Nami. The steam was at the outer branches now. "Wait for it…! Now! Go!"

As one, Zoro, Naruto, Sanji, Sasuke, Ace, and the toads united in summoning streams of wind, fire, and oil that met in front of the oncoming wall and exploded, forming a cauldron of rising air. Steam blasted upwards, coiling up into the air like a rising dragon. It didn't stop everything, but the boiling steam remnants that continued towards them were mitigated by a spray of summoned water and wind from Sakura and a gaggle of Naruto clones.

After all of it was said and done, they left the cloud hot and covered with dripping water, but bereft of any serious wounds. The tree itself was totally unharmed.

Mariejois… its fate was unknown.

---

A ways away, Admiral Aokiji stared through the remnants of his wall of ice, off into the distance in the direction of Mariejois.

"Oh, my…" He swallowed down a lump. "...sure hope no one blames me for this…"