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)

73. Those Who Bare Fangs at God

The Divine Tree stood, bent yet perfect, dominating the landscape atop the Red Line, its twisted boughs sweeping through the thinner air as if swatting at flies. Although, it required a very particular point of view to describe the men assaulting Tobi's divine body as flies — Marine Admiral Aokiji, Dark King Silvers Rayleigh, and the reanimated body of the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger were titans, each one cooperating to end Tobi's life. From a distance, the massive scale of the tree might make it seem an almost sedate conflict, though Tobi was focusing the greatest portion of his energy on the area closest to his antagonists.

Up close, the world-class fighters had to contend with a nightmare of wooden flails as thick as a house, each one adorned with unbreakable leaves, all moving faster than the speed of sound as Tobi pushed the tree forward like a wooden golem in his pursuit. Far off in the distance, the burning ruins of Mariejois were a testament to the Divine Tree's brutal power. The broken and groaning body of Admiral Kizaru lay amongst the rocks a mile back, another trophy taken.

But not all of his opponents could fight on that stage, and Tobi had been wearing the tree's form for less than an hour at this point, his awareness limited. Some of the survivors were indeed more reminiscent of swarming flies, hiding amongst the leaves and twigs and hoping to remain unnoticed. The Straw-Hats and allied fighters had one chance to save the world while Tobi was distracted, and that chance rested upon that most tenuous of things: an idea concocted by Naruto and Luffy in the spur of the moment.

The real plan, as far as it could be called a plan, was solidified by the saner portions of the crew in the moments after Luffy grabbed Naruto and flung them both off into the wild blue yonder. The crew would be split into an Assault team and a Command team. The Assault team would follow Luffy as best as they could by running along the many branches of the Divine Tree, doing their level best to defend Naruto, who absolutely had to reach Tobi's face at the tree's trunk. The Assault team was composed of Sakura, Zoro, Franky, Sanji, and Trafalgar Law. The other team would stay farther behind, providing long-range support, communications, intelligence, and a mobile reserve. The second team was comprised of Usopp, Robin, Chopper, Hinata, Nami, Brook, and, much to his chagrin, Sasuke.

That hadn't been Sasuke's intention, of course, but Robin had seen the shape of things before anyone else and had immediately moved to keep him with the Command team by notifying Chopper of his intention to follow along on the attack.

"Yes, Chopper," he implored, trying to be as reasonable as possible. "I know I'm not in good shape right now, but they're going to need me out there. This might be the end of the world as we know it."

Chopper was unfazed. "You see these eyes, Sasuke? You see this glare? When I'm glaring at you like this it means I'm being your doctor, and right now your doctor is telling you you don't have enough energy to burn fighting this tree. I know exactly what that medicine I gave you is capable of, and although you might be feeling fine right now, it won't last if you push yourself. You fought too hard for too long, you overused your magic eyeballs, and I hope you're smart enough to recognize that I'm telling the truth when I say you're useless out there."

"But I need—"

"No! You wouldn't even make it out there to a fight, asshole! You're going to fall flat on your face after five minutes of exertion and then someone else is going to have to go save you! If something happens and we need to run, save your energy for that."

Sasuke scowled. "Naruto is right now—"

"Naruto is different, and you know it! Don't you dare leave, or else you're gonna find out that Sakura's not the only doctor who can knock some sense into you!"

It didn't matter what he said; the doctor's orders remained unchanged, and he found himself shepherded back to their temporary base of operations on one of the most stable branches of the Divine Tree, perhaps a couple thousand feet from the trunk. He watched with glum humor as the rest of the fighters departed, still feeling the vague sensations of confusion, horror, and whipping winds through his heart-link to Naruto. Lacking anything else to do, he resorted to whining.

"This is a dirty, underhanded move, Robin."

"Mm-hm," she nodded, staring off into the distance and feigning distraction, providing magical handholds at range for the Assault team as needed. "I shall feel appropriately chastised the very moment that you're no longer a dirty underhanded ninja. Perhaps then you'll have a leg to stand upon?" Seeing his scowl, she smiled that secret smile of hers. "Regardless, that sabotage was merely insurance in case you failed to see reason. You have far more important things to do than serve as another blade out in the sky. You're the best line of communication we'll have with Naruto and Luffy, after all."

"Wait," said Nami, her voice muffled until she removed the quill from her mouth and began scribbling furiously upon a piece of paper from a pouch at her side. "What's this about communication?"

"Sasuke was kind enough to inform me that his heart is now linked to Naruto's. Anything he decides to share, and some of what he doesn't, is relayed to Naruto in real time."

"What the what?! When did that happen?"

He sighed. "Right before we attacked Akatsuki in the temple's inner sanctum. Ancient prophecy, long-lost bloodline, blah blah blah…"

"Oh, that's fantastic!"

"It's a pain in the ass."

"No, I don't care about what you think," she said, not bothering to hide her smirk. "I was just beginning to worry we were going to be useless this far out. Good job, Robin! Here, I need you to show him this."

A piece of parchment filled with restrained scribbling was thrust into his face. It looked like someone had tried to add some sort of a detailed timing notation to a diagram of a threaded cat's cradle. He took a bemused look at the thing and was stymied by the complicated shorthand. A note of bewilderment from Naruto made it clear the feeling was duplicated on the other end.

"These are… directions?" asked Sasuke. "You've actually been mapping out the way these branches move?"

"Oh, trust me, compared to predicting underwater currents this isn't that tricky. Hinata has been helping me pinpoint the combatants out there. Anyway, you can talk to them?" She waited for his slight nod before continuing with a raised voice, as if trying to yell to someone farther away. "Naruto, take a close look at what I drew up! There are several branches in that area that he keeps relatively predictable! This next one here will be passing two hundred feet above you about fifteen seconds from now, so be ready to jump onto it!"

As she spoke, she made a few adjustments to her drawing in his hands, and Sasuke just rolled his eyes at being talked through, but gave a thumbs up and resumed trying to decipher the map. Nami's mouth quirked up once more into a smile, and then she resumed watching the distant motion of the branches. The tree swayed at that moment, forcing most of them to duck low to the ground to keep their balance.

"Kind of makes me wish we'd had more time to teach anyone besides Sanji to stick their feet to trees," he muttered.

Robin laughed, petals evaporating from her ankles as the flower-hands that had kept her anchored in place disappeared in a storm of blossoms. "I'll stick with what I know best, I think. But how are you doing? Are you coming to terms with being our resident Den-Den Mushi yet, or do you need some cheering up?"

"I'm a big boy. I think I can handle the indignity."

"Well, good," she said, giving him a brilliant smile. "Because there's going to be a lot more of it where that came from."

---

— DIVINE TREE AIRSPACE —

— Naruto and Luffy —

"YAHOO!"

Naruto's stomach clenched in perfectly reasonable terror as Luffy screamed in excitement, flinging the both of them through a brutal sideways curve that sent them careening in a new direction. By the very nature of their arrangement, Naruto was wearing the pirate captain like a backpack with Luffy's legs as the straps, which meant that every time the rubber-man shot away into the distance there was a brief moment where it was just Naruto floating all alone in the sky wearing his stylish pirate legstraps. Then the two of them would snap together in one terrifying moment that made him regret every one of his choices in life. Luffy seemed to throw out his arms as if he really didn't care which distant branch he connected with, and although it was tempting to think the pirate captain knew what he was doing, missed grapples had already caused two instances of unexpected plummets. Naruto was pretty sure he could come up with some wind jutsu to reach a lower branch or leaf if Luffy missed for real, but sometimes there was an awful lot of empty air below them.

"Holy crap this is the craziest thing I've ever done!" he shouted.

"What, jumping in trees?!" asked Luffy, his voice still uncomfortably close to his ears.

"No, I've done enough tree-jumping for a lifetime, but this takes the cake!"

Luffy's far-stretched arm suddenly let go from its grip before another tremendous branch could collide with it. There was a brief moment of sickening weightlessness before it snapped onto another handhold.

"Cake?!" Luffy asked.

Naruto ignored him in favor of scanning the environment. The aerial battlefield was a twisting morass of swinging branches, big and small, leaves that were as hard and unyielding as boulders, and roots snaking their way up from the lower reaches. Spikes of ice flew trunkward like indiscriminate cannonfire, and wherever Roger and Rayleigh made their appearances Tobi turned that area into a death-zone. Luffy's instincts were, as always, on point, but there were limits. Luckily, help arrived from an unexpected direction in the form of a brief and bewildering burst of information from Sasuke, whose thoughts still echoed freely over the heart-link. When he made contact for real, it was with a deliberately-aimed thought that was much easier to process.

"Naruto, I have something for you. Everyone's working together to send you help. Hinata is feeding information to Nami, who has been developing a safe route through this mess. I just wish we could have given this over to you beforehand."

"Just send it over and maybe I stand a chance of getting to Tobi with my bones intact!"

There was a momentary pause, which he could tell was Sasuke trying to figure out how to consciously shove information through the link, but it soon blossomed in his mind. A mental map was overlaid upon a dizzying image of their position delivered by Sasuke's Sharingan. It was lifelike and extremely detailed, all the way down to the glittering boulders of ice being launched from the ground like they had been fired from a catapult. Naruto didn't even have time to shout a warning before Luffy yelped and dodged wildly upwards to avoid one that was traveling too close for comfort.

"Hey! Luffy!" he shouted. "Nami gave me a map!"

"Huh? She's not here!" said Luffy.

"It's magic!"

"Oh, okay. But maps? I don't read those things. What's she saying?"

Inside the second information track in his mind, the markings and highlighted branches suddenly shifted. It would have been very distracting if Luffy hadn't been the one doing the actual work here.

"I can't believe this," Naruto muttered. "She's updating the map?"

"Where does she say we need to go?" asked Luffy.

He hesitated for a moment before pointing upwards at an angle. "There! But there's no branch there, so I dunno what— WHOA!"

Luffy screamed with delight once again, dropping his hold on his current branch and flinging both arms in the direction Naruto had indicated. There was nothing at all but empty air for several hundred feet, but in the very next second a scything branch of the Divine Tree cut through the void at sonic speed, slamming into Luffy's arms which immediately wrapped around it like grappling hooks. Still cheering his victory cry, Luffy rode the branch in a wide arc, flinging them both counter-clockwise and trunkwards at a velocity that made even Naruto dizzy. He didn't have long to recover, though. New course corrections were already being transmitted from the command team.

"You know," thought Naruto. "These guys really are some special kind of crazy."

"You're not wrong," replied Sasuke. "This kind of navigation isn't something I've ever needed in a mission before, but still, I can't imagine what it is she's seeing in all this chaos."

"Yeah, that too, but…" Naruto's thoughts fumbled for a moment as he tried to put everything he was seeing into words. How Luffy was launching them again and again into uncertain death from a mile-high plunge all at the say-so of his navigator, and he didn't seem in the slightest bit worried that the promised path forward wouldn't materialize. Naruto considered himself a pretty trusting individual, but even if he frequently trusted his life to his friends' judgment he'd still have his heart in his throat when he did it. Luckily, the half-formed ideas traveled over the link without the need for translation, and he felt a wordless and wisftul agreement flood back into him.

Naruto frowned. His friend wasn't nearly as good at controlling the link as he was, and unintended emotions trickled through. Sasuke wasn't confused or mystified by the pirates. He was empathizing with them. He wanted to be a part of it.

It took a great deal of effort to keep his own sadness from tainting his reply. "Just keep the help coming, man. That got us way closer to Tobi."

"Dodge right!"

Without bothering to look, Naruto reached out a hand to summon an explosive blast of wind chakra that pushed them both to the right, narrowly dodging a wicked spear of ice. Luffy yelped in surprise but adjusted swiftly, swinging them back on-course.

"The hell?!" shouted Naruto. "Dammit, you ice-jerk! You've got better things to do than shoot at us, asshole!"

"That wasn't aimed at you," replied Sasuke. "The Admiral is throwing out a larger volume of ninjutsu or whatever than I've ever seen before. You're just in the way. And now you've got bigger things to worry about, because one of those metal puppet-bears from Sabaody is headed your way."

"Puppet-bears?" asked Naruto aloud.

"Huh? What? Puppet-bears?" echoed Luffy.

There was a pause. "…I've been informed they're called 'robots?' Naruto, you've got robots incoming. The metal monstrosities from the archipelago that nearly got us all killed earlier today."

He didn't even have time to look around for threats before Sasuke was pointing them out in his vision. There were at least six of them flying in wide, burning arcs all throughout their airspace, with what looked like another dozen bounding across the mountain below them. Most of the robots were still a mile or more out, preparing to engage the Divine Tree or clustering around Roger and Rayleigh, but one of the flying varieties was very clearly on an intercept course for his and Luffy's current position. The two of them were still only about one-third of the way to Tobi's face. They wouldn't make it to their destination before being attacked, and after running through Akatsuki's murder-gauntlet he wasn't sure he and Luffy had the energy to beat one of those things even if they were on solid ground.

"Sasuke, we'll try and keep away from it, but we're gonna need some help."

"Hold on, we'll see what we can do."

---

— COMMAND TEAM —

Nami was the first one to get everyone working at the newest problem on their ever-expanding list of woes. "Alright, everyone, how many of these things are out there?"

"I'm counting at least twenty-four," said Hinata, "More than were at the archipelago."

"They must have had more kept in reserve at the capitol," mused Robin.

Nami nodded. "Probably. Any idea why some of these things are flying while others are earthbound?"

"They're built differently," said Hinata, her white eyes staring straight ahead as she scanned their internals. "The ones on the ground don't have the same mechanisms in their feet as the flying ones. They look less… finished?"

Usopp scoffed, looking relieved. "Well, the plus side is we don't have to worry about those junkers. If they can't fly then they can't get us."

"Um, no, look."

As they watched, one of the distant speck-sized robots made a running leap of titanic proportions and caught onto the enormous girth of what would've been a low-hanging twig on any other tree. The jump had to have cleared at least a hundred feet into the air. Another robot tried to replicate the maneuver, but was swatted back down to earth by a wiggling, tentacle-like root.

"Well, nuts to that idea, then," muttered Usopp. "Still, if they're sending out their prototypes, then that means they're scraping the bottom of the barrel, right? I bet the big-shots can deal with them so we don't have to."

"They are attacking everyone and everything except the Admiral indiscriminately," noted Robin. "I don't think anyone is in charge of them at the moment, though that could change in a single second. Assume, then, that the machines would kill us as soon as look at us, and it will grow more and more difficult to hide from them as time goes on."

"Great! Perfect!" shouted Usopp, throwing his hands into the air and stomping away.

"There is a pattern, though," said Sasuke, watching their robotic movements with single-minded focus. "Or, a set of rules, maybe. They're splitting themselves between heading for the trunk and defending the Admiral. One of them just got knocked out of place and it returned to the Admiral's side first, then began fighting Rayleigh afterward."

"What does that mean for us?" asked Nami.

"It might mean we're incidental targets. They can't have been deployed knowing that Roger was up here, so the fact that they're targeting Rayleigh over him might mean they're looking for active bounties. As long as we can distract them or evade them then they should refocus on their primary objectives."

"Which are probably the Divine Tree and the high-bounty targets," said Hinata.

Nami thought about that for a moment, then nodded, already kneeling down to the gently-shifting wood below her and making adjustments to her charts. "If those things scan targets for bounties then they're going to be really interested in those two goofballs out there. It's something to work with, at least. Those robots are ridiculously dangerous, and if they get focused on us here then we'd better cut and run."

Brook nodded, absently considering the paths toward the trunk that lay before him. "Hmmm, cutting I can do. Running I can do. Let me know if anyone out there needs a helping hand."

"One of them has changed directions!" shouted Hinata. "It's coming straight for us! Eight o'clock and thirty degrees down, two hundred feet!"

The atmosphere in the command center changed immediately, the defenders they had available to them readying to fight or run. Chopper squeaked worriedly, and Sasuke drew his blades. Without any warning, Usopp drew and fired his sling-staff in a single smooth motion, the *snap* audible over the shifting winds. A bright, burning pellet struck the incoming Pacifista directly in the chest, doing no damage but immediately smearing it with a substance that shone like a burning white fire in the evening dim. Several of them averted their eyes from the sudden onslaught of light, and the enormous bear of an android landed on the branch a hundred feet behind them with a thud that bombarded them with shockwaves. Sasuke gave an apologetic glance to Chopper then advanced, feeling his sore legs protest the movement. He'd have to fight to delay the creature as long as he could and give time for Robin to evacuate the others. Brook was there beside him, sword drawn, eyeing the titanic robot with his hollow gaze.

The Pacifista looked straight up, and that's when the shadows shifted as an enormous tree branch SLAMMED down upon the bright signal flare like a fallen mountain. Shrapnel whizzed by in a cloud of death, and Sasuke narrowly parried a screw that would have put a hole in his head, then leapt into the air. The shockwave hit an instant later, sending anyone who hadn't followed his lead flying into the sky, though sweeping chains of Robin's linked hands swiftly brought every one of them back to safety. It was a brilliant display of control that highlighted the versatility of her power, and soon the gang was back together again.

"Assholes," said Usopp, his brow knit into a scowl and his knees barely shaking from the abrupt brush with death. "I've got three more of the Nightlights ready to go when we need them, then that's it."

"Usopp, I could kiss you right now," said Nami. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we have our plan. Usopp, do that for any one of those robots that makes a break for us. Brook, we're fine for now, so I need you to get over to the Assault team and tell them to do whatever they can to keep the flying ones off of Naruto and Luffy."

"But of course! I'm a leaf on the wind!" exclaimed Brook, before zipping off trunkward at a frankly absurd speed.

"Everyone else?" asked Nami. "Help me keep those two idiots away from all the many, many things that want to kill them out there."

And just like that, it was time to go to work.

---

— ASSAULT TEAM —

The Assault Team, ninja and pirate both, found themselves once more in the unenviable position of having to chase after Luffy and/or Naruto. Luckily, for many of them this was something that they were very, very skilled at. Catch up to a man shooting himself through the sky like a rubber-band? Fine, fine. Doing so while playing rear-guard against invincible killer-robots that had shown themselves quite capable of wiping the floor with any one of them? Sure, great, no problem. They were the best in the business at doing stupid things violently, and violent things stupidly. They'd follow after Luffy and Naruto until the two lunatics started to slow down or ran into trouble.

Those few who were accustomed to Luffy and Naruto's thought processes understood on a deep level that whatever plan Naruto might have, and whatever confidence Luffy might be displaying, it all revolved around their friends being alongside them and ready to support their wild schemes with everything they had. Franky, Brook, and Law might not have internalized this yet, but there was nothing quite like a crash course with the fate of the world at stake.

Still, some of them found this whole situation easier to deal with than others. Sanji, in particular, was having a poor time of it.

"What, are you a little lost lamb somebody dyed green?! Quit following me!"

Zoro scoffed at the presumption, though he continued tailing Sanji from about thirty feet back. "I'm not following you, shithead, but if you're calling yourself a sheep-dog then I won't disagree."

"You don't need to follow me, you rudderless oaf! Look!" He pointed. "The tree is that way!" He pointed again. "Naruto and Luffy are that way! You have working eyes! You can see them! Just pick a different branch and go in that direction! WHY ARE YOU TURNING AROUND?!"

Zoro paused, momentarily uncertain, before saying, "You… have to go back the way you came if you want to take a different branch in the road."

"Argh! How the hell am I supposed to deal with this?!" He noticed Law a hundred yards off on a lower branch and shouted, "You see what I have to deal with?!"

The distant pirate captain didn't attempt to respond, instead shooting Sanji a long, sideways glare that expressed the depths of his displeasure at the current situation.

"Fine, asshole, see if I care," growled Sanji.

"Heh," laughed Zoro, now suddenly on a higher branch than he had been before. "Going straight for help like always. Why don't you call out for your girlfriend, huh?"

"Huh?! How did you-? Ugh, never mind. Besides, Nami-san isn't even—"

"No."

"No? You're talking about Robin—"

"No…"

"Oh, wait, where is Sakura-chan anyway?"

A knife flashed out of the dimming sky, zipping right by Sanji's face, almost close enough to shave with. It didn't illuminate her position in the slightest. Wherever she was, she was keeping up with them whilst hidden.

"Your aim is as splendid as ever!" he shouted into the void. There was no answer except Zoro's groan of disdain.

"You know what?" said Zoro. "I changed my mind. I'm fine on my own. Anywhere's better than this." Then he split off, taking a different path and leaving Sanji's immediate environs, hopefully forever.

"And that's the last I'll see of him," said Sanji, well aware it was little more than wishful thinking. Now free of distractions, he scanned the air, watching the hypnotic patterns of shifting leaves and branches as they moved under Tobi's direction. A couple hundred feet ahead, Naruto and Luffy swung through the air like an idiot monkey with an idiot backpack, and it was difficult to imagine just how he was supposed to influence things.

As if sent in response to his pleas, Brook darted up to him in a frankly shocking display of speed, shouting at the top of his… rib-cage… about incoming robots and a plan to defend the Captain. It wasn't much to go on, but it was more than he'd had when he'd started, and soon Brook disappeared, stick-thin legs blurring as he went to hunt down the next of the Straw-Hats and allied fighters.

"Shit," muttered Sanji. "We're really doing this, huh? It all comes down to how well I can beat up a tree and some bears?"

Just ahead of him, a single mouth sprouted from the surface of the divine bark. "Sanji! Slow down that branch above you!"

Hearing Robin's dulcet voice call for aid, he wasted no time in jumping into the assault, only noticing the gargantuan size of the incoming attack at the last moment.

"Well, I guess we're gonna find out the hard way what this thing's made of!"

He struck the tree like a roaring landslide.

---

The Divine Tree quivered and quaked, and the battlefield was impossible to truly control, but the heavy hitters among them did their absolute best. Sanji and Zoro in particular fought like demons, though Sanji spent his time bludgeoning the smaller branches of the Divine Tree and subtly redirecting them away from Naruto and Luffy, whereas Zoro… well, due to his delays in following after the captain, Zoro was the first of the Assault team to run into the Pacifistas. Brook had told him to distract the damn robots, and that was something he could definitely do. One of the jumping, ground-bound Pacifista units made the mistake of climbing up after the fleeing Straw-Hats, only to be struck by a turbulent cannon of wind that smashed it out of the air. The damage to the robot's invincible metal armor was minimal, but falling a thousand feet to the ground was less healthy for it. Either way, when it finally recovered, the Pacifista re-targeted on a more accessible foe, sighting on Silvers Rayleigh, who seemed to be expertly hurling the giant bear-like robots to wherever suited his fancy.

Zoro settled into a pattern, lurking as rear-guard for the advancing Straw-Hat Assault team and unbalancing any of the robots that put themselves in a vulnerable position. Spinning blades of wind and standing tornadoes littered the sky as Zoro burned through whatever wind chakra he had left after his recent fight with Kisame. Arms and chest aching from exhaustion and pain as he bled through his bandages, his first warning of an incoming attack was from Robin.

"Zoro! Left!" shouted a summoned mouth.

Zoro spun, barely catching the twinkling spark that signaled a charging laser aimed directly at him.

Peace. He felt it, then, caught suspended in a single immortal moment. His body moved without thought, as naturally as a tree bent in the wind, or a river flowed through its bed. Before his shining, glimmering end, he sensed his arms spinning around his torso with glacial calm. He was the eye of the hurricane, and each of his blades bent to the one and only place it should be. It was Yubashiri that caught the attack, sliding into place without conscious effort. A spear of golden light struck him, full of titanic energy but almost no force. Light spilled, danced, and surged across the surface of the blade as the beam raked across it, something stung and burned at his arm, and Yubashiri bought him barely a third of a second to dodge out of the way. It was just enough.

The beam shot past him, and Zoro went momentarily blind, the front of his body burning as he hit the ground and leapt away, ducking behind a leaf he still saw in his mind's eye. When sight returned to him, he saw the damage for real. His sword had turned into little more than a charred husk. Yubashiri, the Snow Chaser, had exploded from the massive heat, spattering him with molten steel. His left arm throbbed, dusted with droplets of burnt metal that traced a blizzard of black snow across his skin.

Zoro grit his teeth from the throbbing, searing pain, then grinned around his sword. That would leave quite a few scars behind. Fitting.

Slowly, he sat up, ignoring the mounting pain. He took Wado Ichimonji from his teeth. The Pacifista had moved on, seeking more opportune targets, and he should follow. He wasn't done yet.

---

The Pacifista moved on, flying through the falling night as it scanned for available targets. Several rounds of targeting and re-targeting occurred in swift sequence as it processed the wealth of targets available to it, but then the bountyless and the chaff were discarded without rancor or concern. There was a combined bounty of over 500,000,000 suspended in mid-air, traveling directly towards the trunk of the great tree. Straw-Hat Luffy and the One-Man-Army, Uzumaki Naruto. Basic target info related to their capabilities was loaded from its databanks, and then its course was set. The other members of the Assault Team caught sight of the new threat and reoriented to face the flying foe, but for now it had the flier's advantage.

The Pacifista fired its bright golden laser, aiming to spear the highest-bountied duo straight out of the sky, and even Luffy's wild dodging would have accomplished nothing if Law hadn't literally ridden to the rescue from above. Predicting the impending calamity, he extended the bubble of his Devil Fruit power and sliced a single grand leaf from its mooring, which seemed to be the first attack that had shown itself capable of doing true harm to the Divine Tree. He grabbed it onto it like a surfboard and dove down into the line of fire, swapping Naruto and Luffy with the massive leaf at the last instant. Far from being obliterated, or even blasting away, the leaf stopped in midair, absorbing the laser until it took on a golden glow, then dropped into a long, slow drift down towards the earth. Law caught another branch with only minor aid from Robin's summoned arms.

Undaunted by the failure of its attack, the Pacifista charged onwards, easily outspeeding the two pirates but angling upward to keep them within its firing arc. It was only interrupted by the providence of a screaming, streaking madman.

[COUP DE BOO]

Franky streamed skyward like a brilliant, half-naked, farting star, propelled by his stored cola gasses until he reached deadly speed. He rammed the mighty robotic bear in a flying body-tackle that sent both of them spiraling out of control through the air.

"Hah! Steel and cola, all part of an unbalanced breakfast!" Franky cackled wildly and latched on, slamming his metal fist into the robot's side again and again, the sound of the impacts crashing out into the night. He had just enough wherewithal to realize that the only metal that was buckling was his own fist, and then the two mechanical brawlers slammed into the surface of a branch with back-breaking speed, the impact driving a pained gasp from Franky's lungs. His body was partially crushed beneath the Pacifista's immense chest. The Pacifista immediately began firing its booster rockets to disengage and return to the fight. It made it about twenty feet before running into the chain. Franky, with grit teeth, and well aware that even if he survived this fight his back was going to be a solid mass of bruises, had disconnected his right hand and grabbed onto one of the robot's bent armor-plates, his other hand clinging onto a knot in the tree.

"Sorry, tin-can, but you're staying right here with me."

The Pacifista pulled, tugged, and turned before raising one enormous fist, ready to crush the inferior cyborg into spare parts. A twist to the left was barely enough to keep the first blow from striking Franky dead center in his chest, though his shoulder cracked and groaned. Another blow struck where his head had been just one instant before. Franky took a deep, painful breath and opened his mouth wide.

[MASTER NAIL]

A hailstorm of wickedly long shipwright's nails burst from Franky's open mouth, smashing into the Pacifista's face, iron points sticking into the thicker imitation flesh covering its face, and one lucky nail struck it straight in the left eye, impaling the creation's pair of imitation glasses and sending spiderweb cracks throughout. The robot paused for the barest of moments, then it reached out with both arms, grasping Franky to hold him in place and opening its mouth once more. The charging beam of light was aimed directly at Franky's center-of-mass, and this time there would be no dodging.

It was at that point when, after the Pacifista had been held in the same place for the last five seconds, Usopp's sniper shot arrived from the command-team base. There was a crashing zip, a messy splat, and a poof of blasting heat, then the Pacifista's right-foot booster rocket gave out as some unidentifiable mixture struck directly into its nozzle. The robot shuddered and twisted in midair, dropping its target in an effort to rebalance itself, and Franky had a bare second to let go with his right hand before the robot's smooth hovering turned into a wild, parabolic arc that made it shoot sideways and downward, out of sight.

Franky hung from one crack in the bark, gasping for breath, steel fingers shaking as he watched his opponent disappear into the distance. Slowly, he looked off towards the distant Command team and flicked one thumb skyward in appreciation.

---

— COMMAND TEAM —

Chopper watched the distant chaos nervously, listening in awkward silence as Nami, Robin, Hinata and Sasuke conferred over the path Naruto and Luffy were taking. Occasionally, Usopp would adjust his goggles, maneuver his staff into a new position, then take a shot at some far-off and completely invisible target, though right now he was just pumping his fist in celebration for an unseen victory. Chopper didn't even know what his friends were really doing.

He hadn't argued when the others had said that it would make sense to have Sakura go out with the assault team, since it made sense to have a doctor in both places, and also all that tree jumping looked really scary. Now, though, he felt like he wasn't doing his job. Now that everyone here was healthy, there wasn't anything for him to do. He should be helping.

Which is why he found himself staring at the bright orange ball of medicine held in one hoof. He'd had it ready when they were fighting Akatsuki, but he only could use it once, and Sakura had seemed so sure of what to do that he had ended up… not using it. She was a little bit scary sometimes, but definitely reliable. Now, though, he didn't have anyone to fight, and even if one of those Pacifista attacked him, the Rumble Ball wouldn't help him win or anything, so... Still, once eaten, it would last about three minutes, and three minutes might just be enough time to use Brain Point to plot out a way to help Naruto and Luffy get through to the tree.

It was worth a shot… right?

He dithered for another minute, then crunched the ball between his grinding teeth.

[RUMBLE]

As always, just instants after taking the medicine it was already causing chaotic shifts within the energy of his Devil Fruit, and he took control of it through dint of long practice. The options available to him seemed limitless, though he had learned the hard way that most of them were but illusions. A Zoan-type Devil Fruit wasn't something to improvise with unless you wanted to get stuck looking like a lumpy, fuzzy meat-fruit for the three minutes it took for the Rumble to fade, which meant he instead swapped to one of his most valuable forms.

[BRAIN POINT]

There was no external change in his appearance unless you noticed the slight sharpening of his expression. The Rumble Ball tilted the Human-Human Fruit's transformative properties further towards the human side of the spectrum, enhancing his mental faculties beyond where they already lay. Flaws and weaknesses exposed themselves before him, opening his friends' plans like a book in his mind, and he turned away from them, focusing himself towards useful ends rather than lamenting the inefficiencies of a plan birthed in the chaotic swirls of your typical Straw-Hat strategy session. He approached the others at a run, staring out at Naruto and Luffy's distant figures and considering their options.

And then… he slowed to a stop, his antlered head tilting to one side in puzzlement. There was something else calling to him now. The Rumble Ball brought him much closer to his Devil Fruit than most would ever reach, but never before had he felt this strange and wordless sensation of communion so clearly. The energy inside of him… the… chakra… swirled and circulated with a new focus. The mental energy of his perfectly human mind and the physical energy of his vital beast body flowed together, and his Devil Fruit willingly balanced the two like a supernatural alchemist, filling him with what the ninjas had told him was his Wood Element chakra. His own training with the energy had allowed him do little more than grow a few small plants here and there, slowly aiding his development of herbal mixtures, but right here, right now, what he felt… was his Devil Fruit asking for permission to do more.

There was so much less indecision in this form. His thoughts were crystalline, and he reached down to the wood of the Divine Tree and pushed.

What had once been so difficult instead flowed with natural ease, his chakra pushing and pulling into and out from the tree like breath through his lungs, each inhalation of energy burning like molten light. His chakra struck a vein, and then the world shifted. Chakra flowed from the Devil Fruit in an unending stream mediated through his own body, ever pushing and pulling, and soon his awareness spread in an overwhelming tide until it covered every twig, branch and leaf that he was connected to, stopping only once it reached the trunk, almost half a mile away. Chopper took a shuddering breath and twisted the energy just… like… so.

A far-off branch, cousin to the one he stood upon, swayed as he fought Tobi's control. With a tremendous heave he rotated it sideways until one of its parts was in reach of Luffy. Their rubber captain reached out and caught it, pulling himself and Naruto out of the way of one of the rampaging Pacifista just in time.

Panting from the effort, Chopper grinned, already feeling Tobi's confusion and rage fill his awareness. The Human-Human Fruit radiated only satisfaction from the successful experiment, and readied itself for another try.

For the next three minutes, Doctor Tony Tony Chopper was in charge of the battlefield.

---

—ASSAULT TEAM—

Haruno Sakura screamed in pain and exertion as she struck a twig of the Divine Tree in a falling shoulder tackle. Propelled from above by a chakra-powered kickoff aimed straight downward, it looked almost as futile as trying to sucker-punch a mountain. The wood took the impact with a mighty crack that resounded like thunder, but only bent and did not break. Still, it did what she had wanted it to do; the branch slowed from the strike, and the jumping Pacifista model that had been relying on its presence fell quietly into the darkness below. Whether it would make it back up in time to affect the battle was anyone's guess. Breathing heavily and channeling her chakra into her cracked clavicle, she cursed her luck. The fact was, she was strongest on the ground where her water and earth-element ninjutsu could be fully employed. Up here, she was relying on her hand-to-hand combat strength to defeat invincible monsters, and it just wasn't cutting it.

She kept running after Naruto anyway. She didn't really have a choice.

Sakura noticed immediately when the Divine Tree began acting weirdly, and her speed increased as the branches stopped wiggling and twisting so much. The entire tree lurched briefly to one side. Why this had happened… well, it was difficult to say. Was Tobi about to do something strange? She redoubled her surveillance of the sky, though it was Hinata who saw the danger first.

"Sakura, Right!" shouted Robin's voice, summoned from a mouth beneath her feet.

She refocused to her right, and her breath caught in her throat. Visible only as a faint shimmer in the sky, a storm of needle-like icicles swarmed trunkward, clearly seeking to overwhelm Tobi's defenses and land a strike on Tobi's face itself. Unfortunately for Naruto and Luffy, the attack was indiscriminate. Nearby branches were already repositioning to block some of the needles, but unless something was done, the two boys would be caught without cover.

Without even looking for a landing spot, Sakura crouched down, pushed chakra through her legs, and jumped sideways, diving into the path of the oncoming icestorm.

[DOTON: DORYU IZUMI]

[EARTH ELEMENT: EARTHEN SPRING]

Burning a frankly unacceptable amount of chakra, she summoned it forth from her chest in a welling fountain that formed a torrential tribute of rapidly-hardening mud that expanded into a vast blooming flower. It really wasn't as graceful technique a technique as it sounded; it in fact looked more like a bout of supernaturally-violent projectile vomiting, but the results surpassed her expectations. The mud clung to and unbalanced the storm of bladed ice, erasing an entire section of what had once been a fatal abattoir and dropping it into the abyss below. It was just a shame it hadn't caught everything. She barely had time to take a single deep breath before one of the spears of ice pierced the cloud of mud and struck her in the thigh anyway.

"Ah! Fuck!" she swore, falling out of the air and into the darkness below her. Leaking blood, and searching for a place to land, she saw a leafy branch swinging her way, though she wasn't at all sure whether she'd be able to reach it without help. Swiftly, Sakura took a ball of mud in her hand and solidified it. Earth chakra turned the mud to stone, then shattered it in a violent explosion that sent shards of rock flying away from her, and propelled her to the very edge of a nearby leaf, which immediately grew arms to help catch her. She grabbed on with a jarring crash that threatened to dislocate her newly-healed shoulder, then was gently pulled up to safety.

Breathing heavily, heart pounding in her chest, she scanned the area. No opponents to fight. Far above her, Naruto continued on towards the trunk. Carefully sitting down, she removed the largest shards of ice from her wound, thanking the intense cold for numbing her to the worst of the pain. When it was done, she sat back and unclenched her jaw, taking deep, calming breaths.

They were all out of their league here. There wasn't a single opponent on this battlefield that wasn't qualified to kick her ass, and yet here she was… persisting.

Summoning chakra from the seal on her forehead, she watched as the flesh on her thigh began to regenerate before her eyes. This was the surely the most important mission she would ever be involved with, and she needed to get back into the fight.

---

-DIVINE TREE AIRSPACE-

The dogfight against superior combatants continued on and on with new threats arising and barely being struck aside at the last moment. None of the Straw-Hats stood a chance against the mighty machines in direct combat, so any victory was temporary, any gains fleeting. When one of their friends was struck down, they fought to return as swiftly as possible, but now the assault team was flagging, finally beginning to lose ground in their chase. They were all much closer to the trunk now, but still so far away even though their speed had increased drastically as Chopper began affecting the nearby branches.

The flying Pacifista that had been such a thorn in their side, previously gummed up by Usopp, returned to the fight and aimed straight for the two immense bounties of Luffy and Naruto, and for a horrifying ten seconds it didn't look like anyone was going to be in range to stop it. Then it was struck from above as a rogue unit fell directly into its path. Instead of the two robots colliding, however, the flying Pacifista simply… vanished. The rogue robot continued its downward trajectory, firing its rocket boosters to adjust to a new path, seemingly unconcerned by whatever had obliterated its comrade. Naruto watched this in confusion and couldn't begin to tell what had just happened.

(Far off in the distance, Sasuke watched the exchange with furrowed brow, his Sharingan catching only the barest hint of blurring speed as the disappearing robot shot away into the distance. That had been Devil Fruit magic, which meant that this new arrival was… alive somehow? Chakra had definitely been present.)

But that was only one of the threats nearby at this point. Naruto and Luffy were now close enough to the trunk that they were attracting the attention of some of the Pacifistas that were raking their lasers across Tobi's body. One of the three flying models in the area spun away after a glancing strike by the tree and caught sight of them, at which point it canceled its spin with a few jets from its rocket-boots, then flew straight towards them on an intercept course.

It was a scene that the Straw-Hats had seen again and again in the last few minutes, but this time their exhausted fighters could only watch from afar. There seemed to be no one to stop the attack. A sparkling shine in a gaping mouth aimed straight for the two warriors, suspended in mid-air, and although Luffy began rapidly pulling in his arms, this time there was no dodging it.

From above, Roronoa Zoro descended in a parabolic arc, a single sword held in its sheath as he entered the robot's blind-spot. He drew his blade.

[ITTORYU IAI: SHISHI SONSON]

The sword flickered out and carved into the robot's armored neck, and though Zoro had once cut steel itself with this technique, this time it merely embedded itself in the indomitable metal skin. The Pacifista's head twitched to the side for just a moment, but then re-aimed as if nothing had happened. Zoro hung on the side of the flying titan, panting with exertion, and then flipped around its neck, drew Wado Ichimonji, and stabbed it directly into its shining mouth. There was a crack of crystal, a burst of lightning, and Zoro barely had time to withdraw his stabbed blade before the Pacifista reached up with one arm and forcibly dislodged its unwanted rider. The swordsman fell into the dark below.

Then the Pacifista's face exploded.

Though it did not fire, the robot flew straight on without control, colliding with Luffy and Naruto at high speed. They took the staggering impact head-on, with Luffy serving as impromptu shock-absorber, and it sent them hurtling to the side as the wreck of the Pacifista flew off into the distance.

A victory to be sure, but there were simply too many threats. A third ground-bound Pacifista on a branch below them saw the pirate captain enter his range and swiveled its head, a shining laser already gathering inside its mouth. Luffy looked on in sudden shock, again realizing he wasn't going to be able to avoid the spear of light. He spun around to protect Naruto, and the shining beam struck him right in the back.

An explosion, a blur of speed and a sharp impact as Firefist Ace slammed into the robot's shoulders like a cannonball, flames bursting through the thing's chest and out of its yawning mouth in a boiling eruption. The ray of light scattered, lighting up the darkening sky like a firework, and then the Pacifista detonated. Naruto recovered from the initial collision to find Luffy wheezing, his flesh and clothing charred by even the short exposure to the laser's full intensity.

"Luffy!"

"You… go!" gasped Luffy. Swinging from the tree-branch, he brought Naruto around in one last crescent arc before untangling himself and launching Naruto into the open air. Naruto flew, and Luffy dropped like a smoking ember.

"LUFFY!" he screamed, spinning wildly as he sought to right himself.

There was little time for worries though. A motion from his left caught his eye, which turned out to be a spinning devil in a suit jacket.

"Naruto! You're going up!" shouted Sanji, half a second before their collision. Naruto barely had the presence of mind to land on Sanji's outstretched leg, and the cook's spinning powerhouse of a kick was perfectly timed to intercept Naruto's fall. For one split second, Naruto felt his knees flex as he was able to push off something sturdier than the ground itself.

"Give him hell," said Sanji, in that frozen moment.

[ARMÉE DE L'AIR]

The force of that kick would have fit better coming from a cannon, and Naruto rocketed skyward, once again reaching the height he needed in a single burst as Sanji flew backwards from the recoil, striking another branch sideways and sticking to the vertical surface with a ninja's proficiency.

"Son of a bitch!" screamed Naruto. He dove through the sky, angling his fall towards a solid surface, then took stock. He was on the right level, and still maybe a thousand feet from Tobi's face. There was no sign of Luffy, nor any of the Pacifista. He still needed a mount. Gathering his chakra in place of blood, he went for the next best thing.

[NINPO: KUCHIYOSE NO JUTSU]

As if he had been ready for anything, Naruto's closest toad friend exploded into existence in a cloud of hot steam, giving the twisted wooden airspace just a few cursory glances before flicking an orange hand to his back.

"Alright, Naruto," said Gamakichi, "No need to explain, just get on! We were expecting something like this!"

"You were expecting this?!"

"Well, not exactly this, but… look, just get on! We're moving fast, so don't you fall off, neither!"

He did so, hopping onto the toad's back and hanging on for dear life. Gamakichi ascended into the forest of branches, each leap pressing Naruto hard into his back. Now that the branches were closer together, the terrain was no longer shifting and unpredictable, and they no longer needed Luffy's long, stretchy arms to catch onto the distant objects. As such, Gamakichi bounced like a pinball, jumping from the top of one branch to the underside of another, to the side of a third, leaving all their pursuers behind them. They covered most of the distance in less than a minute before Naruto heard a loud roar of shock and surprise cut through the air. He looked trunkward and saw that Tobi's immense eyes were locked onto his. He'd finally been discovered.

YOU! I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE! GO AWAY! I DON'T WANT TO HURT YOU!

"Tobi! I want to talk to you! I can make things alright again! Don't fight me on this!"

I ALREADY FOUGHT YOU! AND IN CASE YOU FORGOT, I WON! AND NOW I'M GOING TO WIN AGAIN! BECAUSE YOU'RE GOING TO BE DEAD!

To Naruto's dismay, Tobi's snarling face was soon flanked by a phalanx of wooden spears, each one stabbing outwards in a deadly storm of impalement. He saw his death approaching as a hail of arrows.

"Sorry Naruto, but this is the end of the line for me," said Gamakichi, an instant before leaping from the branch straight towards Tobi, pulling them into a whirling frontward spin. The brutal acceleration first slammed Naruto into the toad's back, then Gamakichi grabbed him by the chest. Spinning like a windmill shuriken, only long experience let him intuit what was happening. Before the spears reached them, the toad launched Naruto skyward in a massive throw. About half of the spears changed course, redirecting to match Naruto's new trajectory, while the others tracked Gamakichi through the air.

Naruto flew like a soaring eagle until he struck the underside of a great and wide branch. Taking his cue from his ally, he summoned a barrage of shadow clones that scattered across the wooden surface, running upside-down towards the trunk. Confused, the wooden spears struck out randomly, destroying clone after clone in an orgy of futile destruction. The sky below him was a braided net of deadly spikes, and then all of a sudden the remaining spears redirected on the true Naruto. He had no clue how Tobi had done it, whether it was Rinnegan bullshit or just some momentary epiphany, but the last two dozen remaining weapons smashed towards him. A few nearby shadow clones linked arms with him and jumped downward off the branch in a desperate attempt to recreate Gamakichi's aerial maneuver. No good. It was too late.

And at that moment, everything went wrong for poor Tobi.

AARGGH! MY EYES!

Although Naruto couldn't even tell what had happened, elsewhere Usopp crowed his triumphant victory as almost all of his remaining ammunition impacted directly onto Tobi's wooden eyes in a serial barrage of sticky acids, gunpowder, stink bombs, glues, cleaning supplies and hot sauce. Something in the potent mixture of ridiculous materials had done the impossible and blinded a god.

"TAKE THAT, YOU STUPID NINJA EYEBALLS!" screamed the distant Usopp. "NO WEAKNESSES, MY SKINNY ASS!"

The spears abruptly stopped correcting their course, and Naruto's last shadow clones flung him out of the way of spiky death, barely far enough to avoid being stabbed by the rushing wood. He cried out in pain and shock as he struck the side of one expanding wooden spear at enough speed to break the back of a normal man, his jacket tearing apart as he was scraped and torn from the impact, and only barely recovering his senses quickly enough to reach out and attach himself to the branch with the chakra in both hands.

"Naruto!" Sasuke's mental concern was a jolt to his senses, and he groaned in pain, taking just a moment to pull himself together before clambering back to his feet, now hanging upside-down underneath Tobi's weapons. The spear he was on began retracting even as he got his bearings, and Naruto rode its momentum back towards the trunk and its wailing host.

To his great relief, he could just feel the chakra in his blood respond as Gamakichi returned to his homeland. Injured or not, the toad was still alive. Now all Naruto had to do was cross the last hundred feet while Tobi was distracted, though he was even now looking around, weakly scanning the area for Naruto's presence. It was now or never. A shadow clone appeared beside Naruto with barely a thought, already forming the Rasengan in his hand. He took aim and let loose.

[RASENGAN]

A exploding vortex of shaped wind crashed into the tree, and Naruto rode the shockwave outward, spinning wildly through the air as he shot straight for Tobi's face, covering the final gap in the blink of an eye. He slammed into the rough wooden bark of the trunk with a jarring impact and immediately went to work. Both hands slapped onto the man's forehead.

WHOA, WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU—

Then the world went gold.

---

—DIVINE TREE—

The world was light itself. It was the sun, burning his soul and healing it at the same time. The power of the Divine Tree was a tremendous glowing waterfall, and Naruto was swimming upstream, dumping more and more chakra into the link just to stay where he was. Finding his way forward was impossible, and his soul cried out in pain and ecstasy. He fought on, utterly adrift in the sea of fire and untamed chakra. Compared to the power before him, the malevolent flame of Kurama's energy was almost cool as it coalesced into a shroud around him. Rage washed against his soul before dulling itself in a single moment — a burning sword thrust into clear water. When Naruto opened his thoughts again he could finally process what was going on around him. Kurama loomed overhead, a tremendous dark statue standing guard against the raging storm of light. Though Kurama stood firm, staring on into that light, Naruto felt the fox's black lips twitch.

You would have been lost without me, puny one. The immense power flowing from the Divine Tree is fatal to mortals, even when split through a linked heart.

"What? Linked heart?" asked Naruto. His pulse fluttered in fear for a terrible moment as he reached out to Sasuke's heart, only to feel the tendrils of Kurama's power clutch his probe and crush the connection with the firm authority of an adult plucking a knife away from the reach of an inquisitive child.

…What did I just say? Be thankful I deigned to strangle the link between you two, or he would now be dead. Do not try that again without warning me. Your brother is even frailer than you are in such matters.

"Oh, uhh… right, thank you."

I would say that I'm beginning to believe you didn't think this all through, except I'm not inclined towards falsehoods. I never believed otherwise.

"Yeah, sure, laugh it up, jackass. I said thank you. If you have this all figured out then what's your plan?"

Then Naruto saw something he'd never seen before. Kurama… paused, and when he continued he seemed distinctly uncertain, as if he was saying something he didn't fully believe in.

I will not tell you. I believe in the Sage, even though I know you do not. He believes only you can resolve this, and so I withhold my judgment. Your plan seems like patent foolishness, but perhaps such foolishness is necessary. All I can do is believe.

"Uh, yeah, alright." He coughed. "Well, right now I'm going off of the instructions that old fart left me. I mean, I've never done this before, and I don't think even the Sage has ever tried to do this with a giant tree, so I'll admit I'm kind of winging it."

…Incredible…

"Yeah, yeah," said Naruto. He looked out into the field of the tree's power.

Imagine sinking into the great, deep ocean, falling further and further into its depths. Down into the waves, the reaches, the trenches, down into the blackest realms of crushing pressure and all-encompassing darkness that would swallow entire mountains. There was no hope of survival, and no hope of finding your way. Now, if you were to imagine that every drop of that water and every speck of that shadow were to be replaced with light, then that deep, bright fathomless radiance was what was now crashing against the shield of Kurama's chakra. If he had been seeing with his real eyes, his real body, then surely he would have been incinerated, but as it was he was just… lost.

"We need to find Tobi's heart."

Are you an expert on locating a tree's beating heart? No, don't answer. I don't need to hear what you come up with.

"But, there's gotta be a way… Are you alright? Can you take us forward?"

Your concern is as insulting as it is unnecessary. But yes, this environment is survivable, at least for now. Your soul would unravel long before I was caused undue damage.

"Oh, uhh, that's a thing, huh?"

Enough. Forward.

So they pushed forward, advancing through veins of chakra large enough to fuel the world itself, but there was no hint of their destination. Time flowed slowly around them, but it was not unlimited. They moved on through the light.

"I can't tell where we need to go," admitted Naruto.

I can… somewhat. I am working primarily with your limited senses, which similarly limits me.

"Huh, well that at least I should be able to do something about…"

Pausing for a moment, he began channeling the remnants of his stored sage chakra through his system. The burning fires of the tree rose staggeringly tall in his new senses, but he could feel the natural energy flooding through it where before he could not. Barely holding on, he breathed a sigh of relief as Kurama adjusted his control over the rampant energy.

Still limited, but far better. The sunlight chakra is filled with strands of Tobi's will. I believe following them will lead us to our destination. Getting out, however, may prove to be a different matter entirely.

"I guess that's good and bad? What's so hard about getting out of here?"

There's no frame of reference, the tree's lifeforce changes constantly, and finally this seal limits me. Already I find myself uncertain of our exit, which means our survival may depend entirely upon how he reacts to your so-called plan. This doesn't fill me with confidence.

"Yeah, well it's the best we've got, so suck it up." He sat with his thoughts for a moment before asking, "What do you think about this whole heart business, anyway?"

What, exactly, do you mean?

"Well, I mean, you said this tree could kill someone connected to me, right? Does that mean if I go through with it then this'll hurt Sasuke?"

Think it through on your own, child.

Before Naruto could even muster his ire, a rumble shook his soul. Kurama was sighing.

Forget it. It's not your fault you can't sense what's going on here. I'll go along with your questioning a little longer if this brings me the salvation I desire. The answer is that I am not sure. I suspect linking with Tobi's heart directly will be less harmful than serving as a direct conduit to the Divine Tree's chakra system like you were before, but we shall see when we arrive at this fiend's loathsome core.

"Whoa, loathsome fiend? That's a bit harsh, isn't it?"

Though it wasn't their true bodies inside this realm of chakra, Kurama's footfalls echoed heavily in his mind.

You truly don't get it, do you? I sensed your rage, your hatred when you realized it was he who released me upon Konoha, but although your anger has faded with time, has it ever occurred to you that I might have a grudge as well? He bound me to him using the power of the Rinnegan, and he seemed no more sane then than he does now.

A jolt of fresh rage rushed through him, but he quelled it. He'd already decided on his path, and it was pointless going back on it now. It was just… tough to think about. Tobi was directly responsible for the terrible state of his early life, but Tobi acted like an adult child, barely even seeming aware of the consequences of his actions. Meanwhile, Kurama had probably been the one to actually kill both of his parents, but despite the fox's obvious intelligence, blaming him for their predicament seemed about as pointless as blaming a lit bomb for detonating. As Naruto mulled over it all, Kurama continued to complain.

The fool babbled wildly about his inane plans all the while I did his bidding, and it was pointless, all of it. There were eight other Tailed Beasts he wanted at the time, and I distinctly remember him informing me that he started with me because 'more tails is obviously more better'. In the end it didn't even matter. He abandoned that ill-considered plan in favor of whatever led him out to this nonsensical ocean. If you were hoping to discover meaning in his actions, in your family's fate, then there is none. And I…

Kurama paused, growling before he returned to his normal simmering annoyance.

…Count yourself lucky I am willing to overlook his arrogance. I cannot let all of these wrongs pass by me with such ease, but succeed in this and I will forgive a great deal. We are approaching the heart.

The heart of Tobi loomed before them, suspended in the solar abyss like a twisted tumor; its body was white, lacking the glow of the rest of the environs, and its flesh was pulled inward in rippling, spiraling folds all across its surface. It seemed as though it were devouring itself. Naruto recoiled in some disgust.

"Man, is this really Tobi? I mean, I get that he's a bad guy and everything, but this just doesn't seem right for a human."

Oh, he is no human, or if he ever was then he lost his humanity long ago. Something else melded his spirit and flesh into this form.

"Okay… well, add that to the pile of questions, I guess…" Naruto approached the shivering heart uncertainly for a moment before shaking his head. "Screw it, I'm just gonna do this."

Then he reached out and touched the heart. It was firm beneath his hand, and he focused his efforts on opening the link between them. The jutsu was simple, technically, without the complicated weaving of chakra and seals that normally gave him such a hard time. Instead, it was a crystallization of the intense, raw feeling of opening your heart to another without reservation, and the willingness to listen to their troubles in return, bound into a twisted rope of chakra. The hardest part was knowing you could do it in the first place. The technique fought him nonetheless. He remembered pouring his heart out to Tobi and hearing the strange man's problems in return, so in many ways the hard work was already done. In fact, if he had tried this with Tobi even yesterday, before they had learned his true identity, it would have gone so easily, but now…

Tobi had tried to kill him. Tobi had killed innocents, and let Akatsuki run rampant across the land. Tobi had killed his parents.

Naruto stood there, fighting his own emotions in the storm of burning light. The bond between him and Sasuke had been forged from their own feelings of connection. They were family. But any connection he had formed with Tobi was now poisoned.

Or… maybe he was looking at this the wrong way. Instead of focusing on the positive, perhaps the two of them had a different sort of connection. He dug deep into his heart for those desperate feelings of anger and betrayal that had colored everything after their meeting on Sabaody Archipelago. Tobi had known, from the very beginning, who he was. He knew that he was responsible for the death of Naruto's parents, and still he had made friends, played innocent, and even asked for honest advice! It beggared belief that he could be so stupid! In fact, from everything he had heard there was no reason Tobi couldn't bring Naruto's mom or dad back to life right now instead of whatever dumbass plan he had to resurrect his own father. Tobi only seemed guilty about what he'd done when it didn't require him to go against any of his own plans and wishes, and he was such a self-centered moron that the most they could do now was try and stop Tobi from killing himself and dooming the entire world in the process!

It was beyond infuriating. He wanted to tell Tobi these things, and he wanted honest answers from the only person in the world who could give them. The last time Naruto had tried to get those answers they'd been fighting to the death inside the temple, but now… now maybe he'd get somewhere.

The bridge between their hearts coalesced from jagged memories of pained battles and shared misery and recriminations. Naruto formed that link and pulled, summoning Tobi's awareness to meet with him.

What materialized before them was nothing less than a monster in human clothes. The white-skinned creature was made of the same twisting mass of matter that made up the heart, but it stood on two legs. Spiraling tentacles of pseudoflesh interwove to make the arms, legs, torso, and head, all coming together in a single point – a black void where one eye should be. The only incongruous aspects were the bright, wildly-colored floral-print shirt, khaki shorts, and comfortable sandals, which rather spoiled the whole monstrous look.

It looked very reminiscent of how Tobi had dressed on Water-7 and Sabaody, without a hint of his Akatsuki uniform.

Tobi was confused for a moment, and the emotion was clearly and completely obvious despite him no longer possessing his expressive face. Naruto felt the man's emotions through the link, struggling with the mixing of feelings with a man he should despise.

"Oh!" exclaimed Tobi. "Wait, you – Naruto?!"

"Yeah."

"Where is this? W-what did you do to me? I'm here, but I'm also not!"

"The hows aren't important. You've made it impossible to talk with you, so I had to do something about it. Sorry."

Tobi grunted. "Well, that's because I didn't want to talk to you! We already tried talking, but now you're just trying to hurt me! And I — wait… why…? Why am I…?"

"What you're feeling right now are my thoughts and emotions," said Naruto. "I don't really get how it works either, but the important thing is that unlike last time when you couldn't believe what I was saying, this time I wanted to make sure you understood that I'm telling the truth. The whole truth."

"These are your thoughts?" Tobi felt chagrined and paused for a few seconds. "Wow, then y-you're really angry at me."

"Yeah, you're damn right I'm angry at you!" shouted Naruto. "This sucks! I'm angry and pissed off that it's all come to this, but that's not the point. The point is that I'm here to save your life. You're hurt, and you're confused, and I know this didn't turn out the way you were hoping, but when it comes right down to it you're trying to get yourself killed and I don't wanna see that happen!"

Tobi shook his head nervously. "Y-you're just trying to take the fruit's power for yourself. That's all. That's the same for everyone here."

"You know that's not right, Tobi. You can feel that in my heart, and I know you can feel that 'cause I can feel it in yours."

Tobi paused, thinking in silence for a few moments. Finally, he said, "This is weird."

"Yeah."

"Is this forever? I mean… well, you know what I mean."

Naruto shook his head. "It won't last for long. I can't make it last forever. I just wanted some time to talk to you."

"I… I dunno, I'm kind of busy, you know. Swinging branches around… and stuff like that… But… it's just kind of calm in here, so maybe it's alright being in here and out there at the same time."

It was odd to describe the inside of this place as anything like 'calm', but Naruto didn't disagree out loud. Tobi continued.

"And, uhh, your friend up there, the big foxy thing...? That's…" Slowly, he began counting Kurama's tails. "One… two… three..."

Don't push your luck, fool. Try my patience and even in here I will find some way to hurt you.

Tobi recoiled. "Geez, what's his problem?"

"Tobi, don't worry about him. Right now this is about you. I'm here to bring you back to the way you were and get you off this crazy idea of killing yourself. Right now we need to make sure that nobody eats the whole fruit and becomes a god, and I need to get Kurama here back to the earth where he belongs. If we don't do that then the next thousand years are going to get really bad for everyone involved. You hear me?"

The being in front of him stared back blankly, but his uncertainty was plainly felt. "I dunno… I mean, I get it now. I can tell you believe what you're saying, but I don't know if you're right or not. Either way… I kinda think my father could fix whatever problem you're talking about. He had a plan for everything, you know."

"This doesn't need to be a problem in the first place! You can still live your own damn life and fix everything without him, and all you need to do is just not kill yourself! That's really still your plan? You're just going to die and hope he figures it all out for you?"

"Yes! Err, I dunno… Maybe. Yes. Dammit." He paused, and when he spoke again he was clearly whining. "Everything made sense yesterday. I had a dream. I had a purpose. Now I have nothing."

"Your 'dream' was to kill yourself so Uchiha Madara could come back to life! That's what I'm talking about!"

Tobi shrugged. "I know, right? Then all of a sudden I got scared. All that time I thought that the right thing to do was to give my father the Divine Fruit, and I knew he'd know what to do with it. But then… then it all fell apart. I don't have anything left to live for, so this should've been a no-brainer, but…" He gave a sad, snorting laugh, before pressing a finger effortlessly into the folds of his head. "Well, maybe that's the problem. I don't have a brain, after all."

"You may be brainless, but no one said you needed to have smarts to enjoy life. When I talked to you on Water-7 you might've seemed like some big dumb weirdo, but you really helped me! I talked with my friends, I worked everything out in my head, and dammit, I even got the girl!"

Tobi cocked his head sideways. "Oh yeah? I was wondering how that turned out. Was this the one who liked you or the one with the lawn you needed to poo—"

"No, shut up," interrupted Naruto, shaking his head vigorously. "You can deal with your weird fetishes later, and yes it was the one who liked me! Brainless or not, you helped me!"

"Oh, I mean, I guess that's great! I always thought the whole 'girl' thing was sort of interesting, but I didn't know how to go about it?"

Naruto grimaced inwardly, totally baffled at the thought of giving this older murderhobo anything approaching 'the talk'. Hopefully his thoughts were enough of a confusing mess that Tobi couldn't read them.

Eventually Naruto settled on, "Yeah, well, I'll tell it to you straight. Girls are awesome, and it doesn't matter how weird you are, there's someone out there waiting for you, especially on this weird and crazy ocean. But only if you stick around and focus on being a good person for a change!"

Tobi sighed, a muddled whirlpool of wistful regret twisting up his heart. "A good person, huh? Geez, I mean, you said it yourself didn't you? Back in the temple? See, I've been thinking. I knew who you were when we met on Water-7. I knew what I had done to you, and I tricked you into being my friend, even if only for a little while." Tobi paused, spreading his arms, a vindictive certainty filling his heart. "Isn't that weird? I don't really care what happens to anyone else in this world, but I wanted to be nice to you, right? Wouldn't it make more sense if the only reason I helped you was because I was such a bad person to you? If I'm a bad person to everyone but you, and the only reason I was good to you was because of how much I hurt you, then doesn't that just make me a bad person all around? Huh?"

Naruto was certain he only understood that twisted mess of a monologue because he was feeling Tobi's thoughts in real-time. The counter-argument came to his throat like risen bile, that the way Tobi had treated him meant that he had some empathy. He had some ability to understand the pain he was putting those he saw through, and a desire to make things better… but he couldn't make himself say it. Even with the fate of the world on the line, he just couldn't say it. Though speech wasn't the only way they were communicating.

Tobi winced at the thoughts running through Naruto's head. "N-no… It's a nice thought, but you know it's not true. Not really. The world would be better off without me, and I can make that happen."

"No, okay, you're not allowed to kill yourself, got it?" said Naruto. "Absolutely forbidden!"

For a time, only despair filled their hearts. "I dunno… You say that, but I think I'm starting to come back around to the idea. I mean, look at everybody out there. There's some scary folks out after my head, and… you know, as much as I don't really like the guy, I figure it's only a matter of time before Orochimaru figures out how to stop me. He always did have the weirdest ideas, and he's doing something funky up in my topmost branches right now. I kinda figure if I'm going to go through with this I should probably do it before he stops me. Ow."

"Ow?"

"Yeah, sorry, that Roger jerk just suplexed one of my big root thingies."

"What?"

"I know, right? Like, it's fifty feet across - he shouldn't have the leverage, you know?"

"No, I don't care. I'm telling you—"

"Naruto, look. I really appreciate what you've done for me. It's no exaggeration to say no one else in my life has been as kind to me as you, and, well, I'm sorry I doubted you. Being in your head like this is really enlightening."

Naruto was growing desperate. "Then please… please listen to me, Tobi. I'm telling you, you don't need to do this. The person I talked to on Water-7 was about much more than this!"

"The Tobi I was then was an idiot. I mean, I'm still an idiot, but… I'm sorry Naruto. I've got nothing left. Life doesn't mean anything to me anymore, and I think it's just about time for me to go. And it's time for you to go too. Get somewhere safe, okay?"

"Tobi, wait!"

But he was gone. The heart still lay in front of them, but Tobi's avatar disappeared, his attention shifting back to the attacks out in the real world. The link between them was still intact, but Tobi was clearly done with the conversation.

"Tobi… son of a…" Naruto swore, anger and desperation filling his heart. "Why the hell are you this set on such a stupid fucking end to it all?"

A swelling of rage wrapped around him, its tendrils clawing at his heart as Kurama's power surged from within. The fox was pissed.

This is it, then? You've failed in your mission, child!

The chakra in the air shook with growing fury. The shield protecting Naruto wavered, flickering. A dark tendril of energy snaked out towards the link between him and Tobi as Kurama sought to break it entirely.

"No, dammit, stop! We can still do this, but it's all over if you cut me off from Tobi, alright? Just calm down for a second and let me explain!"

The dark power unclenched, once again letting the stream of chakra flow between them. Kurama's gaze turned downward, his muzzle slowly descending towards Naruto's tiny figure.

Explain then.

Naruto sighed, "It's still simple. The plan's the same, it's just the way we're doing it that's changed. If you could feel what I feel then you'd know. Tobi's lost without a reason to live, so… so we have to give him one."

Your logic eludes me. Everything you tried, everything you said, everything you felt, it all failed! Despite the fondness you elicit in him, the madman wants nothing more to do with you! You've lost your chance to weave whatever charms you hoped to ensnare him with.

Naruto shook his head, growing more and more certain of the path ahead by the second. "No, no not at all. It's just that I need to take a hint from our pirate friends out there. In the end, I wasn't thinking big enough."

So Naruto told the fox his plan, and Kurama listened with bared fang and furrowed brow. There was no hint of understanding in his ancient face, and not the smallest drop of sympathy for the Akatsuki leader's plight, but he listened nonetheless. Finally, as the minutes passed, Naruto could begin to feel the fire of the Divine Tree abrading the outer reaches of his soul - a rough, electric feeling that told him in no uncertain terms that he was running out of time. Kurama stared, stone-faced, at his host.

You realize that what you've said means absolutely nothing to me. The hope you wish to use as bait to entice him is entirely alien to my experience… However…

He paused, seeming to begrudgingly consider the matter.

If you wanted 'bigger,' then I suppose this qualifies… I am capable of helping you accomplish this, but be warned. You will have to move quickly, and you'll only have one shot.

"Great…" said Naruto, gritting his teeth against the pain and heat surrounding him. "I trust those guys and girls out there. Now, we just need to get out of here, right?

Indeed.

"I guess there's just one problem… You were right about this place… I don't think… I can make it much longer…"

Surprisingly, a strange twist of humor came from the red beast above him, along with the slightest hint of… satisfaction.

No, you cannot. The Divine Tree will certainly devour your soul by the time we were to muddle our way out of here, but it appears our fortune has turned for the better. You have a visitor.

A visitor? But already he could sense another presence there with them. Before him, the storm of chakra wavered, shuddered, and coalesced into a recognizable shape. The shape of a human, blurred at the edges, reaching out a hand.

"…Tobi?" asked Naruto. "No…. wait." He sharpened his senses, seeing a great rack of antlers that sprouted from the humanoid's head. "Ch-Chopper?!"

There were no words spoken. Just the outstretched beckoning hand of sunlight reaching through the maelstrom.

"Well, crap," muttered Naruto. "Don't need to tell me twice."'

He stepped forward and clasped one of its enormous fingers. A sensation of movement, rushing, screaming, falling outward, backwards, and then he was falling for real. The return to his body's true senses was overwhelming, and he was dimly aware when he struck the tree and rolled, sliding and bouncing downward. Before he could react, he was caught. A hand clasped his clothes, swinging his limp body into its grip. The descent slowed, but did not end, as the frantic footfalls of his rescuer continued to scamper down the twisted slope of the trunk.

In that confused moment, Naruto struggled to grasp hold of true consciousness.

"Chopper…?" he asked.

"Oh no, you've got the wrong man," said a familiar melodic voice. Naruto opened his eyes and found himself staring directly into a grinning skull. "Though I can certainly see the resemblance. It's the hair, isn't it?"

"Oh, hell," murmured Naruto. "Thanks for catching me, Brook."

"Not at all!"

Kurama rumbled slightly in an irritated reminder, and Naruto reached out with his soul, silently marking Brook's heart with the jutsu that he hoped would save the world. When he opened his eyes again, he smiled. "Thanks again, man. Let me up, I can run on my own now."

"As you wish! This was my stop anyway! YO-HOHOHOHO!" Legs whirring frantically back and forth in his downward spiral, Brook spun in place, hurling Naruto straight up into the air in a dizzying ascent. The ninja struck out with a hand, cementing himself to the tree as Brook dove away towards a nearby branch and disappeared into the evening light, laughing merrily all the way. Naruto looked back and forth, unable to determine exactly how much time had passed in communion with Tobi.

"Naruto!" Sasuke's thoughts flooded back into focus.

"How long was I out?"

"About a minute. I tried reaching out to you, but I think the fox got in the way somehow…?"

"Not as bad as I thought then — I guess things must have been moving slower in there. Listen, as much as I'd like to tell you everything right away, there's been a change of plans, alright?"

Sasuke listened to his explanation, groaning only slightly as he realized the scope of Naruto's strategy, but he didn't argue. At this point, they really were out of options. In the end, he asked only:

"You're saying Tobi's already connected to us, right? I don't feel him."

"You won't for now. There's a lot of power coming through that link, so right now Kurama's helping by clamping it shut. We need more people in on this before it's safe to start opening the flood gates."

"…this isn't going to be permanent, right?"

Naruto chuckled to himself. "No, man, I'm good, but I'm not that good. Listen, the point is we need to get everybody. I can bring a clone all the way back to you guys if I have to, but that takes time we might not have, and you're the only other person who can help make this work. Do you think you can do your thing and handle everyone over there?"

"I… I'm not sure. I'm kind of surprised you figured this out so quickly, to be honest… I saw what you did to Brook, but… try performing the jutsu again. That should be enough to copy."

"Can do, man. Just point me towards everyone else."

With a thought, Sasuke identified the positions of Sanji, Zoro, Franky, Law, Sakura, and Luffy. Naruto noted with relief that Sakura was already on the ground with Luffy. After a pause, Sasuke pointed out where Ace was recovering, along with where Roger, Rayleigh, and Aokiji were still fighting, though Naruto inwardly decided against making them a part of this.

Speaking of… he needed to check in on Kurama. There was a tangible strain in his thoughts now as Kurama grappled with the divine link between his and Tobi's hearts.

"You still holding onto Tobi's heart-link?" asked Naruto, focusing his attention inwards through the hole opened up by the Sage of Six Paths. "I can barely feel Sasuke and Bone-man right now too. What's going on?"

I am strangling all connections leading to and from Tobi to reduce the chances that the entire collective is overwhelmed by the sunlight chakra originating from the Divine Tree, but the true magnitude of this power is beyond even me. Imagine the chakra as a series of pools, the Tree linked to Tobi, linked to you, and linked to your acquaintances. Preventing Tobi's power from overwhelming your miniscule existence is simple enough, as your body is accustomed to the strain of my own power, but to expose others means I must strangle the connection to a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of its original strength. Doing so through the hole in your seal is taxing in the extreme.

"So you're getting tired, man? What happens if you run out of stamina or whatever?"

Everyone besides you dies.

"Oh, holy shit, maybe I should've figured out what I was doing before we started this?!"

No time for second guessing. The more who are brought into this web of energy the more that can split that burden. Connect more people and my task becomes easier. Go, and start with someone expendable first.

"Wait, what?! No, nobody's expendable here!"

Then find someone who can erode even a mountain. Someone who can drink a river and not drown in it.

As he pondered this, his deliberations were cut short by a message from Sasuke.

"Naruto, there are more robots incoming. They're headed towards you and the others."

The next branch Naruto landed upon he stuck to like glue, scanning the sky above and below him until he saw his opponents. Only a couple of the ground-bound Pacifista were coming after them, but a couple was more than enough. He was now almost totally out of Sage chakra and had little opportunity to get more on this moving treehouse, which meant whatever chance he had had to beat one of those murder-machines in a straight-up fight was now totally gone. Still, he had to cover for his friends.

"Well, last time we did this I was trying to stay stealthy but I guess there's no point now. So let's go loud!"

[TAJUU KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU]

"Alright guys!" shouted Naruto, taking in the field of shadow clones exploding into being. Technically, since they were each a copy of him at the moment he made the decision to do this none of them needed to hear him give a speech, but really it just felt wrong not to talk to them.

"You know the drill! They can get one of us but they can't get all of us! Split up and touch some hearts! Anyone who gets driven away, just focus on keeping the big guys off of our friends! You got this!"

The battle-cry that came back at him was nearly deafening, and he smiled to hear it. Then the cloud dispersed, and the air above the Red Line suddenly got much more orange than it had been before.

The original smiled. "Alright. Let's make the magic happen."