Ink's Notes:

hello fanfic my old friend, i've come to update you again, because a story that's been sitting, without any updates that it's seeing, and a chapter that was formed up in my brain, typed up plain, all to the sound of updates

Krazyfanfiction1: THIS SHIP WILL SET SAIL IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO! but first other stuff

Allykrau: Neither did I. Until this fanfic. And then it exploded.

Fairy of the Friz: MERRY SUPER LATE CHRISTMAS TO YOU TOO

CrystalHeart27: Then my work is done :3

The Keeper of Worlds: YUP YUP

Guest: I SHALL CONTINUE

Chapter Thirty-Six

Sakura woke up in the morning feeling well rested and content, glad that she had the opportunity take a shower at her leisure to get ready for the day. She glanced over at where Perona was sleeping, clutching a pillow tightly to her chest and muttering something about 'Bearsy' in her sleep, then smiled gently as she headed into the bathroom to clean herself off.

She emerged from the bathroom about twenty minutes later to find Perona awake and Marco seated on the table in his smaller phoenix form, chatting to one another about … well, they'd stopped talking when she emerged, so she wasn't quite sure what it was about. They both looked up at Sakura the sound of the door opening and closing, and Marco looked away and covered his eyes with his wing almost instantly upon noticing that Sakura was covering herself with a towel. She and Perona laughed about his reaction for a moment before Sakura got herself dressed. Once she was done, she cleared her throat, and Marco peeked over his wing to make sure she was decent before lowering it fully.

"Jugo, Perona, Bepo and Carue found another one last night, yoi," Marco spoke up, and Sakura blinked in shock. She opened her mouth to say something, but Marco cut her off. "She's asleep with Jugo right now, but we're keeping the amount of people in that room to a minimum so she doesn't freak out when she wakes up."

Sakura was about to compliment him on the foresight involved in that idea, when a shriek pierced the air. It sounded like it belonged to a little girl, and her face paled at the thought.

"Marco," Sakura carefully began as the bird in question cradled his head in his wings, "Who did you leave in the room with her?"

"In retrospect," his voice was muffled through his wings, "Maybe leaving her alone with Jugo and Suigetsu was a bad idea, yoi."

"You did what." Perona's response was less of a question and more of a statement. She sighed and headed towards the door, Sakura following with Marco hitching a ride on her shoulder. The trio arrived in the room to find that the rest of their traveling party had also heard the scream and come to investigate it, that they had arrived before the three of them, and each and every one of them had somehow found themselves doing something completely different. Tashigi was threatening Suigetsu, her blade out and ready, and Tashigi looked about ready to point it at his throat, while Bepo was trying to diffuse that argument before it began. Vivi was already at Jugo's side, trying to calm down the little girl (who had wings for some reason) who Sakura guessed was the person from the Grand Line that had been found last night, while Jugo held her to his chest in a manner that suggested he was protecting her. Carue was running back and forth around the room, flailing his wings and quacking in a complete panic, occasionally passing Karin, who was standing in a corner, cradling her head in her hands. Sakura, Perona and Marco stared blankly for a moment, before Marco cleared his throat a few times to try and get the attention of everybody in the room.

When that failed, he turned to Perona with an annoyed look, who quickly got the message and hit the more noisy ones with a few negative hollows.

"Now that everyone's calm," Perona placed her hands on her hips in a condescending manner once everyone had recovered, "Would someone please explain what happened here?"

Suigetsu, Jugo and the little girl all started talking at once, pointing at each other as if the other had started it, and it took Perona summoning a few more negative hollows to get them to stop talking over one another. She turned to Jugo, and he slowly nodded, then glanced at Suigetsu before he began to speak.

"After we got back last night, I brought Aisa into the room since she fell asleep in my arms," he began. Sakura mentally catalogued that the girl's name was Aisa as he continued. "This morning when I woke up, I found that Marco was already awake and had just finished getting himself ready for the day."

Sakura looked at Marco, who shrugged. "I'm used to waking up early, yoi," he explained. "Morning shifts on the Moby Dick and all. My Devil Fruit makes me very effective at morning watch, since I can get a better view of any ships that might be coming to try and catch us off guard before we've fully woken up."

Aisa was now staring intently at Marco, as if there were something odd about him, (although, Sakura figured it was the 'talking bird' aspect,) and Jugo coughed once to bring focus back to him. "Moving on, I explained to him what happened last night, and he decided to go and tell you that we'd found another person from the Grand Line. He left to go to your room, and not long after, Suigetsu woke up."

Suigetsu crossed his arms with a huff. "I was curious about the kid, so I asked Jugo about it, but he said he'd rather wait until everyone was gathered in one place before he explained so he wouldn't have to do it multiple times. Of course, this meant I got bored, and the kid was still asleep, so I decided to wake her up and see what I could figure out about her."

"He pulled her wings," Jugo deadpanned.

"It was a dumb move," Suigetsu admitted. "And I guess that hurt, or she thought I was scary, or something along those lines, because once she was fully awake she started screaming. Then everyone comes running, and next thing I know I'm at the end of Tashigi's sword and everyone's yelling and talking at once and I don't know what's happening anymore."

"AAAHHHH-!" Aisa suddenly yelled, pointing at Marco.

"Like that," Suigetsu frowned. "What's with you?"

"You- your voice!" Aisa waved her arm up and down as she pointed. "I've heard it before!"

"You- what?" Marco blinked a few times. "Wait, you can use Haki?"

"It's my Mantra," Aisa pouted.

"Same thing, yoi," Marco frowned. "So you're from Skypeia. That explains the wings, I guess." Sakura mentally catalogued the new information.

She nodded before she continued. "About a week or two after I arrived, I think it was… which was about a month ago… when I was on the run from those scary ninjas…" Jugo gave everyone a look that said he'd explain later. "I heard a voice that sounded like the ones I was used to, the ones from back home…" she brought her knees to her chest. "I wanted to try and follow it, but the sound guys were in the way, and I didn't want to chance it… but knowing that there was someone else from our world let me hold onto the hope that someone would find me and be able to help me get back home…"

"A… month ago…" Sakura slowly spoke, before hitting her palm with her fist. "Ah! That was around when we were doing that mission when we met Tama!" she realized. "Come to think of it, this area's kind of close to that village…"

Marco flew off of Sakura's shoulder and landed in front of Aisa. "I'm sorry. If I'd have known at the time that other people from our world were here, I'd have been constantly checking the area with Haki and I would have noticed that you were there, and in trouble…"

Aisa gently pet Marco's head. "It's… okay. It was scary, but you're here now, and I got to meet Jugo and the others…"

"And we're helping you all find a way home," Sakura put in. "If we'd have found you back then, we wouldn't have known you guys were from another world." She paused and frowned. "Come to think of it, I think I'm the only one from Konoha who knows that."

"Still hoping that doesn't interfere with our ability to get home, yoi," Marco sighed, slouching over in apparent depression.

"I'm sure it'll be fine, Marco-San," Vivi quickly assured him. "These jutsu are capable of all sorts of things. I'm sure sending us home won't be too much of a problem."

"I hope you're right," Bepo nodded.

Aisa looked up at Jugo, eyes wide with sadness. "Does… that mean we won't see each other once I go home?" she sniffed, tears welling up in her eyes. Jugo shook his head, and she blinked in confusion.

"We got the idea from Marco, admittedly," Karin smirked. "He's insisting that Sakura joins the Whitebeard Pirates." Tashigi looked like she was about to speak, but Karin lifted a hand to cut her off. "I'm probably going to wind up going to Alabasta with Vivi. Suigetsu… mm, not sure yet, but we'll probably figure it out later. And Jugo…" She smiled. "Considering how protective he's become of you, he's probably going to wind up going with you to that Skypeia place."

Aisa's tear-filled expression slowly shifted to one full of hope, and Jugo smiled at her with a nod. She wrapped her arms around him in a hug, and he gently reciprocated the gesture.

"Well!" Perona quickly cut in, bringing the group's gaze to her. "How about we go get breakfast and fill everyone in about how we met Aisa?"

Now that Aisa's been formally introduced to the group, and everyone's been caught up on the situation, we can move on! Next chapter, I think some old faces are going to reappear, so we'll see how that goes, hmm~?

-Ink