I own not either Naruto nor One Piece though I wish I do... Oh well have fun reading the story while I mope in the corner!
My warning is still in effect.
Snake Sisters
Chapter 4: Sisters Boa, part 3
Arctic Valley, Iceberg island
In a small plateau of the valley between a wall of ice and cracked slopes that bordered a sizable pathway, a cry was heard. "Go slower you boneheaded imbecile!"
"Aren't those two synonyms?" The one good foot the crippled teenager had smashed into the back of the blonde's head. "Ow! Will you please stop that?!" The foot kicked the back of his skull once more followed by an indignant, haughty "hrmmph!"
"Ok, that is IT!" he bellowed as he came to an abrupt stop that jostled the stretcher, especially when the clone at the other end stumbled slightly at the sudden halt. In a near instant he somehow reversed his grip as he seemingly teleported in his spot to face the injured girl without losing his hold over the stretcher; their faces would've been separated by inches if psychics wasn't an issue on many a level. "I honestly don't get you! What is it that I have done to you to deserve this treatment?!"
Hancock's eyes narrowed to slits as she hissed her reply. "You keep taking us over rough terrain that keeps bumping this half baked stretcher. You keep acting like a smart aleck. And worst of all is that you're a man." If the venom in her voice was meant to cripple in some fashion, it only made him angrier instead.
"You know what? Fine! If you don't like it, then fine!" Both Naruto and his clone, the latter seemingly confused for reasons unknown, set the stretcher of henged clones down and the former stormed off to an outcropping of icy boulders and jutting fissures. "Where are you going?!" Sandersonia roared at the retreating blond while the clone of the boy wandered to the side to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
"To cool off, what else?!" Naruto barked back as he climbed one of the boulders and jumped onto a higher standing one which he claimed as a seat to sulk.
"Useless sack of..." Hancock snarled as she slammed her balled fist in a fit of rage, and winces horribly when her strength proved enough to disrupt the concentration and power of the clones that had supported her up to this point. "Damn it!" she hissed through clenched teeth when her injured limb bounced slightly from the half-inch long drop. Sandersonia was at her side in an instant. "Unruly brute," she growled as she tentatively tended to the limb with no visible injury. But while Sandersonia's boiling aggravation was aimed towards the brooding blond sitting crossed legged with a fist smashed against his chin, Hancock's own irritation... was aimed within. While it's easy to direct her annoyance and hostility begot from it on the very manifestation of her hate, though didn't quite fit the role, she couldn't help but feel a minute pang of guilt. Something about the genin reminded her of something, but no matter how hard she tried her mind continued to failed what he reminded her of. She definitely heard his voice before, but where? The voice alone wasn't even a reason to get her goat, it was the question that ran through her mind each time he spoke.
"Why is his voice familiar?"
No answer came to her as of yet... and it only served to infuriate her as she tore through her mind more and more to find the answer.
"Sandersonia! Hancock!"
Two heads pivoted and even smiled peacefully as the third of the sisters came running, her arm waving frantically as a blissful gaping smile featured itself on her lips. They were reunited at long last...
Crack!
Everyone's attention turned to along the high valley wall where three dragons of ice sprouted from it and roared like the beasts they were, despite of course being animated ice. In a dreadful swoop, all three descended on the sisters at speeds beyond terminal velocity and scooped them up in stubby limbs equipped with claws. Neither the real Naruto nor his clone had a chance to grab onto the constructs as they climbed back to their place of origin, or more specifically the cliff that overshadowed the mountainous side and the one that stood atop of it.
"Hey! Let them go you bastard!" Naruto screamed as he tried to give chase, yet the ascent of the constructs of ice had already carried both the sisters and themselves beyond his reach long before he reached a fourth of the way from his spot; the distance was too great for all but the most phenomenal of chakra enhanced jumps. From above, the shinobi controlling the ice dragons took his time to bend the ice around him to his will: apparent golems and cages of ice were formed.
"Damn it!" he hissed as he charged to the first natural ramp he spotted.
XVX
'Coast'
They say planning for the future before a battle is bad luck... all things considered, Kakashi wasn't concerned by that for one reason he wasn't planning before an engagement, per se at least, and for a second reason he wasn't in a battle... per se given the lack of skill from what he faced so far. At the very least he had no immediate concerns... sans finding his students of course. It was the realities of what happens afterward, when the rogue shinobi are subdued, that was of concern in Kakashi's mind.
Their ship was ruined and there wasn't nothing but ice all around...
Cold...
Frozen...
Solid...
Water...
Smack!
And mosquitoes for reasons beyond him.
Carving a ship out of the from the ice could possibly work... it was also likely it would melt long before they made it to a rock, no matter how thick they made the hull. Not to mention sailing such a craft would be an issue by itself. Building one from scrap or even from the wreckage was obviously out of the question lest they have a riot on their hands if they managed to make so much as a cumbersome smaller craft of the once behemoth, which in itself would hold much less people than the original ship. With any luck the iceberg that was the island was already drifting towards a shipping lane, but he wasn't holding his breath on that. And no ships were in sight...
"Just great," Kakashi groaned as he rubbed the side of his face bearing his good eye.
"KAKASHI-SENSEI!" The man jumped slightly with the abrupt turning of his head to spot Naruto running toward him as fast as his legs could carry him, his face red from exertion.
"Hey Naruto, how are you?" he spoke casually as he gave the heaving, hunching genin with hands on his knees for support a smile with the use of his visible eye. The latter threw his held up, unconcerned about his appearance. "I need your help sensei!" he yelled uncontrollably in his breath strained voice, "Some bastard just made off with Hancock and her sisters!"
Kakashi turned to fully face him and held up his hands to placate the distraught boy. "Calm down Naruto. Take a few deep breaths and tell me who you are talking about and what happened."
(End Flashback!)
XVX
Uzumaki compound
"I'm still stuck here! Come on!" Naruto cried wearily as he continued to wriggle his way out. Movement drew his eye to one of the corners and her growled in annoyance. "I saw your hair Marigold! Can you please get Salome off of me!?"
He didn't receive an answer.
"You guys aren't still mad about this morning are you?"
Silence. Growl of a hungry stomach notwithstanding.
"This is cruel and unusual punishment you know!"
He hung his head and let loose a bone tired sigh. "Can you guys at least get me a bowl of ramen and a pair of chopsticks? I'll figure something out!"
Elsewhere, while paying half minded attention to the whining squall of her adoptive brother, Marigold stuck her head into Hancock's room. "Why do you have Salome pinning Naruto down?" Her confusion, slightly stained in worry now, only grew when she spotted the tattered and ragged jumpsuit belonging to the squirming blond in question.
Whatever answer that was dealt fell upon deaf ears belonging to a busied mind.
XVX
(Flashback!)
Yuki base camp, Iceberg island
"I guess this teaches me for turning my back on Naruto," Kakashi mentally grunted as he locked blades with a more worthy adversary of the rogue shinobi while his student tackled the man that was their antagonist of their latest mission, Doto Kazahana!
"You will pay for your insolence you petulant brat!" the former ruler of the Land of Snow bellowed as he forced a dragon of blackened ice to barrel through a horde of clones. He was a man of blockish features with an enlarged nose to match. His hair was a darker shade of brown compared to most, and the armor he wore was reminiscent to the armor he worn in the last encounter he had with the child... the broken section over the left side of his ribs however proved that it was not of the same quality, nor of the same power of his previous suit as he had used two hands to make individual ice dragons to be used as missiles as opposed to one.
"Yeah right you bastard! Now give up and release everyone you have hostage!" a Naruto barked as he and several other clones charged with drawn kunai.
"Never! Ice Release: Forest of Spears!" The former Daimyo slammed a fist into the ground and willed a quagmire of pointed ice barbs awaiting its charging victims. They only ran around it. "Ice Release: Black Hail!" With his comparitively limited power, Doto turned a scooped up handful of crushed ice and lobbed the darkening ice at a horde of the clones which tore them to shreds. His attention however turned too late to handle the other wave of attackers who were only hastened in retaliation to Doto's assault.
From a trio of ice bound cages, the collective eyes of the Boa sisters only watched on as the Naruto clones, and presumably the genin himself, dog piled the man in a mass of jabs, kicks, and stabs, only to be rebelled with a pillar of the black ice shot through the collection of blonds and even dispelled a number of them. No word was spoken between them, nor replied to the crew of the wrecked ship still trapped in the pit when their continuous cries continued to ask for details of the world above.
As for Kakashi, his hand was coated in lightning which broke through a shielding of ice and even bit into the armor of his opponent.
Naruto, the real one, landed with a pained grunt at a sizable distance between the ex-Daimyo and the hostage sisters. A pained but determined fist clenched tightly and pounded against the ice as he climbed back onto his feet with a trail of blood seeping down his chin from his mouth.
"Give up!" Doto order from afar. "You are no match against me! You were only lucky the last time we faced each other!"
"Heh." Naruto Held his kunai aloft as a grin. "Keep telling yourself that you jerk."
A small pit was carved into the ground beneath Doto's right fist which he brought up to the same level sitting just beneath his shoulder, his fist encased in a swirling mass of cone shaped icicles blackened with malice. "Then the price of your treachery against the true lord of the Land of Snow falls upon your head..." He brought his swirling ball back as he would throw a normal punch. "And theirs!"
Even with the threat of the icicles now launched at him, the genin swerved his head back and gawked to find the sisters sitting in the ice cages behind him and backed all the way back in mild but heavily strained hope to escape the assault unharmed. Even from afar, it looked like they expected the worst to happen despite the small bid to protect themselves. He didn't even need to know how to read lips when the sisters turned to each other and say farewell with eyes laden with nonexistent tears.
The blond hands came together in the one hand seal that became his trademark by those who knew him. "Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
How many clones came into being was unknown and it wasn't from the sheer number alone, it was the amount of smoke that marked their conjuring that concealed their number. The smokescreen only grew in size with the hail of icicles seeking to spill blood tearing into the army of clones.
"Ice Release-"
"RASENGAN!"
Doto's cry of anguish permeated the air followed quickly by a heavy set crash that destroyed the spot of impact for wherever the man landed, and the sisters dared approach the edge of their cages in a attempt to see through the dissipating but heavy cloud of smoke that blocked the view of the battlefield.
"I want you to remember this till the day you die you jerk!" Naruto cried out from beyond the veil, "Naruto Uzumaki DOESN'T GIVE UP!" Even from a distance, they could hear the thud of a body dropping which only coaxed them to press their faces between the bars to see the scene. For Hancock however, she was actually trying to force her head through, either consciously or unconsciously, as dawning fell upon her egged on from a quote of her recent past of over a week ago.
"If you give up, your dreams, and everything else, will end right here!"
The haze began to clear enough for the oldest sister to whisper one word. One wish of rejection of the scene before her. One word laced with the fears of one seeing tragedy which rendered them unable to do a an act as simple as breathing.
"No..."
Naruto Uzumaki, the knucklehead that aided them so far, was on his back with half a dozen icicles digging into his chest.