SOTS

East Blue...

.

"Aww come on! Do a little trick for us!"

"Yeah, yeah! Like what you did back with the marines!"

Annoyance…

That was what an eyebrow twitching, incredibly frustrated, Naruto Uzumaki felt as under the guise of his Fox Henge, annoying crew mates were treating him like their pet - telling him to do stupid tricks for food - and while he was tempted to just dismiss his jutsu and smack the shit out of them, he knew revealing himself now wasn't the smart thing to do, especially if he wanted to have the crew see him in a positive light, something he needed to happen to make his transition into the crew all the more smoother.

It's been two days since his infiltration, and while it was quite easy to discern the personality of everyone on the ship - Nami was the money loving thief and navigator, unhesitant of using her charms and devilishly good looks to getting her way; Usopp was the inventive liar and sniper who tended to try and shy away from most fights; Sanji was the perverted cook, complacent with serving women more than men; Zoro was the broody swordsman and weight lifting enthusiast and finally Luffy, well he was the hyperactive Captain overconfident in his ability to protect his friends and attain his dream of being Pirate King - it was very difficult for him, however, not to angrily snap at them each time they did something that annoyed him.

Dragon wouldn't be happy.

Patience was one of the many things Dragon-sensei pounded into him when he was still a young teenager learning about himself and his growing prowess. His impatience led him to a lot of failures and a lot of explosions when creating and trying out various new jutsu, or techniques; the man had decided to teach him a lesson he could still remember many years later because of the large impact said lesson had in his prowess' growth.

A little patience can take you a long way…

"Will you two…"

Naruto mentally smirked, watching from his spot as Nami crept upon the two bothering him: Usopp and Luffy. The blonde took great pleasure as he watched the bumps grow from their head similar to how a bump would grow from his own head each time Sakura or Grandma Tsunade would get their hands on him for doing something stupid or saying something out of term.

"Shut up and bothering him!"

It was nice to not be on the receiving end of that.

"Oi, guys…"

Naruto turned up to spot Zoro who was sitting on the crow's nest. The three-sword style user was looking down at them from his height with a pair of binoculars in his hands. He liked Zoro because the swordsman was one of the few who didn't always bother him.

"I see something strange nearby!"

"What?"

Naruto, turning with Nami, Usopp and Luffy saw where Zoro was pointing with his binoculars which were snatched by Luffy's Gomu-Gomu no Mi abilities. The disguised blonde didn't need such type of enhancements because from his spot he could perfectly see what the others were struggling to make out thanks to his awesome eyesight.

"It's a flock of birds, I can see them off to starboard!"

The disguised blonde's eyes narrowed because that wasn't just what he saw.

'What's a little girl doing stranded in a row boat this far out in sea?'

He looked at Nami and barked…

"Yip, yip!"

"I hear when seabirds flock over the ocean…"

Sanji stepped out from the kitchen, leaning back on the mast as he looked at the direction Zoro pointed out.

The cook was the one who spoke.

"It's usually because there's a school of fish around."

"Yip!"

"Yeah Kyū-chan, we see the food too."

'Ugh…'

The disguised blonde mentally sighed in annoyance, as the redhead tenderly petted him.

"Luffy, catch us some lunch."

"Gotcha!"

And as he watched Luffy stretch his hand to pull in the item on the boat, the disguised man couldn't help but think that maybe infiltrating the crew as a fox, wasn't as clever as he'd thought in the long run, because while he got some major perks out of it, the downsides of being a cute little fox were much more frustrating than the upsides.

'Patience is all well and good, but I'm starting to see why Tora-chan was as nasty as she was.'

[Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or One Piece…]

[Chapter Two: Here there be Dragons…]

A nose twitched.

'What smells so good?! Wait…'

It twitched again.

Food?

Why was there food when the last thing she remembered was…

Apis' eyes snapped open with a gasp.

'Marines!'

She suddenly snapped up from her rather comfortable bed, with every intention of fleeing her holdings, unfortunately…

*SMACK!*

She knocked into someone with her small head.

"OUCH!"

"You're quite lively when you're up."

Turning her throbbing head to the source of the voice, Apis saw herself looking at a number of strangers sitting in what seemed to be a dining area. They were all looking at her with creepy - at least to her - smiles on their faces.

"Yip!"

Blinking at the small bark, she looked down by her side only to see the blue eyes of a baby fox looking up at her. She was overwhelmed by its cuteness; a great factor in what neutralized the fear she was supposed to be feeling. it was why she snatched it up from the ground and tightly hugged it to her chest, squealing.

"Kawai!"

Squeezing it with all she got, somehow made all her worries and concern disappear. Feeling the fur of the cute little fox brush against her cheek filled her with a sense of comfort that she rarely ever had, hence her ever more intense squeezing of the cute little fox.

"Isn't he?

Apis looked up from her hugging of the fox to the one who spoke, the redheaded female and instantly, she gained a defensive look… shying the fox away from them.

"I thought the same thing when I first laid my eyes on him. It's why I adopted him in the first place."

"I bet you're hungry…"

This one came from the blonde-haired man next to the stove.

"I'm cooking up some soup now."

Apis' eyes narrowed.

"Were you in a shipwreck?" She glanced at the orange haired female who spoke. "You were really in trouble out there. What's your name?"

"When you ask someone's name, you're supposed to say your own first." Apis stated defensively in retort. "Who are you guys?"

"Ok." The grin on the orange haired female gained a suspicious hint to it. "My name is Nami. The guy making the soup is Sanji. The guy with the mean face and a waistband is Zoro-

"Shut up."

-and, the guy lying unconscious is Usopp." Nami continued, ignoring Zoro's comment. She was motioning to all the people she called out vocally. "The fox in your hand is Kyū."

And Apis paused, taking note of all the people the redhead introduced, before glancing at the fox in her hands.

"Kyū?"

"Yip!"

Her eyes narrowed at the fox. Literally, she was supposed to understand that, able to hear the human-English translation of that bark because it was her specialty but for some reason, she couldn't quite get a grasp on what the little fox tried to say.

She wondered why.

"I'm Luffy; The Captain of this Pirate Ship."

Wait…

Apis suddenly froze as her entire world came to a stop.

"We're heading to the grand line."

'PIRATES?!'

"..."

"..."

"..."

In confusion, Luffy scratched his head.

"What's wrong? Why isn't she moving?"

Zoro opened up a single eye, looking at the frozen girl.

"What are we going to do about her?"

"Luffy?"

Said Captain shrugged.

"I'll think about it tomorrow."

'WHY ME?!'

Cut scene: Apis - Middle of the night.

She knew it was too good to be true Apis thought, as was huddled in a corner covered in the bed sheets she woke up under. First, she was taken from her homes by marines who wanted her to take them where the elixir of youth was held, torturing her day by day when she refused to tell them anything. Then after she managed to escape, she was captured by pirates who would no doubt want the same thing for her so much that they probably were willing to poison her with food for info.

* Groan *

When was the last time she had any?

Food…

Apis held her groaning stomach in pain.

'Ugh…'

She was in the ship's storage area currently, far away from where those pirates could reach. It also gave her the freedom to move about as she wanted to, that was why with a small wince, she got up from her spot and quietly made the journey to the kitchen, however, she cursed her luck when she heard the sounds of munching coming from her destination.

She froze, even more so as she felt a hand rest on her shoulder.

"You know…"

Gulping, she slowly turned around and looked up to see the face of a smiling blonde looking up at her.

"It's not nice to sneak up on people like that."

And the next thing she knew, was darkness as she fell into the realm of unconsciousness.

The next time she woke up, she looked around found herself back where she was hiding from the pirates except she wasn't alone because there, sitting on one of the many crates, was the smiling face of the blonde she caught in the kitchen whose hands were out in a wave.

"Yo."

That was when she let out a loud...

"KYAAAAAAAAAA!"

…scream.

"Jeez, calm down I'm not going to hurt you," Said the spiky haired blonde, wincing, as he was cleaning his hypersensitive ears that were still ringing from the volume of the vocal attack. "You're lucky I placed silencing seals around the room so that no one could've been woken up from that."

Apis, meanwhile, was visibly frightened, shaking at the sight of this unfamiliar man. She was scared of the pirates, sure, but this man wasn't part of those that Nami introduced to her earlier so of course she was scared of him more than the pirates.

She gulped.

"W-who… who're you?"

"Well..."

The man brought the crate he was sitting on closer to her, earning a flinch in response which caused him to sigh. Maybe this wasn't the right way to approach her and he should've stayed disguised the man thought, but it was too late to do anything about that now… not that the little girl could pick up on that, maybe.

"Believe it or not, I'm 'Kyū-chan'; you weren't this afraid of me back when I was a cute little fox."

The man made a hand sign and transformed into the white fox that she was more familiar with.

"If you feel more comfortable, we can talk like this "

No, she did not feel more comfortable, in fact it made the situation with her even worse, and the fact that she somehow knew that this was the same fox she was hugging moments earlier? Well that was what struck a chord of even fear.

"Try not to be afraid…"

Apis flinched.

The fox sighed, meanwhile, before hopping off the crate, walking behind it to pick up something and as it came around, the sandy haired blonde girl noticed that it was a silver tray with some snacks that made her stomach grumble in greedy hunger. Cautiously, she watched as the fox carefully dropped it before with a mighty heave, it jumped, landing on the crate he was sitting on before with a hop.

She watched as the fox returned to his sitting position.

"The others don't know that I'm really not a fox, so let's keep it that way until I decide to reveal my true self to them."

She eyed the food suspiciously, before eyeing the 'fox', not knowing what to think any more, but the grumble in her stomach told her what she wanted now; that was why she grabbed one of the two delicious looking rice balls on the plate and ate it, slowly savoring the taste, which earned a knowing smirk from the fox.

"Yeah, Sanji's cooking has a way to grow on you, doesn't it?"

The girl nodded happily, greedily munching on her snack until she was done and reached for the other rice ball. Before she put it in her mouth however, she paused while her eyes narrowed in no doubt, what was suspicion as she looked at the fox in front of her.

"Who are you?" She asked. "And why're you being so nice to me?"

"Consider me being nice just being a part of who I am and as for exactly who I am?"

The fox shrugged.

"Well for now, let's keep that a secret, but I can tell you this: The straw hats aren't bad people. They can be sorta goofy and annoying sometimes, but they are alright so give them a chance, and I'm sure you'll find out that they can be quite nice to hang around with, Apis-chan."

And with that, the fox disappeared in a streak of yellow, leaving a surprised Apis alone in her thoughts.

'Just…'

She munched on the rice ball she put in her mouth.

'Who was he?'

And the better question, could she trust his words?

Should she?

The girl frowned.

Well it's either that, and hope that he isn't wrong, or do nothing and wait for those pirates to come and do whatever they wanted to do to her come morning, something she couldn't allow. Looks like she was going to have to go with plan A then; but still…

* munch *

The fox-man was right; this Sanji knew how to make his food.

Cut scene: The Next Day

Angrily, Sanji's eyebrow twitched.

Gathered around him were the rest of the crew sitting in the dining hall but he wasn't interested in all of them as he was interested in the tied-up man in front of him, the tied-up Straw Hat wearing Captain, Monkey D. Luffy.

"I'll ask you again,"

Sanji snapped his leg at Luffy's neck, sending the tied-up captain hurtling towards the wall behind him. He walked up to the downed Captain and grabbed his cheek, pulling him up to the level of his angrily glaring eyes.

"Was it you that cleaned up my refrigerator?"

"N-no!"

And once more, Luffy was knocked to the ground.

Clapping his hands together, Sanji turned to Nami with an expression of mock sadness.

"A-ah Nami-chan," He started, "It seems that my giant mouse trap has no effect on keeping away this idiot from the fridge; can I have please some pocket money to install a lock instead? Because at this rate, we'll all starve to death before we can reach the Grand Line."

"Fine, fine. I'll see what I can do." Nami replied, waving her hand in casual dismissal while her other hand petted the fox sitting on her lap. She wore a bored look on her face as she watched the cook deal with the idiot captain, speaking of which... "I just realized that we have a stow away on board," she stated. "Luffy, until we decide on what to do with her, we can't go to the Grand Line. What're we going to do?"

"We could offer to drop her off in her home island?" Usopp offered. He was sitting next to Nami with a little bandage on his chin from the bruise he got yesterday. "I mean, sure, there's that option, but we don't even know where that is, and it's not like she's going to tell us anything anytime soon."

"Well, why don't we ask her?" Zoro suggested. As like with Nami, he too wore a bored expression on his face, as he sat on the same space he sat on the day before. "Seeing as she's been listening to our conversation for a while right over there."

"Eep!"

And at that noise, the crew turned in unison, to the source of the noise and saw that it came from said girl in question, who - like Zoro stated - had indeed been peeking in on their conversation. The door opening revealed her figure fully, and while they could see that she was still startled from being called out, the more observant ones of the crew noted that the little girl wasn't as scared as she was when she realized that she was sharing the same space as a bunch of pirates.

"Ah," Nami smiled. "There you are; I was beginning to think that after what happened yesterday, you wouldn't show up at all." The redhead walked up to the girl, bending down to offer her hand to the downed female - of course she was intent on helping the little girl up. "Here, let me help you with that."

"U-um…" The little girl hesitated, but then she had discreetly looked at the fox in the room who tilted his head in response to her stare - which she took as a positive sign - before accepting the hand offered. "Thank you."

"Oh, and don't worry about yesterday." Nami added as Luffy got up from the ground and took his place on the table. "We're pirates so it's natural for you to have that kind of reaction; but I can tell you now, we're nothing like those stereotypical pirates you're afraid of. What's your name?"

"A-Apis, my name is Apis."

"Well Apis, I hope we can be good friends."

The little girl smiled. She was glad that she listened to what the fox-man had said and decided to trust these pirates because it seemed that they weren't as bad as she initially made them out to be in the first place. She could live with that.

"So, Apis-chan…" She turned to see the one that spoke, Sanji? Yeah, that seemed right; Sanji was the name of the man with the curly eyebrows. "I hate to ask but what manner of circumstances led to you being shipwrecked somewhere very close to the Grand Line?"

Apis frowned.

"Well…"

She wanted to fully trust them, tell them why she was being chased in the first place, but what are the chances that once they heard her reasons, they won't be after the same things her pursuers were after?

"I-I…"

Luckily, she was saved from answering when Usopp came bursting into the room with a look of panic all over his face. He'd left the room sometime after his question was 'answered' to check out their sailing progress and now, he was back, with distressing news it seemed… let's hear what he has to say.

"Everyone," He started "Terrible news! We're being attacked by marines, and I'm not talking about two or three here!"

Uh-oh…

Everyone rushed outside to the deck to see if what Usopp said was the truth and much to their shock and worry, he was indeed correct. Not one, two, or three marine battle ships were closing in on them but a total of seven.

Crap…

"W-why are they so many of them out here?"

"I bet they've come for my head!"

"But even so, why have that many?"

"A-ah!"

Meanwhile, Apis' eye widened and she started to shake in fear, as she saw the number on one of the ships sails, before dropping to the ground and shuffling back as far away from the approaching ships as possible.

This was immediately picked up from the crew.

"Apis?"

"Those ships, they're from the eight division! Those are the marines I ran away from!"

.

Onboard the main marine vessel that was accompanied by six others, a marine officer stood out from the rest, and he was walking out of his quarters and onto the deck of his ship, ignoring the many salutes sent his way.

"Major! Ship sighted at 1 o'clock! Medium Caravel class! There's a Skull marking atop the main mast!"

"Pirates, eh?"

The major tilted his head, sighing in annoyance.

"Barging into Admiral Nelson's jurisdiction… they must be insane." He looked at his assembled men, no doubt waiting for his choice to proceed or otherwise. Good men. "They must be a bunch of weaklings, ignore them!"

"Actually, that mark doesn't belong to any weakling."

The major turned to the source of the voice who spoke, a lanky man with an oddly shaped purple hair.

"I believe that the vessel itself belongs to Straw Hat Luffy, the man with a 30, 000, 000 berri bounty on his head." The purple haired man stated. "Even with all these ships, we have yet to have any success in our search. It's quite possible that someone else picked up the girl; and what's more, the fact that they're such a well-known pirate crew means that it will be unwise to ignore them." He concluded. "Seize the ship!"

"It's her, there she is!"

The major and the purple haired man looked up at the look out, following his announcement.

"I can see a small girl on the deck!"

"What?"

"So, it was just as I said, major."

Said man growled, earning a smirk in return.

"Did I perhaps injure your pride? If due to your blundering, that girl - the key to the elixir of life, the Ryuukotsu - were to be lost in any way or form, well… I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how upset Admiral Nelson would be…"

Angrily, the major grit his teeth.

"READY CANNONS! We're seizing that pirate ship!"

"Yes sir!"

.

"Ahh! They've started shooting!"

Going Merry shook from the aftershock of the fired cannons missing them. It was a near miss but it was still damn terrifying to have that many ships targeting you all at once with no room to escape what so ever.

"Attention Pirate vessel, stop your ship immediately! You've had your warning shot; the next round will not miss!"

Usopp was terrified, logically, but he stood his ground.

"Like hell we're gonna stop."

"What're we going gonna do Luffy?"

Zoro walked up to his Captain, standing next to the straw hat wearing male.

"If you're gonna fight them, do it now."

"Yeah, let's fight!"

"You idiot!"

Nami slapped Luffy at the back of his head.

"Even if we do end up fighting, they're too many of them for us to take on! We can't do this without the ship getting damaged in the process!"

"Maybe you can't,"

At once the crew paused, wondering where that male voice came up from, however Kyū hopped on the railing of the merry, earning a surprised look from Nami as she saw the fox looking back at all of them with a smirk.

"But I can."

"Kyū?"

A cloud of smoke erupted from all around the fox and when it died down, it cleared out, it wasn't the smirking face of their four-footed companion they were looking at but instead, the smirking face of a spiky haired blonde with a trio of whiskers around his cheek, standing on a very big green feathered hawk.

"Actually, it's Naruto."

The blonde turned around, facing the marines.

"And don't worry about the ship; I've got this."

And with that, he took off, leaving a very surprised crew behind, leaving them all with a very similar train of thought.

'What the hell… just happened?'

End.

Authors Note: Chapter Two is complete, and posted and Naruto has revealed himself to the crew except, it's not when they're confronting Laboon. Now before I get some shit in this chapter, let me make it clear; I know that the arc I'm currently writing is a filler arc but this arc needs to happen for Naruto to earn himself a place on the crew before confronting the great whale. Why did I use this route instead of letting Naruto join the crew as his human form? Well, I needed him to do this so that certain things can happen that might change the course of the story eventually, but not by too much. The hawk isn't a summon of Naruto, instead, it's a friend/companion of his he nursed back to health when said hawk appeared as a chick to him. As to why the hawk is big? Well, Devil Fruit, obviously.

Other Notes: The Naruto now residing in this universe was from an AU Narutoverse, just to note; he still has the same backstory but there are things prior to that which might've occurred differently in said universe than they did in the Cannon universe.

Shout Out: I'd like to give a huge thanks to VT Creator for helping me with this chapter as he did with the last. I suggest that you go to his profile and check out his stories as they're really good. He's the one who gave me the idea for the title of the chapter; I swear his doesn't get the attention he deserves.