"Captain? Why are there now two more people with you than when you left?" asked Beckman slowly.
"Itachi here is joining our crew, and Sasuke here is coming with to keep Gale company. Itachi, why don't you follow Lucky Roo down below and find yourself a place to sleep."
Beckman faced his captain. Shanks wouldn't just let kids onto the ship without good reason.
"Sir?"
"Itachi here is an acting liaison with the Fire island's primary shinobi village, and Sasuke is his younger brother. We were about to leave the outlying village when we got word that his clan was wiped out except for Itachi's brother. I'm not about to deny the kid his only remaining family, and Gale could use someone to play with that she won't have to leave behind."
"Why would we need an acting liaison?"
"It was either he act as a scout for the world outside the Elemental islands, or he goes undercover as a traitor of his family. I'd feel better knowing that we gave this poor kid a chance to enjoy his life, even if it means he had to switch careers to do it," said Shanks.
"Is he an able fighter?"
"He was the equivalent of an East Blue marine captain."
Beckman nodded. That was all he needed to know. East Blue was rather tame compared to some of the others, but that only meant the kid had to adjust his style a little before he could fight with the rest of the crew. At best he would be the new acting babysitter for Gale during an encounter with the Marines.
Itachi sweatdropped. How the hell had he gotten himself into this situation?
Oh yes, now he remembered. He had opted to go on an information gathering mission rather than go undercover for who knew how many years acting as a nuke-nin.
But there were days when he wished he had gone to the islands and gone undercover as a spy. This was one of them.
"But Itachi-nii..."
"We want to go with the crew!"
Sasuke and Gale were tag teaming against him while he was stuck watching the ship with the more sane members of the crew and babysitting the kids.
Beckman usually let him read while one of the other crew like Yasopp kept an eye on the kids. But he had gone with the rest of the crew earlier and wouldn't be back for five hours.
Frankly the combination of puppy eyes from eight and a half year old kids was getting to him. Fortunately he knew exactly how to handle this. He was semi-familiar with Kushina Uzumaki, and he remembered one important fact about her.
She was a prankster, and he wanted to make Shanks pay for making him the new unofficial babysitter of the kids.
"Tell you what, if you promise to behave I'll teach you something all shinobi and pirates should know. How does that sound?"
The two cheered in agreement, and Beckman, who had been napping in his private room, woke with a shudder. Something horrible had just happened.
When he caught the two children trying to booby-trap his room, he decided he would rather have them consider him a cohort rather than a victim. Shanks was only partially amused by it later.
"ARG!"
Shanks took one look at his crew, blinked, then double checked he wasn't in Uzushio again.
Nope, still on his ship.
Then he broke down laughing his ass off.
Every single person on the ship had bright Uzumaki-red hair. Every. Single. Person.
Seeing the grinning imps Gale and Sasuke, along with a suspiciously amused Itachi, he had a good idea of the culprits.
"Alright, how did you do it?"
Gale grinned at her father and chirped "Well we're the Red-Hair Pirates right? So how come only me an' you have red hair?"
"So we put red hair dye in all the hair care products on the ship."
"But how did you change the darker toned hair colors?"
"That would be my doing."
"I figured that, but how?"
"Henge."
Shanks laughed even harder. It was a harmless enough prank, though it would be interesting to see what happened if the Marines ever saw an entire ship of red heads.
Then again most of the crew were honorary Uzumaki anyway when the Uzushio council learned Shanks had taught the permanent members how to create seals. So long as they were loyal to Shanks (and therefor to the Uzumaki line) and swore only to pass it on to their children and apprentices, they could live with it.
Besides, who would suspect a crew of pirates lead by an Uzumaki main line to actually know how to draw shinobi seals?
"Marines off the port bow!" shouted the lookout. He had known about the prank but didn't care.
Shanks' grin was predatory.
Itachi didn't need to be told, he took the kids up to the crow's nest and handed them some blank seal tags and a pot of ink to keep them quiet.
Of course if any Marines got halfway up the netting they would spam fireballs at them like no tomorrow. Well, Itachi and Sasuke would. Gale always seemed to overpower the damn things.
Itachi couldn't help his snickering when the Marines took one look at the red hair and immediately assumed that Shanks had found a way to clone himself. It wouldn't be the first time this rumor had come up, but they did wonder why he had bothered to disguise himself as his own crew.
Seeing the limping ship leave with the freshly injured, Itachi decided to release the illusion by tomorrow.
It took the pirates a full month before the hair dye wore off and the tainted products were used up.
Itachi was out drinking with the crew, Shanks having given him the night off.
Beckman, the only sane member he could find, was insuring he didn't make a fool out of himself.
"There's one thing that always baffled me."
"What's that?"
"Why did you name her Gale?"
Beckman sighed.
"Ask Shanks. Originally he wanted to name her 'Maelstrom', but we outvoted it because if spelled with the wrong letters it would read 'fishcake'. Either way, we all agreed Gale fit her perfectly after that storm," said Beckman cryptically.
The next afternoon (once he had gotten over his hangover) he asked Shanks why they had named her Gale.
"Gather round kiddies, it's story time!" said Shanks jokingly.
Gale jumped off the crow's nest and grabbed a rope on the way down out of years of practice. She had an idea of why her dad was calling her down.
Sasuke sat next to his brother, looking infinitely more happy than he had been three years ago. The eleven-year-old had found his niche among the crew after he became fascinated with Dracule Mihawk's sword skills.
Shanks was teaching him how to use a cutlass, but it was pretty clear the boy was more suited to a tachi or longer katana than the usual pirate's sword. Still, Mihawk had agreed to tutor the boy in the art of swordsmanship provided Shanks shut the hell up after having a hangover...and so he could nitpick at Shanks' teaching style.
They two were old friends and cousins, not that they remembered half the time when they were trying to cut each other's face off.
"Alright kiddies, today I'm going to tell you how Gale got her name," said Shanks.
Gale cheered. She loved hearing this story...her dad often told it to her when she was having a bad day and couldn't sleep.
"Gale was only about a year and a half when we came across Reverse Mountain, the entrance to the Grand Line. Now we had gone up that mountain countless times and would likely go up it countless more, but this time was different in that it was Gale's first time up the mountain. And there was a nasty hurricane happening at the time to boot. We had gone up the mountain anyway hoping the storm was a little easier on the other side," said Shanks. Itachi and Sasuke were rapt with attention.
They had gone up the mountain last year and it had only solidified Sasuke's desire to be a pirate after that ride. Itachi had told him he wasn't allowed to join Shanks crew until after Mihawk had trained him or he had a suitably high bounty.
"Now as you three know, everyone has to either use chakra to stay anchored to the boat, go below or have a rope around them at all times during the nasty storms. Gale was too young to use chakra, she refused to stay below, so we tied our best rope around her and let her walk around since she had learned not to be underfoot early on. Halfway up the mountain, there was a massive gust of wind and Gale suddenly went flying, but was held tight by the rope. Everyone scrambled to grab her before she got hurt, but she was too far out."
Shanks remembered that moment. He had been afraid his daughter would slam against something and get hurt, or worse killed. He swore some of his gray hairs had come from that incident alone, and Uzumaki tended to go gray in their eighties, if that. They were a long-lived clan.
"Instead the little mite kept giggling away, grabbing the rope with her stubby hands and swinging around like it was nothing!" laughed Yasopp.
They all had a collective sigh of relief when the girl got tired of bouncing around in the high winds long enough for Shanks to catch her. And he had to be quick about it because a wave had overtaken them almost immediately after landing on the other side.
"After that we had a long discussion about what to name her, because clearly her Uzumaki blood bred true just like it did in her dad," said Beckman. They all knew that the girl was born to the sea, just as Shanks had been.
Shinobi life was a close second, but with the way Jinchuriki were treated by the shinobi the girl really was better off as a pirate.
"I suggested Maelstrom, after the storm we had gone through on the mountain, but I was outvoted after the crew learned that the name 'Naruto' could be misspelled to mean fishcake," said Shanks sheepishly.
"Which was when someone suggested Gale, since it was a gale of wind that nearly took her from us," said Beckman.
"Ironically her elemental affinity is Wind, with a good secondary in Water," said Shanks.
"Wow," said Sasuke, looking at his best friend and sister impressed. He hadn't known she had been giving this crew heart attacks as young as that!
Gale was practically the Uchiha brother's little sister, mostly because she treated Sasuke as his own person, not a younger version of Itachi, and because she reminded Itachi of his little brother. Besides, Itachi was old enough to remember Kushina, who had been a nice aunt to him before the incident.
Itachi however was giving Gale an odd look.
"That does it, we're going to be working on combining elemental chakra next. I want to see how even a mix your wind and water are," he said flatly.
Shanks agreed it was a good idea. He had seen some Hyoton users back before it was nearly wiped out, and they were paying to a visit to Water Island next week if he was right.
This was the first time in a year they were anywhere near the Elemental Islands, mostly because Gale wanted to see the other ones. She had only been to Fire twice.
"Land ho!" shouted Gale eagerly.
The Island of Water was a dismal place, and if it wasn't for the efforts of pretty much the entire crew of the ship, they might have been attacked by Mist Sharks...again. For the third time.
Needless to say Shanks wasn't in the mood to go to the Mist village. Especially after seeing their reaction to Itachi.
Calling a surrogate crew member a monster for his special eyes did not sit well with him...but it had given Sasuke a stark cold reminder that not every village worshiped the kekkei genkai users like Konoha.
They stayed long enough to resupply at most. After seeing how bad the bloodline purges were Shanks had no interest in increasing his crew that much.
However Gale had been aptly named... she blew in with three new shinobi-born that needed a ride off the island before they were killed.
Shanks couldn't resist his daughter's puppy eyes, especially when she broke out the ears and tail to go with it.
So Zabuza Momochi (who was about as evil as Mihawk whenever some moron woke him up from a perfectly good nap), Haku (someone who looked like either a girl or a disturbingly girly boy) and Kimimaro (who had followed Gale like a puppy when she shared her lunch with him) joined the crew.
Itachi was just glad to have someone help him train Gale in her water element, since he was more of a fire element.
"Next stop, Wind Island," said Shanks firmly. They were gone before the Mist nin had a chance to find out Zabuza and two new bloodline users were on the ship. He promptly put the permanent Water Island log pose in an area he had designated for dangerous islands.
It was mostly a chest full of the odd compass creations that Shanks felt were too much of a headache to return to.
The islands he liked the best were on a shelf where they wouldn't fall over and be smashed. Among them were Uzushio, Fire, Mihawk's island and one that belonged to a new restaurant called the Baratie on the East Blue.
Gale had gotten along smashingly with a kid who had gotten on Shanks nerves because of how often he flirted with her, to Zeff's open amusement.
The only reason he hadn't worried about that brat Sanji was because when Gale had tried his ramen she had immediately declared herself off limits until he learned to cook. In the boy's effort to woo his daughter, he had put the wrong spice in the bowl and Gale had to get some milk to stop the burning.
Gale was very, very serious about her ramen. Almost as serious as that kid who had accidentally eaten their Gum-Gum fruit before Shanks could sell it had been about being a pirate.
He could have sworn he had seen that kid's face before, but it hadn't been until they were on the Grand Line that he realized why Luffy had looked so damn familiar.
He was Dragon's son and Garp's grandson.
If there was ever someone Shanks wouldn't make a fuss about Gale dating, it was Luffy. The kid was an idiot (much like Gale was on occasion) but he had a heart of gold and he had good genes.
He was just thanking the Rikudo Sannin that Machiko (the woman who ran the bar on the island Luffy lived on) had taken pity on a poor pirate captain who's daughter was an early bloomer on a ship without any other female influence (barring Haku who also got the 'Talk'). He didn't want to go through that hell twice...he had been unfortunate to be around when Kushina finally hit puberty.
Thank the Sage Gale thought of the crew as her family and wasn't interested in them!
Just so we're clear here, Shanks still has both arms. When the bandit went to grab Luffy while the pirates were away, Itachi killed him. Gale had stayed behind to hang out with Luffy some more because she knew they would have to move on to the next set of islands and she felt sort of sorry for him because he had eaten the fruit by mistake. Gale and Itachi were showing Luffy how to throw a proper punch when the bandits showed up again.
Shanks still gave him his hat and Luffy still admires the Red-Haired pirates for saving him that day.
However he also has someone to write to using the postal birds that live on every island.