Disclaimer: One Piece is the property of Eiichiro Oda. Many of the characters in this story are property of me. Do not use this story or its characters without my permission. Thank you.


Araly watched the rolling mast chase the bounty hunters from the rooftops with and expectedly bored face, as if she'd seen it all before. She ignored it and started back on her journey to the square, where she hoped to find the crew that could take her in to safety, and she hurried. The rain was picking back up again.

She was out of fabric to use to help her get from roof to roof, but at least she was light again. The backpack was still clinging to her back and weighting her down just enough that every jump seemed dangerously short. The rain was starting to very slowly clear the fog, so she tried to spot the Tavern from where she was.

"Ah!" She exclaimed smiling. A long, tall, dark silhouette of familiarity rose up from the clearing fog. Before she started sprinting, she considered her actions carefully. The possibility that the pirates were still fighting the bounty hunters was lingering in the air. Her loneliness and exhaustion won out however, so she made a compromise. "I'll just get close enough so that they'll see me, but I'll stay on the roof."


The bounty hunters in the maze were completely flabbergasted. According to their maps, they should have left at least seventeen times by now. Every potential exit was either sealed or led nowhere. Tensions were running high as the army of anxious men started to randomly wander about. Every once in a while, another group would unite with another, but there were much fewer people in the growing groups now then when they had started off.

The largest group casually walked down a wide ravine in the maze, unknowing of their comrades' fate. Every finger was on a hair trigger, and every sword was already half drawn. Every man was sweating and walking slowly, twitching occasionally.

Rounding the corner ahead of the group were two men, armed with swords. One was slightly taller with black hair in a ponytail and thick sideburns down his stone-cold face. He was wearing a sort of robe that was tucked into some wide pants that ended in wooden sandals. One sword in each hand, with one pointed downwards and the other resting on his shoulder.

The second man was smiling deviously. He had short hair with a long but thin ponytail in the back. He was wearing a plain gray shirt with 'CrImInAl' printed on it and similarly large pants that were tucked into boots. He dragged his sword, longer than he was tall, along on the ground behind him.

"Oi, Musashi?" The short one said.

"Yes Kojiro?" the man named Musashi replied.

"Have you been keeping track?"

"Yes 27"

Kojiro gasped loudly with an equally wide mouth "27! How in hell did you get that many already? I've only taken out 25 of these punk!"

"It doesn't matter," Musashi replied calmly, "because we are working toward the same goal."

"It does too matter," Kojiro seethed. "I have to be the better swordsman!"

"Hey! You two!" One eager bounty hunter yelled. "Are you two pirates or what?"

Musashi and Kojiro looked at each other, then started walking apart and towards the group. Kojiro closed his eyes and threw his weapon onto his shoulder, as Musashi paced slowly to the group's side.

"Well, it doesn't really matter," Kojiro said with a smug smile. "I can still make up for lost ground now, right?"

"Hey! Answer us, dammit!" The same hunter now demanded with his gun pointing. "Who are you with?" Both men stopped having gotten to their respective positions to sandwich the group of hunters.

"That information," Musashi began calmly, "is irrelevant to a corpse." Musashi pointed with his one sword directly at the man who had been speaking with the other resting still on his shoulder. Kojiro had his massive sword aimed directly at one poor man's throat as he held it loosely with both hands.

The hunters started to quiver and whimper, none wanting to break the momentary peace of the silence. Finally, the silence broke as one hunter started screaming and charging with his sword held overhead at Musashi. Then, the screaming was silent. Musashi was beside Kojiro across the threshold of bounty hunters with both swords pointed to the sides.

"Show off." Kojiro spat.

"28" Musashi said while he got back into his previous pose. The hunter that had charged him crashed down to the ground from the air with white eyes of fear and a nasty series of cuts on his torso. The hunters looked down at their comrade, then back up to the deadly pirates. The commander of the hunters clenched his teeth and raised his own sword.

"KILL THEM!" With that order the hunters charged at the two samurai, who stood silently and analytically before the incoming wave of men that were already dead to them.

"I can beat you, but it won't be fun." Kojiro said jokingly.

"Fun is irrelevant as long as we win" Musashi replied.


The army of bounty hunters was getting anxious. No word form the group that was supposed to press from the labyrinth, no sign of their terrifying leader, no pirates were even trying to attack directly. It was boring and murderous on the minds of most of the hunters. Those still unconscious shook in terror as the memories of that brutal attack flashed through their heads.

The storm was already picking up, as was apparent by the building waves that crashed steadily over the outlying ships. All of the wounded and most of the ready men waited inside of their respective ships so they wouldn't get sick, but the churning waters were brining in a new sickness that they couldn't get rid of easily.

A rushing of stomping feet was heard over the soft but building sound of the rain. One hunter picked himself up from his drunken stupor and waddled over to the side of the boat he was on. He cupped a hand to his ear to listen carefully, now positive that someone was coming. Within the next second, however, his body started shouting at him that standing while intoxicated was a bad idea and the man quickly overcame to what he thought was motion sickness.

"Here're the ship! MOVE IT OUT!" A reckless voice shouted. The reply was a chorus of 'Aye aye's and 'Roger's. Feet started stamping quickly across the wooden decks, and the last thing the drunkard pirate remembered was trying to look up at what was hitting him with something metal.

"Booyah!" the overly excited female pirate shouted as she finished beating up another defenseless bounty hunter. A small explosion was heard one ship over, so she rushed over to see what was going on. Through the fog she could see six figures tentatively pacing around one man swinging a giant, thick looking sword over his head.

It was Rez, who had just finished wiping out the forces that had been occupying the ship previous to his entrance. These six men were now deeply regretting coming over to try and help the others, as this new opponent was just too good. Suddenly, Rez threw his weapon up, still spinning, and quick-drew his smaller gunblades.

Six shots in the frame of less than a second, long before the hunters even knew they were shot. The last image that met with the frightened men was the fading shot of the young man that fell them catching and effortlessly sheathing his massive weapon. Rez smiled and jumped over and across to the adjacent ship to join up with the men that were about to ravage it.

"I could've done that" one pirate jested. Rez smirked and chuckled.

"Oi! They've brought friends!" the female pirate shouted from a ship or two over. The rest of the pirates raced over that heard her and looked to where she had been pointing with her rifle. The dark shadow of some huge vessel had sneaked up on them and infiltrated the outer harbor. It was a warship, the worst case scenario. Rez sneered and prayed that someone had a plan for this.


The Kappa, the Ninpo Pirate's ultimate subterfuge weapon, was still intaking and outputting water underneath the already churning waves, but at half the pace. Such a speed would be insufficient to creating any kind of current significant enough to alter the course of a warship.

Sasuke, having escaped certain death by the hair of a frog, had laid himself on the ground to breathe for a while, but the constant stream of doubtful thoughts gave him no peace. How had he been discovered? Is it possible that the Ninpo Pirates had been uncovered at some point and some renegade moron was trying to stop them? At a length, Sasuke decided that he had no answers to his questions and assumed only the worst: They had lost.

"Captain!" a female voice called. Sasuke sat up and looked over to see the his beautiful first mate, Kaede, racing over along the ragged mountain rocks. "Captain, are you hurt?" She whined.

"I'm alright, I just got shot by a cannon. What about you?" Sasuke asked sympathetically.

"I'm glad that you're okay. And I assume that because you are here the samurais are in the labyrinth, correct?" She continued. Sasuke nodded and looked out to sea, right at the warship he had failed to stop.

"What will we do, Kaede? The lives of countless pirates and years of progress are about to be wiped out." Sasuke somberly mused. Kaede giggled softly to herself. "Huh? What's funny?" Sasuke asked.

Kaede pointed out to sea and Sasuke's eyes followed her. He gasped openly under his mask as he saw something in the water. Something that renewed his hope of victory and rekindled his ambition into a building ember.

"No way!" he exclaimed. He was observing, if his eyes were correct, a man in a rowboat rowing out to confront the warship in the water, and it seemed as though he had gone completely unnoticed. Sasuke couldn't hold himself back any longer, and joined Kaede in a brief bout of laughter. There was hope after all.


"Dammit!" Zan cursed. "Of all the frickin' thing's she has me do, I gotta row all the way out here." He grunted several times in time with his rowing motion and continued to complain "and without and cigarettes!" Zan muttered under his breath as his tiny boat crept ever closer to the comparatively colossal warship.