Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, One Piece or How to Train Your Dragon. All characters and their affiliations are owned by their respective creators. I am not making money off of this work of fiction. The characters Rock and Rain do belong to me.

A Family of Outlaws

Chapter Ten: An Enemy Like Naraku

Rain looked from one Straw Hat pirate to the next. They were all giving her various signs of their approval. They either had huge grins, thumbs up, soft smiles, a smirk, cheering and dancing or had wrapped around her legs.

Rain looked down to where Chopper had reattached himself. "I'm so glad that you're staying," he said. He had tears in his eyes still. "I was so afraid that you would leave us."

Rain sighed and smiled at everyone. She then got down low enough to look Chopper in the eye. "You're captain gave a very compelling argument," she said.

Chopper looked confused for a minute. "All he did was tell you that he decided you were a part of the crew."

"Exactly."

Realization dawned on Chopper's face and he started laughing. It was a silly reason, but it always seemed to work for Luffy. It was hard to debate with someone so set to get his way. Chopper was reminded of the time he had tried to change Luffy's mind and he was told to 'shut-up'. His and Rain's experiences weren't so different.

"Where are you going Leader?" Sabo's voice came from the dock.

The Straw Hats looked to see Dragon and Kagome boarding the Thousand Sunny. "I need a vacation," Dragon replied. "I think the best way to do that is to spend some time with my wife, son and his friends."

"But the Army is getting ready to launch into a full scale war against the World Government," Sabo said. "You can't just leave us right at this crucial moment."

"You're more then capable of handling things while I'm gone," Dragon said. "You wouldn't want to take this opportunity away from me, would you?" Dragon glanced over his shoulder and stared at Sabo.

Sabo closed his eyes and shook his head. A smirk was on his face when he looked up. "You and Luffy have completely different personalities," he pointed out. "But the two of you are both as stubborn and unmovable as a Sea King Turtle." He then tossed a rolled up parchment to Dragon. "You should see that before you go. That was in yesterdays paper. Having knowledge and being prepared are the best tools in a war."

Dragon opened the paper and looked at it's contents. A smirk formed on his face. He pulled Kagome closer and kissed her on the temple. "You're debut caused quite a stir," he chuckled.

Kagome looked over at the paper he was reading. It was a wanted poster with her picture on it. She snatched it out of Dragon's grasp. "'For the Crime of Marrying an Outlaw and Giving Birth to One'! What kind of messed up excuse is that?"

Luffy stretched his neck from where he was and looked over Kagome's shoulder. "Ten Million Beri Bounty," he announced.

"All that just for having a family," Sanji tisked. "What will the Marines think of next?"

"They want to give me a bounty?" Kagome growled. "I will give them a reason to put a bounty on me." At her tone everyone took a step back.

"Now that's what I like to hear," Dragon said. He pulled Kagome closer for a kiss.

"GET A ROOM!" Rain shouted out. She bolted when Kagome shot her a look.

Luffy was smiling when he gave the order to set sail. "Finally," Law muttered. He gave a nod to Penguin as the signal to follow the Sunny.

~ After a few hours spent at sea Kagome approached an area of the ship where she could talk to both Luffy and Law. "Where are we going next?" she asked.

"We're going to take out Blackbeard," Luffy announced.

"Hey! Straw Hatter! That was not what the plan was," Law argued. "We're going after Kaido."

"We can't do that now," Luffy argued back. "Sabo is in danger. Blackbeard is after the one with the Flare-Flare fruit powers. He sent one of his crew to the Collesium to try and win it. He wants the power that Ace had for his own."

"I thought Sabo ate the fruit," Kagome said. "That means that the only way anyone can get a hold of it again will be if he dies."

"Exactly," Luffy pointed out. "Blackbeard killed Whitebeard. Right after he died Blackbeard did something. He hid himself under a black cloak so I couldn't see what, but he managed to gain Whitebeard's power. He now has the devil fruit powers of darkness and of Tremors. Who knows how many more he's absorbed in two years."

"Absorbed?" Kagome's face started to go white.

"Is something wrong Mom?" Luffy asked.

"It's just that I've seen something like this before," she said. "Law, I think you and another member of your crew should board Sunny. I'm calling a meeting that you might want to hear." Knowing better than to argue, Law nodded and motioned for Bepo to follow him to the other ship.

Every member of the Straw Hats, Dragon, Law, Bepo and Kagome were in the lounge of the Sunny. Kagome was pacing back and forth. "I need to hear more about this Blackbeard character," she said.

"He's one of the Four Pirate Emperors now," Dragon said. "Ever since he killed Whitebeard he's been on a single-minded mission of recruiting devil fruit users, by persuasion or other means. If he can't get them to join then he kills them."

"You know that for a fact?" Kagome asked.

Dragon shook his head sadly. "It's only speculation," he admitted. "Devil fruit users that confront him either work under him now or they vanish without a trace. He killed Whitebeard just before he stole his power. It's a safe assumption that the missing people have been killed."

"This is not good," Kagome muttered. She kept up her pacing.

Rain had enough, she stood up and got in Kagome's way when she turned around again. "You've told me the story often enough," she said. "Would you like me to tell it or would you like to brace yourself and tell the story on your own?"

Kagome took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. "I'll be able to handle it," she finally said. As she steadied herself, Kagome turned to the others. This time she looked everyone in the eye. "Not many of you know about my past," she started.

"I was born in a world vastly different from this one. The main source of transportation was not by ship, but by a land vessel called an automobile. Almost all of the lands are big enough that automobiles are a neccessary way of life. The cities are huge with buildings reaching up to the clouds." Several murmurs of disbelief was heard.

Kagome ignored the whispers and continued. "When I was fifteen I was attack by a demon." Zoro looked like he was going to speak, but Kagome beat him. "No Zoro, I do not mean a human that behaved like a demon. I mean an actual, living demon. Her name was tue to her form, Mistress Centipede. She had the torso and face of a human woman. Below she had the legs and length of a centipede, if they grew fifty feet long. At any rate, Mistress Centipede attacked me. She said something about a jewel and pulled me into an old well on my family's shrine. It was called 'The Bone Eaters Well'. That was because people would throw the bones of demons inside and they would disappear.

"As I was falling into the well it started to glow blue around the demon and I. She still had a hold of me, so I reached my hand out to try and block her from my person. That was the first time I ever used reiki. The blast not only knocked her away from me, but also ripped her arm off.

"When I landed, softly I might add, I was in a different time. I was still in the same place, just five hundred years or so in the past. There I met with the villagers and they took me in. While I was talking with their priestess the demon attacked again, looking for me.

"In an effort to save the people I ran for the woods. There was a strange glow coming off of the trees so I figured it would help. I found out later by Kaede, the priestess, that no one else could see the light. At any rate, I ran to a familiar place. The God Tree is the center of my families shrine. Even going back five hundred years, the God Tree is ancient.

"Pinned to the tree was a man with silver hair and dog ears on the top of his head. When I passed through there on the way to the village he looked sound asleep. Now, however, he was fully awake. He started taunting me, calling me Kikyo and telling me to kill the demon like I had done to him. The thing is, I had never seen him a day in my life.

"As he and I were going back and forth the demon grabbed a hold of me. She used her moutht to dig into my side. She let me go by tossing me into the air. A pink jewel came out of the side she bit.

"The demon then pinned me to the tree, right next to Inuyasha. He continued to rant at me about taking out the demon. I asked him if he could back up his words. Could he defeat the demon that was attacking? He didn't say anything, but I decided to trust him anyway.

"I removed the arrow from the man's chest and he destroyed the centipede in short order. After a brief battle, I gathered the jewel from the insides of that hideous demon.

"It was then that Inuyasha demanded the jewel. Kaede told me to run, so I did. Inuyasha tried to kill me every step of the way.

"After a brief attempt on his part to kill me, Kaede put beads on him. They were the subjugation beads. She told me to speak the word of subjucation. I didn't have much time to think, Kaede just said the word didn't matter as long as I believed in it the first time.

"With Inuyasha's dog ears the only thing that I could come up with was 'sit boy'." That statement got a round of chuckles.

"Inuyasha was allowed into the village because of the necklace. He was always hanging around Kaede and I. As Kaede was preparing a stew it was revealed that Inuyasha was a half-demon. We fought a lot during those days, verbally. In all the confusion and fuss the jewel was stolen by a crow demon.

"I eventually managed to shoot down the bird, but I shattered the jewel in the process. That's when Inuyasha and I started to work together to gather the shards of the Shikon Jewel. A small sliver alone could greatly amplify the holder's power, so we weren't the only ones on the hunt for it. We later came to meet a kitsune demon named Shippo. Joining us soon after was a perverted monk named Miroku, a dragon slayer named Sango and her demon partner Kirara.

"Then we learned who the true enemy was. Another half-demon called Naraku. He was after the shards of the jewel as well. His malice turned the shards that he touched completely black and evil where as I was able to purify it.

"One of Naraku's favorite things to do was to attack and absorb the powers of strong demons. It would let him take on their powers as well. The more demons he absorbed the stronger he became. It took all of us, plus a few allies along the way, several years to just track him down. The battle against him seemed to last just as long as it took to find him. We eventually managed to defeat him and I was sent back to my own time. A few years of living there I was approached and sent to this world. My mother and brother decided to come along. My grandfather chose to stay behind, saying he was too old for such adventures."

"It took years to defeat one man?" Robin asked.

Kagome nodded her head solemnly. "Naraku had the mark of a spider on his back. He would also use spiders quite frequently before he became strong enough to spawn high level demons out of all the powers he stole. Then he sent them off to dangerous missions. This led all of us to believe that he was a spider hanyou. That and the fact that he liked to weave an intricate web of traps and lies. His cunning kept him hidden from us."

"What does that have to do with Blackbeard?" Zoro asked.

"It's simple Moss-head," Sanji snapped. "Lady Kagome is trying to tell us that chasing down Blackbeard is a bad idea. Especially since we have four devil fruit eaters with us."

"It'll be fine," Luffy announced. "As long as Mom is here then she can cancel what ever powers that Blackbeard throws at us."

"I won't be around all the time," Kagome said. "I do want to be next to your father. He will want to return to his quest once his vacation is over." Luffy got disappointed at that.

"That's a good point," Usopp spoke up. "We can't hope to fight Blackbeard when your Mom isn't here. You might as well give up."

"Which brings us to the real reason that Kagome and I are here," Dragon announced. "A few days ago Kagome had Luffy in meditation. She was feeling out for something very special. Because Kagome's power is passed down from one generation to the next she was looking for Reiki, it's where she gets her power."

"I found a trace of it," Kagome smiled. "It's small right now, mostly because Luffy doesn't know it's there and he hasn't been nurturing it."

"Hold on a second," Sanji spoke. He was slouched and leaning over his lap. A cigarette was in his mouth. One hand braced him above his lap while the other was raised in the air with the palm facing outward. "Are you telling us that Luffy is a monk?"

"I suppose you could put it like that," Kagome said.

"Hear that Luffy?" Sanji smirked. "You have to remain pious and become a pacifist."

"I refuse," Luffy deadpanned. The Straw Hats all sweat dropped.

Kagome started laughing at them. "I don't think you remember what I said of my traveling companions," she managed. "Miroku was also a monk. He was one of the biggest perverts you'll ever meet. Worse then Sanji, in fact. He would walk up to women, complete strangers, and ask them to bare his children."

Sanji took out a piece of paper and wrote down on it. "This does not mean you can copy him." Kagome was glaring at Sanji.

Sanji shrugged and put away his writing utensils. "As I was saying," Kagome growled. "Since Luffy does have reiki it would be in all of your bests interests if he learned how to use it. I won't always be around for every battle against a devil fruit user. If Luffy can learn to control his Reiki then no one with devil fruit powers can hurt him, unless they make the first move."

"So Luffy will become even more freakishly strong?" Usopp asked. "That's just great," sarcasm dripped from his voice. "As if he didn't have enough power to share with the rest of us."

"So you're saying once Luffy is trained we can't leave him if it looks like there's a chance of a devil fruit user attacking?" Nami asked.

"That's not what I'm saying at all," Kagome said. She took the small bag Dragon offered to her. "These are pendants that I had been blessing for the last few days. They hold a good number of reiki in them. If you should come across a devil fruit user then these will protect you from their powers."

"Will it effect us?" Robin asked.

Kagome shook her head as she handed Robin a purple pendant. "I was able to make it so that the reiki would not react to anyone with friendly intentions." She turned to give a few to Law. "I made a few your you and your crew as well."

"We'll pass," Law said. "It's never been in our policy to hide from devil fruit users."

Kagome shrugged, not phased by Law's attitude. "If you change your mind you know where to find me."

"Now we can go after Blackbeard," Luffy declared.

Law had a sour look on his face. "You're right Luffy," Dragon stood. "You should take out the most dangerous Pirate Emperor first. So, what's going to be our heading?" Luffy's cheerful face melted into a serious one as he gave it some thought. "There's my point," Dragon said. "How can you hope to fight your enemy if you don't even know where to find him? Go along with Law's plan for now. If you should come across Blackbeard then deal with him then. It would help no one if all of you became lost in New World without achieving any of your goals."

"But I want to go now," Luffy whined.

"Careful there mister," Kagome said. "Whining doesn't help you and it only makes those around you irritated."

"This is horrible," Luffy groaned. "I can't do what I want or you'll ground me again." The group broke out into laughter.