Chapter 1: Escape From Leaf Island
Leaf Island
Paradise: Grand Line
"Sakura!" Naruto yelled from the ground below the window to her second story room.
"Sakura!" he yelled again when he didn't receive a prompt enough reply.
A few moments later, the window opened, and a pink haired girl stuck her head out the window.
"What are you yelling about this time?" she asked him, but thankfully he didn't notice any real irritation in her voice.
Naruto Namikaze had learned long ago that calling for Sakura Haruno in this manner too early in the morning wasn't good for his health. And although he'd held off until 9:30, that was still a somewhat risky time. But given how important today's news was he couldn't bring himself to wait any longer.
"I came to say goodbye," he informed her. "I'm leaving the island today to join the marines."
"What's all that racket, Sakura?" A voice called out from somewhere behind Sakura.
"It's Naruto, mom," she replied. "He came to say he's leaving to join the marines."
"Again?" her mother inquired. "Well, tell him I'm serving unagi tonight and he's welcome to eat with us when he gets back."
"She makes it sound like she doesn't believe I'll go through with it," Naruto complained to Sakura. "I'll have you know I'm completely serious."
"We know you're serious," Sakura told him. "But you've tried this about a dozen times in the last ten years and Mayor Sarutobi and his wife has caught you every time. With a boat docked here, you know they'll have it watched."
"It's different this time," Naruto insisted. "I have a plan that's sure to work. So if you have anything to say to me, say it now. It might be a long time before we see each other again."
"Okay, goodbye Naruto. See you for dinner," she told him cheerfully.
Annoyed, Naruto turned around and stalked off, Sakura laughing at his antics as he departed. They may doubt him, but he'd been planning this attempt for a while, and he wasn't about to fail again. He was getting off of Leaf Island.
Not that he had anything against the island, but the whole population of 800 people felt positively confined to Naruto. He had much bigger dream than possibly replacing the old man as mayor someday. And sure, he'd miss Sakura. Having been the only other kid his age growing up, they'd become friends almost by default. But there was a whole world of exciting people to meet and things to do.
And today it would all start, he promised himself. He'd worn his favorite outfit to commemorate the occasion, a white shirt and white pants. The shirt had blue seagull designs on its sleeves. It wasn't an official Marine uniform, but it was his own personal tribute to his career choice.
He walks into shadowy area of the village, stay hidden from sight. It didn't take him that long to reach the small warehouse on the edge of the village. Sneaking inside as quietly as he could, he closed the door behind him. Then grabbing an empty crate from the back, he moved it next to a large pile of similar crates near the entrance. Opening the top, he climbed inside and closed it behind him.
Previously he'd always tried to sneak directly onto the ship. But as Sakura had said, the old man and granny was sure to have it watched. But if he hid among the cargo the village was selling to that merchant ship, they'd carry him on board themselves and he'd appear to be nothing more than another box of goods.
Previously he'd always tried to sneak directly onto the ship. But as Sakura had said, the old man and granny was sure to have it watched. But if he hid among the cargo the village was selling to that merchant ship, they'd carry him on board themselves and he'd appear to be nothing more than another box of goods.
He didn't have to wait long before he'd heard the door open and soon after felt his crate being lifted. He remained just as motionless as he could, barely daring to after what seemed like an eternity to Naruto's frayed nerves, the box was set down. He then waited for what must have been twenty minutes listening for any other movement.
Finally, he decided to risk lifting the lid to peak out, only to find himself staring at the face of Mayor Sarutobi, who was nonchalantly smoking a pipe and his wife Biwako, giving him an angry stare.
"What are you two—OWWW!" Without warning, Biwako punched Naruto in the head, creating a large bump on his head.
"We're not on the ship, and we're in my office," Sarutobi replied. "We had you follow. So, when you tried your little stunt, I just had you carried here."
Looking around Naruto confirmed this to be the case. They were in the mayor's office. It was clean and neat, books lying about in an organized manner. And his large desk was completely covered in paperwork dealing with village affairs.
Naruto climbed out of the crate, realizing there was no longer any point to remaining inside.
Hiruzen Sarutobi was the mayor of Leaf Island. He holds that all the people of Konoha are a family, and that the mayor is chiefly responsible for that family's well-being. A wise, strict, and caring leader, nobody in Leaf Island complains of his leadership style.
His wife, Biwako Sarutobi, seemed to be as wise and intelligent as her husband, giving somewhat sage-like advice to the people of the village. She also seems to be very strongly opinionated about women, stating that they were far stronger than men because they can endure childbirth while men cannot. She also wasn't above reprimanding Naruto for running off to join the Marines.
"Why do you two have to keep stopping me?" Naruto asked accusingly.
"Because with your father gone, we are your guardians." Sarutobi told him. "And we are not about to let you run off without understanding the full implications of your actions."
"I may have bought that story in the past, but I'm seventeen now," Naruto retorted. "I do understand the risks involved. Yes, being a marine can get me killed, and this island is on the grand line, so it's even more dangerous. I know all that."
"And what about the risks to the other villagers your leaving would entail?" Biwako questioned him. "Many of them have expressed concerns to me and Sarutobi about your desires to leave. Considering what happened after your father left, I can't say I blame them."
"That had nothing to do with him!" Naruto insisted angrily. "If it was really some, curse because a villager left the island, why did it happen many years after he left? I'm not going to stay here because of a bunch of superstitious villagers who should be grateful my father came back to save them after how they treated him!"
"All for the sake to join the Marines?" Biwako questioned him on that subject. "You are addicted to Naruto. So addicted you wear that silly outfit which is proof of your obsession."
"I'm not addicted," Naruto countered.
"Yes, you are!" Biwako retort. "You had this naive upside-down view of the world outside our island Naruto. You believe Marines are heroes who never done anything wrong, and Pirates are villains that done nothing but evil. You barely see what is beyond our island Naruto and think it's divided by black and white, when it's nothing but grey. Sooner or later, it will get your misinterpretation of it will get you killed or worse."
Naruto stared at Granny Biwako before he asked "You know Granny Biwako, you never had any issue with dad when he was a Marine officer. Why are you so determined in keeping me in joining the Marines?"
Biwako was about to react when her husband stepped and says "Biwako let me talk to Naruto alone."
Looking back to her husband and Naruto, Biwako replied "Fine, perhaps you will talk some sense into him, especially his foolish notion of joining the marines."
After Biwako left Naruto asked, "Why is Granny Biwako got against me of joining the Marines?"
"Biwako might tell you someday," said Sarutobi. "But the reason she doesn't want you go out in the world recklessly was because she was close friends to your grandmother Naruko Namikaze and a second mother to your father Minato."
Naruko Namikaze was the mother of Minato and Naruto's grandmother. She lived and died long before Naruto was born. Minato was so close to his mother; he named his son after her.
"Will it's my decision now old man now that I'm legal age." Naruto insisted.
"We still don't feel you're ready to make that decision yourself," Sarutobi told him. "But if you'll calm down a little, I have something for you I do think you're old enough for now."
"What's that?" Naruto asked, curiosity tempering his anger at least for the moment.
Motioning Naruto to follow, he led him to a mid-sized wooden chest in a corner of the room.
"This was found on your father's ship after he had died," Sarutobi told him.
"Really?" Naruto asked excitedly, then narrowed his eyes and looked accusingly at the old man. "Why didn't you give this to me before now?"
"You were too young," he responded. "I didn't feel right opening it myself, but for all I know it could be full of guns and swords. I would be irresponsible giving that to a young child. And more recently I was just afraid that whatever was in there would only reinforce that foolish notion to join the marines. But you're old enough now that you deserve to have it."
"I'm going to go open this. Thanks, old man," Naruto told him then quickly grabbed the chest and rushed out of the room.
"Hold it Naruto," Sarutobi calls out to him, stopping him in his tracks. "There is one more thing I need to give you before you leave."
Turning around to face the old man, Naruto asked "What is it?"
"You should take this," he says, holding up the gold necklace with a large red gemstone. It has a whirlwind symbol on it.
"What's that?" Naruto asked, curious of what the gold necklace is.
"This is something your father gave to me before he died," Sarutobi told him. "He wanted pass this on to you because this comes from your mother."
"My mother?" Naruto repeated. Now Naruto never knew who his mother was. And once he asked, his father refused to talk about it. Nobody in the island knew his Naruto's mother is, for the only one who knew was Minato.
"Looks like ruby," Naruto examined the necklace. "I bet I could get a lot of money for it."
"Naruto!" Sarutobi retort sharply. "How can you be talking about selling it? Your father told me this is supposed to be the only thing you have from your mother?"
"Yeah, well, my mother is long dead," Naruto replied. "Since well before I was old enough to remember her. It's not like there's a lot of sentimental value to this."
"While your father never told us about your mother, I can tell he loved her very much," Sarutobi stated. "He wanted me to give this to you as sentimental value from your mother. And if he was still alive and found out you plan on selling it for cash, he would hit you in the head much harder than Biwako."
"Wouldn't a picture of it make just as good of a clue as the real thing?" Naruto asked.
Sarutobi just glared at him silently and coldly in response.
"Alright already, I won't sell it," Naruto conceded, putting it around his neck instead, which seemed to mollify him. Naruto didn't know why the old man was getting so upset about this in the first place. It wasn't his mother they were talking about.
Leaving the mayor's office, Naruto begins heading back home. The chest was a little heavy in his hands, but Naruto was able to make a decent pace while still trying not to jostle the contents too much. He was near to his house when he saw Sakura walking down the street toward him.
"Back already?" she asked him. "I take it things didn't go as planned?"
"Not exactly, but there'll be other ships," Naruto replied optimistically.
"You're taking it surprisingly well this time," Sakura noted, then focused her attention on his newest prize.
"Isn't that chest from the mayor's office?" she asked him, frowning a bit at whatever picture her mind was putting together of the events that led to him taking possession of it.
"You didn't steal it to get back at them for stopping you, did you?" she queried, the note of disapproval now clear in her voice.
"No, the Old Man gave it to me," Naruto corrected her cheerfully. "He'd says that this belonged to my father. I'm bringing it home to see what's inside."
"Well, it makes sense he would choose today to give it to you," Sakura replied.
"What do mean by that?" Naruto asked, wracking his brain for any reason why today would be special but not coming up with anything.
"You must not have heard," she told him. "The merchants decided to relax in the bar for a bit after finishing their business. In addition to that, a marine ship just entered the bay. They're just staying long enough to stock up on provisions and then they're leaving."
"Really?" Naruto asked enthusiastically. "A marine ship?"
"Yeah, we almost never have two ships here at the same time. He probably wanted to distract you for a few hours until they've left since it'd be harder to guard both of them."
That did sound just like the old man too. Naruto was tempted to head to the bay right at that moment just to spite him. But even if it was playing into his hands, Naruto couldn't leave without seeing what was in the chest.
"Thanks, Sakura," he told her sincerely. "I'll just have to finish going through this before they leave. So I can't waste any more time talking."
With that he rushed off down the cobblestone path through the center of the town, until he reached his house. It was a small single-story building left to him by his father. Setting down the chest, he opened the door, slid the chest inside and let the door close behind him. Wasting no time, he opened the lid and began going through the contents.
Looking inside he saw a small telescope sitting atop one of his father's marine uniforms. Moving the uniform, he spotted three log poses. Although on closer inspection two of them were eternal poses. One was labeled Marinford, and the other had 'Leaf Island' scrawled on it. That last one must have cost his father quite a bit. Custom made eternal poses weren't cheap, and he highly doubted anyone else would have cared enough to make one for their little backwater island.
The final item in the chest was another, much smaller chest. Naruto quickly pulled it out and opened the lid. But he certainly wasn't expecting to see a piece of fruit in it. Was the mayor playing a joke on him? There was no way a piece of fruit would sit in that chest for more than a decade without rotting.
There was one way. The fruit was unlike any he'd ever seen before. Sort of shaped like a pear, but red in color with purple spots. Could it be a devil fruit? Almost as soon as the possibility occurred to him, Naruto made up his mind. Grabbing the fruit, he took a large bite out of it. The flavor was unpleasant, but he ignored it and finished off the rest of the fruit. He left nothing behind as it seemed to lack a stem or core of any sort.
Thoughts of what amazing new power he might have received were swirling through his mind, but Naruto pushed them aside to focus on trying to confirm he actually had eaten a devil fruit. Those who had eaten one were supposed to be unable to swim. But risking drowning didn't seem like the best way to find out, and he didn't want anyone else to know about this just yet anyway.
He knew some devil fruit users could transform their bodies, so he decided to try that first. He attempted to will his body to transform in some way, but after several minutes of that, nothing had happened. Well, maybe he could shoot something out of his hands or something like that?
Refocusing his will on trying to emit something, he felt some sort of energy stirring in his body. Willing the energy to move, he felt it almost leap out of him. Looking toward where it went, he examined the result of his efforts and smiled. This had a lot of potential.
0o0o0
Naruto sat looking out his window with the telescope he'd found in the chest. He had a good view of the bay from there and could see that both ships were now preparing to leave. Still, he waited a little longer; he'd have to time this almost perfectly. The marine ship finished preparations first, and Naruto saw them getting ready to raise anchor. It was time to put his plan into action.
Slipping out his window, he began to dash towards the marine vessel. It was larger than most ships that came to port, being more than twice the size of the merchant ship docket a couple hundred yards from it. Just seeing the seagull painted on the ship's flag gave Naruto an extra burst of energy as he ran, determined that today would finally be the day he joined.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a villager running after him. Naruto grinned to himself realizing his speed had forced the man to abandon his attempts at stealth. But his smile vanished when he noticed that despite his best efforts, the man was slowly gaining on him. He just hoped he could stay ahead of him long enough.
As he approached the ship, he saw a second villager moving to intercept him, but Naruto continued to run for the ship. He was only about a dozen feet from the second man, with the first having closed the distance to about half that, when he took the two spherical objects he'd been holding in his hands and threw one at each man.
The smoke bombs went off, obscuring them from view, and in the confusion, Naruto made a sharp turn to the left and changed course toward the merchant vessel. The two men who had been chasing him did not immediately give pursuit thanks to the smokescreen. He'd traversed most of the 200 yards when still another man attempted to intercept him.
He prepared a third smoke bomb for the man who must have been assigned to watch this ship and threw it at his feet. But this one was prepared for the tactic and continued through the smoke only to seize Naruto by the arm. The other two men quickly caught up and surrounded him. All three of them began talking over each other trying to berate him for his latest escape attempt. But Naruto tuned them out, smiling to himself. Then, in a puff of smoke, he vanished.
0o0o0
Meanwhile, the real Naruto was already racing toward the marine ship that had begun to pull out to sea. This was cutting it kind of close; it was going to be difficult to reach the ship and he didn't exactly have the option of swimming out to it. He was only a few yards from the shore when his clone's memories integrated into his own. Ignoring them, he ran the last few yards at top speed, and then leaped toward the departing ship with all his might. The ship was too far away for him to jump, yet Naruto was already ready for a move he learned during his years in Leaf Island.
"Geppo!"
After joining the Marines, Minato brought with him resources and supplies back to Leaf Island, to help improve the village. He also brought him knowledge and skills to boost up the village's defenses, such as Rokushiki.
Rokushiki is a special, superhuman martial arts style, consisting of six superhuman techniques. Those who mastered the Rokushiki will have the strength of a hundred men. Many of the village's best fighters studied and trained in Rokushiki, two out of ten become masters of the art. Naruto especially trained in Rokushiki. Driven by his ambitions to join the Marines, Naruto studied Rokushiki, mastering three of the six Rokushiki techniques: Soru, Geppo, and Kami-e.
He felt a moment of fear seeing all that water beneath him, but it passed as soon as his feet landed solidly on the deck. This startled several the marines on the deck who obviously hadn't been expecting his last second arrival, and he found more than a few guns suddenly pointed at him.
"Who are you? What are you doing on board?" One of the uniformed marines demanded of him.
"Relax men," another voice called out. "It doesn't look like he means us any harm."
Turning toward the voice he saw a large, bearded man wearing an officer's coat over a suit. The other marines followed his orders and lowered their guns.
"Yeah, I'm here to enlist," Naruto told them cautiously, much happier with the guns no longer aimed at him and not wanting to do anything that would lead to them returning to their previous positions. "Are you the captain?"
"That I am," he replied jovially. "Now would you mind telling me why you felt the need to make such a flashy entrance?"
"Most of the villagers are extremely superstitious," Naruto replied. "They fear if they let anyone leave the island something disastrous is going to happen. But it's always been my dream to join the marines like my father did, so I wasn't about to let that stop me."
"I think I've heard of that superstition before," the captain said thoughtfully. "Wait a minute; I knew Leaf Island sounded familiar. You're "Yellow Flash" Admiral Minato Namikaze's son, aren't you?"
"That's right," Naruto confirmed proudly. "Naruto Namikaze, reporting for duty, sir."
"Well then," the Marine captain said, "if you turn out to be half the man, your father will be, it'd be nothing short of dereliction of duty if I stopped you from joining."
"Oops, sorry about that," the Marine captain added bashfully, realizing what he'd just said. "Bad choice of words. I didn't mean to bring that up."
"Don't worry about it," Naruto told the man.
"I must say that was quite the jump to get on here," he said, obviously wanting to change the subject. "You must have had a lot of training already."
"That was nothing," Naruto boasted. "We're a small island in the middle a major route on the grand line. Everyone is taught to defend themselves. I've been helping fight off pirates for years."
"Good to hear," the Marine captain told him, back to his cheerful demeanor already. "I'd wager you have a bright future ahead of you. Marinford isn't too far out of our way. I'll have you there in no time. Then you can start your official training."
This was turning out to be a near perfect day for Naruto. He only wished he could see the old man's face when he figured out that the chest, he'd given Naruto had been the very thing that made his escape possible.
0o0o0
Sarutobi stood watching the ship depart through a pair of binoculars. Had the fruit's power been teleportation? Or maybe some type of illusion? Whatever it was, it would certainly aid the boy in his endeavors. And the villagers could hardly blame him. After all, how was he supposed to know Naruto would have access to a devil fruit? It's not like he'd given it to the boy or anything, right?
Yet he knows his wife will blame him for leaving the devil fruit in the box in the first place.
"Good luck, Naruto," he said out loud. "Make your father proud."
Glossary
Devil Fruits
Multi Multi no Mi (Multi-Multi Fruit): The Multi Multi no Mi is a Paramecia type Devil Fruit that grants the user the power to create numerous clones of themselves. The fruit was eaten by Naruto Namikaze, turning him into a Multiple Clone Human.