A/N: We're back~!
Every review truly does help, large or small, any feedback is better than nothing at all.
Let it be known that Slifer wrote this masterpiece, I'm just the fellow who came up with the ideas.
Mind you, I can only update this story with his help. Hence the occasional gaps between chapter. We both have our lives, after all.
Naturally, reviews help speed us along as well. So here we go. The fate of this story depends on you, the reader. Your feedback determines the fate of this tale, and many others. We're just a few humble authors trying to make our way in this wild world, one word at a time. Time and feedback will determine if this remains a story. Simple as that. In other words...its up to YOU, the reader. Do let us know~!
And now, without further ado...
"I'll have you know I'm quite the musician~! Perhaps you'd care for a song?
Very well then! Allow me to play an old favorite.
Yohohoho, Yohohoho~!
~Brook.
Conversations with a Skeleton
A day passed.
Twenty-four hours since Naruto first encountered the gentlemanly and extremely eccentric Brook, and things had returned to relative normality within the Florian Triangle. The Storm Squadron remained in it's V formation but now The Tempest's Gait towed Brook's dilapidated and derelict ship directly behind it with several lengths of thick rope looped around the stern of Naruto's ship. The blond had initially worried that rigging up the towing job and his ship running tug duty would be a pain in the ass given just how broken down Brook's ship appeared to be.
That worry was quickly laid to rest by the squads of experienced sailors under his command, proving their salt as maritime ocean goers that Naruto hoped to one day reach. Quickly gathering the needed materials they had pulled in what remained of the bull marked ship's canvas sails and lit lamps along its sides to pick it out better in the fog. Most noticeably they had given the ship a once over to make sure that the diagnosis that Brook had given them of the ship's woes was accurate.
"The damage is quite something. Thankfully nothing below the waterline, but as you can see the sails and rigging were slashed to pieces and most annoying of all being that the rudder chain is totally gone. I'm no helmsman, that honour went to Mawaritosuki, but it's hard to steer a ship when theres no bones between the wheel and back… something I know a whole lot about Yohohohoho~"
Brook's macabre but upbeat diagnosis had sped things up exponentially and after only a relatively short time the flotilla of ships was underway once again.
And yet, something about the lonesome derelict had lingered in Naruto's mind even as they had all turned in for the night. Unable to find sleep, he had crept out of bed - an achievement given how clingy the pregnant Linlin was - and walked along the think rope lines to poke around Brook's ship.
It was no mere pun to say that the ghost ship had been ghostly quiet as Naruto had walked its decks and halls, getting lost at least once but he slowly built up a feel for the ship. It was derelict, yes, but there was a strange tidiness to it as if someone had spent a long time diligently trying to keep what little remained of the derelict in something approaching order. Brook no doubt, but the state of the innards reminded Naruto strangely of home.
Make no mistake, Naruto's old apartment had not been the pinnacle of class but it hadn't been a borderline condemned shack as some people seemed to think when he had seldom visitors. What mattered though, was that Naruto knew the look and smell of a place that showed the wear and tear of time no matter how hard you tried to make it look nice. And Brook's ship had the metaphorical stink in spades.
Which begged the question, 'Just how long was he lost in the triangle?'
A chill had gone up Naruto's spine at that moment as the clock struck midnight, the echo of melancholic loneliness coming from the slowly rotting deck under his feet. The ship had known great sorrow and great joy, and he returned to his bed that night wondering just what the strange living skeleton had been through.
And as luck would have it, he would not have to wait long to find out.
After slinking back to bed in his and Linlin's cabin on the Gait, Naruto had enjoyed a few hours of pleasant sleep in his paramour's embrace before morning arrived. How did Naruto know that given the perpetual halflight of the Triangle?
Simple.
"Blechhuuuuuhhhh!"
Naruto rubbed small circles into Linlin's back comfortingly as she got back to her feet and backed away from the toilet. She sent an embarrassed but thankful look back. Morning sickness was never pretty and nobody wanted to see it, let alone experience it. For Linlin it went before simple embarrassment, it was something that cracked the image of seeming invincibility that the majority of her subjects held for her. And it was for this reason that Naruto was one of the few people she would allow to attend to her, or even see her, when the sickness came.
"Feeling any better?" He asked clemently after handing the pink haired, orange eyed queen a handkerchief.
Linlin took the fine silk and wiped the remains of her morning unpleasantness from her lips, shuddering slightly as the aftershocks of the ordeal finally left her body. "Much. You'd think that it would get easier after the third time but…" she trailed off, a hand resting on her stomach where her baby bump showed through the flamenco dress she had chosen to wear today.
"You've never had a normal go of it, have you thigh highs?" The rhetorical question earned him a cuff around the back of the head that he ducked under with a chuckle, pleased to see that Linlin's scowl had softened. "Breakfast I think, I'm starving."
"You and me both, Whiskers. And unlike you I have to eat for more than just one."
A jesting barb formed behind Naruto's lips, something about how he could very easily bet a thousand hungry mouths with a single cross shaped hand sign. But he let it lie, instead taking his much taller lover's hand and leading her from their cabin towards the private mess hall. The silent look of gratitude from her as she propped Napoleon atop her head was worth his moment of mirthful restraint a thousand times over.
Soon enough they were sequestered away inside the richly appointed officer's mess with a table full of delectable breakfast treats and as luck would have it they were not dining alone. Naruto looked over the edge of his teacup at the tall and thin sight of Brook on the other side of the table. The living skeleton had popped his head in shortly after they had sat down, drawn by the aroma of well made food that was given at any meal Linlin was taking part in. The nasal hole in the gaunt skull seemed to sniff the air and move with an animatedness that made Naruto question if he was under a Genjutsu.
By the time the gentlemanly corpse had eaten three plates of food and two glasses of orange juice without them splattering unceremoniously onto his bare ribcage, all thoughts of sense with the skeleton had vanished.
'Just gonna chalk it up to another weird thing with this world.' he thought to himself as he sipped at a cup of sweet tea, the buzz of sugar perking him up. But the curiosity remained. "Hey, Brook?" he asked in a conversational tone. "Mind if I ask you something?"
Brook blew a coil of steam from the top of his own cup of sweet tea, bringing it to his mouth to sip, "Of course. What guest would I be if I couldn't entertain with words or music? Ask away!"
"You're a skeleton, so…" Naruto gestured across the table to the animated Brook, trying to find an eloquent way of phrasing his words before giving up with a huff. "How the hell are you walking, talking and eating?"
The much taller pirate inclined his head, his large afro seeming to enhance the subtle movement. The bony grin that Brook wore seemed to dim, his thin shoulders slumped a little. "Ah, in all the excitement I forgot myself. Yes, I am quite dead."
Immediately, a wave of regret washed over Naruto, knowing that he had likely brought up something that Brook would rather ignore. He opened his mouth to apologise but Brook instantly brightened back up and threw his arms wide.
"But I survived! I ate the Revive Revive Fruit you see. It allowed me to find my way back from the afterlife so long as I still had a body to inhabit."
A Devil Fruit, that explained it. Naruto massaged his temples with rueful exasperation. Honestly the sheer range of seemingly random miraculous abilities that these fruits could impart boggled the mind. 'I mean seriously, going from being able to turn into the Buddah and coming back from the dead to being able to Stuelson being able to make food out of anything he cuts. It's like something out of a kid's dream.' he reflected internally.
The longer Naruto remained in this world the more his thoughts had turned to the oddities of Devil Fruits; both of the why of their existence and how best to deal with them in a friendly or unfriendly manner if he came across a user. He would be lying if he said the thought of eating one hadn't crossed his mind more than once. Naruto shook his head mentally, once again arriving at the same answer he had come to every time the prospect presented itself.
'I'm not gonna give up my ability to swim in a world that's 90% ocean. That's just suicide with extra steps.' His eyes drifted up to Napoleon propped up on Linlin's head of rose coloured hair at a jaunty angle, meeting its blue eyes as it watched the conversation, 'A weapon infused with a Devil Fruit however… that could be fun.'
As it turned out, thoughts of Devil Fruits was not mutually exclusive to Naruto in that moment.
"The Revive Revive Fruit? That's the degraded version of my Soul Soul Fruit." Linlin said, her interest for the funny skeleton growing another notch.
"What a coincidence! The sea certainly is a wondrous place for two such powers to be drawn together by fate." Brook chirped, taking a sip from his tea again. He gestured to various Homies around the mess hall. "Though it seems you have a much better grasp of your fruit than I. As far as I know my fruit just brings me back from the dead should I die, that and keep my body in the state it was when I first got back to it."
"In my experience, crazy stuff tends to attract other crazy stuff. Then again I'm a magnet for this kind of stuff," Naruto admitted to his chagrin, drumming his fingers against his chin. He raised an eyebrow looking at Brook, "Wait, if your body's the state it was when you found it…"
Linlin's eyes widened, catching onto what Naruto was getting at, "then how long did it take you to find it?"
Linlin's question sent Brook into a peel of his characteristic laughter, "Yohohohohoho, ah it's embarrassing. After passing away, not a fun experience I'll tell you, it didn't change the fact that my ship was stuck in the centre of the Florian Triangle. I had to find it again which took a LONG time."
Naruto's features took on a searching look and Brook soon acquiesced to the unsaid question.
"A year. At which point I was just skin and bones, and oddly bereft of skin Yohohohoho!"
The Shinobi Commander's brows furrowed at that, he could feel there was some pain behind that laughter but that Brook was doing his level best to remain upbeat. He could respect, no, he did respect that. Loneliness was not fun.
"I'm amazed your skeleton managed to bleach white in the absence of direct sunlight for over a year. Maybe a side effect of whatever killed you." Said the fourth person who until now had been silent.
Blue eyes shifted slowly to the left and came to rest on the sitting profile of Doctor Kureha sat to Brook's left, her breakfast utterly forgotten in favour of the magnifying glass held in one hand that she was using to inspect Brook's arms through the holes in his suit jacket.
She had turned up unannounced to eat with them under the auspice of checking on Linlin and making sure that she didn't eat or drink too much given her condition, but her attention had been captured by Brook the moment he walked in to join them. Her lined and aged face practically glowed with interest as she set about bombarding brook with a fusillade of questions interspersed with periods of silent but intense tests being run on the undead pirate as he ate.
Naruto idly wondered what Sakura or Tsunade would have done in Kureha's place but both were certain to have rolled their eyes at trying to check for a pulse on a skeleton.
Brook preened under the attention, "Of course, I drank plenty of milk when I was alive so I was bound to have a gleaming skeleton in death," Brook groused genially, his hands rising to slip bony fingers between the frizzed curls of his large afro, "It also gave me such wonderful air roots."
"I remember someone telling me hair grows after death?" Naruto asked rhetorically, remembering the drunken ramblings of a long distant old man he and Jiyaiya had bumped into on the training trip.
Kureha shook her head, "That's NOT how that works. It's an old wives tale. Why you still have an afro is beyond me but I do really want to fond out. How about it Skelly-boy, give a young girl a good time?"
"Yohohohohoho! How forwards of you Miss Kureha, and my crew said I was a flirt. I can tell you my death was by a poisoned arrow, but anything beyond that comes at a price." Brook replied with a tilt of the head.
"What kind?" Kureha raised an eyebrow.
Brook stilled, briefly a macabre statue. His head slowly swivelled to look at Kureha, the wide black voids of his eyes boring into her face, "are you sure?"
Kureha flashed a predatory grin, "I'm the best doctor on all of Drumm Kingdom, if I let this chance slip by I might as well hang up the Doctor's Coat for good."
"You don't wear a doctor's coat though…" Naruto chipped in in a deadpan voice.
"Shut it, fox face. I'm working here!" Kureha snapped, her focus squarely on Brook.
Naruto smirked at getting a rise out of the traveling companion.
"Well, if you truly are willing to pay the price…" Brook said forebodingly, drawing himself up to his full height. The shadows of the room seemed to pull inwards around him, the bare bone of his face momentarily turning frightening, "then, madam… could you perhaps show me your panties?"
As one, Naruto, Linlin and even Napoleon's mouths dropped open as they gaped at the animated cadaver, taken off guard from the seriousness with which he had just asked something so silly.
Naruto's eyes practically popped out of their sockets when instead of getting angry or smacking the tall skeleton, Kureha simply got to her feet and began to reach for the zip at the front of her jeans. "NOPE!" Naruto yelled, banging a fist down on the hardwood table, causing all the crockery to shudder.
Kureha scowled at Naruto but pulled her hands away from her crotch and instead rested them on her hips. "What?" she demanded gruffly.
Naruto pointed at the old woman accusingly, "I do not want pervy shit going on at the breakfast table!"
"You didn't say that at breakfast last week," Linlin whispered, making Naruto's cheeks briefly dust pink despite his look of consternation at Kureha.
She through her hands up noncommittally, as if this was no big issue. "What's the big deal? I want to know why Brook is the way he is and I'm a consenting adult, I didn't take you for a puritan."
"I don't want to stare at your wrinkly ass for breakfast! If you want to play the voyeur show then do it on your own time later!" Naruto accused, causing Linlin to snort with laughter.
"If that's the condition to see them then I don't mind giving my result now. I think of it as an IOU, Miss Kureha." Brook said diplomatically, a note of pleading in his voice. Had he been on that ship so long that another type of bone was that starved for attention?
A beat passed before Kureha nodded and returned to her seat and Brook sat down to begin his story.
And what a story it turned out to be.
"Before I begin I must again thank you for your towing of my ship and give you a proper introduction. My name is Brook, I was once the lead violinist and pianist of the Rumbar Pirates before serving as their acting captain until our passing." Brook began. He slipped his nimble fingers into his suit jacket and withdrew an aged but still legible bounty poster that he set down on the table.
Naruto was able to tell it was Brook from the afro alone, but it was strange to see the appy face of the man now gone yet still here. A jovial looking man in his late 30s with a face set in a wide and happy battle cry, his eyes covered by a pair of dark purple round sunglasses with a yellow beaded string that kept them attached to his ears.
WANTED
DEAD OR ALIVE
'HUMMING SWORDSMAN' BROOK
B 33,000,000
"Rumbar Pirates," Linlin scratched her chin, trying to conjure a memory, "I think I heard of you once, small time crew from West Blue originally?"
"The very same, and with the scene set, allow me to tell you what brought me here, and with hope what I hope to return to. It all began with a little whale named Laboon."
Naruto sat and listened to Brook tell his story, politely letting the older man explain everything. How he and his crew had picked up a lost and orphaned baby Island Whale that had followed them through hell or high water. How they had taught the adolescent marine mammal to love music as much as they did. He gushed about his former captain, Yorkie, and the joy he brought to each and every day of their lives on the sea. From triumphant highs to crushing lows.
All three of them had quietly interjected questions here and there when lulls in the conversation came about, something Brook appeared to appreciate given how long he must have been keeping this story in with nobody but himself to hear it. And then came the sadness.
"Laboon followed us up and down both sides of Reverse Mountain to the Twin Capes. We were all so surprised to see him that we cried… but we had to leave him there with the Lighthouse Keeper. Laboon was just too young to travel the Grand Line. We couldn't bear the thought of him being picked off by a Sea King, so we made him stay there with a promise. Once we had seen the whole world, we would come back for him, to see him at the Twin Capes…"
Naruto frowned sympathetically and before he knew it, he had reached out a hand and touched one of Brook's bare bone fingers, an unsaid communion of understanding. What it was like to leave someone behind. Brook looked at Naruto before silently nodding in thanks, the moment of kindness giving him the strength to push onto the darker parts of his story.
It was an all too familiar story for the Grand Line, even if the first half was known as Paradise in comparison to the New World. The Rumbar pirates had travelled through a seemingly normal island only for half of the crew, including their Captain to come down with a deadly, incurable and highly infectious disease. Faced with no other choice and not wanting to let their dream die, Yorkie had taken the infected half of the crew and took their chances trying to cross the Calm Belt into one of the Blues where they could find a doctor, never to be seen from again.
And in the months and years that followed with Brook at the helm, the Rumbar pirates had eventually found themselves in the Florian Triangle. And with it, their end.
"We never saw them. They were just a shape in the fog. They bombarded the ship with broadsides for an hour, launched grape and chain shots to disable the ship and riddled us with poison arrows. They didn't even stick around to take any treasure we may have had on board. Just left us to die to the poison." Brook related, a pregnant silence falling over the table.
Taking a deep breath, Naruto asked, "and were you carrying any?" he asked, disquieted by the thought of such a horrid attack being perpetrated for no reason.
Brook smiled wanly, "Only a final song in our hearts that I hope one day Laboon will hear. Its been around five years since that final day, and until I can face Laboon again, I will keep walking towards it no matter what."
Naruto felt the fondness he had for the skeleton grow bolder at those words, galvanised with respect. "You've been through a lot. As someone who does his best to never go back on his word, you've got my seal of approval."
His words made Brook fan himself dramatically, "Oh you do so flatter, Yohohoho. But I will be content with just the tow to Sabaody. I'm sure there are shipwrights I can ask to help fix up my ship. Or pay for something a little more appropriate for a one man crew to get back to the Twin Capes. I doubt Laboon will be pleased that we didn't complete the journey but at the very least-"
"Why not sail with us?"
The afro haired skeleton stopped speaking, brought up short but Naruto's sudden offer. "Wha...?"
"You've been sailing around in circles for five years with nothing but a derelict ship and your own memories as company, hoping to tell a friend that you made it around the world." Naruto's eyes were impassioned with a fire of determined zeal, "why would I not offer to help someone try to reach for a dream they thought out of reach. We're the Big Family Pirates, we will take in any who life has dealt a shit hand. Just because you're a skeleton and might creep me out at times doesn't mean I don't think you deserve a chance to see your dream fulfilled. That's what the freedom of being a pirate's all about, right?"
His proclamation was met with a small, almost ceremonial clap from a smirking Linlin, "Hear Hear, Whiskers. And here I was thinking that you weren't cut out for public speaking." she said before turning to Brook, her smile widening to a toothy grin. "And coming from me, you're too damn interesting to just let slip away onto the sea."
"Damn straight," Kureha chipped in, resting her chin in the palm of her hand, "This blonde bastard's boat seems to be a collection house for a menagerie of interesting individuals, I'd be a fool not to endorse it."
Taken aback by the offers from good meaning but almost total strangers, Brook could only look between each of them in turn, his jaw working open and closed with no sound leaving his mouth. "Are you truly sure?" he asked in a small, vulnerable voice. The weight of years alone on his mind.
Naruto extended a hand, "It's a promise."
Empty sockets eyed the offered hand, Brook slowly, gingerly raised his own hand to reach for it. Slight rattled filled the space between them, the bare bone digits shaking and rattling against one another before finally linking with Naruto's warm hand in a firm handshake.
Naruto tried to pull away only to find Brook still holding him in the handshake. He looked up into the face of the skeleton only for his supruiese to soften with sympathy. Somehow, by a mechanic Naruto would not even pretend to understand, moisture was starting to gather at the corners of Brook's empty sockets. "Been a while, huh."
"Yohohoho," Brook chuckled, wiping the moisture away, "I had forgotten what the charity of others was like… its overwhelming."
Naruto nodded. "It's always given to those who need it if I'm there."
(.0.0.0.)
Some time later, Naruto found himself walking out onto the deck to stare out over the waters, his mind a whir of thoughts and emotions. There was so much about this world he didn't understand and probably never would understand. But that was certainly worth it for the intoxicating new constants in his life of family and adventure. That which he found or made.
"Berri for your thoughts?"
Naruto turned to see Brook striding up onto the deck to join him. The skeleton now carried a medium sized tan case in one hand while his purpled cane rested across the crook of his arm. He shook his head, "Nah, just taking in the air. Sometimes I just need some air and the wind in my hair."
"Oh I can relate. The perks of having such strong roots is being able to enjoy the wind through my curls!" Brook chirped emphatically and almost camply, making Naruto's mood instantly turn up. "I just wanted to say again how thankful I am for your offer. I'm still the acting captain of the Rumbar Pirates and shan't be joining your crew, but 'traveling companion' is too cold a term."
A sideways look met Brook, "How about friend?"
"Aye, I can go with friend, Yohohohoho," Brook laughed seeming so much more real than how he usually laughed, years of solitude melting away from something as blessedly simple as having a friend to talk to once again.
His laughter petered off naturally before he hefted his case onto the guard rail, "In which case, my friend, allow me to repay you for such a wonderful breakfast with the tools of my trade."
Ge popped the twin brass latches on either side of the case and opened it, revealing a perfectly maintained Violin. Pulling the instrument from its plush prison, he rested it into the crook of his neck and touched its long bow to the strings.
Slowly, the deck began to fill with the upbeat jaunt of string music, a song that almost every sailor on the sea knew.
A song of joy. A song of resignation. A song that was the declaration that life had an end, and that end was what made it worth living. A shanty of tragedy and triumph.
Yohohoho! Yohohoho!
Yohohoho! Yohohoho!
Gather Up All of the Crew,
It's Time to Ship out Bink's Brew.
Sea wind blows, to where who knows?
The waves will be our Guide
O're across the ocean's tide
Rays of sunshine far and wide
Birds they sing of cheerful things,
In Circles Passing by!
Something moved in Naruto's peripheral vision and he saw several of the sailors had come out onto the deck to watch, listening intently to the singing skeleton. They looked at him unsurely, thinking he might bark at them to get back to work, but instead he waved them over.
Bid farewell to Weaver's Town
Say so long to ports renowned
Sing a song, it won't be long
Before we're casting off!
'Cross the Gold and silver seas,
The Salty spray puts us at ease
Day and night, to our delight,
The Voyage never ends!
A beat struck up between Naruto and the crew, a simple tapping of the foot or clapping, but the odd acoustics of the Triangle's fog echoed it back at them instantly, creating a chorus of sound and vibration that filled Brooks voice with a grand quality.
Gather up all of the crew,
it's time to ship out Bink's Brew
Pirates we eternally,
are challenging the sea!
With the waves to rest our heads,
Ship beneath us as our beds
Way up high upon the mast,
Our Jolly Roger flies!
Somewhere in the endless sky,
Stormy winds are blowing by.
Waves are dancing evening comes,
It's time to sound the drums.
But steady men and never fear,
tomorrow's skies are always clear
So pound your feet and clap your hands,
'Till suny days return!
Yohohoho! Yohohoho!
Yohohoho! Yohohoho!
More and more crew members emerged to watch and take part, and so to across the flotilla did the echo of voices roll in, joined in that old shanty with Brook's voice as the lead. And much as Naruto didn't much like to sing, for the final verse he joined in with gusto.
Gather up all of the crew.
It's time to ship out Bink's Brew.
Wave goodbye, but don't you cry,
Our memories remain!
Our days are but a passing dream.
Everlasting though they seem.
'Neith the moon we'll meet again,
the winds our lullaby.
Gather Up all of the crew,
It's time to ship out Bink's Brew.
Sing a song and play along,
For all the ocean's wide!
After all is said and done,
You'll end up a skeleton,
So spread your tail from dawn 'till dusk
Upon these foamy Seas
Yohohoho! Yohohoho!
Ahead of the Gait, a particularly thick wall of fog rolled up on them, blanketing the deck until nobody could see their hand in front of their face, before with no warning, they were all bathed in sunlight once again.
Covering his eyes from the sudden glare, Naruto pulled his hand away once his eyes adjusted and saw the yawning blue horizon where sky met sea for the first time in a number of days. Sunlight beat down on them all as one by one the Storm Squadron pierced the storm wall into the beautiful midday sun.
And on the distant horizon, so small it could be mistaken for a mirage, was a band of red with a single dot of green at its heart.
Sabaody Archipelago.
Where the Typhon would make landfall. And no matter how happy he was, the chances of it turning into an ill omen were always high.
Especially when other factors were waiting in the wings.
An Oni. A Drunk. The Snake Princess and The Golden Lion.
And hidden somewhere amongst the mighty boughs of the Yarukiman Mangroves, a man with a strange name and a straw hat.
A/N: HERE IT COMES!
This chapter took a lot out of us, time to sleep! Have a great day~!
! Sooooooooo, do you want this to be a story? Would you like faster updates? Yes? No? Maybe so? Make yourselves heard. I bow to feedback! Pairing might be a single pairing, or might be harem, or there may not be one at all. You decide! Do let me know in your reviews~!
Aaaand there we go. As ever, reviews keep me alive. Without them, I cannot write. So...in the Immortal Words of Atlas...
...Review...Would You Kindly? All the more important this time around, you see...
BECAUSE THERE ARE NO PREVIEWS THIS TIME!
Can't afford to spoil what comes next!
See you next time!