Assembly III
Assembly III
Sabaody Archipelago
Naruto was speechless.
The inn, or whatever this building was, was incredible.
The inside was dimly lit with lanterns, providing just enough light to see everything clearly yet not enough to be blinding. The orange flickering of flame bounced off the earthen walls, creating a soothing atmosphere that could only be described as welcoming.
The staff and customers were of great diversity; Naruto counted more than a dozen people of all sorts of looks and biological physiques. Some were simply local fishmen and mermen, some resembled the mink people that he had heard about in Wano, and others yet were of origins completely foreign to him.
The insides of the tavern were tall and grand; after all, if it was to encompass all sorts of races, how could it not have a high ceiling when there were oni, giant fishmen, giant mermen, giant minks, and even the occasional Longarm and Longleg coming through?
Shikamaru saw the wonder incessantly spilling from Naruto's face, and quietly spoke into his ear. "This tavern/inn was designed as a haven for minority groups. Everyone who comes here is in one way or another discriminated against by the World Government. The officials frequent Sabaody because it's the center of slave trade globally, something we've been trying to undermine for years with minimal success."
Naruto frowned, and his heart sank as he caught on to Shikamaru's implication. "I see. And trying to undermine a business either ran by or legitimized by the World Government is nearly impossible without immense power and influence."
Shikamaru hummed in agreement, before tossing a smirk at him. "Not bad; looks like you're not a bumbling idiot anymore."
Naruto grinned just a bit and let a bit of his pride show. "Well, of course not! I've laid low and undercover for like a decade before, ya know!"
Shikamaru let out a snort, "Is that so? Well, color me surprised."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The casual banter continued for only a few more seconds, as they halted once inside a secluded chamber in the back of the establishment. The old man who accompanied them leaves, and Shikamaru, Naruto, and Sakura were left alone in the room.
Sakura leaned over. "Shika, how do you know the Dark King Rayleigh?"
He smirked crookedly. "I act as an informant with my sister – no, Naruto, not now, I'll explain later – and we've always been based in Sabaody due to the sheer amount of traffic. Turns out we're not the only ones; we met him a couple years ago when he pretended to become a slave in the auction and busted him out. Thankfully there were no world nobles, but we still got hunted down by a vice admiral. He saved us, and we've been in secret collaboration ever since."
She whipped her head around in shock. "Pretended to be a slave in the auction? Why the hell would he do that?"
Shikamaru shrugged. "Dunno. Think he said it was for some cash or something."
Sakura opened her mouth, and then closed it. "You know what, I'm not going to ask any more. Anyways, what's the verdict?"
"What verdict?" questioned Naruto.
"How we're all here," Shikamaru clarified. "Well, to be honest, I don't know. Sure, I have some theories. You said before you lost unconsciousness, it looked like the world shattered?"
Sakura nodded, and Naruto squinted as he tried to remember this detail. Sakura noticed and flicked his forehead. "You probably don't remember, with that brain of yours. Remember, we fell into a pit or abyss kind of thing after the ground literally crumbled. I think the sky shattered as well, like glass."
Shikamaru nodded as Naruto made a noise of realization. "If that's the case, perhaps the world simply collapsed from the sudden displacement of chakra. You know how if you put too much chakra into an inanimate object, it explodes? I have a feeling that's what happened. The destruction of the God Tree probably released a massive wave of chakra that nature could not hold, and somehow broke reality in a way. It actually matches chakra theory actually; it's been proposed for a long time that chakra is a foreign energy that originally did not exist and was only introduced later in the grand scale of things."
Naruto lights up with understanding. "Right! That makes sense. The old sage guy said that his mother, that originator of chakra person, was an otherworldly queen who planted the chakra fruit in the Elemental Nations."
"I see. That does make sense. Well, now that that's solved, what are we to do?" questioned Sakura. "We're not about to restart the Hidden Villages, and there's this vast new land out here. What do we do?"
Naruto grinned menacingly. "Y'know, I couldn't become Hokage last time, which is honestly a shame. But what if we became the number one pirate crew? We can just go around exploring, helping people who need it, and just enjoying ourselves after the crap that was our old life!"
His two comrades looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded in agreement.
"Alright! So, from this day on, we're the Konoha Pirates! And I'm the captain this time!"
New World
Sasuke cursed as the wind picked up. "Kakashi!"
The sail of their ship quivered under the strong air currents, sending the shadows of the boat into complete disarray. Kakashi leapt out of the ocean, hair trailing a stream of frothy sea water, with a net full of fish in hand. "I'm here. Strong winds, eh?"
"You think?" A random pot on deck was sent flying by the gusty wind and vanished into the deep blue. Sasuke tightened his hold on the sail ropes, finger joints turning white from the pressure. His hood flew up and over, his hair flitted about his face, and Sasuke whipped his head around in futile attempts to clear his vision.
"The sails should hold," Kakashi spoke, voice barely audible over the roaring wind. "Is everything else on deck secured?"
"Yes. I've moved all the unsecure things either inside or tied them down. It's fine now."
The two walked down to hunker below deck. They took out portions of their rations and ate in silence.
"So, why are we going to this Sabaody Archipelago?"
Kakashi glanced at the boy with a mysterious expression that revealed, annoyingly, nothing. "You'll see."
Sasuke huffed with clear and expressed irritation. "Fine, keep your secrets then," he grumbled. However, at the thought of being one step closer to seeing the one whom fate has bound him tightly together with, his irritation dissipates just a tiny bit.
They waited out the passing storm quietly, with Kakashi periodically checking the Log Pose to make sure they remained on course.
And after what felt like an eternity but was likely closer to half an hour, the violent rocking of the ship subsided, and the duo emerged to find sunny skies and fair, warm winds.
Sasuke sighed in relief, before inadvertently perking up at the sight of land in the far distance. The clean air paired with vibrant sunlight allowed for miles upon miles of visibility.
And well within viewing distance was an odd cluster of land. Titanic trees, verdant and thick, surrounded with clear bubbles that shone under the sun. It appeared to be an archipelago, judging by the distance of the tree clusters from each other, and what appeared to be empty water in various places.
It was scarily close; had they taken a few more minutes to come out, they might have crashed into the land mass.
Sasuke turned towards Kakashi. "Is that.. ?"
"Yep," Kakashi nodded. "It seems the storm earlier actually pushed us in the correct direction. We're here."
The waves crashed against the hull as Kakashi lowered the anchor by the shore.
"Sabaody Archipelago."
The two jumped off the ship and landed on the wet sand with a soft thud.
Kakashi sent a grin in Sasuke's direction. "Well, here we are. Are you ready?"
Sasuke couldn't help but look around in wonder at the spectacle that was Sabaody. In his former world, something of both this magnitude and vision would have been not only nigh-on impossible, but completely unthinkable. Shinobi were not recognized as using their abilities for pleasure and entertainment after all, and so even after centuries of persistently studying the mysteries that chakra held, the development of the world at large was mostly dictated by civilian advancements, save for the military related achievements held by the shinobi forces across the lands.
So, to see a world – fragmented as it is – pull something like this off surprised him far more than expected.
Despite the fact that Sasuke was well over a decade into living in this world, he had yet to truly witness anything like this.
Kakashi pulled him along, silently and carefully tugging at his wrist the whole time, guiding the reborn boy through a maze of buildings, trees, and structures that were lost on Sasuke as he continued to swerve his head like a bird, absorbing the surroundings. Until finally, they came to a halt.
Kakashi gestured forward, towards a peculiar building. One made of wood, entangled with the tree roots that surround it, and with an oddly familiar symbol carved into its front.
"...?" Sasuke made to talk but kept silent. He pushed the door open, and suddenly walked into the past.
"-And what I'm saying is that we should lay low for a while! You already caused a fucking storm over in the New World with that Yamato girl in Wano! The World Government's going to be relentless if we just start going out and doing all these things!"
"Well then what's the point of us being pirates if we're going to stay cooped up and hide all the time?"
"Like I said, you idiot, it's only for two weeks!"
"But-!"
And the conversation abruptly halted.
Uchiha Sasuke was looking straight at Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto, in all their glory.
Despite changes to their clothing and appearance, there was no mistaking them. It was them.
"Sasuke?"
Sakura first slowly walked over, ran her hand along his face, hair, and prodded his skin multiple times as if to ascertain if he was an illusion or not. Once seemingly satisfied she pinched him hard. Hard enough for her nails to draw a few drops of blood from his skin.
Sasuke bit down on his tongue, but still let out a hiss of pain. "What was that for?"
Sakura huffed and lightly glared at him from the corner of her eyes. "I never chewed you out for all the nonsense you pulled way back when, you know? Be glad that I'm a lot less angry that back then, otherwise you'd be sporting much more than a couple of nail marks."
Sasuke silently thanked the heavens for the decade-and-a-half-long reunion.
"Bastard?"
He turned. "Idiot."
Despite the immediate exchange of their respective pejorative names, what Sasuke received was not any physical assault, but a hug.
"You're here," Naruto sniffled. And oh, Sasuke realized, his friend – or brother – was crying.
"I am."
"You're real."
Sasuke smirked lightly. "What, you think I'm not?"
He was rewarded with a light punch to the shoulder. The two stood in silence for a brief moment, before Sasuke decided to break it. "I'm glad to have you back."
Naruto stifled his sniffles, and Kakashi chortled and walked up to pat him on the back. "Aren't you two going to kiss or something?"
"Kakashi-sensei, it's not like that!" Naruto whined, reminiscent of the old days.
And then he realized. "Sensei? You're here too?"
His old teacher waved. "Yup! I joined up with Sasuke over in Paradise, and we've been making way here ever since."
And so, Konoha's last Team 7, the sole survivors of catastrophe that struck their now-deceased world, joyously celebrated their reunion.
"Naruto, the point of going undercover – not even hiding, mind you, just undercover! – is just so that we can get through for a while without government agents hunting us down! Shikamaru already told us how annoying they can be, especially with Cipher Pol agents, so we should avoid trouble until we've consolidated enough to easily get through!"
Sakura slammed her hand down on the table, turning to the others. "Help me convince him!"
Naruto held up his hand. "I understand," he resolutely stated. "I know what you're saying, but..."
An unreadable expression crossed his face. "If we go undercover... it shows weakness. Even if we're not ready, I'm for just going out without fear. Cowering leads to hesitance, and hesitance kills any chance we have of ever progressing."
"You would consider even disguises and a cover story as showing weakness."
A shade of doubt clouded Naruto's face. "Not necessarily... but I don't want to risk it?"
"Why do you care so much about this?"
"Wano." Naruto replied quickly. "Everyone's spirits were crushed, and after cowering under fear and oppression for so long... well, let's just say that it took nearly both Yamato and I dying to finally ignite their will to fight."
"But that's completely different! Don't you," Sakura swallowed unpleasantly. "Don't you trust us?"
Naruto frowned, and then coyly smiled. "Of course I do! But this... it's symbolic, you know? If I'm to lead a group of pirates, supposed criminals who don't budge in the face of world-wide government power, then I cannot bend either. A leader paves the path of those who he leads and sets an example. If I show weakness, even if you don't think of it as that, then we'll all eventually start taking the easy route out. But that's not us, is it?"
Sasuke snorted quietly, and sighed in resignation and acceptance. "It's not. I suppose we always choose the hardest, most difficult, and most trying route."
"In other words, we like to attract trouble and make everything troublesome for ourselves," Shikamaru interjected.
Sakura resigned. "Fine, alright," she conceded reluctantly, albeit with a small smile. It seems that the Uzumaki stubbornness carried over across lives and worlds. "Let's go, then. But you'll have to bring us up to par, you know? You're probably the strongest of us all, so we're going to have to take some time to catch up."
Naruto nodded and smirked at Sasuke. "How's it feel to be dead last now, Mr. East Blue?"
Said former East Blue resident simply stayed silent, but not without returning a glare.
Naruto laughed, and on the eve of the formation of a new powerhouse pirate crew, his heart soared with a lightness that had been absent for years.
Ten dawns later, it was complete.
In Sabaody, there were countless craftsmen and shipbuilders, and after some money and convincing, they constructed a ship.
And on the tenth day after their reunion, the inaptly named Shinobi Pirates boarded their very own Konohagakure.
Consisted of the five former Konoha shinobi and Nico Robin (Shikamaru's partner), the small crew raised the anchor, and the ship was set free.
Day broke, and their captain Uzumaki Naruto let out a shout as they pushed offshore.
It was not a command; it wasn't even a coherent sentence.
However, at that moment, within all their worn souls, something resonated, and the group of pirates echoed that same cry.
It was an odd sight, to be sure. Six people shouting their lungs out at the ever-rising sun, but...
It also had a certain charm to it. One that would later be reflected upon their Jolly Roger: a skull emblazed with the crest of Konoha, staunchly printed upon a brilliant orange sun.