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CHAPTER 35
Sakura was nervous, tapping her foot on the deck, trying not to bite the nail of her finger in her mouth as she watched Usopp make the final adjustments to his latest invention. An invention he made three models of, to strap three of their crewmates into.
"This is not a good idea," She shook her head, "Luffy,"
Her captain looked up, through the glass of the barrel hole he was wearing, "What?"
"Don't what me!" Sakura stomped, cracking the deck slightly which made Usopp cry out, reminding her not to abuse their poor ship with her strength. "This is not a good idea!"
"Yeah, it is! An underwater adventure!" Luffy exclaimed, throwing his arms up as far as his new outfit would allow. He was fixed inside two barrels, stacked on each other and sealed with rubber gloves and boots where Luffy's feet and arms would've been exposed through the holes carved out. At some point those barrels held supplies, and now they were engulfing the bodies of Luffy, Sanji, and Zoro. Why?
Because they had been refashioned by Usopp to be waterproof and deliver oxygen so that they could head underwater, to properly investigate the ship that had fallen from the sky and sunk into the ocean below. It was poetic, in a dooming way.
Anyone sensible would've thought it best to vet the crew members who didn't have devil fruits for this underwater expedition, but Luffy could not resist the temptation for this unique experience.
"Give it up," Nami put a hand on Sakura's shoulder, "He is as stubborn as a bull and we really need to find more clues if we want to get to this sky island. The boy's are tough, they'll be fine right?"
Sanji blew a kiss through the barrel on his head, "Don't worry Nami! I will not come back up until I find the treasure you're searching for!"
"Treasure would be pretty good," Nami seemingly said calmly, but Sakura could see the berry signs in her eyes. Her greed superseded everything at this moment.
Zoro, on the other hand, simply grunted as he tightened his gear. "We'll be fine. It's not that deep."
Sakura's patience snapped, her eyes narrowing. "Fine! Go ahead and drown."
The boys were lowered slowly, attached with pipes that would allow them to breathe so they could hear them. Usopp, Robin, Sakura, Nami, and Chopper stood on the other side to listen in on their updates. According to the play-by-play reports, they were dropped down passing a next of huge sea snakes, before coming to the ship.
"They're insane," Sakura muttered under her breath, still fuming.
"You're telling me," Nami sighed, standing next to her and looking out over the water. The ropes attached to the boys' barrels trailed down into the sea like lifelines.
They heard the boys chattering through the speakers—Luffy's excited voice practically bouncing off the walls of the barrels, while Zoro and Sanji bickered as usual.
"Luffy, stop wiggling so much!" Sanji's voice crackled through the speakers.
"I can't help it! It's so cool down here!" Luffy's voice echoed.
Suddenly, there was a loud thud and then silence.
Everyone on deck froze, closing their mouths and holding their breath.
"Guys? What's going on?" Usopp asked nervously.
A moment later, Zoro's voice came through. "We've reached the ship. It's in worse shape than I thought."
"Anything valuable?" Nami asked, her eyes lighting up with excitement at the prospect of treasure.
"We're checking it out," Sanji replied.
Things went quiet on both ends for a while, but that was taken as a good sign. The boy's light and calm breaths come through the pipes. Although through this calm, a whisper broke through, and in seconds it had gone from whispers to raging echoes and they were all saying the same thing. 'Salvage! Salvage!' chanting it like a mantra, tapping in sync with tambourines, the voices filled with excitement. The source was coming from another ship, three times the size of the Going Merry, its figurehead, a monkey with a banana. The ship dropped anchor right next to them.
"What… what is that?" Usopp stammered
"A monkey?" Sakura shrugged, her eyebrow quirked with questions.
They were not the only ones intending to salvage the ship it seemed. These intruders were loudly announced as the Masira Pirates, by the leader, Marsira himself. Misara was a large built man, who had a terrifyingly close resemblance to an ape. And he was none too kind when he spotted the crew on the Going Merry.
"Hey, who are you people!? Are you trying to steal our prize?!"
Nami immediately stepped forward, flashing her most charming smile. "Oh, we're not here to take anything."
"The hell we aren't," Sakura hissed, but Nami stomped on her foot to keep her from being any louder.
"We wouldn't dream of getting in your way. In fact, we'd love to watch your process. We've never seen professionals at work before." She batted her eyes, and even the grizzled salvager seemed momentarily disarmed by her.
The salvagers began their work immediately, throwing ropes and chains over the side of the ship to pull up the wreckage up, in a single swoop. They had an entire system in place, using pulleys and giant hooks to wrap around the wreckage, slowly lifting it from the depths. The process also included dropping the entire figurehead of the ship into the ocean and creating an air bubble around the ship to give it boyancy to bring it to the surface.
They were having some toruble keeping quiet the fact that three of their crew mates were already on board down there.
"This is going South Fast,"
"What are you planning to do about it?" Robin asked, her voice dipped in calm.
Even with her lips tightened, the direction of her gaze, told the entire story of her intentions. Nami and Usoopp weren't too thrilled about them, mostly for the fear of getting dragged into the mix, and having their ship overtaken by these salvager pirates.
"Do not,"
"When the guys come to the surface, I'll quickly go over to the other side, and take out the crew."
"Are you insane!?" Usopp hissed, his lips pursed with dread. "You're gonna drag us into a fight when we're outnumbered?!"
"I can handle that much on my own," Sakura assured them but Usopp just shook his head like he was trying to take it off. The debate was interrupted by the threat of a new storm. Not in the literal sense, of actual weather altering, ocean bending, change in the wind phenomenon. But a new problem that would make their excursion on and in the seas more problematic.
It came out of the ocean, creating waves that pushed back both ships, but had been down so deep no one noticed anythign on the surface until it decided to rise. What exactly? An enormous sea turtle. By enormous, that meaning was island sized. And suddenly an impending conflict with the other pirate group became redundant.
Even more so, when they noticed hanging from the creatures mouth, bits of wood, plank, and certainly a few lines of ropes were coming from the sealed opening, actually it was the air pipes….
"It ate them!" Sakura covered her mouth, shivering in disbelief. "How could this happen again!?"
Ussop and Chopper ran amuck on the ship trying to ward off the panic that clung to them tightly. Nami gave a half-hearted apology to the boy's spirits for sending them down to the sea bed.
The turtle began to move, not even by much but it was dragging along both ships with it.
"Sakura do something!"
The kunoichi was nearly hurled off from the deck, glaring back at Usopp, "What do you want me to do? Smash its teeth in-actually that might work!"
"No!" Nami exclaimed, grabbing Sakura's leg and yanking her from the railing. "Don't do that!"
"I can get them out, just give me a second!" Sakura got free of Nami's grip and jumped over, heading straight for the ocean. Usopp, Chopper and Nami went balistic, calling Sakura, however they went to stunned as she landed with the soles of her feet ripping on the surface of the ocean.
"She's standing on the water!" exclaimed Chopper. She had already started running towards the turtle.
"She can do that too? How many powers does she have?" Nami didn't have time to dwell on this question because it had been inked out by another, as the sky suddenly went extremely dark, indicating night. Even though it was the middle of the day.
"What's happening now!?" Usopp cried, his knees trembling from the weight of all these unexpected events on this ocean known as the Grand Line.
Sakura was able to reach the turtle's mouth with little difficulty, she ran straight up from its fin to its mouth, even though it wasn't entirely open it was still wide for some reason it stopped trying to chew the ship. There was enough space for her to get through without much effort, so there was no need to break its teeth and likely send it into a frenzy. However, as she came to the crevice of its mouth, she nearly lost Sanji's Potato Pallie when she inhaled. It was like stepping into a sewer, that smelt like the ocean, and rotting meat.
"I'm going to get those idiots for making me do this,"
The ship was an obvious casualty to this turtle's jaws, but she hoped that her crewmates at least weren't. She heard noises, grunts, and splintering of wood.
"YOU THIEVES!" A piece of that wood came barrelling towards Sakura who ducked to avoid it.
"What the hell?" Sakura ventured deeper into the creatures mouth, the soles of her feet sinking into the flesh of its tongue. She let out an unlady like guteral groan.
Echoes of a struggle ahead caught her ear—muffled grunts, the clash of steel, and the unmistakable laugh of Luffy. Of course. Leave it to those idiots to get into a fight even in a place like this. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she quickened her pace, sidestepping a dripping vine of seaweed tangled with debris.
In the middle of the turtles gullet, amid pieces of broken ship, she saw Zoro, Sanji, and Luffy and then she caught sight of the fourth party. Captain Masira, was swinging his arms, bulldozing through the debris of the ship and charging towards the three like an angry bull.
"THIS IS MY SALAVGE!" His exclaimation was short but it was enough context for Sakura to realize what this was about.
"He's nuts!" exclaimed Sanji, dodging one of his hits.
Sakura chose to make her presence known with a flashy entrance, she rushed passed the three, and threw an open palm at Masira, with enough power to force him flying straight out of the creatures mouth.
"Sakura!" Luffy and Sanji exclaimed excitedly.
"Sakura my dear, have you come to see me?"
"You morons!" Sakura stomped her foot, "We're in the middle of a crisis and you three are up screwing around!"
"It was that damn ape! When he saw us salvaging the ship, he went nuts and attacked….Wait what the hell are you even doing here? How'd you get in the ocean?" All three of them were carrying some sort of sack that seemed to be bursting with items. So at least they would be retrieving something useful after all this effort.
Sakura looked at him incredulously, her former stance towards Zoro momentarily forfeit so that she could argue, "Are you idiots that dense? You're not in the sea anymore!"
"Then where are we?" asked Sanji.
Throwing her hands up and letting out a tight-lipped shriek, Sakura just grabbed the backs of their collars and started dragging them out the opposite side of the turtle's mouth. She was not going to risk this thing reacting, closing its jaws, or worse swallowing them. She could not pass through another giant animal in such a short span of time.
"Let's go!" Sakura then jumped out through the opening, coming face to face with the night sky. When she landed on the sea, only Luffy remained in her grasp, over her shoulder while she dropped Zoro and Sanji into the ocean. Of course, this revelation quickly diverted Luffy's attention but it was being pulled in several directions, the first thing he noticed was the sky had turned dark.
"Is it night already?" asked Luffy, clutching his hat as he looked up.
"No that's impossible," There might have been a lot of odd disasters falling around them like domino's but she refused to believe that they lost almost eight hours in that turtles mouth.
"Ah!" Luffy exclaimed and shifted on Sakura's shoulder.
"What is it?"
"Sakura you're standing on water!"
"That's not important!"
"But it's so cool!"
She blew out a large puff of air, trying to shoot out all of her feelings before taking off towards the Going Merry. Sanji and Zoro weren't too far behind either, and soon they had all landed back on board.
"You're back!" Chopper rushed over, gripping Sanji's leg.
"You're alive!" Usopp exclaimed. "Now let's get out of here!"
Zoro, Sanji, and Luffy were still so far out of the loop, that they couldn't see its border yet. But they were brimming with energy despite their journey, after seeing Sakura's new trick.
"Since when could you walk on water?" Zoro panted, dropping the bag of salvaged goods from the ship. "You ate a devil fruit,"
"Not the time to be getting into your skepticism of me, Zoro. We have other problems to deal with first,"
To prove her point, Sakura grabbed Zoro and nearly smacked his head in the direction of the giant sea turtule. The creatures mouth hung wider, which had made the gaps for their escape possible. The creature wasn't moving though as if it had fallen into some kind of state.
"What is that?!" exclaimed Sanji dropping the bag over his shoulder.
"That's the turtle that ate the ship, you three dolts were on," Sakura said folding her arms.
"WE WERE IN THAT THINGS MOUTH?"
Usopp couldn't help but comment, "Nothing gets passed you guys huh?!"
"How are any of you still alive?" Sakura added, rubbing her forehead heavily, trying to keep her breath calm. The mental gymnastics it was taking for her to keep her sanity on this ship was something else. "Anyway, what did you guys find in the wreckage?"
While her eyes were closed, Sakura felt the ocean grow quiet. The rowdy salvager pirates' voices went mute, and it felt like no one on the Going Merry was moving anymore.
"What's going…"
This would've been impossible to notice if it weren't for the distance. It started as a single shadow, or silhouette outline, a long line of black, but as they turned upwards, a new shape began to take form, more human. Three, of them, towered over the ocean with legs that could stretch out even from its depths. A cold sweat washed over everyone as the picture became clear of three humanoid silhouettes that seemed to loom over the entire sky, blocking out the sun. The nerves of steel that many of the seasoned crew of the straw hats held, became like dead oak, brittle, and able to crumble with a single effort of force. Luffy had lost his excitement for the sight of the unknown, Usopp couldn't go on his usual panic rants, and Robin couldn't give any grizzly comment about their situation.
No one could avoid being overwhelmed, faces turning blue as they forgot to breathe, eyes trembling whiel they took a good minute to realise what was in front of them. They were rabbits caught in the sight of lions. But after a moment of paralysis, instinct for survival blared its alarms in their minds sending the message to their bodies to flee, blood pumping with overworked hearts as they moved to do just that.
Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, Chopper and Sakura grabbed hold of the oars and began to row in terrific sync that must've been fuled by the same level of fear they shared which allowed them this feat. They didn't speak, or shout, just did everything in their power to focus on the goal.
They kept rowing, straightening their arms to the fullest giving the ship the most momentum they could allow with their manual labor, hoping to break through to the dawn. That had taken longer than anyone liked, as the skies finally cleared, and the sun returned to its allotted position for the day. Everything else was eagerly placed on the back burner, while they entered into a circle to sit and recap the horrifyingly unusual events of the day.
It was unfathomable, Sakura had seen many humungous beings, with equal destructive force to clear mountains in a single attack. She had experienced this with the tailed beasts and the ten tails, but throw silhouettes loomed a far greater distance than they could ever reach. Yet somehow, what was more terrifying was that they actually managed to get away from the. When the light returned, and the crew dared to look back, the three were gone, as if they were never standing there to begin with. It made no sense.
"Is that a common phenomenon out here?" Sakura gasped out, finally finding her breath again, as she crouched on the deck.
Robin, who usually kept a calm composure, had also fallen victim to the sight and had a faint tremor even now after they escaped. "Not that I know of, I never imagined there were creatures of that size in this ocean,"
Sanji fumbled for his lighter, and managed to ignite his cigarette, taking a heavy drag to pull out all of the stress, "The grand line is just one strange occurrence after another," He blew out a puff, his shoulders sagging as he leaned against the ship.
One by one, they began recounting the bizarre chain of events that had led them to this moment as if speaking it aloud would make it all easier to believe.
Zoro rubbed the back of his neck, still glancing around. "First, there was that galleon ship just… falling out of the sky,"
Nami nodded, crossing her arms tightly over her chest as if she could shield herself from the memory. "And don't forget the Log Pose," she added, her brows furrowed. "Pointing straight up to the sky… Telling us to go somewhere impossible."
"Then a huge turtle ate the ship," Chopper recounted.
"Then night came," Robin said, holding her face.
"And we saw huge monsters bigger than giants!" Luffy finished
As if in agreement, the Going Merry creaked softly, her wooden frame swaying under their feet, bringing them all back to the present.
The ocean, vast and unchanging, stretched out before them, its surface now deceptively calm under the warming light of the afternoon sun. The shadows and terrors of the last hour had vanished, leaving only a memory, and yet each of them knew it was something they'd never forget.
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- (Bleach crossover) Kunoichi amongst Reapers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
-Commission: Demon slayer x My hero academia (PART 1 & 2)
- Kunoichi amongst Benders (Avatar x Naruto crossover) (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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-Kunoichi amongst Heroes WHAT IF SPIN OFF: Dorms and Exams
-Kunoichi amongst Pirates chapter (36, 37. 38)
-Crossroads of Fate chapter 27, 28, 29, 30
-Through the Looking Glass chapter 32. 33, 34, 35, 36, 37
-(SEQUEL) Through the Spyglass chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6
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