chapter 5

The Baratie was, indeed, on fire. And not just on fire, but exploding with gushes of flame, though only on one side. It took a bit of maneuvering, but the crew was able to guide the ship to the side of the Baratie – with a ship as circular as that it was hard to tell which way was which sometimes – that was on fire. Whether it was port or starboard was anyone's guess.

The expression "make it rain" has never been quite as literal as it was when Lee gave Drake the order, at the same time grabbing a piece of cloth that might've been a cleaning rag or just a large handkerchief, and wrapping it around his nose and mouth.

It was a dumb, stupid and unnecessary thing to do, so naturally, Drake was all over it. One of the few times where she'd ever listen to an order without any sass, talk back or joke, and instead, just replied with "Aye aye, cap'n!" and a salute.

"What are you doing?" Kuina asked, frowning. "What is she doing? Why aren't we helping? The ship's on fire!"

"We're helping, but we're doing it with style!" Lee said. "Aaaaaaand~!"

"FIRE!" Drake shouted.

"Fire wha-"

And then the water between us and the Baratie went BOOM, a golden explosion of Drake's own power triggering the rise of a large wave and gushing waters, quickly reaching the apex of their flight, and then breaking apart, coming down as mostly rain rather than a single wall of water… and for the remaining wall of water, Lee enacted the second step of his plan.

"Lee what are you even-"

He gathered his energy and took off at a run, leaping past the bow of the ship, breaking past the water wall and making it explode so that instead of a dangerous breaking wave, it too splashed into the fire, helping instead of causing further damage, and also giving Lee a cold area around his landing point as he hit the burnt lower deck of the Baratie.

"Alright, what the fuck is going on in here?" Lee muttered to himself, as he looked around. No one there to be seen, but it was only normal that people would have fled this deck if it was on fire. That said, nobody was working on putting out the fire, and that meant…

"People might be trapped inside!" Kuina's voice reached Lee a moment before she touched down a few steps behind Lee. Seemed she'd gotten the idea and was wearing a bandana on her face as well. "Is there a way to get inside from here?" she asked, looking around. Though the water had done a good job of putting out the fire in the general vicinity of where they landed, the fire still raged.

"Yes!" Lee said, nodding, walking towards the closest wall and then just punching it, shattering the burnt wood to splinters easily, revealing a raging inferno within, which exploded out and forced Lee to use the speed he'd trained to dodge the blast of ignition.

"We'll go through the other side!" Drake called. "See what we can find out!"

Lee nodded. The heat was so potent that it was actually hard to breathe properly, but he and Kuina had way too much training controlling their breathing to be bothered by it.

"Right!" Kuina shouted back.

It was time. The wall they'd opened up was into a storage room, for cleaning supplies. Undoubtedly part of the reason why it'd ignited so well. "I really wish I knew how to create a vacuum with air pressure right now," Lee huffed.

Too bad that was actually far more difficult than it might seem. Air pressure attacks in general were fairly difficult to get right, even if Cologne made them seem contemptuously easy. Just clearing the strength requirement wasn't enough, you also had to know how to stop your punch at exactly the right time to aim it properly….

"I've got an idea," Kuina said.

"I'm listening," Lee said.

Kuina looked at the blazing room moved a few steps to the left, and then just sliced through the wooden wall four times, creating a rectangular opening. "We just go in where it's not as hot!" she said.

Lee laughed. "See that's why I don't go solo," he spoke, "good idea, let's go!"

The room Kuina opened an entrance into was a large dining room. The Baratie was quite sizable, and could serve quite a few people at once, which made it a bit more difficult to navigate than its shape would suggest. Especially when it was on fire.

Fortunately it didn't seem like anyone'd been caught in the blazes, though there were signs of a struggle on the hallway that the dining room had an opening into. "There's burns and cuts on the wall," Lee muttered.

"What are these stains?" Kuina asked, poking one such stain on a wall with her sword, frowning. "Smells kinda bad too."

Lee looked at it for a few moments, then laughed. "I guess she really did come," he said. "Alright then, we're moving on – the Baratie isn't defenseless, but we shouldn't dawdle! There might still be people in danger that we can look cool saving!"

And then something exploded, not too far away.

"That's a terrible reason to help!" Kuina shouted, trying to be heard over the explosion's sound, even as the Restaurant Ship shook, the creak of its wooden beams and the whine of its steel reinforcements shuddering from impact causing the two of them to wince.

"Any reason's a good reason to help!" Lee countered, taking off at a run, towards the source of the explosion, followed closely by Kuina. More fire welcomed them, the closer they got, the hotter the air and the more pockets of flame they encountered. It seemed like their initial guess was wrong.

"Someone's been setting off incendiary bombs all over the place," Lee said, as they found another room that had been almost entirely consumed by the blazes. "Let's go!!"

Unfortunately their path was blocked by a collapsed ceiling, due to the flames.

Kuina looked at the upper floor. "Should we go up?" she asked. "We could make it past the… cave… in?" she shook her head. "Caved in floor."

"Nah, that's where all the smoke's going, I don't wanna be taken out by some amateur horseshit like smoke inhalation," Lee said, "so we'll go through… Time to breakpoint some roasted chestnuts," he said to himself, stepping up to the blazing debris and taking only a few moments to bring back everything he'd learned about the breaking point technique, and combining it with the mnemonics of the exercise that allowed him to increase his hand speed and reflexes…

Honestly more simple, yet difficult, than anyone expected, but one of the advantages of this world was that humans were quite a bit tougher than they had any right to be, and so Lee managed to strike at the breaking point of the flaming beams, planks of wood and assorted bits of roadblock, shattering them one by one.

"Whoa damn, that's a crazy strong technique..! That's the one you used to shatter my swords right?" Kuina asked, looking at the remains, which, while still on fire, would not hinder their passage.

"Well it's a more advanced version but yeah," Lee said, shaking his hand. The tips of his fingers were a bit burnt, but he could shake it off and they continued on.

As they made it past, they started hearing the sounds of battle, of things smashing, the sounds of steel on steel, and the odd explosion, small or medium sized, going off, either shaking the ship or just thundering.

Lee and Kuina reached the room where the fighting was taking place, only to find what the gigantic explosion from earlier had been… because the Baratie was missing quite a bit of its external structure, since Lee was pretty sure they should not be seeing the East Blue from where they were.

What had once been a kitchen was now a blasted and blackened unidentifiable disaster, part of the deck at best, with melted, broken and shattered kitchen utensils of all sorts, pans, pots, knives, forks, spoons, even sporks, if you could name it, it was probably stabbed into a wall or broken to pieces or currently being used to fend off attacks.

"Is the Baratie being attacked by fucking ninja?!" Lee exclaimed, as his eyes settled on a group of black robed people standing with their backs to the ocean. Four men, black robes, black masks, black armor visible when their robes were disturbed by the wind… He then turned his attention to where the fighting itself was happening. "Is everybody okay!?" he shouted.

Kuina brandished her most precious sword. There was no time to be sentimental in a real fight, and so she had brought out Roronoa for this one. "What's going on here!?"

"Who's that?! Reinforcements?!" someone, one of the chefs, sitting against a wall, bloodied and beaten, called. "Over here!"

There were several other chefs with him, including the imposing figure of a one legged man, who glared at the men in black robes with his arms crossed. There was a cut on his cheek and his blond hair was stained with soot. The one legged man…

For some reason the first thing that came to mind for Lee was that he owed them money for something but Lee couldn't remember what or why.

Lee and Kuina nodded at each other, keeping their eyes trained on the enemies as they approached the chefs. "Yo- we just got here!" Lee called. "Any clue what's going on?"

"Your guess' as good as mine, these guys just showed up and-"

Someone came down from high above, hitting the now open to the air kitchen's floor and rolling, catching himself and then planting his hands on the ground, heedless of the broken bits of plate and such, spinning around and welcoming the incoming attacker that came after him with a spinning kick that burst into flame at the moment of impact, though it was blocked with a raised arm by the black robed man fighting him.

Lee's attention was caught by the second person to fall from above, however. Almost in the shape of a butterfly, a vision of angelic pink beauty came crashing down, followed by a cloud of purple mist, which reacted with the flames caught in the robed figure's, well, robe, and then went fucking BOOM, destroying the robe and revealing…

"Ninja robots!? Really?!" Lee shouted. "Are we going there!?"

"Who's that- LEE!?" the pink angel said.

"Oh hey, Reiju! Sorry I'm late to the party, glad you got my invite though!"

"You're late!" she shouted.

"Wait, he's here!? YOUUUUUU!" Sanji shouted, immediately beginning to ignore the black dressed robot ninja and pointing at Lee. "Stay away from my sister you womanizer!"

"You of all people are calling me a womanizer?!" Lee shouted back.

"Uh, guys, can we put this for later? The robot ninja guys are looking pretty angry now," Kuina tried.

"NEVER!" Sanji shouted. "I'll never forgive you for stealing the hearts of so many maidens, and making them see me as a little brother who has no chance with them!" he continued.

"I told you that you did that to yourself, twirly brow!" Lee shouted.

Kuina looked at the pink haired woman, both of them, at that moment, shared a look that spoke of understanding, of mutual understanding, of respect, and of course, of long held frustration. "We did this to ourselves, didn't we?"

"Yes," Reiju agreed. "That said- we'd appreciate the help!" she said, stepping back and avoiding a roundhouse kick that would've hit her square in the jaw otherwise.

Lee moved quickly. Unfortunately the machines were composed of hundreds of different parts, breaking point could only do so much against them… but he had an out for that. It didn't work on living beings, but whatever the hell these were, prototype Pacifista units maybe? They were not living!

Dodging a blast of flame from what appeared to be a cannon that one of the other robots had as a left arm, probably a flamethrower of some kind, Lee quickly stepped right in front of Reiju, just as she dashed back to avoid another sweeping attack, with a mighty, powerful step, and an uppercut that hit the robot square in its covered chin, breaking the black mask it wore and revealing the cybernetics underneath.

"Eat this..!" Lee shouted, as he began raining blows on the outer plate of the robot's body, enhancing each attack with his ki, the black plates shattering as he hit their breaking point, quickly revealing the weaker insides of the robot, the moving parts underneath that made it function.

As the outer plates were destroyed, Lee noticed that there was a large box set in the middle of the chest of the robot thing, with an emblazoned and stylized number 66 drawn on it, on top of a skull, made to look like lightning bolts in yellow.

"Ah fuck of course," Lee muttered, then put his fist through that. The electric shock was more energizing than damaging, and the robot stopped moving shortly after, opening it for a kick that sent it flying away. He turned to Reiju, who adjusted her long pink hair, and huffed. "You okay?"

"Yes," she said. "Good timing."

Lee nodded. "Nice to see you're as friendly as ever," he said, grinning. "So. You saw it?"

Reiju nodded. "We'll discuss later. I have no idea what these are either but I have a guess," she said.

Two of the robed robots threw their cloaks away. One of them revealed a large blade for a right arm and a grasping claw for a left arm, while the other had a multi-barreled cannon for a right arm, and a shield for a left, shaped like a kite but with a mount for its oversized cannon.

"They don't look friendly."

"They're not," Reiju muttered. "Literally just attacked the ship out of nowhere. They're gunning for Sanji," she said. "I know it."

Lee shrugged. Whoever they were gunning for didn't matter. They were going down, that was all that mattered.

The two other robots were, instead, going for Sanji. One of them reached him first, though Sanji rolled out of the way of its attack, as it revealed that it had a large hammer with what appeared to be rocket thrusters in place of its right arm, and a spiked ball in place of its left, which it swung, even though Sanji was out of range-

And then the spiked ball came loose, trailed by a chain, heading straight for Sanji's face. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open, even as he prepared to try to kick it away, Kuina rushed past, cutting through the air and sliding along the ground, the screech of steel on steel sounding as the spiked ball was knocked off course.

"Damn I really wanted to cut it in half there!" Kuina muttered, looking at her sword and taking a few test swings. "Good, no chips, it really would've sucked if I had to get it repaired," she muttered.

"That was badass," Lee shouted, "good job Kuina!"

"That was really cool," Sanji agreed. "My lady, may I invite you for a meal-"

"Fight now, dating later!" Reiju shouted.

"Right, right," Sanji said, getting back on his feet, stretching his muscles.

Four enemies. Four people on their side.

"They should've brought more ninja," Lee muttered.

"They did. We broke like three of them already," Sanji said. "Suck it, loser."

Lee chuckled. "Good job, Reiju."

"Wha- dude!" Sanji shouted.

Reiju smirked. "Let's do this," she said. "You can bypass their toughness?" she said. "We needed some pretty heavy duty explosions to break their armor."

"Doesn't really matter how tough they are," Lee said, stretching his fingers as the two robots circled him and Reiju.

It seemed like everyone was waiting for someone to take the first move…

Big Blade robot was first, the bottom of its feet exploding, flames trailing as it swung its sword diagonally at Lee, which he dodged by turning to the right and leaning down, catching the follow up with the grasping claw that would've impaled his back, and then holding the claw in place with both hands then jumping, planting his feet on the robot's chest, then grinning. "Looks like you've been disarmed!" Lee shouted, as he pushed at the robot's chest with all his strength, and with a sound of first ripping cloth, then shattering steel, the robot's arm came off in a shower of wires, metal bits and electrical sparks.

It staggered back, trembling with electrical shocks.

Reiju took the opportunity, her boots giving her a boost with their own thrusters, allowing her to reach the robot just as it recovered, before it could swing its massive blade arm, and then place a controlled, smooth kick at the hole, a purple haze seeming to flow from her and into the opened hole.

The robot raised its sword to cut Lee in half, but before it could swing, it began to shudder, then throw out electrical sparks, and then, as Reiju activated her thrusters and grabbed Lee, it exploded, the two managing to get clear of the explosion with no issues.

"The hell was that?" Lee shouted, as the two landed on their feet.

"Combustible poison," Reiju said. "Electricity or fire makes it go off. Big boom."

"Makes sense to me!" Lee said with a laugh, looking at the remains of blade robot. "Speaking about which-"

Flame cannon robot was next, shooting a big helping heap of fire at them, which they both jumped to opposite sides to avoid. The fire spread like a liquid, it was sticky, more like napalm than gasoline.

Reiju continued rolling as the flaming liquid splashed around. "Not the time for catching up!" she said.

Lee nodded. More streams of fire erupted from the multibarreled cannon the robot was wielding, and he rapidly stepped around the flaming liquid, the crunching of the shards of glass, burnt wood chips and bits of metal, both melted and broken, heralding each of his steps as he jumped around, dodging the attacks.

The robot followed him with its aim, but obviously, it wasn't exactly worried about hitting its own allies.

"Heads up!" Lee shouted, as he jumped into the air, dodging a stream of fire that impacted the ball and chain robot, at the same time, Kuina and Sanji broke from fighting it. The flaming robot had taken a few blows, and some of its metallic plates were broken, the blazing liquid slipped past the broken plates and into its inner workings, dealing extensive and tremendous damage to it from within.

"That's stealing!" Sanji shouted, pointing a finger, vibrating with anger, at Lee.

"Now's really not the time!" Kuina shouted, tackling Sanji to the ground as the robot went off, activating some sort of self-destruct that sent bits of itself flying all over the place.

"Ahhh, I've been saved by a beautiful woman..!" Sanji called out.

For a moment, Lee imagined him with big fat pink hearts in place of eyes, as Kuina's chest pressed against his. Not too dissimilar from what happened when his travels had taken him to the Nekohanten for a stint as a trainee there.

"Ah! Right! That's Zeff, that's where I remember him from! Oi! You owe us money for the plate Sanji broke!" Lee shouted, pointing at the blond chef.

"Get rid of the robots and we can discuss a payment plan," the chef called, herding his own wounded away, a few burns on his outfit, even his facial hair was visibly singed.

Lee nodded, barely hearing or understanding the man's message over the screech of metal and the sound of the flames, as the Baratie burned around them, and Reiju, Sanji and Kuina turned the flamethrower robot into scrap metal.

First, Kuina stepped into its guard, and stuck Roronoa in the hinge of its cannon arm, holding the sword in place, and then planting her feet on the roboninja's side, using the sword almost like a lever, and forcing the cannon arm off its articulation point, the screeching metal and crackling lightning heralding the arm popping off almost comically, landing on the ground, flaming liquid pouring out of the hole.

The robot then proceeded to try to bash at Kuina with its shield, but she rapidly slipped away, swinging her sword into the air to remove the remainder of liquid fire still clinging to it, not that it'd change much, as the fire was only getting worse anyway.

With its back turned, the robot had no chance in hell to use its shield to block the siblings' attack as Reiju and Sanji both landed a terrifyingly powerful dual kick, shattering the robot's armor plates and splitting it in half, each of them kicking their half of it in an opposite direction from the other, robot parts flying about and fuel spreading, some of it igniting in the heat and flames.

With the last one dealt with, the quartet all convened together. "Whew, that's the last one- how many were there anyway? Did we miss any of them?"

Reiju shook her head.

Kuina shrugged.

Sanji poked a finger at Lee. He'd grow into a fairly tall guy someday, but he still had a lot of growing to do at the moment, so it was actually almost comical to be confronted by the blond of the twirly brow siblings. "The hell are you doing here, we don't need your help!"

Lee wiped a bit of dust off of his exposed right arm, and noticed a few burns, marks on his skin. Some droplets of what was likely napalm had splashed on him… less painful than Cologne's punishments for failed training, but still…

"Are you even listening to me yell at you?!" Sanji shouted, so much so that it sounded like groaning steel.

Wait.

"Hey did you guys just hear something weird?" Lee asked, turning around.

Reiju and Kuina both answered in the negative. "Nothing," Reiju said.

"Me neither," Kuina agreed.

"Sanji, I know you're worried but right now we need to-"

There was another groan. "There, that's what I mean!" Lee said. "There it is again, it happened again- wait it's not stopping this time."

A sound, like a short and quick 'thwip', like air through a rubber tube, accompanied the groaning… and then what looked like black cords, cables, began spreading all over the room, and more specifically, they grabbed onto the discarded bits and pieces of the destroyed robots.

"I don't like where this is going," Reiju said, frowning. "Quick! Stop it!"

There was no time, though, the cables all quickly retreated, carrying with them the items they had attached to. What they were, nobody could readily identify, but as they all were withdrawn, they went into the water, beyond the reach of everybody there… though it didn't take long for the quartet to find out what was happening.

A large, clawed and multi-segmented shiny black hand reached out of the water, grabbing onto the burnt wood of the floor, and though it cracked, it held. Another hand, then a third, and finally, a fourth, all reached out of the water, and then grabbed onto what they could, and then pulled the body from under the murky blue waters, suddenly and powerful, spreading water all around, putting the fires out as an entity of staggering size, a roboninja that seemed to be several roboninja put together, fished itself out of the East Blue.

"What the fuck is THAT?!" Lee shouted.

"How would we know!?" Sanji responded.

"Can you two idiots stop fighting each other for five seconds and start fighting the enemy instead?!" Kuina shouted, getting into a stance, as the oversized robot spread its arms. It was much like the other ones, but bigger, with plates somehow shaped like extremely big bulging muscles all over its body, including an excessively large codpiece.

As it moved its hands about, it showed off its weapons, as its fingers seemed to split and separate, revealing spinning buzzsaws, wicked looking blades, dangling spiked balls on chains, gushing flamethrowers and what looked to be rocket thrusters attached to its wrists.

"It's like someone looked at the smaller ones and decided to put them all together into a single big one," Sanji said.

"Reminds me of someone who got into the spice rack," Lee muttered.

"I WAS STILL LEARNING!" Sanji retorted.

Kuina looked at Reiju.

Reiju looked at Kuina.

They nodded. A shared nod of frustration and long suffering, and a deep understanding of what it meant to care for and about someone, even though they were an idiot at the most inconvenient of times.

Still… as the enemy took a step towards them, all games were shut down, and the group prepared to fight the biggest enemy of the whole lot.