Chapter 29 - Skypiea Pt 2 1/2

Cross-Brain AN: Loyal viewers, we must apologize; the previous chapter rounded out at a mere nineteen thousand words. Considering our standards, we simply cannot allow that to go uncorrected. We hope you enjoy, therefore, a much more lengthy chapter.

Hornet AN: And I gotta edit all of it… *mumble mumble*

The Patient One AN: Hey, you're not the only one; who always does the final check? Besides, it's fun.

Xomniac AN: Speak for yourself. You don't need to suffer through the pain of writer's block. Such burnout, so much pain. Good thing we've been working on this thing all week, or else we'd never have gotten this done on time! XP

The Patient One AN: Key word: "we."

"But there's one sound… no one knows… WHAT DOES THE FOX—MMPH!?"

"I'm willing to suffer a lot of shit, Soundbite," I ground out as I forced my fist between the snail's teeth. "But that particular abomination lies ten miles past the pale."

"Heheheh, whipped!" Su giggled.

"It never gets any easier, does it?" Conis sighed, eyes downcast.

"You're lucky, yours doesn't have to hitch a ride," I grumbled.

The somber, tense mood we had had going since we left Lovely Street had ironically alleviated as we slowly approached the treeline of the Upper Yard, courtesy of the comedy stylings of Su and Soundbite, though use of the word 'comedy' probably gave those two too much credit.

Still, as off-color as the pair's jokes were, they still managed to accomplish the job they set out to do: getting Conis to smile, however melancholy the smile might have been. So, really, I couldn't fault them for whatever they did… at least, up until Soundbite moved to that song. I should have seen it coming, really; we had an actual fox onboard now, so the opportunity was too much for him to pass up on. I could only imagine how bad it would be if Soundbite taught Su the lyrics… or even worse: the rest of the crew actually liked the song. Like he didn't enjoy spouting earworms like crazy already!

I shook my head as I refocused on the matter at hand; the treeline was approaching, but I had no way to inform my crewmates, and especially not Conis, of exactly what we were going to face when we got there. I didn't even bother with contemplating choosing another path besides Satori's; Zoro was the only one who'd be able to reliably go toe-to-toe with Ohm, even without the Iron Cloud traps. Idiot though Gedatsu was, one wrong step on his turf meant a Swamp Cloud bath. And though Soundbite could make quick work of Fuza, we were still expecting Shura to attack the Merry, plus we had no way of reliably countering his String Clouds. Basically, of the priests, only Satori's turf wasn't a guaranteed death sentence.

…Alright, so I did consider the other paths, but only to confirm that the best choice was to stick with what we knew. But I was itching for some way to fill in the gap as we got there with some kind of meaningful conversation, while at the same time not saying anything that would draw more of Eneru's ire than we already had. But what was I supposed to—?

"Excuse me, Cross?"

Conis' voice broke me out of my thoughts, prompting me to turn and look at her. "What is it, Conis?"

"I've been wondering for a while, I've never learned all that much about Devil Fruits," she said, her face curious. "Not many of the Blue Sea Dwellers who have come to Angel Island over the past several years had them, and even fewer were willing to talk about their powers. I know that they give whoever eats them great power at the cost of never being able to swim again, but that's about it. Could you tell me more about them?"

I glanced back at the approaching treeline before shrugging. "Sure, it's pretty simple, really. There are three different types of Devil Fruit. Zoan-types give the power to turn into a specific animal, like a jackal, a falcon, or a horse; those users are usually close-combat fighters, taking advantage of the extra strength the fruit gives them. Logia-types give the power to turn into a specific element or control it, like smoke, fire, or sand. They're renowned as the most powerful of the three types, both for offensive purposes and the fact that unless you have a counter for the element they turn into, it's impossible to hurt them. And Paramecia-types… well, they cover anything else."

"Anything? That seems… I don't know… risky?" Conis said uncertainly.

I shrugged. "Any Devil Fruit is risky; most people who eat them never know what powers they'll get until after they get them. And sure, some abilities are more inherently powerful than others, but no power is useless; it all depends on the user's ingenuity and dedication. For example, at first glance, you wouldn't think that controlling sound would be all that useful of an ability, at least not from an offensive standpoint. But with how much practice Soundbite put in, he's made it a lethal force."

"I'M A BADASS, BABY!" Soundbite cheered in agreement.

"Another example from earlier in our crew's journey is the Kilo-Kilo Fruit, which allows the user to shift their weight upwards and downwards in increments of kilograms. Doesn't sound that useful, but the user was an assassin who put it to good use by shifting her weight to a single kilogram, so that she could jump absurdly high and float with a parasol, before ramming it in the other direction to several thousand kilograms, so that she hit with the force of a small meteorite. And that's just two examples out of the few dozen that I know, and even that's a small percentage of how many there are; the Paramecia fruits are the most common of the three kinds."

"I see," Conis nodded sagely before tilting her head curiously, and maybe a bit hopefully. "I don't suppose you know how powerful a Paramecia fruit can be?"

I smiled darkly. "Down on the Blue Seas, any conversation about the strongest starts with seven people. To my knowledge, of these individuals, five have Devil Fruit Powers. Only one was a Logia-user; the other four are all Paramecia-users. And they're still feared the world over, Logia or no Logia."

"Coooool…" Su whistled in awe.

"Indeed," I nodded in a somewhat absentminded manner as I noticed how we were now entering the forest, passing between flaming effigies of wood and bone and statues of molded vearth alike, as well as a small cemetery's worth of wrecked ships that had to have been purposely arranged. "So, Conis, how likely is it that we're going to have to deal with a lot of traps from this point onward?"

"Um… very likely, I think," Conis noted nervously as she glanced around at the literally giant-sized trees that surrounded us. "At least until we reach one of the Priests' areas."

"Perfect! Soundbite, keep your… um, hearing open—"

"TOOK YA this long to figure out that I DON'T HAVE EARS?"

"And Luffy, Sanji, Lassoo, Donny, and Leo? Keep your eyes open," I continued, ignoring Soundbite's jab. The snail rolled his eyes, but nonetheless began concentrating. Then he abruptly grimaced.

"EVERYONE, keep your eyes on the PATH, AND be ready to parry ON MY MARK," he said.

All five took their positions, warily scanning the shadows of the forest.

"Be very, very careful," I warned them as I watched the darkness. "This place is perfect for a veritable array of deathtraps that could be hiding in any number of nooks and crevices."

"What the heck do you know about deathtraps, white bread?" Lassoo snorted.

I promptly sat up with a jerk, giving the mutt-weapon an incredulous glare. "Ex-cuse me?! What do I know about—? I will have you know that I grew up with the Indiana Jones series!"

"Indiana who?" Conis blinked in confusion.

"Dun du-dun DUN, dun du-DUUUUN!" Soundbite sang even as he kept his eyes on a swivel.

"Indiana Jones is an adventure series from back home," I explained. "It's about the adventures of the titular archaeologist, who delves into countless forgotten tombs in order to liberate their treasures so that they might be shared with the world! Of course," I shrugged helplessly. "The ancient people who built said tombs didn't want their treasures to be stolen, so the tombs were always stocked full of a variety of deathtraps. These traps included swinging blades—"

"LEO! PARRY right!"

The blue-bandanna-wearing Dugong promptly unslung his blades and swung them in the direction in question, only just managing to catch the blade of a titanic scythe that had been about to bisect us. One heave later, and it was swinging harmlessly over our stern.

Of course, it wasn't the only one. Almost a half-dozen of the things swung out of the jungle and tried to tear into us, practically all at once, at that. It was only thanks to the panicked actions of Donny operating the Dial Engine, Luffy and Sanji smashing away the weapons by the flats of their blades, and Lassoo blasting the mechanisms hidden in the forest that we remained uninjured.

"—often with tribal faces, much like these…" I calmly mused as I observed my very on-edge crewmates. "As well as dart-launchers—"

"GET DOWN!"

We hit the deck, pressing ourselves against the floor of the boat as a series of wooden clicks echoed out of the jungle and a rainstorm of thunks littered the sides of the Crow. When we righted ourselves, the woodwork of the ship was absolutely peppered with sharpened wood stakes.

"Spring-loaded spears hidden along the often-traveled path—" I continued as if we were in a classroom and not a trap-ridden jungle.

"VEER Left! RIGHT! ACCELERATE!"

The Crow pulled off an impressive display of veering and maneuvering as it dodged and wove around the mess of wood stakes that erupted from the bed of the Milky Road.

"Giant monsters, as well as deadly snakes…" I continued, by this time sporting an eager grin.

"GIANT SEA SNAKE!" Luffy shouted, prompting Sanji and Donny to leap at the monster and smash its jaws open, followed by Lassoo blasting a bomb down its gullet.

"Actually, I think that was a lamprey…" Donny muttered.

"And, of course, the classic booby trap that became a downright cliché in all subsequent works—"

"WILL SOMEONE SHUT HIM UP ALREADY?!" Su yelped.

"—the giant rolling boulder of doom," I finished.

And… nothing.

"Aww…"

THUNK!

"OWCH!" I yelped as I clutched my throbbing skull.

"DON'T SOUND SO DISAPPOINTED, DUMBASS!" Sanji, Lassoo, Su, and the Dugongs roared.

"Oh, thank—!" Conis started to sag…

Before we passed between a pair of steel rails that had been sloped down from the jungle's canopy and aligned only a foot or two above the surface of the Milky Road.

"Uh-oh…" Soundbite muttered.

"Maybe it won't activate?" Conis said hopefully.

She received the answer in the form of a rolling rumble echoing from up above.

"If I have learned one thing from my sixteen hours with this crew, it is that one should never say something like that; it's merely an invitation for someone watching to laugh at you when it happens anyway," Isaiah commented dryly.

"A fair evaluation," Su nodded in agreement. "I, however, have a counter-proposal."

She then used Conis as a springboard to leap at me, hackles raised. "THIS IS ALL HIS FAULT!"

"GAH! OWOWOWOW SHIT! GET THIS MANGY FURBALL OFF OF ME!"

"Su!" Conis protested as she tried to wrench her pet off of my face. "Could someone help me, please?!"

"My sincerest apologies, dearest Conis, but I'm more inclined to dedicate my attention to rowing the fuck away!" Sanji barked as he dug his paddle into the cloudy river.

"ON IT!" Donny and Leo concurred as they grabbed for the spare oars.

"And the reason you two aren't towing is—!?" Lassoo trailed off incredulously.

The Dugongs froze up as they exchanged looks before grabbing a spare rope, wrapping it around the neck of the Crow and leaping into the cloud sea. One second later, the Crow shot forward, just fast enough that the enormous and impeccably spherical boulder wasn't catching up with us.

Finally, thankfully enough, the rails veered to the side into the forest and the boulder was carried away from us, and onto a curving path back into the forest. After that, we floated along in relative peace, broken only by my attempts to keep Su from ripping my face off, which my crewmates, and Conis, by this point, were casually refusing to help me with.

Finally, I'd had enough. "SOUNDBITE! GASTRO-PHONY THE FOX!" I snapped.

"NO—!…gladly!"

There was a burst of air and Su halted for a moment in her attempt to rip my face off, giving me just enough time to grab her by the scruff of her neck—

"HURK!"

SPLAT!

—at the exact same time as I was reminded of what Gastro-Phony did to its targets.

"…Soundbite? If we happen to meet Eneru, remind me to let you speak your mind," I said calmly, as if I was not, in fact, soaked from head to neck in fox vomit.

"HAHAHAHEEHEEHEEhoohoohoo!" Soundbite cackled.

"Tseeheeheehee…" Su snickered in spite of her slightly sickly tone.

"Oh, Su…" Conis sighed as she took her pet out of my hands.

"As satisfying as that was, it's also murder on my sinuses," Lassoo muttered, punctuating the point with a nasty grimace and scrunched muzzle.

"Allow us," Donny and Leo chorused as they grabbed me beneath my armpits.

"Wait, wha—?" I barely had time to blink as Luffy snatched Soundbite off my shoulder. "Nonono—!"

SPLASH!

"…Is this going to be a thing until we get back to the blue sea?" I ground out as I clawed my way back onboard. "Because if so, rest assured, I can be much worse than I've been up until now."

Conis chuckled uneasily. "We'll be sure to keep that in mind, right, everyone?"

A pause.

"Your stunned silence is VERY reassuring," Soundbite drawled.

"We're not silent about that, shit-snail…" Sanji corrected.

"We're all looking at that!" Luffy grinned eagerly as he pointed ahead.

I turned my gate in the indicated direction, to be met with the four-mouthed gate indicating the direction of the four Ordeals.

Conis's reaction was much more visceral, her body locking up as she stared at the names. "The Ordeal of Swamp, the Ordeal of Iron, the Ordeal of String, and the Ordeal of Balls," she read fearfully. "Each of God Eneru's four priests presides over one of the Ordeals; I've only heard rumors, but I know with certainty that the survival rates are…"

"Not encouraging," Su provided venomously.

"So… which one is the least dangerous?" Donny asked.

Su shrugged and shook her head dismally. "I'm not sure. All the animals in there are tamed by the priests, so they don't talk with anyone outside and attack anyone who goes in. But going off of what I've heard of the priests themselves… we should steer clear of the Ordeal of Iron and the Ordeal of String."

Sanji pointedly turned towards me, and I held my finger up in a 'wait' signal.

"I say we go for the Ball!" Luffy said, grinning eagerly. "That one sounds like fun!"

"Satori…" Su mused. "The… weirdest of them, I've heard. Better than Ohm or Shura, at any rate."

"Well, the captain has spoken," I said with a sigh, though the smile I was sporting was all that the crew needed to see. Sanji turned the wheel towards the rightmost tunnel, and in a matter of seconds, we were plunged into darkness.

We sailed on in silence for a bit until I decided it'd be best to try and lighten the mood a little. "Hey, Soundbite, how about some appropriate music for an ominous tunnel?" I asked cheekily.

"Ooh, GOODY! There's no earthly way of knowing~, which direction we are going~" Soundbite crooned in Gene Wilder's voice. "There's no knowing where we're rowing~, or which way the river's flowing~"

"Will you give it a rest?!" Su snapped.

"Is it raining, is it snowing~" Soundbite sang on, doubling his volume. "Is a hurricane a-blowing~" Then he suddenly gasped. "Not a speck of light is showing, so the danger must be growing… are the fires of hell a-glowing? Is the grizzly reaper mowing?!"

"Cross, will you please shut that damn snail up already!?" Sanji demanded.

"You are joking, right?" I deadpanned.

"YES! The danger must be growing, for the rowers keep on rowing… AND THEY'RE CERTAINLY NOT SHOWING… ANY SIGN THAT THEY ARE SLOWIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

The last line devolved into a shriek of terror as we shot out of the tunnel like a cork from a bottle, hanging in the air for the briefest of moments.

I glanced around in confusion at everyone's frozen expressions. "Oh, come on, don't tell me you didn't see the 'inevitable waterfall' cliché a mile off."

"I hate you, Cross," Su whimpered.

"JOIN THE CLUB!" a chorus of voices from persons both present and gastropod-based agreed.

And just like that, gravity reasserted itself, sending us all plummeting into the abyss.

SPLASH!

Well, for half a minute or so, at least, until we impacted the Milky Road waiting below.

I chuckled as I slowly righted myself, bracing against the prow of the ship in an effort to still my slightly shaking legs. "Well, that was certainly a rush! Anyone else wanna go for round two once we're done with all this?"

"I DO! I DO!" Luffy piped up eagerly. "That was awesome! I thought I was gonna die!"

"SO DID WE!" Sanji, Lassoo and the Dugongs roared with considerably more heat.

"Hey, look at it this way: it could have been worse." I grinned at the disbelieving looks everyone shot me. "I mean, imagine if someone had guessed that we'd gone through a door that would drop us off the edge of the clouds. Wouldn't that have made the whole thing that much more terrifying?"

Everyone familiar with our captain's antics grasped the hidden meaning in my words, and glared furiously at Luffy. Unfortunately for me, that still left two others, one of whom was practically glowing with anger.

"I'm going to kill him," Su snarled, her eyes cracked open and glaring at me.

Thankfully, the cloud fox was still held firmly in Conis' arms… while said angel was staring at me with an unreadable expression. She then glanced down at Su, then back to me, before shrugging her shoulders impassively. "Alright."

"Wait, wha—?"

And before I could react, Conis flung her pet at my face.

"EAT MY FANGS, BIG-MOUTH!"

"ARGH!"

"HOOHOOHOOheeheeheeHAHAHA!"

"YOU LITTLE TRAITEAAAARGH!"

About a minute later, I was damn grateful that I got those vitamins from Kureha, because I'm pretty sure that with the sheer number of bites I'd gotten, I would have been dead about a hundred times over otherwise. Thinking about it more, I was pretty sure that this would actually seem funny in hindsight, seeing how I looked now. And if nothing else, Su's viciousness proved that Conis had a good bodyguard even if worst came to worst.

But did any of that give me any consolation for the hundreds of bite marks on my face and upper body in general?

Not particularly!

"Why do all Animal Companions have such an intense desire to maul me?" I groused miserably.

"Hey, I never did anything to you," Lassoo mumbled, somewhat indignantly.

"You only half-count, Howlitzer," Su deadpanned as she spat out a few torn scraps of my shirt.

Lassoo paused as he considered that before shrugging. "Fair enough."

"And as for you," Su snapped her glare back to me. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a fox. We like being the smartest animals in our general vicinities, and your smart-ass attitude is getting on my nerves!"

"Bi—ergh," I cut myself off as the hundreds of punctures on my body burned. I pondered my options, and ultimately decided to go with the route least likely to earn me any more pain from my allies. I gave her a flat, serious look. "Well, excuse me for being familiar with the pattern of events that are occurring to us. Remind me how much you want us to succeed here?"

Su bristled for a few seconds, but ultimately turned back to Conis with a huff. "Fine, I can't argue with that. But if we do win—"

"Then you'll owe it to me to let me keep outfoxing you," I said with a smirk. "Besides, if it's making you this angry, imagine what it will do to the priests. Anger leads to distraction, and distraction in a situation like this leads to a cruel and unusual death."

It was hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure that after a few seconds, Su smirked at me. "Directing the smartass at others apart from me? Now, that I can live with."

"Alright, now that that little dilemma is solved, do you know anything else about this Satori, Su?" Donny asked.

"Well, we don't know a lot, but—!" Su started to look towards Donny before suddenly locking up, staring past him with a slight shiver.

The dugong sighed in resignation. "He's right behind me, isn't he?"

"No…" Su shook her head lightly. "It's just… the only thing I've heard about him is that he really likes balls."

Leo cocked an eyebrow as he crossed his arms. "We could have guessed that from the name of the Ordeal."

Su shook her head lightly. "No, I mean…" She jerked her chin upwards. "He really likes balls."

We all followed the cloud fox's gaze and froze in shock.

"Uh…" I started slowly. "Am I having a stroke, or is the air filled with floating ball-shaped clouds?"

Lassoo slowly nodded his head side-to-side. "Honestly? I think that's a lot more believable than the reality of this whole situation."

I really couldn't argue with that statement. Honestly, if you thought the situation was absurd in the manga, it was nothing compared to real life. Countless orbs of pure white clouds were floating back and forth through the forest, as light as feathers despite ranging in size from exercise balls to almost twice that size. When you added in the fact that the Milky Road split off and crisscrossed through the trunks of the forest like some kind of massive deformed hydra, the scene as a whole looked like something straight out of one of M.C. Escher's sketchbooks.

"What the hell…?" Donny trailed off slowly, obviously trying to make some logical sense of the illogical scene he was being presented with.

"Well, this is certainly bizarre, but I must admit, it doesn't surprise me that one of the chief followers of someone who can rain down lightning half the size of the Knock-Up Stream would have a lair such as this," Isaiah reflected.

"Hey, maybe we got lucky and chose the path that's not dangerous at all!" Luffy grinned eagerly.

"I… seriously doubt that, Luffy," Conis swallowed, warily eyeing the balls that kept drifting just a little too close for comfort. "Satori has something of a reputation for being odd, certainly, but he has just as much a reputation for being sadistic."

"This doesn't make any sense…" Su muttered to herself as she snapped her head around. "All the animals who got out of here alive said that there were other animals in here, but this place is dead as a graveyard. No birds, nothing on the ground, so where could they be?"

"UH…" Soundbite trailed off as he clenched his eyes shut in concentration, before snapping them open in panic. "DUCK!"

I jerked my head down just as a roaring hiss sounded behind me and a large-ass snake shot out of a ball I hadn't noticed drifting by, biting through the space where my head had been moments earlier. Acting fast, I snatched Soundbite off of my shoulder and slapped him to the underside of the serpent's jaw. "Gastro-Blast!"

"Ba-BAM!"

The snake's head shot upwards, wrapping around the ball it had emerged from with a pained gurgle, hanging listlessly and dripping blood as we sailed away.

"What the hel—!?" Sanji started to curse before noticing another ball floating towards us. "Oh, hell, no, not this time!" He reeled back his leg—

"MOVE!" Lassoo barked, tackling Sanji out of the way with his mass before blasting a baseball into the cloud, causing it to erupt in an impressive explosion.

"The heck—?!"

"That cloud," Lassoo growled viciously. "It reeked of gunpowder."

"What the hell kind of madhouse is this place!?" Donny demanded, back to back with Leo as they brandished their respective weapons, ready to strike at any orb that drifted too close.

"Sadistic and smart…" I bit out. "The bastard priest took a minefield and made it three-dimensional, and decided to throw in a bunch of other tricks besides just bombs."

"But is that really all?" Su wondered as she looked this way and that. "I mean, they're dangerous, sure, but it's not too hard to avoid them if they're just floating like this. There has to be more to it."

"Haha-HA! It would appear that the sayings about the intelligence of foxes are true! Haha-HA!"

"Holy crap, one of the balls is talking!"

"I'm not a cloud ball, you brat!"

The rest of us who weren't Luffy all froze as a stupidly nasal voice came from a direction above and beside us, and slowly turned to look at its source. I then promptly found any fear I had melting away; despite the fact that I knew exactly how formidable Satori was, actually seeing him in that very round outfit was… disarming, to say the least.

"…Are you serious?" I deadpanned. "Because, honest opinion here, if you want to look threatening, I don't think the best way to do it is by dressing up like a giant cream puff."

"Haha-HA!" the creampuff in question cackled jovially. "Appearances can be deceiving, dear boy! Just like the surprise clouds you see all around us, you never know what could be hidden in an unassuming form like this! Ohm, Shura, and even that ignoramus Gedatsu all prefer straightforward intimidation. But I say, why not have a little more fun? That's why I'm so glad you picked my challenge, the Ordeal of Balls!" The rotund priest tilted his head downwards, emphasizing the sadistic gleam in his grin. "It only has a ten percent survival rate, you know! Haha-HA!"

"Is this guy really a priest?" Sanji asked skeptically.

"…I have to admit, looking at him, it is kind of hard to take him seriously," Su admitted, before growling. "But judging from the fact that a snail just maimed a snake ten times its size, you should know that that doesn't mean much."

I nodded in solemn agreement at that. "Yeah, you're right. All too often, the stupid-looking enemies are the most dangerous because they've earned the right to look stupid. And he's got a home-field advantage too, so if he starts the fight on his terms, he'll have the upper hand. Which means…"

I swiftly took a knee and held an arm out to Lassoo, who took the prompt and leapt at me, morphing into his gun-mode mid-jump. This allowed me to balance him on my shoulder and aim him at Satori.

"We need to end this before it can even begin!"

I positioned my finger on Lassoo's trigger, moments away from pulling it—

Satori grabbed the brim of his hat and tilted it down, hiding his eyes but not his smile. "Projectile, explosive, center mass."

—before promptly freezing, locking the muscles in my finger as I maintained my stance. I slowly tilted my head to the side as I stared at the priest. "You… have Haki, don't you," I said quietly.

Satori looked up at me in confusion. "Haki?"

"… that's right, I've heard it's sometimes called Mantra as well." I cracked my neck side to side as Satori raised his eyebrows. "Well, I guess you were right about having hidden talents up your sleeves, Pillsbury."

"What's Mantra, Cross?" Luffy asked, slowly sliding into a ready stance with his fists raised, a motion that prompted Satori to tense up himself.

"They usually call it Observation Haki on the blue sea," I explained, not breaking my eye contact with the priest. "Basically, it's a sixth sense that gives you the power to detect the presence of others around you, and predict their movements a few seconds before they make them. From what I've heard, it's possible for anyone to unlock the ability, but of the world's population, I'd say that the amount of people that ever do is only around five percent, tops."

"Haha-HA! Your friend is accurate about the rarity of Mantra," Satori gloated. "There's a reason that God Eneru only has four priests under his command; aside from him, we are the only ones blessed with this ability in all of Skypiea."

'Bar the little girl who trumps Eneru ten times over while doing it completely au naturel,' I added silently.

"He can predict our moves? THAT'S SO COOL!" Luffy exclaimed.

"Someone dope-slap him for me, please," I growled.

THWACK!

"Thank you. Now, then…" I clenched one of my eyes shut as I took aim at Satori. "Let's deal with this bastard."

And then… I did nothing. I maintained my pose, kneeling as I aimed at Satori. Unseen thanks to the angle of the barrel, I whispered out of the corner of my mouth at Lassoo. Soundbite then proceeded to relay the gun's responses to me, low enough that no one heard.

"…Cross?" Conis asked, warily shrinking away to the back of the Crow.

"Hahaha-HA! I see!" Satori crowed, grinning menacingly. "You don't have the will to fire, do you? Foolish boy; did you come here thinking that this was a game? Allow me to inform you that it isn't! These holy Ordeals are trials of life or death! I am one of the Priests who serve the great God Eneru, and while my Ordeal's survival rate is not the lowest among the four, I did not gain and maintain that honor by being merciful! If you won't attack—" Satori hopped to his feet, crouching in preparation. "Then I will!"

It was at that moment that Lassoo stopped talking.

"You're right and wrong, you know?" I called up at the priest, causing him to pause.

"Hm?" Satori tilted his head in curiosity. "What do you mean?"

"You're right in saying that I'm not going to shoot you," I conceded. "With your Haki, you'd see any direct attacks coming from a mile away, making a head-on assault completely and utterly useless."

Satori's grin widened as he nodded in agreement. "You've got the right of it there, boy! Trying to attack me is completely useless! Now, out of curiosity…" His grin became more mocking than sadistic. "How was I wrong, hmm?"

Now it was my turn to grin, a small smirk more than anything. "You said that this wasn't a game. Well, see, that statement was wrong on account of how I'm about to turn it into one."

Satori's smile faded into a thoroughly puzzled expression. "What are you talking about?"

"A game straight from the Blue Seas that's equal parts strategy and luck. You might have even heard of it…" My smile became feral as I swung my torso 90 degrees, pointing Lassoo at the mass of cloud balls he had told me to aim for. "Billiards!"

Satori started in panic. "Nononono—WAIT!"

I didn't. "CANI-CANNON BARRAGE!"

And just like that, the cannon I was carrying started rumbling, launching out a hail of baseballs that hit cloud ball after cloud ball after cloud ball dead-on, sending them ricocheting off against the ground, the trees—and more importantly, dozens of other cloud balls at a time, starting an absolute shitstorm of a reaction.

"CONIS, MAX SPEED!" I roared, tossing Lassoo down and allowing him to morph back into his hybrid form and continue shooting cloud balls so as to keep the momentum going, while I braced myself. Everyone else promptly did the same as Conis complied, leaping to the front of the ship and triggering the Crow's Breath Dial for all it was worth.

"HEY! WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK—GAH!" Satori's enraged shriek was aborted by a yelp of terror he let loose as he narrowly avoided being brained by a ballistic cloud ball ricocheting towards him. He'd barely managed to regain his balance when he was forced to spin on his toes in order to dodge around another ball. He was then forced to take a spinning leap upwards as yet another ball knocked into the one he'd been standing on, ricocheting it off into the madness. Credit where it was due, panicked though he was, Satori was on the ball (pun intended); he dug his Ball Dial out of his pocket, oriented himself so that it was beneath him and activated it. The new cloud was just forming…

WHOMP!

"AGH!"

When a fourth ball blindsided him, going so far as to sprout tentacles and grab hold of him before yanking him along and out of sight.

A few moments later, we were well on our way towards the exit of the Lost Forest, and I couldn't stop grinning.

"Um, Cross? Not that that wasn't completely awesome, but… what just happened?" Su asked hesitantly.

"Observation Haki, or 'Mantra,' as you know it, is a powerful ability, but it has three key weaknesses, two of which I just exploited," I explained. "The first is that it can only predict direct attacks; if you don't know where you're aiming, they can't know it either. And the second is that you have to keep yourself focused to actually be able to 'see' jack. If you get flustered or lose your nerve…"

"Then you're dead meat," Leo nodded firmly, absentmindedly using his blades to slice through a ball that was coming towards us that Soundbite indicated. It was easy to defend when you knew which ones had literal live ammo and which ones were explosive or trip-wired.

"Exactly. Looks like for all of his gloating, Satori relied too much on getting the drop on people and forcing them to fight while off-balance and panicked, and it might have worked, too," I shrugged with a snicker. "Iiiif I wasn't savvy enough to know about the ins and outs of Haki and how to exploit them. I guess spending seven years whiling the day away with storytellers and good books paid off."

"Hmm…" Donny mused contemplatively as he used his staff to send another wayward ball careening back into the mess. "I don't suppose any of those mentioned how to learn Observation Haki, did they?"

I scowled darkly. "Not a one. I tried getting instructions from someone who knew them, but he was either a moron or a total—!"

"Cross," Luffy warned me testily.

"Mmhmm…" I interrupted myself with a self-conscious cough. "Still, come on, Luffy, after that upstaging he did back in Nanohana?"

"Heheh. Yeah, he can be a bit of a jerk, can't he?" Luffy chuckled before going completely serious. "He's still my brother, though."

I sighed, knowing that was probably all I was going to get. "Fair enough, captain."

That done, I scanned over the boat, noting the white-knuckled grip Conis had on the wheel. "Hey, you alright, Conis?"

The angel twitched slightly before sagging with a sigh. "It's just… the ease with which you dispatched Satori…"

"Let me stop you there, Conis," Su prompted as she leapt onto her owner's shoulders. "First, if you're thinking about how Satori was supposed to be this big and undefeatable monster, remember: monsters can still be human, and vice-versa. And second, if you're thinking that you could have beaten him sooner if you were braver, newsflash: you had every reason to be terrified of fighting back. If you'd tried fighting back… well, you experienced it firsthand. I might have been a bit forceful back in the house, but I promise you, Conis, you did everything right, everything you needed to survive. That's what counts, right?"

Conis was silent for a moment before smiling lightly. "Yeah, you're right." She reached up and scratched behind the fox's ears. "Thank you, Su."

I whistled in awe as I watched the fox purr and croon beneath Conis' fingers. "Hot damn, puff ball."

"Psh, please," Su scoffed as her tail wagged at the praise. "I've been practicing cheering her up without speaking for years. I'm just putting all that to good use." She gave me a sly look over her shoulder. "You're not the only smart one here, smart-ass."

"THAT'S up for DEBATE, cotton-tail!" Soundbite chuckled underneath his breath.

"Bite me, slimestain," Su shot back pleasantly, waving her tail at him.

And so the trip through the Lost Forest remained relatively uneventful from there; Leo, Donny, Sanji, Luffy and Lassoo dealt with the Surprise Clouds while the rest of us just settled in for the ride. Su and Soundbite's playful banter was the most exciting thing to deal with up until the path finally sloped upwards towards the exit.

It was just as we were turning onto the path out that we were met with adversity.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, YOU HERETICAL SCUM!"

"Oy, this guy," Soundbite groused as we turned to see that Satori had indeed managed to fight past the storm of petards we'd yanked him by. He was cut up, bruised, burnt, soaking wet, and even a little bit blown up, but above all else? He was pissed. And if his face wasn't proof enough of that, the several-dozen-cloud-balls-long dragon he was directing with a red-and-white striped cane certainly was.

"You're clever, I'll admit that much, but I'm not about to let you get away after making a fool out of me like that!" the priest shouted furiously. "Count yourselves lucky, for I will finish you with my signature ultimate technique, the Ball Dragon: Overlord Edition! Several dozen shrapnel and explosive orbs strung together in a devastating column; a single touch will detonate it and—"

That was as far as he got before I snapped my fingers and pointed at him, prompting Lassoo to spray a black projectile at Satori. As I expected, he was too angry to have any focus on his Haki, allowing the projectile to hit him dead-on and splatter, coating him head to toe in a viscous liquid that left him hacking and flailing.

"W-what the—!?"

"Cani-Plaster," I explained calmly, making a show of examining my fingernails. "It's a close cousin to Cani-Slick. How do you like it?"

"Uh, Cross?" Luffy asked as he tilted his head in confusion. "How're they any different? They both cover the person in black slimy stuff."

"Indeed, Luffy, except!" I jabbed a finger up. "That where Cani-Slick is nice and slippery octopus ink, this black slimy stuff is tough and adhesive tar, capable of sticking like the absolute dickens. Allow me to demonstrate the difference. Lassoo?" I tilted my finger so that it was pointing at the ball Satori was just barely balancing on. "Cani-Slick."

"Oh, this should be fun," Sanji grinned as he read the situation, and the Dugongs and Luffy seemed to agree wholeheartedly from the way they were staring eagerly at the now horrified priest.

Lassoo bared his teeth before opening his jaws and spitting up yet another projectile, this one painting the snow-white cloud ball black. Satori tried to leap off of his perch, but promptly lost his traction on the ink. His feet flailed and skidded uselessly for a few seconds until his rotund mass worked against him, causing him to make an impressive flip before belly-flopping onto the ball stomach-first, which he stuck fast to. He tried to push himself free with his spread-eagled arms, but his efforts were ultimately for naught.

"You… YOU…!" he spat irately.

"Let me explain the difference between you and us, Pillsbury," I stated as I glared up at the priest. "Us, we Blue Sea Dwellers? We rely on our skills, which we work hard to train and perfect until we can stand up to any enemy, and either overpower them or outsmart them. You? All you've got going for you are a bunch of tricks. Hiding behind smoke and mirrors to make yourself seem bigger than you already are."

"NOT THAT HE needs the HELP!" Soundbite cackled.

"Well, I've got news for you, o wonderful wizard," I smirked as I jabbed my finger past him. "Your strings are starting to show."

Satori followed my finger and promptly paled (or at least I assume so, the tar made it difficult to tell) as he caught sight of the nigh-invisible wire he'd been using to direct his 'Dragon', outlined by globs of tar.

The priest's already panicked breathing accelerated as he snapped his gaze back to me, obviously terrified out of his wits. "W-w-what are you going to do to me?" he whimpered.

I shot him a feral grin as I tapped my finger against my skull. "Why don't you. Tell. Me."

Satori stared at me for a moment, before starting to flail and wail in a desperate attempt to unstick himself, gibbering in panic.

"Soundbite," I snickered at the display. "Some… appropriate music, if you please?"

The snail roared with laughter as he nodded. "ON IT, MAESTRO!" And with that, the air filled with a very specific organ tune, which started slowly mounting in tempo.

"Captain," I grinned widely as I turned to face Luffy. "If you would please? Batter up."

Luffy matched my grin tooth for tooth as he unslung his pipe and began twisting up his body and arm, as if he were preparing for a combined Pinwheel and Rifle attack.

"GUM-GUM…" Luffy shouted as he leapt into the air towards the priest and slowly began untwisting, heedless of Satori's frantic screams and threats.

By the time his pipe struck the ball dead-on, its speed gave it a striking force that would have made Mr. 4 green with envy… eventually.

"HOME RUN!"

Needless to say, the priest and his prison were sent flying, ricocheting off of tree-trunk after branch after tree-trunk, with the Ball Dragon trailing close behind.

"And he, is…" Soundbite started eagerly, tilting his head in preparation…

KRAKOOM!

For the absolutely earth-shattering detonation that occurred a minute later.

"OUTTA HERE!" Soundbite sang joyously, swaying from side to side.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the third and most blatant weakness of Mantra: predicting an attack is useless if you can't do anything to keep it from going through," I said smugly.

"…Conis?" Su started numbly, obviously still trying to process what she'd just seen. "Do you still think it was a bad idea to ask them for help?"

"Let me get back to you on that, Su, once I've convinced myself that I'm not dreaming," Conis replied in much the same tone.

In a flurry of tropical flowers, Sanji spun up to her and grasped her hands eagerly as he took a knee. "The only one dreaming here is I, sweet Conis, for it is only in the realm of dreams that I might encounter a Goddess as awe-inspiringly beautiful as yourself!" he eulogized.

Conis stared down at Sanji in wide-eyed awe for a minute before slowly turning her gaze back to Su. "Things like this aren't helping."

"Welcome to life with the Straw Hat Pirates," Donny chuckled ruefully. "Bid your last farewells to your problems and your sanity, because they'll never come back."

"…It's still worth it… right?" Su muttered the last part more to herself than anyone.

Leo's eye twitched viciously as he stared at something only he could see. "Let me get back to you on that after I get into a really big fight."

I chuckled before clapping my hands. "Alright, all of that aside, we do still have crewmates waiting for us. Sanji, take the wheel. Everyone else, be on your guard; we're not out of the woods yet."

Conis and Su settled out of the way, the latter's sense of humor clearly numbed in the face of seeing one of the 'almighty' Eneru's priests lose so thoroughly and easily, and Sanji complied, accelerating the Crow up the passageway and out of Satori's forest. As we left, I couldn't help but frown a little at the belt that I was wearing.

"Looks like I didn't need to ask Usopp if I could borrow this after all," I muttered, tracing my armored fingers along the grappling-hook launching mechanism, complete with custom-installed rope-release latch.

"What's that, Cross?" Luffy asked curiously.

I shrugged as I sat down and leaned back, enjoying the ride, as much as I could given how deep we were in enemy territory… and how high off the ground we were, for that matter. "Eh, just meant to be a precaution I got from Usopp when I heard we'd be going into a huge-ass jungle. It's always a sign of a plan going off without a hitch when you come out of it with backups left over!"

"I should probably call you out on saying something like that, Cross," Sanji mused before blowing out a cloud of smoke. "But honestly, I'm inclined to agree. I don't think that that could have gone any better."

"Eh," I waved my hand side-to-side. "It would have been better if we'd managed to loot him for any Dials he had on him. But, meh," I shrugged indifferently. "Chances are he'll still be there for awhile, and we're making great… time…"

I trailed off as I caught sight of the field of skulls on pikes that we were entering into, the story's events flashing through my mind.

"Soundbite," I started slowly. "Can you hear any… gunfire or open warfare in the distance or…?"

Soundbite shrugged, inasmuch as he could. "NADA."

"Damn it…"

Absolutely fucking brilliant. Not a single one of my plans until now had worked how I wanted it to, and the one time everything actually did go as well I could have planned it, it went too well. We were supposed to have a perfectly smooth journey from the Lost Forest to the Sacrificial Altar, with only a brief run-in with Wiper (and, depending on how things turned out, a roller coaster ride on the Milky Road) to interrupt that. We were supposed to arrive at the altar to find our crew waiting for us, and spend the rest of the day resting and preparing for the war tomorrow. We were not supposed to meet any more adversity from Eneru's lackeys until then, when the self-proclaimed god's survival game began. And all of that was supposed to happen because we were supposed to struggle with the Ordeal of Balls.

But we didn't. We beat Satori way ahead of schedule.

Which meant that we arrived in the skull-filled field before Wiper had organized his troops and moved out.

Which meant that Eneru's other priests weren't occupied right now.

Which meant that waiting for us in the field was our collective death sentence in the form of a bald, muscular man with horned glasses and a sword of iron cloud, riding a giant pale-yellow dog.

"So, Satori lost," Eneru's most powerful disciple intoned as he turned towards us. "I can't say that I'm all that surprised."

"T-t-that's Ohm," Su squeaked, trembling both at the priest and the massive mutt he was riding. "He-he's supposed to be the strongest of all of the Priests. And the cruelest. W-w-which means that we're in the middle of—!"

All at once, the jaw of every skull in the prairie dropped open, exposing the Dials hidden within.

"The Ordeal of Iron…"

I racked my brain hard for any way that I could get the hell out of this situation without exposing how much I knew to Eneru, thinking hard about Ohm's weaknesses. Unfortunately, the only one I could think of was his arrogance, and it was about as justified as you could get considering how much trouble Zoro went through to overpower him. Damn it, I needed something that I could exploit—

"WHOA, THAT'S A HUGE DOG! HEY, DOGGY! SHAKE!" Luffy said eagerly, holding out a hand.

Like the fact that that dog had been tamed too well, so that he followed every order he was given, no matter who said it! There was just one problem.

The dog wasn't moving, and it took every bit of control I had not to let my shock show.

"Foolish Blue Sea Dweller," Ohm drawled, tapping a hand on the dog's head, which somehow got it moving forward. "Holy only obeys physical commands."

'Translation: Eneru got wise from observing Soundbite's powers, and told Ohm to put in earplugs,' I realized.

"Any bright ideas for this one, Cross?" Sanji growled.

"Well, the dog is no problem; Luffy could beat that oversized mutt with one hand tied behind his back," I replied, still frantically searching my mind for any potential weaknesses for Ohm. "But the priest is another story; any moron could tell at a glance that this guy isn't going to fall for the same tricks that Pillsbury did."

"Correct," Ohm stated, now looking directly down on us as Holy loomed. "I have perfected my Mantra, and memorized every inch of the field where I stage my Ordeal." He adjusted his glasses, the light glinting menacingly off of them. "The survival rate is zero percent. From the day God Eneru took his rightful place as ruler of his domain, nobody has faced the Ordeal of Iron and lived to tell about it."

"Hmm. Nobody, you say?" Donny asked calmly, positioning his bo staff.

"Nobody," the priest confirmed.

"I see. Well, then, I think I know the best thing to do in this case," Donny said with the same tone. He then jabbed his staff directly behind him into the Crow's Dial Engine, causing it to roar to life before leaping to grab the boat's steering wheel. I fell off-balance as the Crow began rocketing down the Milky Road again, Ohm's only reaction being to slowly turn his head and watch as we made a break for it.

"Hey, what are you doing, Donny?!" Luffy demanded indignantly. "I could have kicked his ass!"

"Kick his ass on your own time, Luffy," Donny shot back. "But I'm getting us and our boat out of here! Everyone here except you and Sanji falls firmly in that 'zero percent' bracket, and I don't intend to contribute!"

"While you may have a point there," I ground out, glancing around at the surrounding skulls and keeping an eye out for any tripwires the priest might have set up. "I'd suggest we still move carefully; it looks like he's set his booby-traps up in the skulls. Leo, can you cut steel?"

"Uh…" Leo slowly took hold of his katana. "Maybe?"

"Yeah, well, you better figure it out fast, or else."

"Or else what!?"

Before I could respond, Ohm jumped off of Holy onto a specific patch of ground hidden by the grass and swung his sword through the air, causing a series of clicks to ring out throughout the prairie and a number of skulls to start vibrating, no doubt in the name of some sick and twisted sense of 'fair play'. I promptly snapped my head down, only barely missing losing my head to one of several rods of stupidly rigid, barbed wire-shaped cloud that shot out of the Milky Dials around us, crisscrossing across the field.

"Oh, I'm just thinking that it might be useful, considering that this is the freaking ORDEAL OF IRON!" I snarled. "So, either you figure it out or—!"

SHINK!

"AH!"

"CONIS!"

We all snapped our heads around at Su's scream, and my heart skipped a beat as I saw that we hadn't dodged all of the wires. Conis had a sizable cut on her temple and was bleeding heavily, though thankfully she seemed more dazed than actually injured.

"Owww…" Conis hissed as she gingerly fingered the gash.

"Ooooh," Luffy winced sympathetically as he examined the wound. "That looks like it's gonna scar. Believe me, I know. Hey, look on the bright side! At least it'll be badass!"

"THAT IS NOT A BRIGHT SIDE, JELLY-BRAIN!" Su hissed indignantly.

"Agh, damn it. Does anyone here have any medi… cal… skills…?" I trailed off as the temperature on the boat suddenly began rising, and all eyes fell on our chef, who was staring back at the priest. His fists were clenched, flames licked all over his body, and the look in his eye was more murderous than Nami in a temper.

"That poor, foolish priest. Even worse than putting himself in a contest to pit his rugged handsomeness against my most divine physique, he has unwisely injured a lady in front of Sanji," Isaiah said solemnly.

"Nothing can save him now," Leo and Donny concurred together.

"DIS GON' be GOOD!" Soundbite cheered eagerly.

"You bastard…" Sanji growled, the flames around him slowly mounting in intensity. "How dare you harm this sweet, beautiful angel…" And all at once, the flames raged up into a towering inferno as he roared his fury to the truest of heavens. "I'LL KILL YOU!" And with that, he all but literally shot off the boat and ran over the Milky Road straight towards Ohm who, I was gratified to see, was thoroughly unnerved. The priest waited for what seemed like too long before bringing up his sword and widening it into a makeshift shield with which to block, and was still sent sliding backwards from the force of Sanji's kick.

Sanji then proceeded to unleash an absolute flurry of blazing strikes against the priest, moving so fast that he was a blur of red and black that the priest was struggling to parry. And the traps did nothing either, for that matter! Any skulls within Sanji's vicinity were almost instantly obliterated from the shockwave of the conflict, and any wires of Iron Cloud that shot at him from a distance, well… Iron versus a pissed-off Sanji? Absolutely no contest. It was only the sheer thickness of Ohm's Eisen Whip and its constant regeneration that kept the priest from getting reduced to a well-done piece of tenderized meat.

I observed the spectacle with an utterly dropped jaw. "How… but that fire, how did he… and Ohm's Mantra—?"

"Um, Cross? I think I can answer the second half of that," Donny proposed hesitantly. "You mentioned that if someone doesn't know what their attack is going to do, Mantra can't predict it, right?"

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Well… I don't think Sanji's fully conscious of what he's doing right now."

I blinked as I processed that. Considering the fact that Sanji was using both Diable Jambe and Sky Walk way earlier than I could have reasonably expected—especially since I hadn't given him any tips on unlocking either of those techniques early—it stood to reason that he was less considering a plan of attack and more… attacking. Like Luffy back when Jango hypnotized him, there was no strategizing, just relentless, mindless offense. Honestly, it really made sense. What he was using wasn't so much Diable Jambe as it was the 'Flames of Hell' he'd acquired post-Kamabakka. Credit where it was due, it was… actually kind of honorable that his rage over a woman getting injured equated the intensity of the rage he felt whenever he thought of that particular hell.

"Uh…" Conis raised her finger inquisitively as she stared at the ongoing brawl. "Should… I tell him that this was more of a flesh wound and it looks worse than it is, or…?"

"Eh…" I waved my hand side-to-side. "Let's put a pin in that for now, agreed?"

Conis shivered as Ohm narrowly ducked under a roundhouse kick that left an uneven tan on his bald skull. "Upon further consideration, that might be for the best, yes."

Either way, upon thinking more about the matter, this was exactly the kind of stroke of luck that we needed. Ohm may have been formidable, but like most of the priests up here, without being able to rely on his Haki, we—well, Sanji had a chance of actually beating him. And if not, then at the bare minimum, he'd be able to buy us enough time to get away. Provided we capitalized on it, anyways.

"Alright, let's milk this for all it's worth." I eyed Holy who, for the duration of the conflict, had remained seated where he was, panting like an idiot. "Soundbite, can you not get through to the dog? Or the priest, for that matter?"

"NOPE, THEY'RE BOTH WEARING earplugs," the snail confirmed. "Good thing OHM didn't give him ANY COMMANDS!"

"God bless the naturally non-existent IQs of the Giga-Boxer Hounds, Rocky Breed," Lassoo rolled his eyes with a snort.

"No kidding. Luffy, try to unblock the mutt's ears; if Soundbite can turn him against cue ball over there, we've as good as won; there's no way he'll be able to handle both of them at once."

"Got it. Gum-Gum Rocket!" he called out, flying off of the Crow and hitting Holy straight in the chest.

"Donny, Leo, Isaiah, start clearing away those skulls."

"EH!?" the amphibian martial artists choked in horror.

"And why, pray tell, should one as handsome as I—?" the avian started to ask.

"Because you can fly above and around the tripwires and mark a path," I explained frigidly, before pointing at the dugongs. "While they make use of the fact that this place wasn't built for midgets who are three-foot-nothing and crawl under the instant-kill area while knocking down and disarming any more traps that are in our way! Capiche?"

The aqua-martial artists exchanged uneasy looks. "I'm not the only one starting to hate being a midget, right?" Donny hissed.

"Nope…" his compatriot concurred.

"Oh, come now," Isaiah said, sending a stern gaze at the dugongs. "We made the choice to stand by this crew for what they have done for us, am I correct?"

"Yeah…" the two dugongs said, rather unenthusiastically, before backflipping over the edge of the boat and into the tall grass… which prompted over a half-dozen cables of Iron Cloud to shoot through the air.

"WATCH IT, MORONS!"

"YOU'RE THE REASON WE'RE IN HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE, JACKASS!"

"Clumsy little…" I muttered mutinously as I dusted my cap off.

"GOOD HELP is so hard TO FIND!" Soundbite snickered in a tone of voice that was painfully faux-reassuring.

"It truly is, yes. Now, Conis? Can I count on you to drive us out of here?"

The angel glanced at me in a semi-panicked manner for a moment, looking to be a few seconds away from something akin to a mental breakdown, only to slowly take a deep breath and steady herself, steel flashing in her eyes. "I'll do my best." And with that, she took the wheel and slowly revved up the Dial Engine, sending us cruising down the Milky Road.

Soundbite whistled in surprise. "WELL, that's not something you see EVERY DAY."

"You don't seriously think I'd hang out with someone who didn't have a spine buried beneath all that fluff and feathers, do you?" Su sniffed imperiously. "She might be soft at times, but when push comes to shove, my girl can be awesome."

"Sorta like CROSS," Soundbite reflected. "ONLY SHE'S ACTUALLY GOT A PAIR!"

"Har har, hilarious," I snarked before glancing at the last occupant of the boat. "And Lassoo—"

"Don't worry, don't worry," the dachshund-cannon waved his paw lackadaisically. "I know that any attacks of mine would ping off his Haki, and I know that the explosions would set off the traps. I'm good from earlier, I can wait."

Nodding in acceptance, I took the time to survey the status of our situation. Looking back at Sanji, it looked like his fire had gone out; he was fighting Ohm with about as much strength as I could reasonably expect at this point in the story. Fortunately for us, his hellfire barrage had done its job; Ohm was panting, and it seemed that his grip on his Eisen Whip was nowhere near as strong as it should have been. Luffy, meanwhile, was grappling with Holy; beating the dog up would have been a walk in the park, but for a mercy, Luffy was actually actively going for the earplugs. Unfortunately, that led to Holy actually being able to put up a decent fight, probably due to pre-given orders. He wasn't doing any damage to the rubber man, no, but he was inadvertently buying Ohm extra time, for whatever that was worth.

Finally, as the dugongs and Isaiah cleared our path past the final curve on the Milky Road, Luffy managed to latch onto Holy's head, wrapping his legs around the dog's neck much like a noose while his arms reached out towards his ears. The dog flailed as best he could, but ultimately, Luffy managed to dislodge one of the massive, presumably iron earplugs—

WHOOSH!

Only for all of us to pause as a small group of guerillas on Dial skates shot into the clearing, their eyes set on the priest.

"Shandians!" Conis called out.

"Shandians," Ohm growled.

"Shandians!?" I repeated incredulously. What the hell were they doing—!? Oh, crap, the invasion had already started. Well, there went my knowledge of relatively current events!

"We'll defeat the priests and charge God's Shrine! We will light the fire of Shandora!" the leader called out. At that point, I took in his details, and geeze, my current knowledge really was shot; that was supposed to be Wiper charging. But judging from the brown mohawk and the pink, feathery, Doflamingo-esque vest, this could prove to be a turn for the better; that was Kamakiri, the only leader in the tribe who had both good standing with Wiper and a willingness to negotiate.

Ohm snarled in response, and with Sanji's attention diverted for the moment, he spun his blade downward and plunged it into the ground before putting his fingers to his lips and whistling.

"You fought well, Blue Sea Dweller, the most valiant enemy I've ever faced," he spat as Holy bounded over, dislodging Luffy in the process. "But the Shandian invasion occurring takes a higher priority, so I have no choice but to end this now. Die peacefully along with them."

"Like hell I'm letting you get away, you shitty priest!" Sanji snarled as he swung his leg at Ohm. Unfortunately, his opponent managed to dodge by swinging onto his pet's back in a practiced movement before the dog leapt into the trees. Just as a symphony of clicking sounds filled the air.

Soundbite, ashen as his skin naturally was, paled. "Ooooohhh SHIT! EVERYONE BACK IN THE BOAT! CONIS, FLOOR IT!"

The next second found Leo and Donny both leaping back onto the Crow, not caring how many traps they tripped in the process, while Isaiah dove to resume his perch. One second after that, Luffy got to his feet, one rubber arm stretching out to grab Sanji and the other reaching out to grab onto the accelerating Crow. The five Shandians had turned around by this point, Kamakiri electing to follow our example based on Ohm's words.

And not a moment too soon for either them or Luffy, as the area where they were promptly erupted in a twisted white reflection of Maleficent's forest of thorns, with every other square foot sprouting sharp, deadly spike-laden vines. And they continued surfacing all around the clearing, spreading out fast from where Ohm had buried his sword, hot on their tail.

"Notgoodnotgoodnotgoodnotgoodnotgoodnotgood!" Su yelped in panic, quivering next to her mistress.

"LUFFY, STRETCH OUT A LEG OR SOMETHING FOR THE SHANDIANS TO GRAB OR THEY'LL GET CAUGHT BY THE IRON!" I barked out. Luffy gritted his teeth in concentration as he let one of his legs trail behind him. Hearing my words and seeing just how fast the iron was approaching, Kamakiri grabbed onto the rubbery limb, and the other four soldiers followed his example, at which point their collective speed increased. The end result had the Crow filled past its maximum capacity… and the iron cloud slowly gaining on us.

"I CAN'T GO ANY FASTER!" Conis shrieked desperately.

"ROADBLOCK!" Soundbite screeched, drawing everyone's attention to the fact that the edge of the clearing, just in our range of vision, was blocked by an ornately-patterned barrier of spiked iron cloud, which was even now growing taller and curving upwards to cut off any escape route.

"Luffy, can you rocket us out of here?!" Sanji demanded.

"I don't have anywhere to grab onto!" Luffy yelled back, looking fearfully at the fast-approaching clouds.

"Soundbite, can you break it?!" Donny said.

"NO GOOD! We'd be SKEWERED before it was SHATTERED!" the snail cried.

"Ugh, my Impact Dial doesn't have enough force to break it, either. Do any of you have something?!"

The Shandians' grimaces of fear, anger, and resignation were all the answer I needed. Gritting my teeth, I looked back at the blue-clad Dugong.

"Leo, you're our only chance! Cut the fence or we'll be killed!" As if to punctuate the point, the iron cloud had caught up and was blotting out the sun above us.

"I-I can't—"

"Leo!" Donny yelped desperately, grabbing his co-student by his shoulders and forcing him to look him in the eye. "If we die here, then… then you should know that I've left a will onboard the Merry stating that I posthumously vote for Mikey to be the new squad leader!"

In an instant, Leo's entire demeanor shifted, his body going rigid as he held his swords out, the blades forming a pair of right angles with his body. "Get down," he snarled, and the fact that his tone was Zoro-levels of feral made everyone else comply.

A moment later, a whoosh of wind passed over us all as Leo spun into a blur of green, blue, brown and metal. After a few seconds of silence, we all slowly started getting up and were greeted to the sight of every barbed-wire cloud near the Crow broken, the profane totems that they'd been spewing from decapitated. And as Leo started to slide his blades back into their sheaths—

"O captain, my captain…" Isaiah breathed as he stared upwards.

We all followed the South Bird's view.

"Two Sword Style," Leo snorted firmly as he clicked his blades back into their sheathes. "Vitruvian Vindication."

And in the last second before the Crow sped out of the Clearing, we saw skulls rain down from the thorn-blotted sky.

"Wow…" Soundbite breathed.

"Yeeeaaah, fair warning?" Donny whistled. "Never underestimate how far student rivalries can go."

I immediately wondered if I should start mentioning Kuina more often to Zoro if it made that much of a difference… nah, I wasn't that suicidal, nor was I that desperate for him to get stronger faster.

"Leo? Unless you're desperate to get stronger, don't use the words 'student rivalry' against Zoro," I muttered.

And just like that, Leo's calm-and-collected attitude cracked like a dropped plate of china. "Ooooh, hell no, not in a million years… or without an army between me and him." Cold sweat started waterfalling down his face. "Maybe not even then."

I nodded, and then noticed that we were still rocketing along the Milky Road.

"Uh, Conis? You can slow down now."

The angel jerked at the sound of her name, and the Crow slowed to a stop as she moved back from the accelerator, even paler than her usual complexion, her eyes wide with terror. Sanji moved to say something, only for her to start glancing around frantically. "Has anyone seen Su?"

There was a brief moment of panic as we all frantically looked around the boat…

"Uh…"

Before Donny slowly held up a twitching bundle of fur by its tail.

"What kind of lunatics have I unleashed?" Su moaned, her eyes open and spinning visibly.

"OH, come on, was that little SHOW TOO MUCH ALREADY? Wimp."

Su promptly snapped her head away in a sniff, her fur somehow flattening out into a more dignified look. "As if. The only thing overwhelming about you all is your smell. How you can stand to go so long without bathing is beyond me! Pee-yew!"

I shot an exasperated look at Conis. "Pride: the ultimate steroid."

"I'm starting to figure that out…" she sighed as she took her fox back.

"Fret not, sweet Conis," Sanji crooned before propping his foot up on the railing of the boat and jabbing his fist in the air. "For I swear, though your knight in shining armor might have failed in his duty in this instance, he shall never do so again! So long as you are within my sights, I shall allow no harm to befall thee!"

Isaiah nodded solemnly as he alighted on Sanji's shoulder. "Truly your machismo and valor are worthy of the Swagger tribe. While you are devoid of our most glamorously eye-catching plumage or our stern, valiant beaks, I am nonetheless honored to call you my brother in the ranks of gentlemanliness, which I assure you is a word."

"Are they always like this?" Su asked in a deadpan.

"THE BIRD IS new, but the COOK? PAR FOR the course."

"Joy." Su twitched her ear in amusement. "At least the show is good."

Conis slowly managed a genuine smile. "Thank you. I think… I actually have hope that your crew can set us free," she murmured.

"I'm inclined to agree."

All eyes snapped to Kamakiri, including those of his squad, where he was giving us an appraising stare.

"…You defeated Satori. You nearly defeated Ohm and Shura. And you saved our lives when you had no obligation to do so," he stated.

I elected to shrug in a careless fashion. "Hey, you looked like you wanted cue ball's head too, and he wanted your heads as badly as ours. That's as much a reason for alliance as any." I then paused as I processed just what he'd been saying. "Wait, nearly defeated Shura?! The heck happened at the Sacrificial Altar!?"

Kamakiri shook his head solemnly. "I'm sorry to say that I don't know. All we know is that a… source of ours—"

'Aisa,' I filled in silently.

"Informed us that Shura weakened significantly about an hour or two ago, shortly after you defeated Satori. That's why Wiper decided that now was the time to invade the Upper Yard." Kamakiri sat up slowly, his hand drifting to the Burn Blade at his side. "That's our explanation for being here. What's yours?"

"Our cheap-as-all-hell navigator refused to pay the entry toll at Heaven's Gate, and we beat all the angel officers that came to fine and arrest us, so a giant lobster carried our crew away here, and we had to fight past tons of booby traps, a talking cream puff, and a bald guy with his giant dog on our way to them," Lassoo said boredly. Then he added in exactly the same tone, "And I'm not sure that's the weirdest thing that's happened to us since I joined this crew a few days ago."

Su and Conis both moaned miserably while Sanji moved to take the wheel, getting the Crow moving again towards the Altar.

"Also," Luffy noted darkly. "Conis and Su are our friends, and that Eneru-bastard's been hurting her for a long time now, so we're going to kick his ass."

You could hear a pin drop with how tense the Shandians got.

"…I don't know what's crazier," Kamakiri finally said. "The fact that you just said that aloud here of all places, or the fact that I actually believe you."

"Personally, I think the crazier part is that Eneru didn't just obliterate all of us for Luffy saying that," Sanji said dryly.

"Eh, I'm guessing he thinks we're not worth the trouble," I waved my hand dismissively. "All we did was defeat one of his almighty priests and bring two of the others close to defeat. Not something that someone as powerful as him has anything to be worked up about."

"…good point," Kamakiri conceded.

"Anyway, if we're all against Eneru, is there any chance that we could form some kind of alliance?" I proposed. "I mean, one of you… the Berserker, I think he called himself?" I had to restrain a smirk at the way Kamakiri twitched. "Attacked us on the White Sea. We tried reasoning with him, and he said he wasn't willing to take any chances, but if we're all against Eneru, could we at least try working together for now?"

Kamakiri hung his head with a sigh of 'Damn it, Wiper' as he ran a hand through his mohawk before nodding slowly. "Yeah, alright, that sounds good. For now, you go to the Sacrificial Altar and see about regrouping with your friends. We'll go back out and try and regroup with ours. And see about maybe talking Wiper down from shooting at you guys on sight…" He grumbled the last part to himself, inciting a few winces and snickers from his squadmates.

I hesitated. A lot. There was an easy way that we could get Wiper on our side, and I could phrase it now in a way that wouldn't make Eneru think any differently about us. But was it worth it at this point? Was canon derailed enough that I couldn't reasonably make things worse at this stage? Would having the Shandians on our side from the start… be worth the risk of either island being destroyed?

In the end, I thought back to what Tashigi said back when we formed MI3: "In for one beri, in for all of them."

"Say… maybe this 'Wiper' guy, who I'm guessing is the Berserker I mentioned, would be more amicable if you relayed to him what we had to go through in order to get up here?"

-o-

One conversation and round of introductions later, in which I couldn't be sure whether or not Kamakiri reacted to me mentioning Cricket's full name (and damn, those goggles did wonders for his poker-face), the five Shandians rushed off to rejoin their fellows. Here's hoping that staying with us didn't cost them too much, though considering the fact that two of the three priests they were facing were exhausted, and the last one was… well, Gedatsu, terminator-esque bastard that he was, I had my doubts that they could be in too much trouble.

After they left, Sanji accelerated, and aside from one or two run-ins with wildlife and wild rides (which, naturally, half of the boat's inhabitants thoroughly enjoyed, myself included), the rest of the journey went the way it was supposed to: without conflict or combat crossing our paths. Finally, we reached the edge of the forest.

"Soundbite, heartbeat count on the altar?" I asked tentatively, resolutely not facing ahead.

"Mmm… THIRTEEN. Our crew, GAN FALL, and the pony-bird."

I didn't even react to the jab at Pierre; that was half of my worries eased, but the more pressing one still remained. So, steeling myself, I slowly looked out at the inlet to see the sacrificial altar erected in its center and… the equally high pile of bodies next to it!?

"WHAT THE FUCK!?" I bellowed incredulously as I stared up at the pile. Where the hell—!? Sweet shit, were those—those were freaking Sky Sharks!

As if in response, the bodies at the top of the pile started shifting around until a very familiar figure appeared over the edge of the peak.

"Hey Cap'n, boys!" Boss waved at us eagerly, looking slightly banged up on account of the thick but still clearly bloody bandage wrapped around his chest. "You finally made it! Glad to see you're alright!"

Leo and Donny's jaws hit the bottom of the deck as they stared upwards.

"We will never be as truly awesome as he is, will we?" Leo asked weakly.

"Signs point to nope," Donny concurred with a minor whimper.

I gaped in awe as I tried to process what I was seeing. "Boss… what…" I gestured at him weakly. "What the absolute hell!? What the heck brought this on!?"

Boss's cheerful demeanor promptly evaporated like an ice cube in hell, a scowl blackening his mug as he folded his tail and sat on the pile. I blinked in confusion as the pile seemed to shiver before letting out a gurgle of realization: the sharks he was sitting on were neither dead nor unconscious; they were fully conscious but too scared out of their bruised skulls to so much as move a fin and risk drawing Boss's ire!

"This," Boss rapped his fist on the shark he was sitting on, causing another ripple of twitches. "Is the end result of me working out my shame and frustration." The dugong burned through a third of his cigar in a huff and blew out an evil-looking cloud of smoke through grit teeth. "I lost, and I don't. Like. Losing."

"WHAT!?"

"ACK!" I yelped as Sanji bodily shoved his way past me in order to glare up at the dugong.

"You'd better not have let any harm come to the lovely ladies of our crew, you shitty-dugong!" the cook bellowed, looking to be a few degrees Celsius away from bursting into flames again.

Boss snorted and waved his flipper dismissively. "Oh, calm your tits, Sanji. Robin could handle ten of me at once, and Vivi and Nami, soft though they are, trained under my boys. Even if they had been here, which they weren't, they'd have been fine." Boss grimaced and shook his head. "No, no, nothing happened to them. If there's anything I'm ashamed about, it's what I let happen to the Merry."

I felt as though a surge of ice had been shot into my veins. "What happened to the Merry, Boss!?"

Boss's cigar twitched in his mouth before he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder with a sigh.

I followed his thumb to the Merry and blinked in surprise. It… wasn't as good as I'd hoped, but much better than what I'd feared. The mast was still scorched and blackened, but overall it looked superficial, as did the scorched and charred scratches adorning her hull. Aside from Boss, the rest of the crew was busily stringing up the spare sailcloth, so that probably got burned, too. Unfortunately, the keel was obscured by sea cloud, so I'd have to ask Merry later tonight, assuming she did manifest the klabautermann again. And considering the severity of her injuries and the fact that even with extra help Usopp was struggling to patch her up, that occurrence appeared to be a foregone conclusion.

But like I said, it wasn't that bad, so—

"IT'S YOU!"

Terry's shout was matched by Isaiah's smug yet elegant grin. "It's me," he taunted. "Did you miss my magnificent presence that much?"

"ALL I MISSED WAS MY VOICE FULL OF POWEEEER!" Terry shouted, somehow managing to flex his muscles while staying in the air. "YOU, I CAN DO WITHOUT! AFTER ALL, ONLY A BLIND MAN DENIES THE AWESOME POWER OF BEAR GLOOOVE!"

"And yet Swagger remains the uncontested superior of the two."

"BEAR GLOVE!"

"Swagger."

"BEAR GLOVE!"

"You do know the definition of insanity, right?"

"BEAR GLOVE!"

"Shishishi, I love these two!" Luffy snickered.

"Yeah," Lassoo grinned as he watched my eye twitch. "There are always two shows at the price of one."

I, for one, grimaced miserably as I stared at the pile of sharks. "I wonder if I can convince one of those things to eat me…" I wondered ruefully.

"I imagine that many employees of the World Government would pay dearly to find a way to make that happen, Cross."

I jerked my gaze back up at the Merry, where one ultra-wanted archaeologist was grinning down at me. "Robin. Glad to see that most of the affairs on this end went off without a hitch. Mind telling me just what the heck happened?!"

Robin chuckled lightly, almost certainly at my annoyed tone, before pointing at a section of the shoreline. "I would suggest that you dock over there, Mister Jeremiah, and we will join you shortly. We have quite a bit to discuss."

And indeed we did. After Nami had given us an earful about Upper Yard being the missing half of Jaya—if I had to guess, I'd say she was both amazed and annoyed by the fact that the Grand Line could liberally rearrange geography at the drop of a hat like that—we got details on what had happened to the Merry.

As in the manga, the 'captured' group had decided to split up and explore the jungle for a bit, in order to discover some of the mysteries the trees held. In addition to Robin, Zoro and Nami, Raphey, Mikey, Terry, Carue and Vivi had also gone along for the chance at an adventure, while Usopp and Chopper stayed behind to watch over the Merry, and Boss stayed behind to watch over them. Things had gone on quite peacefully for a bit…

Until Shura happened.

In all fairness to the ship's guard, they'd actually managed to put up a damn decent fight against the bastard. In fact, they hadn't even blown the whistle until a minute or so into the fight because they didn't need to. Between Boss's fantastic martial arts straining Shura's Mantra, the blast radius of Chopper's Cherry Blossom Blasts and the sheer miracle-quality that Usopp's sniping held, they might have actually run him off.

Sadly, the decision had been taken out of their hands once Shura had started attacking the one crewmate present who couldn't defend themselves: the Going Merry herself. Boss had apparently managed to save her mast by using a Sky Shark as a living bucket with which to splash sea clouds on the flames, but a few flaming scratches later he'd willingly blown the whistle himself.

Credit to the Sky Knight, he'd arrived in minutes. And once he'd arrived, the tables turned fast. Between his own skills and Pierre providing Boss the mobility he needed to keep up with Fuza? They had the so-called Sky Rider on the ropes. And they would have knocked him clear out of the ring, too!

Were it not for the fact that Shura decided to remind them both that they were fighting on his turf. Damn String Dials… I made a note during the conversation to comb the landscape around the altar at the nearest opportunity, because ten to one said that all of the priests had specialized Cloud Dials hidden nearby. I'd already let them abuse a home-field advantage once by forgetting to warn the team to check their surroundings before, I wasn't going to let it happen a second time.

Sadly, once Shura had them caught up in his strings, then he had them full-stop. A cauterized thrust clean through Gan Fall's chest that he was stupidly lucky to have lived through, as well as a 2-inch deep penetration through the belly of Boss's shell. It wasn't much, but combined with an almost 600-foot drop, it was still enough to stun him. And on top of that, he'd spent the time before Shura's arrival using the Sky Sharks as punching bags, so they'd wanted a bit of revenge, too. Thankfully, the delay-and-acceleration of events worked in their favor where it hindered us: when the Shandians invaded, Shura elected to leave, survivors or no.