If you've ever tried to storm a kingdom run by pirates, political conspiracies, and shady feather-wearing crime lords… don't. Seriously. Just don't.
Unless you're us.
It took three days for the Azura Gale—our absolutely massive, slightly ridiculous ninja warship—to make it to Alabasta. And that was on purpose. We could've gone faster, sure. But as Kakashi put it: "Speed gets you stabbed. Patience gets you plans."
Also, going faster would've meant Naruto might accidentally launch a Sage Beast mid-ocean and cause a tsunami.
So yeah. Patience it was.
Inside the war room—okay, technically it was the rec room, but someone (Kiba) had labeled it War Room of Ultimate Tactical Violence—we had a strategy meeting.
Naruto had just finished carving "Liberation Squad!" into the table using his chakra kunai. His smile was so bright it probably violated several stealth rules.
"So!" he said, slamming his hands on the table. "Step one—liberate Alabasta! Step two—punch pirates! Step three—sing my monster kingdom anthem while riding a T-Rex into battle!"
Hinata raised her hand. "Um… what about gathering intelligence?"
"Oh, that's step four!" Naruto said proudly. "Infiltrate, find the Doflamingo pirates, and test their strength!"
Shikamaru groaned. "So, the plan is... no plan."
"No," Kakashi interrupted calmly, flipping a page of his Icha Icha book. "The plan is to use infiltration tactics to gauge the Doflamingo Pirates' threat level. If they're strong, we fall back, reassess, maybe queue a new training arc. If they're weak..."
"We go full anime finale," Naruto finished, fist pumping.
There were several reasons this mission mattered.
Morally: Naruto was convinced they were creating "a better world." Which, fine, he wasn't wrong, but he also wanted to name his summoned rhino "Justice Horn," so take that how you will.
Strategically: If they could expose Doflamingo's hold over Alabasta, they'd get a glimpse into how deep his network ran. And that meant valuable resources, allies, and information about the bigger, scarier threat—the World Government.
Practically: Before they even thought about facing the Admirals (you know, those walking WMDs in Marine uniforms), they needed to know if Doflamingo was even a warm-up… or the final boss.
Shikamaru laid it out bluntly: "If Doflamingo's a pushover, we're ahead of schedule. If he wipes the floor with us, we hit pause, go train in a cave somewhere, and pretend this never happened."
In other words, standard ninja protocol.
As we cruised closer to Alabasta, the Azura Gale gleamed like a chakra-powered tank with sails. Tenten had gone full mad scientist with the upgrades—retractable ballistae, armor plating, hidden compartments, and elemental shields. Kankuro had added puppet-based defense systems, because apparently ships needed puppet soldiers too.
We weren't just a ship.
We were a floating fortress.
And Naruto? He was still out on deck, feeding his summon scroll with chakra like it was a pet lion.
"Grow, my babies," he whispered ominously. "Papa needs you to wreck some pirates."
Kiba passed by and muttered, "He's gonna destroy half a continent by accident one day."
To which Shino replied, "Only half?"
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If there's one thing more dangerous than letting Naruto near a button labeled DO NOT PUSH, it's giving him access to an entire dimension and telling him, "Hey, go wild."
Which is exactly what Kakashi did.
So of course, Naruto had been feeding his summon world more chakra than a Jinchūriki at a ramen festival. Not just his own chakra, mind you—no, that would've been sane. He was also pumping in the Kyuubi's chakra, which is kind of like saying, "Here, take this nuclear reactor and make some pets."
"Grow, my precious minions," Naruto whispered from the ship's stern, hands glowing with chakra as the scroll pulsed like a heartbeat. "Become majestic murder-beasts that won't eat us in our sleep."
"Is that really the bar you're setting?" Shikamaru muttered nearby. "That they probably won't destroy the world?"
"Exactly," Naruto said cheerfully, as if this was totally responsible.
But monster-nurturing wasn't his only hobby these days. Naruto had also decided it was time to embrace his legacy and fight like his dad—Minato Namikaze, the Flash himself.
And it was going… uh, mostly okay.
See, Naruto had already dipped his toes into portal techniques. In theory, teleportation within this world was child's play.
In practice?
He had no idea what he was doing.
"This would be easier if the planet stopped spinning," he muttered one evening, face covered in chalky coordinate scribbles like he was trying to decode a celestial prophecy.
Turns out, creating portals while moving required terrifying levels of real-time spatial math. Naruto's brain was allergic to that.
He tried memorizing coordinates. Failed. Tried using landmarks. Teleported onto the figurehead of the ship and nearly broke his nose.
So he came up with a genius—read: terrifying—solution.
"Shadow Clone Portal Test #41!" Naruto declared, holding up his hand.
"No."
The clone said it flat-out. He was already half-faded from Test #40, where he'd ended up wedged inside a coral reef with a jellyfish for a hat.
"C'mon," Naruto said. "If it works this time, I can portal into enemy strongholds and save us so much trouble!"
"You teleported me into a chicken coop last time, boss."
"Which proves it works on living creatures!"
"I was pecked unconscious!"
"...For science?"
Eventually, Kakashi caught him drawing runes into the deck with a kunai and muttering something about "velocity offset geometry."
"Trying to become Minato, huh?" the silver-haired jōnin asked.
Naruto blinked, caught in the act. "Maybe."
Kakashi shrugged and offered a rare smile. "Don't forget—Minato didn't figure it out in a day either. He just had better handwriting and didn't give himself concussions mid-teleport."
Which, honestly? Fair.
By the third day, Naruto had succeeded in creating a short-range teleport ring the size of a dinner plate. It worked exactly once. It moved a rice ball from one side of the ship to the other.
Everyone clapped.
It exploded five seconds later.
Still, Naruto wasn't discouraged.
Because sure, he might not have mastered god-speed flash movement yet.
But he did now have a dimension full of evolving monsters, a monkey king who kept trying to climb the mast and declare it "Sacred Tree of Kong," and an increasingly long list of clones who refused to answer his calls.
"Next test," Naruto muttered. "Portal spear throws… maybe if I can throw a Rasengan through it…"
Kiba groaned. "We're going to die in Alabasta because you Rasengan'd yourself in the back, aren't we?"
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By the third day, the sand-colored silhouette of Alabasta peeked over the sea horizon, heatwaves rising from it like ghost flames. The sky had turned a sharp, golden blue, and the wind that hit the Azura Gale tasted like sun-baked metal and dry hope.
Most people would've started sweating buckets. The sun was merciless. The air—unforgiving.
But ninja?
Ninja had chakra-powered air conditioning.
"I love being a shinobi," Naruto sighed, arms behind his head, a breeze of invisible cool keeping him perfectly comfy. "I feel like a walking ice cream cone."
"I hate how that actually made sense," muttered Sakura, adjusting her chakra output to deflect UV rays like a sunscreen made by Hagoromo himself.
Even Tenten, currently greasing a mechanical crane with oil, nodded. "Don't knock it. Chakra control is the real MVP."
Kankuro and Gaara were the only ones who looked utterly unbothered. Like, didn't even need AC unbothered.
"This heat is nostalgic," Gaara said quietly, staring into the horizon like it owed him a sandcastle and some emotional trauma.
Kankuro clapped him on the back. "This is practically a vacation. Sand, sun, and probably pirates to punch. Feels just like home."
Naruto squinted. "You guys are seriously weird."
Meanwhile, up on the observation deck, Hinata's Byakugan flared to life. Her eyes glowed with that eerie, majestic shine, and she saw through twenty kilometers of heat distortion, buildings, and possible criminal activity like it was just the morning news.
"Nanohana port," she said softly, "has at least thirty men stationed near the docks. They're armed with flintlocks and muskets—older models—but pretending to be local law enforcement."
"How do you know they're faking it?" Neji asked from beside her.
"They've got pirate tattoos under their uniforms. They've got the same smell too—sweat, rum, and gunpowder."
Naruto made a face. "You can smell them from here?"
"No," she blushed, "but pirates are usually that obvious."
Shikamaru yawned and leaned over the map, scratching his head like it personally offended him. "Then the pirates must've taken over the kingdom from within. Controlling the ports is step one. The rest of the kingdom probably looks worse the further you go inland."
"So classic evil regime," Naruto said. "Cool."
"Cool isn't the word I'd use," Shikamaru muttered. "But yes. They're trying to make the port city look normal to fool outsiders. No panic. No resistance. Not until it's too late."
"So… how do we crash the party without crashing the ship?" asked Choji, already eyeing the snack barrels labeled "Merchant Goods."
That's when Kurenai stepped forward with a little smile.
"Leave that to me."
What followed was a masterclass in ninja theatre.
Kurenai cast a high-level genjutsu over the Azura Gale, making it shimmer and change before their eyes. The sleek ninja vessel now looked like a beat-up merchant ship carrying silks, spices, and dried dates.
Kankuro's puppets were re-dressed as stevedores and dockworkers, all bustling around the deck like they were in a rush to offload cargo. Naruto, of course, added in some clones—now dressed as loud, overworked sailors, grumbling about prices, pirates, and port taxes.
"We dock," Shikamaru said, pacing like a crime boss, "act like a real merchant crew. The clones stay back to keep up the illusion. The real team goes inland."
"Invisible infiltration," Neji added. "Smart."
"Exactly," Shikamaru nodded. "If we walk in loud, the pirates go underground. But if they think we're just another trade ship, we'll get deep enough to see what's really going on before they notice."
"And no one knows us here, right?" Ino asked.
"Right," Shikamaru replied. "Our name hasn't hit the Grand Line yet. Outside of a few unlucky pirate groups, we're just anonymous."
Naruto cracked his knuckles and grinned. "Then let's stay ghosts for now…"
He turned to the helm, golden light casting shadows across his whiskered face.
"…and strike like ninja later."
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The sun glared down like an overworked supervisor as a group of pirates dressed in questionable law enforcement gear lounged in the shade of a wooden warehouse near Nanohana's main dock.
The leader of this particular squad—Captain Barto the Bleeder—had three teeth made of gold, one of iron, and a voice like gravel soaked in whiskey.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead with a half-clean rag, peering through a brass spyglass with enough scratches on it to qualify as antique furniture. "Oi, lads. We've got a fat one."
His first mate, Curly Jax, leaned over his shoulder and squinted at the horizon. "Big ship. Real big. Merchant type. Probably spice or silk."
"No markings though," added Blister Joe, the youngest of the group and somehow still the ugliest. "And their crew looks too... clean. Like they bathe. Regularly."
"Suspicious," Barto muttered, chewing on a toothpick like it owed him money. "Send word to the capital."
Joe darted off toward the transponder snail station set up in the warehouse—an old Den Den Mushi who looked about one grumpy glare away from retirement.
Barto leaned back in his chair, boots up on a crate. "We don't move unless the capital gives the word. That's the deal."
Inside the warehouse, Joe adjusted the receiver and connected to the capital.
The Den Den Mushi blinked, twitched its little eyes, then adopted the expression of whoever was on the other end—a bored-looking man with sharp eyes and the faint smirk of someone who probably strangled people for fun.
"Yeah?" the voice crackled through.
"Port squad here. Unknown merchant ship just hit visual. Looks new. No marine tags, no pirate flag. Could be honest trade. Could be masked crew."
There was silence. Then the snail opened its mouth.
"Let them dock. Stay in character. Don't spook 'em. But keep them under watch. If they sniff around too much or head inland, flag it."
Joe nodded. "Got it."
"Send updates every hour. Don't screw this up, or I'll mail you your spine."
Click.
Joe returned to the others, pale.
"We're cleared to let them dock," he reported, his voice cracking slightly. "We're to watch them. Real close."
Barto laughed, slapping his knee. "Looks like the capital's nervous. Must be a new player."
"Think they're spies?" Jax asked, twirling his mustache like he was in a bad stage play.
"Don't care," Barto said, rising and cracking his knuckles. "As long as they don't mess with business, we smile and wave. But if they poke their noses where they don't belong…"
He pulled a pistol from his belt and spun it once.
"…we cut them off."
The pirates all nodded.
Back on the dock, the Azura Gale began pulling in—giant sails furled, merchant flags raised, fake crew bustling like they were behind schedule on a cinnamon delivery.
Jax whistled. "They sure look legit."
Barto narrowed his eyes.
"Yeah," he muttered. "And I once saw a Marine ship full of nuns that turned out to be filled with gunpowder and trained attack dogs. Everything's fake until it explodes."