The Dark Side of Akatsuki. Chapter 29

[GOMU-GOMU ROCKET]

Luffy shot toward the man like a cannonball with a bone to pick. An instant before impact the man seemed to snap out of whatever daze he'd been in and start moving. But it was too late. For Sasuke, the illusion ended the moment Luffy's body broke his line of sight, time slowly resuming its march up to its rightful speed. Danzou did not collapse to his knees. He was far too busy for that.

Sasuke got to watch the whole thing in slow-motion.

As Danzou desperately pulled himself back over the railing of the ship, the pirate-captain's head impacted him square in the chest. For one glorious moment, Sasuke watched Danzou's face distort in pain and shock as all the air left his lungs, and then he was lifted off his feet. Time suddenly snapped back into place, and like one steel ball transferring all of its momentum to another, Luffy came to a dead stop on the ship as Danzou went spinning off into the sea.

Sasuke hung there, stunned with disbelief. From his perch on the side of the ship, he climbed quickly to the deck. Then, with a glance around the ship, Luffy turned to the rest of the crew.

"Hey! You guys alright?" he said.

"Yeap," responded a long-nosed man, sounding weak and shaky, "Peachy keen and ready to go, yep. Don't mind the blood."

"Good!"

With that, Luffy turned to the coils of the iridescent serpent wrapped around the Merry. He wound up a fist and gave their abductor a wicked stretched-out punch that seemed to rock the ship itself. A moment later, the sea serpent's head lifted from the waves to see what the source of her distress was, which was when Luffy leapt into the air and brought his heel down on her snout in a monstrous axe-kick. The serpent went crashing down into the water, but rose back up, wobbling somewhat from the impact. As it turned its gaze back to Luffy, he shouted in its face before jabbing it once more in the snout, sending it reeling.

The serpent's tongue flickered out once, twice, and then it loosened its coils, slinking off into the night waters.

Sasuke wasn't entirely certain what he should be doing about all this. Eventually, he settled on addressing the crew, "Hey! That man from earlier will be back soon. He won't have been finished off by that attack, so we need to get out of here, fast!"

"Wait, which man from earlier?" asked a friendly-sounding, but unfamiliar voice from inside the cabin of the ship. Sasuke was confused. There were more people on-board? He looked around on deck. There was the long-nosed guy, the perceptive woman from before, the captain, a red-headed woman, and a strange little animal. Apparently someone else was still below deck.

"The one who just got blasted off the ship? You know?" Sasuke craned his head to see inside the cabin. Everyone else looked, too, and they seemed just as uncertain as he did.

Then, he saw him. A man in Akatsuki robes strolled out of the cabin wearing a warped and bleached driftwood mask, his only visible features being his hands and his short, black hair. Everyone besides the new arrival returned to combat readiness. Somewhere, someone, or a couple someones, screamed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" said the new man, raising both hands, "Easy! Just looking for someone! You guys didn't happen to see my friend here, did you? Old guy? About my size? Looked like he wanted to just punch everything in the world?"

"Heh, he's not here anymore," Sasuke said, summoning up his reserves of energy, "He and the captain here had a disagreement."

"Oh! That's too bad!" offered the masked man, who put one hand up to his head in an awkward sort of gesture. "Look, if you see him, could you let him know we don't need this ship any more? We found a much bigger one that was trying to get away from the island, and it looks great! It's got everything we needed, plus a crew! Well, it had a crew, anyway. Well, I mean, I guess it still kinda does, but… well, it's complicated!" he finished his statement with cheerful exuberance. "Oh! I almost forgot. Before I leave, I had a quick question for you."

There was a stressed sort of silence.

"Okay, okay, here goes. Do any of you know anything about the 'Celestial Dragons?'"

Behind him, Robin tensed up. No one spoke.

"No? No one? Oh well. Anyway, it was nice meeting you!" he shouted. Then, he leapt to the edge of the ship and hopped down to the water below, hitting the surface of the waves. The ship rocked violently as the dark depths of the water underneath his feet disgorged a massive shark covered with strange piercings. With a mighty sound, it swam away. Its roar was almost too low to be heard, and instead resonated through everyone's bodies, shaking their bones.

A short time later, he was gone.

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