Chapter 50

Deep in the forest in the dark of the night, the boy with the seahorse, that caused all the trouble, is running with deep terror in his heart. The reason he's so terrified, is because he heard Rose's call to him, and can hear her footsteps in the distance. "I can't believe she figured me out so quickly! If I didn't pull that stunt, I would've been done for!"

He can hear the footsteps getting louder, along with his heart rate, and tries to run faster. He could try to make another illusion, but she'd see right through it this time!

He needs something else to get her off his tail, so he looks around for any other way. When he sees a dim light in the distance, he decides to go that way.

Rose isn't too far from him, and she's barely calmed down at all since she left the ship. It doesn't help that she can't see the footprints unless she's running on the ground instead of flying, because of how dark it is, either.

Even so, she can hear footsteps in the distance, so she feels like she's on the right track.

She sees a light in the distance, along with the footprints, and follows the path without a plan.

She gets her hands ready for a punch as soon as she reaches the light, but stops in her tracks when she finds Zoro sitting in front of a campfire instead of her prey.

Zoro doesn't act surprised at all by her arrival, but only shows a raised eyebrow when he sees her. "What's your problem?"

"Did you see a blue haired brat, with a seahorse, around here?" Rose asks as she looks around for any signs of him.

"The only one I've seen all day is you." Zoro answers, which earns a groan of frustration from the brunette.

Rose tries to find more footprints, but she can't find any more traces of them which confuses her. Those prints were way too small to be Zoro's and she knows that they were human, so it had to have been the kid's. Where the fuck did he go?!

"What the hell's your problem?" Zoro asks which snaps her out of her daze.

She quietly sighs as she sits cross-legged across him, with the fire as the only thing between them. "I found out who stole our memories. It's this fucking kid with this creepy ass seahorse horn. From what I saw, it's the seahorse that has the power to do it. I was close to getting it, but the little shit escaped with it. I followed his trail, but I lost it here..."

Zoro widens his eyes at the story, and tries to get more out of her. "Where did you see him?"

"I saw him heading to the pirate ship we woke up on. He tried to steal the others' memories again, but they stopped him, and..."

She trails off when she remembers the blue smoke that had hit Luffy. She knows that it wouldn't kill him, because he's too stubborn to die, but she's worried about what kind of weird effect that smoke could've had. Maybe it was stolen memories?

"And what?" Zoro asks, which takes her out of her train of thought.

"And then the seahorse seeped this blue smoke onto Luffy. I don't know what it was, but that horn's nothing but trouble..." She looks out at the dark forest, and scowls at how dark it is outside of this camp.

There's no way she can find that kid without any leads, but she doesn't want to impose on Zoro's space, so she starts excusing herself. "I'll search for him again in the morning. Sorry I barged into your campsite, but I'm glad I could warn you at least."

She starts getting up, much to Zoro's surprise, and calls out to her. "Hey, where are you going?"

"To find someplace to sleep. I have a long day of hunting tomorrow. When I get the horn, I'll find you, and give you back your memories."

"And what makes you think you'll get him first?" Zoro asks with an arrogant smirk, which irks the brunette.

"What the hell are you saying?"

"Now that I know what's going on, I'm not gonna just sit around. I'll be sure to get your memories back after I slice that seahorse."

Rose isn't surprised at all by his cocky attitude, but feels a bit excited by the challenge, so she mirrors his smirk. "Oh really? Then the first one to get the horn wins. Good luck hedge head."

She flies off with a laugh after she sees him lose his smile from the nickname she gave him.

When she flies above the trees, she gets a view of the Merry, and drops her smile. She has no idea how she could ever show her face to them after her little performance, but if Luffy really did get his memories back, she knows that he won't leave her alone.

Until she gets her memories back, so she fully understands how much everyone knows about her, she needs to avoid him to not mess anything else up. "Sorry..."

She slowly looks away from the place, that she forgot was her home, and flies off to a town to find a flat roof to sleep on.

Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows of the campsite, the child is at wits end on what to do now.

He saw the whole exchange between Rose and Zoro, so there's no chance for him to get close to either of them. If he's going to conquer his goals, to steal all of this crew's memories, he needs more muscle to protect himself. Especially against a group of powerful pirates, that has a psycho demon on their side...

He freezes when he remembers the illusion he used against the wind girl, and comes to a realization. If he can't find people to back him up, he'll make them instead! And with the demon's memories, he has a large array of fighters to choose from! All he needs is time to figure out how to give these memories solid bodies!

He smirks at the new plan to take down his enemies, and goes deeper into the forest to find a safe hiding spot to experiment on his new abilities.

****************************************************************

Over at the Going Merry, the pirates were startled from Rose's sudden arrival. They barely had time to talk about it though, because Luffy started to stir after he was knocked out from the sea horse's smoke.

"Aah, he needs a doctor!" Chopper calls out, with no one acting.

Usopp looks to him in disbelief and speaks for the others. "Aren't you supposed to be the doctor?!"

"Oh, right!" Chopper answers, but before he could do anything, Luffy sits up as if he woke up from a nap.

"Are you alright?" Robin asks, when she looks him over, but nothing seems to be wrong with him.

In fact, he looks all the more relieved, when he gives his friends a large smile. "I feel better than ever! I got my memories back!"

Everyone is surprised by that, with the chef speaking up. "That smoke gave you back your memories?!"

"Yea, I remember everything since I started the crew!" Luffy calls out as he gets up.

"Don't you mean when Captain Usopp started the crew?" Usopp asks, but that lie is easily torn down by Luffy's laughter.

"Nice try Usopp, but you're the sniper of the Straw Hat pirates." Luffy answers which ruins Usopp's chance of being a captain.

Robin giggles at the answer before she looks to them. "It looks like our memories were stolen after all. With the culprit being the kid that Wind-chan threw."

Luffy loses his smile at the mention of the wind girl, and looks to Robin. "What happened with Rose?"

"She came back to the ship just after you passed out. She seemed to have figured out what caused everyone's amnesia, and followed the kid back to us. She caught him, but he did something to scare her badly enough to throw him into the ocean. After she realized what happened, she went after him." Robin answers, and looks towards the island where her friend flew off to.

Unbeknownst to her, Luffy grew annoyed by the story and followed her gaze back to the island. "In that case, we need to find her along with Zoro and Nami!"

The boys were slightly surprised by how serious he suddenly got, since he acted so carefree all day, but Robin isn't fazed by it as she calmly answers him. "I understand your feelings, but we should wait until morning."

"How come?"

"Going to an unknown island at this hour would only tire us out. It's better to get some sleep, then search for them in the morning. With Wind-chan hunting him down, there's no chance of him trying to take our memories again, so we're safe tonight."

Luffy frowns in disappointment, but he knows that she's right, so he agrees with her. "Alright then, tomorrow we'll get our friends back!"

"Hold on, I'm all for bringing back those cute girls, but we shouldn't bring the Pirate Hunter back here." Sanji calmly speaks his mind.

"I agree, but we shouldn't bring that wind girl back either!" Usopp calls out, which starts pissing off the captain.

"What are you guys saying?! Why shouldn't we bring them back?!"

"Zoro's a pirate hunter, he could just be tricking us, to get an easy bounty." Sanji answers.

Usopp follows his lead, by voicing out his complaints about Rose. "And that crazy girl's powers are out of control! She could destroy the ship if she wanted to! Why should we waste our time going after freaks like them?!"

"Because they're a part of the crew!"

"That's not a valid answer!" Usopp complains, but Luffy won't have it.

Instead, he narrows his eyes at them. "We're all members of the crew, and no Straw Hat pirate gets left behind! If Rose gets the kid first, she'll come back to give us our memories."

Usopp doesn't relax by the claim, but instead grows a bit confused. "What makes you so sure she won't just keep her memories, and not bother helping us?"

Luffy chuckles at the question, that seems stupid in his eyes, and flashes a toothy grin. "Don't worry, my queen's not like that."

That blunt answer hits the boys like a moving train, which puts Robin in a fit of giggles.

Sanji is the first to snap out of it, and looks to Robin while holding an arm out to the rubber man. "This moron managed to win a cute girl's heart?!"

Robin nods to the question, with a small grin on her face. "That's right, they've been in a relationship for a few days now. If Wind-chan does get her memories back first, then she'd definitely help us."

Sanji couldn't believe it, so he huddles in a corner, with a cloud of depression over his head, while he sadly mutters 'a clueless bastard like him got a girl' repeatedly...

The others though, have no choice but to accept it for now, so they look to Luffy.

"Ok, I'll help get the others back." Chopper shyly answers while looking down at his feet.

"If they try anything though, I'm gonna step in." The sniper answers, but he can't hide the fear in his voice.

Luffy grins at how things have settled down, and pumps his fists into the air. "Alright, tomorrow we'll go to the island and get our friends, and our memories, back!"

Robin lightly giggles at his enthusiasm, that didn't change at all, before the others drag themselves inside to get some sleep.

When the archaeologist watches Luffy go back inside, her smile fades away when she looks back to the island, and trails her thoughts over to Rose.

She never saw her lose her composure like that, but she can understand how she's feeling since she felt it not too long ago when she saw Aokiji. She doesn't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but if she finds Rose first, she hopes to return the favor she owes her from the previous island.

With that resolve in mind, she heads inside, and tries her best to sleep in the lonely room that's normally held by three.

**********************************************************

In the following morning, not a single pirate has wasted their time in getting their day started. While Luffy's group is getting to the island, Rose is watching the town from her spot on the roof of the inn to see if she can spot the wizard anywhere.

Sadly for her, all she can see is a bunch of confused townsfolk asking each other who they are...

She groans in frustration as she gets ready to fly, but is stopped by a feminine voice.

"Hey wait, your name's Rose, right?"

The brunette freezes at the call, and looks down to see Nami calling to her, with the waver at her side, and wearing a sweet smile. Given how things went yesterday, Rose can't say that she fully trusts her, but she knows that she can't hurt her, so she floats down to the ground to hear her out.

Once her feet touch the ground, Nami hands her the photos she left as a peace offering. "You forgot these yesterday, thank you for showing them to me. I'm also sorry about doubting you yesterday. Can we start over?"

Rose cautiously takes the pictures, and looks to the overly sweet looking navigator. If she didn't read about her in New York, she might've fallen for her act. Since she did though, she gives her a scowl as she puts the pictures back in her bag. "What do you really want Nami?"

The redhead is slightly taken aback by her attitude, but since she saw through her mask, she pulls it off to reveal a suspicious scowl. "I want to offer you a deal. Since you ran away from the pirates too, I think I can trust you."

Rose softly frowns at how Nami still doubts her position in the crew, but she doesn't have much room to talk, so she doesn't complain to her. "I'm listening."

She takes out a map of the Grand Line from her waver, and shows it to Rose while pointing to the calm belt. "I think this weird boat can hold two people. With your wind power, and my navigation skills, we can make it through the Calm Belt to get to East Blue. If you help me, I'll give you a good 10% of my treasure, and help you go home too."

Rose blankly looks at the map, then back to Nami. "Nope."

"Ok, 20%."

"It's not about the money."

"Then what is it about?! Don't you miss your family?!"

Rose almost twitches at the sad question, before she softly sighs at the question. "Every damn day..."

"Then help me help you!"

Rose freezes at the question, then couldn't help but let a few laughs out, which irritates her even more. "What the hell's so funny about my offer?!"

The wind girl takes a breath, to calm down, before she gives Nami a slightly sad smile. "Sorry, I'm just laughing at the irony of how that's your selling point. You see, the only way you could reunite me with them, is to put me down six feet under, but I'd rather not die, so you're not helping your case."

Nami wanted to feel bad about how she brought up her family's death, but the way Rose is being so annoyingly casual about it makes it hard to do so.

Thankfully, that's what Rose planned on, so she keeps a smile on her face while she continues to talk. "Anyway, as much as I'd love to see East Blue, there's a reason we're with those pirates. I found out who stole our memories, so I'm going to keep searching for him."

She looks over Nami's shoulder, to see Luffy's group coming in their direction, but they didn't notice her yet so she gives her a smirk. "In the meantime, since you still don't believe that you're a pirate, I'll let you hear it from the source."

The navigator grows confused by that, when she watches her run into the crowd, but before she can say anything, a loud voice fills the air. "NAMI, THERE YOU ARE!"

She grows scared when she looks back to see that Rose ditched her! "That bitch!"

Rose watches from a nearby rooftop in amusement as Nami tries to use the waver to get away, but Luffy stretched his arms to grab the handlebars of the waver, and pulls her back to them.

Lucky for her, they didn't notice her yet, so she takes this chance by roof jumping away from the square. Once she's far enough, she lets herself fly off the roof and into the forest to try her luck.

What she and the others don't know though, is that the memory wizard has just finished creating his fourth soldier.

His first three have already left to search for their prey, but he has a feeling that this old ninja will be his prized champion.

He did have doubts at first, given that this old man looks frail, and damaged with the white bandages over his right eye, and right arm. However, after looking into Rose's memories of the Naruto world, and saw the different techniques he can do with all the stolen sharingan eyes, the he implanted in his arm and right eye, the wizard has no doubt that he will take care of the demon. "It's a great pleasure to meet you Shimura Danzo. Your mission is to take down the wind girl, but don't kill her. Once you do, you'll get what you desire. Do you understand?"

The puppet version of the powerful ninja has no choice but to comply, by smirking to the challenge. "I do."

The kid watches him jump away in a flash, then as soon as he's gone, the sea horse grows heavy.

The child looks down in shock to see that the seemingly still instrument is panting from using so much of his power on the final memory copy. Just after he feels weak, the boy himself starts to feel dizzy as well.

He drops his instrument, and holds onto his head to try to ease the growing headache. However, as soon as he stopped touching the sea horse, he blinks in surprise, and looks around as if he just woke up from a nightmare. "W-what's going on?!"

He feels completely out of place, and starts running to get help, but the sound of the sea horse's tune stops him in his tracks.

The pink sea horse proves to be more than alive by standing on his tail, and hopping towards the child that he had put back in a trance.

Once he's close enough, his prisoner picks him back up, as if he was never free of his trance. "That was close. Making puppets are a lot harder than controlling people..."

The child sighs in his master's stead, because he's still out numbered. Even so, if those copies can distract the stronger pirates enough for him take control of the weaker crew members, like he did with the kid holding him, then it's only a matter of time...

The prisoner smirks, as if he's the sea horse himself, and walks off in a random direction. "Time to get this show on the road..."

********************************************************

After Luffy's group managed to convince Nami to come with them, at least temporarily, they try to search for the kid and their crew mates in the forest.

Nami still didn't want to follow them, but all the pieces from her journal and Rose's pictures fit too perfectly. She wanted to hear from the people in her hometown, that they're safe, but if the crew's really so close to getting their memories back, then she'll play along.

She's dragging the wave rider, that's holding the treasure she stole, so if any of them try to double cross her, she'll be able to make a quick getaway.

Luffy doesn't notice her tension, as he keeps looking around the area for a chance of finding his lover. After a few minutes, without any luck, he looks back to Nami impatiently. "Are you sure Rose went this way?"

Nami flinches, from being pulled out of thought from him, and scowls at the thought of the brunette. "This is my best bet. When she saw you guys though, she fled, and used me as a decoy. I doubt she's going to listen to you."

"Doesn't matter. I need to see her." Luffy bluntly answers as he keeps looking around like he knows she's nearby.

The redhead just sweat drops at his stubbornness, but she barely cares if he goes after her or not. All she cares about is trying to get her memories back to understand what happened to her home island.

While Nami is thinking over the different possibilities, Chopper walks next to Usopp while looking around nervously. "How are we going to find the kid in this place?"

Usopp can't help but feel nervous either as he follows his gaze. "I don't know but we need to keep our guard up. This is his turf, so he probably has monsters roaming around."

"M-monsters?!" Chopper asks, which gets Usopp to smirk.

"Yea, plenty of monsters would want to ambush us to protect their master! They're probably in the shadows right now!" Usopp points to a random direction, but soon regrets it when they hear rustling in that direction, which gets them both scared.

"MONSTER!" Usopp and Chopper scream out while the others look confused.

"Now, now, it's not nice to make assumptions like that." A male voice, with a sarcastic attitude, rings in the air as a man emerges from the shadows as if he's taking a casual stroll.

Not a single one of them recognize the young, pale, adult man, dressed in a black sleeveless jacket and pants. They can tell that he's bad news though, from both the way he presents himself, and an ouroboros tattoo on the back of his left hand. "Name's Greed, have any of you kids seen a pirate with a..."

He trails off when he spots the boy wearing the straw hat, and loses his smirk. "You're my target? When I heard that I'm getting the strongest fighter on his list, I thought he'd be tougher looking."

Luffy looks indifferent to the challenger, while Robin speaks up. "By 'he', do you mean your boss?"

Greed chuckles at the claim as his narrow, purple, eyes turn to the beautiful woman. "I'm my own boss babe. I'm here to keep my end of the bargain with the kid. I help him with this, and he leaves me alone."

He looks back to Luffy, and to everyone's surprise his arms start turning dark grey, and turning his fingertips sharp enough to look like claws. "Sorry to break it to you kid, but this is it!"

He charges Luffy at amazing speed, but before he could swipe at Luffy, he jumps up a good five feet to get out of the away. Greed accidentally hits the tree, that was behind Luffy, and slashes it hard enough to knock down the ten-foot tree!

Chopper, Usopp, and Nami shriek in fright as they run behind Robin, while she and Sanji get ready to fight him.

However, when Luffy lands in front of Greed, with a look of determination on his face, he calls out to the crew. "Guys, go ahead without me, I'll take this guy!"

Sanji was hesitant with leaving the weak looking captain alone with this guy, but Robin pats him on the shoulder with a calm smile. "Captain-san will be fine. We should keep searching for the boy."

The chef slowly nods, and with one last look, he goes with Robin and the others, with intent to protect the girls.

As they leave, Greed can't help but smirk at his opponent's cockiness. "You really sure you want to take me alone?"

"Yea, I'm gonna kick your ass! Gum gum-!" He pulls his arm back, and to Greed's surprise, it stretches back ten feet before he pulls his fist forward. "PISTOL!"

Greed turns his hardened arms into an X shape to block the blow, but that was a mistake, because though the punch didn't break his shield, it sent him flying backwards at top speed!

He crashes into another tree, but thankfully, he hardened his back, and turns it grey, by activating his ultimate shield to avoid injury. He stands up, takes off his jacket to reveal his skin tight, sleeveless shirt, and starts to cackle in delight of the hidden strength Luffy has. "Now that's something else, what kind of alchemy was that?!"

Luffy tilts his head at the weird term, because he never heard of it. "What's that? I ate a devil fruit, so now I'm a rubber man."

Greed blinks at the weird power before he smirks in interest. "Seriously? If you don't know alchemy, does that mean you don't know what a homunculus is?"

"Nope."

"In that case, let me give you a demonstration!" He hardens his whole body, which turns it grey, with fangs popping out of his mouth, and charges at his opponent!

"Gum Gum Gatling!" Luffy unleashes a barrage of punches that normal men would've been beaten down under! For the homunculus though, he was able to dodge with ease before he took his claw and went for a slash!

Luffy managed to back away just in time to avoid harm to his body, but his shirt got slashed open.

The rubber man's muscular chest can now be seen to the world as he goes into a new barrage of punches while Greed keeps at his pace.

Both sides manage to take a few hits against each other, with Luffy taking a shallow slash to his chest, and side, while Greed would take a few hard punches to his stomach and face, but none that would break through his ultimate shield.

After the scrimmage, both sides were panting, but neither side wants to give up.

Greed can't help to be impressed by Luffy's power, so he tries to see if he can avoid wasting his talent by bringing him to his creator. "Say kid, how about you become my underling? I aim to have it all, so you'll be in for a good ride."

Luffy is surprised by the offer, before he blankly stares at him. "No thanks, I'm gonna be the king of the pirates, so I can't be an underling."

The homunculus widens his purple eyes at the announcement before he laughs. "Hahaha, the king of the pirates huh? Well, I aim to be the king of the world, so you're gonna have to beat me!"

Luffy smirk in confidence, as he feels his blood rushing in his veins. "Then let's go!"

Greed rushes towards Luffy at full speed finish this quick, but the rubber man still has a few tricks up his sleeves. Just as Greed goes for the finish, Luffy jumps at least ten feet up in the air.

Instead of going after him, the homunculus takes a swipe at the tree next to him with enough force to knock it down towards Luffy!

Luffy didn't waver though, because he stretches his left hand forward, then back handed the tree at full strength before he lifted his right leg miles into the sky! "GUM GUM BATTLE AXE!"

Greed widens his eyes at the crazy kick, then runs to dodge, and feels the tremor on the ground from the mighty kick as the ground around him cracks! He barely has time to register the kick, because he's busy slashing as many nearby trees with his claw like hands to get him pinned!

However, Luffy's speed is on his side when he stretches his arms to grab onto the first falling tree and pulls himself above the foliage to jump from tree to tree, while going after the homunculus.

Greed though, was too busy with his trap to not notice, so when he stops after the tenth tree, he looks to the fallen pile, only to be met with a rubber fist to the face!

The captain didn't stop there though, because feeling faster than he's ever been before, he performs one more gum gum gatling!

Greed was able to block a few, but with the force of the powerful punches, he stepped back, tripped on one of the branches from a tree he knocked down. That trip became his downfall, for it gave Luffy free range to pummel him to the ground from at least fifty punches that landed all over his body, until a puff of white smoke fills the air!

"What the hell?" Luffy asks as he pulls his arms back and lands on his feet in the cloud of smoke. It quickly cleared though, and revealed only a small crater from when Luffy punched down his enemy.

However, besides the shallow hole, it was like the homunculus never existed at all. "Weird..."

He doesn't give the fight another thought, except for the fact that he wanted to ask him how he made that cool armor, but snaps out of it when he hears the sound of slashing in the distance.

He looks to the direction of the sound, where the sound came from, and widens his eyes when he sees the ground moving up, miles away from him, and can hear the wind howling. "Rose..."

He rushes off to the direction of the chaos, in hopes of finding his lover, and in the worst case scenario, back her up.

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Twenty minutes before Luffy snared his victory against Greed, Rose is flying to the level of the trees while searching for the kid. She doesn't have an ounce of luck, for no matter where she looked in the forest, there's no sign of the little jerk.

She stops by a river, and takes a break by landing by the river, cupping her hands in the clear water, and takes a drink of the fresh water.

"Pardon this one miss."

With both of her freckled cheeks filled with water, she stands up, and looks to her right, but the sight of who owned the voice made her do a spit take to the young man's face!

That's because she's looking at a samurai, with mid-back length red hair, that's loosely tied in a ponytail, wearing a simple man's kimono, and a sword tied to his waist. What made her spit on the slender man's face by mistake though, is the cross shaped scar on his left cheek, that got her to recognize him only in another anime.

And she just realized that she might've did a spit take on Kenshin Himura, well shit...

She coughs a little, while wiping her face with the back of her hand while the samurai wipes his own face with his sleeve.

As he dries his face, Rose looks at him with both anxiety, and suspicion, because she doesn't know if this is really him, or a doppelganger. "Sorry about that, you just took me by surprise. My name's Rose, who are you?"

"It's alright, this one shouldn't have snuck up on you. My name is Himura Kenshin, that I am." He answers, with a friendly smile.

"It's no problem at all!" Rose answers with a bright smile while accidentally creating a warm breeze from the fact that she's meeting Kenshin, even if he is in the wrong anime.

Kenshin though ignores the mood breeze, and looks around the area as if he's searching for someone. "This one is sorry to bother you, but have you seen a green haired swordsman in the area?"

Rose snaps out of her happy daze, from seeing that it's really the legendary swordsman, and grows suspicious when she remembers the illusion the kid made last night. "Why are you looking for him?"

"A young boy was crying because this man robbed him. This one can't let it stand."

Rose sweat drops at the lame excuse the kid made, but has a feeling that even telling him the truth won't dissuade him. "Look-!"

"You're looking for me?"

Both Rose and Kenshin look to the direction of the forest, to see Zoro keeping his eyes on the samurai.

Kenshin narrows his eyes at the newcomer, and gets his hand on the hilt of his sakabato. "You're the swordsman?"

Zoro can't help but smirk at the challenge, as he gets ready to draw his swords. "Depends on who's asking."

"The kid that I told you about sent him to fight you." Rose answers, with no intention of telling him that he was made through her memories.

Zoro smirks at the information as he draws two of his swords. "That's all I need to know."

"Same with this one!" Kenshin replies as he pulls his sakabato out of its sheath, and charges to his opponent.

Even though Kenshin is at a disadvantage with one less weapon, his speed from years of training, keeps him on par with the pirate as the sound of metal clashing fills the air. Not a single side is giving in as their blades clash continuously as if the two are showing a dance instead of a fight.

After the third swing from Zoro, Kenshin jumps up as high as seven feet to dodge, and pulls his sword back.

"Hiten Mitsurugi style, Ryutsuisen!" He swings his sword down as hard as possible, towards Zoro's head, but Zoro blocks the blow with his two swords.

Zoro won't admit it, but if he didn't block that attack, he would've been knocked out in an instant.

He pushes Kenshin back, draws his blades back, and swings them strong enough to create an air slash to fly towards his opponent.

When Kenshin dodges the first one, Zoro keeps them coming with Kenshin using his speed to dodge each one, while charging back to Zoro for another melee of sword fighting.

As they keep butting heads, Rose can only watch the amazing crossover fight between the two swordsmen in awe, and can almost forgive the kid for taking her memories. Almost...

She takes her camera out of her bag, takes a few pictures of the fight, then flinches when she hears screaming from the woods. She can recognize the sound to be Nami, Chopper, and Usopp's, then looks to the swordsmen to see that they were too focused on their fight to hear it.

Rose looks to the awesome fight, then back to where the others screamed, and hates herself for leaving, to see what's going on.

As she flies deeper into the woods, she starts to wonder how many other illusions did this brat create.

The Kenshin he made not only looked like him, but sounded and acted just like the original anime character. To be able to do that, and give him the strength to be on par with Zoro, it must've taken up a lot of power, so he couldn't have made that many.

She snaps out of it when she hears the sound of slashing to her right, and looks to her right to see a kunai, with wind extending its slashing ability, heading towards her!

"What the crap?!" Rose asks as he lands on the ground to dodge the blow, and watch it cut through the tree behind it as if it was paper!

Rose can hear wind whistling behind her, and looks with wide eyes to find bullets of wind flying towards her, so she flies up to dodge the attack, then spots an elderly ninja shooting the wind bullets from his mouth!

She immediately recognizes the man from Naruto Shippuden, grows pissed that of all the anime characters, Danzo is her opponent, and creates a strong wind blast from her hand. "Take this, bastard!"

Danzo jumps back from the gust, and unimpressed by the attack, as he watches Rose land ten feet away from him. "Pitiful, I expected something more from the one who unlocked the power to travel to other universes."

Rose scoffs at the insult as she gets in a stance. "Let me guess, the kid made a deal that he'll give you the secret for world travel if you beat me?"

"Precisely." Danzo answers as he pulls his right arm out of his kimono, and reveals the many sharingan eyes that were stolen from the Uchiha. "And now I'll make this quick."

His sharingan eyes made contact with Rose's, but Rose doesn't feel any different. She looks around, half expected to be in a genjutsu, but nothing happens so she just looks at him blankly. "Was that supposed to fucking scare me?"

Danzo grows surprised when his sharingan didn't have any effect on her. "That's impossible, my sharingan is supposed to place you in a genjutsu!"

Rose knits her eyebrows in thought of what went wrong, before she smirks, and turns her right arm into air. "One problem with that motherfucker, I have no chakra networks to manipulate!"

She launches a powerful wind blast at the ninja, which he jumps away from the blow. During his flight, he starts making hand signs, faster than Rose could see, and then begins to breathe fire at her.

Rose takes a deep breath, and blows a strong gust out of her mouth to counter the fire ball jutsu!

To Danzo's surprise, Rose's wind blew out the flames, but he jumped out of the way before it can strike him. As he dodges the gust, he grabs some shuriken, infuses them with wind chakra, and throws them at the wind girl!

She saw it coming this time, so she focuses her wind to create a strong whirlwind around herself, which gets the shuriken caught in the whirlwind, and redirected them in Danzo's direction!

They manage to hit him in the stomach, but as soon as they do, the target transforms into a block of wood to reveal a substitution!

Rose releases the barrier, and looks around for her enemy, but she can't find him. As she looks around, she starts to hear the ground rumbling, so she flies up to avoid the earth jutsu that grew from the ground around her to try to trap her into a dome.

When she finds Danzo in between some trees, and creating more hand signs for another jutsu, she tries to attack him first. She focuses the air to encircle around the fingertips of her right hand, to make them look like the nails of an animal's claw, then swipes the air in front of her, and watches fives wind slashes go straight for him.

However, Danzo finishes the jutsu, and blows a gust so powerful from his mouth that it not only blows away the slashes, and sends Rose flying backwards!

Rose widens her eyes at the jutsu, and lands in a tree while Danzo grabs his sword, and starts infusing it with wind chakra.

Rose jumps down from the tree, and glares at the man, but he only gives her a look of disappointment. "Pathetic, it's hard to believe that you're the one that uncovered the secret of world travel."

Rose grows annoyed at the insult, and holds her arms out while growing an orb of wind in her hands to the size of a cannonball. "What the hell would you know?!"

"All about you since the child gave me memories of you. You came to this world by accident, and stayed with a bunch of rogues instead of reaching your full potential."

While Rose believes that she came here by accident, she won't tell him that as she flings the cannonball at him with both hands, but he blows a gust out of his mouth to destroy the cannonball, and go toward her.

This time though, she flies to the side to dodge the wind, but he keeps going by grabbing his sword, infusing it with chakra, and jumps at her so fast that he's in front of her in a matter of seconds.

With no time for Rose to react, Danzo goes for the slash, but to his surprise, his slash phases through her, which gives Rose an opening to flip in her spot in the sky, and kick him in the head to send him plummeting to the ground!

Even with the terrible headache, he still has enough sense to quickly create another wind jutsu that forms a powerful gust out of his mouth and gives him an easy landing.

Rose uses the time he takes to land, to turn both her arms into strong gusts and blasts them down at the ninja, but he avoids them by running deeper into the woods to give himself time to create another jutsu. She doesn't give up and flies after him, while speaking up. "And what would you do with world travel? Steal kids to use them as soldiers for your precious fucking ROOT?"

He doesn't hold a single smile at the assumption, but he gives her his answer as he turns around to face her. "I would, for the children in other worlds that don't have a purpose, I'd give them one by bringing them to my world to protect Konoha."

"More like use them for a hostile takeover of the Hidden Leaf!" Rose answers as she turns both her arms into twisters and fire them at him!

Danzo quickly jumps back and touches the ground to create an earth wall to block them! Not only that, the ground below her shifts up with walls of the earth coming around her to trap her in a dome! Before the dome could envelope her, she flies up as fast as possible, and manages to avoid getting trapped by the skin of her teeth!

Rose flies after him, but he's quick to work on another jutsu. "I would face my people and become the true hokage! I doubt someone who runs from their problems as much as you would understand!"

The wind girl widens her eyes at the comment, that rings true to her, but it doesn't stop her. Danzo's wind jutsu that has him blowing a razor sharp gust though, gets her to hesitate.

However, she can't let this continue any further, so she continues flying at him, while taking a page out of his book by creating a ring of wind in the palms of both of her hands. What makes them so special, is that these rings are spinning so fast in her hands that it looks like blades are coming out of them.

As Danzo's attack approaches her, to both of their surprise, the two rings absorbed the air jutsu, and caused them to grow twice in size while giving their owner a clear shot.

"Wind shuriken!" Rose calls out as she throws the two blades down to her opponent, with Danzo jumping to dodge.

That won't work this time, because as he jumps to a tree, Rose manipulates a breeze to go after the power hungry ninja!

He managed to avoid the first one, and let it cut through the next five trees in its path before it faded, but he wasn't so lucky with the second one because it managed to hit him in the back and slice him in half!

The shuriken went on for another three more trees before it faded, but Rose didn't notice because a puff of white smoke enveloped Danzo as soon as the shuriken sliced him.

"What the crap?" Rose asks as she goes up to the tree where he was struck, but there's not a single sign of him.

He could've pulled a shadow clone jutsu, but as she looks around for any traces of him, she doesn't see any. Seeing as there's no more wind, boulders, or flames being lodged at her now, it's safe to guess that she won the fight.

She can't help but laugh in satisfaction when she plays back the crazy fight in her head. It's obvious that the Danzo that was made here was a weaker version of the original, given that he didn't use any summoning, yin, or yang jutsus, but the fact that she didn't get a scratch on her was fucking awesome in her eyes.

As soon as she stops laughing, she takes a seat on a steady branch to let herself rest a moment before she continues her search for the other crossover illusions.

"ROSE!" To the wind girl's surprise, she just heard Luffy shouting angrily, with the sound of him running this way.

She looks to the direction of the shout, to find Luffy charging to the scene like a raging bull, and ready for a fight. He stops just below the wind girl's seat, and calls out to his lover. "Rose, where are you?!"

Rose keeps her mouth shut, in fear of causing any more chaos, and watches him stubbornly search for her. When he doesn't see any sign of her, and no new leads to follow, he grows frustrated enough to punch the tree Rose is occupying!

The shake from the tree causes leaves to fall on Luffy's hat, which he brushes off, and looks up to see that the girl he's searching for slipped off her branch from the punch.

Before Rose could use her wind, Luffy stretches his arms up, wraps them three times around her thin waist, and pulls her down hard enough for her to knock him to the ground!

While the wind girl groans at the crazy pull, Luffy just laughs in glee as he sits up with her still in his arms. "So this is where you were! What are you doing?"

Rose can't help but blush at how he's holding her, but she doesn't want to get too close, so she manages to phase out of his arms, and get up. "Just taking a short break, but now I need to get back to searching for my memories. Excuse me."

Luffy widens his eyes at the cold treatment as she watches her start flying, but he doesn't let her get too far, because as soon as he gets up, he stretches his right arm to grab her hand and stop her. "Wait!"

The brunette is surprised by the grab, looks down at the hand that has hers held tightly, and sees Luffy catching up.

Something about the look in his eyes is making her nervous, because she's only seen it when he's about to face an enemy, but she's not going to stick around to see why, so she turns her hand into air to free herself and keeps flying. When she sees that he's running after her at full speed, she grows annoyed, and shouts at him. "What the hell's your problem?!"

"My problem is that you're ignoring me! At least let me talk to you!"

"There's nothing to talk about! Go find your real crew mates, they're the ones that need your help!"

The part about the others being his real crew mates was more than enough to set him off. He stops running, stretches his arms as far as he possibly can to the trees ahead of him. Then when he takes a few steps backwards, for extra measure, he pulls himself forward to slingshot himself at her!

When Rose hears the sound of trees shaking, she looks back, and instantly regrets it when she sees Luffy flying towards her! She had no time to react when he crashed onto her back and wraps his arms around her shoulders, while he wraps his legs around her waist.

Rose stumbles forward in her flight, and does a few flips from the impact, until they crash into the brush of a tree! Luffy never released her once, when they broke the branches in their fall, and almost hit the ground, but Rose created a quick gust to stop them, but it quickly fades for them to fall on their butts.

She blushes at the fact that Luffy's clinging to her like a koala, and tries to push Luffy off of her, but he won't let go. She grows annoyed by his stubbornness, and looks to his right to see his angry face is an inch away from hers. "What the fuck are you doing?! Get the hell off of me!"

"Not until you apologize!"

"Apologize for what?!"

"For saying that you're not a real crew mate!"

She's surprised by that's what got him so angry, but when she remembers how he is normally, it makes sense. That though has got her surprised. "Wait, you got your memories back?"

"Damn right, I got them back last night!"

Rose widens her eyes at the news, and remembers seeing the smoke from that sea horse enveloping Luffy last night. Along with the fact that Luffy can't lie for shit, he has to be telling the truth.

She softly frowns at the news before she tries to straighten things out with him. "If I'm really a part of your crew, then tell me. How was I recruited?"

"You lost a bet." Luffy bluntly answers, which surprises her for a moment, but she's quick to believe it.

She snorts in amusement at the weird scenario, but before she can trust him, she needs to ask one more question. "Did I say anything about my astronomy dream?"

He eagerly nods his head with a big smile, because he feels like he's making some progress. "Yea, you told me all about that cool other world comet! You even told me stories about consummations!"

"The fuck?!" Rose asks in disbelief of how he thinks astronomy is related to sex, and that she'd actually talk to him about it!

"Yea, those star patterns you told me about, like the crab and goat ones, are really awesome!" Luffy answers, with no thought of what he actually said.

"Crab and goat consummations, what the crap are you-?!" She freezes when she replays what he said about patterns in her head, and starts to realize that he meant 'constellations'...

As soon as she realized what he actually meant, all she can feel is her sides splitting from how hard she's laughing. "Hahaha, it-it's not 'c-consummations', it's 'constellations'! Hahaha!"

"Yea that!" Luffy answers with a few laughs of his own coming out now that he got her smiling again.

Once she settles down, she gives him a small grin. "Alright, you've convinced me, and I'm sorry for doubting you."

"Shishishi, no worries." Luffy answers, and is more than happy about the apology, but he didn't show any sign of letting go.

She tries to pull away but he won't let her, so she looks at him nervously. "Umm, Luffy, you can let go now..."

Luffy flinches, because he forgot about the deal, so he reluctantly releases her from his hug, but when they stand up, he takes her hand as a consolation, and walks ahead with her. "Alright, let's go!"

At this point, the blush on Rose's face could be permanently painted on. She knows that it's just holding hands, but this constant affection serves as a reminder of the strangest question that's popped up since she woke up with amnesia. And that's how fucking close is she with the future pirate king?

She turns her hand into air to free herself from his grip, and stops walking, which gets Luffy to stop in his tracks.

The clueless boy looks back to her, with his eyebrows knitted, and tilts his head when he sees her bangs covering her eyes. "What's up?"

She's hesitant to answer for a moment, but this'll just keep bugging her, so she looks up so they're making eye contact, and steels her nerves. "I'm sorry, but before I go with you, I need one more answer. How close are we? Like, are we friends, or best friends, or something more..."

Her voice grew a bit quieter at the last piece, but Luffy was able to hear it as clear as day. He grows surprised when he realizes that she doesn't remember their relationship.

Now, most people in this situation would either calmly explain it, or not say anything until they know that they're comfortable with them.

Luffy though, isn't most people. Instead of telling her, he approaches Rose, and before she could say anything, pulls her into a warm embrace, then gives her a kiss on top of her forehead.

She squeaks in response, with her face turning into a freckled tomato, but she's too stunned to do anything. Because of that, Luffy's glad he didn't scare her by going for the lips, he'll have plenty of time for that when she remembers him.

He quickly pulls his head back, but keeps her in his arms, and gives her a small smile. "We're in love with each other. It's ok if you don't believe me, you'll know when you get your memories back."

"O-ok..." Rose mutters, as she averts her eyes away from him, but she accepts his answer, because she feels like if she asks any further than that, her heart will explode. However, she feels like the blush will never go away now...

Luffy though, couldn't be gladder by her cute reaction, and pulls away to take her hand back again. "Now that you know, let's go find the others.

All the brunette can do at this moment is nod while Luffy leads the way for them. As she's being dragged around the woods by her captain, she starts feeling like she's in a dream again from how things turned out. The warmth of Luffy's rubber hand feels all too real though, so with a small grin, and a gentle squeeze of his hand, she catches up to him so that they're walking side by side.

When she catches up, she starts to wonder if he saw any anime characters along the way too. "So, how did you get separated from the others?"

He frowns at the question before he looks back to where he was fighting with Greed. "This weird dude came out of nowhere and challenged me to a fight. He was really cool though! He made his skin super hard and his fingers looked like claws!"

Rose widens her eyes to the description, and can only think of a few people like that. "Did he say his name?"

He knits his eyebrows for a moment before he remembers the name with a bright smile. "Yea, his name was Greed!"

While she held a slightly impressed mask, her emotions are bubbling with both excitement and anger of missing a badass fight between Luffy and her favorite homunculus from Fullmetal Alchemist!

The only thing to give her away was a warm mood breeze, but with a few breaths, she manages to tone down her emotions enough to stop her wind. "I see, I wonder if he could be in league with the guy fighting Zoro..."

"You saw Zoro?!" Luffy asks in surprise.

"Yea, he got challenged to a fight by a red-haired swordsman named Kenshin. He said the kid sent him."

"So did Greed!"

She widens her eyes, as if she's actually surprised, before she summons a gust of wind to get them floating in the air. "I don't know how many more are out there, but we should find the rest of the crew before any other fighters do first!"

He couldn't agree more, and lets her lead the way for them to start searching for the crew with a bird's eye view.

*********************************************************************

Further down the path, that's close to the river, Robin and the others are still on the search for the child and sea horse.

However, they haven't seen any sign of him, nor the fourth character that was created for them.

Still, the anxious feeling is rising in the three weakest pirates because of what they saw from Greed. And now that they don't hear any more trees falling or a struggle anymore, they grow more worried about if he lost to Luffy or be coming after them now.

"S-should someone go back to check on Luffy?" Chopper asks when he looks back, but doesn't see a sign of either fighter coming their way...

"No way! That crazy Greed monster could be recovering!" Usopp says in fear as he makes sure he has his satchel, that's holding his slingshot, close.

Nami grows wary, because she can see this as a way to escape the pirates and starts to act as worried as Chopper. "I think the reindeer has a point. Someone should make sure Luffy didn't die. I'll-!"

"That won't be necessary." Robin cuts her off before she can volunteer herself, and goes up to Nami to block her way from the path they came from. "Captain-san has faced a lot of stronger opponents than him, so I doubt that he lost. If anything, he might've heard a scuffle between Swordsman-kun or Wind-chan, and went to search for them."

"You mean there could've more people siding with the kid?" Sanji asks in pure curiosity.

"It's not farfetched when you think about how our memories were taken, so our enemy knows our abilities. If he really used an illusion on Wind-chan last night, he could've done it again."

"How is that possible when we could all see that freaky Greed?!" Usopp asks, with those that were on the ship last night silently agreeing.

"What he did with Wind-chan was done in an instant, if he had all night to create these illusions from someone's memories, then he made them more visible as well as copied the memory's abilities." Robin says in a thoughtful look.

The others were uneasy about the whole thing, but Robin tries to steer them back to the right direction. "It's all a theory at the moment, but we'll be sitting ducks if we stand around like this. We should keep moving to find our culprit as well as the others."

"Right, and if anything happens, I'm more than willing to protect you and Nami-san!" Sanji answers with a flirtatious smile.

"What about us?!" Chopper and Usopp ask, but Sanji just gives them a look of indifference.

"You can defend yourselves." Sanji answers as he lights his cigarette, allows Robin to lead the way with Nami begrudgingly following behind, and follows them with the two depressed boys.

As they continue their journey though, a pair of eyes spots them in the shadows. The tall young man, with shaggy blond hair, wearing a bartender outfit, looks over the group of pirates until his dark eyes spot Sanji.

The stop sign in his hands starts to get gripped tightly by him, and while normal people would bruise from that, the strong metal starts to bend instead.

He grits his teeth in rage, and starts storming towards them like he's on a mission. "I'll use him as a warm up before I take care of Izaya!"

TO BE CONTINUED