Buggy the Clown managed to escape the wrath of the townspeople—only to be pursued by the Marines.
With no time to gather his full crew, he fled with a few of his core subordinates. At the port, they commandeered a small boat with a fox-shaped figurehead and set sail.
Though the boat was fast, the Marines had already formed a blockade.
Cannon fire rained down as Buggy's group neared the end of their rope.
"Looks like it's my turn to step up."
A strange man aboard the boat spoke. He wore a spiral-patterned mask and exuded a mysterious, eerie aura.
"Tobi, what other options do we even have at this point…" Buggy muttered with a grim expression.
This masked man, known as "Tobi," had played a key role in helping them escape from the island.
"Calm down, Captain Buggy," Tobi said cheerfully, "Just watch me work my magic."
He chuckled beneath the mask.
Unbeknownst to Buggy and his crew, this man was actually one of Naruto Uzumaki's shadow clones—sent here for reasons unknown—with a spiral mask that gave him a suspiciously Tobi-like look.
Having infiltrated the Buggy Pirates, this clone was even on track to becoming Buggy's second-in-command.
"Even in a strange world like this, I can still use Space-Time Ninjutsu," Tobi said, forming a seal. "Though… the space here's far messier than I'm used to."
Naruto had been carefully studying the structure of this world's space-time. Compared to the ninja world—where dimensional rules were rigid and orderly—the One Piece world's spatial framework was chaotic and unstable.
In the shinobi world, the laws of space were solid and reliable. Follow the rules, and the technique works.
But here? Here, the very fabric of space felt unstable.
To avoid misfires, Naruto's clone could only perform short-range teleportation for now. Long-distance jumps were unpredictable—no one could say where they'd end up.
But since Tobi was just a clone, he could afford to take the risk.
"Well then… let's see just how lucky Captain Buggy really is."
Without waiting for permission, Tobi activated the technique.
"Wait! You're just gambling with our lives? Don't do this!" Buggy shouted.
But it was too late. The teleportation jutsu activated, and the ship—and everyone aboard—vanished.
Miraculously, the transfer went off without a hitch.
Buggy's crew reappeared far away on the other side of the sea, entirely out of Marine range.
"Successful transmission. Not bad, huh?" Tobi said, scratching his spiral mask with an oddly giddy laugh.
Buggy collapsed, drained from the shock.
After sailing for a while, he finally composed himself.
"What would've happened… if our luck wasn't so good?" Buggy asked, his hand nervously tapping his bright red nose.
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe we'd have ended up in the sky. Or the bottom of the sea. Either way, dead," Tobi replied, cheerfully.
"You psycho!" Buggy snapped. "Don't pull this crap again! I nearly had a heart attack!"
But then, Buggy grew serious. "You're not just some random weirdo… why join my crew?"
"Because you're interesting," Tobi replied. "I'm curious, Captain Buggy… why would someone like you pretend to be ordinary?"
"You sailed with the Pirate King as an apprentice, you were Shanks' crewmate—his friend. He even invited you to join his crew."
"You're not a nobody. You're a living legend."
Naruto's clone revealed all of Buggy's closely guarded secrets.
"H-How do you know all this? Even the Marines don't…"
Buggy's eyes widened in shock.
Around them, the crew members were equally stunned.
What was going on? Since when did their clownish captain have connections to the Pirate King?
Was he really that important?
"Let me stay with you, Captain Buggy," Tobi said calmly. "The seas are about to change. I don't know what you'll do next—but I want a front-row seat."
With that, the masked clone said no more.
Their journey continued.
As luck would have it, their teleportation had only taken them elsewhere within the East Blue.
And not long after, they stumbled upon another pirate crew docked at a nearby island.
Alvida and Buggy the Clown had successfully joined forces.
The once-overweight pirate woman had undergone a stunning transformation after eating the Sube Sube no Mi — the Slip-Slip Fruit. Her body became smooth and beautiful, her excess fat seemingly melting away.
Tobi, the spiral-masked man, observed her with a curious smile, silently memorizing all the details of her Devil Fruit ability.
Being a shadow clone, Tobi could instantly transmit all the information he gathered to the original Naruto, who was far across the ocean.
Naruto, sitting calmly on the deck of a ship elsewhere, received the intel almost immediately.
He activated Demon Mode, and a strange, slippery texture spread over his hands.
The Split-Slip Fruit—a unique clone-based variation mimicking the Sube Sube no Mi—activated in resonance. It wasn't a real Devil Fruit, but Naruto's clone had replicated its abilities through detailed chakra modeling and analysis.
Both the original Slip-Slip Fruit and its mimicry held immense potential.
However, the people wielding them—Buggy and Alvida—hadn't yet tapped into that power fully.
Their problem wasn't physical limitation.
It was ambition.
In the world of One Piece, the core theme was always freedom.
Each person pursued their own ideals.
And the will to achieve those ideals directly translated into strength.
Take Buggy, for example. His dream was merely to find treasure. He lacked the fighting spirit to rise above the average pirate.
Without strong desire, the potential of even the most powerful Devil Fruit remained dormant.
In contrast, Luffy, with his dream of becoming Pirate King, and Zoro, who aspired to be the world's greatest swordsman, wielded monstrous power—because their beliefs never wavered.
In the Pirate World, willpower wasn't just emotion—it was a literal force.
Naruto had been studying this mysterious energy for some time now.
As he deactivated the mimicry of the Slip-Slip Fruit, he fell into quiet contemplation.
"In this world," Naruto murmured, sitting cross-legged atop the ship's mast, "battles aren't fought by fists alone. They're clashes of belief… of dreams."
"The stronger the will, the greater the power."
"Even Haki is a manifestation of one's ideals and resolve."
His gaze drifted across the sea, where the sun dipped low into the waves.
Below the mast, the rest of his crew trained diligently.
Nami had already mastered tree walking using chakra and was now beginning to learn water walking.
Zoro, however, had hit a wall in his sword training. His progress had slowed—but he continued to push forward, relentlessly.
Naruto watched quietly, deep in thought.
If willpower could be harnessed like chakra…
If belief could fuel strength as effectively as ninjutsu or Devil Fruits…
Then perhaps, one day, he could merge the best of both worlds.
...
TN:
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