The shadow clones split up in waves, each person getting several Narutos assigned to them to minimize the risk that a stray attack would leave someone without a clone of their own. The sun was now passing below the horizon even from their perch high above the world, which meant the clouds and oceans far below them were completely shaded in darkness. Nevertheless, the Divine Tree glowed brighter and brighter as the minutes went on, changing the light of the land in strange and unpredictable ways as Tobi launched a furious barrage of attacks in response to the combined assault of Roger, Rayleigh, Admiral Aokiji, and the surviving Pacifistas.

Hinata was able to confirm that even more troops were arriving from the ruins of Mariejois: a motley patchwork of soldiers not wearing Marine uniforms, a menagerie of obviously-mechanical contraptions that walked across the jagged rocks of the Red Line without concern, flying beasts carrying muscular individuals in outlandish outfits, and even a cavalry of wildly-unusual bestial creatures that defied easy description, each one wearing white-enameled barding. Last, but certainly not least, Hinata had finally got a few glimpses of Orochimaru and Danzou, who were descending carefully from the highest branches of the tree's crown.

All this was to say that in another twenty minutes or so the battlefield was going to get even more chaotic than it already was. They either needed to win the fight or run, and they needed to do it soon.

Step one was finding someone tough enough. The first shadow clones reached Zoro before any of the others.

—Zoro—

"Zoro!" shouted Shadow Clones Sixteen and Seventeen in unison, Fifteen and Eighteen having exploded due to a stray storm of ice shards.

The green-haired swordsman looked up with an exhausted scowl. By this point basically every part of him was bandaged and bruised, especially after the sheer amount of damage he had taken from his protracted duel with Kisame, but he was still standing tall, panting slightly as he waited for the branches to change positions so he could retreat and return to the others.

"You done with that thing you were doing?" Zoro asked. "I'm about ready to call it quits for today."

"Just about," said Sixteen, landing next to him. "Dude, that was absolutely amazing back there, but we need your help again."

"My help? Don't see anyone left to beat up."

"Well, look," Sixteen began, struggling somewhat to connect with the man he had spoken to the least among the Straw-Hats. "I gotta start with someone, and it should reaaally be someone nearly as tough as I am… so, luckily, you're the first person I ran into!"

Zoro's gaze was flat. "Nearly as tough as you, huh."

Seventeen shrugged from his position above the rest, watching out for threats. "Hey, don't look at us, we're made of smoke. You got a problem, take it up with the original."

Zoro sighed. "Fine. What do I have to do?"

Despite his agreement, there was another minute of wrangling before Sixteen placed his hand on Zoro's shoulder, opening the connection between them. Interestingly, only the original Naruto had a 'heart,' whatever that actually was, but it didn't seem to matter for the purpose of the technique. The link snapped into existence tied directly to the true Naruto's heart after only a little fumbling. Sixteen was pretty sure there had to be a way to use this to make a sort of telepathic shadow-clone communication system, but that was definitely a matter for another day. For now, he was just relieved the plan hadn't failed at the first hurdle. With Naruto and Kurama managing the link, a highway of thoughts was formed between Zoro and Tobi with other linkages throttled to the barest of trickles as Kurama slowly relaxed his control. That's when everything started going wrong.

Zoro winced, swaying in place and collapsing to one knee. His head bent, his teeth ground together, and his eyes began to glow.

"Jackass… What… the hell… are you doing?!" he choked out, already fighting to stand up again.

Sixteen shook his head and started shouting, but Zoro couldn't hear him. His senses were drowned out by the gold fire filling the link to Tobi, and the true Naruto struggled to hold onto the turbulent energy. As of this moment, the fire of the Divine was being borne by Naruto, Zoro, and Kurama alone.

"Wha— wait, Naruto, it's you AGAIN?!" exclaimed Tobi, shouting into both of their hearts. "What part of 'get somewhere safe' didn't you understand?! Why are you still here?!"

"I'm… not… Naruto!" screamed Zoro, rapidly gaining in strength as he adjusted to the searing mental energy. "What the fuck's going on here?!"

"Sorry, dude," thought the true Naruto. "Thanks for saving my life and everything, but this is my last dumb idea, so help me out again and save the world while you're at it, you know? This jutsu links your heart to Tobi's… along with anyone else's, and we're trying to get everyone in here. Eventually you'll kinda hear what they're thinking, and they'll hear you."

"Eh? That sounds like a damn pain in the ass! That shitty cook isn't gonna be in here, is he?!"

"Wait, who's talking now?" asked Tobi. "That's not Naruto! That's a different guy! And, hey, I'm not a shitty cook! …am I?"

The thoroughly-developed muscles in Zoro's jaw worked in unison as he glared daggers at Sixteen. "This is weird, and I'm done with it!"

Sixteen laughed. "Too late! It's already done, and I can't turn it off. It's only gonna last a little while, so you can deal with it 'till we're through, alright?"

"Yeap, what he said," agreed Naruto.

The swordsman turned his eyes skyward, then exhaled through his nose. "'A little while' is a hell of a long time to spend talking to ourselves in a tree up in the clouds. And how the hell is this supposed to help win us this fight against all these flying puppet-bears? It's getting damn hard to hit them with swords when they're flying around like this!"

"Oh man, you have no idea," said Tobi. "Imagine trying to do it with tree branches. I'm losing my mind over here."

"…Hell, you really can't turn this off?"

"No way," said Seventeen, before growing serious. "Look, man, you've seen what we're up against. That's why we've gotta do it like this. We can't win this fight with just swords, so we need to win with… our hearts! …well, hearts and swords, I guess. Anyway, Tobi needs somebody to show him how to enjoy life, you know? Someone to show him why life's worth living, and that someone's gonna be us."

Zoro looked at him like he had grown a third head, his scowl drawing his green eyebrows into a tight knot as he fumed at both of the available clones. "I don't think you've really thought this through, Naruto. And neither of you are the real one, are you? Tell your boss to quit screwing around."

"Just, argh, just stop whining and talk already!" shouted Naruto, mentally. "We're doing this, so don't be a wuss! Look. What does life mean to you when you get right down to it?"

"Naruto, I'm sorry, but I already told you. There's no point to us talking anymore! I reached the end of the line! I ran out! I'm through. It's over!"

Sixteen stood and watched Zoro's eyes flick back and forth between him and the sky, his brows never leaving their furrow. Dimly, he was aware of a dark figure rocketing towards them from a distant branch. One of the Pacifista had taken notice, and this clearly wasn't going to be a good place to inhabit in another minute. An odd feeling of exhaustion and resignation from Zoro preceded his response.

"It's over? You ran out? What a load of bullshit. If you'd run out then you'd be dead."

"Dead?! Yeah, I'm about to be! I'll kill myself and resurrect my dad, what's so hard to understand about that, huh?!"

Zoro shook his head. "Yeah, but you haven't done it yet. The reason you're standing around arguing about it while looking like some dumbass tree is because you know there's something left for you to do."

"But… dammit!" If anything, Tobi seemed to be getting frustrated. It was more than words now. Zoro's thoughts were just as focused as his blades, and they added a weight to what he was saying that was impossible to sum up unless you could feel them yourself. In some ways, Naruto was learning more about Zoro in these few moments of telepathic connection than he had in the months they had known each other.

"I don't know why I'm still here, but I know I'm done! I'm through!" Tobi's thoughts screamed in their hearts, burning with the intensity of his despair, exhaustion, and even shame was overwhelming. "I just… I just want to bring Madara back! That's all I'm good for! Then I'll let him take over! He'll know what to do! I'm - I'm fine with that!"

"Yeah? You just wanna let someone else do your fighting for you? I may be helping Luffy become the Pirate King, but you can be damn sure I've got my own plans. I thought a lot of things about you assorted bastards in Akatsuki, but I didn't peg you for a bunch of losers."

"Hey! I'm not a loser!"

"Then why the hell are you giving up before you even accomplished anything?"

Tobi's heart swirled in confusion. "A-accomplished… But, I blew up a city?"

"And you're telling me that's all you're capable of? We blew up an island, and we weren't even trying."

Naruto winced as Tobi's thoughts cycled back and forth. "Zoro, man, maybe don't convince him to blow up more cities?"

Zoro just shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me if you wanna blow up some jackass you hate, a city, a country, or hell, try to blow up the world if you feel like it. Do what you want. Every kid had big dreams once upon a time, right? So get your ass out of that tree, drop that damn fruit where we can set it right, and pick your dreams up off the ground where you left them. It's now or never."

Tobi's thoughts were too chaotic to decipher. Flashes of strange, alien memories came over the link. Finally, he responded. "I don't… I don't have any other dreams ready. I don't even know what normal people dream about."

"Screw being normal," Zoro said.

"Um, okay…? But… I don't really… I don't even know you. What are you doing with your life?"

He smirked, setting his sights firmly on the incoming Pacifista. He drew his two remaining swords from their sheaths. "You even have to ask? I'm gonna be the greatest swordsman in the whole damn world!"

— Brook —

It had worked. The first link in the great chain was forged, and now Naruto had to plan on the fly as he linked everyone to Tobi in the hope that someone, somewhere would have the right perspective to break through Tobi's thick skull. So what if the Straw-Hats were a bunch of insane screwballs with questionable morals? Tobi was a psychopathic tree-god. It would work out! It had to… because he really didn't have any other plans left.

The next connection was far easier to grasp. He had already linked with Brook's heart after falling from the trunk just minutes earlier, and now he reached out to bind the newest and most unfamiliar member of the Straw-Hats.

Elsewhere, Brook spun in place, feeling the wordless sense of connection borne upon a tide of golden heat. His hollow eye sockets filled with a bright glow that stood out in the darkness like a pair of candles.

"Brook! This is Naruto! Sorry for not giving you any warning, but I'm improvising here, so here's the scoop. Tobi's connected to—"

"Whoa, there it is again," interrupted Tobi, his powerful thoughts crowding out Naruto's. "This one feels weird. What's going on?"

Brook's eyes flashed in the dark. "Ah, what a feeling indeed. I feel as close to another as if I were singing a duet with my old friends. What a long-forgotten melody... And yet, I hear no music! How strange."

"Yeah, like I was trying to say—"

"No," said Brook, "I understand. I may be quite brainless by this point, but I'm not brain-dead." He laughed, his musical voice filling the night as he resumed his hurried dash along the branches of the great tree. "Ah! To feel so alive again! Decades of loneliness and now to be so close to another, why I could drink of this feeling every day and every night!"

Tobi paused. The feeling of thought was large and ponderous. "You… who are you?"

"Brook is the name, and being an old bag of bones is the game! Singer, songwriter and, well, really I'm just a hopeless fool. And you would be Tobi, yes?"

"Yes, that's me. I don't have a cool introduction or catch-phrase, so I hope that's okay with you. I'm just, um, not sure why we're talking like this? Naruto's doing something to me and I can't figure out how to stop it."

"Oh, planning to leave so soon? No, I think you're going to stay. Why leave before you've received the help you've come to ask for, hm?"

"What? No, I didn't come to ask for help. I just…"

"I can sense that pain choking your heart like black smoke, you know," said Brook. "You've given up, well and true, and there's no point in denying it! Why don't you let the skeleton lend you a hand instead?"

Naruto shrugged. Brook, at least, seemed to have jumped enthusiastically into the problem, so that was alright. "Tobi, talk to Brook, okay? This is gonna make sense in the end, I know it will."

"Fine. But I won't keep doing this, Naruto! I've got to bring back my dad. It's now or never, and like that swords-guy said, if it's not now then it might be never. And then I don't know what I'd do."

"Why, I think you'd just keep living, yes?" asked Brook, resuming his retreat from the trunk. The Divine Tree branches were no longer moving according to Chopper's whims, but Brook had never been overly challenged by the shifting masses of wood. He simply kept running, his stick-thin legs whirring and clacking in the dark.

"That's what I'm afraid of! I don't have any hopes or dreams, and I don't even know how long I'd have to keep living like this! I might be immortal, I dunno! That means I'd be around forever! That's scary!"

"Oh, it's not such a terrifying thing, living a long life. A single thing can keep you going, if you want it hard enough." He stared off to the East for a long moment. "Yes, just a single thing can set you free."

"You make it sound so simple. I know what it's like to live working towards a single thing. I worked for, like, ten years just trying to get to this very moment, and now that I'm here I get scared for some reason? What's up with that?"

"Ah, but it's not something you want yourself, is it? It's something you feel like you have to do. Sometimes desire and duty can be intertwined, but I know it's not that way in your heart. There's no sense in denying it! You're more transparent than my ribs! I see right through you!"

"Ugh! This sucks! Naruto, are you going to keep doing this to me? I don't know what to do when people keep feeling what I'm feeling! It's weird and I don't like it!

"And yet," said Brook, "-it's so much better than that yearning, clawing, desperate solitude that I know you've felt, is it not?"

"Blargh! Alright, fine, we'll talk. So, what am I feeling from you? Something about a whale? A promise? Some music or something? What about big dreams, or changing the world, or being the best, like that last guy said?"

Brook laughed, his voice dancing through the air. "Life isn't just the big stuff! Not at all! Life's a song that you just can't get out of your head. It's an everyday promise that's a joy to fulfill!"

Tobi sighed deeply, the wind picking up all around the tree. "But… I don't… I don't have that joy. I'm just tired of it all. Whatever that song is, I never learned the notes."

"You did too!" Naruto interrupted. "I saw it every time I talked to you! You were excited by every little thing!"

"You see?" continued Brook, talking as if completely unbothered by his high-speed retreat. "Oh, I know it's difficult to find joy in that heart of yours when it's just you and your lonesome. If you're like me, sometimes you need a friend to remind you of what's important."

"A friend? But… but…" Wordless feelings of guilt and loathing flashed through their minds. "I… only had Naruto, and that was only because I tricked him. I did horrible things to him! How can anyone like that have friends?"

"Only one friend?" asked Brook. "Oh, I think not. You've got two now, oh sir who's all up inside my skull. And don't you worry, I set my standards very low! Six feet under, even! Yo-hohohoho!"

Brook laughed, though everyone in the link clearly felt the aching pangs of despair deep in their hearts. Endless decades spent alone, with no comforts for a creature. Night after night spent in a decayed body, singing to the shadows on the wall. The reflected pain of even a fraction of his loneliness stabbed outward, and Tobi recoiled in horror.

"You… were like me…? You're just as sad… even more scared… But why are you still…?

"Why am I still alive?" asked Brook, a cheerful melancholy in his words. "Why did I not end it all out there in the dark, upon the waves? I won't lie. I asked myself that question many times, and many times I had no answer. A promise is a promise, but even oaths given to dearest friends may be rasped away by the ocean winds. It was difficult, I admit it."

Far off in the distance, Naruto's eyes glistened unbidden as the skeleton continued smiling his sad smile, his feelings pouring through the link. "Dude, I'm sorry, I didn't… I mean, are you sure you want to share this with us?"

Brook shook his fuzzy head. "Oh, pish-tosh. Perhaps I'm simply a sentimental old fool, but I've lived far too long alone to hide my heart away. I thirsted in a desert of isolation for decades, but you had better believe that I never grew accustomed to it!"

"But why would you tell me these things? You're sharing a weakness, and you don't even know me!"

"And why, after all my years of solitude, would I be miserly with my friendship?"

"I… I don't know… It can't be that easy, can it?"

"Sometimes it's easy, Tobi, and sometimes it's not. Not every day can be a winner. Sometimes you find music, and joy, and companionship… sometimes you find years of loneliness. But you know, I don't regret a thing! Not one thing! And neither should you! Miseries pass along with the changing of the seasons, and so too does that same loneliness… If you just keep moving forward, then one day you will find what you are looking for! I guarantee it, Tobi! I guarantee it!"

—Robin—

Sasuke watched in stark astonishment as Naruto's plan began to unfold. The distant Shadow Clone that had reached out to Zoro was almost a quarter-mile off, but the Sharingan pierced the distance effortlessly and began unraveling the strange, instinctive chakra molding that Naruto was performing, different than it had been for Tobi or Brook. There was something odd about the process, and it was definitely not standardized like a well-practiced jutsu. He was pretty sure that Naruto was making it all up as he went along… or maybe it was different for every person he was linking to…?

"Okay," he said out loud. "I have to admit, he's a lot better at using this technique than I think I'll ever be, but… after seeing it, I think I can help him."

Robin stood beside him, arms crossed in concentration as she helped their teammates from afar, but she turned to give him a side-long look. "This is part of Naruto's plan?"

He nodded. "He asked for my help linking everyone up. As stupid as it sounds, together we're going to try to just talk to him and convince Tobi not to kill himself."

Robin pondered that for a moment, before shivering slightly from the cold evening wind. The glowing light from the tree's leaves caught on her silhouette. "I don't think it sounds all that stupid, to be honest. What, exactly, does this technique entail?"

"My heart is linked to Naruto's, and his is linked to Tobi's, so if I link all of us here together, then he should let us talk to Tobi for just a little while. At least, that's the theory. I'd have to try it to be sure."

"Well, by all means, there's no time like the present. How shall we do this?"

"I just need to touch you," he said.

"Oh my, how forward," she said, laughing softly, before extending a hand. "I hope this will do."

Sasuke gave her a displeased look that utterly failed to displace her smile. Shaking his head in resignation, he reached out and took her hand in his, then began the fumbling process of copying Naruto.

Clumsiness did not come easy for an Uchiha like him. He'd never been terribly comfortable flailing around at something he was inexperienced in, and ever since developing his Sharingan he hadn't had to be. It lent itself to perfect learning and perfect performance, and he'd gotten well-used to those benefits. Unfortunately, reproducing Naruto's actions exactly didn't get him anywhere at all, and the entire technique felt almost like trying to weave an advanced genjutsu that was tailor-made for a specific individual. Standing there with a beautiful woman's hand in his own while he tried to puzzle it all out was fairly awkward, as things went. Robin simply stared down at him (she was really quite tall), watching with an inscrutable smile.

"Sorry it's taking a moment," he said. "I'm not used to this kind of… thing."

"I understand. It's your first time."

Robin's face didn't so much as twitch from the gentle look of understanding she had assumed. If he'd been actively using his Sharingan then not even her poker-face would be able to fool him, but then again she always avoided prodding him when he was so empowered. That is, if 'prodding him' was what she was doing right now. He wasn't sure. He wasn't used to trying to connect with someone else when he didn't already know who they were or what they were thinking.

Those thoughts opened up beneath him as if they were a greased chute, and he fell mentally outward, his heart expanding unexpectedly. Robin was there waiting for him. It was difficult to express his shock at being let inside. Despite her calm smile, her heart was carefully shepherding a twisting knot of anxiety and fear. Worries about which of her new friends would be killed in this fight wrestled bitterly with a vaguely foreign feeling that she needed to trust that they would all make it out alive. He was sure his thoughts were equally as visible. Mentally drained from the effort, he pushed his thoughts out to Naruto.

"Naruto, I did it. Is this working?"

He winced. There was a thrum of gold flame flickering wildly in intensity before settling down to something that merely made his brain feel lightly singed, and then…

"Oh, this again, huh? This one doesn't feel as friendly as the last one. Uh, sorry... Wait! No, I don't care! …Who is this?"

Robin closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Hello, Tobi. I'm told you're planning suicide."

"Oh, wow, straight to it, huh. Geez. The last guy was a lot more roundabout."

"You talked with another one of the crew?" asked Robin. After a moment, the answer came to her. "Ah, it was Brook. And what did you and he talk about?"

"It's not even any of your business," He said, then paused, recalling the sad fondness of a skeleton who had refused to close off his own heart, even to a stranger. "Well, um… I mean, it's not like I'm trying to hide it or anything… I just can't believe Naruto found someone out there like that, you know? Someone who really got how hard it was."

"There are more people out there who would understand that than you might think. And yet, Brook has had a more difficult time than most of them." Robin's gaze turned momentarily downward, and a smidgen of resentment colored her words. "How he made it through his isolation with so much still intact is something I've been meaning to ask him about."

"You should talk to him like this, then. I'm kind of hoping that some day…" Tobi paused, battling with a flash of wistful regret. "Well, never mind that. We talked about having a place to belong, or people to enjoy, and how life is a song or whatever. And maybe that works for him, but how am I even supposed to find those things if everyone in the whole entire world is just going to treat me like a… a…"

"A monster in human form?" she asked. "A threat to the world?"

"No! Well, yes, but…" he fumbled with his thoughts. "…I mean, they wouldn't be wrong, would they?"

"Hmm…"

"Wait, you weren't saying that just to be polite, were you?" Flashes of memory slithered through the link. A girl left alone, her mother distant until death. A country set aflame. The pain of living on an island of solitude in the midst of an ocean of people.

"I knew it! You're like me, too! How in the world is Naruto finding all of these people?!"

Robin frowned, cocking her head slightly to one side, as if she were a bird getting a slightly different view of things. Abruptly, the thoughts and feelings flooding the link slowed, the river of memory turning into a muddy swamp. Sasuke cursed, assuming something had gone wrong, and immediately rushed to mend the calcified stream of chakra, but then Robin shook her head in consternation and the memories flowed once more.

"No, not like that," she muttered. "I am better than this."

"Are you… okay?"

"Yes. But I once wasn't. A lifetime spent hiding my thoughts from other people is a habit hard to break… I hadn't thought being connected like this would be so… difficult." She gave Sasuke an odd glance that, despite her connection through his heart, remained indecipherable.

"Oh, wow, then you're nothing like the last guy was. If it hurts to talk to me, then you don't have to, you know. It's not like I really care or anything."

"No, all the more reason to talk, and I think I already know what to say. From talking to Naruto, it seems as though the members of Aktasuki were your only true acquaintances for quite some time, is that right?"

"No, shut up, I had lots of friends. Ah, fiddlesticks, I can't lie like this. This stinks. Sure, fine, whatever, I didn't have any friends. Rub it in, why don't you."

"I have no desire to 'rub it in.' Do you know how many secretive bands of untrustworthy killers I've personally been a part of?"

"Huh?" asked Tobi. "…Do you include the people you're with now, or…?"

"Seven," said Robin. "Pirates, assassins, insurgents, terrorists, I really have seen it all. Spending years on the run, wanted dead by most of the civilized world for more crimes than you can count, some because of what I've done and some because of what I am…"

"Umm…"

"Let us say that I understand your position more than most, and leave it at that. I spent my entire life in danger, from my childhood to this very moment. The only people who I had even a modicum of trust in were those who I had lied to; those who did not know who I was, and I felt confident that they were too unobservant to figure out the truth. I was often wrong. If they looked at the wrong bounty poster, or randomly jumped to the right conclusion, well… I ran away from more acquaintances than I can count. At some point it became easier to stop making them."

"I… I do know what you mean, yeah. Only, every one of my guys in Akatsuki was smart. Like, super duper smart! Definitely way smarter than I was. Well, except Hidan. But I was always worried they were going to figure me out at any moment. Figure out I was gonna come all the way up here and betray them all, I mean."

"And yet… here we are. We have survived, and most of them have not."

"Yeah, but… what was the point?

"The point?" asked Robin. "An interesting question. If you had asked me even two months ago I wouldn't have had an answer. There was no point; it was simply what I did. But now?" She spread her arms wide, indicating her friends dotting the sky. "Look at me. See what I have found. Here, out in an endless ocean of the worst scum imaginable, I found serenity. Amidst the lowest of criminals I've found some of the greatest people I've ever known. This could be you, too, some day."

"No… no, it couldn't happen that way," said Tobi, his heart utterly refusing to accept that outcome. "I'm not a good person. I've killed so many people and done so many bad things. Someone like me doesn't make friends. They just make enemies."

"Karma is a lie," she insisted. "People don't get what they deserve. Calling me a good person would have been an insult to goodness everywhere, and yet… here I am. All it takes is persistence, luck, and the willingness to take a leap of faith."

Tobi digested these words carefully, feeling a hollow, uncertain pit open up deep inside himself. Hope was an insidious, creeping poison for someone in his position. "But… it might be years before I found those people, right? What do I do until then? I'm tired of living like this…"

"There, I'm afraid, I can't really help you," she said, prompting Sasuke to wince. But then Robin smiled. "Then again, I don't have to. I'm not alone anymore. I have other friends here to help you, and I think the others are much more suited to exploring this topic than I am."

—Sanji—

Shadow Clone number Three was the only one of the clones sent after Sanji to arrive, the others having been chased away by one of the surviving Pacifista units. It was a dismal success rate, but this group had been particularly unlucky. There was no backup, so this clone jumped straight for the blond cook who was running along the underside of one of the Divine Tree's branches, doing a respectable impression of a ninja for someone who learned how to mimic the technique earlier this morning.

Sanji watched the young ninja approach with a raised eyebrow. Three hit the wood lightly and ran alongside him.

"What, did we win?" asked Sanji. "You said we were gonna win, but you're looking at me like you fucked up instead."

"No, we're fine," said Three. "I made the connection with Tobi, we're just not done yet."

"What the hell do you mean we're not done yet?! You know we're basically done fighting, right? I might have a bit more left in me, but a lot of the others aren't so lucky."

"No, no more fighting. It shouldn't be hard, we already got some other people to help, like Zoro and-"

"Oh, you were relying on that asshole?" said Sanji, his expression souring. "No wonder we're not done yet. What do you need?"

Clone Three did his best to quickly explain the basics of what was going on, laying out how important it was that they convince Tobi to re-evaluate killing himself to end this stand-off. In the end, he got the feeling that Sanji only agreed because he was tired of arguing. Finally, the clone connected Sanji, Naruto, and Tobi together.

"Sanji, great to see you," thought Naruto.

"Aw, hell," said Sanji, glaring in Three's direction. "You're a clone? You didn't say anything about your boss being on this thing."

"Pretty sure I did," said Three.

"Everyone else is gonna be on here too," thought Naruto. "Though you probably won't hear them very well."

"You really could have made that clearer!"

"Umm," thought Tobi. "Not to interrupt, but what's happening?"

Sanji cursed vibrantly. "Alright, alright, great job, Naruto. You did your thing, now leave me in peace. That means scram."

"You sure, man?" Naruto and Clone Three both asked identically at the same time, in voice and thought. Sanji winced.

"Do I look like I'm kidding? It's bad enough I'm hooked up to that green-headed asshole somehow. Get outta here."

"Fine, whatever, have it your way," said Three, before dropping unceremoniously from the branch.

"Oh, Naruto won't be talking with us? That's sad. You didn't seem like you liked him very much. What's up with that? Who are you?"

Sanji took a deep breath, then shook his head, whipping out a cigarette and shielding it from the wind as he lit it in a blur of movement. "Alright, Tobi, or, 'Great Akatsuki Leader,' or whoever you are. I thought I'd have a lot of things to say to your skinny ass, but I always thought I'd be telling it to your face. All this ninja bullshit thrown at us right from the first moment we met, and now this? Shit, man, who the hell turns into a tree, anyway?"

"You think I wanted this?! I didn't see this coming! I'm just trying to figure out what to do next!"

"Well, sounds like you need to figure a little faster… So, my annoying little pal Naruto's organized this…" he waved his cigarette vaguely through the air, searching for a word.

"…Meeting?"

"No, fuckup, that's what it is. Naruto's organized this big fuckup without any of us having a say in it, so now we're supposed to be best buddies or something all of a sudden, right?"

"I guess? Honestly, I still don't really get what his plan is."

Sanji grumbled something under his breath, though Tobi caught the gist of it without having to hear it.

"Hey, you should be nicer to him, okay? Maybe we don't see eye to magical eye, but he's a good guy. A really good guy. He's definitely the best person I've ever known."

"You're kidding me." said Sanji, raising his eyebrow in the direction of an almost face-shaped whorl in a distant tree-branch.

"No. Really. …Wait, people I've killed don't count, right? They don't count, do they? Cause when they're dead they're not really people anymore, and-"

"Alright, shut up, shut up. I'll take your glowing recommendation in the spirit it was intended." He sighed, shook his head, flicked his lit cigarette out into the deep blue and resumed his run, smoke break over. "Screw it. Let's get this over with. What's your damage?"

"Excuse me?"

"You already talked to that idiot with the green hair and the sword obsession, right? Tell me what he told you so I can tell you about how everything he said is wrong."

"It wasn't just the sword-man. There was a lonely skeleton, and a really nice lady with black hair—"

Sanji's eye twitched. "Don't you dare say you were in Robin's head like this, you rotten, slimy piece of…" His eyes shot open and he slipped, pinwheeling wildly before he caught himself with his newfound chakra control. "Wait, does that mean she's here with me now?! I'm in her heart, and she's in mine?!"

(Elsewhere, Naruto made a quiet request to Kurama not to let Sanji's thoughts anywhere near the female portion of their team.)

"Um, there was a lot of confusing stuff in your head right now, and I didn't really get all of it, but yeah. Your sword-friend, and the nice bone-man, and the scary-pretty lady, they all told me that I shouldn't give up, because I'd find what I was looking for, even if it takes a long time. But, I don't know what to do in the meantime, and I don't even know what I'm looking for to begin with! I'm not looking for anything, so how can I find it?"

Sanji carefully took his knives to that confused statement before responding. "Alright, first off, don't you dare call that asshole my 'sword-friend' ever again. Second, I'm not gonna pretend for one second that you don't have shit for brains. If you can hear what I'm thinking you already know what I think of you and your band of merry murderers. So listen up while I educate you in a way you definitely don't deserve. In life, you don't need to be looking for anything."

"What? That doesn't make any sense! How will I find anything that way?"

"You don't need to be looking for something in order to find it. Sometimes it even gets in the way. See, when you get right down to it, life is gonna get lived whether you like it or not. You won't have a say in it. It just happens."

"But that's what I'm talking about! What if I just give up instead?"

"You're not gonna," said Sanji. "Animals like you and me are resilient. You hear me? Life can persist even on the knife's edge of starvation."

There, in the dark, Tobi and Naruto saw a flash of a far-distant ocean, the assault of a merciless sun, and the dead, cold feeling of a body eating itself alive. It struck like a knife in between the ribs, and Naruto physically staggered back from the strength of it.

Sanji continued on, visibly unaffected. "You think it's easy to just stop something like that? If it were, you wouldn't still be here talking to us like some sort of hollow-headed wooden idiot. You'd already be dead."

"But… I don't know. The only reason I'm here is because I gave everything else up, right? I don't have friends, or my family, and really the only thing I've been doing for my whole life is killing people. If I give up on my mission, too, then… what will I have left, huh?"

"Doesn't matter," said Sanji. "There's always something left. Even if you take someone who's been whittled down to their very bones, until they can't feel anything else but the pain of it…" He chuckled. "Hell, it doesn't matter. The bones are where the real flavor is. Just give 'em a few good meals and watch 'em spring back. So you take a step back, simmer down for a minute, and you won't have to worry about what to do with your life. Stick yourself out in the world and it'll find you."

"All this talk of food… I do like eating things, but still-"

"Food is just one of the great things in a good life lived. It's not everything there is to it."

Without warning, Tobi exploded. "Alright, fine! Then I don't know! Everybody hints at what's out there, but I haven't seen any of what you're talking about! I don't know what a good life is, alright?!"

"Oh, you don't know?" asked Sanji, as he skidded down the side of a sloping tree-branch. "Heh, you're finally admitting what everyone else could see from a mile away. You spent too much time focused on the goal, and not enough time looking at what's around you. But hey, otherwise intelligent people spend their whole lives finding out what a good life really is, and a lot of 'em still get it wrong in the end. Listen, when you get right down to it, life is all about finding joy in the things you experience. It's creation, consumption, and especially the joy of the lovely ladies."

"Ladies…!?" he whinedthe word. "But, but I'm no good with girls! I never figured them out!"

"Hey, you know what? I can't always figure 'em out either. But…" he smirked as he kicked off the branch and began sliding down a long, twisting slope. "Half the pleasure's in trying."

—Law—

Already halfway back to the Command Center, Trafalgar Law listened carefully as Naruto clone Eleven laid out the plan to re-capture the Divine Fruit.

"Dude, I don't really know you very well, but if you've been living out here on this ocean you've gotta have some serious insight. Anything helps, we just need new perspectives, you know?"

Law fixed the young man with a steely gaze, then stopped his sprint back towards the Tree's outskirts. Eleven skidded in place, skipping nimbly over the varied surface of the divine wood, then stopped, approaching the Captain with a relieved smile.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," said Law, his tone emotionless. "But you're one of those disposable clones the blond kid uses, right?"

"It's… hey, shut up, man," Eleven stumbled over his words. "I am the blond kid! It's Naruto! Sure, I'm a clone, but remember my name at least!"

Law swore under his breath. "Shit. I guess a clone like you won't be much help against that, will you," He gestured behind Eleven, then scowled and placing a hand on his sheathed blade.

"Wha?" Eleven spun around, ready to defend himself from the unseen attacker, but saw nothing there.

Law's blade flickered out, cleaving the Shadow Clone into two equal segments with the speed of summer lightning. Eleven had just enough time for half of a curse before he exploded in a cloud of smoke. Law re-sheathed his weapon, then resumed his run without showing any sign of regret.

"Seriously, give me a break with this shit," he said.

—Franky—

Next in line, two different clones arrived intact to meet Franky, and none of the others envied them their job. The cyborg had stopped his headlong retreat and was instead carefully examining a woody stem that had clearly once supported one of the Divine Tree's titanic leaves. It bent and swayed in the wind like a living thing, but there was something about its material that drew the eye. He spun it back and forth in his enormous hands, giving it a serious and appraising gaze unlike anything they had ever seen from him before.

That wasn't why they were so upset.

"Man, I got a feeling I'm gonna regret this," said Clone Seven, "But I need to get inside your head."

"Say what, little dude?" asked Franky, casting a last fierce look at his treasure before stuffing it into a compartment in his arm. His hair was starting to show a distinct lack of pizzazz, flopping limply in the wind from a lack of carbonated beverages. "You wanna get inside of me? Hate to say it, but there are limits to what I'm willing to go through, even for a friend."

"Yeah, see, this?" asked Eight. "This kind of pervy talk is what we were afraid of. Okay, so, long story short I've got a shot to fix this whole Tobi thing, but I need everyone to join hearts so we can convince him to live."

The cyborg looked at them like they had turned into a fish right there on the spot. "Damn, I knew this ninja shit would get to you one day, but this is too much. You two're way too young to have a psychotic breakdown."

The three of them bickered back and forth for a couple of minutes before Eight threw his hands up in frustration.

"Nope! Screw it! There's no time, and we've got no backup, so you can just suck it up and learn the way Sasuke and I did!"

"Hey, hold the damn snail, what the hell are you — Oh shit!" Franky's words were interrupted as Eight flickered forward, catching the larger man in a full-body tackle. Franky swore and struggled before whacking the aggressive clone in the head and dispersing him into a cloud of smoke, but the deed was already done.

"Aw, crap," coughed Franky. "I think I breathed in some Naruto there."

The voice entered his heart a moment later. "H-hello?"

"Aw bilge rats, he wasn't kidding?!"

"No, man, I told you we needed to get this done," exclaimed an exasperated Seven.

"Oh, you're the weirdest one yet, aren't you?"

"Well, that's up for debate," thought the real Naruto. "But, you know, I think he's a top contender."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, you brain-bandits," he said, glaring pointedly at Seven. "Ah, stuff this in a bag of nails. So, you're this Tobi guy I keep hearin' so much about?"

"Yep. So, apparently I'm meeting all of Naruto's friends one after the other. That's a thing we're doing for some reason. I know we probably tried to kill you and all, but honestly right now it's just nice to meet new people, you know? No hard feelings?"

Franky grinned, though his eyes were set in a menacing grimace. "Yeah, see, normally I'd take all your violence personally, but since you just went and blew up the worst place in the whole world not half an hour ago, I figure I owe you a favor or two. Just make it snappy, alright, 'cause I ain't got all day."

In an increasingly familiar manner, Naruto guided the conversation back to where it had left off with Sanji, explaining the basic details.

"So, that's that, and I guess I don't really know what I'm doing. The last guy told me I'm supposed to figure out stuff like food and… girls, but I don't know if that's…"

"Doesn't have to be girls, man," said Franky. "I mean, not that it hurts to be good with the ladies, you know, but hey, doesn't matter which way you swing."

"Swings? I like swings, but I thought the point was that they went both ways?"

Franky actually stopped dead in his tracks, plucked his sunglasses from his face, and turned to face the distant tree trunk. He didn't even have to speak — the link between them carried Tobi's honest confusion one way and the cyborg's true meaning the other.

If a tree could have blushed, it would have. "OHHHHH! Um, wow, pardon me, but I'm not sure if that's me either?!"

"No way did you come up with that line without knowing what you're talking about, goofball."

"Franky, you're in his head. You know he had no idea what he was talking about."

"I still don't really know what we're talking about."

"How the hell old are you, kid?"

Tobi was momentarily flushed with excitement. "Oh, you know what? I've thought a lot about that, and in the end I settled on 'somewhere between twenty, and a thousand years old.' Depends on how you look at it! I'm pretty sure my birthday is February twenty-fourth, though. Don't ask me why, I just feel really good about that day."

"Yeah, gonna let that one pass. Listen, kid-"

"Kid? But I might be really old though!"

"I don't care how old you are, kid," said Franky, as he swung out a length of rope, hooked it around the stem of a leaf to grab both ends, then swung down to a lower area of the tree. "If you still ain't got an idea what I'm talking about then you're still a kid. And you, kid, you gotta focus on the good stuff before you let another thousand years pass you by."

Tobi thought carefully about this advice, giving it all the focus it merited. After about three seconds he had his response.

"Huh?"

"Listen! You gotta do what's right for you, right? You just think hard about the things in life that make you go mmm-MMM! You know what I mean? You focus on that and you squeeze it wide open."

"Oh, I get it. Like… pooping!"

Franky's jaw dropped in shock, then swiftly oozed into the shape of an evil smile. "Ohhh, my apologies, man. When I started this conversation I didn't realize I was addressing a super pervert."

"Wha?! But I'm not a pervert! We already went over this! I can't even figure out girls in the first place!"

"And who the hell said anything about needing girls to be a proper pervert, hmmm?"

"Is… is that not what that word means?"

Franky burst out into open laughter, his loud voice bouncing out into the void. "Oh brother, let me tell you, you picked the right guy to ask, but the wrong time to ask it, isn't that right Naruto?!"

"Hey, you said it, man, not me. I mean, we're above the clouds, so I probably wouldn't get struck by lightning for calling you a saint, but still..."

"Oh, the boy who turns into a bunch of naked ladies on the regular wants to show off how high his horse is?"

"But, wait a minute," interrupted Tobi. "I may not know a lot, but I know you're not supposed to be a pervert, whatever that means!"

The guffaw left Franky's mouth like a single, sharp explosion. His well-coiffed hair flopped wildly in the breeze, and he planted both hands firmly upon his bare waist, exposing his body to the cold winds. "Supposed to?! Says who and what army?!"

"Uhh, says lots of people and lots of armies," added Naruto.

Franky's grin just crept wider. "Listen here, you squirts. Being a pervert isn't about whose junk goes where. It's all about doing what you wanna to do, being what you need to be, and not giving a damn about what everyone else thinks should be expected of you!"

"Oh, but, wait, that's really similar to what a lot of pirates say that being a pirate is all about? Does that mean…?"

"Yep! You got it! All pirates… are perverts!"

Far away, Naruto covered his pained grimace in both hands. The worst part of this was being able to feel the conviction behind Franky's words. The man continued regardless.

"That's the beauty of it, compadre. If you wanna be a real pervert then you just gotta stop letting other people decide that it's wrong to enjoy what you enjoy. You do you, even if that means pooping over everything in sight!"

"Oh no," groaned Clone Seven. "What… what have you done. What have you said."

Tobi was silent, but Naruto could already feel the gears starting to turn in the man's head. This spoke to something deep and primal inside the strange pseudo-human in ways that Naruto hoped he would never be able to decipher.

"What have I done?!" asked Franky, his pearly-white teeth flashing in the evening sun. "I've planted the seed, man! I've laid that egg! With luck, that initiate of the pervy path will go to sleep a caterpillar… and awaken a beautiful butt-erfly!"

Naruto and Clone Seven's tortured moans mingled with Franky's laughter, filling the sky for another ten seconds before the clone finally gave in and killed himself.

—Chopper—

The pieces were falling into place one after another as more and more people were pulled into the link by Naruto and Sasuke, and in fact, Sasuke realized fairly quickly that he had a fair bit of work to do to catch up to his friend if he didn't want to be the bottleneck in this plan. Determined to get this over with quickly, he approached Chopper next, who seemed to be recovering after some exertion related to his Devil Fruit. Well aware he was basically steamrolling the young reindeer-man, and also aware that he didn't one-hundred-percent understand the philosophy behind Naruto's plan, he gave Chopper the quickest version of the problem he could, shook his hand to activate the jutsu, then said:

"Thanks for the help. I'll be over there, helping bring Hinata in next. You got this."

"Huh?" asked Chopper, giving Sasuke's retreating back a desperate, confused look. "Wait, you mean this is happening right now? Hold on! SASUKE!"

The golden tinge of Tobi's thoughts grew swiftly as Naruto and Kurama opened the throttle on the heart-link, and then they were in contact.

"Oh! I know this feeling!" exclaimed Tobi. "You're the one who was fighting me for control of the tree, aren't you?"

"Ah!" he exclaimed, suddenly face-to-metaphorical-face with their antagonist. "Um, h-hello and, um, y-yeah, yeah I was."

"Oh, no, you don't need to be frightened! I was really, really mad before, but now I'm just curious. How were you even doing that?"

Rapidly trying to get his hooves back under him, Chopper rallied. "Yeah, I'm good with tree stuff, so what? It's just a thing Naruto and Sasuke taught me. You were trying to hurt my friends, so don't think I'm sorry about fighting you!"

"Well, I wouldn't try and hurt them anymore, you know. I've met quite a few of them now thanks to Naruto. You have good taste in friends!"

"Um…" said Chopper, wiggling back and forth, off-balance from momentary embarrassment. "Yeah. Thanks? But I saw you back in the temple, and you were trying to beat up Naruto then, too. Weren't you two already friends at the time?"

Tobi flinched, mentally. "That's… a bit complicated."

"It shouldn't be, should it?" Chopper searched for the words to use, having not thought any of this through ahead of time. "Um, I guess since I don't know what to talk about… I know Naruto must have already tried this, but I still have to ask you something. Can't you just… stop? You don't have to hurt anyone else, or hurt yourself. You could try helping them instead! You can just give up the fruit, stop being a big tree, and I think everyone will be a lot happier, you know? I know that would make you a lot happier, too!"

"Oh… sorry, but that's also complicated."

"But it doesn't have to be!"

"But it is, though. I know I'm planning on giving up, but I'm not really giving up everything. I just… won't be around soon. My father will take over when I die, and then I think everyone will be even happier with him here and me gone."

"But that's just sad!" exclaimed Chopper. He didn't really know where to take the argument from here, and Tobi felt it. "Do you really want to die so badly?"

"Look, you don't understand how it is, alright?" said Tobi. "I'm not just doing this because I want to die; I'm trying to bring my father back to life. Madara is just the most incredible, amazing man who ever lived, and I'm just trash in comparison! He spent so many years waiting, waiting forever, because he needed a hero to help him, and I can be that hero! It wasn't supposed to be me, but now it's going to be me! I can be worth something! So I'll kill myself if he needs me to, because that's what he'd have wanted!"

Chopper wrestled with his words, almost starting and stopping several different responses, but the final sentence wiped all that away in a fit of distress.

"You take that back! If he's your dad then he wouldn't! He wouldn't!"

"Dammit, I felt that! You got really sad and angry all of a sudden, like something happened to you too! Naruto, why is everyone I talk to acting like they know what it's like to be me?!"

Until now, Sasuke had contented himself with listening passively and avoided sharing his feelings over the link, but feeling Chopper's internal struggle he decided to step in.

"Maybe there are more people besides you out there who have experienced such miseries, Tobi."

"Who the hell are you?!"

"I'm another of Naruto's friends. But I need to concentrate on what I'm doing for now, so you should talk to Chopper here instead."

"What's going on?! Chopper, you're still there, right?"

Chopper nodded, having got himself under control. He seethed, bitter resentment coloring his tone. "Don't talk about killing yourself like it's gonna make someone else happy. It won't. Or if it does, it shouldn't."

Something in the young boy's emotions, perhaps the barely-controlled anger, was making Tobi stop and consider the shared and jumbled memories more carefully.

"You… had a father too? Well, I guess that's not all that unusual, but…"

"He wasn't my dad," said Chopper. "Well, um, I guess he was kind of like a dad, but he didn't raise me. When I became a person, I didn't have anywhere to go, and even though everyone called me a monster and tried to kill me, he took me in and took care of me. I'd be dead if it weren't for him. His name was Hiluluk."

"…and he… killed himself?" asked Tobi, his thoughts unusually quiet as he tried to understand.

"No," said Chopper. "I killed him."

There was a momentary pause. Over by Hinata, Sasuke took in the storm of raging emotions, shocked by this admission from the little reindeer. Knowing Naruto, he probably already knew Chopper's entire backstory, but this was the first time Sasuke had ever heard any of this.

"Um, sorry if I got this wrong, and I'm still getting used to this whole heart thingy, but… I think that you don't think that you actually killed him, do you?"

"No, I did," said Chopper, leaving no room for doubt. "I was stupid and fed him a soup made from a bad mushroom instead of medicine. What could you call that except me killing him?"

"But… uhh… he…" Tobi struggled to process the feelings and memories exploding from the young reindeer in fits and starts. He simply lacked the emotional experience to navigate his way through what Chopper was sharing with him. Eventually, he settled on, "No?"

"YES! A doctor is supposed to save people, and I… I just didn't! I made it worse! I killed him, and he just laughed it off! Then the king called for doctors, and he went up to the king and blew himself up! I don't know why he did what he did! Did he want me to feel better about accidentally killing him, so he tried to kill himself first? Did he really get fooled? Did he know he was so sick he was going to die anyway, so he drank my soup and then took matters into his own hands?! I don't know! I can't ever know, because he's gone!" Chopper sobbed through his words. "All I know is that he was my dad and I wanted him to stay alive! I know he was sick! I know he didn't have long left, but maybe… maybe…"

As Chopper wallowed in his pain, Sasuke couldn't help but think back to his own family. His own father, distant, vaguely disapproving. The man probably wouldn't be proud of where Sasuke had ended up, leaving the village behind to pursue his own ends. Or, would he understand? Would he have come to the same decision as Itachi had, casting his sons out from the village to protect them from a vengeful populace?

Was there still time to restore the Uchiha? Could Sasuke return a decade from now and build a new clan? Would he even want to?

He'd never known his father as an adult. Never seen him with anything but a child's eyes. Was his own father more like Tobi's or more like Chopper's?

"Oh, geez, I didn't mean to make you sad, little guy." Tobi felt distinctly worried. "Dads are tough, I guess. But you get it, don't you? Wouldn't you do anything if you could bring him back from the dead?"

"No, not anything," said Chopper. "You're talking about killing yourself! How does that help him? If you kill yourself to save him, then won't he be sad instead of you?!"

Tobi sank back. "…No, I don't think so. I don't really think Madara really cared whether we lived or died."

"Then he's not your dad!" shouted Chopper, a boy's certainty filling his words. "If he were, then he'd care about you! He'd want the best for you, and he definitely wouldn't want you to kill yourself for his sake!"

"H-hey now… Let's not-"

"He wouldn't! If he doesn't care about you, then he's not a good father, or a good person! He's just evil!"

Tobi grew cold. "No, you don't know what you're talking about. You can't compare Madara and some… some… some normal person! They're not the same at all!"

"No, you're right, they're not the same," insisted Chopper. "Doctor Hiluluk was a great man who cured the sickness of an entire country, and Madara… clearly, he was nothing!"

The Divine Tree shook, its branches trembling. Tobi pushed, and a great golden flame burst in Chopper's thoughts, sending him tumbling across the ground. Hands, summoned by Robin, rose up to catch him as he rolled, and then Nami arrived herself a few seconds later, sprinting up to check on him. Supported by the two women, Chopper stood up, shakily clearing his head from the mental assault.

Tobi roared.

—Hinata—

While everyone else on this battlefield had their areas of concern, Hinata's role was one of the most stressful. The advance upon the tree had been a true challenge, and the battlefield was only growing more confusing over time, not less. She saw all of it. Her oracular vision shifted frequently from examining the various threats circling the tree, including the new arrivals from Mariejois, and the now-visible Akatsuki Remnants descending from the tree's crown, but it was the Pacifista that were causing her the most consternation at the moment.

"It just doesn't make sense," she muttered, watching two of the monstrous androids collide. Only one emerged from the collision.

"What doesn't make sense?" asked Sasuke. A surprise, for sure, though not because she hadn't seen him coming. Apparently he had good hearing to match his sight.

"Ah, um, hello Sasuke. It's just that… one of the Pacifista is acting strangely. There are parts of its interior I can't see. It's different from the others, and it definitely has a Devil Fruit somehow."

"I saw that one, yeah," said Sasuke, scanning the sky for a moment before catching their mystery offender. "It's like it attacked its companions back there."

"It's still doing so. It's being strategic with its choices, too. If I didn't know better, I'd say we had an ally, but…"

Sasuke frowned. "I don't see why that would be the case. Hasn't it been fighting us too?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Not this one. This one is different, even from the other models, and I haven't seen it go after any of ours even once. Except… oh…"

"Spoke too soon?" asked Sasuke. In the distance, the strange bear-android rebounded off of a branch and brought himself on an arcing course that would lead him towards some of the stragglers retreating from the tree. Hinata called out a request for Robin to warn them, and the woman nodded, grimly carrying out her task.

Afterwards, Hinata turned her head slightly to face him. Unnecessary, with the Byakugan, but sometimes it helped people. "Was there something else?"

"Yes," he said. "Actually, anyone else and I would have just given you the quick version, but I figure Naruto wouldn't appreciate me being curt."

Sasuke explained Naruto's plan as carefully as he could, and how she was on the tail-end of this endeavor, following up Chopper. All things considered, Sasuke didn't think it was very likely that Chopper was going to cause any problems. Hinata agreed to go along with Naruto's plan regardless.

It was while he held her hand in his that Tobi roared, the Divine Tree shaking, quaking, and wailing like a gale-force lion's breath whistling through oaken branches. It shook everything on the battlefield, dislodging allies and enemies alike, and it was all Sasuke could do to maintain concentration. Finally, the two Konoha shinobi connected, and Sasuke felt the opening strings of Hinata's unease.

"Hinata!" thought Naruto, relief washing in with all sorts of other feelings. "Oh man, great to see you and everything, but maybe let's hold off on bringing you into this. Sorry, Tobi's mad. Like, real mad right now. I'm gonna wait until he calms down."

Suddenly faced with Naruto's outpouring of emotion, the truth of what she'd signed up for hit her like a brick to the face. "Oh no, I mean, wow, Naruto, I… you… can hear my thoughts right now?"

"…yeaaaaaahhh…?"

Even through all the mounting danger, a fierce blush rose to Hinata's face in the space of a couple of seconds spent mentally beating her private thoughts into submission.

"Whoa, sorry! Sorry! I mean, I'm really distracted dealing with Tobi right now, so I'm not listening! It's okay!"

"Oh no, oh no…" muttered Hinata, slapping her cheeks and forcing her thoughts onto other tracks. "Think of something else, something else… N-Naruto, w-why is he so mad at you?"

"It's not just me he's mad at! I should've seen it coming, but Chopper got him really angry talking about his father. The guy ruled over Tobi like some sorta king for, I dunno, a long friggin' time, and as a result he's got some serious daddy problems. It all needed to be said, but he still needs to calm down before anyone else tries to talk to him."

Oh. That was the problem, was it?

"…I can talk to him," said Hinata, taking a deep breath.

"What? No, Hinata, seriously, he's-"

"Let me talk to him, Naruto. Please."

Slowly, in their fledgling relationship, Hinata was becoming aware that she could probably get Naruto to do just about anything she needed him to. Abusing that wouldn't be the right thing to do, but all of Kurenai-sensei's lessons about wrapping men around her finger suddenly seemed like they might be… unnecessary? Naruto just seemed like he was willing and happy to help her if she really wanted something. It was the kind of power that required great responsibility to go with it. Now, though, she pushed. Her heart spoke for her, direct through their souls. She didn't need to be protected by him, and if his plan needed her to help then she would do it. If she had to help, she was going to choose to act at the best time, and clearly that time was right now.

Naruto didn't say another word. Their hearts danced together for just an instant, forcing Sasuke to watch on with second-hand embarrassment. Finally, Naruto relented, and the connection was made. Tobi's enraged ranting came through immediately.

"-doesn't even know what he's talking about! This is all some sort of twisted, evil… DAMNIT, ANOTHER ONE?! Naruto, I've told you a dozen times already, I'm sick of this! You and your friends had your fun, so now leave me alone! I don't wanna do it, but if you make me talk to one more person then I'll start attacking all of you again! I'll do it for real! I'm not kidding!"

"Okay, okay, I get what you're saying, but you know you need help, don't you? That's all we're trying to do here! As stupid as it is, I care about you, alright? Come on, we've gone through enough trouble already, and the least you could do is-"

"No, I don't care. I don't even want to talk to this person, whoever this is. No more talking, or I'll be very mean!"

"You're not gonna be mean to her! She's very important to me, so grow up and chill out for a second!"

Hinata squeaked internally from being called 'very important,' then pulled herself together. "Um, thank you. Hello."

"Wait, what was that?" asked Tobi. "That was another weird feeling there, who the heck are you?"

"Y-yes, you're Tobi, right?" She gave a tiny bow, despite not actually being physically anywhere near her conversation partner. "I'm Hinata, and despite these strained circumstances I think it's very nice to meet you."

There was silence in response, long enough to be uncomfortable except for the gears ticking in the background as Tobi's thoughts moved through several circuitous paths. Finally, the impasse was broken.

"ARE YOU THE GIRL WHO NARUTO WAS HAVING GIRL TROUBLE WITH?!" he exclaimed.

"Um!"

"OH MY WORD, YOU ARE!"

The change in tone was as swift and jarring as it was nonsensical. Tobi had jumped to a new set of emotions like an acrobat on a trapeze, leaving the old ones swinging in place. Mentally, she felt Naruto and Sasuke giving her a stunned congratulations at bringing his thoughts back under control, but Hinata did her best to wall them off. No matter how well that had worked out, that wasn't why she was really here.

"When is the wedding? How many children?! I don't actually know how this all goes, but I think that's how it happens, right?!"

She ignored all that and pressed on through her blush as if she hadn't heard it. "Tobi, I'm happy that you care so much about Naruto, and, um, well, me by extension. But that's not why I'm here. I'm here because I heard you were having trouble with your father."

Tobi's thoughts crystallized. "Ugh. That's not cool at all. We're not talking about him anymore, or else. I'm tired of it. Can't we just ignore all that and talk about fun stuff instead?"

"We could," said Hinata. "Except we're not children anymore."

Tobi grunted in frustration. "But isn't talking about our parents all the time something only kids do? They grow up and start living their lives and start talking. About. Other. THINGS! ERGH! I hate it!"

Tobi seemed oblivious to the hypocrisy of calling for a moratorium on discussing his father. In truth, no matter how old Tobi might have been, talking with him felt more akin to engaging a child than even someone of their age. He radiated a cloud of mental and emotional immaturity. Somehow she didn't think drawing attention to that was the right tack to take, though.

"But you're not living your life, are you?" she asked instead, giving Sasuke a glance as she remembered what he had told her. "Your father is holding you back from that. I understand what that's like."

"Oh, you understand what that's like, huh? You just-"

"I understand," interrupted Hinata, "…because my father was holding me back as well."

Tobi immediately went silent. Not the silence of shock, or a quiet pause while waiting for clarification; Tobi was seething and stewing in a slowly-growing fury. Had she said something wrong? Uncertain, she reached out to Naruto, and received back a wordless encouragement to keep going. For whatever reason, he wasn't surprised by the stone wall that Tobi had built, and even though the man was growing increasingly enraged, Naruto wanted her to continue speaking.

But all this was new ground for her. Going further meant…

Distantly, she felt the clouded, distant presence of every other one of the Straw-Hats who had been brought into this shared place. Deeply uncomfortable, she glanced towards Sasuke, standing nearby. She felt Naruto's presence even closer.

Wasn't it a bit early in the relationship to unload all of her deepest worries and fears on her boyfriend, much less a bunch of new acquaintances?

Sasuke looked back at her with a gaze that spoke volumes, shrugging apologetically. "Sorry you can't have privacy here. I could look away, but it wouldn't help. We're connected now, at least for a while, and trust me, I've become intimately familiar with how awkward this is over the last few hours. But, if you ask me, if there were a time for courage, now's that time."

Slowly, Hinata nodded, bolstered by Sasuke's words and Naruto's encouraging thoughts. Tobi listened, not speaking a word, yet broadcasting his disapproval like a burning beacon. She took a deep breath and dove in.

"My father is the head of the Hyuuga clan, one of the noble houses of Konoha. He's a strong, intelligent, fierce leader who takes his responsibility for the clan's integrity and wellbeing very seriously. He's defended the people of my family… and the people of our village… from many threats, internal and external, and I know he has many plans he wishes to see come to fruition as his legacy. To do that, he's always needed a strong heir, a base to lend stability to his endeavors. That heir was supposed to be me… And I… well…" She paused, blinking furiously. "I'm a failure and a disappointment."

When she said those words, she felt a whirling confusion of emotions overtake Tobi. Rage, sadness, and empathy mixed together as he responded to her words, unable to control his own reactions, but what stood out most among them was a wave of powerful suspicion and distrust. Tobi didn't want to believe her. He had heard so many of their companions give their speeches and show how they too understood his pain, each one with a pithy story to show how they related to his specific circumstances, and now, at the height of his rage, comes a girl who just so happened to have a domineering schemer of a patriarch for a father who was terribly disappointed with the only inheritor of his will? And the two fathers even both had magical eyeballs, to boot? The coincidence beggared belief. Far simpler to believe that all of his supposed 'new friends' were lying to him, was it not?

And that's when Hinata and Sasuke truly understood Naruto's plan for the first time.

Tobi couldn't distrust her. He knew she was telling the truth. He could feel it in a way you could never get from a conversation, even one with a trusted friend. Hinata knew a fragment of his pain, and there was no point in denying it.

"No…" groaned Tobi, his wall of resentment crumbling inward from the collapse of his disbelief.

"Y-yes…" she admitted, clutching her hands into tight fists. "I'm… sorry. I don't know for what." She paused, gathering her thoughts, and when no one else spoke, she continued. "I'm not alone. I have other family. And they're… they're not like me. As a ninja, I'm just inferior to my cousin in every way that counts. Even my younger sister is turning out better than me. As far as my father is concerned, I think he'd be happiest if I di-… disappeared… so that she could take my place officially. It would be simpler. They wouldn't even have to make excuses for why they're ignoring me any longer." Hinata paused again, taking a few shallow breaths and ignoring the wet in her eyes. "Except he might not even care whether I stick around or not. I don't think he expects me to fight for control either way."

Now it was out there in the open.

"Sasuke, I need you to give her a hug or something for me."

Beside her, Sasuke frowned, then reached out and laid his hand upon her shoulder, causing her to give him a curious look.

"You heard him. This is from Naruto," he clarified. "He'll be back pretty soon."

"…Okay?"

"But, wait a second," said Tobi. "He doesn't sound like a good father at all! He sounds like he's just a mean jerk!"

Hinata spent some time formulating a response, but she was out-sped as he read her still-forming thoughts.

"No! No, they're nothing alike! Madara is… I mean, he's not-!" He squirmed mentally, trying desperately to find a wedge to drive between the two fathers-as-concepts. "He's really, really powerful!"

"That doesn't make him right, man," added Naruto.

"Damnit! Okay, so, what? So your dad's a jerk, and you're telling me this why? You have some sort of plan to get back in his good graces? You want to tell me how I can become strong and cool and make Madara love me, is that it?"

"No, um, not really. I mean, those wouldn't really be bad things, but…" Memories flashed through her mind, moments of triumph and pain from her time with her team, being taught by her teacher, seeing more and more often that their missions were making an impact on the world… More recently, the burgeoning confidence from making it out into an unknown ocean and winning over Naruto's affection.

"Actually," she said, letting a small smile twitch into place upon her lips, then fall away. "I'm starting to think that none of that really matters. So what if I'm worthless to him? The best times of my life only happened once he gave up on me, so… maybe it's okay to not live up to his expectations." Eyes down, she touched her chest, placing a hand above her heart. "Your father… my father… I know… It's easy to let yourself be crushed under the weight of what your family wants for you."

Tobi's thoughts were now whining and frustrated. "But the only reason I came out here in the first place is because I was trying to bring him back! If it weren't for Madara I wouldn't have done any of this!"

"The only reason I was trained as a normal genin was because my father decided it would be best for me. The only reason I'm here right now, fighting to save the world, is because I cared about something else… a little bit more than that. Tobi, It's all so easy for them to say that they know best, and it's all too easy to believe that you're the failure for not living up to their hopes… But if I had, I wouldn't even be here. I wouldn't be happy."

"…It sounds like you're saying that being a failure can make you happy, but… I don't get it. I don't get it at all. Even… even if I decide not to care what he would have thought about me, then that still doesn't make me any smarter, right? I'd still be a failure, right?"

Caught off-balance by his words, Hinata struggled to respond, only stopping when Naruto's presence reached out to comfort her. There would soon be others joining to help the man.

— Roger and Rayleigh —

Tobi's words to the Straw-Hats had not, in general, been audible to the rest of the world, although the effect on the Tree itself had been pronounced. It slowed, sped up, quivered and twisted, growing at times hostile and at others distracted and slow. Occasionally, Tobi shouted something out loud, whether it be epiphanies on personal affirmation or just squeals of confused babbling about 'girl trouble.' For Rayleigh and Roger, however, the fight against the Divine Tree was still real, though definitely growing easier. Of course, this was all relative; the majority of Tobi's offensive focus was directed on them and them alone.

"You hear all that?!" exclaimed Rayleigh, kicking off a swinging branch so hard he flew back to another perch. "I don't know how they're doing it, but whatever the kids are doing is working!"

"Of course it's working! That was my plan!" shouted Roger, dodging a series of stabbing roots that fired like gunshots.

"Your so-called 'plan' was to let them deal with it!"

"And it's working!"

The forces of Mariejois were drawing close now. Some jackass with a Devil Fruit was launching fireworks at them from extreme range, and the difficulty in dodging the riffraff was almost making up for the Tree's growing lethargy.

"No bones to break, no ass to kick!" yelled Roger, smashing a branch aside with a Haki-infused elbow. "You always find the worst kinds of brawls to get involved with, Rayleigh! In all my life I never thought I'd end up actually smacking down a big damn tree!"

Rayleigh guffawed, eyes twinkling as he followed Roger's strikes with his own, leaping here and there when the thickly swarming branches grew too oppressive. "You're telling me you don't remember the time with that Evergreen Man the night you went on a bender all around Arbor Bend? I remember it like it was just yesterday!"

"Arbor Bend?! I remember the party well enough, but everything after that's just a blur!"

Rayleigh kept laughing, harder than he had in years. A stray branch caught him in the side, but he kept chuckling even after he bounced and rolled off of two other surfaces. He pulled himself away and continued his banter as if he hadn't even felt the titanic strike.

"Dammit, Roger! Pull your weight for once in your goddamned life! Some of us here aren't young and invincible anymore!"

Roger grinned and picked up the pace. "Just getting the rust out. Say, you're doing pretty well for an ancient mummy."

"And you're doing pretty well for a dead man! You still look like shit, though!"

"Rayleigh," exclaimed Roger as he fended off an incoming spear of wood with his saber, "There are some things in this great world that not even death can change!"

—Usopp—

As Naruto's clones had swarmed throughout the sky, they now found themselves having exhausted his companions in the Assault team, and now took to running interference for their friends' retreat. Now, as the true Naruto dove towards the injured Luffy and Sakura, the burden was largely upon Sasuke to bring the remainders into the loop. Unlike his friend, Sasuke had exceedingly little patience (or clones, for that matter) for repeating the process of convincing each of them individually, which is why he simply snuck up on Usopp, slapped him on the shoulder to form a connection, gave him a perfunctory explanation, then disappeared in Nami's direction.

This is why Usopp also found himself staring after Sasuke with a glazed over look of explosive indignance. He was just about to load his slingshot and take a potshot in the ninja's direction when Naruto finished forming the link.

"Geez, another one right on the heels of the last," said Tobi, clearly feeling rather despondent. "Naruto, how many more of these people do you have?"

"Oh, not many more," thought Naruto. "We need to get Nami and Sakura in here, and then get Sasuke to stop being shy and speak up for a change."

"Screw you, Naruto," replied Sasuke.

"Well that wasn't very nice."

"Hah, yeah, he's an asshole. Oh, and there's Luffy too. Oh man… that should be fun. I think I see him and Sakura below me, so you'll be hearing from them soon. I guess we're saving the best for last? But first…!"

"Yeah, whoever's here isn't doing much talking. Hello? You there?"

Usopp cursed in several different flavors and colors, then rallied to avoid the inevitable. "Uhhh, you've reached the residence of Captain Usopp, greatest sniper in the whole entire world. If you'd like to leave a message for later review then I implore you to reconsider."

"Naruto, I think this one's broken. It's saying he's not here."

"Usopp's a bit shy too. And also kind of an asshole. Usopp, stop fooling around."

"Hey, screw you too, man, fooling around is like eighty percent of what I do here," he said.

"Oh, you're there after all, huh? I guess you were just lying to me."

"Yeah, that's what Usopp does. He's the ship's liar."

Tobi was floored by this statement, his earlier sombre response to the talk with Hinata being rapidly replaced with wonder. "Wait, your ship has one designated liar?! That's… so… weird! Ours had three! Or… four… or five… or… or… six, or… how does that work, anyway? Is everyone else just not allowed to lie, or do you have, like, a backup liar for when you're not around?"

"I'm not the ship's liar, alright?!" shouted Usopp. "I'm the sniper! Lying is just a hobby!"

"Man, you're pretty good at this! It really sounds natural! A liar must have a lot of work out on the ocean, huh? I remember Kakuzu talking about how some people out here believe the strangest lies for no real reason, too. I always wanted to get the hang of it myself, but nobody wanted to teach me!"

"Er, well, yes, sometimes you need a good liar to save the day…" he mused. "But really what I'm known for is my sharp eye and—"

"I mean, if you do see the sniper, let me know," Tobi interrupted. "'cause I have to pay him back for shooting this really yucky crap right into my eye-holes, and let me tell you, when I find him I'm gonna-"

"Okay, okay! You got me! I'm the liar! Congratulations for seeing through my disguise!"

"Nice! Hey, this heart-thingy is really cool isn't it? Like, I can feel you lying to me right now when we're talking, and… wait a minute…"

"No, no, no," insisted Usopp, rapidly rearranging the truth into a new contortion in his mind. "Considering this is between an accomplished liar and a young enthusiast-in-training I think we can cut the crap and be honest for a moment. That's part of the Liar's Code, you know."

"…What?"

Usopp nodded confidently, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Yep, that's called an 'honest lie'. It's a lie that tells the truth, hence the name."

"Wow, I'm confused."

"You'd better work on that if you wanna get anywhere, man. And anyway, aren't you supposed to be the leader of some catastrophic band of ninja assassins? How are you no good at this?"

Tobi stewed on that for a few seconds. "Well, I was, yes. But, uh, really I think all of the other guys were way better at the whole 'ninja' thing than I was. I was just the guy with the plan." He sighed, mentally. "Yep, that's me. The man with the plan."

Usopp frowned. "But if you—"

"Oh, also a pair of wicked sick magical eyes."

"…You know, out of all the ninjas I've known personally, half of them have had some crazy eye magic?"

"No way! That's incredible! It's actually really rare!"

"You wouldn't think so if you were me," said Usopp.

"No, really, these things are incredible, and they're so cool it barely even matters that I'm kind of worthless."

Usopp froze, his frown taking on a different tone. "What, worthless? What?"

"Oh, yeah, it's been kind of a problem."

The sniper froze in place, eyes tracking randomly as he tried to process what he had been hearing. The concepts of someone who had stood at the top of a bunch of monsters like the members of Akatsuki, and someone who was a worthless lump like him tried and failed to merge together. This was not the first time he'd dealt with someone incredible who thought they were a failure; the experiences always drove him to distraction. How arrogant it seemed. How naive. They were but pretending at being a disappointment. He had been born to it.

"You're kidding me," said Usopp. "No way did you make it all the way out here if you weren't the best of the best."

"No, even with the Rinnegan, I keep screwing things up. My entire life has basically been an endless string of failures… The only reason my father even died in the first place is because I was too slow getting home to help him. I mean, he had this plan ready to go and everything, but when everyone else was gone and it was just me left I couldn't figure his plan out no matter how hard I tried, so I made up a new one instead. Psh, and now I'm some big tree up on top of a mountain… Yikes…" Tobi sighed. "The last girl I talked to said maybe that's for the best, but I just… I dunno, I hoped that if he were here he'd have a plan for making the world a better place, because I really don't know what I'm doing, almost ever."

Throughout the Divine Tree's control, Tobi's branches were growing less and less offensive, as if he had given up the fight. More defenders from Mariejois were beginning to enter the battlefield, and Tobi was increasingly just taking the hits without complaint. The tree was swaying, charring, and chipping from the variety of impacts and powers being thrown in its direction until it was clear that it was not entirely as indestructible as it had initially seemed. Or perhaps its vulnerable state was merely a result of Tobi's mental collapse.

Usopp listened to Tobi's complaints in silence, twitching in annoyance and tapping his fingers against his legs. It wasn't false modesty, or momentary depression. He felt the other man's longstanding creeping feelings of inadequacy when surrounded by a sea of more competent subordinates like an aching wound. Finally, he had to interject.

"Ugh, who even cares?!"

"Huh?"

"So what if you're a failure, huh?!" The words burst out of him as if he were trying to shout them across the vast distance between him and the trunk. "You think that matters?! Huh?! It doesn't! How the hell are you gonna get anything done in this bitch of a world if you let little things like, 'not knowing what the hell you're doing,' or 'not being remotely qualified for your job' stop you?!"

"Wha-?"

"Who cares if you've screwed up your entire life?! Who cares if shooting things at long-range was your one job on the ship and then along comes some guy who can count the hairs on a chipmunk's ass from a hundred miles away?! Who cares if you just wanted to keep your ship afloat more than anything else in the world and you couldn't even do that right?! And above all else, who the hell cares if your dad left you and you might never see him again?!"

"But you-"

"Don't answer that!" he screamed. "It was rhetorical!"

"Usopp," interrupted Naruto. "You know that he can hear what you're thinking, right?"

"Oh, go to hell, Naruto. I like you, but this is ridiculous! Listen, none of that is the point, alright?" he said, leveling an accusatory finger in the vague direction of the trunk. "You think you need your crazy ninja-god-father to come back to life and fix all the problems you caused? No way, no how."

Sensing a chance to rejoin the conversation, Tobi spoke up. "But I'm still not sure what else can be done. I may not exactly know what I want in life, but I know what it's like to fail. Look at me! My only plan was to kill myself, and I can't even do that right! What's the point to sticking around and trying to muddle my way through if I'm too dumb to get what I want? Even if I do give up on all of this and try to live my own life, how could I possibly get that right? The first guy was right. I'm just a loser!"

"Hah!" Usopp shouted the word out loud in a way completely divorced from laughter. "So what if you're a loser? Where you're wrong is thinking that winners win and losers lose."

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"It does too! Look around and you'll see that it's not the really smart people or the really strong people who get what they want in life. What?! It isn't! Take a guess what the real success stories all have in common."

Tobi thought about it. "Is it… determination?"

"HAH-HAH! Don't make me laugh! No, the answer is 'nothing!' They don't have anything in common! Some people are mean and cruel, and some are kind. Some are beautiful and some are ugly. Some inherited their strength and some worked their way up from nothing! Some are really smart, and some are really, really dumb! In the end, it's mostly down to luck. So listen, if you die and bring your father into this mess then he's going to come back with some great plan, written up by a 'winner,' and ready to change the world, right?"

"…Right?"

"So he's gonna get started right away, and it's not gonna matter one bit because some jackass down in the melee," he whipped a finger in the direction of the forces of Mariejois, "-steps out from behind a rock and turns him into a fruitcake, or a set of matched cutlery, or teleports him into the center of the earth or something! Meanwhile, you, a loser with no hope whatsoever, if you stay here you might get out totally unscathed, and then thirty years from now you're having the best time of your life!"

Tobi reeled from this declaration. "But then how do you know what the right thing to do is?"

"You don't know! You can't know, you understand? That's the beauty of it! Even a loser can make it if they're lucky!"

"Then… then I'm lost," said Tobi. "If even Madara couldn't make this a sure thing then… how can I find my way out of this mess?"

—Nami—

"Well, took you long enough to get around to it, but I guess I'm last up?" asked Nami, as Sasuke finally approached.

"Oh, did I keep you waiting long?" he asked. "Sorry for disappointing you."

"Don't try laying on the charm with me," she said, laughing. "I get enough of that already. I already got the details from Robin, you know, so you can skip straight to it."

"Fair enough," he said, smirking. "You're not actually last, though. Naruto's almost there with Sakura and Luffy. Still, I guess you had enough time to prepare."

Then he did as she said and skipped straight to it. It was when he took her hand in his that she started asking the hard questions.

"We're winning, though, right? I don't want to be held responsible for screwing this up if things go badly."

He gave that a quick moment of thought, then nodded. "I think we're doing alright. He's lost right now, but not actively fighting us. If he had to decide right now, I think it might come down to a coin flip."

Nami winced. "Oh, so what you're saying is I'm actually the pinch-hitter here? Fantastic. He's really not as crazy as he seems?"

"Oh, he's crazy alright. Listen, don't worry about it. Just cheer him up and be honest with him."

Then the link was made, and she found herself pulled into the vortex that was Naruto's plan. Even though the real Naruto was far away, nearing the roots of the tree, he had participated in this ritual so many times that he knew exactly where to drive the conversation. Tobi, it seemed, was growing quieter, and less rambunctious in his exchanges, perhaps finally growing to accept the possibility that he might actually have to give up on what he was doing.

"I mean, I've talked to what feels like everyone in the whole world, and I still don't know where I'm going. I'm so lost right now. I've been lost ever since I found the fruit inside the temple, and I really don't like the feeling! I like the idea of making friends, eating everything I want to, and being happy, and all of that, but how can I get from here to there? How do you all live like this?!"

She pondered the question for a time, thinking back to the bad times in her life. For being so recent, they seemed so far away. She was, in many ways, a different person leading a different life. What kind of words would she have had for the young girl slaving away in servitude to her abusers?

"When I was young I had my course planned out for me," she said. "I had a plan, and it was the only plan that made sense for me. I had a map drawn by my captors, and I followed that map as I did their bidding. I'd gather cash, jewels, and any other valuables I could steal, and when I gathered enough, then I knew the people I loved would finally be set free. I did that for years and years."

Desperate for something to grab onto, Tobi reached out. "Did you find what you needed? Did it work?"

"Hell no," she said, shaking her head and gritting her teeth at the memory. "The plan was worthless, the map was a lie. I had been lost all along, and I just didn't realize it. Call it a child's foolishness that I kept with me until I was an adult."

"Oh." Tobi's voice was small, his thoughts dim.

She considered his thoughts carefully, gradually adjusting her responses to fit her audience. In many ways it really was like talking to a child.

"You know," she said, extending a mental hand to hold onto, "It was when I was at my lowest when things really turned around for me."

"…Really?"

"Mm-hmm!" she said with a smile. "It was thanks to these people I'm with, too. On the same day that I finally realized my plan was worthless, they were there for me. Luffy saved my life, and he did it even though I had betrayed him. I can't say I really deserved to be called his friend, but when I asked for help… he answered."

Saying that, the memory returned unbidden. A firm hand jamming a scratchy old straw-hat down upon her head. Watching in pain through tear-streaked eyes as the idiot who knew absolutely nothing about the hows and whys of her situation took a stroll down to Arlong Park for the express purpose of obliterating anything and everything that stood there.

Tobi listened quietly, the words speaking something significant to him.

"I… don't know if you've talked to Luffy yet, but he's something special, you know?"

"I haven't, no."

"You'll meet him soon, then. Everything I had done… all the poisoned maps I had made… he destroyed them without a second thought. They're all gone now, and I can never thank him enough for that."

"Wait, you're… you're talking about literal maps, aren't you? But I'm not, um, actually literally lost right now. I just don't know what I'm doing."

"It's all the same thing, Tobi. These days, I wake up without knowing what I'm doing either. You've talked to the others, haven't you? What type of plan could I possibly make that would survive the types of boneheaded choices they make on a daily basis?" She laughed, a brilliant smile emerging. "And you know what? I've never been happier!"

"W-what?"

"Most of these idiots don't really realize it, but I make most of the decisions on our ship. Luffy's the Captain alright, but he only cares about setting the course whenever his fancies take him. So every day I wake up in an unknown place, map it to a piece of paper, then decide what we need to do to get to our next destination. But at any moment our crew's lunacy could throw us off in a different direction, or Luffy could decide he wants us to follow some big fish for no real reason, or a thousand other things could change absolutely everything. I may set the course, but who knows where we'll really end up? Do you know what I'd call that?"

Tobi paused in thought. "Um, no? What would you call living that way?"

Nami smiled again and shrugged, letting only little trickles of her private thoughts escape. "I changed my mind. I'll let Luffy tell you. He's better at it than I am, and I'd be a bad first mate if I didn't let him make some of the decisions around here."

He accepted this with a swirl of muddled frustration and wonder. "But… you're saying it's alright to be lost all the time? That sounds exhausting! And terrifying!"

"Sure it is. But I'm still here. After all, if the whole world were already mapped, then how could I go about mapping it?"

"Huh… I don't get it, but you're saying it works?"

"Tobi, I can say that as exhausting and as terrifying as it is, I'm still having the time of my life. All that matters is that I know who I am and where I am, and then I can let each day find itself."

"It works…" said Tobi, hesitantly fanning the little embers of hope he had been given. "It doesn't make sense, but it works. Why? Maybe I'm just too dumb to see it? But being a dummy… might turn out okay? And okay… might end up being great?"

He left their conversation in a self-absorbed fugue, desperately trying to understand what he had been given.

— Sakura —

Throughout all of Naruto's assault upon Tobi's boundless despair, Sakura remained mostly unaware of the goings-on above. She reached the sharp rocks of the Red Line just two seconds before Luffy's non-aerodynamic belly-flop, diving at the speed of gravity and letting a pulse of Earth-element chakra redirect the impact of her fall outward. The Straw-Hat Captain had hit the ground right after her, and rather than rely on water to cushion the wounded Devil Fruit wielder, she chose a similar method to cushion his fall, striking the ground and flattening the jagged rock, trusting in his rubber body to protect him. He hit the ground with a resounding noise halfway between a thud and a sproing, bouncing into her arms and forcing her back. Then she set him down and went to work.

Luffy coughed and gasped, wheezing in pain beneath her. Chakra poured through her hands, focusing on preventing cascading failures of the spinal column. Swelling was reduced, bleeding halted, charred flesh removed. Medicinal compounds and nutrients entered Luffy's mouth, and he chewed dutifully, or perhaps reflexively. It wasn't a time for speech.

Above them, the Tree moved onward. Although it had slowed its advance considerably, by the time Naruto landed they were now at the very outskirts of its more distant branches, with the Tree moving on without them, roots skittering and pulling across the ground like some mighty insect. By chance, the Tree had been tottering nearer the edge of the Red Line on its Eastern side when Luffy had been struck, and now the three of them were less than a hundred feet from a dizzying drop.

"Hey, Sakura," said Naruto.

"Glad you're here," she said, flashing him a very quick smile. "He's out of the worst of it. He'll pull through, though I don't think he'll be doing any more fighting for a week at least."

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. "You're awesome."

"Sure," she said. "So, are we winning or losing?"

"Hah, kind of a tricky question. I think… I think we're just about to pull a win outta this one, you know? Just got a couple loose ends to tie up."

She cocked her head in confusion at that statement, still mostly focused on rebuilding the most critical parts of Luffy's flesh. Beneath her, he groaned slightly, but had held up incredibly well considering a lack of anesthetic. "Are we the loose ends? How does that work?"

As quickly as he could, he gave her the rundown on the plan and their place in it. At this point it boiled down mostly to helping Tobi through the last of his uncertainty, then surviving what came of it.

"Really the part I'm most worried about is getting down from here before the authorities get here," said Naruto. "I'm thinking at the end of this I'm gonna ask Tobi to help us, but who knows what he'll end up doing. Start thinking about escape plans, I guess."

Sakura sighed and shook her head, repeating a mantra from the Academy. "'The best time to come up with an escape plan is a week beforehand. The second best time is right now.' Well, I'll do some thinking. Speaking of… are you telling me you and Sasuke are hearing each other's thoughts all the time now?"

She gave him her most withering look, trying to discern why they had been keeping this a secret from her. He did grimace with a little bit of guilt, but not the kind she'd been worried about.

"Oh right, you hadn't heard about this yet," he said. "It was right when we were rushing in to fight Tobi and them back in the temple. The Sage of Six Paths froze time and did this to us, and then when we got kicked back outta there we didn't want to stop the charge to talk it out, you know?" He chuckled with an awkward gesture, tousling his own hair. "It's kinda funny. Turns out I can do what the Sage did too, and I'm a lot better at it than Sasuke is."

"So you can talk to Sasuke whenever? What the hell, Naruto? Is there some sort of distance limit there?"

"I don't think so. It's just sorta… always on. We're still getting used to it. What I'm trying to do right now isn't permanent, but it's still the same sort of thing, and we need to bring you two into it. I think Tobi's on his last legs. He just needs a little push. He's also been watching us, so, you know."

Momentarily distracted by this realization, she barely processed it when Naruto stepped up to her side, looking down at Luffy's wounded figure.

"Luffy, man," he said. "You really saved my life up there. Super cool."

Luffy, breathing heavily, took one fist and raised it, clenched, into the air. Sakura frowned.

"Hey, wait, don't get him worked up now," she said. "In fact, don't try any of this weird sage stuff on him at all until he's a little further along. If you need to try it out, try it on me first. I can't promise to give him my full attention until Luffy is healthy, but…"

"Tobi's still a little bit busy trying to think everything through. He's barely paying any attention right now, but I think he'll be back with us soon. Still, might as well get you patched in now."

She let Naruto do what he needed to as she continued to work on restoring Luffy's condition. Though she had been told what to prepare for, it was still a surprise when she felt the surface area of her thoughts expand. For a moment it wasn't clear which thoughts were hers and which were his, though perhaps because a sense of nervous reluctance was something they were both feeling. She did her best to ignore it and continue focusing on her job.

"So this is the inside of your thick skull, huh?" she asked, when things had begun to settle.

"It's… yeah, it is, I guess," he said. Despite his well-honed instincts for self-preservation, Naruto resisted the immediate urge to shut the metaphorical door on her. After all the rummaging around he'd been doing in other peoples' heads it would be hypocritical to clam up now.

Then his reflexes calmed, and he realized that his worries were unfounded.

Over their years as teammates, Sakura had had to put up with quite a bit of being the 'third wheel' to the two notorious Konoha brats who had grown together as partners in crime. After her earliest days spent struggling to fit in, or struggling to make an impact at all, she had grown into someone a far sight more outspoken than she had been before. Sakura had put quite a bit of effort into finding an appropriate level of trash-talk and threats of violence that matched her male cohorts and prevented her from being unconsciously steamrolled, but Naruto and Sasuke still hadn't quite figured out how they should respond in kind when faced with the absolute certainty that she was definitely not just 'one of the boys.'

It wasn't the first time that she'd felt she had to make it clear her insults were nothing more than jests, but it was the first time that he had felt the friendly affection behind her words so clearly. Sensing his surprise, she moved on before things could get awkward.

"So, I know why we're doing this, but are you still okay with letting Tobi go after everything he did? You have more claim to resent him than most."

Naruto sighed and rubbed his face. "I have no idea. I'm still trying to square the facts that despite killing all these people, the guy doesn't have a malicious bone in his body. If anything, he seems to regret everything he did."

"Nice is different than good," she remarked. "And regretting something doesn't mean he wouldn't do it again."

"Shit, I mean, I've never felt that way more strongly than looking at him. I guess it all makes more sense to me after seeing his heart. He's really not a human at all. Hell, we all know that if he got what he deserved he'd probably be dead, but… It's just… I think Chopper was right. The guy would be a lot happier if he went around helping people instead of hurting them." Naruto looked up. "You know, I don't think this would've worked on just anyone. Most of the bastards out there I've met wouldn't give a damn no matter how many heart-to-heart chats we had with them. The fact that he's taking this seriously is… I dunno, kinda incredible."

Sakura stopped what she was doing for a moment and turned back to Naruto, giving him a searching look. Finally, she said. "Don't expect me to ever say this again, but that's very mature of you."

Once again, the true feelings behind her words were laid bare, and he just laughed. Finally, Naruto noted the return of the golden glow that meant Tobi's attention was returning to their conversation, his mental gaze washing over the bond of friendship they shared with nothing short of fascination.

"Okay, looks like the big guy's back," said Naruto. "Hey, Tobi, Sakura here is busy making Luffy healthy again, but we'll talk more soon, okay?"

Not quite done with Luffy's treatment, but not satisfied with being delayed, Sakura spoke up. "Tobi, I know we'll have had our differences, but I want you to listen to my friends here. They know what they're talking about. I believe in each and every one of them. If you know what's good for you, you'll do the right thing."

Tobi didn't respond with words, instead just listening quietly. Naruto turned back to her.

"Well, you keep focusing on what you're doing, and get Luffy back on his feet, but… well, I guess we're not gonna get a better time for this. I'm going to bring in Sasuke and get him to get everybody down here with us. He's dicked around enough already and it's time everybody else introduced themselves. Will you have time to talk to him, too?"

She smiled. "I'll always have time for the two of you."

—Sasuke—

"I'm here, Naruto," he said, watching the last of the Straw-Hats returning to base. Things were definitely easier for them now, travel-wise, and he was fairly sure that Tobi was dedicating some of his concentration towards defending them now, rather than his own obsessions, which changed the calculus of the situation dramatically. "We'll get everyone moving in a few minutes."

"You okay, man? I know I've been poking at you, but you're not feeling too good right now. You got enough left in you to talk to the big guy here?"

"Yeah," he said, wearily assessing his condition. "Sorry for staying quiet during all of this. Just… not very much up to splitting my focus right now. It's been a long day."

"You've been through a hell of a lot today, man," thought Naruto. "I didn't even realize all of it until a little bit ago. Your brother, dealing with Roger, meeting the Sage, fighting that absolute asshole, Danzou… It's been a long day for me, sure, but for you… what, a week?"

"A week is about right," he said, exhaustedly reviewing the days spent inside frozen time.

Far away, Sakura winced. "I didn't even hear about half of this. Sorry. That does not sound good."

"It is what it is."

Senses dulled by his exhausting time spent at the top of the world, he barely noticed Robin's quiet approach. She really would have made an excellent shinobi, had she been trained.

"You should tell them more," said Robin, placing a hand, her real one, upon his shoulder. "It would do you some good."

Jury-rigged as it was, the connection between him and Robin was only partially there, and she had to be feeling only a fraction of the conversation between the three ninjas. That didn't stop her from sticking her nose in.

He gave her a sidelong glare. "You're just saying that because it's not you we're talking about."

She nodded, her expression absolutely serious. "Yes, that's right. And yet it's still true, is it not?"

He sighed.

"Dude," thought Naruto. "Tobi's being quiet right now, but he's dealing with a lot, too. He lost everything he thought he had, and he's looking for some assurance. Besides, I wanna know what you're thinking."

"You already know what I'm thinking, jackass. That's the point of all this."

"You know what I mean, man."

This time his sigh was different, an expulsion of breath and built-up tension. Now that it was his turn to be put on the spot, he found himself quite reluctant to talk. Just because it might be the end of the world otherwise didn't mean he couldn't whine about it a little bit, right?

Sakura interrupted his gloomy introspection with a sharp word. "Sasuke, you know I like you, but sometimes you take the longest time to do what you know is right."

"Hah-hah," he said. Finally, he decided to get right to it. "Yeah, I've… I've lost a lot in the last few years. I like to think I've gained a lot, too, but…"

He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Robin was still there next to him, silent, understanding.

"He's not everything that I lost, but it all really centers around Itachi, doesn't it? Itachi was… smarter than me, more dedicated, he understood everything the adults were thinking, and he was still able to be kind and patient with me. I looked up to him more than anyone."

Tobi was there, listening along with the rest of them. Naruto and Sakura had heard most of this before, and probably figured out more of it over time, but it would be his first time laying it all out for the world to see. He pressed on.

"When I lost everything I had… well, it wasn't long before I met Naruto here. It wasn't long after that before I met Sakura, too. If it wasn't for what happened to me then I probably wouldn't have met them, but if I could turn back time and stop what happened to my family… well, yeah, I would have to say yes to that…"

He looked around, uncomfortably, seeing the Straw-Hats around him, including several more returning from the distant assault on the tree.

"But even though I had lost my old life, I was already finding a new one. Then, one day I learn that my brother, who had been dead for years, had a plan all laid out for me. He wanted me to give up everything I had, go out into the ocean, and join the most powerful man in the world. He laid traps and schemes, he manipulated me, and he even gave up the very last remnants of his life. He gave me secrets, and magic… he trusted me with so much power, but didn't trust me to make a single damn decision on my own. I used to think he was just the absolute greatest person who ever lived, but now I'm older than he was, and all I can think is that he was just another lost kid who thought he knew what was best."

Tobi spoke up, breaking his silence. "And… you think he didn't know best? How can you tell who would've done a better job in the end? You thought he was smarter than you, didn't you? What changed?"

Sasuke closed his eyes in thought, then looked off towards the east, eyes skimming off the dark clouds and distant ocean waves below. "I don't know. I think, sometimes, of the ways it might have gone. My life. The furious, painful days from when I was younger… seeing what the village did to me and my family… Even watching what Naruto had to live with… How many hundreds or thousands of things could have gone different ways? Am I on one of the good paths, or one of the bad ones? And… well, not that I anticipate growing old with the company I keep, but… there's still so many ways it could go from here. It's kind of terrifying."

"What do you mean?" asked Sakura. Despite the distance between them, they might as well have been standing right across from each other.

"The world is full of people I never would have met if I hadn't made these choices, and places I never would have seen. Even a hundred lifetimes wouldn't be enough to see it all. Hell, at any moment I could pick any random island out in the ocean and stop being me entirely. ANBU will take ages to establish a presence out here, and even with my bounty, no Marine would ever know who I was. Not when I can look like anyone I want to."

"I'd know where you were," thought Naruto, plucking gently at the heart-link.

Sasuke smiled. "Sure, and I suppose you'd break under interrogation in five minutes flat, so at least I can scratch that plan off the list."

Naruto laughed. The link eliminated any need for pretense or posturing.

"Yeah," Sasuke continued. "I wouldn't just leave all this behind me… but I could. There are a million different things I could decide to do right now, and that's not even counting all the things that might happen to me with the Straw-Hats, all of which are completely unpredictable. Itachi gave everything he had to make sure I had a chance to live a good life, and now I have to pick it out from an infinite number of choices? That's frightening. It was easier to grapple with when all I had to do was complete my missions and get stronger."

"Freedom is scarier than I thought it'd be," thought Tobi.

"You're not wrong."

"Do you know what you're going to do now?"

Naruto and Sakura listened closely, drawing upon years of familiarity. Tobi listened in rapt terror, the kind that sent your heart beating a mile a minute as you stepped out onto a tightrope. Sasuke sighed, then smiled wistfully.

"I think so, yeah. I guess my problem is I have so many things I want to do. I want to live a happy life, I want to see the world with my brother's eye, and I want to be there for you and Sakura too, Naruto. Tough choices to make there. Once upon a time I thought that getting something out of life meant giving something else up in return, but… well, a certain pirate I talked to set me straight."

A past memory played across his thoughts. "Freedom?" chuckled Roger. "You think freedom lies in a choice like that?! I don't need that shitty kind of freedom in my life!"

"No," said Sasuke. "If I have a plan, it's this. I'm going to go out to sea with this loosely-affiliated gang of idiots we call the Straw-Hats, just like I want to do. I'm going to be their Lookout, or whatever nonsense Luffy has cooked up for me, depending on how he's feeling. I'll get as strong as I need to be, and I'll see everything this world has to offer… well, everything I can fit in on a busy pirate's schedule anyway… Then, one day, I return to Konoha, rich as a king."

"Oh, so it was money you were after all along, huh?" thought Naruto.

"Well, when it comes to the trifecta, money, power, and connections, I can get powerful, and I already know someone who's going to become the next Hokage, right? Why not get rich while I'm at it?" He smirked. "Oh, by the way, you do understand I'll be relying on you to legalize everything I got up to while I was away."

"Hah! Damn straight I will!"

"And…" continued Sasuke. "In the meantime, I guess this heart-thing we've got going on means… there won't ever be a goodbye, will there?"

Naruto laughed. Just laughed and laughed.

"But hold on," said Tobi. "I'm sorry, I know this is kind of, like, a moment for you, but if I understand this right, then you're doing all this stuff because of what your brother wanted for you. He died, and he sent you out here on a mission, and you nearly died trying to accomplish it. Now you're going to go join some big pirate crew out on the ocean just like he wanted? I guess I'm just confused how that's different from what I was doing."

Sasuke nearly snapped out a dismissive response then and there, but stopped. He closed his eyes, one eye his, the other his brother's. His memories of what was lost were still fresh, still strong.

He remembered a time spent inside a mirror, alone with his long-dead brother.

"The world's opening up," said Itachi, "Just like Roger said it would. You can see it all in my place. I know it."

He remembered telling a story about Naruto and a tanuki's testicles, hearing Itachi laugh like he'd never heard before.

Maybe he hadn't known his brother all that well, after all.

A ghost stood before him in his mind, a recorded message left as evidence of lost love.

"If, for whatever reason, you didn't get that chance, then let me at least say... that I love you, and I wish the best for you, no matter what. Don't let hatred change you from the man that you deserve to become, and don't let the world destroy you before you can find your way. You may have thought you couldn't live up to what Father, Mother, and I would have hoped from you, but I am proud of you. I really am, and I know that they would say the same."

Itachi knelt before the lifeless body of the greatest man in the world, bowing his head to the ground.

"Please take my younger brother under your wing. Help protect him from the dangers of this world now that I cannot, and tell to him those one thousand tales from the blue sea."

Slowly, Sasuke opened his eyes, and failed to hold back his tears.

"After all this time talking with us," he said, cheeks wet, "What do you think the answer is?"

Tobi hesitated, his thoughts bouncing back and forth. Thanks to the link, they could feel that he thought he knew the right answer, but didn't want to admit it. Naruto sent a quiet request to Kurama.

"Kurama, now's the time to let the walls down. Let everybody in, okay?"

I understand.

In the next seconds, the eleven connected souls of the Straw-Hats and Konoha group, minus Luffy, flooded into place, now sharing the same world of thought as if they all were one. Confusion warred with understanding, and above it all they sensed Tobi's grand, golden thoughts struggling to come to a truth. For the first time in their lives, they all thought as one, and Tobi looked on in awe.

—Luffy—

Sakura looked up at Naruto, standing beside her, her work done. She gazed wordlessly at him, and he nodded back. Though there might not be a true goodbye, Sasuke had made his decision. Assuming they lived through this, they would return home and it might be years before they saw him again. She stood up and pulled her friend into a deep hug.

Luffy coughed, his scorched skin having partially healed over. Slowly, he rose to his feet as the two friends separated.

"Hey man," said Naruto. "Good to see you alive. Again, thanks for saving my life, and everything. Thanks for… you know, all of this."

"And you had better take good care of Sasuke, got it?" said Sakura. "He means a lot to us."

Luffy nodded, and his voice was quite a bit steadier than his feet. "Of course. He means a lot to us all. We're all part of the crew here, right?"

Sakura laughed, some of the built-up tension escaping in one burst. Naruto just nodded, throat tight, and reached out a hand. Luffy took it, and then Naruto pulled him into the link.

"I… um… I think…" began Tobi. "I think the difference is… that he wanted you to live. When he asked you to see the world for him, he was actually trying to give you something to be happy about. He didn't really want you to get someone to bring him back to life, or finish the plans he had for his sake, or leave your friends. He just wanted you to be happy. And I… well, that wasn't what Madara wanted from me, not at all. He was my entire life, and to be honest he probably made me that way. I did a lot of terrible things to get here… but I guess that doesn't mean I have to keep acting that way… It's just frightening."

Those assembled before Tobi's mind were… well, not his friends, not aside from Naruto and a certain sobbing skeleton. But even the most stoic among them had been affected by feeling what he felt. They were connected, if only for this moment. They watched on.

"I know I don't really deserve it," he said, "But maybe I can give living a real life a shot. Will it work, though? When I asked what life really was, I think I got a whole bunch of different answers… I guess that means it's different for everyone… Will mine turn out alright, in the end?"

All the others had said their piece, and though Luffy hadn't been there for any of it, he sucked in a single huge breath, anchored his battered body to the earth, and brought both arms in. Then he exploded outward, reaching to the sky in a grand burst of inner fire. He shouted his answer out to the shining night.

"LIFE IS AN ADVENTURE!"

The words resounded through the hearts of every person in that link, scattering any stray thoughts in a blast of unwavering certainty. For that moment, all their hearts beat as one, resonating with each other as their souls burned brighter and brighter. Naruto's jury-rigged heart-link shuddered, sang, and then shattered from the strain, leaving every one of its members feeling that same moment of victory, each man and woman isolated, yet united. Even Naruto's link with Sasuke was momentarily muddled.

And Tobi… cracked.