Summary: Over the years, every Yonko searched for lost family, and the world laughed in their faces. (Or: That time where Team Seven was reborn as the Four Emperors of the world.) Crack-fic(?)

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece or Naruto.

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Marco knew their Pops loved them dearly, knew it in his very heart.

He knew many things about Pops, having been with him the moment the crew was formed, but his love for them was indisputable.

Marco also knew he was searching, searching, searching.

Oh it wasn't really obvious now, but Marco remembered days when Edward D. Newgate poured over maps like a starved man, how he combed through the seas and each island in frenzied desperation. He had calmed through the years as he adopted more and more children, and came to accept them as his own (it'd been hilarious, and sort of sad, at the start though), but Marco didn't doubt he was still searching.

It was a decade after their partnership that Whitebeard had confided in him.

The children of his Pops. Marco mulled over the thought.

Not blood-related, Whitebeard had said. But his brats all the same; he had trained them and nurtured them, and they had pulled him from a chasm of abyss he willingly drowned himself in. It was hard to even think of his Pops as something less than the strong, determined man he knew him as, to know that once upon a time, the man that pulled through the rough seas with a "Guararara" had drowned in despair and self-loathing. Pops didn't know whether they were alive after whatever happened to their home island (he was tight-lipped about that and Marco didn't ask), but he had rationalized that if he lived, then his stubborn-as-hell brats might as well have, too.

(It was in those times that Marco's gut lurched uncomfortably. Those times when shadows crossed over his Pops' face and he looked so tired. Those times when he spoke as if he was a waste of living space— ...Marco suspected Pops wasn't aware he spoke like that, and those times were few and far in between now, but it still sent fear and anger through his veins, just like when any scum tried to lay a finger on his siblings, his family.)

"How are they like, yoi?" Marco asked. The smile on Whitebeard's face was like any other directed at his siblings; fond, exhasperated, and you-give-me-lots-of-headache's-but-i-will-suffer-through-it-anyway-because-you're-family.

From there, he learned of a boy who smiled like the sun under the shadows of a village's fear and scorn, another boy lost in a sea of hatred but pulling through like a man before death, and an unseeming girl blooming into one of the best warriors of their village.

Marco listened, and made a note to keep an eye out for brats with stupidly opstimistic views, brother issues and short tempers.

It wasn't like he was against new siblings anytime anyway.

...As a passing thought, Marco feverently hoped Thatch never met the kid named after food.

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The Samurai of Wano Country were unsure of the beast of a man stomping through their home like a vengeful wraith.

On one hand, their Lord Oden had allowed the enormous beast to roam their island, and they would obey the will of their Lord. On the other hand, the Beast King (as Lord Oden termed him) made them far too wary, with his rage-contorted expression (and something other but it was hard to identify it because, you know, they were too busy being scared shitless) and the effortless way he plowed through the formidable foes of the Forest of Death, and thus they kept an eye on him.

It wasn't hard to do. They just had to pick out the trails of destruction (Oh, Lord Oden, see what your decisions has wrought our construction workers? They always faint before anything can be done because of your request to the Beast King to fix his messes!) and the roars, mutters, rants of... of... ramen? Orange? Cyclops and flowers?

Mostly ramen though. Especially the narutos. Perhaps the Beast King despised naruto and wished to eradicate its creators?

(Just to say, ramen workers have all but thrown out the naruto and descendants of the recipe have vanished to the Outer Seas. The citizens wished them good fortune and prayed for their safety.

In the other side of the world, a red-haired man suddenly shivered, feeling as if he heard the scream of God. He proceeded to cradle his ramen closer and looked around suspiciously.)

The Beast King never striked out at them though. He squashed them like bugs in self-defence or if they ignored his warnings and got in his way, and had decimated the Outsiders before they could lay siege to the villages closest to the borders, but never striked at them without a reason. Sometimes he would lumber through the villages with a thunderous sneer, enter a tea-house, order tomato-spiced meals, and just brood in his corner ande glaring at the table as if it personally wronged him. The bosses would've enthuthiastically sacrificed Table the Seventh to dodge the Beast King's wrath. And many other tables. Nobody blamed them. The hospital was getting full with all the fainting citizens.

Many citizens prayed whatever had earned the Beast King's wrath would quickly appear and divert him from their home. Parents are getting tired of their boys raving about the Beast King already, and the medical psychiatrists are getting understaffed. The samurai alternate between caution and respect, but as long as it was Lord Oden's will, they would accept him.

Then one day, their Lord Oden beamed, like the sun in a bright day, and cheerfully announched, "Hey guys, Kaidou has agreed to take our country under his flag and protect it! Oh I guess I forgot to tell you, but he's in reality a Yonko, you know, one of the four best pirates in the Outer Seas and the world and really called Beast King? Ahaha, oops my bad! Well that's all, bye!"

It wasn't exactly like that, but it might as well be for all Lord Oden's cheery smile was eclipsed by the default thunderous scowl of Kaidou.

After the heart-stopping declaration, Lord Oden went on his merry way and bugged Kaidou (Lord Oden no, please stop, the citizens tried to telepathically convey. It was useless.), who was looking more pissed off by the minute. The more insane ones (as they were called) insisted that the Beast King looked like he was about to die under the babbling of their Lord, but they were the main patients of the hospital so no one really heeded them.

On the other hand.

Most of Wano just about had a breakdown. The others had to lean back, look at the sky, and wonder which spiritual being had cursed the noble line of the Kozuki with such an eccentric Lord.

The psychiatrist branch strongly petitioned for more staff. Lord Oden was about to reply, but Kaidou used the distraction and vanished (how?) like a man running from death (wait, what? what?) much to his dismay, so yeah, the psychiatrists were forgotten in the blink of the eye.

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Rayleigh sometimes felt more like The Babysitter (yes with capitals) than the First Mate of the Pirate King.

Many times. All the time. Every day.

It got worse after his Captain picked up those two brats. Shanks and Buggy. Roger found them funny and was completely ecstatic over the red nose, while the red-haired brat was too much of a hellion for him not to pick up, to Rayleigh's despair.

Especially the red-haired brat. A migraine pounded his head at the very thought of the chaos his Captain invited into their ship.

Oh he was a good kid alright. Cheerful, opstimistic, short-tempered, a little (very) stupid and selfish, the heart in the right place, but a person had to be blind, deaf, and to no ends imbecilically stupid to not see the ocean-wide mean streak in his smile and the pettiness practically etched into his bones (just a little spilled noodles, just a little and... and Kyo was never the same after that).

Or maybe Rayleigh was the only smart one. He looked at his crew: Captain bragging and showing off the beetle he caught to the other crew members who were gaping in awe and totally eating the bullshit spouting from the resident liar Yunoki, and yeah, no hope there, and Rayleigh was sure it wasn't a beetle but the whining wasn't worth the headache so he let them to their delusions.

The redhead brat also was about to have a breakdown 10 minutes into the sea when he realized they had no ramen, and that, in fact, it was a rare meal given the many cultures and traditions of the world. The clown kid was screaming too, but it was more because he had been thrown over red-haired brat's shoulder as they prepared to jump off the ship. And. Did he mention Sea Kings lurked the ocean? So, yeah, clown brat almost died but survived, collapsing in the deck and mouthing prayers to the heavens, because something stopped the red-haired brat from offing himself.

Red-haired brat stayed on the ship with a face like he was dying. Amused, Roger agreed to his begging of the cook to buy ingredients for his ramen in the next island they docked.

Which, brought him to his initial curiosity over a ten-year brat agreeing to piracy, and for Roger to even agree. Well. Sure his Captain was an idiot most of the time (okay all the time) but he wouldn't bring a kid on a mere whim just because he was interesting. Or so Rayleigh hoped.

"He's looking for something," Roger had told him over booze once. "He didn't tell me what, but the look in his eyes - Buahaha! You should've seen it, Rayleigh!"

Rayleigh was partly sure Roger was laughing at Buggy's unfortunate fate as Shanks' unwilling partner more than anything. (Rayleigh remembered he had been dragged kicking and screaming to the Oro Jackson by both the red-haired brat -"Because friends stick together!"- and his idiot Captain -"A red nose, Rayleigh!"- and The Babysitter sympathized. Very.)

So, yes. The red-haired brat and the clown brat joined the crew as their cabin boys. And sure enough, if he looked closely Rayleigh could see the signs, the look on his eyes, the longing of a starving man in the shadows of his cheeky grin. He didn't say nothing though; wasn't in his business to pry into private matters of brats.

They were all still a pain to look after. Although Shanks was a saint at sabotaging the enemy ships about to chase them.

Later on, Roger was to no end disappointed that their nicknames were "Red-haired" and "Star Clown". Apparently they failed some unspoken test. Shanks was also deppressed because of the name and sulked for days. Buggy was horrified he even got a bounty and Rayleigh felt a bit comforted that at least some people had some self-preservation.

Oh, the woes of The Babysitter.

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There were many, many things that could earn you the wrath of the Big Mom Pirates.

One of them was to badmouth their Captain, another was to cause disorder in the islands under her flag, another was to ever suggest she was eating too much sweets, and another was rowdy rookies seeking to overthrow her just because she wasn't as crazy or active as her fellow Emperors. Just to name a few.

That is to say, it was taboo to ask one thing: many enemies always did that, asking if her hair color was real. Pink, bubblegum pink, peach, pink rose, strawberry pink - it just was so eye-catching and, and so pink, that often times those foolish enough to try their hand at the most soft-hearted Yonko just had to stop and ask, "Is your hair really pink?" Often in incredulous tones. Or mocking jeers.

They never survive those encounters and Big Mom often stomped away from the carnage furious and displeased. Nothing short of an abundance of sweets could coax the crew's Mama out of her room after those questions. In case of no sweets they just threw in Pekoms as a sacrificial lamb and hoped for the best, as in, that Mama got better soon and that Pekoms didn't die suffocating under her hugs. Pekoms was always crossed with them after that ("How dare you traitors, gao!") but they were unrepentant, and they knew Pekoms didn't really mind. Mama gave the best hugs.

Even though they could die, considering her size and strength. But Mama was always careful.

The crew adored their Mama. All of them remembered a time where they were starving little misfits half-dead in the streets. Mama picked them up and nurtured them back to health, and gave them sweets to eat when they were better (though they anonymously agreed her cooking was a thing worthy of Hell). Many of them had been, well, in less than ideal conditions at the time and had fallen in love with Mama's caring nature despite her monstrous visage and equally enormous apetite, and had followed her like baby ducklings from island to island.

(Actually, the whole pirate crew thing was almost an accident.)

Oh make no mistake, they knew Mama was not a saint - she had pulverized crews without batting an eye, and her temper was a thing shorter than a normal man's arm: thin, short, and easy to break - but she cared for them and those under her flag, and that was enough for them.

Many of them had been with Mama long enough to know she was searching for something. Tamago always shushed their questions with a well-placed hit of his cane, or were silenced by Bobbin staring at them with a wide, wide grin. It was a sensitive subject for Mama and often made her... well it depended. Sometimes it made her angry enough to shake the sky (they were never more glad to find that island that regenerated mountains in an hour), sometimes it just made her sad enough to almost cry (she never did), other times she just stared into the distance with an armful of crewmates wiggling in her arms.

Very few knew what she looked for, and why she didn't find them yet. The least active Emperor's connections stretched far, through nooks and crannies of a noble's home or a hospital mansion, and it was hard to think there was something an Emperor (didn't matter which one) could not find that which they sought, much less their Mama who always, always found them, especially those that tried to take an impromptu vacation (they received big scoldings and had to wash the lower decks for three months). And, let's just say that Moria didn't survive after Mama found out he messed with one of her girls.

The one most likely to know was Pekoms, or the First Mate, or Mama's daughters, but they weren't telling anyone any soon.

It didn't mean they weren't keeping an eye out for a lazy cyclops, a boy with duck hair or another boy stupid enough to daily incur Mama's wrath and survive.

They hated seeing Mama sad, and resolved to punch them in the face if ever found, but for now they just lived in the present with their crew and Mama.

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(OMAKE: Forget-me-not.)

Decades later...

Newgate was warned by Shanks and suddenly felt the inexplicable urge to wear a paper bag for the rest of his life.

Shanks warned Whitebeard of his reckless actions and suddenly felt like he had done a gravious sin and that he really, really needed to go cause havoc ASAP.

Kaidou took one look at a report featuring Shanks being momentarily captured by the marines because he prioritized ramen over his life and promptly banned ramen from every island under his flag.

Linlin sat back on her throne, watched the squabblings of the world, calmly drank her tea with her crew, and dimly wondered why she felt the urge to go to the door of her fellow Yonkou and smash their faces in.

Or, that time where the Yonkou didn't remember, and the Government inadvertly dodged a thousand missiles.

(They got a bomb, instead.)

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One Piece has sunk its claws into my heart again. (Still in denial of Ace's fate, by the way. *sobs*) This striked me like lighting while reviewing in "in the pink" by Aliathe, a Sakura fic crossover with One Piece. :D Couldn't stop the urge to write this out. Lolololololololololol.

In where Shanks is enamoured with ramen instead of sake, Kaidou isn't a total dick and with a chronical fear of being stuck with opstimistic sunny dudes for eternity, Whitebeard was once a social inept but now is daddy to 1600 kids but still is the most gloomy of the (un)lucky sevens, and Big Mom is actually somewhat kind if a bit short-tempered and a cuddle-monster.

I don't know if Big Mom actually has pink hair (it's my headcannon though, along with Lola being one of her babies, RIP Moria), but in this she has. Oden is still as obscure, given the current Arc having been Zou, but here I featured him as this carefree idiot. Sorry if anyone's OOC, but ohohoho happy how it turned out in little time. :D

Might continue this, might not.

All hail God Oda.

~TenraiTsukiyomi