The help you receive

Should be there, hiding subtly

Not forced upon you,

So that you'd leave abruptly.

But please notice,

That hiding subtle help.

It is there for you,

Not for your strangled yelp.

-noelicoan

She appeared on an island near to where her ship was anchored, to a sight she never wished to see again.

"GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!" Natsuki jumped, thinking he was yelling at her, sighing in relief when she found it was at Jimbei. She cursed at herself for thinking that way, but she was feeling such a jigsaw of emotions, she had no idea what to feel anymore.

"I can't do that. I won't let you go on hurting yourself."

"IT'S MY BODY! I'LL DO WHAT I WANT WITH IT!" Luffy growled back.

"That's what Ace thought too. He died because he did what he wanted with his body."

"SHUT UP!" Luffy looked up to the sky, glaring hard at it, like Natsuki had done a few hours before. "ONE MORE WORD AND I'LL PUNCH YOU!"

"Go ahead if that's what it takes to calm you down. I'm injured as well, but I won't lose to the likes of you in this state." Jimbei replied with cold sympathy.

Luffy immediately tried to punch Jimbei, key word being 'tried'.

Jimbei, with far more experience and skill, immediately had him on the ground.

Whilst Jimbei was lost in his thoughts of his conversation with Ace at jail, Luffy bit hard on his arm, forcing Jimbei to release Luffy.

"Ow! That hurt you brat!" Jimbei pushed Luffy to a rock, holding him by the neck. "Are you blind to everything now!? Where's your confidence that you can overcome anything!? What happened to that strength you never doubted!?"

"I lost it when I was defeated by a giant wall..." Luffy replied with the seriousness he never showed before.

Something in his voice triggered tears to fall. Natsuki wiped them away from her eyes but looking at her broken brother made them fall more quickly than ever.

She almost stepped in, but he had to solve this himself, and she wasn't the hand he needed to be pulled up. Jimbei would be the one.

"Don't think of what you have lost Luffy. Count them. What do you still have?" Luffy sank to the ground and remembered.

"Luffy!" Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, Franky and Brook called out. All with smiles on their faces as they yelled for their captain. He counted each one in his memories.

Luffy smiled as they appeared one by one, tears falling and melting into the soil.

"I have my friends. I have my crew!" He finally realised, then remembered the promise he made. "We promised to meet up someplace. I have to go there."

Natsuki then suddenly remembered the time difference their world and her last world had. Years for her was months to them... Then perhaps months for her was weeks, weeks for her was days and days for her were hours... She'd have to test that theory.

...Then that meant that she was gone for a month...

So much had happened within that time frame. She looked back to her brother, who cried out, wanting to meet the family he created from scratch.

Natsuki wanted to run to him so that he could meet him, when she suddenly felt a notorious man enter her minimal sensory field that she kept up at all times.

She hid her chakra and climbed up a tree on silent foot, erasing her very existence.

Luffy was carried away by Jimbei and she followed them, leaping through the trees.

"Old man Rayleigh!?" Natsuki was dumbfounded. How did he know the Dark King Rayleigh?

She watched as they talked like old friends, wondering what Ace would think if he found out Luffy was friends with his father's first mate. A man he detested, but then again, Luffy did have the ability to make friends with almost anyone.

Natsuki was even more surprised when she saw the male-hating Boa Hancock blush at the sight of her younger brother. Who else does this boy know!?

"I wanna see my crew!" Luffy said bluntly after eating the food the snake princess provided.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" This question drew the attention of everyone present. "Don't you remember what happened to you on Sabaody Archipelago?"

Natsuki searched her dictionary, and almost sobbed when she now knew that her brother lost his crew by the hands of Bartholomew Kuma.

"I have a suggestion. Whether you accept it or not is entirely up to you of course..." The plan was to have them train for two years, just like she had done over the last three years. "...Also, I know you're there, but who's there?"

Natsuki jumped out of the tree, and Luffy lunged to her.

"Natsu-nee!!! ACE! Ace is..."

"I know... Shh... shh... I know..." Natsuki combed his hair out of the bandages, slowly calming down her baby brother, wiping away a tear again.

"Striking Vixen? How did you get here? Unless you swam like me of course."

"I can't tell you. Though let's just say I have abilities of a devil fruit without eating one."

"Hm? Which fruit would it be, if you supposedly ate one?"

"I guess the nin nin fruit." She told him no more, sure that he would figure a good answer out, even if it wasn't close to the truth.

"Where were you!" Luffy yelled. "If you had been there earlier! Ace would've been alive!" He blamed her, and she didn't retaliate. It was her fault for not arriving earlier after all...

"Now now Luffy-kun. She was the one who freed your brother, defeated two of the strongest men on this earth, and helped finish this war. How could you blame her?" She sent a glare to the dark king, but turned back to Luffy, who's sobs calmed down in her embrace.

"Sorry Natsu-nee..."

"Luffy, how could I blame you for hating me? I would hate me too, considering how I could've arrived so much earlier..."

"Why did it take you so much time?" Luffy rubbed his eyes, and they lit up when he saw Ace's hat on her back, and his belt around her waist.

"I'll tell you later. Do you mind me taking Ace's things? Do you want it too?"

"Nah, it suits you. Besides, I already have my hat!" Luffy beamed at her, and Natsuki wiped away another tear.

"Thank you Luffy... Have you made the decision for what Rayleigh suggested?"

"Yeah. Can you take me there?"

"Of course. Rayleigh-san. Are you coming?"

"Coming where?"

"To cause havoc at Marineford of course."

"Oh, so you've decided I see, but it'll take a few day's preparing. We need to get a ship, to get there, we need a code that your crew can understand..."

"Leave those two to me. Luffy, you were meeting in three days yes?"

"Yup!"

"But you want to meet up in two years instead?"

"Yeah!"

"Then why not copy Ace a bit? Remember his tattoo?"

"The one for Sabo?"

"That one. What if we write 3D, for three days, then strike through it, then put 2Y for two years, beneath it. Then it'll look a bit like you're copying Ace anyway."

"Ooh! That's a good idea!" Natsuki got out a calligraphy brush and black ink seemingly out of nowhere, and used it to write, 3D2Y on his left arm. It instantly dried, and as it was a sealing brush; it didn't rub off or smear either.

"Where on earth..?" Rayleigh was utterly confused. He was one of the smartest people around, with age teaching him myriads of things only philosophy could answer, but this girl. No answer could match the questions this girl seemed to be made of.

"So, are you coming?"

"How do you plan we go? We need a ship, which passes the calm belt."

"If you want a ship I've got one, but first let me get my crew." Natsuki disappeared, and Rayleigh's face made Luffy laugh.

A few minutes later, out of nowhere, six people materialised.

"So you want to do that, or shall I go get my ship as well?"

They chose to go on a ship after all.

On the Kaizoku-gunkan, the eight people rode to Marineford, and the remaining troops there tried to capture them, but the faces present were enough to scare them away.

Luffy ran at the Ox bell, jumped onto it's pedestal and rang the bell sixteen times.

The news reporters took as many photos as possible, already thinking up possible headlines, but what sent them into a frenzy was when Luffy threw in a bouquet of flowers into the massive crack Whitebeard made before his death and bowed in respect as he took off his hat.

The newspapers only talked about that event for the next few days, and Natsuki personally made sure that Luffy's crew understood and deciphered Luffy's code. Zoro worried her slightly, but he managed it in the end.

"So, are you ready for training Luffy-kun?" Rayleigh asked him.

"Yeah!"

"About that Rayleigh-san. May I ask for you to train us as well? Of course, if you can't I would understand, and I may be extremely selfish, but..."

"I can train you, but with a price."

"I hope you aren't an expensive man Mr Rayleigh."

"Please, call me Rayleigh. My price is answers to my question. Your crew's powers can be answered, but yours? Full of mysteries that I still cannot answer. To answer all my questions truthfully, that is my price."

"...hmm. I understand. What would you like to know?"

Their training began, and Natsuki used a kagebunshin to send her father a message that she had begun training again, and received a reply as proof for her story to Rayleigh.

For two years the seasons and Luffy trained. Haruki, Uki and Kanki improved their haki control, and they each grew stronger. Strong enough that even Haruki, the supposed weakest of the seasons, could hold his own for thirty minutes battling against Rayleigh.

~o0o~

Two years later, Natsuki met Hancock for the first time. I must say, the amount of people who were surprised has never gone higher than that day.

"Who are these women!" Hancock ordered, pointing at Uki, Aki and Natsuki rudely.

"How rude of you. 'These women' are rather insulted right now." Uki joked, her sixteen year old self laughing at the faces the women in armour made.

"What's with this girl! How dare she speak to the Snake Princess that way!"

"Just because she's a princess she gets to speak the way she does? How is she any different from everyone else?" Haruki asked, surprising the women, who were used to the men falling in love with Hancock within a second.

"That is because I am beautiful!" Hancock replied, looking down on them from the highest position, making them all sweat drop.

"How dull." Fuyuki commented, turning back to Natsuki, whom he was talking to for the past few minutes.

"What did you just say, man?" She asked sceptically.

"What this man just said was, how dull you truly are, Snake Princess. What you're doing is no different to the Celestial Dragons." She shivered when she heard the name leave Winter's mouth.

"Don't you dare compare those demons to our sister!" Marigold yelled, trying to stab him with her massive guandao. She hit the ground beneath him as he simply floated up, his training resulting in him flying without the need of a small snow cloud beneath him.

"Now, now. Calm down. It's the first day of Luffy's freedom from training. Do we need to cause such a ruckus?" Natsuki asked, but things didn't settle for a while because of a single comment Sandersonia made.

"How come you get a say in this? You look so weak compared to the others." Immediately five seasons were at her face.

There was a hand in front of her face, the hand of a man with an eyepatch, then there was another hand of a girl with long brown hair on the ground, the earth trembling as something tried to rise up against nature's will. There was a shard of ice and a droplet of water aimed at her head, and a younger boy had his gun aimed at her heart.

"It's alright! She's fine! Right Natsu?" Luffy tried, getting nowhere.

"Why do you defend her, dear husband!" Hancock shouted, momentarily forgetting her embarrassment with rage.

"Woah woah woah. First, Fuyu that was mean. You know the whole deal with the empress."

"She's just so arrogant..."

"Some people just don't bend the right way, and there's nothing you can do about it. Secondly, what's with all the overprotectiveness!? Kan! Don't kill her! Same goes for the rest of you youngsters."

"But she called you weak..." They all complained, but a single look from her shut them up, and Haruki put his gun back in its holster. Aki withdrew her hands from the ground, Uki's water dissipated, and Kanki put his gloves back on. Fuyuki had already made his icicle disappear, but another warning look from Natsuki made him drop to the ground.

"And thirdly! What's with Luffy being your husband miss Empress!?" Natsuki asked, jumping right in front of Boa Hancock, the most beautiful woman alive, with millions of men to her mercy. The only woman of the shichibukai, and Empress of Amazon Lily.

"O-oh, did I really say that? Wait! How dare you order me around!" She stomped, pointing her finger straight at Natsuki's face.

"Why can't I? The only difference between us is the fact that you're an Empress of an island, and that you're one of the shichibukai, but aside from that, we're both women, who've had awful pasts, so can you get it past your ego to actually talk like a civilised person?" Natsuki lectured the woman seven years older than her.

"Who are you to have this confidence! Against me! The most beautiful woman on this earth!"

"I'm your beloved Luffy's older sister, and so far you haven't made a very good impression." Natsuki tutted, as all blood left Hancock's face.

Ignoring her precious apologies, Natsuki just smiled at the women of Amazon Lily behind their empress, who had already begun spreading the rumours of their leader apologising. She never does that!

"Who are you really? You must be some sort of pirate to be the older sister of both Fire Fist and Luffy."

"I don't have to be a pirate to be the older sister of the little rascals, but I am one, yes."

"Who are you? We don't have much contact with the outside world."

"Hm? I'm the Striking Vixen. Fail to recognise?" Natsuki smirked at the flabbergasted warriors. They all stood there; shell shocked at the revelation.

Luffy, a funny, stupid sort of man that they all loved, had an older brother who was the son of a demon, and now an older sister, who had recently been revealed to be the daughter of one of the four emperors. That made her the princess of the sea!

"Y-you're the Striking Vixen? Akagami D. Natsuki? Captain of the seasonal pirates?" Hancock asked once she was finished with her speech of apologies.

"That's me!" the 24-year-old captain said, pointing at herself with fake excitement, jokingly acting as a toddler.

"Then you're the next emperor!?" an old lady asked, jumping into the scene from the side.

"What are you talking about Elder Nyon?"

"Yesterday, there was an announcement. The Marines have decided who will be the fourth emperor in Whitebeard's place. Striking Vixen, captain of the seasonal pirates, you are now one of the four Emperors' the Empress of the oceans!" Natsuki turned serious, and disappeared. She came back, appearing next to Fuyuki, a newspaper in hand.

She glared at the paper angrily.

"What's wrong Natsu? Wasn't it your dream to become an Empress?"

"Yeah! But what do I do now? My dream has been granted..."

"You could always go back to your world..." Luffy mumbled, and their eyes lit up.

"That's true! But we need to be careful with the time difference." Uki said, her eyes sparkling with the thought.

"So is it decided? Are we going to the elemental nations?" Kanki asked, yawning at the thought.

"Why not? I mean, our dreams have basically been granted, other than Haru's but his is slightly odd." Aki joked.

"I am so hurt." Haruki said, fanning his face as if he was going to faint.

"Then I guess we're going." Fuyuki said with finality.

"Luffy, good luck with finding your crew! Also, I've modified your seal so that it would alert me whenever your blood levels have decreased beneath a certain point, so don't die on me okay? I'll be otherwise gone for a few years, so see y'all later!!" Natsuki grinned, and the seasons disappeared like a storm which just passed.

They reappeared on their ship, with a hundred guns pointed at their heads.

"Welp, looks like our trip will be delayed slightly seasons!" Natsuki said, her glare on a man standing behind the gunners. A man with a red tattoo covering his left eye.

"Hello Natsuki, I'm sorry I've had to take you like this." He apologised.

"Well, I'm sorry too Dragon, that I have to do this."