Author's Story Notes and Q &A

So you've got to be wondering what I'm doing now. Isn't this story over? Shouldn't I be working on my other stories? Well you're right, but I felt that I had to do one last addition. This isn't going to be more story, but rather an explanation of the writing process, as well as answering your questions. So let's get to it.

Why I Wrote The Crossover:

The big reason to why I wrote this crossover, and this is a question that you all have been asking from the get-go, is twofold. The first reason is that One Piece and Naruto have been pitted against one another for years. I used to think it was due to the internet's fascination with Pirates vs Ninjas, but the real reason is that One Piece was and still is the number one running Manga, and American Naruto fans refused to accept this to the point of claiming naruto was number one and ranking it as such with One Piece either second or third on most Manga sites without allowing readers to vote. Because of this, most naruto crossovers with One Piece were bias towards naruto to the point of nausea; and not only crossovers with One Piece, but with any series. Naruto and his co-stars are always depicted as gods where they're smarter and stronger than whoever else they're sharing the screen with. It's embarrassing and repetitive so I felt I needed to throw my hat in the ring and it paid off with so many people praising me for breaking the cycle.

The second reason is that I have never read a crossover that felt like it worked. Regardless of the players involved, it used the Marvel/DC gimmick that all series are in the same world and just by turning a corner they would run into one another. How hard is it just to write that there was a wormhole or something? I know it's lazy, but I personally feel that using Marvel and DC's gambit is even lazier. Furthermore, I never liked that both parties got along so well. It's not that I don't want to see them interact positively, I just want some conflict but in a believable way. For One Piece and naruto, they are parallel opposites and I don't think you could get away with them not fighting; unless you aren't familiar with both series.

Changes:

In regards to the writing process, a lot of changes were made that I felt were needed. Whilst writing chapter 7 in note form, I stopped a paragraph in as I had an epiphany. I don't know what caused it, but how I envisioned the story developing and how it would end changed greatly. This doesn't mean that everything was changed but I felt there needed to be something more. I'm embarrassed to admit that after changing direction and focusing so much onto it, I don't remember what I originally planned. But from what I can remember, I wanted things to be darker and make the Ninjas realize sooner that everything was a misunderstanding but are powerless to stop what's going on due to the momentum of battle.

I also made changes to the couples I had originally planned. While LuNa was always going to happen, I had originally planned to have Luffy fly in to save her and shout "Let go of my Nami!" playing off the possibility of him planning on saying "Let go of my navigator!" but letting slip he had deeper feelings for her. They would later hug it out and kiss making them a couple. While writing it, I felt that this would no longer work as it no longer came across as believable, and it just didn't fit in with the new direction the story took.

Another couple that I had originally planned to develope in the story was SaRo (SanjixRobin). The problem here quite obviously is that there was no time to build up their pairing realistically. I paired each Straw Hat with each ninja for a reason and only half way through did I realize that SaRo had no chance in this story. As I think about it, I don't even think that paring works anymore. Maybe one day Sanji will find his own Tashigi. No not Kalifa -_-

But the biggest change however is the ending. I had originally planned that both Tsunade and Kurama to beg the help of the Straw Hats to defeat Akatsuki as the crew have always helped those in need; either willingly or because they've been thrown into it. I originally thought that this would be the most natural thing to do and honestly I still feel that way, but I decided to scrap it for two reasons. Firstly, because I didn't want to drag the story on, and secondly, because there are enough silver spoons in the naruto world and the cutlery drawer is full.

Oh and one more thing, (love you, Uncle Chan!) I stopped calling the naruto characters Shinobi around halfway through the story, and instead called them ninjas. No one noticed this but there is a good reason for it. Naruto characters resemble more like the American misinterpretation of Shinobi called Ninjas so I felt it was better to call them that.

Flaming the Fights:

A lot of you asked me a great deal of questions regarding the story; most however in a negative way. Many naruto fans who I will unapologetically call Narutards, did nothing but insult me and my work, claiming that I had no idea what I was talking about and that I was a One Piece fanboy under-powering the ninjas. A few even said that they were tired of seeing the naruto characters being underpowered in crossovers. As I said before, I and many others had experienced the exact opposite so these narutards are just butt hurt.

While I did explain things in full throughout the story, I guess I have to explain it again as well as the writing process in regards to the fights. First off, the naruto characters got steamrolled due to how alien the Straw Hats were. Their abilities are not of the three fundamentals of ninja (Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and Taijutsu) so they have no way of countering them; simple as that. Secondly, I did not under power the ninjas; their creator Masashi did that. It's kinda of hard to set up fights between the ninjas and the pirates when the ninjas have had almost no screen time and have only a few attacks. I'm not even kidding. Let's take the Sanji-Gai fight. I spent hours trying to find a list of Gai's techniques and could only find the Chakra gates and a couple other attacks (Dynamic Entry, Dynamic Action, and Daytime Tiger). If we compare Sanji's Black Leg Style which has 48 base techniques plus all the Daible Jambe versions and not including the Team Combination attacks and new attacks from the time skip, you can see why the Straw Hats are stronger.

Fighting game characters have more techniques than the naruto characters. Ken Masters from Street Fighter has over a dozen techniques. Naruto has 4. Don't blame me for not having much to work with here. Masashi is the one who didn't want to follow the Shonen model and take time to give his characters their own training arcs to power up. And speaking of which, a lot of you did not notice at all the point in the timeline this crossover took place. This is BEFORE Masashi decided to turn naruto into jesus and gave him a bunch of abilities because, as I said, he never gave his characters actual training arcs and threw them into a world war. Good job.

Now the big issue that the narutards had with the fights was the absence of Genjutsu, the Sharingan and similar techniques; some of which that have not yet happened in the timeline. Here is the problem. All genjutsu are, and I am quoting the wiki here, "created when a ninja controls the chakra flow of a target's cerebral nervous system, thereby affecting their five senses". That's all fine and good, until you come to reality that 99% of all Manga characters do not use chakra nor do they have chakra networks, and the 1% that do are not using the UNIQUE AND ARTIFICIALLY MADE chakra which was made canon in the Naruto lore. So again, don't get mad at me for actually following canon in fanfiction. Yes I know that makes no sense to most people on this site but I have aspirations of being a writer one day and I have a background in history; so old habits die hard.

Furthermore, this is also why Usopp was able to withstand Neji's Jukenho: Hakke Sanjoni Sho. Jouken is all about striking chakra points and injecting chakra into those points to shut them down. Doesn't work so well when your opponent doesn't have that network. To compensate however, I decided to refer to Juken's origin, Baguazhang (a form of Chinese Kempo) and Neijing's Dim Mak (Touch of Death). This way Usopp would still receive damage, but not as severely as if he were an average ninja.

Some of you asked why hadn't characters like Kakashi used more of their arsenal that could have done significant damage to the Straw Hats. While I still stand firmly that the naruto characters' training and abilities would not have allowed them to do significant damage, I made it clear that the ninjas had realized early on that the Mugiwara had fought in self-defense and that the whole ordeal was a misunderstanding. Because of this and their ability to defeat "powerful" ninjas like Sasuke and only giving the Konoha 11 minor injuries where as ninjas would have killed them, the ninjas just didn't want to kill them. Regardless of what techniques were used or what could have been used, the end result would have been the same because of the weakness of the naruto world, the strengths of the One Piece world, and all the strings that are attached. I can't believe that these ninja can open portals to other dimensions when they are so weak and the energy they use (chakra) is so feeble.

I write fanfics to make them as believable as possible. If I can't believe that canon, then I shall not use it.

And just to be clear, when I said that the Mugiwara were not using Taijutsu, they were not using what the ninja interpret as hand to hand combat. While such techniques exist, as well as using weapons, there are never any defined disciplines (minus Goken and Juken but even in the naruto world those are obscure). Karate, Jujitsu, Sumo, Judo, Taekwondo, Muay Thai, Gong Fu (Wushu), Capoeria, Aikido, Kenjutsu, Bojutsu, Kyujutsu, Kempo, Sojutsu; all of these and more never appear in the Naruto world. You'll see movie references to martial arts but never anything based in reality; even Rock Lee's Zui Quan (Drunken Fist), which IS a legitimate martial art, can be excluded as it never makes an appearance in the series other than its first appearance in the Lee-Kimimaro fight, and in filler anime episodes.

What makes this so hilarious is that Masashi fucked himself by labeling his spell casting art as Ninjutsu, when real Ninjutsu is a discipline made up of 18 skills rather than 3, which are made up of tactics and martial arts revolving around stealth and guerilla warfare. This means that the ANBU are the closest to what Shinobi are in real life.

And that is what so many of you did not understand. The Straw Hats have gone through so much throughout their lives, that in comparison to the ninjas, it's as Zoro said: frogs stuck in a well. To go over 27 arcs would be insanity, so unless you've read or watched the series, you're out of luck. What I can tell you are a few examples of the power of love and will in the One Piece series. Zoro fighting Arlong and Hachi whilst still bleeding from his massive wound from the fight against Mihawk, Luffy carrying both Nami and Sanji up a three mile tall mountain during a blizzard in -30 degree and bellow weather with his bare hands and feet, as well as the entire crew staying alive and fighting after being impaled, slashed, broken bones, litters of blood bled, dehydration, starvation, sleep deprivation, torture, heart ache, depression, betrayal, fear, and anguish.

Ya I know I'm not doing this justice but you really need to see it for yourself to understand. And honestly, if you haven't read of watched One Piece at this point in the game...the fuck is wrong with you?

Lastly, there were comments made about Kurama and how he was portrayed as weak. Once again, this is the fault of Masahi. From the beginning of the Manga, Kurama and the other Bijuu are said to be so incredibly powerful that humans had no chance to defeat them so they resulted to seals that would cost them so many lives and over time would fail. The Kyuubi was especially powerful, where one swing of only one of his nine tails was enough to level a mountain. Thrilling stuff, but means nothing when you reveal that every demon lord, along with the most powerful of them all, were nothing more than Pokémon being traded to a new jinchuriki generation after generation.

This I could not stomach. I wanted to give all the demons, Kurama especially, the respect, horror, and power they deserved. Granted, I had to follow the original lore that the demons were "powerless" due to the seals but still play it that they were more cunning than the humans realized.

Bashing the Naruto Series:

I feel I need to address the most common comment that's been made about me and this crossover: "This fic is just bashing naruto." It's no secret that I absolutely loath the naruto series and One Piece is my all time favourite. The issue here is that I wanted all the faults of the naruto series to be looked upon and called out without sugar-coating them. One Piece and the Mugiwara Kaizoku-dan are the perfect tools for doing so as their ideals as well as their experiences are the exact opposites of those of naruto and the ninja world. This is why I used so many quotes from the One Piece series to convey both the thought process of the characters and the emotions they felt. It really bothers me that only a few see it the way I do. But then again, with each chapter I post, around a thousand read it and I only get a few review so who knows what the majority of you are thinking.

Speaking of which, if there was one thing I hated about this crossover, is the lack of acknowledgement of all the Easter eggs and secrets I put into it. I am a stickler for detail and secret mysteries so I took the time to put a lot of them in, whether they be small comments or full blown conversations. I am by no means insulting my readers, but it just bugs me as I normally have nitpickers who see everything I put in and comment on it; for better or for worse.

It feels as if I'm missing a few things but given just how many dumb questions I was asked by narutards, I don't want to end up writing a collegiate level response to every one of said questions; which I have inevitable done so I'll end it here. To those of you who have read and thoroughly enjoyed my story I thank you from the bottom of my heart. To all who hated it, I also thank you, as you have proven how ridiculous both the series and the fan base truly are.

Stay tuned as chapter 18 of "The Soul of the Fox and the Eagle" is currently being working on and hopefully will be out in a few weeks, at the very most. Please follow me on facebook (Dragon of the Eastblue) and twitter (DragonofEastblu) to be kept up to date with what I am doing.

Cheers and have a wonderful Vetrnætr (Vetrablot/Winter Nights), Samhain, Beltane Eve, Álfablót, Haustblót, and Halloween. May the Elves and the Gods of the Harvest be with you.

P.S. This is my final word on the matter. So if you don't like it, fuck off :)

P.P.S There will not be a sequel. Was never in the cards and never will be. Sorry :/