Chapter 38

The 30,000,000 Beri Man

"Raise your prices again and I'll stop paying!" Nami threatened, glaring at the delivery bird as she paid it with no small amount of reluctance.

"Nami! Stop terrifying the poor bird!" Kim called, tangling a hand in Usopp's thick hair and giving it a vicious yank. The sniper retaliated by biting her shoulder. Kim shrieked and threw him over her bitten shoulder with a grunt and a great deal of effort. Not to be outdone, Usopp yanked her feet out from under her and sent the girl crashing to the deck. Kim rolled over on him.

Sanji watched them worriedly, making strangled noises in the back of his throat whenever Usopp managed to land a blow on Kim – which was more often than not seeing as he and Kim were evenly matched when it came to hand-to-hand combat.

"What's the big deal anyways?" Usopp panted, pinning Kim down, his knees on her arms. The Chronicler grunted into the deck, her face smashed into the wood. "It's just one paper."

"It's not 'just one paper'! I buy these every day!" Nami cried, throwing her arms up in frustration.

"Yeah, well, it's not like you don't have the money. You chose to buy the paper so technically you're spending it on yourself. If you want to keep up with the current events then that's your choice and your money to spend. Don't complain about the price if you don't want the paper." Kim said reasonably, wiggling out from beneath Usopp and dragging him into a tight headlock, one hand pulling on his nose. The sniper pounded the deck in surrender. "Aha! I win! Now pay up, loser!"

Usopp swore loudly and slapped a wad of cash into her hand, rubbing at his aching nose. Kim rolled up into a sitting position, counting her money and humming with satisfaction before hopping to her feet. Her body ached slightly, her ribs, hand, and neck still sore from her brief fight with Arlong, but it wasn't as bad as it should have been. Sure, there were still several nasty bruises littering her body, and her throat still ached if anything so much as brushed against it, but she was healing extremely quickly – much too quickly for any normal person. The Doctor at Cocoyashi Village proclaimed her ribs and hand healed by their last day on the island and she hadn't even gone hoarse from the damage to her vocal chords as she should have. Kim was reminded of how she'd healed quickly from her gunshot wound and she found herself wondering if her advanced healing had anything to do with the golden light that had burst from her back at the Park or if it was related to her 'dying' at the hands of Akane. The brunette's hand went to the pocket where her iPod was and she briefly considered contacting him with her questions before deciding against it. She'd figure this one out on her own without any help from him. Her face darkened and she looked out over the sea with a brooding expression.

"Kimi-chwan! Are you alright?" Sanji asked in concern, kicking Luffy in the head as the rubberman attempted to sneak a tangerine from the grove.

Kim froze, fingers clenching compulsively around her money. "Don't call me that." she said shortly, her tone clipped. "You can call me Kim or Kimiya or Leonore or even Leo all you want. Just... don't call me Kimi or Kimmy, alright?"

"Of course," Sanji said a bit uncertainly, looking at Kim with wide, confused eyes. "Whatever you want." His foot shot out again, sending Luffy flying into the Merry-go's railing.

Kim offered the cook a fleeting smile before throwing herself onto her lawn chair, tucking her money into the pocket that wasn't within Nami's reach. She loved the navigator dearly, but she didn't trust her to leave her money alone.

"I only want one tangerine!" Luffy pouted as he sat atop the railing. Kim and Usopp eyed him warily, ready to jump into action should he lose his balance and tumble overboard.

"No." Sanji said with the air of a person who'd repeated himself over and over again, gritting his teeth in annoyance.

"You're so mean!" the rubberman grumbled, sticking out his tongue in a display of immaturity.

"Luffy," Kim said sharply, her tone warning him not to go any further with his complaining. "Don't be such a brat. I'm sure that, if you asked nicely and stopped harassing him, Sanji would be more than willing to make you a snack. Besides, you've been demanding instead of asking. They're Nami's trees and you haven't even asked her if you could have one yet. Use your words and I'm sure you'll get farther than a kick to the head and a repeated no." She fixed Luffy with a stern look, making him wince and offer a mumbled apology before he changed the subject, snatching up a flyer that fell out of Nami's newspaper.

A stunned silence fell over the crew as they caught a glimpse of the paper, almost everyone gaping at it, before a great deal of screaming permeated the air. Luffy's shrieks were full of laughter while Nami and Usopp's were horrified. Sanji leapt from the upper deck to land beside the other boys, peering over Usopp's shoulder curiously.

Zoro jerked awake, sending Jianyu tumbling out of his lap and onto the deck. "Wuz goin' on?!" His only remaining sword, the Wado Ichimonji, was unsheathed in less than a second. Jianyu snapped at his fingers in irritation before scrambling over to Kim for a cuddling.

The girl eyed her first mate with no small amount of amusement, the sight of his sleep-rumpled hair and bleary eyes making an oddly adorable sight.

"Nothing's wrong, Zoro." Kim chuckled, leaning back lazily in her chair. "It's just Luffy's first bounty."

"Erm, Kim? There's a bit more... you've got one too." Usopp said, watching her hesitantly for a reaction.

The brunette's smile became unnaturally fixed and she laughed tightly. "I'm sorry. I must be experiencing some sort of temporary insanity. I thought I just heard you say that I have a bounty. Which is silly, of course. I can't possibly have a bounty."

"You do. Apparently, punching a Marine captain in the face, stealing from a Marine base, becoming an interest in the eyes of a very ruthless pirate and managing to do some damage to Arlong garnered you enough attention in the eyes of the Marines in order to get you a bounty." Nami said, reading over the second Wanted Poster in her grasp.

Kim made a distressed noise in the back of her throat. "Never mind what I just said, then, Zoro. Everything is wrong right now! I'm too weak to have a bounty!" Her tone took on a hysterical edge as she snatched the flyer from Nami in order to see things for herself.

She did, indeed, have a bounty. Granted, it was an extremely small one – not even a third of Luffy's – of only 1,000,000 Beri, but just its existence was more than enough to freak Kim out.

"They don't think you're much of a threat, do they?" Luffy frowned, a bit offended that the world took his nakama's abilities so lightly. Kim was worth so much more than just a thousand Beri and in more ways than one.

"This isn't fair!" Sanji howled, stomping his feet a bit like a child throwing a tantrum would. "I want a bounty too!"

"Hey, look!" Usopp said excitedly, snatching Luffy's Wanted Poster from the cook so he could point out the back of his head in the bottom corner of the picture. "There I am!"

"What?!" Sanji demanded, wrestling the younger boy for the poster. Usopp squawked in protest and a fight between the two of them ensued.

Kim ignored them all in favor of gaping at her poster, her face staring back at her in a mixture of curiosity and amusement. She recognized the background as that from Shells City and was mildly surprised to find they'd taken a picture of her so far back and even more startled to remember taking that picture at the request of a townsperson wanting memorabilia of one of the heroes at the time. It seemed as if the Marines hadn't been able to find any other photo of her. She threw the poster away with a shudder, shoving her lawn chair up against Nami's so she could curl up in a ball with her head resting in the navigator's lap.

"Somebody please hold me." Kim moaned, burying her face in Nami's thigh while the red head stroked her hair soothingly, a worried expression on the elder girl's face.

Sanji and Luffy were more than happy to oblige with the brunette's request and together, they all crowded onto the lawn chairs in a pile of limbs so tightly wound together it was difficult to decide where one person started and the other ended.

"I can't deal with this shit," Kim sighed, head lolling back against Nami's stomach and her hand buried in Sanji's thick hair, absentmindedly massaging his scalp. The cook hummed lightly with pleasure.

Luffy laughed, reaching up to ruffle her hair, grinning manically. "Don't worry about it, Kim! I'm sure they'll raise it soon enough!"

Kim groaned in frustration.

"So, should I even be that worried about this? I mean, about the lesser bounty hunters at least? Since I'm such a little fish, the really good bounty hunters should ditch me in favor of Luffy and, likewise, the weaker ones should be too scared shitless of Luffy to bother one of his crewmates. Right?"

Zoro grunted, slapping a hand over Usopp's mouth to prevent him from (very reasonably) pointing out that Kim's capture would be an easy 1,000,000 Beri for anyone with the motivation to go after it – after all, it wasn't like she could defend herself very well. The crew could deal with that particular train of thought later. Like, when Kim was a little less hysterical. Or never. Zoro preferred the last option, to be perfectly honest. He'd rather she be comfortable in the mindset that no one was coming after her when there was a more appealing bounty glued to her hip.

Feeling a bit better about the situation, Kim trailed into the kitchen after Sanji, a slight smile tugging at her lips as she helped the blond with fixing lunch.

Zoro settled back into a relaxed stance, watching through the kitchen window as the brunette bustled around brightly, chatting lightly with Sanji. Satisfied that she was no longer on the precipice of a panic attack, the swordsman turned his attention on the crew's youngest boys. Their inflated egos were a bit worrisome and someone had to watch them, seeing as Nami most certainly wasn't up to it, the navigator too immersed in her newspaper to give a damn if Luffy drowned himself by accident. Which left Zoro in the role of babysitter.

For a while, all was well and nothing truly interesting happened apart from Luffy taking a brief tumble overboard. Zoro managed to catch him by the belt-loops though, so all Luffy suffered from was a slight rip in his pants that could easily be mended with a bit of assistance on Nami or Usopp's part (they'd learned the hard way not to ask Kim for help; the brunette was happy enough to clean up after everyone and even cook a bit sometimes, but she refused to do anything more domestic than that – and her refusal usually manifested itself very violently).

Then a brief bout of entertainment came in the form of a derelict Marine ship – a boat, really, if it could even be called that. It looked ready to sink at the slightest whisper of wind.

Zoro watched with mild interest as the younger boys bantered back and forth with the Marine from way back at the Baratie. Nami lowered her newspaper with a frown and watched with irritation as the Marines aimed a canon at the Merry-go. Zoro sighed (how troublesome!) and heaved himself to his feet, unsheathing the Wado as he approached the enemy vessel.

"Why don't you let me handle this one?" he asked, clapping a heavy hand down on Luffy's shoulder. The rubberman frowned but shrugged and moved away with little protest.

One sliced cannonball, an implosion caused by a cracked canon and an irate Sanji later, the Marines found themselves cowering in fear, the majority of them having leapt overboard in an attempt to escape the pirate crew.

"You've got a lotta balls, tough guy." Sanji said darkly, wielding a frying pan and wearing a pink apron with a cute little panda on it. "Attacking in the middle of lunch? Tch, I should just kill you now. Unless you've made a reservation, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave and never come back."

Fullbody leapt into the sea after the rest of his men, completely terrified of Sanji, and a moment later Kim shot out of the galley, flinging herself into Sanji's arms and squealing about how amazing he was. The chef preened under her praise and affection and reluctantly untangled her from his person so he could return to the kitchen. Zoro's eyes were narrowed at him in a death glare the entire time, the swordsman silently wishing that the blond would spontaneously burst into flames.

Completely oblivious to Zoro's blatant animosity toward her absolutely adorable chef or to Nami and Usopp's shared looks, Kim jumped on Zoro next, exclaiming how cool it was that he'd sliced a cannonball in half without breaking a sweat and what an awesome swordsman he was.

The green haired man allowed himself to relax a bit, rolling his eyes fondly at Kim before picking her up and carrying her over to his preferred napping-space. He made himself comfortable and settled Kim in his lap, smirking lazily as he listened to her ramble on.

After lunch, the crew gathered on deck, everyone crowded around one of Nami's maps.

Kim had to bite back a snort as she stretched lazily and listened to the banter around her. This was much too similar to circle time in primary school.

"I agree with Sanji," she chirped up a few minutes into the conversation. "There's no other way around it unless you wanna get friendly with some Sea Kings and sail across the Calm Belt. Reverse Mountain is the only way to go... and it really is dangerous. From what I can remember, the currents at the base of the mountain are seriously messed up, forcing the water to flow abnormally and up the mountain in a very narrow strip of water. Once you're actually there, the water's not all you've got to worry about, though you've got to realize, steering the ship is virtually impossible once you're caught in the current and you'd only end up breaking the rudder if you tried going against it. The walls of the mountain are also something to look out for. Crashing into those couldn't possibly end in a pleasant manner."

Everyone stared at Kim blankly for a moment.

"You've crossed this mountain before? That's a relief. At least we're not going in blind." Usopp sighed, sagging visibly in relief.

Kim shrugged, neither confirming nor denying the question. "I'm not exactly from East Blue, y'know?"

Everyone seemed to accept it for what it was before turning their attentions to Luffy's decision to stop and get more supplies (read: meat) before heading into the Grandline. The plan to stop at Logue Town was then made, the prospect of visiting Gol D. Roger's birthplace and grave too much for Luffy to even try and resist.

A/N: Woo, yay. Logue Town. Forgive me for my lack of enthusiasm. I've been rather moody and out of it for the past several days. I meant to get this chapter out ages ago but my mind and body have just kind of shut down. And I really didn't want to give Kim a bounty so early, but… it's like an unexpected pregnancy and now there's a baby bounty screaming its head off. Kim isn't very pleased with me or the world at the moment. Anyway, there's a picture of her in her bridesmaid attire on my Deviant Art page. Link's on my profile. Now I'm going to go sleep as it's nearly three am.

SBS!

Thanks for Favoriting and Alerting: ChocolateAddictionx, Aria868, bubblepunk12, Death's BlackOut, NikoArtagnan, InsaneNinja, yevg, Boredoom, Vongola Primo12, fudge2394, Bubbleloveworld, and Yonaka Takai.

.bookworm: Luffy getting married... an odd thought indeedXD I was trying to throw people off sorry. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

gamelover41592: She has powers, just not the knowledge on how to use them yet. I imagine she'll really start expirementing sometime in Part Two.

srooone: A very wonderful harem where shirts aren't allowed except on special occasions~ And Kim gets treated like a queen and gets all the cuddles she could ever hope for. UsoKim siblings all the way!

skipbeataddict: Probably sometime in Part Two. Or Logue Town. Responding to reviews is fun! It's a habit I picked up from my early days on the site from an author I really admired. I admit I can't remember who they are anymore but this response style really stuck with me:)

TDI-Ryro-Eclares: I love bubbles~ Unless they're around when I'm eating. Then I'm just paranoid. Thanks! (bubblebubble)

Skysword: Aha, I thought it was Prussia. I don't know much about Hetalia but I knew that much! As for Luffy... well, everyone pretty much writes themselves in this story. I just write down what they're doing at the moment. I'm sure he'll have his perverted, regular guy moments though. I think those are the most fun to write:D

angelrider13: THEY MAKE ME WANT THINGS TOO. Kim knows not of what she speaks. She is a delusional mortal in a world where the men (and women) are too damn beautiful.

Shiningheart of ThunderClan: Law is like, the prize of any harem. She'd totally pick up anyone she liked and stuff them in her harem. Law and Kidd would most certainly make the cut. She's a fangirl of both of them.

Galymed: Thanks! Luffy should know what a harem is - he has a bit of a large one himself! And Zoro should be concerned... and maybe a little afraid.

RainoftheDemon: Alright!

Nitishu: I'm glad they do! I love writing the lines for this sometimes~

Pizzafan123 (Guest): You're welcome! Glad you liked it!

Molly Grace 16: Tada! Bounty time! Quicker picker upper~ The StrawHats seem like the very definition of wedding crashers to me. Especially Sanji after Thriller Bark.

CatalinaVonFeuer: To the dentist with Luffy! Now that you mention it, I haven't seen that attack since Arlong Park either... Which is sad because it really is an amazing defense.

Strong World is actually one of my favorite One Piece Movies, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island aside. I'm pretty much in love with all the outfits from it and seeing the StrawHats dressed to the nines was like heaven to my eyes. Usopp's pinstripe suit makes my life. Kim has the world wrapped around her pinkie finger. I'm sure if she ever seriously tried to make a harem for herelf, she'd even try to convince Aokoji to join. Because he's my favorite Marine. Besides Koby. Kim is basically my polar opposite. She'd too loud and touchy-feely and I wouldn't even dream of doing half of the things she does (like willingly touch other people because the very idea of it freaks me out so bad I want to cry). And oh my god you just introduced me to a new love! I powered through Sakura in a day and left a bunch of happy gushing in the review box. So I thank you for that~

Firetrail: Soon. Very soon... maybe. Thanks!

10th Squad 3rd Seat: Lots and lots of fun~!

Cheiko Namikaze: Thanks! The wedding was just something that I threw in on a whim. It's just something extra to give more color to the chapter.

OrionRedde: Haha, I enjoy throwing people off:P Thanks!

KazeHavensTsubakis: Thanks! It was there to throw you off, don't worry! You didn't waste my time! You filled it with laughter!

The Liesmith: Mmmm, harems~ Ace shall be dragged into this as well. Perhaps he should prepare himself for the force that is Kimiya Leonore? Thanks!