I don't own the Amazing One Piece.

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Tashigi's Heart: The Bounty hunters

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I rushed back to the marine base. My legs taking me as fast as they could go. I surprisingly didn't feel the least bit tired running up that hill. It was as if a new reserve of strength and energy that had been bottled up inside of me had made its way into my veins. Since I saw that swordsman challenge a cursed sword to a game of luck and chance, I was seeing things a little bit differently. What was a curse anyway? Didn't it really just depend on the person's perception of what he or she thought it was. Maybe, if it did exist, all that was needed to overcome the curse was a stronger will, and not necessarily a stronger body or skill. I don't know if I'd ever see him again, but a part of me wants to. A man like that, even with the skills he has now, well I can't imagine what he will be like in the future. He is amazing. There is no other way to describe what he did.

I charged into the Marine base and ran through the corridors. I was ready to go and do something about this wayward Bounty Hunter, but I was stopped by one of the Corporals.

"What is it?" I demanded, I was in a hurry I needed to find Captain Smoker.

"Have you seen the new Wanted Poster?" he lifted up a pile of wanted posters and started to rummage through them. "This Pirate now has the biggest Bounty for a rookie that I have ever seen, and what's more incredible than the money is his face." He shook his head and looked up at me and said, "You would have no idea that he has such a reputation at his age." He found the one he was looking for and handed it over to me.

The Pirate that was on the page looked like a child, or maybe a teenager, no he was probably in his late teens, but I still couldn't hide my shock. What was a youngster like this one doing with such an enormous bounty on his head. I reached for the report card attached to the top of the poster and started to read the details and sightings of this pirate.

"Sergeant Major?"

"Yes." I muttered back to him, I was busy reading couldn't he see that.

"We would like you to speak to the Captain about this. We have tried getting him to read the report, but he keeps on saying that he's busy and he threatened to fire the next person who came in to speak to him about it, because we were disturbing his pacing, rhythm, and … well whatever." He nervously started shifting his feet around. "He tends to listen to you more than the rest of us."

That was it! I grabbed the documents and the wanted poster and marched straight for his office. Smoker was ignoring my calls, and he was ignoring the men. He needed to stop acting like a dragon smoking in his den, and scaring people away by breathing fire and smoke in their faces, and come out and do his job. I found Him in his office, slouching back on his chair pretending he hadn't a care in the world.

"Captain Smoker!" I marched forward to his desk, slammed my hands down onto it and leaned forward. There was no other way to get this man's attention other than show to him you mean business.

"Is that man Luffy, really still on this Island?" No answer..

"If you don't chase him down quickly, he'll..."

"There is no need."

"But that's so..." I was just about to get started and give him a piece of my mind when a loud crash could be heard from outside the room and some of the guards could be heard scuffling, and shouting.

"No! No! You can't!" Guards yelled out.

"No! Don't go any further! This is the Marine Captain's room!"

The door sung open on its old squeaky hinges to reveal a giant of a man standing in the door. If his size wasn't impressive enough for a critic, the fact that he seamed to be walking effortlessly with three men draped over his shoulders should have stunned and scared anyone. The marines behind him looked very sheepish, having let such a wild man into their captain's room. But one glance at Smoker and you'd think he had just seen the paper boy turn up with junk mail. He hadn't even put his paper down.

"Yo, Smoker." At the sound of his voice the paper dropped a little to allow the captain to look over edge and glimpse the intruder.

"Oh, it's you Daddy." The captain muttered through his cigar. Its a miracle he's in such good condition considering how many of those he went through in a day. I really don't understand Smoker's love the foul smelling things. Wait a minute he said Daddy? What a ridicules name?

"Highwayman Pete, and the Taxation Fraud Raido Brothers." 'Daddy' continued, dropping the unconscious men or maybe dead men onto the floor in front of Smoker's Desk.

"All three of 'em Bounties?" Captain Smoker didn't sound convinced as he looked over his dusty boots to view the floor. Why was his boots on the desk top. Didn't he know how much he was wrecking the wood by doing that.

"There's another one of them at the Morgue." Daddy reached for something in his cloak and pulled out the Bounties Documents and handed it over to the Captain. "I need your signature to get my Bounty."

"Four of them worth, 1,000,000 berries. What Idiots..." Smoker was probably talking about the people who would be paying the bounty.

"This city has many bounties that come through from the Grand Line. For Hard workers, it's better off to target miserable riff- raff rather than the big fish." The Tall man droned on.

"Once the Marine's most Genius Sniper, now bullying little weaklings. You're a strange one." Smoker replied signing where he needed to on the sheet of paper, and handing it back to the giant.

"I just don't want to risk my life anymore."

"If you died, your daughter would have nowhere to turn to, eh?" the captain put his hand on his newspaper again ready to pick up where he left off, and then called after him. "Tell Carol I said Hi."

"Sure, I'll tell her Uncle Smoky said hi." He raised his left hand in a mock farewell salute and strode down the hallway as if he owned it.

He left without giving a single glance to me. It was as if I didn't exist like I was invisible. That is just another reason why I try so hard to improve my skills. I want to be acknowledged and seen. What was it with talented men and their attitudes. Guhh! But I had to admit he did a good job.

"Bounty Hunter Daddy Masterson, right?"

"Yeah, he was once my equal. He was one of the Marine Elite responsible for the security of Marine Headquarters."

"But why is such a person...?" I began thinking out loud.

"That's none of your business Sergeant." He gave me one of his favourite glares and went back to pick up his newspaper, "Stop being such an interfering busy body. No one likes having one of those buzzing around you all day."

That was the last Straw! "Now listen here!" I snatched the paper from his hands and held it behind my back, "I know, I might have been out of place for asking after a once superior officer, and I apologize, but that does not give you leave to ignore me. I always try to show everyone respect and that includes the men who serve under us. I was just told that a Pirate with a 30,000,000 bounty was in town and rushed over here to see what sort of strategies you have got planned to take him in and I find you're here smoking and pretending that you couldn't care less."

"Well if you hadn't been out, shopping and stopping every time you see something old and valuable to admire it, you might have been here when I was looking for him."

"So did you find him?" I questioned.

"Yeah."

"Well, where is he?"

"He catapulted himself somewhere on the other side of town." he mumbled and reached for his newspaper. I moved it further away from him.

Catapulted? How on earth did the kid manage that?

"And what has been done to find him?" I can't believe this, how could a captain act so irresponsibly.

"Nothing," Smoker leaned back into his chair and took in a deep breath of smoke and breathed it out again, clogging up the air with it's poison. You might want to get rid of me but I won't be scared away that easily.

"Well?"

"He'll be back soon. I'm sure of it. He'll be here in this area of town in about three hours I think give or take a few,." Why was he so laid back? "He wants to climb the execution platform."

"What! Why would he do that?"

"To see where the King of the Pirates died, apparently." He jutted out his jaw bone and moved his cigars about in his mouth, "Now, move off my desk your making a mess of it, and give me back my paper." Me? making a mess of this dirty den? He had to be kidding there was hardly anything left to make a mess of. "You got what you came for, answers, now stop cramping my space and walk, hop, or fall out." he ordered.

"No, I haven't got what I came here for Captain. I came here to organized my men to actively take part in a dangerous capture of a pirate who has taken down and destroyed a fishman and his gang of pirates who had been terrorising an island settlement and bribing a local Marine officer. This Fishman called Arlong created Arlong Park from the residents money and was a tyrant who let no one off the island for 10 years!" I hope that got his attention. Good, "and this kid pirate also killed the famous Don Crieg, the Pirate who crossed into the Grand Line a little while ago, and then destroyed his ship." I looked at him straight in his eyes. "Now, please tell me what could be more important than doing our job right now and organizing the men."

He groaned, as he took his feet off the desktop and swung them down to the floor.

"And this young man is not the only thing we need to look out for," I told him as we started to make our way down the halls, "The pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro, who attacked two marines inside the barracks earlier today, has apparently joined up with Strawhats' crew."

I lifted my glasses up and off my face, quickly rubbed them in my shirt, and put them back on. I looked up at him and he grinned "It seems to have just gotten more interesting."

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We were walking beneath yet another archway. Where were we going?

Smoker asked of the man, "And then what?"

"Well sir, It isn't just Straw-hat Luffy," He sounded a bit out of breath as if he had been running about quite a bit, "but also Buggy the Clown and Iron club Alphida. There all there wanted pirates from the East Blue! They've taken over the town square." The Captain stopped his striding for a bit.

"They dare to do this all right in front of me." He gave a scowl that would make you think he had just been offered entrails for dessert, "Why those arrogant scum-bags."

"Captain Smoker! Sir! What are your orders!"

"Send unit number one out to the scene, and have unit number two surround the pirates from the streets. The rest will stand within shooting range of the square. See that it gets done."

"Sir!"

"And give this order to unit One. They are to crush any pirates as soon as they see them. I don't want a single pirate to get off this Island not a single one."

I shuddered at the thought of being on the receiving end of the full brunt of my Captain's anger. He was a good man, also hard to get motivated sometimes, but when he got going nothing stopped him. And he had a record to uphold. No one pirate ever escaped his island.

We're coming for you pirates.

We're coming to show you the meaning of justice.

You won't be able to terrorize this town.

I'm coming for you Roronoa Zoro. Besides this pirate hunter can't be anything like the man I saw today, after seeing him I had no doubt in my mind that he would have been able to defeat this pirate hunter. Shame I didn't get his name.

I will defeat you Pirate turn coat. He was not only a dishonourable swordsman by earning a living through hunting down any person for cash, but now he had become the thing he not only, 4 months ago, had hunted and killed.

I will defeat you, I'm coming. Roronoa Zoro.

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Please tell me what you think of the story so far. Obviously only parts of it are mine, since I'm rewriting the parts where Tashigi is involved. Let me know what you think I need to work on as a writer, and what you think I'm good at. Criticism is welcome. As long as you actually like the coupling of Tashigi and Zoro, if you don't then don't read this story. Plain and simple. I love hearing from people so please drop me a message. :D