One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.

-Chapter Ten-

"Nami, you really shouldn't be out of bed—you don't want Kureha to lengthen our stay here, do you?" I asked, lazily following behind the sick navigator as she explored the castle. Stopping every now and again to check out the surrounding rooms as if she was looking for something in particular.

"No, but do you think I would miss out on the chance to find any treasure kept here?" she asked me. "Besides, I'm wrapped in a blanket, aren't I? That should be enough to keep me warm from the cold" she grinned as she looked back at me while we were leaving one of the rooms. Though her grin was quick to fall the second she faced forward and came to halt upon seeing that our way was now blocked by a rather irritated Wapol.

'Shouldn't he still be outside fighting with Luffy?' I pondered, raising an eyebrow as I watched how Nami lean back towards me the second the king leaned towards her with a look of suspicion—eyes narrowed as they seemed to just examine her from head to toe.

"Exactly who are you and what are you doing in my castle?" he angrily seethed, seemingly not pleased to find a complete stranger in his home. Nami only gave a nervous laugh as she started to sprout some sort of believable lie as we slowly attempted to slip by him. It almost looked like he was going to believe her until he caught sight of me—you could almost hear the gears in his head start to turn as his brain eventually put two and two together before he finally shouted and gave chase. Nami was obviously confused by his sudden change in attitude as we quickly ran down the hall, taking sharp turns in an attempt to lose him before finally racing down the stairs towards the main entrance. My ears soon perked up to the sound of a loud grunt as I skidded to a halt and curiously looked back up the staircase only to choke on my laughter the second I saw that the king had gotten himself stuck in the stairway passage due to his immense size.

"Looks like we lost him" Nami panted when we finally reached the main entrance of the castle and she saw that the king was nowhere to be seen.

"Yeah, looks like we did" I laughed, the sight I had seen still burned into my memory. I ignored the questioning look she gave me as she raised an eyebrow but didn't seem to want to question me as she instead started walking towards the opened front doors. I calmed myself first before following, flinching when she was suddenly tackled onto the floor as a now very thinned down Wapol pinned her to the ground while he viciously snapped his jaws at her like that of a hungry shark. "What the hell!? How did you become so skinny so fast!?" I shouted as Nami began to scream in fear.

Quickly did I start to frantically hit the man's back and try to pry him off her—now wishing I had my swords with me as my shoulders decided to protest at the thought of moving a full-grown man off of someone. Though I soon stopped what I was trying to do the moment I caught sight of Luffy rushing towards us from the corner of my eye. Just the sight of him was enough to cause me to take a step back and watch as he kicked the man right off Nami, allowing me to be the one to help her up off the ground.

"Hey, that's funny, wasn't that guy a big fatso before?" Luffy asked with the tilt of his head once he saw how slim Wapol now was. I silently watched as Nami quietly stalked towards the captain and instead of giving him a small "thank you" or any other kind gesture that showed she was thankful to him for saving her. She instead harshly hit him on the back of the head.

"Mind telling me why the coat I lent you is all torn up before I murder you?" she gave a strained smile as she now patted Luffy's shoulder while I raised an eyebrow. Wincing at the dark aura that just seemed to surround her. "Do you have any idea how much I paid for that thing?! I paid 6,800 beli and that was after haggling it!" she roared, causing Luffy to drawback with a terrified look.

"How much did it cost before?" I curiously asked.

"Too much that I wasn't even going to pay the original price—hell, I didn't want to pay for it with this price either!" she seethed as she went back to ranting at the captain who stood there, clearly petrified. When she started showing signs of calming down, he finally found his voice and gave us both a quick rundown of what had been going on outside this entire time during our absences. "If that's the case then it's okay that you destroyed my coat, you can just pay me back with interest—that'll be 14,000 beli" the ginger grinned, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"Ah! You should have said so earlier, I wouldn't have taken it then!" Luffy shouted in distress as she only chuckled in return.

"Oh, you're quite the evil one, aren't you?" I chuckled.

"Hey, I'm still right here!" Wapol snapped as he angrily threw himself back up onto his feet.

"Oh, that's right, I still haven't kicked your ass" Luffy said which caused the man to explode with laughter as he motioned to the large, closed door that were located behind him. Already going into a fairly quick explanation on what exactly laid inside the room behind those doors

"I hope you're ready, Straw Hat because I'm going—" he stopped midsentence as he now noticed that the key he had suddenly been reaching for was now apparently missing. "This isn't over!" he snapped as he run away without a second thought.

"Hey, he's getting away! Come back!" Luffy quickly chased after him while leaving both Nami and me behind.

"This must be the key to the armory he was yapping about" Nami suddenly piped up, causing me to raise an eyebrow the second I looked towards her and spotted the silver key she had dangling from her finger.

"How did you get that?" I asked, not knowing when she had time to snatch the key from the king—surely it couldn't have been when she was screaming in fear as he tried biting his face off.

"That's a secret" she playfully winked as she placed a finger over her lips. "But geez, why couldn't this have been the key to the castle's treasure vault, aw man" she pouted with a huff as she realized there wasn't really anything of value behind those double doors.

"I mean those weapons are probably worth something if you're that desperate" I said.

"Nami, Skylar, my loves!" Sanji suddenly called out. "Thank the heavens, I'm glad the both of you are okay!" he brightly exclaimed as he hastily came crawling towards us on his stomach, a wide smile already stretched across his face.

"Thanks for your concern, but the better question is, are you alright?" I asked as Nami and I leaned down towards him.

"Yeah, Sanji, what exactly happened? Why are you crawling—are you okay?" Nami worriedly asked.

"Does your back still hurt?" I inquired.

"I'm great now that I've seen you two, but there are two things that can make me feel even better" the blond cooed as his gaze now trailed up to Nami's chest, turning his eyes into mere hearts. "If only I could rest my head on that beautiful bosom of yours!" he eagerly exclaimed like an idiot as he started to lean forward before being knocked back down the second Nami angrily struck the back of his head.

"No way!" she huffed.

"Pretty…please...?" he weakly begged in pain.

"What a pervert..." I sweat dropped before laughing as Nami shook her head in exasperation at the blonde's actions. It wasn't long though before our attention was quickly drawn upwards by the sound of an explosion—an explosion that caused a smile to spread across our faces. "It seems the captain has won" I hummed, voicing what we were all thinking at that moment.

"Yep, seems so" Nami agreed before curiously looking towards the open doors as the sound of a commotion suddenly floated in from outside.

-Later-

"Nami, you really should stay inside 'til your illness is treated" Sanji worriedly said as we currently hid behind the damaged wall which surrounded the castle, silently listening to Kureha on the other side with a bunch of other people talk.

"I have to agree with blondie here, being out here isn't going to make your illness go away any quicker and that isn't going to help in getting the old woman to let us out early" I added.

"It doesn't matter if I get better or not, so be quiet—if we don't escape now we won't be able to set sail for two more days" Nami dismissively waved, seemingly irritated with both of us and our concern for her health. "You know how worried Vivi is, we need to get to Alabasta."

"Quit all this grumbling and get back to the medical ward" Kureha suddenly said our of nowhere as we all looked to one another in confusion, not quite sure who exactly she was talking to. "Move it, right now!" the wall beside us was suddenly destroyed even more then it already was as the older woman harshly kicked her foot right through it without so much of a warning. I jumped as both Nami and Sanji screamed in fear at the sudden action and it wasn't long before we were dragged back to the medical ward by the doctor as the people she had been talking to nervously followed behind...

All around the room, there were looks of fear on everyone's faces as we silently listened to Sanji's moans of pain which floated in from the next room over as the doctor gave him a mandatory check-up for his aching back.

"She's rather rough with her patients..." I muttered from my spot lent up against the wall, rubbing the back of my head as I listened to the blonde's wails.

"Just as I expected, his injuries have gotten worse due to over-excursion" Kureha laughed the moment she entered the room, grabbing a nearby bottle of wine and chugging it down in the process before turning her attention towards a somewhat familiar man that was bandaged up and currently resting on another bed in the room. I paid little attention to their conversation as I now crossed the room and made my way over towards where Nami and Vivi currently sat. Not wasting a second in plopping down beside the princess right as Nami butted into the conversation between Kureha and the man.

"Um...excuse me...but exactly who are you?" Vivi warily asked as she looked over towards me, startled by my sudden appearance. I didn't quite blame her though as I'd be nervous too if someone I didn't recognize right away decided to just sit next to me like we were buddies or something, especially when you take into consideration that none of the villagers in the room had even bothered to approach any of us this entire time since their arrival.

"That hurts, Vivi, knowing that you don't remember me" I feigned being hurt as I placed a hand over my heart. "Surely I look no different than back when I was posing as a man—can't you just recognize this lovely face of mine?" I smiled.

"S-Skylar" she sputtered, clearly taken aback for a moment as her eyes now quickly scanned my appearance—a look of recognition flashing within them after a moment or two. "You're a woman? But then why were you pretending to be a man this entire time?" she frowned as she now curiously leaned towards me.

"For reasons that I just don't feel like discussing" I shrugged, brushing her question off rather easily as I had no desire to explain Aaron's ridiculous and sexist logic.

"Oh..." she looked a bit dejected with my answer which was something I could understand as all it did was leave her with more questions and no answers. "Then may I ask why you had kept such an act up for such long time with us?" she asked with the tilt of her head.

"Honest answer, being a man felt easier than being a woman" I admitted with another shrug as that wasn't really a lie. "Plus, it was a rather fun—there was something thrilling about seeing how long I could keep the charade up before you all found out" she nodded, looking as if she kind of understood where I was coming from before her attention was soon dragged towards Nami and Kureha's conversation the moment it started to get a bit loud. Kureha appeared rather agitated as she harshly glared at Nami who was currently spinning the key to the armory around on her finger.

"The key to the armory—this is what you wanted, right?" she smugly asked.

"How did you end up with the key?" the vaguely familiar man that rested on the other bed asked, I wonder if I had seen him somewhere before.

"If that's truly the real one, then how did you get a hold of it?" Kureha asked as she placed her hands on her hips.

"I stole it" Nami simply answered.

"That's obvious..." I mumbled with the roll of my eyes, I was more curious to know when she had stolen it.

"You sure got some guts trying to negotiate with me like this" Kureha scowled as she walked closer towards the ginger before harshly snatching the key out of her hands.

"Hey!" Nami snapped.

"You sure are a frustrating girl, you know that?" Kureha asked which caused the navigator to giggle. "Okay then, you don't have to pay my doctor's fee, but that's as much as I'll agree to—as a doctor, I can't let you leave until you're all healed up in two days" she said as she walked over to the door and grabbed her coat off the coat rack.

"Wait a minute, in that case, we don't have a deal—give it back!" Nami angrily demanded, before being taken aback the second the old woman whirled around and started yelling at her. Clearly and indirectly telling us in her own strange way just how we could actually leave and she wouldn't really stop us before finally, she left and took everyone else in the room with her. "Did she just tell us to steal her coat, get Sanji, and sneak out?"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure she did" I nodded.

"I'm still rather surprise that you were a girl...yet at the same time not that much as you did have the same gentleness of a woman" Vivi piped up as she still looked to somewhat be processing this new revelation, silently thinking back on all our interactions and my behavior since she started sailing with us.

"Honestly, I'm surprised with how long it took you all to figure it out" I chuckled. "With how many close calls I had and the amount of slips up I did, you were all still convinced I was a man—like I'm pretty sure you should have found out after I got seriously hurt back on Little Garden" I said.

"Well it's not really our fault you wouldn't let us touch you, you kept jerking away and curling in on yourself anytime we got close to you—we just thought it'd be best to let you rest and try later when you were awake and conscious since you clearly didn't like us touching you" Vivi said. "Besides, there wasn't really much we could do about your injuries other than to let you rest with how out of it you were."

"Yes, well it's not everyday you run into a Devil Fruit user with the ability to create explosions out of thin air, I'm sure if you were to take an explosion at point blank range and be thrown around like a rag doll your body would want to recuperate as well for a few days" I said as I shifted around on the bed. "I'm only human and it's only natural for the human body to rest when hurt to a degree it isn't accustomed to."

"I just want to say that in our defense for not realizing you were actually a woman, there wasn't really any reason for doubt, we just thought you were raised to be gentle" Nami suddenly defended, butting into Vivi and mine's conversation.

"Really now?" I raised an eyebrow

"I mean just look at how your twin acted while we were on the island with you" she quickly pointed out as if to prove her point. "Childish and a bit feminine, how could you expect us not to assume that you weren't just the same way?" she asked.

"Have you forgotten about my grouchy older brother?" I questioned, causing her to go silent.

"Shut up, let's just get Sanji and go..." she grumbled after a moment of silence, causing me to laugh.

A/N: Enjoy

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