•Black Hat•

•41•

"Pearl has a bounty as well" Robin said in a clear voice making everyone stop talking to look at her and at the girl sitting on the bed.

"Me?" She asked confused. "Does it write my name on it?" She asked and got up to take her wanted poster as well.

"It writes Kuroboshi (black hat) Pearl" Robin muttered taking one step back as if she was trying to avoid giving the girl her poster.

"What? I hadn't told anyone on Dressrosa my real name, they all knew me as Kuro!" She said and grabbed the piece of paper from her hands.

She studied it for a brief minute and soon her eyes widened and raised her eyes to look around. Everyone was staring at her curious and eager to hear her bounty apart from once again, Robin who was staring at the ground.

"So what is it?!" Luffy asked her and took the poster from Pearl's hand.

Pearl panicked and tried to say something before he would read the paper but either way, Luffy immediately froze and was left staring at it as if he had been immobilized.

550.000.000 berries it wrote.

Luffy raised his eyes and looked at Pearl. She nodded and the both thought of the same thing but only Pearl spoke it.

"It's Ace's bounty"

"What?" The Strawhats asked and charged forward to take a look as well but Robin held them back.

"Fifty five hundred million berries" she told them and they stopped.

"That's higher than Luffy's!" Ussop noticed.

"It's the hat Luffy" Pearl spoke "and the years I spent in prison! It doesn't mean a thing!" She rushed to add and waited eagerly for his reply.

Instead Luffy gave the poster to her and slowly walked out of the room without saying a word to anyone.

Pearl threw her head back. "Damn it" She muttered and got ready to follow him when Zoro stopped her by placing in of his still seethed katanas in front of her.

"Give him some time" he mumbled but Pearl ignored him and walked around exiting the room.

"Congrats on your bounty" she heard a familiar voice when she got on the deck. Pearl recognized his voice, it was Law's and even though she was heading at the opposite direction from him she turned around and walked towards him. He had heard that the Strawhats' bounties had arrived and had gotten there to see what was going on. He arrived at the scene when Robin spoke out loud Pearl's bounty and saw Luffy walking out of the room with a troubled expression on his face so he chose not to speak to him.

"How come you're talking to me?" Pearl asked folding her hands across her chest.

"I just thought that I had to congratulate you on getting a bounty higher than your captain's" Law smirked and Pearl rolled her eyes.

"Fuck off" she hissed and pushed him "what's yours?" she said after a brief pause.

"They didn't drop mine, surprisingly, so I don't know! How did Luffy take this?" He asked cocking an eyebrow. "He didn't seem pretty happy-!"

"Oh shut up!" Pearl shouted and ran pass him to find Luffy.

The rest of the crew slowly walked outside with Zoro the first one. He stepped in front of Law giving him a questioning look so intense that made Law lower his eyes.

"What exactly did this girl do?" Ussop asked voicing the questions of everyone around him.

Law could try to come up with something to her defense but he thought it would be smarter not to interfere in the Strawhats business. Pearl was now part of the crew. Robin made sure to remind them.

"Her name is Pearl and she is part of the crew now." She said mainly to Ussop because he had called her girl. "We could just ask her" she proposed.

"Try finding her" Law muttered but Zoro heard him.

"That's not hard, she'll be wherever Luffy is!" he replied.

• • •

Pearl had searched all the ship to find Luffy, thinking that it would be easy to find him but after she had failed miserably at locating him she gave up and used her Observations Haki. She had began to get scared that Luffy had fell in the sea so when she managed to spot him on the rooftop of the cabins, hidden behind a καμινάδα.

As silently as possible she climbed up there and  creeped next to him.

"I don't like it either" she confessed hoping that it would lighten the mood.

"What are you talking about?" Luffy asked squinting to look at her since she was standing in front of the sun.

"You know... the bounty" she said feeling uneasy.

"I don't mind" Luffy said and went back to staring at the floor. Pearl took a step closer to him and got ready to speak but Luffy stopped her. "I mean it, I just want to sit here, alone, for  a bit."

Pearl was surprised by that and didn't move for  a moment debating within herself whether she should believe him or not. But in the end she jumped off the roof and landed on her heels next to the rest of the crew. She couldn't say that she was totally convinced that Luffy was alright but she couldn't think of something to say or do to make him feel better.

"Hey" Robin said when Pearl got up and got ready to walk away from the company. "Did you find him?"

Pearl nodded. "He wanted to be left alone" she muttered and felt Zoro giving her a sarcastic look.

"How come you have such a high bounty?" Franky asked and Pearl bit the inside of her lip nervously before speaking

"I don't really know to be honest" she lied and chuckled making everyone around them  crack a smile. "It's probably because I was in prison from a very young age..."

"Prison?!" Everyone asked in unison.

"and it's possible that the marines didn't know I had survived the war, so that in addition to the hat I'm wearing made them think I'm really dangerous!" She explained in a storytelling style.

"Well, are you?" Zoro asked her and Pearl raised her head to look at him.

"I'm hoping to become".