21 Ch 21 - Confronting Carina

Hey everyone, to those that got to read this chapter yesterday I apologize, it was a publishing mistake due to time zone difference, it wasn't meant to be available just yet, anyways cheers and sorry for no new content for you all today.

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With her kicking off the conversation I ask," well firstly I wanted to ask if you knew that you have a 50 million belly bounty on your head at this very moment?"

She gives me a strange expression and replies, "of course I know I have a bounty on my head…how wouldn't I know? It's basically become a daily conversation piece among the crowds and it's also a very good selling point for my performances."

With this strange but expected response I get quite puzzled, and it appears she noticed because she then continues, "It appears you are confused; you must be wondering why I would behave normally in the face of that bounty right? Well to put it simply, that bounty is a fake, or as fake as it could get."

As I hear this, I'm even more confused… a fake bounty? What the heck, I know that it's a local bounty for this country but it's still very strange to think about.

I respond with," Fake bounty? How is that possible? More importantly, why is there a fake bounty on your head?"

As I say this, she seems to have a hesitant look for a second before she replies, "Don't worry about that for now handsome, I might tell you if you convince me to work with you, what was that little bit about anyways?"

Once I hear this I nod, it makes sense, she has her own secrets as does anyone, so I continue, "Well about that… I was hoping you would be desperate for an escape route out of the island or something, but it appears I was mistaken, either way I want you in my team, to work with us on something important that will also net you a pretty penny if you perform well."

She quirks a brow, and replies "Your team? And what would this oh so important thing be?"

I simply reply with, "Power."

"Power?" she questions, to which I nod…

She looks at me strangely before laughing a bit and replying, "Ok POWER, but what type of power? And why is it so important to you that you want it? As far as I can see you've already eaten a devil fruit and as far as I know if one eats more than 1 devil fruit they go *Boom*," emphasizing the point with exaggerated hand gestures.

"Heh… ill just get right to the point, I want you to help me steal the Hasshoken technique from the Happo Navy in exchange for a self-created manual for a marine associated martial style that lets one become a superhuman…in the black market it should go for 100+ million belly easily per manual."

I then continue without letting her say anything, "Also if that's not enough I will also let you take all of the gold and loot that we collect on the way there, with my slow-slow powers and your abilities it will be easy to collect a small fortune, and possibly a larger fortune from the Happo Navy if you want to."

With all my cards on the table all that's left is to see if she will play ball or not.

…

It's the following day and I'm currently resting on a lawn chair under a sun umbrella watching how sexy, busty women swim around and interact with each other around the large hotel pool (There's also men but…meh).

I'm currently in a daze remembering yesterday's events, what I learned, and processing the fact that I now have access to someone who could help me with a lot of things in the future.

In the end she accepted my proposal, apparently for a few reasons which she chose to disclose.

Firstly, it appears that she was already planning on leaving the Ballywood kingdom and even the West Blue very soon, and the main reason being that she wants to visit the Grand Line and see if she can make it there or if she will fail like many others that she's heard of.

Due to her relative fame, she also knows a lot more about Paradise then most, she knows about its dangers, but she also knows about its many opportunities as well as the fact that there are plenty of islands, that yes while dangerous to some point, can still be considered normal enough to normal standards.

And apparently, she is also somewhat of a daredevil because she mentioned that "I also miss the feeling of going up Reverse Mountain."

She told me that she not long ago left East Blue and crossed into this sea by going over Reverse Mountain, which makes sense, it wasn't mentioned in canon but it's not hard to believe that she has visited most if not all the blues at one point.

The second reason for her accepting the deal is because she feels that we could make a decent team with my powers to slow down time for people, and she also mentioned that she would feel safer visiting the Grand Line with someone strong like me instead of by herself or with a random crew that isn't very capable.

And lastly, it's for the money. ($_$) …that's the face she had…and somehow, I can even see the image of the dollar sign in her eyes…weird.

Finally, not only will she be able to sell the top-secret martial arts to interested parties, which I warned her about the possible dangers, but when I mentioned that she will also be able to learn it if she wanted to, with my and Porches' help, she was also interested.

She wasn't sure about this at first, but when I mentioned some of the awesome techniques, like running on air, moving so fast you seem to be teleporting, and throwing out wind blades with your limbs, she was all for it.

Of course, when she accepted, she didn't see my evil smile that I hid because if she had, she definitely wouldn't have…Yeah, I'm going to enjoy training her.

But the tort *cough* The training she's going to go through in the future isn't just for my amusement, nor is it for my relief that someone else will be struggling with the Rokushiki when I see someone like Porche, who was supposed to be a minor character, mastering them so quickly… I mean she's already at 7-8/10 steps for Shave and is somehow catching up to me in a weeks' time…

Anyways I believe that this will truly help her, especially in the Grand Line. In canon she was a weakling that relied on her charm and acting 24/7 in order to survive; and honestly, I'm not even sure she did survive.

I mean by the end of the movie: "Gold", she 'got away' with a city size ship made of gold… yeah, I don't believe that for a fucking second.

Not only would pirates be raiding that ship faster than you can say shit, but do you really think the World Government would allow someone so weak to own like 10% of the world's wealth?

I mean they likely only allowed Tesoro to continue because he bent over backwards for the Celestial Dragons when they came to visit.

So yeah…No, it's obvious that whatever happened at the end of that movie, didn't go so well for her.

This time I'm here to change that, by the time I'm done with her she will be able to kick some major ass all on her sexy lonesome.