One Piece: Dream of Immortality

A little ways down the Grand Line from Wano.

"Pffffft~!!!" Cherry cracked up and roared with laughter.

"Don't just hog them, let me see!" Luffy griped, trying and failing to snatch the newspaper and bounty posters from Cherry's hands.

"This is just too good! Honestly…" Cherry wiped a tear from her cheek. She plucked Luffy's from the pile and handed it over, knowing that's what he really wanted. "I was wondering what they'd do."

"Four billion! I'm famous! Shishishishishi!" Luffy giggled, holding his new bounty poster aloft like a treasure. The photograph featured his white haired Gear Fifth form, naturally smiling like a buffoon.

"What cheapskates. Kaido had a bounty of over 4.6 billion beri. You should at least get that much out of beating him," Zoro complained, receiving his own bounty poster. "1,101,101,100… not bad. Why all the extra 'ones', though?"

"They do that to differentiate similar bounties on the same crew, to denote the priority of whom to take down first, if it comes to a choice," Jinbe answered, showing his own bounty poster listed at 1.1 billion even. "Sometimes they throw little jokes and references in there too, I believe. I never understood any of them."

"This is so not fair… I'm way more of a threat than a stupid moss-head…" Sanji grumbled. Although, he did appreciate the gentlemanly culture of the bean counters, giving him a bounty of 1,069,000,000 beri.

"400 million…" Nami read wistfully. "What did I even do?"

"They'll probably raise it again after Rykugyu makes a report about his fight with us," Robin said with a smile. "You did zap him pretty good."

"Don't say that! You'll jinx it and it'll come true!" Nami shook the older woman by the shoulders.

"What is it that you found funny, Cherry?" Chopper asked.

Hearing the question, the others realized that nothing they'd seen was particularly laughable. Naturally, they grew curious.

Cherry smirked. When she spun her own poster around to show them, they understood.

"""3,999,999,999 beri?!""" they cried out.

"I win!" Luffy laughed.

"More like they pitied you for always lagging behind your own crew," Cherry retorted.

"Nuh-uh!" Luffy denied, tackling her to the ground. "You take that back!"

"Why do you think my bounty is only a single beri less than yours, huh? It's obviously a hand out," Cherry put him in a headlock and pinned him to the deck. "Or maybe you bribed somebody, huh?"

"No way!" Luffy contorted himself out of the grapple in ways that no ordinary man could, thanks to his rubbery nature.

"Looks like Tra-guy and that Kidd fella only got bounties of 2.5 billion each. I guess the government doesn't think they helped all that much," Franky said.

"Well… they didn't, really, did they?" Reiju asked.

"Of course they didn't! They're just trying to ride on our coattails into infamy! Fools," Pudding pouted.

"Our coattails, is it?" Reiju smirked at her.

"You know what I meant," Pudding grumbled. "I'm just glad that they didn't give me a bounty. The World Government tends to do sweeping bounties on the whole crew for this sort of thing, just to make sure they can't send the guy without one into town for supplies without being recognized."

"Can't you just get a new guy for that?" Reiju asked.

"Sure, but 'new guys' are usually losers unless they're already notorious in their own right. The marines love to scoop that kind of guy up and torture them for information about the crewmembers they actually care about," Pudding explained.

"Y-you don't think they'd do that to me, do you?" Usopp piped up.

"Pfft, no," Pudding held up his newest bounty poster, which gave a whopping 500 million for his capture or death. "At half a billion, you're pretty much kill on sight. They'll take you alive if they can manage it, but if they do, the torture would basically be just for shits and giggles. They wouldn't believe anything you told them, if they actually broke you."

Usopp fainted.

"Oops," Pudding winced as he thumped onto the deck. "I hope that didn't break his nose…"

"He's okay!" Chopper chimed in. "Usopp has had his nose broken and healed so many times that I can confidently say that it's his strongest bone!"

"Uh, okay," Pudding wasn't sure if she should be impressed or weirded out.

…

On an island where the circus music never stops playing.

"Cut that shit off!" Crocodile growled. "I swear I'll never get it out of my head."

"You aren't the boss of me!" a rotund fellow with bells on his boots and hat declared, continuing to play his accordion all the while.

*WRENKCH*

"Aww…" He looked sadly down at his accordion, newly sliced in half. "Now I'll have to get my spare…"

"I had that handled," Crocodile snapped.

"You were going to kill the poor man. That's bad for morale," Hawkeye chastised him in a level tone.

"The clown's men have no discipline. How are we supposed to make anything of them if they don't fear us?" Crocodile grumbled.

"Why don't you put that brain you're so proud of to work and think of something, then? These men are loyal to Buggy to a fault. Making examples will just turn them against us," Hawkeye reasoned.

"I'm not scared of a ragtag bunch of losers," Crocodile argued.

"I didn't insinuate as much. Are you determined to continue on with your victim complex or do you want to 'get back on top of the world', as you put it," Hawkeye didn't even look up from his newspaper as he said it.

Crocodile grit his teeth, but ultimately managed to keep his tongue in check. "We'll just have to discipline the clown, then. He'll keep the fools in line for us."

"That sounds more like something a proper underworld boss would say," Hawkeye smirked. It infuriated Crocodile, the way this man pushed his buttons.

"What's so interesting in the paper today?" Crocodile changed the subject none to subtely. "You usually only look at the obituaries and the crossword."

"My daughter," Hawkeye said, a surprisingly gentle smile forming on his face before vanishing.

"Really?" Crocodile leaned over to have a look. "Those brats took down an alliance of both Kaido and Big Mom? What is the world coming to?"

"It's coming to a head, it seems like," Hawkeye didn't laugh at his joke, but Crocodile snorted.

Buggy chose that moment to burst into the room. He took a moment to glance around, and finding that only Hawkeye, Crocodile, and a few of his closest crewmates were present, he whined, "It's terrible!"

"What's terrible?" Crocodile grunted.

"You've got the paper right there! Haven't you read?!" Buggy jabbed a finger in Hawkeye's direction. Hawkeye casually tossed a throwing knife and sliced the offending finger off. "Don't point. It's rude."

"Sorry…" Buggy crouched into an instinctive submissive position.

"Speak clearly," Crocodile demanded.

"They're saying that Blackbeard and ME are contending for the fourth Emperor spot!" Buggy started wailing like a child again. "We can't compete with Blackbeard! That guy's crazy!"

"The two of us can handle Blackbeard. That idiot isn't worth worrying about," Crocodile scoffed.

"I wouldn't underestimate him, but I agree. Blackbeard isn't something to worry yourself over, Buggy," Hawkeye said. "Now come over here and marvel at my little girl."

"Yes, sir," Buggy stalked over.