A quick distraction, before characterisation can set in

“This is really your fault”, Nico Robin said in a nonchalant tone as Zoro, Chopper and Usopp eyed her with openly hostile suspicion.

“I would have been perfectly fine dying in those catacombs together with Crocodile, but first you somehow made the princess and the king give me permission to read the poneglyph and then your captain here went and rescued me after Crocodile had destroyed the catacombs to the point where they'd collapse.

The way I see it I have no other option but to follow you around.”

“Yeah, sure!”, Luffy ever so enthusiastically agreed.

Nami gave you a look. You responded with a raised eyebrow. Sure it was obvious that she wanted to know something, but you had no clue as to what.

She tapped her cheek pointing at her eye and then she tapped her left breast.

“Wha..?”

“What does your heart tell you about her?”

You stood there for about a second, before it finally clicked.

Nico Robin: 30/100

Nico Robin: 10/100

You turned to talk to your prospective new crew mate: “I can tell that you would probably enjoy our company, but seeing that you survived what life, or rather the World Government, had thrown at you, we kind of have to assume, you're not making decisions based on what you would enjoy.”

Nico Robin: 32/100

Nico Robin: 10/100

“That's a completely fair assessment. You want to gauge the risk of me murdering you in your sleep.”

“I wouldn't have put it as bluntly, but yes. Could you explain in a little bit more detail, what you hoped to do in Alabasta and why you chose to seek us out afterwards.”

“Very well. As you already seem to know, I initially got my bounty at the age of eight for the possession of forbidden knowledge, more precisely the knowledge of how to read the poneglyphs like the one on Alabasta.

I have spent the last 20 years practically constantly on the run, being **** to work for the worst kinds of people, as these were the ones both willing and able to keep me away from the World Government. This led me to develop my current skill set which is mostly centered around ****.

In these 20 my goal was to find all the poneglyphs I could to learn what it said on them, that the World Government would annihilate my home to keep it secret. And the one on Alabasta was the last one I believe I have a reasonable chance of seeing. And it did not have the information I was searching for. Only what Crocodile was searching: The location of an ancient weapon that ought to make its wielder capable of challenging even the World Government.”

“Damn, that's boring!”, Luffy exclaimed, “So you're just here to hitch a ride so you get to read the stone on Raftel. And here I thought you wanted to be friends.”

Robin looked positively shocked: “There is a poneglyph on Raftel? How do you know that?”

Luffy's answer was pretty much exactly what you expected, to the point you had to stop yourself from laughing out loud: “No idea. Guess there must be. Why else would you go on this ship if not to join the crew?”

“That's not how … archeology …”, Robin mumbled while slumping to the floor.

You went up to her and patted her shoulder in what you hoped was comforting: “It's all fine. My father always told me that on the Grand-Line reality follows the will of those stubborn enough to make a name for themselves.

But the point still stands: Are you going to stick with us, because it's the best bet for your research?

Or will you try and have this ship your new home and us your friends?”

Robin's reaction was not what you expected.

First her face froze for a solid three seconds. Then it contorted into something that could be called a smile and a strange sound came from her mouth, which you could describe as laughter if it didn't sound so **** and strangled: “Dereshishishi”.

She caught herself, when she noticed a worried Chopper test her pupil dilation. The fact that she had not reacted to him measuring her blood pressure was a testament to how badly she was affected by what you had said.

Unable to ignore your stares she spoke: “Forgive me. Logically I should have expected the invitation, but after spending so long on the run and having to work with … less amicable people, I was kind of unprepared.”

“Okay, we're not yet close enough for me to demand you open up about what got you so fucked up, and I'm not exactly sure how good our doctor would be as a therapist, but I will keep that just now in mind”, you responded, “In the meantime are you going give us a try? Or are you going to insist on just being a guest?”

Nico Robin: 40/100

Nico Robin: 12/100

Guess there was your answer.

Nami was helping you do sit-ups. Not in a direct way as to reduce the effort you had to put in, but in the effective way: You had your legs locked together and did your sit-ups simultaneously. Each time your bodies were up she’d give you a kiss after you counted.

And it worked tremendously! Normally you would start whining to Zoro to end the training early by the second set, but today you were about to end your last set without having complained once.

Sure, you were still exhausted right now, to the point that you were not sure where you’d get the energy to fool around with Nami in the crows nest during watch.

But still. One day of training done, without complaining.

“Time to update your regimen”, Zoro said with a genuinely friendly smile.

“What?”

“Why are you acting surprised? That’s the whole point. As you get fitter it takes more training to see further improvement. I’d say for today we’ll add another ten push-ups and we’ll see where we go from there.”

Twenty minutes later you were on the floor and your arms and legs wouldn’t respond any more. Zoro had a satisfied look on his face: “Very good. Now it’s time for your training!”

“What?”

“I thought this was her training?”, Nami said what you were thinking.

“I mean … her training … as in where she trains us”, Zoro clarified, slightly embarrassed.

Again Nami and you were one mind with two bodies: “ugh … do we have to?”

“Yes. I have to be able to reliably cut steel before we run into trouble the next time, especially since our adventure in Alabasta surely put some attention on us and you Nami have to work on your battle senses. Can’t have you losing your head when the fighting starts. Especially if you want to use your head to fight. And you, Yuri, should use this time to improve your own technique. You’re always bragging about it, but if you want to keep being able to back it up you can’t just rely on being able to use your haki thing to pick up new stuff.”

Fucking awful when Zoro’s right.

Nami groaned as she got on her feet and helped you up.

“Shishishi, you shouldn’t slack on your training!”, Luffy laughed. He had been watching us from his seat on the figurehead.

“Hey, Captain!”, you called out, leaning onto Nami for support, “How’s your Fishmen Karate coming along?”

In response Luffy made a face like he had eaten a whole bunch of limes with peels and all. Then he quickly lightened up again and made his way towards the galley: “And we all have to work on our mystery power! We can do that together!”

With that he went inside to grab Sanji, Usopp, Chopper and a very amused Robin.

“I believe that the mystery power you’re referring to are Devil Fruits and I also believe not all of your crew mates can use those, Captain-san.”

You put your thoughts in order and started giving instructions: “Let’s start with Fishmen Karate, since the basics are the easiest to demonstrate. It would be most useful for Luffy, Robin and Chopper.”

“And me”, Nami chimed in, “It’s about manipulating water, so having a good grasp of it should be useful when trying to use the Climatact.”

You stared for a second, unsure if you could love your girlfriend any more, before speaking again: “Okay, I’ve come up with an exercise, that you should be able to do without me. Each one of you will need a barrel about half full with water.”

With slight worry you noticed a wicked glint in Zoro’s eye at those words, but the barrels were quickly procured and you demonstrated: “Place your flat hand on the water's surface. Feel it and then push and pull.” You did just that and after only five pumps the water would form a column that reached all the way out of the barrel, with none of the water touching the sides of the barrel.

“Of course you won’t be able to grip it right away the way I did, but this exercise is about getting a feeling for the water. Once you got the water to splash, you can try to work on your control by trying to steady the water again.”

As you said that you demonstrated and the water instead of splashing all around the barrel quickly settled back into its natural level about half the height of its container.

Next in line was Zoro, whom you had already given the exercise with the eggs, however Sanji quickly objected to the huge waste in food and a replacement for the eggs had to be found.

Here Robin was helpful: part of her luggage was large amounts of papers that she had accumulated in her time under Crocodile. She didn’t elaborate on why she took those papers with her, but she said she didn’t mind if those were cut up so that was good enough for Zoro, who immediately went to get a stack. His exercise would be to take swings at a sheet of paper without cutting it.

“Thank you Robin. I’ll try and find some kind of reward for how well you’re doing in your training as well.”

“My my, Miss Trainer, are you trying to flirt with me? What would Miss Navigator say?”, the mouth on the floor responded.

“I’m sure you’ll find out in time. On a related note, you should probably remove that ear beneath the crows nest before supper. Unless of course you are that interested in my relationship with Nami.”

The water in her barrel splashed against her outstretched arm, as the normally so cool archaeologist froze up for a second before dismissing the ear.

Next were Usopp and Sanji. Since you weren’t any good with ranged weapons and no better with kicks than the chef it would be haki-training for them.

If something else didn’t catch your attention first: “Guys let’s take a break! The “

“What? We barely started!”, Zoro objected before you could even really start your sentence. Luckily Usopp still remembered how Luffy and Zoro had trained their haki in the desert and so was looking out for any excuse to get out of training: “There is something coming from the aft!”

That got Nami’s attention: “Don’t act like we’re being attacked. It’s just a News Coo.” She began waiving a few bills. The albatross landed, took the money and gave them the newspaper and a stack of loose papers; the entire remaining content of his bag.

“It appears we’re lucky”, Robin mused, “Pirates and some islands usually get the most recent paper almost a week later. This one must’ve been left over from the delivery to Alabasta.”

“He says the palace took one fewer than normal”, Chopper confirmed as the delivery bird took off.

“Why do you care about the paper anyway?”, Luffy questioned, “You didn’t back in the East Blue.”

“Because in the East Blue we weren’t on the front page!”, you answered excitedly, “Think about it: We saved a country and defeated a Shichibukai! I want to know how they’re going to spin this and what our new bounties are going to be!”

You finally looked at the front page.

“Who the fuck is Eustass Kidd? Where is our story?”

The majority of the front page was taken up by a report on some kind of rampage of a rookie that had started a city over some perceived slight or something and gone over five islands killing dozens of civilians and hundreds of marines.

The news of Alabasta was relegated to a side-note, saying that the tensions were resolved and there would be more on a later page. You flipped the pages and found the article:

“ALABASTA AT PEACE

Shichibukai arrested

Thanks to Marine Captain Smoker the civil war in Alabasta was finally resolved with power being firmly restored back to King Nefertari Cobra. He was pursuing the pirate Monkey D. Luffy, who in an attempt to make a name for himself, kidnapped the princess Nefertari Vivi and then took aim at the Shichibukai Crocodile.

During his rampage he sowed chaos in the former drum kingdom and devastated the town of Whiskey Peak, following his behavior in the East Blue, where he assaulted any member of the marines he encountered.

Captain Smoker had in fact almost arrested the pirate in Logue Town but due not only an unprecedentedly heavy storm and a separate pirate attack circumstances were deemed to be beyond his control and Strawhat barely escaped.

Upon landing on Alabasta Strawhat sought out Firefist Ace and in their ensuing fight hundreds of innocent bystanders and marines were gravely injured.

Thankfully Firefist Ace took his leave from Alabasta after following Strawhat all the way to Yuba a formerly florishing oasis, which had been rendered almost uninhabitable.

From there Strawhat **** princess Vivi to accompany him to Rainbase, where the then Shichibukai resided. In the chaos the princess almost got eaten by a banana-crocodile and drowned. Captain Smoker, who had correctly anticipated the pirates movement, attempted to break up their conflict and saved the princess from the aforementioned situation.”

It continued like that, framing the events, like Luffy was the aggressor and Crocodile was merely arrested for his overzealous reaction.

“Yuri!!! Stop staring at the paper and show us my new bounty!”, your captain whined.

“Please have some patien... Shut up, I’m trying to crack a code”, you answered, interrupting yourself after you remembered that Luffy could not grasp the concept of patience.

“What code are you talking about?”, Nami asked instead while holding Luffy’s mouth shut.

Behind her you could see Robin strolling onto the deck. While her smile was neutral you guessed, that she knew what you were referring to and wanted to hear how you would explain it.

So you tried your best: “So you know, that the news have to print to a certain degree, what the World Government tells them to. However, as you have heard this means anybody who only has access to the paper would have a completely wrong idea of what had happened. Now most of the marine commanders can just receive an accurate report when calling headquarters, but that’s not always an option. If they see a flag on the horizon, they can’t wait for the confirmation whether or not what’s in the paper is exaggerated. The Cipher Pol agents often pretend to be civilians or even pirates themselves, so they can’t rely on anything reaching them from official channels.

On the other end Morgans has his reporters all over the world, including places, where the World Government has only very little control, like almost the entire second half of the Grand-Line.

And while probably some of them work like undercover spies, the majority are pretty open about their work and carry a press pass. So people like the Yonko have a choice: They can either let those reporters do their work, or not get any news.

The solution is this: In the paper they hide what actually happened within the text of the report everybody else reads.

The World Government gives out the instructions on how to find it to its agents and as part of the compromise the Yonko and particularly powerful underworld figures get it as well.”

“Ah, it’s a mystery text!”, Luffy exclaimed with a certainty that only the truly ignorant could achieve.

“I’m surprised you know about this, yet do not know the actual cipher”, Robin said in an amused tone.

“My father used to work for the World Government. From what I’ve gathered he deserted at some point, but it’s not like he talked about his work at home. He did tell us stories about the Grand-Line though.”

Your haki alerted you to an eye that had appeared on your chin.

“A government agent who deserted … that explains things. Why don’t you show the crew these bounty posters that came with the story, Ms. Trainer?”

Within the newspaper there were a number of loose papers. Two had been right behind the front page and right now you were looking at three more. Those were the bounties, sorted into the news wherever relevant.

“Okay, it seems our crew has four members with bounties on them. Any bets on who ranks where?”

Usopp with a completely straight face claimed that his was the highest bounty, higher than both Luffy’s and Robin’s.

After that a heated discussion started. The crew quickly reached the consent, that Luffy definitely had the highest bounty and Zoro and Sanji quickly admitted that they probably didn’t crack Robin’s 79,000,000.

“Mr. 2 is clearly the greater systemic threat! You heard yourself, how much damage he can do to a country! Also he was second place WITHOUT a partner! Your knife on legs of an opponent was only worth half of the top spot.”

Surprisingly Zoro remained cool: “Your Mr. 2 didn’t get turned in until he helped us escape. As far as the marines know, the two of you never even fought. And as for Mr. 1 danger: When he fought me, he cut an entire city block to pieces. You did more damage to the city when you ran to the palace than when you fought Mr. 2. What matters is perception. And to an outside observer your claim to fame is beating up a queer master of disguise.”

You were stunned. This was vastly more respectful than you had ever seen the swordsman interact with the cook. Not that Sanji seemed to agree. He drew a sharp breath, which reduced the cigarette in his mouth to nothing but the bud in about one second, but before he could voice his anger Zoro proceeded to really lay on the disrespect:

“Before you think you might’ve made last place, consider who actually beat up a visibly dangerous assassin!”, he said with a smug grin while pointing his thumb at Nami.

She in turn was one of the few people on board not looking forward to seeing her face on a bounty poster. She dropped on her knees and almost started sobbing before you decided to stop the discussion.

“Okay, I’ll have to admit, I wouldn’t have guessed this either, so I’ll just solve it now:

For the crime of assaulting and murdering dozens of civilians, revolutionaries and royal soldiers … at least according to this article here; Wanted dead or alive

with a bounty of 40,000,000 Beri

Sabishi “Blood path” Yuri.

Though I think it doesn’t quite look like me, does it?”

You showed the poster in question to your friends, who immediately started laughing. To be fair, it didn’t look too different from yourself, a bounty hunter or marine would definitely be able recognize you.

The most important aspects were definitely on point. There was the skin tone. While you were easily the darkest skinned person on the crew, and maybe even the darkest skinned person outside of your family you knew, you would probably always be considered pale, because you still had not gotten rid of your sickly appearance, that made your face perpetually look like you were seconds from bleeding out.

Then there was the hair. Naturally you and your brother's hair would grow into wild curls if you let it, so you had early on started to cut it, if only to prevent it from getting in the way. After your meeting with Tashigi you had taken the time to properly check it with two mirrors and so you could only call the degree, with which the mess on the head had been recreated with, impressive.

The sharp cheeck bones and the small nose were close enough as well.

However the eyes had to have been done wrong on purpose: Instead of brown eyes like your own, the eyes in the picture were a piercing blue similar to Robin’s, which framed by the dark, yet pale face and the black mane were even more haunting. Above them the eyebrows, however, were absolutely on point. Just the right mix of brown and black in color and also just the right shape.

That did not however change the fact that the photograph was not taken from you. Instead grinning out into the world was Bon Clay, who had used their Devil Fruit, a wig and some respectable make-up work to create a remarkably good imitation of your face.

The tip-off was, that they were still wearing their signature swan outfit. The picture had a small note in the corner: “Picture taken off look-alike”

When the amusement over the photo died down however, there were protests: “How come you get a bounty? You didn’t defeat one of the officer agents!”, Usopp protested.

Sanji, unable to consciously speak against you, voiced his objection in his own manner: “You’re awesome, Yuri-chan! The World Government had no other choice but to unjustly give you this unfair bounty!”

His tone was his normal swooning, which he still used to address you despite your best efforts. You even considered using your Devil Fruit.

You could already tell, that Zoro was setting up to dig at the chef again, so you quickly moved on:

“Next on wanted dead or alive with a bounty of 60,000,000 Beri ‘Pirate Hunter’ Roronoa Zoro. Congratulations, I guess”, before the swordsman could rub it in Sanji’s face you continued, “I guess here would be our new ‘Demonchild’ Nico Robin at 79,000,000 if I’m not mistaken. Though I don’t suppose you have a poster on you?”

In response the woman only gave a polite chuckle.

“And with that we come to the grand price: How much do you think Luffy’s worth these days?”

With that you started another shouting match, with Chopper’s 85,000,000 barely higher than Crocodile’s old bounty and Usopp’s 400,000,000 Beri being completely outlandish.

“For that we’d have to pretty much declare war on the World Government and do something like raiding Impel Down or attack the Marine HQ!”, Sanji exclaimed.

Nami, normally very vocal when there was talk of money, was awfully quiet. She stood there in the middle of the deck with her eyes closed and her arms lightly stretched out. Slowly her head tilted upwards and her eyes shot open.

For a second she was frozen.

Then she snapped into action. While twirling one part of her Climatact she handed another segment to Luffy: “Quickly blow a large bubble in that direction! When I say large I mean big! As big as possible! Bigger than the Merry!”

Then she turned to Robin: “Open the sail and make sure all the ropes are taut!”

“The rest of you get the oars and start rowing!”

You quickly followed the others below deck and started rowing behind Zoro who had some choice words about how often you should do so. After a few moments you were joined by a large number of disembodied arms.

You were unsure, why Nami would suddenly order you all into action without explaining, when suddenly the mast gave a pained groan and the Merry jumped forward, no doubt due to Nami had done with her Climatact.

You could hear Luffy shouting in joy, sitting on the figurehead, as your haki told you. No amount of danger could make him miss out on his fun.

You were about to get up to see what kind of freak weather Nami had just gotten you out of, when the ship shook. Violently.

Then you heard Luffy again: “Wow, that ship almost fell on top of us!”