Chapter 145: New Bounties
After the banquet's final toast had been drunk and the last platter of fighting fish had been stripped to the bone, Luffy finally agreed to Bartolomeo's request.
"This is... this is truly the greatest moment of my life!!!"
Bartolomeo collapsed to his knees, tears streaming down his face with such force that his younger brothers had to deploy emergency towels. The dream he had harbored since first witnessing the Straw Hats at Loguetown—the dream of welcoming his beloved seniors aboard his own ship—had finally, gloriously, come true.
Orlumbus and the other captains gathered to say their farewells. There were no grand speeches now. No formal declarations. Just warriors who had fought together, acknowledging that their paths would cross again.
"We'll go our separate ways from here," Cavendish said, golden hair billowing in the sea breeze. "But Straw Hat—the moment you need us, we'll come running."
"Yeah. And if YOU guys get in trouble, call us too." Luffy grinned, hands behind his head. "Shishishi!"
For Itachi, the farewells came with something extra.
Lan Lan and Kaka had waited until the very end of the banquet—until Leo and the other Tontatta were distracted by a particularly elaborate dessert sculpture—to pull him aside. Their tiny faces were flushed with the particular excitement of children harboring a secret.
"Itachilando! We have the mysterious gift!"
"We've been waiting and waiting! We wanted to give it to you when no one else was watching!"
They pressed a small palm-sized kit into his hands, their enormous eyes glittering with anticipation. "It's very mysterious! Very strange! We can't wait for you to open it!"
"Alright."
Itachi turned his back to shield the kit from curious eyes and opened it. Inside, nestled in soft cloth, were several small black spheres—no larger than peppercorns. They gleamed faintly in the afternoon light.
"These are...?"
"Ehehe! Those are the treasures of the Dong Tata clan!" Lan Lan covered her mouth, practically vibrating with glee.
"DONGDONG Tower," Kaka corrected, then immediately forgot her correction in her excitement. "We saw Itachilando's power! The way you make trees grow! When you were fighting that scary gravity man, we watched from the forest!"
"These are seeds," Lan Lan explained. "Very, very special seeds. If Itachilando ever finds himself in terrible danger, these seeds will help you. They'll do something amazing!"
"Are you happy, Itachilando? Are you? ARE YOU?"
Itachi looked at the tiny seeds in his palm. They were warm to the touch. Alive, in a way that ordinary seeds were not. He could feel the Spirit of the Tree World stir in his chest—a resonance, a recognition.
He thought about Usopp, who would probably weep with joy if he saw these.
"...Yes. I'm happy."
"YAAAAAY!"
"ITACHILANDO IS HAPPY! OUR GIFT WAS GOOD!"
"We have to go now but we'll see you again! Definitely! ABSOLUTELY!"
And so, with the Tontatta's tiny hands waving from the railings of Orlumbus's flagship, the Straw Hats transferred to Bartolomeo's vessel.
Well. Bartolomeo's vessel.
"WELCOME, EVERYONE! TO THE SHIP OF THE BARTO CLUB—THE PIRATE CREW WHO LOVES THE STRAW HATS ABOVE ALL ELSE!"
Bartolomeo spread his arms wide, his fanged grin threatening to split his face.
"BEHOLD! THE 'GOING LUFFY-SENPAI'!"
The ship that awaited them defied description. The bowsprit was a massive, abstract, swooping sculpture of Luffy's face—or what a sculptor working purely from Bartolomeo's ecstatic descriptions had imagined Luffy's face might look like. The result was something between a devotional icon and a funhouse mirror.
Itachi and Law exchanged glances. Both of their expressions could be described as "carefully neutral," which was the diplomatic way of saying "deeply concerned."
Robin's smile had frozen in place.
"WHOA! THIS IS AMAZING!" Luffy bounced on his heels.
"WHAT'S amazing about it?! It looks like YOU'RE on THEIR ship!" Usopp's outrage was, as usual, the voice of reason that no one would listen to.
"It's an HONOR to hear you say that, Senior Usopp!"
"I WASN'T PRAISING YOU!"
Luffy had already spotted the cabin entrance—a massive, semicircular, abstract sheep's-head shape that loomed over the deck like a guardian spirit rendered in carnival proportions.
"THIS is our recreation of the bow of the Going Merry—the Straw Hats' original irreplaceable nakama!"
"Merry wasn't that ugly," Zoro said flatly.
"And HERE!"
Bartolomeo sprinted to the railings, which—on closer inspection—had been carved into the shape of Luffy's rubber arms, stretched and extended in perpetual welcome. "I commissioned a professional sculptor to faithfully reproduce Senior Luffy's rubber hands!"
Robin pointed toward the rear of the cabin, where a distinctive silhouette rose against the sky. "Is that...?"
"YES! A deer-shaped cabin stern, modeled after Senior Chopper's appearance!"
"They made Chopper's face into a cabin butt," Franky observed.
"And THOSE orange trees!" Usopp jabbed a finger toward an entire grove planted along the upper deck.
"Those are the exact same tangerine trees that Bellemere-san cultivated in Cocoyashi Village! In honor of Senior Nami!"
"Those are just... regular tangerine trees." Zoro was sweating now.
But Franky was crying.
"OW! This is... this is genuinely moving! It's completely insane, but I can feel the LOVE! Pure, genuine, SUPER love!"
Bartolomeo's crew burst into tears alongside him. "THANK YOU, SENIOR FRANKY! YOUR APPROVAL MEANS EVERYTHING!"
"AND NOW!" Bartolomeo pointed toward a glass pedestal mounted at the center of the deck, illuminated by its own dedicated spotlight. "THE MOST TREASURED POSSESSION OF THE BARTO CLUB!"
Inside the case, a small piece of paper floated in a preservation solution.
"Senior Luffy's Vivre Card!!"
Bartolomeo had made copies for each of the seven captains during the banquet. This was the original. The sacred relic.
"AND FINALLY!" Bartolomeo's voice dropped to a reverent hush. "The MOST important thing of all! The REASON we invited you aboard! The—"
"Are those our new bounty posters?" Zoro's eye had locked onto the cabin door with sudden, intense interest.
"YES! PLEASE! COME INSIDE!"
Bartolomeo and his crew formed two perfectly straight lines, bowing as the Straw Hats entered the cabin. Law followed behind them—until Bartolomeo blocked his path.
"By the way. Your bounty went up to five hundred million. I threw the poster away."
Bartolomeo's expression could only be described as a grimace.
Law shrugged. "Whatever. It's just a number."
Inside, the cabin walls were covered with framed bounty posters. Each one was mounted with museum-quality precision, illuminated by carefully angled lamps. The shrine-like atmosphere was undeniable.
"You people are completely insane," Usopp said.
Bartolomeo beamed. "First! SENIOR LUFFY!"
He gestured to a poster showing Luffy in mid-laugh, his straw hat askew, his grin stretching from ear to ear.
"After Punk Hazard and Dressrosa, Senior Luffy's bounty has been raised to FIVE HUNDRED MILLION BERRIES!"
"Five hundred million! That's great!" Luffy turned to Itachi, his grin somehow widening further. "Still a hundred million to catch up to you, though!"
"Next! PIRATE HUNTER! SENIOR ZORO!"
The poster displayed Zoro in his bandana, his single eye glaring downward with the focused killing intent of a predator sizing up prey.
"THREE HUNDRED TWENTY MILLION BERRIES!"
"Not bad." Zoro's hand drifted toward the sake bottle at his hip. "Got any more of that wine?"
"Third! DEVIL CHILD! SENIOR NICO ROBIN!"
Robin's poster showed her with her signature faint smile, dark hair framing her face.
"THREE HUNDRED MILLION BERRIES!"
Robin sighed. "It went up again. How troublesome."
"Fourth! IRON MAN! SENIOR FRANKY!"
The poster featured General Franky in all its mechanical glory.
"NINETY-FOUR MILLION BERRIES!"
"OW! Still not at one hundred million! And they used a picture of General Franky instead of ME! This is so not SUPER!"
"And next! GOD! SENIOR USOPP!"
Usopp's poster was a nightmare. His actual face—not the Sogeking mask, not a flattering angle, just his terrified, wide-eyed expression frozen in perpetuity.
"FIVE HUNDRED MILLION BERRIES!"
Usopp's legs gave out. "FIVE HUNDRED MILLION?! That's the same as LUFFY! My FACE is on the poster! EVERYONE will know what I look like! I'm going to be hunted FOREVER!"
"But think of the prestige—!"
"I'M GOING TO DIE OF PRESTIGE!"
Franky grabbed Usopp in a headlock. "How did YOUR bounty get so high?! You didn't even fight anyone!"
"My crewmates are looking at me like I'M the threat! IT'S TERRIBLE!"
"At least you broke one hundred million! I'm still stuck at ninety-four! IT'S SO UN-SUPER!"
"Look! Nami and the others got increases too!" Usopp pointed desperately at the other posters. Brook. Chopper. Sanji. Nami. All of them had new bounties. All of them had survived the chaos their crew had unleashed.
But Itachi had noticed something else.
His eyes swept across the wall. Luffy's poster. Zoro's. Robin's. Franky's. Usopp's. The absent crew members. Every bounty was displayed with meticulous care.
Except one.
"There's no poster of me here," Itachi observed.
Bartolomeo's face went through a complex series of expressions. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
He dropped to his knees.
"Senior Itachi... your bounty...!"
He was weeping again. But these were not tears of joy.
"The Navy... the World Government... they..."
He produced a crumpled paper from his coat—a document he had clearly been dreading to reveal.
"After Dressrosa... your bounty was...!"
He held up the poster.
Itachi's face stared back at him. The image was new—captured during the battle, his Sharingan blazing, the Susanoo's skeletal form visible in the background. The epithet remained.
"HELLFIRE" UCHIHA ITACHI
But the number beneath it had changed.
BOUNTY: 1,200,000,000 BERRIES
"One point two BILLION," Bartolomeo choked out. "They raised it to ONE POINT TWO BILLION. The World Government has classified you as an EXTREME THREAT. The bounty notice says 'ENGAGE WITH EXTREME CAUTION—ADMIRAL-LEVEL RESPONSE AUTHORIZED.'"
He pressed his forehead to the floor.
"I didn't hang it up because I couldn't bear to look at it! My beloved senior, hunted by the entire world! It's too PAINFUL!"
The cabin was silent.
Then Luffy burst out laughing.
"SHISHISHI! Itachi! Your bounty's more than DOUBLE mine!"
"THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING!" Usopp shrieked.
(End of Chapter)
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