CH - 39

Everyone stood in Miriane's living room, gathered around their newly awakened crew member. Valentina pulled herself from Halcen and turned to face the rest of the house. With all the faces staring at her, she started to feel a bit overwhelmed. "I'm fine," she squeaked out.

"Come here," Miriane said, taking a step toward Valentina with her hands up. "I better double check."

Valentina looked to the old woman. "I'm sorry… who are you?"

"She's the one that's been taking care of us," Halcen said from behind her. "Valentina, this is Miriane."

"Oh, hello."

"Yes, yes, nice to meet you too," Miriane pushed. "Now come here and let me check your vitals."

Valentina gave Halcen a confused look.

Halcen nodded.

So Valentina did as ordered and walked up to the old woman.

Miriane began examining the young woman. It took a few minutes, but finally, she said "Everything seems fine to me."

"Hey, Valentina's okay!" a voice broke the frozen scene from the front door.

They all turned to see Jory.

"Jory," she said happily. "You're okay too."

The younger guy walked into the room and took a look around. "Hey Bo, what do you know?"

Bo sighed, closed his eyes, and hung his head, shaking it slowly. "Don't say that…"

"Fair enough," the young man said, patting the sniper on the shoulder. "I'm glad you're up. Are the others…?"

"Still asleep," Miriane told him.

"Alright."

"How's Bailu and the ship?" Halcen asked.

"Well, everything is in perfect working order, especially Bailu's attitude. We can leave whenever. We're pretty much out of most of our supplies. We only packed enough to make it to Loguetown, cause that's where we planned on restocking, but with the extra few days we spent here... and it's still at least half a week trip from here. And with all these people, we're gonna be scrapping real thin until we actually get there."

"That doesn't sound very assuring," Halcen said out loud. If we run out of food and water, things are going to get bad. It's not that long of a trip without, but it's not something I wanna risk with people I've never dealt with in a tight situation like this…

"Well," Miriane said, chiming in, "I'm sure you guys could just salvage whatever you need from the homes and stores in the area."

"Could we?" Halcen asked.

"I don't see why not. It's not like there are enough people around to get through them before stuff starts to spoil. We're gonna rebuild here, but it won't be that fast."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure it'll be just fine."

"Thank you." Halcen turned to the others. "But we still have to wait for Grey and Kazuki to wake up. I don't wanna be moving them until they've healed. We don't need to cause extra damage."

"Sounds fine to me."

So after they had all eaten, Miriane had the kids of the town come to aid the pirates in getting supplies for their trip. They were headed to Loguetown being low on supplies, and it was still quite far away. They needed to make sure they'd have enough for the trip, or they'd all starve by the time they got there. It was only a few days away, but they still needed to keep their strength up. Plus, anything they could get for free out of this town, they wouldn't need to buy in Loguetown, so it was a money-saver to get what they could here.

Halcen decided to keep the Devil Fruit on himself, tied across his waist in a sling, rather than leaving it on the ship. The thing seemed so small and innocent, but this single piece of fruit had caused a mass commotion in their trip to this island. He knew it would be better kept safe in his own possession than stored on the Black Tail for anybody's taking. He knew how greedy people could get over Devil Fruits. He'd learned the hard way.

His crew rummaged through the houses of the no longer existing people, taking mostly food and drinks. There wasn't much of monetary value; no gold or jewelry. This island didn't seem big on those things. Maybe it was that their "god" thought it was sinful to have those kinds of things pervade their society. Halcen couldn't imagine a life like that.

They also decided to loot the supply stores, like the wood store Halcen had been forced to purchase from. He decided it best to make sure they had everything they might need in case another accident happened and they wouldn't have to pull over to ask for help.

They managed to salvaged more than a week's worth of food and drag it down to the ship. Halcen helped carry it all back to the ship with Jory, Loyola, and Bo. Bo carried the least because of his injuries, but he was still help enough. Valentina was told to stay at the house and rest.

While one of the children was leading Halcen between the houses, he stopped and looked up at the man. The kid was maybe ten, short, and a little pudgy with short brown hair. He said to Halcen "Hey mister," he said lowly.

Halcen looked down at the kid. "Yeah?"

His chubby head looked around, trying to make sure nobody was around to hear him. "I heard you were looking for candy."

Halcen's mind rang with the word. Candy. His beady eyes stared at the kid. "I might have mentioned it."

"I have a stash," the little voice eked out.

Get to the point, kid. "Is there a reason you're telling me?"

He nodded. "You can have some."

"Oh?" his ears perked up like a dog.

The kid pulled out a plastic bag from one of his many pockets. The "stash" was rather meager, but there were a few random pieces of this and that; stuff Halcen had been dying for. He opened the small bag, reached in, and began rummaging through, surely not wanting to give up his own favorites. Finally, he took a few pieces out.

"What do you want for it?"

The little boy shook his head. "I don't need anything."

"Then what's the catch?"

The kid looked at Halcen in confusion. "You did a lot to help us. And you didn't ask for a reward. So you can have this as a thank you." He placed the small pieces of candy in Halcen's hand. One was a simple bite-sized piece of milk chocolate, another was a piece of pink taffy, and the last one was a hard candy to suck on.

Halcen's eyes glowed wide over the treasure. "This is mine?" he whispered.

The boy nodded his head.

Halcen's urges told him to down the candy all at once right there. His pulse pounded for the sweets and his mouth began to water. But he only had three pieces and he didn't know when he might be able to get more. I can have one piece now and I'll save the others for later. He picked the taffy and unwrapped it, then shoved it in his mouth. The sweet fruity taste, the chewy texture. He had to force himself to take slow bites to savor it. He lost himself for a few moments and finally came to when it was all gone. He looked back at his hand and shoved the other two in his pocket. They would be his reward for other things.

"Thank you," he said to the child.

The rest of the day was spent continuing to salvage supplies for their trip. It took hours and hours with just the few of them, dragging stuff down the levels and going all the way back up again, and repeating the same process. They had carts to pull the bigger stuff, but the whole process was still tiring. The kids helped carry a little bit too, mainly only with light stuff like food.

Halcen and the others returned to Miriane's house halfway through the day for a quick lunch, but then got right back to work.

We're on a time crunch, Halcen reminded himself. Shanks is more than a week ahead of us. We have to get off this island and to Loguetown fast so we don't lose his scent.

By the time Halcen felt like they had appropriated everything they would need, it was getting dark, and he could smell the food cooking from Miriane's house. He walked slowly down the couple levels of the town to her house. When he opened the door, and said "I'm back," he was delighted by the scene before him.

Ahead of him, in one of the chairs, being looked over by Miriane, was Kazuki. He had finally woken up.

In the kitchen, Loyola was working on the food. Valentina was sitting on the couch opposite Kazuki.

"Kazuki!" Halcen exclaimed. "You're okay!"

Kazuki winced. "Yeah, I'm fine. But could you not yell? I have a massive headache."

"He's got a concussion," Miriane stated. "So he's gonna need more time before he jumps back into any action. His bones are also still healing, but those should be fine in the next few days. He's a trooper."

"Oh, sorry," Halcen said, lowering his voice.

"Where's everybody else?" Kazuki asked quietly.

"Well Jory and Bo are helping load stuff. They're most likely on their way back now. Bailu is still on the ship. He flat out refuses to come up here. Says it's too much on his body to walk this much. I guess that's why he works on boats."

Valentina let out a little laugh.

"So Bo's okay?"

"Yeah… everybody is gonna be fine…" Halcen drifted off.

"I saw Grey was still out," Kazuki said, addressing the bad. "How long's it been?"

"Only the one night so far. The fight with Kumajin was only yesterday. I figured you guys would be out longer, but I hoped not. You two really took the worst of it."

And then the door opened once more, Jory and Bo walked inside to see Kazuki up and well.

Bo stood in silence for a moment, but his eyes sparked up. "Good to see you're okay," he said with control.

"You too," the other nodded toward his comrade.

"Quell the enthusiasm," Miriane said, still standing next to Kazuki.

"Sorry." Bo laughed it off and then walked in and sat down. "So we're all good to go then?"

"I just gotta take it easy for a bit."

"That's fine. I'm sure once we get to Loguetown, they're gonna force us off duty for a bit anyway."

"That's true," Kazuki said, nodding. "The bureaucratic bullshit we're gonna have to go through... ugh. It's gonna be so annoying."

"Well, I think it'll all be fine. Just gotta get it over with. Then we can go back to work."

"Yeah…" Kazuki drifted out.

"So we're all set to go?" Bo asked Halcen.

"Not quite. Grey's still out."