Ch19: On the sea (Re-write)

After escaping the pirates, Caden and the girls decided to not get too far away from the island. They did so because they didn't manage to find any map or compass on the ship, only food that should last them around 5 days.

Girls decided that Caden should rest and they will manage everything around.

So he accepted and took one of the 3 small rooms under the deck. He picked the one at the front of the ship, which to enter he had to go through the 2 other rooms one after the other before reaching the stairs going upwards to the deck.

The ship itself was pretty small, only around 10 meters in length and 8 in height. It had one mast with a brown sail. Earlier they took down the pirate flag at the top, so as to not be considered a threat by the marines.

They were all very glad that the pirates didn't put a black sail on this ship before.

Looking at the ship from outside, it had a flat deck with one room at its level in the back. At the top of this room was the helm at the top.

For those who don't know, a helm is the mechanism used to steer the ship. In the case of this vessel the helm is a wooden wheel like those classic ones that Caden remembers from many fictional stories or other media.

Big and wooden, with protruding parts that you could grab for easier turning.

Enough about this, what is important is Caden's state, or rather his health.

Getting back to him, it was already noon and he was currently laying down on the only small bed this ship had. The girls decided to sleep in hammocks and the like to not let Caden suffer in one.

With his head on a pillow, Caden was laying on his back, hands on his stomach.

'Hmm, I can feel the bullet still inside me.' He thought, focusing his mind near his stomach.

Inside there, on the right side between his intestines, he could feel it.

A round metal object was sitting there, encased in slime.

'Looks like it worked by itself to contain it, good job slime.'

*sigh*

'Now to the problematic part. Should I leave it there and wait until I meet a doctor who could remove it, or try to do it myself?'

His hand slowly caressed his wound. It already stitched itself back together. His slime definitely helped with accelerating it.

'I would have to cut my stomach. Wow, just thinking about it seems insane to do. Just take a knife and cut your stomach open, another normal day in the world.'

With a chuckle, he decided to postpone it for now.

'Well, in the short term it won't kill me, so let's move on to the more interesting thing. What happened to me at that time.'

Caden tried to concentrate and get back to that moment, where he could see around him without using his eyes.

'It really seemed like Observation Haki, but I'm not 100% sure.'

Trying a few times to trigger it, he failed time and time again.

'Maybe it's still too early for it, I only trained for a year and had to stop for a few months. It's already good that anything came out of it. At least now I'm sure I could use it in the future.'

With a huge smile, he relaxed again.

'Now only to learn Armament and Conqueror's Haki. The first one should be possible after I awaken Observation and have some practice with using my spiritual energy.'

With a hand pointing up, he made a small swing, imagining it covered with black Armament Haki and decimating his opponents.

'The bigger problem will be the Conqueror's, after all it should be for, like, the chosen ones of this world or something, I don't really know how it's supposed to work. Maybe I will awaken it someday, but for now I should focus entirely on Observation. After all, my body is probably still too weak to even wield the other one.'

With that, Caden spent the rest of the day relaxing. Few of the girls made some food for them to eat, so he was very happy. Sometimes one of the girls came to him to check if he's alive and well. Few times they changed his bandages.

They were very impressed with how fast he was getting better. Each day his bruises got noticeably smaller, disappearing almost entirely after around 3 days.

In that time, he also got rid of the bullet by himself.

When he cut into his skin, he remembered that he had some resistance to pain, which made the entire process smoother.

From the cut having the length of a finger, he only felt pain equal to a paper cut. 

As he did it and was about to focus his slime on pushing out the alien object in his body, the door to his room opened.

From them appeared the blondie, holding a small tray with sandwiches.

She went inside all happy and bubbly, but seeing him sitting at the edge of his bed with a bloody knife in hand and a cut in his stomach from which blood flowed uncontrollably, she screamed. The tray fell on the floor, with Caden's breakfast spilling all over the place.

'Oh, that's a bummer.'

With tears in her eyes, she ran up to him and started holding down his wound.

"Oh my god you are bleeding! What were you doing!?" She shouted at him. Before he could respond, she gave him a strong hug, squeezing his face into her boobs.

"Don't worry, everything will be fine, you will be ok." She said with tears falling down her cheeks, hugging him with all her might.

From the pure bewilderment of her reaction, he dropped the knife on the floor and remained in place, with her sitting next to him.

She cried softly and caressed his head, with one hand still holding his stomach.

Her loud voice made the others come to check what was going on.

Going in, before they could ask what is happening, she shouted at them. "Help me, he tried to kill himself! Quick, bring bandages!"

Hearing that, they saw the bloody knife and started to run around looking for them. Chaos ensued, with the girls crying and panicking over Caden's situation.

He himself wasn't entirely aware of what was going on, rather focusing on the two heavenly soft pillows, which he was between.

It's the first time in this world that he is hugged this way. Bellemere did hug him a few times, but mostly avoided squishing him with her body. Nami and Nojiko didn't count to this, because they were still children. He could only feel their rib cages when they hugged him.

As the chaos was going around, only the oldest of them didn't fall into hysteria, instead she decided to directly ask him what was happening.

"Hey, what is going on?" She entered his room and looked at him. Noticing that he didn't respond, she went closer and pulled him away from the crying blondie.

"What is going on?!" This time she shouted into his ear, with her brown hair falling over her face.

Finally going out of his stupor, Caden turned to her. He quickly noticed the commotion around and explained what he was doing.

Hearing how he intended to basically do a surgery on himself, with no knowledge about this topic, she got very mad.

After giving him a solid scolding, she took the knife and left the room.

Going back in, she bandaged his new wound and told him that if he ever does that again, she will personally throw him off the ship and leave him with no help around.

That made Caden instantly agree with her. He still didn't tell them about his devil powers or how this face wasn't his, it was only a mask.

Finding this situation to be the best moment for it, he told them about his mask. The girls got curious, so he waited for them to all get together and pulled it off in front of them.

Seeing his youthful face made some of them blush, but it mostly made the brunette embarrassed.

She thought before that she was scolding an adult, so she used stronger language on him, but turns out he was only just a kid.

It made her more soft with dealing with him, treating him more like a child than an adult.

Caden himself wasn't very pleased about this, but left it at that.

After 2 more days, making it 5 in total, their food finally ran out. Of course, they still had some left. Enough to feed for a week more, but it would only be one meal a day.

Fortunately, around noon of the fifth day, a marine ship came by. It was a big one, with the distinctive green bottom and white sails, with the word 'MARINE' written on them.

They waved at them to get their attention. It worked.

The ship slowly approached them, looking bigger and bigger the closer it got. Finally, it stopped next to them.

With a loud sound, it dropped the anchor, stopping in place. Their deck was much higher than Caden's ship, so their group didn't see anything on the ship.

Finally, some marines bent over the railing and looked at them.

After having some back and forth, they were allowed to board the marine vessel. A rope ladder was thrown down at them to climb up. One by one, they got on the ship, with Caden going last.

Getting up on the ship, they were welcomed by the 77th branch of marines.

Turns out that for the past 2 days they were searching for them.

3 Days ago a merchant ship containing the slaves and prisoners of Puki pirates finally found help thanks to a passing by marine ship.

After hearing their story, the incident was handled by marine Commodore Pudding Pudding, who went with his crew to the island mentioned by the victims.

Arriving there, he saw the same thing they told him, burned pirate ships in the port and a mansion in the center of the island.

Reaching the land, he also found the pirates that were stuck there.

Apprehending them all, he finished the mission and went back. After consulting with the past slaves, he got to know about Caden and how he was supposed to escape later.

Together with them, he came to the conclusion that he must have escaped, because he didn't find the ship they mentioned not burning or the women that were supposed to be left behind.

With that being the case, he ordered a few ships to search around for Caden.

He would be found much faster, but it turns out that they went further away from the island than what they thought, making the search longer.

Caden didn't care much about it, he was just glad about finally being safe.

Right now he was sitting in a room under the deck, drinking some water.

"Guys, could you drop me off somewhere, or how does it work now?" He asked the marines sitting around.

"Hmm, normally the procedure is to go to the base where the civilians will be dropped off and directed to ships that could take them to their desired destination, but that won't happen today." He said, sounding ominously.

"W-what do you mean by that?" Asked Caden, a little spooked.

"Commodore Pudding Pudding ordered us to bring you guys directly to him." Said a marine while picking his nose.

"Why would he do that?"

"I don't know and that isn't for me to know. I only need to follow orders." He said with a blank face.

'Damn, now what? Will I be forced into some camp and made into a marine or what?' Thought Caden, getting increasingly more fed up. From a ship to a prison to another ship to god knows where.

*sigh*

'Whatever, maybe this time it won't be so bad.'

Thinking that, he went to his assigned hammock and laid down. The only thing he could do was wait, so he intended to laze around as much as possible.

Fortunately, he didn't have to worry about the girls anymore. They were taken care of by the female marines from this ship, currently gossiping about this or that.

With a yawn, he dozed off.

~2087 words