Moonlight
Chapter Seven-The Unnamed Island?
His introduction was a little rude, but fitting I thought, considering we were strangers intruding in on his... Home? That was my guess based on the fact he was so friendly with these wolves, which also struck another thought.
Perhaps he had been controlling them to hunt us down? His eyes betrayed a slight feeling of expectation, like he knew we would be here, but he still didn't know who we were. Which confused me all the more.
Masa might've been thinking along these lines because he asked the same thing as before, "Where is Mizuko?"
The guy snorted, "Are you talking about that blue-haired girl that my pets brought to me earlier? Why are you guys on my part of the island anyways? Couldn't you have gone to mess with Ursa? Or Corvus? Seriously..." He muttered.
"Answer the question." Masa growled.
"No you answer my question." The guy growled back, his wolves joining in on him.
That's when Ace suddenly disappeared and appeared behind the guy, his hand a ball of flames. He managed to capture him in his grip and held the flames close enough to his face it would probably hurt. "We need information, and you're going to give it to us, or I'll burn your face. Now first, where is Mizuko?" Ace threatened.
I could see fear flash through the guys eyes for a second before he attempted to gain his composure. "She's somewhere in these caves, obviously." He sarcastically replied, despite the situation he was in.
Ace brought the flames close enough to his face to singe his bangs peaking out from the hat he wore. He panicked now, "Alright! Alright! I can show you where she is just don't burn me, please!"
Ace scoffed and let him go. He stumbled for a second and straightened up, then he dashed down one of the many tunnels to escape, leaving his wolves as a distraction.
Which they were, it seemed like he had an endless supply of wolves to help him, so I threw out a suggestion. "Ace! You go after him, me and Masa will take care of the wolves."
Masa didn't seem to like this suggestion but I ignored his glare and watched Ace as he nodded and ran in the same direction as wolf guy. I on the other hand began to wrestle with the wolf who's ear I nicked earlier, I shifted into a hybrid form and used my talons to claw his face this time. Flying up into the air, I dive bombed another wolf and wished Ace the best of luck.
After fighting for awhile, me and Masa knocked out all the wolves who were our opponents. Not without any damage of course, Masa's leg had gotten scraped up pretty bad and one wolf had left a deep gash on my cheek that would probably leave a scar. I winced as I tried to stop the blood flow and looked over to where Masa had collapsed. I had warned him we should've waited until he was more rested to find Mizuko, it was his own fault for not listening.
I held up a piece of fabric torn from my jacket to my cheek and walked over to where Masa was and tried to prop him up by wrapping his hand around my shoulder and my hand around his. I was only able to half carry and half drag the weary body as I made my way down the tunnel Ace and wolf guy had disappeared. I hoped that things with him would've been taken care of by now.
After walking way longer than I thought the tunnel could've possibly been, I began to hear footsteps approaching from the way I was headed to.
As I began to move into the next patch of light a flickering torch I saw it was Ace coming towards me after all. He seemed to have one body hoisted onto his back and one dragging behind him over the rough surface of the cave floor.
I notice Flash was with him too, who had disappeared half way through the battle with the wolves.
Ace seemed to notice me and waved until the person on his back, who I now saw was Mizuko, began to slip. He quickly caught her again and jogged over to where I had stopped and filled me in on what had happened.
"I got information from this guy, turns out his name is Lupus. We're on an unnamed island currently, but it still has civilization. There's one village in the center of this island, which is star shaped by the way." At this I nodded my head because I already knew that. Ace continued, "Each point of the star is the territory to one person who has control over a certain animal species, for example, this is the territory of Lupus and we already know he can control wolves, but they aren't Devil Fruit users strangely. There is also Ursa, she has control over bears; Corvus, who controls ravens;" I tensed a little when he mentioned someone who had control over ravens.
"Lepus, who controls rabbits, and finally Vulpes, who controls foxes." Ace finished. I was surprised he had gotten so much information from Lupus, who was being dragged behind Ace.
I shivered a little considering how cold it was in this cave and my favorite jacket had been all torn up during the fight and I suggested we head back up to the surface, to which Ace agreed.
We began the slow journey of hauling ourselves and our two crew members, along with Lupus for some reason, back out of the cave. I had enough walking for one day.
I daydreamed about my parents a little to pass the time while we walked. I rubbed my jacket and remembered how they had given it to me for my birthday right before they died. They would always give me one random present to me on my birthday every year, it was the only day of the year they paid a little attention to me, otherwise they were focused on work or whatever. I felt slightly bad for messing up the jacket, but it was probably fixable. Probably.
When we saw the small exit nearing us, me and Ace both sped up at the same time. We shoved Masa, Mizuko, and Lupus through the small opening one at a time, Ace pushing them out from the inside and me pulling them out the rest of the way from the outside, before resting under the shade of the trees. It felt much warmer out here. I would've liked to bask in the sunlight, but it was blocked out by all the trees, so I settled with enjoying the warm breeze.
"So what next, Ace?" I asked to him, who was sitting against a tree across from me, his hands tied behind his head and his eyes closed.
He didn't answer for a minute and I thought he had fallen asleep, until both his eyes opened and he stared at the green leaves above him with an intense focus.
"We need to find out what happened to our boat." He finally said.
I hadn't thought about the boat until now, who knew what state it could be in after that storm, we were all lucky we survived. Maybe Mizuko knew something about our boat.
We had succeeded in tying up Lupus in case he tried to escape when he woke up, when a grunt came from where Masa was positioned. He sat up very suddenly and put a hand to his head, probably feeling dizzy. He looked around him and when he saw Mizuko was with us, he slumped back against the tree with a sigh of relief.
I pulled some jerky from my small backpack I had had on my shoulders since we crash landed at this island and hoped my duffel bag and the rest of my stuff was still okay on the boat.
"Hey!" I protested when Flash stole some of my jerky and flew onto a tree branch that I could only reach by climbing, and I really was not in a climbing mood, so I gave up on it and let him have it.
That's when Mizuko literally jumped up from her sitting position, she seemed very startled and confused. But when she saw the rest of us she blurted, "We need to go to the village!"
I watched her as she attempted to dash off in another direction, but was stopped by Masa, who grabbed the collar of her shirt to do so.
"Why?" Ace asked.
His question was only responded with the shake of a head, "Does it really matter? You guys look like you need to go there anyways to freshen up a little." Mizuko said.
"Just look at yourself." Masa snorted, referring to Mizuko's torn up clothes.
As the duo began to argue just like normal siblings, Lupus woke up with a loud groan, and began to struggle when he realized he was in restraints.
"Why the hell was it necessary to kidnap me and bring me with you?" He growled, Ace shrugged.
"Well originally there was no point in it, but seeing that you're awake now and Mizuko is being very urgent, why don't you show us to the village?" Ace asked.
"Why should I?" He sarcastically replied.
"Well, whether you like it or not I'll still drag you around with us." Ace shrugged once more before standing up to break up the fight between the twins.
I walked over to where Lupus still sat, and ordered him to get up. He did and I pushed over to where Ace was so he couldn't escape even with all this distraction.
"There's something they know!" Mizuko's voice rang out and Masa narrowed his eyes.
"Really?" A mocking tone did not go unnoticed.
"Yes, 'Really', I was there for a short while earlier and they told me they knew the whereabouts of our boat, but then they informed me that you and Luna were being attacked by wolves and they even knew where. I left before I could get more information from them, but it's like they knew everything happening on this island, and frankly, I don't see any den den mushis anywhere that could be spying on us." Mizuko explained.
Well, if they knew where our boat was then I would be willing to comply and head immediately for the village, I wanted to see if all my clothes were still okay or if I'd have to keep wearing these torn ones until we left the island.
Ace looked over at Lupus, "What do you know about this village?" He questioned.
Lupus turned away from Ace's prying stare and simply answered, "It is only my job to guard my territory and nothing more, anything the village does is not of my concern." It sounded like something he had been rehearsing repeatedly.
I could feel we were all repressing the urge to sigh, this island seemed impossibly confusing and no one was willing to give us answers.
Lupus began muttering under his breath, some sort of abstract sentence.
"What was that?" I asked, being the only one who noticed his muttering.
He sighed and spoke a little louder, "I said, the village is that way if you really need to find it." He nodded towards a random direction.
Ace smiled happily and pivoted while at the same time grabbed Lupus' wrists and began to drag him in the direction of the village, Masa and Mizuko following closely behind. I followed last, as I turned to look at the entrance to the cave once more, before I was snapped out of it by Flash who reminded me I had to keep up or I was going to be left behind.
"Are we there yet?" Mizuko complained, and I could relate, we had been walking for hours and it was getting really hot out. I was about to resort to urging myself into my raven form and perching on someone's shoulder for the rest of the ride, much like how Flash sat on mine.
"It should be just up ahead." Lupus responded, obviously annoyed, considering how he was still being dragged by Ace.
He let out an apparent sigh of relief when we emerged into a somewhat large and open meadow covered with bright flowers of all kinds.
"Here we are." He exclaimed.
Ace looked around, "Um, I'm not seeing any village." He said, reading me and Masa's thoughts.
Lupus chuckled a little, "well of course, it's built underground." He began to kick at a pile of large rocks and they easily tumbled down, revealing a small tunnel that led underground.
*What is up with this island and caves?* I thought.
"Follow me." Lupus said as he began to walk down the staircase that was in the tunnel.
I embraced the cool dampness of the cave after the searing heat that we had experienced up above and I couldn't blame the villagers from wanting to have their village underground. Or maybe that was just the fact because I was from and autumn island so I wasn't used to extreme temperatures.
I noticed Mizuko walked down the stairs with a little more confidence than the rest of us. *That's right, she said she had already been here. How, I can only imagine.* I observed.
"Welcome to the unnamed village of the unnamed island." Sarcastic Lupus was back as we walked into an absolutely enormous cavern compared to any other caves I had ever been in before.
Wooden houses occupied space everywhere and some slightly larger building peaked out above them in the center of the village. Almost everywhere you looked, candles were adorned to provide the cave with the light it needed.
We were stopped by two guards most likely, who asked for us to state our name and business.
I rolled my eyes, they probably didn't get many visitors here, I couldn't see why they would need guards.
Their eyes scanned our group, but when they landed on Lupus I saw a flash of recognition pass their faces. "Oh, sorry, we didn't see you Lupus, please go ahead." They also failed to notice his hands were tied behind his back.
Still it worked out because we all were let in, and we made our way through the narrow, somewhat busy streets towards the center. As of now Mizuko was leading with Lupus too so we were probably heading towards the person she wanted to talk to.
*Alright, time to learn some more about this crazy island.* I thought.
