Will of D Chapter 9
So, just a short little chapter before the story moves along.
Luna raced through the town, searching desperately for someone to help her friends. The first clinic told her at the start that they just couldn't help Harry. They did recommend a nearby doctor who specialized in emergencies. Rushing to him, she explained her situation and he flat out refused to help pirates. Her last chance was the nearby hospital.
Rushing into the small waiting area, she pants and gasps to catch her breath before saying, "please! You… need to… help my friend!"
"Where is this friend? And what's wrong?" The nurse asks hurriedly, writing something down on her clipboard.
"On my ship…. He's got a really bad cut to his shoulder, and we think he might have internal damage!"
Her eyes darken at her words, "Are you pirates?" she sighs, and Luna nods, "Then you should know that it is this hospital's policy that any pirates receiving treatment are handed over to the marines. That is the only way we can help."
"No…" she cries and running out of the hospital. Never noticing that a young black haired woman was following her.
Luna couldn't stop the tears as she asked everyone at the town center if they knew how to help, but none of them even answered her. The wanted posters now covering the town likely didn't help any. Finally, just as she was about to give up, someone placed a hand on her shoulder, "let me see this friend of yours."
Hope filled Luna's eyes as she all but dragged the woman with her towards the ship.
As soon as they got back, the woman rushed over to Harry, glancing at the shoulder wound, "This is bad. There doesn't look like any internal injuries, but he's lost a lot of blood. If this keeps up, he'll be dead in less than five minutes. Get me something to stop the bleeding!" She snaps as Susan rushes into the ship.
It took nearly an hour of ordering them around and Susan rushing off at full speed to buy thing in town, but she finally broke into a smile and said, "It looks like he'll make it."
They all breathed a sigh of relief as she stood up and stretched her legs, "keep the bandages clean and make sure he doesn't move his arm too much for about a week and he should recover. There'll be some muscle damage, but I can't say how severe until he gets back into things. Now, let's look at you two."
They all look at her cluelessly as she walks over to Neville's still body, "He's got more wounds, but they're much less serious. Keep the cuts bandaged and have him rest for a while. He'll be fine in a couple of days. Now, you, young lady. Come here and let me look at your leg."
Susan looks down, only just remembering that she got hurt during her fight. After a quick exam and a quicker bandage, she's was all set to go.
Gathering up her tools, she smiled at them, "I'll be off. Keep an eye on them, and remember what I said. If you need me, I'll be working in the hospital for a while, so just wait there and I'll find you."
"Thank you so much!" Daphne smiles brightly, "We never got your name."
"It's Tonks." She answers, "Sorry, but I've got work to do. I'll see if I can stop by later and check on them."
"Thanks again!" Luna says happily, holding out a wad of cash, "Here, take this for your help."
"A pirate? Paying for something?' She laughs, accepting the money, "You guys haven't been doing this for long, have you?"
"No, but even if we were, you saved our captain, so you deserve that much." Daphne chuckles.
"Well, if more pirates were like you, maybe you wouldn't have had as much problem finding someone to help you. Not that I'm complaining since I'm probably a few million beri richer for it, but still." She laughs as she walks back into town.
As she walks away from the odd pirate crew, Tonks counts the money that the girl had given her. 'Ten million beri?' she thinks with a smirk, 'damn. And there goes my plan to sell them out to the others. They'll probably give me more for a follow up visit than the old dude will give me for the successful job.'
She walks calmly through the doors to the warehouse where she stops dead in her tracks. The men were gathered around one spot, all looked worried.
"Nymphadora!" One yells, though he instantly regretted his words as she sunk her knee into his crotch.
"What have I told you about using my first name?" She growls, but stops when she looks to the place where they were all staring. Sirius, his brother Regulas, and her cousin Draco were all lying with serious wounds.
"Some bastards showed up and did this to the boss!" one man cries slightly, "You've got to help them."
Muttering, she kneels next to them and quickly examines the wounds. Regulas had a severely broken hand and two large cuts across his chest. Draco's only wound was also pretty severe, a single slash straight down his chest. Easily the most pressing of all three of them. Sirius had a stab wound to the shoulder, almost a mirror image of the wound Harry had, along with a severed hamstring. 'He'll never fully recover from his.' She muses as she orders the men to get her the supplies she needs. Luckily, she had everything they need in her room. This wouldn't end like the pirates had, that was certain. Here, she had everything she needed and more than enough people to help. She'd have no problem saving them all even in the limited time she had.
Nymphadora Tonks wasn't the doctor of the Black Bounty Family for nothing.
Luna changes both Harry's and Neville bandages while Susan and Daphne got some sleep. It had been an exhausting day, but with any luck Harry and Neville would wake tomorrow.
"How are they?" A voice asks behind her.
"Miss Tonks!" She smiles, "They seem to be alright. Both of them don't seem as pale as before at least."
"That's a good sign." She nods, "I'll be at the hospital tomorrow. Come and get me when either of them wakes up, alright? I want to know how they are."
"I will." Luna nods as she walks back off the ship. Leaning back, Luna smiles as she drifts off to sleep, happy if nothing else, that Harry and Neville will be alright.
Groaning, Harry opened his eyes as he saw a Susan's red hair next to him.
"About time you woke up." She chuckles.
"What happened?" He moans, "The last thing I remember was beating that guy."
"Of course you remember that." Daphne glares, "What is it with you men? You almost get yourselves killed and all you have to say is that you beat him?"
"It's a guy thing, Daphne." Neville chuckles weakly from the bed next to him, "The fact that we almost died is irrelevant. As long as we got a good fight in, that's to be expected."
"He's right." Harry grins, "So what happened after I won?"
She glares back at him, but answers anyway "Luna managed to find a doctor that didn't mind treating pirates, and she saved you. Luna's gone to get her now, so she can check you wounds."
"Great." Harry mutters, trying to sit up, only to wince when he tries to put weight on his left arm.
"I should've told you before." Susan says apologetically, "You aren't supposed to use your arm too much for about a week. To make sure it had time to heal."
"Looks like we'll be here for a while." Harry grumbles as he sits up with Susan's help.
"I'm alright with that." Neville smirks, "After all, we can't do much training until at least we recover, so we'd be bored out of our minds at sea."
"Fair enough." Harry mumbles, leaning back against the wall as they wait.
Five minutes later, Luna returned with a woman with short black hair. "So, both of you?" she grins, "Luna only told me about Neville."
"Harry just woke up five minutes ago." Susan explains, "But when did you learn their names?"
"The wanted poster up all around town." She shrugs, sitting next to Harry, who stiffens slightly, "Oh, no need to worry. If I was going to betray you, I'd have done it last night when you two were both out of commission." Following a long examination, she nods approvingly, "Looks like you'll be alright as long as you take it easy for a couple of days. I'm quite surprised at how well your muscles are repairing themselves. You might just make a full recovery."
"Glad to hear it." He smirks, "How long until then?"
"I'd say two weeks until you're ready to start moving around normally, and maybe another week before you're at full strength." She answers, moving onto Neville, "You, on the other hand, don't have any serious injuries, so I'd say you'll be fine in a couple of days as long as you take it easy at first."
"Yes ma'am." He smiles.
"Don't call me ma'am." She sighs, "It's Tonks."
"Yes Tonks." They chime at the same time.
Daphne looks at her and laughs, "How is it that managed to train them in less than five minutes when we've tried to for a week?"
"I've had more practice." She shrugs, "Still going to have to check on them every now and then, but I'll leave the rest to you, alright?"
"You got it." Susan grins with a mock salute as Tonks leaves the cabin.
There was a knock at the door, and smoker calls, "Enter!" an older woman with short brown hair stepped in, accompanied by his second in command, Tashigi.
"Lieutenant Skeeter as requested!" she salutes proudly.
"I'm sorry to drag you in, Lieutenant, but I had a few questions for you." He says politely, "may I offer you something to drink?"
"Tea would be lovely." She nods, as Tashigi hands her a cup. "How may I be of assistance?"
"What do you know about Kaido?" he asks calmly, gauging her reaction.
As he expected, she suddenly became nervous, though she schooled her features quickly, "He's one of the Yonko, and of the four he has the largest crew. Also, he's made it his mission to acquire an army of devil fruit user, and has the most recorded members of his crew. Current bounty is eight billion, and widely considered among the greatest threats to the world following Whitebeards death."
"All very true facts." He nods, "However, what isn't well known is that he has some very well placed spies within the government and the marines. It seems one of these spies is aboard my ship and is responsible for planting the bomb that killed eighteen of our comrades, and wounded six more so grievously they might never return to duty."
She puts on an obviously fake surprised face as she gasps, "That monster has someone on our crew? We have to find them!"
"That's right." Smoker nods, grabbing a hold of his jutte, "But you see, this spy was working with those pirates in an attempt to kill me. After all, of the four break room on that ship, they planted the bomb on the one that I'm known for being in at that exact time, and the pirates knew exactly where we'd be at that time. Only the navigator could have told them ahead of time, since everyone saw you on duty the entire time after we left Azkaban. Which means you are our only suspect, Lieutenant."
To her credit, the face she made now was actually believable, if only slightly, "Sir, you can't honestly believe that!"
"I've ordered a group of men to search your room as we speak." He says calmly, "I'm sure they'll find plenty to link you to Kaido. Not the least being the transponder snail used to contact his men."
Now she must have realized she lost, as she leaps forward, trying to use the knife that she'd smuggled in to kill him. With one move, he pins her to the wall and disarms her.
"Rita Skeeter, you are under arrest for Treason against the world Government and the murder of eighteen marines. Tashigi, cuff her." He says as easily as if he'd asked for a cup of tea. Tashigi, who was well aware of the plan, didn't miss a beat slapping a pair of Seastone handcuffs around wrists. They could never be too sure. This is Kaido they were dealing with, and he might have sent a devil fruit user to deal with them.
Walking into his quarters, Smoker picks up the transponder snail and is instantly connected to HQ.
"This is vice admiral Smoker; Id is one-three-seven-four-two. Connect me to the personnel department."
"Vice admiral?" The voice says from the other end, "Your requested personnel will be ready to leave before the day is out. They'll arrive on Azkaban early next week."
"Redirect them." He replies, "We've discovered the traitor in our crew roster. It was our navigator, Rita Skeeter. With no reliable navigator on board, we have no way of making it through the turbulent waters surrounding Azkaban until our new navigator arrives."
"I understand. I'll add an accomplished navigator to the roster. This shouldn't delay the departure any more. Where would you like to send them?"
"Valca, southwest of the Azkaban. For the time, that is my base of operations."
"They will be sent."
"Good. Smoker out." He says before hanging up the snail.
"Can I get back to training yet?" Harry whines during Tonks' daily visit a few days after the battle at the warehouse.
"No." she growls, "The wound might have closed, but the muscle still hasn't fully recovered. Training now would risk destroying it for good."
"Sucks to be you, Harry." Neville laughs as he continues with his training. Tonks cleared him for it the day before.
"At the rate you're healing you'll be good around this time next week. For now, small movements won't be a problem, but don't overexert yourself. If you feel any pain, don't continue. Stop and rest."
"Yes Tonks." He pouts as Susan and Neville square off. Luna was busy concentrating on making sure that no bounty hunters tried to sneak up on them. Speaking of, "Tonks, have you ever heard of Haki?"
"Haki?" she stares, "Yeah, I've heard of it. Now that I think about it, that might be a good idea. At least you won't feel like you're wasting your time while you recover."
"What is it?" He asks, "A guy I fought I while back mentioned it, but I'd never heard of it before."
"Haki is… well I guess it's a power. But it's not like a devil fruit. Everyone can train to use it if they try hard enough, though some will be better than others. "She explains, struggling to find her words, "In general, there are two different types. I can only teach you one. You'll need to find someone else to teach you observation Haki, but Arms Haki I can teach you."
"What's the difference?" Daphne asks, having been listening intently throughout the conversation.
"Well, observation Haki is kind of like instinctively knowing your surroundings. I've never been all that good with it, but I've heard that you can use it to predict your opponent's moves and estimate the strength of an enemy force just to name a few uses." She says while watching Neville's battle with a half transformed Susan, "Your friend Neville can use it, but only a bit. He's guessing her moves, but usually too late to effectively use it. Once he's got some practice in, he'll improve."
"So that's what he's doing…" Daphne nods, "I've noticed that he always tries to change his move at the last minute, but it always ends up worse than before."
Tonks nods thoughtfully, having noticed the same thing, "That's boring though. Arms Haki is more fun. More battle oriented. There is almost nothing that can really defend against it. It'll hit even a Logia user when transformed. For now, I'll teach you only how to use it one your right arm, since that one's not hurt. Once your other arm recovers, you shouldn't have any trouble applying the same principle to your left arm. It'll take some practice, but you'll get used to it."
"That'd be great." Harry smiles at her, you know, we do need a doctor for the ship…"
"Sorry." She smirks, "Maybe next time."
"Can't blame me for trying." He shrugs, "Now, how do we do this?"
A bit shorter than i would have liked, but it seemed like a good place to stop. One more chapter for today.
