Ten

It was morning when Sanji woke up. He had no clock to tell him so, but there was a bowl of porridge sitting on the nightstand in his new room with steam still rolling off it. Porridge was a breakfast meal.

He sat up gingerly and discovered his ribs didn't hurt at all anymore. His leg still throbbed, but it was dull. He was hungry, but not overwhelmingly so. Was the Conis lookalike some sort of magical healer? A real angel?

A quick check with his fingers, and Sanji discovered what still felt like broken bones. They were still at least partly broken, even if he wasn't feeling any pain from them. Something to be careful of when things got stressful. Next he checked out his ankle, but at some point in his sleep someone had wrapped it in a cast. That was going to make walking hard, but not impossible.

Deciding this was as good a time as any to get answers, Sanji pulled the blankets back. Someone had dressed him in a pair of denim pants and a simple white button up shirt in his sleep. Dizziness waved over him again, and he closed his eyes against it. Frustrated, he flopped back on the bed, willing himself better.

As though in response, his stomach rumbled. The porridge smelled good, and he needed food to get strong. He could figure out the rest after he ate. Plus, the master wanted him to eat, and Sanji wanted to please the master...

Hours passed before he saw anyone again. He'd gotten up and wandered around his room using the IV stand as a crutch. Not only did the room have no windows, but there was also no door. He'd gone from a prison cell to a great big fancy crate.

Carefully, Sanji shifted his weight to his broken leg, pulled back, and snapped out with a powerful kick. The wall shattered under the power of it. Good, just a normal crate. Flicking away any splinters, Sanji stepped through the hole, dragging his 'crutch' with him as he went.

The crate seemed to be in the hold of a huge warehouse along with hundreds of other crates in dozens of different sizes and shapes. Most of them were the same size of the one he'd broken out of. Room sized for a normal person. Sanji ripped the IV out of his arm to grant himself mobility, and then set out to investigate.

He managed to move a few steps before he was overwhelmed by vertigo.

"Dammit," he hissed as he stumbled and fell against the side of a crate.

"Who's there?" Sanji thought he heard, and his vertigo increased. He felt desperate of a sudden, and as much as he wanted out, part of him wished he'd stayed in the crate where the master wanted him.

A weird thought, he noted... Who was the master, and how did Sanji know what he wanted?

He shook it away and pressed back up with a stagger. He could count on both hands the number of times he'd felt worse than this and still carried through. He could do it again. One foot leading the other, Sanji began to drag himself forward with momentum.

He kept moving until he noticed the wood under his bare foot had turned to stone at some point. It was a familiar feeling thanks to his recent past. It felt exactly how it did when he'd been trapped in the stone cell. Suddenly, he didn't feel so free anymore. Everything was closing in on him. He heard screaming. Darkness flowed over him, and he collapsed into the arms of someone he hadn't heard come up on him.

"I really wish you wouldn't have left the room, Sia," he heard someone say. Who was Sia? That wasn't his name. Was it? "You're not strong enough to be wandering around just yet." Arms wrapped around his waist and someone pulled him close. "But I will protect you... I will keep you safe."

Sanji believed him.