NOTES: Not much to say, other than I got a stroke of inspiration recently. I gladly give you all the results.

REVIEWER THANKS: Rose-chan and her super-sonic squeals of happiness. You're what keeps this thing going right now, hon. Thanks. All the other readers, new and old, I thank you too. Be sure to let me know how you think I am doing; I'm always open to input and discussion.


Inherited Will, Destiny of the Age

Chapter Fifty One

Chabo: Oh, Captain, My Captain

Captain Rika stood there, crying in my arms. I didn't really understand why, but she had seemed pretty distracted before. I went to hug her, since it seems like girls need hugs to feel better sometimes, and she began to cry. It was strange to see Captain Rika cry, but she was shaking and seemed really shook up.

"What's wrong Captain?" I asked after a while. She sniffled and looked up at me with puffy red eyes. She looked like she hated herself.

"I remember Doflamingo…" she said. "I met the ruler of the North Blue once."

"That's okay," I said. "He is a cruel man who makes deals with Fullbody and Jango. There's no helping it…"

"…but you don't understand!" she cried. "I stole something from him!"

"You stole from a Shichibukai?"

"Not on purpose…" Captain Rika was panicking. "All I did was told him the tavern was closed. That's all I wanted to do…"

I held Rika a bit closer and she cried some more. She forced herself to stop crying and wiped her eyes.

"This isn't me," she said. "I'm sorry Chabo-kun, but this isn't like me."

"I know," I said. "Should we get back to looking?"

"Yeah."

We searched the house in silence afterwards. Her eyes got less puffy and her face wasn't red by the time we went out to search another house. The next one we searched was less burnt and therefore took longer to look through. It was awkward not saying anything, but I couldn't bring myself to break the barrier Captain Rika was building. There was a far-off look in her eyes, like she really wasn't paying attention as to what was happening. She didn't even freak out when a spider landed on her shoulder. That was how I knew it wasn't all alright.

We met up with everyone else after about an hour. Nobody was talking and it was all kinda awkward. It was pretty clear that no one had found survivors. Dan curled up in Miss Moda's lap and began crying.

"It looks like everything was pretty much destroyed," Mr Paulie muttered quietly so that Dan couldn't hear. "Other than a couple of charred corpses, there's no sign of anyone being left behind."

"I did find this though," Tamanegi said, holding out a slip of paper. Captain Rika took it from him and began reading it over. She handed the paper to Kappa-kun, who read it aloud.

"'The remainder of the Old Powers are now in hiding; let the glorious revolution begin. Take the crossroads and the entire World shall be ours.' Sounds like Law finally has free reign over his actions and decided that this was going to be his first stop."

"So then there really is nothing left," Piiman said. "The people we found dead were the lucky ones."

"Right," Tamanegi said. "What Dan said about this place being an information hub is most likely true and Trafalgar Law understood that. Without information being fed to it, the rest of the world is isolated and weakened. If there was one thing that the North Blue pirates understood more than anything, it was how to break the will of men."

"…but now what are we going to do with Dan?" Ninjin asked. "We can't just leave him here, but we can't take him with us."

"Can we send him back to Miss Chimney?" I asked. I had remembered a couple times on our way over when Dan decided that he had wanted to write Little Thomas, since they were about the same age.

"No," Mr Paulie said. His voice was stern, but sad at the same time. "I don't want to go back there until I'm sure that no one will be following us. Even if the kid goes back by himself, since we sent him, he'll be associated with us and that is more than enough reason to raze the village."

"I guess we take him with us then," Captain Rika said. "If there's a good place for him to stay on the way, he'll have to wait there, but I don't think there's many places I'd leave him other than with his family or with Chimney and Paulie-ji."

"I'm touched," Mr Paulie said, completely deadpan. Swordslady Tashigi scoffed.

"I don't think we should have a kid with us," she frowned. "He'll be more trouble than he's worth. We should dump him on the next island."

"I've been teaching him how to fight," Ninjin said. "He's pretty good so far.

"A child is still a child, no matter how well they can fight. Any one of us can lift him by the scruff of his neck; what would be stopping his opponent? Children should not be subjected to such a thing as war."

"Well, most of us were and look how we turned out," Ninjin replied. Swordslady Tashigi glared meanly at him with one of the most serious faces I had ever seen her use.

"My point exactly," she said. She turned and walked away. I could see Kappa-kun open his mouth to call her back, but he shut it again. I wouldn't have gone near her either, since she looked more angry than usual.

"This still doesn't change the fact that we have to take him with us," Mr Paulie said. "No matter where we dump him, he's going to be nothing but trouble for being associated with us. Might as well keep him and spare the destruction of a few villages and islands."

"You are being unusually kind," Tamanegi said. "This isn't like you."

"How would you like it if you were the kid?"

"Right…" Tamanegi looked down at the ground and then back over to Captain Rika. "I guess it is your choice in the end."

"We keep him," Captain Rika said. The way she said it made it sound like she was still very sad, but he hid it behind a smile. "Kappa-kun, what's the next island?"

"A little port called Price," he said. "If we stock up on water and some wild animals, fruits and mushrooms and things, we should be able to make the three-day journey. We had been depending on this to be a full break, after all."

"Then that settles it," Captain Rika said. She turned to Miss Moda and Dan. "Come on! We should probably go back to the ship now! We'll leave it to the guys and Aisa-chan to find some food."

Dan looked up at Captain Rika and sniffled. His face was red and his eyes were puffy. He then looked around. "Where's Tashigi-sis?"

"Finding some food to take on our adventure; we still have a long way to go before the next port."

"A-are you going to leave me there?" The kid's voice was wavering, close to breaking out into tears again. Captain Rika bent down to Dan and put her hat on his head, smiling kindly.

"No."

"Really…?"

"Not unless you want us to," Mr Paulie said. He picked Dan up and started to walk back towards the ship. At that moment, he really did look a lot like a dad, probably missing Little Thomas. Captain Rika and Miss Moda followed him while the rest of us… we split up to see if we could find any food.


Author's Notes

This chapter was a little bit shorter than Chabo's regular stints, only because I want a bit more emphasis on the next chapter, which is written and shall come out soon.

Oh, and Law. Heh. Friggin' Estrogen bait.