Ohmygod I suck. I suck so bad *cowers in a corner Chrona style*

I was going to update like, five days days ago and then WABAM my teachers decided that would not happen. Since I last updated (and it hasn't even been that long?) I've had 8 tests/quizzes and countless hours of studying for them. BLAH.

So now here I am, finally catching up at 11pm friday night :') Hopefully enough people are up to read this 0.o

DUDE. My cat just made the weirdest noise, it was like ReOOOOOOWAH. The fuck?

Um anyways, THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING/FAVORITING. I swear every chapter I expect not to get anything and then you guys write really thoughtful comments (shout-out to youu, Mae Silver :3) . I swear I take everything you say into consideration. I changed the story around like 9340857 times after reading reviews and pondering. Haha!

Phew. Long author's note eh? K I'll start the story.

I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE IT!

DISCLAIMER: je ne possede pas le Soul Eater.

Second disclaimer: that ^ french could be wrong.

When Maka woke up, she had that terrifying feeling of being unsure of her location. Her stomach only dropped further when she remembered; she had been captured. She was in a cage, in the bilge of the Flying Dutchman.

How long have I been trapped here?

Judging by the regular intervals her scarce amount of food was brought to her, she had to guess three days.

Three days is a damn long time without moving, or seeing light, and in Maka's case, seeing Soul.

Soul… Maka wondered where he was. She remembered him being unconscious when she was dragged away, but she stubbornly told herself that he was fine. He was Soul, captain of the revered Shi no Fune. He would have escaped and saved his crew, if anyone could.

Maka felt like crying whenever she thought of the crew. She had convinced herself she was pirate material from the day she met Soul, but she was naïve. I am nothing more than a spoiled princess. I'm not brave and strong like the crew; I'm probably the only reason they were all brought into this mess.

Sighing, she lowered herself to the damp ground, wincing at the putrid smell of bilge water and mold. She thought of Kid's reaction to such a filthy room and smiled for a second. But it quickly faded as she thought of Soul again.

"Arghhhh, they had better let me out of this cage soon, I'm going to go crazy down here!"

A sinister laugh in a voice Maka had come to recognize followed her words. She groaned; It was the idiot Giriko who had been assigned to send Maka her (pathetically inadequate) meals. He brought a small fire down with him, which illuminated their surroundings only dimly. Maka could make out his face, which strikingly resembled a shark. He even had little slits on the side of his face that looked like gills. His teeth were sharp and pointy, too.

He grinned and said, "Silly poppet, that's the point! Jones wantsya good and mad before he continues his plan."

"What plan?" She was seething at Giriko's obvious enjoyment of her torture.

He continued like she hadn't spoken.

"Ah, yer in fer such a surprise," he giggled uncharacteristically.

This guy is a psychopath if I've ever seen one.

Then he took a set of keys out of his pocket and Maka watched in surprise as he unlocked the latch on her cage.

"Comeon out, poppet! We've got a friend waitin' fer ya."

A friend?

"I said comeon!" Giriko shouted impatiently, shaking her cage. Maka hobbled out and stretched gratefully.

He shoved her up the stairs to the deck. Maka had to shield her eyes from the sun; after three or so days in the dark, the light was all but foreign to her.

When she slowly squinted her eyes open, she found an entire crew full of fish people glaring at her. Some wore scowls, others sinister smiles. Maka briefly wondered why all of the people on this ship looked so disgusting. Out of sheer curiosity, she glanced down at her own skin and found it still human-like.

Two fish men emerged from the crew; Maka recognized one of them as Sebastian. She locked eyes with the other man and knew by his eyes who he was. Davy Jones. The captain. He also stuck out like a sore thumb because he was barely fishy. A few scales on his arms, a slimy coat on his skin and some small tentacles on his chin but that was all.

When he met eyes with Maka, he smiled devilishly.

"So we finally meet, Miss Maka Albarn. Seems just yesterday I was meetin' yer mother in the very same manner." At once, his expression turned from sickly sweet to contemptuous.
"The stupid wench managed to escape, but I won't make the same mistake twice."
Maka had to bite her tongue to avoid screaming at him for insulting her mother.

Jones called to his first mate, "Sebastian! Yeh know what ta do. The rest of ya, back to work!"

At his word, the crew surrounding Maka slithered back to their part of the ship, picking back up their work.

Sebastian, however, hovered closer to Maka.

"I'm gonna show ya how ta clean the bilge today," he looked proud, like he knew how disgusted this princess would be cleaning.

Maka snorted indignantly. "You think I didn't work as a new member on the Shi no Fune? I know how to clean bilge. I'll be done in an hour. No, wait, your ship is filthy. Better give me two." Before the eel even had time to register her response, she headed back down to the lower level, leaving the wooden door open to shed light inside. She found two filthy buckets and some sort of rags and pulled her sleeves upto prepare for her job.

When she returned to the deck with the buckets full, Sebastian was scoffing at her.

"Ya think that's tha worst of it, lassie. Jus' ya wait."

Maka shrugged off his threat, but in her head she was praising Soul and especially Patty for toughening her up on the Shi no Fune. Hopefully…hopefully she could work hard on this treacherous boat until she could figure out a way to free herself. If she was an asset, they couldn't kill her, right?

For the rest of the day, Maka performed the most grueling work on the ship. The crew was slightly impressed by her insane amount of determination, though they never told her that. They were undeniably crueler than the crew of the Shi no Fune.

Sebastian, however, only seemed to want to break Maka down.

At 10 p.m, when Maka thought she could head to a hammock with the rest of her make-shift crew, he chortled at her, "Where ya think yer goin', lass? You still needta swab the deck again."

Maka didn't dare whine or pout; She was set on proving her strength to the first mate.

As the night wore on, however, it became incresasingly difficult to avoid bursting into tears when Sebastian handed her another task. She ended up being forced to work through the night, into the next morning. And of course, this day was only harder.

Through the morning, Maka cleaned the ship, including the bilge, rigged the sails and checked the masts, even moved cargo around the vessels (this was completely unnecessary, Maka knew, Sebastian was just torturing her). She nearly collapsed multiple times throughout the day of sleep deprivation and overwork, staying conscious by sheer willpower. She hurled insults at Sebastian and Davy Jones himself every time a new job was appointed to her, but only in her head. She simply couldn't afford to quit now.

Despite all her efforts, one can only perform hard labor for so long. In the middle of the second night, Maka slumped over on the deck where she was working, into a state of semi-unconsciousness. She vaguely remembered Sebastian finding her and heaving her up, saying something about punishment time. Next thing she knew, she was handcuffed to a mast and Davy Jones was in front of her, spouting something about seeing an old friend again.

Am…I dreaming? I must be dreaming, she concluded.

Before her, stood Captain Soul Eater. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes seemed to be screaming at her for something. Trust me, she thought he was saying. Trust me.

She was still utterly confused when Davy Jones spat, "This is the man you put your faith in. A scalleywag! The second he was captured, he agreed to every one of my requests. A coward! This man has watched from the captain's quarters as you worked yourself to the bone for nothing more than the hope of seeing his crew again! How do you feel now, Maka?"

At this point, Maka was gaping openly at Soul.

"Soul, is he..is he right?"

He was a pirate, after all. He was only after her necklace in the first place; Now that Jones had it, why wouldn't he sell her out and side with the God of the Sea? It was as she thought all along- he never liked her at all.

If loss of sleep does anything to a person, it makes them emotional. Maka took Davy Jones' surprise to heart and tears swelled up in her emerald eyes. Meanwhile, Soul held a calm expression. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

He simply answered, "Yeah, pretty much."

So convincing.

But for a split second, could it have been? His eyes flashed a deep sorrow.

You're just seeing things, Maka.

Jones continued, as if he needed to add more to Maka's heartbreak.

"Now, Soul and I have decided ya need proper punishment fer fallin' asleep on the job!"
Jones handed an object to Soul, which Soul stared at before grabbing uncertainly.

A whip.

Maka dimly noted how it had started to rain, and how crew members had deemed this event fun enough to miss sleep over; They were crowding around, chuckling at Maka's misfortune. Sebastian turned Maka so that she was facing the mast and ripped her shirt up. Without free hands to cover herself, she was bare before the crew members that stood around her. They snorted while she reddened.

"Soul, will you really…?"

"Sorry, Maka." But his tone was flat- uncaring.

No sooner did she feel the white hot pain slash across her back than did her knees buckle and she fell, her arms still held up by the handcuffs. She yelped but immediately bit her tongue for letting it slip. She had to keep what little dignity she had left at this point. No crying, she thought with gritted teeth.

Easier said than done.

Again and again, burning knives, acid-tipped swords were being shoved into her backside. The pain was blinding, deafening. The world was dimming out before her again, and the audio of jeers and laughs from the crew was being turned down with her consciousness.

She lost count of the times she had been whipped. She could only pray the pain end; She would give anything for it to end. And it did, when she fell over for the second time that night, this time into a dreamless oblivion.

When she awoke, the first thing that registered was the burning sensation from underneath her. Maka hissed and sat up slowly, trying not to disturb her back any more. Glancing around, she found herself back in the cage she began in. Light filtered in through the door leading to the deck- it was probably already late into the next day.

When Maka remembered what had all happened last night, she screamed in pure frustration.

Fuck you, Soul! she thought. The entire time I was slaving away on this damn boat, you were basking in comfort. You lying, traitorous bastard!

She was left alone for the remainder of the day to seethe with contempt, before her old pal Giriko traipsed down the stairs with her horrible meal.

"Oi, poppet, wakey wakey!"
"I'm up," Maka growled.

"How ya feelin'!" Giriko couldn't be more pleased at her circumstances.

Maka hit one of the bars of her cage and said, "How do you think I'm feeling, filthy scum? I've been abandoned by my crew and captain, I'm in inconceivable pain and I'm stuck in a fucking cage!"

Giriko howled at Maka's deadpanned summary.

"Ah, you'll be happy to know then, that yer sufferin's almost up!"

"What do you mean." Maka didn't even phrase it as a question; she'd learned by now that Giriko wouldn't answer her.

Instead, he unlocked her cage and motioned her forward. When he hit her back to hurry her up the stairs, she screamed in pain. He only laughed.

Back on the deck, Maka found everyone was present for whatever came next. She gazed around to find who she was looking for- Soul's ruby eyes were dark and he stared at her unwaveringly. She snarled at him. I could kill you, she thought. His mouth turned down into a frown.

The next thing she noticed was the piece of wood stuck out over the railing of the deck.

Her stomach dropped.

The blood rushed out of her face.

"Oh no," she whispered.

"Oh yes," Davy Jones answered from right behind her. She didn't have time to move before he tied a piece of cloth around her wrists, and then ankles.

He then marched her to the plank.

The crewmembers were practically salivating.

Soul continued to stare.

She tried to reason her way out of it. "I'm still of value to you!"

"How!" Jones bellowed.

"I can cook, I can clean! I…I!" She knew her argument was weak.

She would be walking the plank.

"Sorry poppet, but yer jus a burden on this ship of men! We'll be off ta find our treasure with yer fancy necklace now, and you can sink to the bottom of my locker! And ya can be sure that me n' Soul've picked a spot you'll never escape from, like yer wench of a mother! Argg!"

The crewmembers laughed insidiously and stomped their feet like animals. They were primal- they wanted to see a death and nothing else.

Maka was grabbed roughly and thrown up onto the plank. She turned to throw one more What the fuck Soul! look at her former captain, but he gave her no answers.

She knew she had no choice- she'd walk the plank. Hey, I wanted off this ship. Looks like I got it.

Without another word, without any fight left in her, Maka hopped awkwardly down the plank to the edge, allowing herself one look at the deep blue water below before plunging in.

While she struggled underwater with her hands and ankles tied, she missed the commotion on board, followed by another splash.

Oh my god. I'm so tired. But I needed to get this chapter up.

I hope you all enjoy it.

Soul is such a douche, no? (;

Please review, and I will have the 8th chapter up in the next two days :D

Thank you for reading~