138 Unexpected visitor

Terrick groaned as he sat on deck, a small bottle in his mouth as alcohol trickled into his open maw.

He snorted in annoyance as a drop of water splattered on his head. They had found the cove that the captain had spoken off, and with a lot of patience and luck had managed to anchor the ship in a relatively shallow portion of the cove.

Now all they had to do was wait for the captain to come over and relieve them.

"Ugh.." He snorted again as he heard the faint whisper of his compatriots snores from the other side of the deck. The young boy had exerted himself a bit too much, and had ended up quite drained. As a doctor he had taken his own recovery extremely seriously. He would perform a set of exercises every day, pushing himself and maintaining his body's overall fitness.

Slowly Terrick got to his feet, a smile unwittingly finding its way onto his face as he felt the calm and cool breeze rustle his hair. As he locked at the cloudless sky he could not help but reminisce.

On this crew he had discovered himself, made more friends that were no longer restricted to a four cornered jail cell and even gotten his own protégé. (However hard the captain would fight for the boy, since it was him that brought little Scipio onto the crew it was he that should get the credit he argued)

With a switch of his fingers he brought out a barely sharp dagger from within his coat, its surface gleaming with an unearthly tinge as it seemingly gobbled up the light from its surroundings.

A line of cracks ran across its sides as chips of metal could be seen conspicuously absent from its structure.

With practiced ease he brought out a mini sharpening stone, resting it against the railing he slowly began to grind across it, and though the sound it emitted was quite shrill he could still hear the unmistakable sound of the blade cheering as its dull surface met the gritted stone.

He would do this often, for this blade was a relic that he had obtained purely by chance from his late father's draw. Grinding it helped him remember a more peaceful time, and let him become truly at peace with himself. It was almost a ritual at this point.

Unfortunately however, this ritual would be interrupted this night by a blaze of light along the horizon that zoomed speedily towards the rightmost corner of the island.

A shooting star of sorts that blazed through the air.

In seconds Terrick was once more at full attention, and though his better judgment warned him against it he slowly pocketed his knife anyway. He was the least likely of the crew to get caught under any circumstances, and so was fully in charge of scouting new and unexplored situations.

Especially under the cover of night, even the captain and Fawkes with their advanced levels of Observation Haki would find it difficult to find him.

****

Borsolino moaned loudly as he slowly got to his feet, leaves colored his hair as his shirt wilted in the mud.

He had zoomed through a whole swathe of trees before ramming rather painfully into the ground, his elemental transformation coming apart at the sudden stillness that was associated with falling at a rather unbreakable floor.

With purposeful steps he slowly made his way off the muddy track that his body had made on the ground, his hands beating at his vest in the vain hopes that it would get the large specks of mud off of the garishly yellow shirt.

His white navy coat had come undone, torn and limply hanging on a branch a few meters away.

Slowly he looked at the sky as he recalled all that had occurred during the fight that he had until just a few minutes ago been a part of.

As the scenes began to run through his head, he could not help but gnash his teeth. He had been done in! And it was even at such an important time in the battle! The Marines might have had to retreat because of him.

He had failed!

Slowly he parted his teeth, getting angrier as he recalled the snide smirk on Charlotte Snack's face.

"That bastard!" he roared softly as he kicked at the ground, displacing a fair bit of grass in the process. He could already see the Fleet Admiral as he read the case report, glaring at him with the judgmental eyes of a superior as he looked at the performance of a rather mediocre subordinate.

"God damnit, Drake was right. I should have a transponder snail on me at all times! Ugh, the fleet Admiral is going to chew me out…" his tone was no longer as laid back and drawn out as it had been when he spoke with Sakazuki.

Slowly he began to calm down, breathing softly as he pulled the torn coat off the tree. This far out in the New World without a log pose or a decent transponder snail was the worst kind of stranded that he could be.

He would have to scour the island to see where he was, hopefully there would be a marine office situated here.

But as he walked forward, he could not help but frown. His observation Haki warned him of something, but what that something was eluded him.

With piercing eyes he looked around, his guard up as he slowly crouched down. He could easily have found his way onto a closed island with its own natives, or worse onto Whitebeard's territory. In the latter case, he could only hope that his prayers reached the right deity.

He had seen the old man in action when he was a captain all the way back when the Marines had been dispatched to deal with the then pirate king. He could still not help but shiver at that battle, even the light around the old man's fists seemed to quake and break.

Suddenly a glint shone in the dark sky, a dagger flew harmlessly at him. With a smile he slowly relaxed bringing his hands up in front of his face he caught the blade.

But just as he did, he felt his senses flare up again, quickly he got down low, twisting at an absurd angle to look around. At the very edge of his sight, he could see a faint shadow flitting through the thick trees.

And then with a flash of silver, Borsolino screamed.