Chapter 39: Chapter 34

When Bill had woken up, it was nighttime.

As he laid there looking up, he stared at the moons in the sky. This worlds night sky was always amazing, and for a brief moment helped him forget their current circumstance.

They had been last at sea for a week now, and water was running low.

Even for a man of his mental age, it was difficult comprehend that less than two months ago he was inside one of the world’s most safe locations.

And now, there was a real chance that he’d watch over a hundred people die of thirst, stranded at sea.

During this past week, Bill had been intimately involved with the ship. He had come to consider facts that he had never deeply considered.

For example, a Marine at full rations would get a gallon of water a day, after the bear ran out.

A gallon of water weighed roughly 8 pounds, this meant, a crew of 150 Marines would need 8,400lbs of water per week or roughly 18 tons of water a month.

This did not factor in water needed for washing or cooking.

Food was a bit better because the long life of hard biscuits and the fact most areas of the sea contained ample life.

Bill could drink blood and even the ocean water, as he could manipulate his body to only take the water it needed and not digest the rest.

Of course, he knew that a regular sailor could not drink ocean water. So, he had spoken to the Captain about the others drinking the blood of sea kings

She told him it was impossible for a normal Marine to do so as sea king blood contained too much iron, and that even she could only drink it in small amounts.

As he laid on his back, he started to think more about Hina.

She had not questioned him for Hollandaise escaping, instead she had praised him for saving the gunner crews.

Through her actions, there hadn’t been a semblance of the anger she had shown him that day. As if it never happened, she seemed to have taken Bill fully into her confidence.

Bill didn’t know if this was something cynical or not. Truthfully, he thought, it didn’t matter anyways.

Had he not relieved the Marines on the camps perimeter they would have all died. Tactically then, sending him and the pirates was the right move.

Still, he couldn’t forget the disgust in her face as he told her about breaking the bindings.

Bill himself didn’t even realize when it had started, but his prejudice against Devil Fruits was only further cemented.

Then standing up without another thought Bill walked to the ships railings and looking across the open water.

Just as he turned, intending to go to the ships bow, he heard a familiar voice.

“You’re up already Lieutenant?”

Turning his head, Bill found Marron sitting up as well.

No salute and barely formal speech.

She was tired, and certainly more scared than she put on.

How could she not be? Bill thought. Marron and most of the other MCU recruits were between six-and-seventeen, and unlike him, they didn’t benefit of having a ninety extra years of life experience.

The simple fact was that teenagers and young adults either never thought about death or thought they would live forever. Yet now, in just two weeks these recruits had either personally witnessed or heard of the deaths of eighty Marines, some of their friends included.

Giving the girl a smile, he said: “Yeah, I’m just going to go up and keep an eye out for land.” Then giving her a raised brow continued: “Why? You don’t need me to spit in your mouth, do you?”

When he said this, the girl laughed.

The joke was morbid, in that, Bill was the only person here who could get drinkable water from the ocean.

He didn’t find it too funny, but a few Lieutenants under Captain Hina who knew that he had mastered Life Return had spread the news around as a joke.

The joke was, that they would have water even if all the stores ran out, provided they were willing to go to great lengths to get it.

After all, Bill could only separate the salts and other impurities out of the water once he swallowed it. Though the process of puking out brine was deeply unpleasant.

Still, Marron laughed because the ship still had a few more days of stock left, and despite all their troubles, that kind of fight for survival still seemed far off.

Seeing her quietly laugh and shake her head, Bill continued: “Alright then, get some rest. Maybe try and meditate. I’ve described to you all what I felt when I succeeded mastering Life Return, maybe today is the day you succeed too.”

Getting a ‘yes’ from the girl, Bill watched as she closed her eyes. Whether to get some more sleep or meditate he wasn’t going to stay and find out.

Truthfully, although he told them his experience but wasn’t sure it was going to be of much help.

Life Return, first and foremost, was a consciousness-over-reality technique. The way a person succeeded could be as unique as they were.

When Bill had explained it, he couldn’t help but fall back on platitudes like: ‘I can only show you the path, you have to walk it yourself’ or ‘Visualize the reality you project’.

If someone had told him these things there’d be very little chance that he would gain anything. Despite being a teacher in the latter part of his last life, he simply didn’t have the vocabulary to explain it.

Making his way to the front of the ship, Bill felt a gentle breeze.

Although it was normal for these Marines, Bill could only count his blessings for the fact that Marine ships had seastone hauls.

Seastone was a peculiar ore, on one hand it was stronger than diamonds and nearly unbreakable. On the other hand, it was light enough to line the bottom of ships with and due to its nature, made the ship virtually glide on the water.

Even though Bill had never seen it, he had also read that it was the reason why sky islands could exist, that being defused seastone was light enough to disperse in the air and merge with water to form solid clouds.

He had even read about entire towns surviving on top of those weird clouds!

Shaking his head, Bill walked past the broken mainmast and foremast.

While the others thought of this as normal, Bill knew that if he was in his previous world then a ship without a mainmast, a foremast, and only a tattered mizzenmast would be essentially immobile.

‘No’, Bill thought, any ship without a seastone haul, in their current situation, would be at the mercy of the ocean currents – either in this world or the last.

So, despite the lack of water, despite the lack of medical supplies and poor condition of many of the crew, despite the fact that the old flying pirate had stolen the ships Log Pose and Communication Snails, and despite all of the other hardships he had faced in the last two weeks.

The ship was still afloat.

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And so, as Bill reached the front of the ship and looked out to sea, he had hope.

Leaning over the edge for what seemed near an hour, he heard footsteps coming up from behind him.

Turning his head, he recognized the silhouettes.

 Speaking first, Bill softly said: “Seems like no one can sleep tonight.”

Not replying until she got closer, the Captain replied: “Hina’s curious, who else was up?”

Shrugging his shoulders Bill replied: “I think I woke Marron up, or she felt movement, and after we talked, I heard a few people stir.”

Nodding her head, Hina came to lean on the rail beside Bill: “Seen any land yet?”

Caught off guard by the question, Bill wondered if the Captain had come for small talk before responding with a small laugh and saying: “Aye sir! We just pasted a whole island made of cake. I would have woken you, but I felt our luck was too good to waste time on it.”

Bill noticed Hina looking at him strange, before laughing harder than he’d ever seen.

“No Lieutenant Ox, Hina thinks it would be just our luck to stumble on Whole Cake Island during this disaster.”

Not understanding what she meant, Bill didn’t dwell on it, but instead asked: “Are we still on the same path?”

Nodding her head to this, the Captain said: “I think so, we’re probably near the Calm Belt across from the East Blue. Hina judges we’re off any trade route, but there are bound to be a few out of the way islands. If we find one, then worst case scenario is we clean up some pirates.”

Grunting, Bill replied without looking at her: “That’s the last thing we need.”

This statement was obvious. The ship only had its main mortar since all the cannons had been left on the island. Out of the hundred-twenty Marines left, only perhaps thirty were in any condition to fight.

To this, Hina spoke matter-of-factually: “Lieutenant, that’s why Hina is here.”

Bill didn’t give this a response, instead moved to a different topic.

“How’re Jerry and the others doing in the med bay?”

After that the two continued to idly chat back and forth, Bill had kept himself informed on all the matters the MCU recruits had been a part of, but it was good to hear what the superior officer thought about them.

Tom, Jerry, and Samantha had all taken really well to medical work, even helping during surgeries. Jerry particularly had stated he would seek out medical training if they ever got back to Marineford.

The Science Division had great doctors after all, and as the trio were already majoring in biology there wouldn’t be any issue for the guy to take another set of classes.

Captain Hina didn’t give too much praise, though she did seem interested in Marron. As most of their conversations had her name in it.

Bill didn’t know if recruits could transfer across Divisions, and Captain Hina had never brought up trying to recruit him to her ship.

Just as he was about to bring it up, she said: “Bill, Hina has read your file, but she’s curious why you choose the Science Division instead of the main Marine body.”

Then with another laugh, Bill went about to explain his situation on Vallipo.

After what seemed like a long time, perhaps a couple of hours of back-and-forth discussion he rubbed his palms together and laughed: “During that final test, I tripped! You know I’ve never tripped since I’ve been born?

But I swear, it was like the earth itself wanted me fall! You should had seen the look on everyone’s faces, and the party afterwards where everyone danced around the fact!!

Well anyways, I did fail and so my father sent me here. I guess he knew Dr. Vegapunk but I’m not certain about their relationship.”

Laughing at the part when he fell, Hina waited for Bill to finish speaking before saying: “Those friends of yours, are they surname Zima and Occhiali?

Surprised, Bill said: “Yeah, why?”

To this, Hina grew a smile, looked at him and said: “I graduated from the Marineford Cadet Academy, and for us who have it’s very important. Just before we launched from the base I heard about two newcomers, that’s rare you see because the year had already started and there’s already a long queue of applicants.

Anyways, both of those friends of yours seemed to be making a bit of a stir, the swordswoman in particular.

I had been curious, but if it’s how you say then there’s no wonder how they got in and why they’re so much stronger than the normal Cadets.”

Hearing this, Bill asked for more details but unfortunately Hina couldn’t answer.

Though she kept up with the academy, it wasn’t like she had time to be completely informed. That didn’t matter much though, because now Bill knew they were in the same base, he’d definitely find the two.

Without thinking about it, Bill only now recognized he had spoken to the Captain more tonight than every other meeting combined.

They hadn’t talked about the ship’s problems, Bill learned that the Captain had graduated from the Marineford Cadet Academy with the rank of Captain – and even told him she ranked fourth.

She had listed several notable Marines she had worked with, and though most of the names were unknown to him, he listened to her carefully.

Just as the sun was coming up, Bill turned his head from the lady and looked back out to see.

In the far far distance, just on the edge of the horizon, Bill caught the glimpse of something.

‘Smoke?’ Bill thought, but it was impossible to tell even with his great eyesight.

“Captain, do you see that?”

Pointing his finger, Hina narrowed her eyes then said: “Hina thinks you should jump and get a better look.”

This had been one of the things he learned about her. The Captain didn’t learn Moon Step or Paper Arts because in her words “they looked weird” and so mainly mastered Shave, Iron Mass, and Finger Gun.

While he didn’t agree with the notion that you shouldn’t learn a technique because how it looked, he didn’t dispute that Shave looked pretty awesome to perform.

As he jumped up, Bill hurried back down.

It’s probably smoke, but there’s definitely a mountain in that direction.

As the sun rose, under the orders of Captain Hina, the crew got themselves ready.

Standing on the deck of their battered warship with his recruits behind him, no matter what lay ahead he would face it.

This was what Bill thought.