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False Starts

Gin sat in his cabin on board the Dreadnaught Sabre as the storm raged on outside, frowning down at the catatonic prisoner his captain had made him responsible for. She didn't look like much, her white braids loosely clipped to the sides of her head and a rough bandage around where her eyes had been; eyes Gin had been forced to remove to prevent the damage done during her capture from festering. Her wrists were bound in Kairoseki cuffs, which were likely why she lay unresponsive on his cabin floor, oblivious to her surroundings: Don Krieg claimed she was a Devil Fruit User. One who could heal injuries, which was why Krieg wanted her at his disposal as they ventured down the Grand Line. However it seemed the powers of the Akuma no Mi carried serious disadvantages if being put in the Seastone cuffs Krieg had stolen from one of East Blue's Marine bases rendered a wielder catatonic on contact. If she hadn't been so valuable to the captain she would likely have been left at the mercy of the crew; instead Don Krieg had shoved her at Gin and told him to keep her alive.

Not an easy task, for all he had only been doing so for a day. The woman seemed deaf and paralysed by the cuffs unless she came into direct contact with Gin, skin to skin, at which point she was capable of both some degree of movement and rational conversation. When conscious she was disconcertingly polite and disturbingly pragmatic, leading Gin to worry about what might be in store for them along the Grand Line that being helpless and at the mercy of a ruthless pirate elicited so little concern.

The next day he came to understand, just a little, why his prisoner had been so blasé about her situation as he witnessed his captain's fleet be ripped apart by a lone, hawk-eyed swordsman in an open boat.

With the fleet destroyed, his captain's flagship in tatters and said captain badly wounded all at the hands of one man, Gin had to make a number of tough decisions. The first one was to release his prisoner from her restraints so she could make herself useful and help keep everyone alive. The second one was to send those of the crew not injured diving after the provisions that had been stored on board the less important vessels in Don Krieg's fleet, as without that food they would all starve in short order. Unfortunately none of the supplies were recovered and several of the crew were swallowed whole by ridiculously large sea creatures while in the water.

His prisoner however was docile, calm and helpful, healing the crew of minor injuries and identifying more serious ones such as broken bones and internal bleeding despite the stormy conditions. Her matter-of-fact manner did a lot to maintain order while Don Krieg was incapacitated; it gave the impression that nothing was seriously amiss. As the day ended Gin hunted her down for a private conversation: she was the only one with any experience of the Grand Line which made her invaluable in the current mess.

"Who was that?" He asked after describing their attacker.

"Shichibukai," the woman told him simply. Gin had heard of the infamous Shichibukai, but they had never seemed relevant before. After all, they had never been seen in East Blue that he knew of. But they were in the Grand Line now.

"Our Log Pose got smashed," he told her. To his shock, the woman's face twitched into a smile.

"Oh god, oh god, we're all going to die," she deadpanned. "Seriously though, we are. Unless you've got a good quality chart somewhere on board?"

"They got washed overboard when the hawk-eyed man chopped half the helm off," Gin said flatly, displeased with how unconcerned she seemed. She frowned thoughtfully.

"And you say we don't have much food?"

"Four days' worth provided we stick to half rations."

"Well," she said hesitantly, "this used to be a Marine vessel, right?"

"So?" Gin wanted to know why that was relevant.

"So, you could head back to East Blue," she suggested tentatively. "It is slightly less certain death than staying on the Grand Line at this point."

"Explain."

"Marine Vessels have the hulls coated in Kairoseki to make them less visible to Sea Kings, allowing them to move through the Calm Belts fairly safely. It would take five days, but I can get this ship back to East Blue provided we start right now, I'm allowed to stay on deck without the cuffs and you feed me." She waited for him to think it over.

"How?" Gin asked.

"My Devil Fruit Power allows me to heal, but that isn't its primary function," she told him quietly. "I don't want to die out here any more than you do."

Gin stepped away from her. "Do it."

Watching her walk up on deck to sit at the foot of the mast, Gin wondered exactly what her Devil Fruit Power actually was. Not that he thought he could get her to answer; she hadn't even told him her name yet and had an edge that suggested she'd been at the mercy of men like Krieg before. Force would just make her stubborn and he didn't care much at this point who she was or what she could do, so long as she could get them out of the Pirate's Graveyard.

Five days later they were back in East Blue as promised and Krieg was well enough to resume command once more. The first thing he did was put the woman back in the Kairoseki cuffs and yell at Gin for setting her loose. Gin did not complain; Don Krieg didn't care for his Combat Commander's reasons, only that an order had been disobeyed. Gin didn't tell his captain how they had gotten out of the Grand Line; none of the rest of the crew had an inkling how it had happened and that was fine by him. He owed the woman now, owed her the lives of his captain and crew. Now they were back in East Blue it would be easy to claim she had died and drop her somewhere quiet to repay that debt. She was quiet, unobtrusive and forgettable, which would help him dispose of her.

A week later they were still adrift and most of the crew could do no more than lie on the deck and groan in hunger. Thankfully they were not yet out of water, which would have been a death sentence. Gin poured a ration of water down his captive's throat every day, but other than that simply couldn't spare the time for conversation as their situation was getting desperate. The lookout had spotted a Marine vessel just ten minutes earlier and Don Krieg had demanded he act as a decoy.

Gin wasn't sure his prisoner would still be alive when he managed to return to his captain.

On returning to the Dreadnaught Sabre four days later after his excellent meal on the Baratie, Gin helped set a course back to the floating restaurant then returned to his cabin to check on his prisoner. She wasn't dead, but that was all that could really be said about her condition. She had rubbed her wrists bloody in his absence and was so gaunt she could have passed for a corpse. Getting her to swallow her water ration was so difficult he was tempted to remove her from the cuffs entirely –or just slit her throat and call it a day. He didn't though; he had a plan for her now. The blond chef who'd fed him wouldn't turn away a woman in need and considering her condition no-one would argue if he told them she had died in his absence. He just had to dump her somewhere quiet on the restaurant so she would only be found after they left. He could even leave her belongings with her.

The woman didn't own much; a small chest containing common, mundane things like clothing, soap and sewing thread. No weapons, no charts or navigational aids, no money. The lack of value of her possessions was the only reason Don Krieg had left them alone. Gin was privately a little suspicious of a person who knew the Grand Line yet didn't even carry a weapon, but recognised there wasn't anything to be done about it. Perhaps she was as mundane and peaceful as she seemed; if she wasn't, better to treat her well and leave her somewhere quiet than to make her angry. That she hadn't reacted to the loss of her eyes was telling as well. Not that he'd told anyone his suspicions.

Two days later Gin was feeling a niggling of concern as the woman still wasn't responding properly. In fact, other than swallowing a daily water ration her only action was to rub her wrists closer and closer to the bone against the Kairoseki cuffs. Gin could tell than in another day or so the cuffs would be rubbing against the exposed bones; after that it wouldn't take long for her hands to be completely severed from her wrists, freeing her. He had heard of animals chewing their own legs off to escape traps, but this was something else. Perhaps he could persuade Don Krieg to move the cuffs to her ankles instead…

However, as they had just reached the Baratie, that would have to wait.

Half an hour later and Gin was feeling a little conflicted about the situation. Not that it prevented him from obeying Don Krieg; his captain terrified him too much for that. However during the lull between his captain stating his intent to take over the Baratie and the crew recovering enough to do so Gin had unlocked the woman's cuffs, slung her over his shoulder, grabbed her possessions, lowered himself onto the top deck of the floating restaurant and left her in the cabin belonging to Red-Leg Zeff. She would be safe there regardless of what happened next. Wrapping his jacket around her shoulders and roughly bandaging her wrists, he left to keep an eye on the coming battle.

Gin ignored the niggling hope in the back of his mind that his captain would lose the coming battle. Don Krieg never lost. He watched his former ship sink into wreckage at the hands of the hawk-eyed Shichibukai and the failed assault of the crew before turning to descend to the main deck of the Baratie; it seemed he would have to join the fight after all.