Capítulo 168: Changes In Planning

[ Stussy POV ]

Water 7

I stormed off after leaving Boris in the alleyway.

I was beginning to get frustrated with him because of his careless antics.

Before we even left for Jaya, Boris had been watching Ken for an absurdly longer time compared to normal. Maybe it was involuntary or something, but the fact remained that he was vigilant around him. Picking this up, I asked him whether he wanted to test his loyalty by keeping an eye on him.

I immediately took his silence as an affirmative response to the request, and that's exactly what I had been doing ever since.

In fact, that's what I had been doing for everyone within the ship ever since we left for the entire Skypiea drama. Though we had fostered a caring environment for everyone of the crewmates, it didn't seem problematic to make sure that their loyalty towards the pirate group was firm.

After all, what good is loyalty if its enforcers can't enforce it within themselves?

Boris' loyalty towards Whitebeard was unquestionable considering the fact that he had been with him since Rock's era. His prestige among the Whitebeard Pirates was unequivical to nobody except the captain himself.

However, the levels of indifference that came from him about certain scenario's was simply astounding.

After grilling him about why he gave the Devil Fruit to Ken, he had momentarily blanked out as he tried to remember when exactly this had happened.

It was frustrating to see something like this coming from someone you love.

Anyway, seeing that he wasn't going to be the disciplinarian within the 0 Division, I decided to take it upon myself to make sure that everyone was falling in line, nobody was going to be an exception.

I quickly entered the ship, only to find the crewmembers working on the ship's repairs for the coming journey. There was still conflict happening within the New World, and we were going to need to make it there so that we could help them as much as possible.

Ken was still training his newly acquired powers on the bow of the ship. He'd do this thing where he would channel blue lightning, and try to divert the course of the lightning midway. It was entertaining at first, but it started getting annoying when he would zap a crewmate by accident everyonce in a while. His attitude had improved much more compared to the initial attitude that he had acquired immediately after eating the Devil fruit.

I had to knock quite a bit of sense into him so that he could rectify his behaviour, but other than that. He hadn't been doing a lot that would warrant all the suspicion that I had on him.

One thing that my Cipher Pol experience had taught me was that assumptions kill, but a thorough investigation kills assumptions.

I monitored his every movement, even going as far as making sure that all he was doing in the bathroom was bathing or shitting. I learned some of his behavioural habits that he tended to do whenever he was frustrated, and I would immediately trace them to the origin of the problem that he had been facing.

It was a daunting and grueling task that I had been on for the past month. However, now that we were back on the blue sea. This hard work would finally begin to bear fruit in revealing the truth of the matter.

Internally though, I really hoped that he wasn't what we thought him out to be.

When we first met, it was him that I had the most interactions with. I slowly began to teach him along with the rest of the crewmates how to utilize the six Rokushiki techniques. It took a bit of time for them to master one or two of them. However Ken, along with the rest of the crew, had proven to be very effective learners.

Losing such valuable people because of something like mutiny would prove to be a huge loss for Boris and I. I'd much rather prefer this life compared to what we had been doing before we got our own division. It was uncomfortable, and it was always a hastle gathering supplies on Boris' back.

"Ms. Stussy, did Boris get a time frame for when the ship is going to be done?" Ken asked as he approached me with Kane and Brok.

"He was told to give them a time between half a year to a whole year, so we're not getting the ship anytime soon," I replied with a smile.

The three men only nodded before resuming their activities. There was much left to do before we could start sailing to the New World. Pato, who had been roaming about the ship because he was too scared to walk out on his own, finally emerged from the cabin and came up to meet me.

He was quite the adorable child, but often had a bad habit of cussing whenever we did something major. We were going to need to fix that attitude soon~.

"When are we leaving Water 7? Didn't you say that we had stuff to do in the New World?" Pato asked curiously.

"We do~" I replied, "We just need to get this ship some repairs before we set off, wouldn't want to capsize mid-journey now would we~?"

Pato grunted in agreement before following me back into the cabin of the ship. I made a habit of inspecting the cabin for any abnormalities whenever we were staying at an island for a period of time. Checking every room to make sure everything was all well and good before we could set off for a new journey.

It was when I was checking through our room that I heard Boris' transponder snail ringing. He had left it on his side of the bed before going off to Tom's harbor to report the Devil's Wood. Almost instinctively, I picked up the transponder snail and answered the call.

"Boris?" Whitebeard's deep and authoritative voice echoed from the other end of the line.

"No, this is Stussy, Boris is out for a bit."

"Well, tell that brat to get over here quickly. I think we're going to have a huge battle in the coming days," Whitebeard snapped.

"Is it an emergency that I need to get him immediately?" I asked curiously.

"Indeed, tell him to call me as soon as he gets back. Roger and his crew are already here, the only division missing among us are your people, so hurry up!" Whitebeard stated.

In the background, I heard Gold Roger's voice echo through the transponder snail.

"Oh! And tell him that we're throwing a party! Maybe that'll make him hurry up getting here!"

This was met with Whitebeard's laughter as he hung up the call. Thought they had been talking about it casually, I could sense some urgency behind the call. To make someone like Whitebeard require Boris' help meant that they were about to be doing something crazy that was probably going to stir the pot of the already turbulent world.

I decided to hold that thought and continue inspecting the ship before making it back onto the deck of the ship. Boris was nowhere to be found on the ship, so I decided to look for him with the help of Pato.

Pato adorably held on to the hem of my skirt as we slowly walked through the city of Water 7. I had already spread my Observation haki so that I could immediately detect his position should he enter my line of sight. So there was no rush to immediately find where he was located at the moment.

However, just in case, I decided to stop by the cigarette shop to see if he was there. Knowing him, he probably wanted to buy more cigarettes for smoking, not that there was anything wrong with that.