Chương 25: Dreams and memories

His heart was hammering in his chest, so loudly that he felt it must burst from his ribcage any second now and betray his position to all the enemies he had yet to slip past in order to get of this accursed island he had been sent to.

Crouched behind a slightly broken wall, his back pressed tightly against its damp and cold surface, Daz went over the plan he had formed once more which would hopefully get him to safety soon.

Keep to the shadows of the dimly lit corridors inside the building, with no shoes and only his socks underneath his feet, all in an effort to be as silent as possible, and then creep past the patrolling guards that rushed through the castle like a frightened beehive.

Not that he couldn't understand them. After all, it didn't happen every day that a king was murdered in his own home.

A home that was anything but pleasant, Daz acknowledged for the third time by now, feeling the stale and cold air brush over his features while his tongue could practically taste the staleness hovering in the air.

With a grimace on his normally so expressionless features Daz took one more unpleasant breath and continued onwards.

Ever onwards he went. Past guards who were all to trigger happy in his opinion, and mercenaries that glowered into every shadow in their surroundings, seemingly only waiting for the culprit to show himself so that they could pounce on him like a pack of starving hyenas.

He passed them all however, but not without cursing to himself in the safe confines of his mind, once again wondering what the hell he was even doing here in the first place!

Yes, he was apprenticing under the CP9 but he was still so awfully young! And yet his 'teachers' had seen fit to send him on this god damn mission only because they deemed him ready to get blooded due to his progress under their tutelage.

Him and his stupid perfectionism had gotten him into this situation and to top it all off, his target had managed to alarm the guards that something was happening to him, before Daz had silenced the old man for good. A lot of good his perfectionism had done him, that much was now obvious…

With another curse inside his mind, Daz finally reached the outside of the castle, and while still sticking to the cold walls of said castle, he could gratefully stretch out his legs and back, causing all of his appendages to crack comfortably and the pain in his knees to fade.

Before he could continue with his plan of escape however, a ray of sunlight suddenly pierced right into his eyes, and with his eyes widening in realisation at what time it was already, Daz threw all of his plans out of the window and simply began to sprint with only one goal in mind. Away.

Running like a seaking was hot on his heels in pursuit, Daz unfortunately was not fast enough.

With an earthshattering boom a salvo of canon balls began to hail down all around him, throwing the young boy onto his already aching side from the shockwave alone, while his ears began to ring from the continuous staccato that had both send him flying and continued to assault his senses when he was already down.

His breath ran ragged in his lungs, his throat hoarse and his lips dry with a faint taste of iron on their split surface, he swivelled his head around and only through reflexes he had honed again and again was he saved from being blown to pieces by another salvo of canon balls, blurring into a soru through which he only barely escaped his doom.

Not resting upon his successful evasion however, Daz sprang back up onto his legs and began running again. Away. That was all that mattered. Getting away from this accursed place. And the fucking Buster call he had no wish to witness any further.

////

Sitting up on the side of his bed, Daz looked down at his covers now crunched up on his bed, which were completely soaked from his sweat, and he belatedly felt a couple more droplets still running down his marbled torso, which he swiped away in annoyance.

With a sigh he stood up from his sitting position and, while being as silent as a shadow, left his room, carefully so he wouldn't wake the munchkin through the door's squeaking or the like.

Now standing in the long corridor of the thousand sunny, tinged in deep blackness and shadows that seemed to suck in all the light around them, the memory of his earlier dream came back to him, overlaying itself over the corridor before him like he was once again back there in that death trap that had been his first mission, he shook his head slightly once and began to move once more as soon as his mind had banished the hallucination completely.

He hadn't had that dream in a while now that he thought about it, the after images of one of his most unpleasant memories still fresh in his mind making that realisation much easier.

In fact, he hadn't had that dream since he had picked up the munchkin he realised. Or at least around that time.

A realisation that only assured Daz in his theories that he saw himself more and more in the munchkin. Maybe that subconscious comprehension had been what triggered his journey down memory lane.

With a sigh and a swipe over his short metallic grey hair Daz shoved all those contemplations out of his mind and went to get some fresh air. After all sleep was surely going to elude him the rest of the night. As it always did when he had dreams such as this one.

A consequence of his job's tasks, unfortunately. You could almost call PTSD part of the job description if you were cynical enough. Daz knew of nearly no Cipher Pol agents who didn't have a least a little bit of PTSD. And for someone like Daz, who had a rather large mission record, even amongst Cipher Pol agents, it was something he had seen coming right from the very beginning.

Honestly, it was more of a nuisance, really. He had long since managed to work through most of the biggest problems he had accrued over the years, but now and again his past memories acted up in certain ways, pretty much always in the forms of nightmares.

It was still annoying however, and he sometimes wished he didn't have to deal with all that fucking baggage the bloody World Government had bestowed upon him in all its graciousness.

With a small chortle at his own circumstantial humour, Daz finally reached the deck of the thousand sunny and stepped foot onto the pleasantly cold wooden planks it was made out of.

Up above the stars were glimmering with their soft white light, while the moon shone down in its full and radiant form bathing the calmly rocking sea of the grand line in its gentle light.

"Bad dream?" A voice asked into the peaceful silence, breaking Daz away from his observations, after which he turned around and came face to face with Nami, who probably had the lockout for tonight.

"If only." Daz only responded with another chortle that contained both amusement and a note of exasperation, to which Nami tilted her head in askance but Daz didn't elaborate any further on the matter. She didn't push the matter either and another bout of silence fell upon the two for a moment.

"Now that I think about it, I haven't even thanked you properly for your help on the Thriller Bark, have I?" Nami asked then, breaking the silence once more, to which Daz only looked at her with a note of amusement flickering over his lips like a shadow, leaving just as quickly as it had appeared.

"I didn't really do it for you though. So, don't bother." Daz replied, while the two of them walked over to the railing, where the wind was sharper and brought a refreshing chill over Daz still exposed and slightly wet torso.

"Really." She didn't seem to believe him, as he had not heard such an eloquently displayed tone of blandness in a while.

"And you just so happened to pass by when you saw us getting blown to kingdom come and thought it would be nice of you to intervene, hmm?" Nami continued, while a slightly smug grin played over her features, causing Daz's eyebrow to twitch a little bit at her words.

Another bout of silence descended upon the two for a second, only to be broken by two small bouts of chuckling to erupt from them both.

"Still, I would like to thank you properly. You really saved us back there. So, thank you." Nami began once more and bowed to him in gratitude, only for Daz to ruffle her hair slightly to her mortification.

"W-what the hell?!" She suddenly yelped while a slight tick appeared on Nami's forehead, her temper flaring back to its usual height.

"Now, that's much better. All that gloom and politeness doesn't suit you all that much, lil' Red. That fiery attitude of yours is much better." Daz responded, while a small toothy grin wormed its way onto his face. Nami only pouted in response, unable to give any good comeback by the looks of it.

"All jokes aside however, you guys need to step up your game from now onwards. I'll be leaving you at the next island and won't be able to help you out when you get into any further trouble. Which you seem to have a nag for by the looks of it." Daz continued, poking Nami in the forehead slightly while speaking.

She stumbled backwards for a second before retaliating with a poke of her own that did literally nothing to Daz but caused her to stumble backwards once more. She sure was a temperamental one, to Daz's unending amusement.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Nami returned, while slumping down against the railing in a slight huff, sitting down on the deck, while Daz lazed back against the railing still, enjoying the cool night all the while.

"Exactly what I said. Step up your game. The new world is a completely different story compared with Paradise." He explained. It seemed however that Nami didn't really comprehend his words, so he began to explain what he was saying in layman terms once more, only a soft curse leaving his lips for a change at having to take the long road while explaining himself.

"Paradise is the first half of the Grand line. The new world the second. You get to the new world either over the red line or by travelling to Fishmen island at the bottom of the ocean floor. You really need to check up on all the things that are included into that journey or you'll be fucked to put it lightly." Daz told her, and she nodded once before Daz continued.

"While the first half of the Grand line is under the jurisdiction of the Marines, the new world is exclusively governed by the four emperors. Pirates, the lot of them. Whoever travels the new world will have to deal with them one way or the other. And let me tell you, as you guys are now you wouldn't even get past the grunts of the emperor's crews. So, as I said, you'll need to step up your games." Nami stayed silent at his words for a moment before she sighed in slight frustration by the sound of it.

"Alright, thanks for telling me. I'll be sure to tell the others tomorrow." She then said, but it seemed to Daz that she still had something she wanted to ask but was unsure about doing so for reason. Hence why, in order to get her to talk, he sat down next to her and poked her into the side this time, causing Nami to yelp once in surprise, ripped from her indecision immediately.

"So? What's it you wanna ask?" Daz continued, to which Nami grumbled something for a second before she realised that she had been too quiet and spoke up once more.

"Have you been there before?" Daz nodded once in the positive, causing Nami to sigh for some reason. Though Daz had a pretty good guess as to why. He didn't voice it though.

"It's getting late, you should get some more sleep. We can continue this tomorrow in more depth. And I'm sure the rest will have more than one question for you anyway." Nami finished, after which she stood up, shortly after followed by Daz who looked at her strangely for a second before shrugging and walking back into the depth of the thousand sunny. Nami meanwhile seemed to be lost in thought while she returned to the look out to keep watch for anything that could be dangerous for the thousand sunny and its crew. Now with a lot more things to think about…

///////

Closing the door softly behind him, Daz took in the small room he had just returned to, letting his eyes roam over everything inside of it.

A table, a bookshelf empty and barren of any wisdom, toys and papers strewn randomly all over the floor with different picture on them, ranging from seakings to transponder snails and what not.

His gaze however stopped on one particular picture that laid just before his feet. It was a crude drawing of a man and a small girl that sat grinning on his right shoulder with an impish grin on her face.

Picking it up, Daz observed the caricature silently for a moment, after which his eyes wandered to the small girl softly snoring on the other bed inside the room, who mumbled occasionally in her sleep about this and that without much sense or coherence to her words.

With a small smile on his face Daz shook his head slightly once and, after putting the picture on the small table next to his bed, laid back down and tried to fall asleep once more. A trying task but he had never been a quitter. And today it seemed he was in luck, as only a couple minutes later Daz disappeared back into the land of dreams. This time however there was no nightmare to be found, but only weird drawings and women with fiery red hair that seemed to be endlessly pouting. It was a good dream he decided.