The lost continent

Chapter 29

The great lands untouched,

Untainted and fair,

D angerously beautiful,

The treasure you seek is there.

  

“Captain!”

“Captain!”

  

“Captain!”

“CAPTAIN!”

“CAPTAIN!”

Bakugou turns his head. Mina’s head full of fresh curls is haloed by the sun high above her. He blinks at her, and looks back to the sea. It’s calm today- it’s been calm every day, actually, as though sensing Bakugou’s need for it.

“ ‘ve been callin’ ya.” She says, annoyed.

“ ‘ve been ignorin’ ya.” Bakugou imitates her accent.

She near growls. “How long you gonna stand here before you give us a goddamn heading? We can’t be stagnant here on the water like this. It’s like a spider’s web, just sitting here in Endeavor’s waters. Keep feeling like we’ll run into something that’ll catch.”

Bakugou sighs. “We know it’s around here somewhere. It’ll come to us.”

Mina sets her jaw. Three days of nothing, especially after a week of flight to ensure their safety from Iwa, well… the sudden lack of activity after an eon of anxiety made your bones jumpy. Bakugou could relate.

“Listen.” He says, fixing his eyes on hers with assuredness. “It’s here. But if it were easy to find, then it’d have been found by more than just two pirates. Think- not even the pirates aboard Endeavor’s ship when he went there can recall how they came to get there. You interrogated them, you should know the truth of it enough.”

“But this is ridiculous.” Mina says. “We’ve read more of the map than Endeavor, so how did he manage it?”

Bakugou shrugs. “He was Might’s friend, once upon a time.”

Mina shakes her head, but it seems to settle her anxiousness a little. “Still.”

“I know.” Bakugou says. “Fuckin’ annoying.”

“Fuckin’ annoying.” She repeats.

She rests her arms next to his against the railing, and stares out at the flat ocean. Even looking outwards, you could see the aqua tinted sand below. It’s almost dizzying, how far and clearly you could see the rippled sands below.

“Why hasn’t he tried again?”

“Something is either keeping him from going back, or he can’t find it again.” Bakugou says, after a spell. It’s easy to get lost in the lull and quietness of the ocean. It was uncannily peaceful here, in the warm waters above the archipelago. “Simple as that. And I doubt it’s the latter.”

“You think he destroyed the way there?” She wonders. “Is that possible, on open water?”

Bakugou shrugs. “You’re the one who believes all that magic bullshit. I’m sure if there’s a way, you’d think of it.”

Mina shivers. “Oh fuck off. You know there’s something eerie about a place that can’t be found.”

Bakugou shrugs. “Endeavor found it.”

“He lost almost his whole fleet.” Mina says. “We’ve got a handful of people. Not all are in top condition, either. There’s a reason it’s avoided. There’s a reason that there’s nothing there. Something’s keeping everyone away. You’re right.”

“Damn, Mina, shut up. I know.” Bakugou drags his hands down his face. He pushes off the railing he was leaning against and stands upright. “He got far enough in to destroy the island, didn’t he? He said so himself- it cost him his most precious ships. Endeavor doesn’t let anything damage him without hitting back twice as hard.”

“What if he’s lying?” Mina says.

Bakugou is about to retort again about her flat bat attitude, but it hits him like a beautiful fist that oh- maybe he is. “That’d be great .”

“It would?” Mina says, physically leaning back from the way Bakugou lightens up.

“Well yeah, it’d mean that it’s really untouched- besides by Might, of course, but that’s fine.

He probably means colonized anyways-”   

“-but…” Mina says, truly looking sorry now that she’s been a wet blanket. Bakugou almost wants to fucking brace himself. “But he probably said he destroyed it to keep people away… to give up on the search. I mean, that, doubled with fear… it would mean he might try again. We’re still against time.”

Bakugou sighs. “You’re right. I’ll look at the information again tonight.”

“Yeah.” Mina says. “Sorry. Should be supporting you and all, as your first mate.”

Bakugou shrugs. “You are. A level head is what we need, and we both know I’m not exactly the most equable aboard.”

Mina snorts. “You got that right.”

Bakugou quietly opens the door to his room, the cool night air still hanging around him. He hangs his coat on the hook, mind already humming down into the levels of thought he falls into to think about the mission. Whenever they found their clue to get to the island the treasure was buried on, it’d be harder than they thought to get there- if Endeavor was indeed a liar.

Bakugou grips his hair, and runs his fingers through. Another sleepless night, perhaps. This waiting was killing him- and more than just waiting for a revelation to pop into his mind, he was waiting on a certain pair of  deep red-brown eyes to open.

A sigh matches his own from the bed.

Bakugou looks up.

Ten days, now.

Four asleep, and six spent between, never quite awake. But it was an improvement, at least.

Bakugou’s chair scrapes loudy in the quietness of his cabin as he pushes it back. He rolls his shoulders as he walks over to his bed, where a life-changing, life- threatening being lay.

Kirishima’s face was still black and blue, seasick green, but not so swollen, now. But his head took quite a hit- there’d be a scar, dented and stretched, but Bakugou thinks he and Sero did a good job patching him up. Hopefully.

In his gut, Bakugou worries that his sense was knocked out of him, left somewhere on the cobbled street Bakugou and Mina dragged him from. The soldier was no match for two pirates- especially since Mina snagged his gun.

Or maybe he had sense knocked into him, and he’d wake up with a clue to how the hell they could get to the treasure.

As if sensing Bakugou’s thoughts, Kirishima makes a snorting sound in his sleep. Not likely, then. Bakugou cards his fingers lightly through Kirishima’s short hair, careful of his wounds. Something was off about his love, now. Unfailing, as it was, and as much as he believed Kirishima’s pleas, something inside him, something purely emotional, was blocking the safe and confident feelings that thrived in him before.

Without a doubt, this was something that would have to be reworked. Whenever it would be that they’d find the lost place- the continent, so to speak. Some little place (according to the journal’s coastline notes) that apparently held an entire world.

Lost, indeed.

Yes, Bakugou truly felt it now.