The Puppet Master [One Piece]

Funesto pt. 2

~Shanks' POV~

                Echo had been gone for a few hours; she didn't linger on the beach or the coastal town very long and had vanished from sight. My nerves were on edge as I watched the island for any sign of her scouring it from coast to coast with my gaze. After an hour of watching the others drifted off to other tasks, but I was too afraid something would happen if I looked away. Benn, Yassop and Lucky Roo took alternating shifts to stand with me. A splash of white on a hillside caught my eye causing my heart to flutter in my chest. It was Echo. She was alright.

                "What is she carrying?" Lucky Roo asked softly as he strained to see what Echo was holding in her hands as she climbed the hillside.

                Yassop joined us when he noticed movement on the island, "Looks like three shovels. What's she need shovels for? Buried treasure?" He chuckled.

                A grim thought crossed my mind, was it possible that nothing had been done to clean up after the massacre? Could it be that the island was overpopulated by the corpses of those who had been shot down? Was she trying to lay her kin to rest, by herself? Funesto was a fairly small island but the population had to be well over a hundred.

                "Boss, you okay? You look a little pale." Lucky Roo piped in.

                "She's digging graves." I said softly as I watched Echo throw down two of the shovels on the hillside and set to work digging. "We should g-."

                Benn finally joined in the conversation and held up his hand to stop me, "Maybe we should respect her wishes, Captain."

                "I think she wants to grieve alone." Lucky agreed.

                "Who cares what the brat wants." Yassop surprised us all, "That's too much for her. It might be a small island but there's easily a hundred bodies to bury."

                "She may just be digging a few graves for her family." Lucky pointed.

                We agreed to wait until nightfall to row ashore and offer our assistance. Everyone wandered off again and I remained on the main deck watching Echo from a distance. Endlessly, she dug. She never stopped, never took a break, just kept digging.

                Yassop leaned over the hull with a sigh as he joined me once again, "She's going to work herself to death at this rate."

                When night fell we prepared a small fishing boat and I paused as I noticed Echo lay down her shovel and disappear down the hillside.

                "She stopped." Lucky Roo pointed.

                Moments later she reappeared on the coast under the cover of darkness. She disappeared behind some rubble momentarily and when she came back into view she was dragging something along with her.

                "Now what's she doing?" Lucky Roo questioned.

                "Dragging bodies." Yassop and I replied simultaneously.

                "We should get going." Benn noted as he lowered the fishing boat into the water.

                Echo returned to the coast a few more times and repeated the process before disappearing to the hillside once more. The four of us clambered into the small fishing boat and rowed to shore. Echo was grieving, in the worst possible way. Holding everything in, taking it in silence, trying to remain strong.