Hidden Treasure (Sonadow)

●Chapter 5●

Shadow's P.O.V.

"Full ahead course!" I barked at the passerby of crewmen walking clumsily in my quake. "No being lazy!" I just had to add the last part, seeing as the last time we tried this, it failed miserably.

"Yes sir!" They yipped back at me, waving their hands about their face before leaving and bowing their heads to the morning due light.

I nodded and put my faith in their paltry acts of kindness, before I, too, bowed my head to the morning due light. It showered me with its glory and bathed me with its pride, making me feel powerful enough to possibly ride all across the sea today. "Sweet sunshine . ." I tipped my hat forward, "Be my guide from morning to evening. Show me your pattern of truth, my one and only mother."

Even though no answer was given, I still received my dose of happiness from the simple pleasure of mother nature's beautiful seaside views. My morning was made happy by these simple things every day; you see, I am quite depressed living on these ships that get sunken to the depth of big blue because of my crewmen's snivel attempts at being good at their jobs. Every one of them is tragic, that is, Knuckles is decent. Decent for a ship full of partials . .

Knuckles is my first mate on these crippling voyages. He works on the deck and yaps at the people for me most of the time, and that has come of great use to me. But, Sweet Sweet Knuckles can have his not-so-great times: he can be . . overbearing, mindless, feeble at moments, and even careless with the older mates of this ship. He bears witness to my actions, so I suppose he may take on me for most of it, but it's no excuse! He must learn his manners on this ship like he must learn his manners at the dinner table.

I massaged my temples, rubbing the meat tireless as I crept my hand around the steering wheel. I turned it north. North is a straight shot to The Ovicia Isles. The Ovicia Isles are a dark place . . no man has made it in, nor out-- except for me and my crew, we are bounty hunters and bounty hunters are the sole purpose The Ovicia Isles exist. The controller of Ovicia Isles is our big boss, the one who we mere humble bounty hunters sell our product of Kaos to. We give approximately 100 Kaos per year, but our productivity has greatly decreased as the population of Kaos decreases. Most believe it's their skill of hiding in plain sight, and some believe it's rather the sad fact of there only being a few Kaos left in the world, whereas all the rest have been served to the "Big Boss". Either way, we're gonna have to find a way to bring the Kaos population from single digits to more than single digits soon, or we'll be out of stock for the big boss. When The Big Boss is out of Kaos to use or sell, he gets mad, and when he gets mad, he . . you don't make it back from The Ovicia Isles whether you're a bounty hunter or not.

"Captain!" I heard a voice call to me, snapping me out of my trance. "Cap'n, the prisoner is loose!"

"Loose!?" I stared at the nay-sayer in the eyes. It was Knuckles. "What do you mean by 'loose'?!"

"Loose! I mean very loose!" He grabbed my shirt, pulling me to the bottom of the stairwell's height. "He's walking around aimlessly and nobody is brave enough to stop him!!!"

"I get that, you nitwit!" I yanked his hands from my shirt and marched down the creaky stairs. "Where? Where is he now?"

"T-there . ." He bit his nails and hid behind me, not before pointing to a figure swaddling its feet as it walked, giving it a sort of drunken form.

"Huh?" Was all my confused expression could manage, before I saw it was the Kaos we had captured.

"Swash-buckling-pirates!" He roared, tipping his stomach and leaping his lips out of the way as invisible puke spilled from his mouth. "Gah!" He groaned, swaddle-walking all the way over to the side of the ship, where he pushed aside some people to reach the tips of the ocean.