POV: Senco

Taking in this news, I started to stand up quickly, until pain spiked up my back, causing my headaches that were almost gone to flare back up, and I fell back into my chair with a thud.

'Damn these injuries, and damn you, Buggy!'

Slamming my fist on to the arm rest, and getting comfortable once more, I then brought both hands to my head and started to rub, hopefully getting rid of the inevitable headache I was going to get.

'"He made new plans", so the original launch date was actually pushed back? I had hoped that was a joke, but it seems she really intends on going through with these "new plans" that Buggy has gone through the trouble of creating.'

"What does that mean, 'he made new plans'?"

"Uhm-"

"Are you actually pushing the launch date back?"

"Ye-"

"I had hoped you were joking about that, after I replayed that conversation."

"Ah-"

"You told me it would take 'a couple months', almost a year ago, and now you want to delay it even more?"

"Hm-"

"I entrusted you with this, but you are going against your own word on this, AFTER your decision was made?"

"I-I uh.."

"And on top of that, someone else has the blueprints? For the ship? Should you not be the one in charge of that?"

It seemed as though she shrunk from the constant questioning and being interrupted, as she looked down after my last few comments and questions. I also realized I stood up and was staring directly into her eyes, getting my point across as strongly as possible. With a single outward breath, I slumped back into my throne, realizing that it was a terrible idea to do so, with the pain almost haunting me, although it had decayed slightly. I did feel terrible still, but it wasn't as bad as before. So, with a sigh, I put one hand on the armrest, and the other one held up my head as I leaned on it, using it as a support for my throbbing head. Another sigh left my lips.

"I'm distressed by this situation, all of my points still stand, but I put my trust in you on this."

'Only partially, that is, I trust your abilities, but a precautionary "I've got your parents as a bargaining chip to get me off this island" is in place for a reason.'

"I'm.. uhm..."

Looking directly at her, it seemed as though she was still processing all of my words, as the exaggerated movements, and poses, of hers had ceased. It looked more like she had receeded into her own little world, with her head down and standing as still as a statue, trying to form words and sentences to reply while on the opposite side of this nearly empty table of food.

'Buggy has caused more problems in the past... however many days it's been, than during the whole time Xeta here has even been working on this! I will have to get that fruit later and take care of him!'

"Sensen..."

Broken out of my thoughts by the small voice coming from Xetalona, I responded with a clear voice, holding back any anger from these developments.

"What?"

I watched as she slightly flinched from a single word.

"Uh.. I uhm.. D-do you think... that I could.. maybe...?... push that launch date back... once more?"

'Oh really? You want to ask me that after previously telling me it would be done within the week? Of course you can't! Why would I settle for more time when the previous plan is already almost complete?'

I took one quick look at Xetalona, who was looking down at the ground, and I was reminded of something.

'What if this is an opportunity? That brat Buggy has the plans, that are apparently oh so much better! Maybe I can see just why Xeta is so willing to just go to this new plan instead of go with her own! And to top that off, this would create an opportunity to learn what he is truly doing here, AND get rid of him before his personality interferes!'

With these thoughts running through my head, I let a smirk appear on my face.

"If you are the one to be asking such a question, I can only answer yes, you can push it back. Only this one last time. Am I clear?"

She looked up from the ground, seeing my smirk, and from her change in facial expression to a small smile, she took it as 'thank you for being okay with this'. However, this just showed that she still had no idea I was just using her. With just that little bit of information, I could only consider this my win.

'I WILL get off this island, and no one can stop me, not even you, Buggy.'

•

POV: Buggy

For two whole days, I didn't have anything else to do, except for design the ship, and relax on deck with Rem and Taki in the free time I gave myself. I would have considered doing some training, but the amount of people on this island was something I didn't know, so I wouldn't have known if there was anyone, or anything, on the edge of the cliff side. I didn't want Senco, or anyone, to know of my training, let alone that I had a devil fruit. However, the other option was the beach down below, but problems arose by just bringing up the idea, such as the constant waves hitting the side of the island, and the fact of: I didn't know how far the beach even went around the island, if I didn't already care about the ocean berating me at any moment.

I did keep an eye on Taki every so often, more so as a check-up, but it seemed as though she didn't really do anything that would be considered concerning, which in-of itself was slightly concerning, until I took into consideration that I basically told her to not do any of her 'artificial Sulong awakening', so her non-permanent sedentary lifestyle was called for. The very thing she was doing was disproving my theory of another personality, since it hadn't even said a word, or even come out as a sign, or anything at all. It didn't fully disprove my theory, since a personality could just hide in the back of her mind, but even if nothing happens, we had a plan to fall back onto, which was have Rem help with this one as well.

It did seem as though Rem was stressed most of the time, especially while learning how to essentially use the devil fruit abilities she had from scratch. It was almost continuous training after the first couple hours talking to Rosalina to get directions on how to go into someone's soul. She transcribed instructions from speech to text in that time, and then didn't stop working. She did end the call with Rosalina, but that's because she had other important, time sensitive things to do, while the problem on this end was okay to wait a day or two without much progress.

Something I did find out though, was that Rem, much like Rosalina, wouldn't sleep, and instead worked throughout two days and two nights straight. It confused me at first as to why she did that, but a combination of the weird ability to skip sleep altogether and an answer of "I haven't really been able to work hard on something in a while, so this is a nice change of pace". I did also figure that being a part of Djane probably had some effect on her personality, not her mentality. It probably also, once upon a time, translated to all of the pieces of Djane, where they would all just do something for days on end without rest, because they didn't need it.

I only partially envied such an ability, but only because I would have much more time to do things, but I didn't want it for a reason. That reason was simple, in the fact that I wanted to sleep, especially considering it was somewhat comfortable to sleep and have the comfort of Taki and Rem, when Rem did sleep.

On the third day after leaving Xetalona's workshop to live and sleep on our ship, it dawned on me that I needed the materials to not only actually retrofit a flight system to the Royal Deck, but to also fix the ship itself, prototype the flight systems, as well as build just a flying ship without any retrofitting.

I had the plans almost done, but going back to the place that probably traumatized the one person I partially trusted on this island felt like the wrong thing to do. At least, I didn't know whether Xetalona was going to come to us, or if we should go there instead. So, I left the problem of what to do for the next day, just in case Xetalona decided to come to us rather than us going to her. I would've needed to eventually, but I was the one with the new plans, so nothing could really be done.

That day, the fourth day, was the day which was different. Someone actually came from the distant fog and into view.