The next day Sanji got up early in the morning all fresh thanks to the comfortable sleep. The cold night of the desert region was something he found quite pleasant but thinking about the heat the daytime had to offer his mood fell. He yearned to get a chance to experience the cold pleasant air from the air conditioners once again but alas, what was gone was gone…’ Maybe some places here might have air conditioners right?’ Sanji thought to himself as he stood up from the bed and began his morning chores.

After he was all freshened up, he went outside and walked towards the main hall. On his way to the main hall, he saw several men with bruised faces and bodies giving him threatening looks. It was clear that they were the ones who got beat up by him and Buggy yesterday. Their eyes carried a lot of grievances but because of Koza’s decision to leave the matter as it was, they could do nothing but have a sour taste in their mouth because of the event.

Knock Knock

“Come in”

Sanji knocked at Koza’s door and soon made his way in.

“You’re awake,” Koza said. His eyes looked a bit dull which was most probably because of not being able to catch enough sleep.

“You didn’t sleep?” Sanji asked.

“I had some things to do,” Koza said as he folded the document that he was reading and focused his attention on Sanji.

“Your ride has been arranged and is ready to go anytime. I’m trusting on you…” Koza said. He had been thinking a lot about how to deal with the crocodile last night but no matter what he thought of, he had no way of dealing with his devil fruit powers. In the end, he could only depend upon Sanji’s words…though was frustrated with this conclusion.

“I’ll handle it, where’s Okame and Chopper?” Sanji asked.

“Hmm,” Koza looked at his wristwatch to check the time after hearing Sanji’s question.

“It’s around 8 in the morning so they would most probably be in the mess outside.” The moment he finished saying that a deep rumbling sound escaped from Koza’s stomach which made him feel embarrassed.

Though Sanji’s stomach didn’t growl like Koza’s did he too was reminded of how hungry he was by this.

“It’s not good to skip breakfast so let’s go,” Koza suggested.

“Yes, I’m quite hungry aswell,” Sanji said as he followed after Koza to the outside of the building. The moment he walked out of the building the smell of food present in the air entered his nostrils which made him salivate more.

They soon walked towards an area where a lot of people were gathered. Tables were arranged outside and upon them, their breakfast was placed on large containers. People waited in line for their turn to be served breakfast before sitting on one of the series of chairs that were placed for them outside.

“Koza you’re here!”

“Good morning!”

Quite a few people wished Koza the moment he entered their eyes. It was quite normal since he was the leader of the group. In a similar manner, quite a few hostile gazes also welcomed Sanji but he didn’t care about it as kept the pace with which was walking.

“Sanji!”  A little reindeer jumped out of someone’s arm and rushed towards Sanji.

“Hey Chopper! You seem to be having fun,” Sanji said with a smile as he patted the chopper on his head.

“Hehe…It’s alright,” Chopper said with a grin as he welcomed Sanji’s pat.

Sanji’s attention soon went towards Okame whose embrace Chopper just escaped. He nodded at her and asked, “Prepared for the journey?”

“Ready anytime you say,” Okame said in a confident manner. Sanji nodded hearing it as he too joined the lines of people who were waiting for their turn to be served breakfast.

After satiating his hunger, he was all set for the journey. Okame soon made the required arrangements and a cart that was pulled by four gecko lizards soon arrived. After placing their supplies inside the cart they soon left for their destination.

Koza gave up some excuse to his men so that they wouldn’t bother much with this. He didn’t wanted to alert the moles among his men that’s why he did that.

As the cart was trailing its path in the vast desert Chopper had found his comfortable spot in Okame’s embrace. ‘

From the looks of it, he had grown quite close to her within a short span of time.’ Sanji thought to himself as he gazed at the two of them from time to time. Sanji and Okame had not much to talk about with each other so they kept their mouth shut only saying something when it was needed.

“I hope your sword skills will prove to be of some worth, otherwise you’ll have to sit on the sidelines,” Sanji said as he made his stance clear. He didn’t want things to go wrong just because of Okame’s inability to perform her task.

“I won’t be disappointing you,” Okame said. She was quite used to people doubting her sword skills because of her being a woman so her reaction was quite bland.

After that Okame and Sanji rarely talked during the whole journey.

The Gecko transportation was quite fast as they reached Alubarna within five hours and once they were there, they booked a room for themselves and rested for a bit. They still had 4 days before the crocodile decided to attack the place so he was quite chill about it.

When it was late in the evening Sanji called Okame and went to a secluded place in the city to test her strength. He started picking up trash cans, and bottles from the ground and kicked them towards Okame while she attempted to dodge or destroy them. Only when Sanji was satisfied with the results that he stop his barrage of attacks as Okame took a breath of relief. It had been two hours since they had been doing this and she was almost exhausted by now. The beads of sweat that were falling down her forehead were proof of that.

“Let’s go, we’ll initiate our attack today at midnight so you can rest till then,” Sanji told her. To this, Okame widened her eyes a bit but a hint of understanding soon entered her mind as they indeed were short on time.

“Alright,” She said as the two of them returned to the place they were living in.