You blamed the crew for filling your head with thoughts of Killer. Every suggestive look or comment had you thinking of how nicely he treated you and what they thought it was supposed to lead to. Wire and Heat liked to drop the occasional remark in their usual straight faced way. You were fortunate enough that no one said anything around Killer. They just found you easy to tease.

It had you looking at Killer a little differently for sure. He was a big guy but he wasn't as intimidating as Kid. You couldn't see his face but you bet his features wouldn't be as harsh either. Though his hands were rough from years of handling weapons, they could do the most delicate work. His voice was deep but he always spoke carefully and with purpose. It was hard to imagine this was the same man that had no problem slaughtering others on a whim.

You did enjoy his company and from what you could tell, he liked spending his free time with you as well. The next couple days before reaching the island he helped you finish your project and stuck around to pass the time when there was nothing else going on. You helped him cook, seeing as he did a lot of that himself, he was due for an extra set of hands for help and no one else seemed as keen as you for that.

While Killer would sometimes get more serious, like he was remembering his position as your superior, it would never last. The more you two spent time together the less inclined he was to play the part of your boss, choosing to joke around with you more often and go with more casual conversation. You'd gotten him to "laugh" more than once but he never vocalized it.

His body would shake from the force of it but you'd never hear a sound from him. You asked about it once, why he was quiet and why he wore the mask. Killer said he may talk to you about it some day but it would remain a secret until then. That only made you more curious as to what he was hiding. It was something you'd have to be patient to figure out though. If you kept bugging him about it he was bound to give in at some point. He may be stubborn but so were you.

For now you'd satisfy yourself imaginating what he looked like under the mask and enjoy his presence.

"That's it isn't it?" You asked excitedly, looking at the vague island shape on the horizon.

"Yep. You should get something warmer on, it's going get colder as we get closer." Killer suggested.

You looked down at your crop top. It wasn't going to be nearly good enough to keep the biting cold at bay. The island the map led to was a winter island which meant you had to fight to get warmer clothing on. Your jeans would be fine, but you'd need more layers up top.

"Yeah." You sighed. "I think a have a sweater that won't be too much of a pain to get on."

You wandered off to your room and rummaged through your clothes. Some fit in your nightstand, the rest were in a pile on the floor, including the sweater you wanted. It was a pale shade of (f/c), thick with long sleeves, and was made with the softest material you'd ever felt. You piled it in your arms along with your bow and quiver full of arrows and headed back out to stand by Killer and watch the island become more visible by the minute. It was also getting colder just as fast. He already had a brown leather coat slung over his shoulders, ready for the chilly weather.

"You weren't kidding about how fast the temperature would drop." You pulled the sweater over your head and started the struggle that was getting your wings through the slits.

It was hard to balance making the holes big enough to get your wings through yet small enough to keep the warmth in. You preferred putting in the extra effort of getting your wings through a damn hole than suffering through the cold.

After a short while you managed to shove one wing through, but the second was still trapped under the fabric. This was why you stuck to bigger sweaters, you couldn't angle your wings right otherwise. This one technically was one of your roomier ones, but it still wasn't working all that great.

Killer had apparently watched you struggle for long enough and stepped behind you. "Hold still, this is painful to watch."

He carefully grabbed the appendage and led it through the slit in the sweater, the feeling making you shiver. People don't touch your wings and him doing it felt strange.

"Thanks." You gave him a sheepish smile. "Normal clothes are my worst enemy."

"I can tell. I never thought something so simple could be such a hassle."

"I've ruined a lot of shirts this way, that's why I dress a little more simply."

You adjusted the sweater a bit, letting it fall down to hit the tops of your knees and rolling up the sleeves enough so you could see your hands. It hung low on one of your shoulders but that was unavoidable and at the moment, unfixable.

He nodded. "That looks good on you too though, even if it's a little big."

There he goes again with saying things that make you blush.

"Any smaller and I wouldn't be able to get my wings through it..." You mumbled more to yourself than to him.

"Feathers!" Kid barked. "Scout ahead and use that haki of yours. See if we have any company."

"Sure thing." You rolled your eyes at the nickname. It wasn't going anywhere soon and you wished it would. 

You slung the quiver across your back, nestling it between your wings and grabbed the bow. You then launched yourself over the railing and raised yourself up high enough in the air to get a good view of your surroundings with a few powerful strokes. The snow that covered the island was beautiful. You didn't like the cold but you loved the view of the winter wonderland from up high.

It was quiet and peaceful from afar, but you had to get closer to allow your haki to work well. You glided closer, letting the breeze coming off the ocean guide you as your focus was set on searching for any danger. As you got closer, the quiet became more unsettling, though you couldn't put your finger on why. Still, the area felt safe enough. You brushed over the nearest treeline and still felt no threatening presence or anything of note for that matter. Satisfied with your findings, you came back around to the ship, landing on it right as it dropped anchor.

"It's all clear as far as I can tell. Uninhabited and as safe as it gets."

"What a let down." Kid grumbled, a few nearby men nodding their heads in agreement. "I was hoping for some blood today."

"Maybe you'll have better luck tomorrow." You joked.

"Maybe feathers. Maybe." He scanned the snow covered beach before jumping down to it.

You and a few others followed him, keeping the group small for the sake of speed. Heat and Wire stayed on board while Killer joined you, Kid, and a couple lower members on the ship's food chain. It was obvious they were brought for grunt work and you were more than happy about that. You weren't interested in having to dig anything up.

"It's quiet." Kid snapped, the lack of noise somehow souring his mood.

You were glad it wasn't just you who noticed that though. Then it hit you. There was no noise, not even the sounds of small burrowing creatures or birds. Now that you thought about it, you didn't see any birds when you were in the air.

Kid stopped at the treeline as Killer pulled out the map, examining the riddled directions.

"We need to get up that mountain." Killer said. "There's supposed to be some kind of trail to follow up it."

"That's on the other end of this fucking place." The captain growled, pulling his vest a little closer around his body. He didn't stop to think about putting on an actual shirt so of course he was feeling the cold.

"There's no animals." You interjected after double checking that you couldn't feel anything else nearby.

"So? I don't give a shit." Kid's attitude was getting annoying.

"There's never no animals in one place Kid. Something's off here..."

You let out a huff as he ignored your comment and pressed on. Killer pat your shoulder as he passed you. "Keep your eyes and ears open, I'm as uneasy about this as you are."

At least someone was. Because Kid was so confident, the help he brought was as well and you didn't like that. Following someone blindly always leads to issues, even if they're strong.

You were on edge the entire walk up to the foot of the mountain. Nothing happened and that only stressed you out more. There was continued silence, only broken by the sounds of snow crunching underfoot and Kid cursing as he tried to clutch his furs closer to keep some semblance of warmth. Still no animals or people.

"The trail should start somewhere around here." Killer read over the map again.

"We don't need a trail, it's at the top of the mountain right? We can just climb." Kid growled.

"I don't think so. The trail is supposed to lead almost directly to where we need to be. It'd be faster to find it and follow it."

"Fine. What's it supposed to look like? I'm not seeing a trail."

You weren't either. There was a steady slope leading further up, but nothing that would suggest there being a set path. It was hard to tell if the snow covering the area was fresh or not with the lack of animal tracks and that made it all the harder to know if there were signs buried or if they just didn't exist.

"We're just going to have to search for something of note..." You trailed off, begining to look around yourself.

Kid grumbled a bit more in annoyance as everyone followed your example, kicking through the snow and looking around for anything that caught their eye. A little while into this and you noticed something that was both puzzling and worrying. You had wandered a short distance from everyone else so of course they couldn't have seen it.

There were some tracks left in the snow. Along with a surrounding group of trees that were heavily stripped of their bark, sap weeping out of the cuts. They looked somewhat fresh, the sap not yet frozen in place. The tracks themselves were hard to distinguish as any one particular creature. But between the size of them and the gashes on the trees, you could tell whatever was here was huge. It could easily be about the size of an elephant.

You tore your eyes away from the area and looked at the group. They were all still searching. Kid appeared to be getting more frustrated by the minute while Killer was as tough to read as ever behind his mask, nosing around some rocks that jutted out at an odd angle. Then something else caught your eye not far from the blonde.

"Killer." You chirped, temporarily forgetting about the tracks and trees. "What's that on the ground, to your left?"

He looked down and tramped over the the small mound, brushing off the dusting of snow on it. A couple small stones clattered down as he did and you instantly realized what it was. You came from a fairly mountainous island yourself and hiking was a popular past time with the locals. They often marked trails the same way, with stones stacked on each other. It was always either stacked with a hefty one at the bottom and gradually smaller ones on top, or simply a small pile of tinier stones placed in a neat pile.

"That's the start of our trail." You puffed, watching the clouds your breath created.

"A bunch of rocks?" Kid raised a non-existent eyebrow at you.

"Yeah, they're common markers for hikers. The next stack is always in sight of the one your at so it's not too difficult to follow."

"Sounds good to me, let's go."

"Hold on." You almost regretted saying that. Kid sent you a look that would terrify any normal person. "I found something else. There's something alive on this island and I don't like the mess it left behind here." You hooked a thumb over your shoulder and then men brushed past to check out what you meant.

"Whatever it is was here recently." Killer poked at some of the sap leaking down one of the worst trees. It was almost cut in half with how badly it was stripped.

"That's what I gathered. I can't tell what would leave tracks like that and tear up trees so much but it's gotta be big."

"It's probably a bear or some shit, nothing we can't handle. Let's go, I want to get this done and get out of the cold." Kid bumped into you as he went back to the beginning of the trail, already carefully picking around for the next marker.

"I won't be surprised if we run in with whatever did that but I think Kid's right. We'll be able to handle it." Killer ruffled your hair. "We didn't get such high bounties by chance."

"Right...." You still couldn't shake the feeling that things were going to get more than a little difficult very soon.

----

The closer you got to the top of the mountain, the more tracks you noticed. It got easier to make out some of the possible features of whatever left them. It moved on all fours, the front marks leaving strange dragging trails while the back didn't. The creature had a long tail for sure, the slimmer indentations that snaked after the rest of the tracks told you that much.

It took about an hour to get to where the trail ended, right in front of the opening to a cavern. There was a warm breeze coming from the inside, suggesting it connected to the outside somewhere else as well.

"We have to head through here, it should deposit us right to where we need to be." Killer pocketed the map, no longer needing it.

"Good." Kid bared his teeth into a smile. "I can't wait to have this done."

He went in first, Killer let you go in after along with the help that was tagging along so he could bring up the rear. You didn't like being in such an unknown enclosed space. After getting your wings, they became a handy tool in aiding in escapes and giving you maneuverability. Spaces like this made it impossible for you to use them.

Every drop of water off the slick stone walls of the cavern made you tense. Each reflection of light that bounced off the many faceted surfaces caught your eye, making you expect to see a feral pair looking right back at you. But there was nothing.

A rancid smell laced through the area, coming from spots shrouded in darkness and leading away from the main route. You'd smelled it before, it was the nose curling smell of rotted flesh. Everyone else could smell it too, fanning their faces to try and deter the scent or covering their faces with hands and clothes. Killer tried plugging up some of his mask holes to no avail. He still needed to see and breath after all.

By the time everyone got through the cavern and back out into the biting cold, no one mind the weather. It beat the nasty smell that managed to sink into your clothes and cling to your skin. You'd have to fight Killer for the shower when you got back. It was going to take some serious scrubbing to smell halfway decent again.

"Fuck me, that was awful." Kid drawled.

"Hard pass, lipstick doesn't do it for me." You said, stretching your wings.

"Shut u-" Kid was cut off by the guttural growl that came from a nearby low hanging rock formation.

Your blood went cold as you locked eyes with a giant violet and pinkish scaled creature. The long spines lining it's back clattered off each other, reminding you of a rattlesnake shaking it's tail as its growls turned to hisses. The talons on the bends of it's wings picked around the rock to drag itself closer.

"Some bear huh Kid?" You instinctively crouched slowly, wings already half open to make a quick escape.

"Is that a fucking dragon?"

"I think the technical term would be wyvern for this one." Killer added. Whatever it was, it was completely focused on you.

"How fast can you guys get the treasure and head to the ship?" You asked, sidestepping away from the group.

Kid glanced at you, smiling fiendishly. "15 minutes tops. Think you can last that long?"

"Easy. Just gotta outfly him."

"(Y/n)...." Killer didn't seem as keen on the roughly made up plan.

He didn't have a say in it though. The wyvern threw it's head back and let out a shrill scream before throwing itself at you. It was going to be the challenge of a lifetime.