~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.

                Sensing our intent, the giant sea serpent pushed our boat along. Even the great sea serpent was worried about the girl. Once we landed we quickly drug the boat to shore and scoured the coast. Something had done a lot of destruction to the small coastal village, the entire village was in ruin only one or two structures remained partially erect, the only indication that there had been civilization here once.

                A path opened up around a hillside and I remembered it was the path Echo had taken earlier when she arrived. We followed the path in silence, each of us exchanging worried filled glances as we slipped past the rubble that once used to be a quaint coastal village. Everyone froze when we rounded the corner and I felt my stomach turn, the path was lined with bodies, bodies that had been dragged and placed there. She'd been finding all of her fallen kin, pulling them out of rubble and out of the forest and fields gathering them up in rows along the pathway to lay them to rest. She intended to bury them all.

                I could see a village up ahead partially in ruin, with a few surviving structures. How many bodies had she already dragged out of the destruction? Why wouldn't she ask for help? Yassop elbowed me in the side jarring me from my thoughts of dismay and pointed up the hillside. She was digging again.

                "I think you should go on ahead." Yassop said quietly as he watched the broken girl with sorrow filled eyes.

                I nodded and climbed up the hillside. Her movements seemed automatic. She was lost in her grief, moving on autopilot, digging endlessly. There wasn't a single emotion revealed on her pale face, it was just a stony mask of indifference. Her murky green eyes were glazed over from fever and exhaustion but burned with determination as she continued digging. As I climbed the hillside I noticed a fresh splattering of blood in small pools leading to where she was digging.

                "Echo?" I called softly.

                Nothing. It was as if she couldn't hear me, she just kept digging.

                As I drew closer I spotted a small bundle of finely coiled wires dripping with blood lying beside a broken bloody shovel. It was her blood!

                "Echo!?" I called louder.

                Nothing.

                I ran the rest of the way and froze as I got to the top of the hill; there was already a row of freshly dug graves, at least fifteen of them. She'd dug fifteen graves in the course of a day. "Echo!" I tried to jar her from her incessant digging. Blood was streaming from the palms of her hands soaking the handle of the shovel she was currently using and littering the bottom of the grave she was standing in.

                She didn't stop, she didn't even twitch. There wasn't an ounce of recognition in her gaze.

                I jumped into the grave beside her and place my hand atop hers stopping her from digging further. "Echo, you need to stop."

                "NO!" She cried as she tried to wrench the shovel from my grasp.

                "Let me help you." I pleaded with her.

                "No! It's my responsibility." She snapped deliriously, "It's my burden to bear, no one else's." She managed to break free from my grasp and started digging again.

                "Echo, stop!"

                She ignored me.

                Without thinking I tackled her to the ground and cringed as she let out an ear piercing scream. I could hear the others running toward us and calling out in a panic as I wrestled the shovel away from the feverish girl.

                "Boss?!" Yassop called in a panic not knowing which grave we were in.

                "Let go of me!" Echo raged.

                Benn reached us first and upon noticing my struggle to subdue the delirious girl, jumped in to help. He lifted her into his arms and carried her back to the surface. I followed behind them and felt a pain in my heart as Benn released the broken girl from his hold and she collapsed to her knees in defeat.

                "Echo?" I knelt in front of her as Benn and Yassop kept a watchful eye on the two remaining shovels.

                She looked up at me with tear filled fever glazed murky green eyes and I felt something in me shatter as I looked down at the crumbling girl. "I have to do this." Her voice was whisper soft and filled with so much sorrow, it was absolutely heart breaking.

                "Why do you have to do it alone?" I asked her softly as I reached out to catch the single tear that fell.

                "It was my fault!" She choked.

                "That's not true, Echo, you're just feeling guilty because you surv-." I started.

                "NO!" She cut me off with a cry, "It's my fault! They came a few weeks before; they asked me to work with their scientists to study the fruits. I didn't want to. I refused to enable their army and they retaliated."

                "It's not your fault, Echo."  I wrapped my arm around her and nearly sighed in relief when I felt her melt into my embrace.

                Her arms entwined around my neck as she suddenly became too weary to hold herself up and she leaned against me her shoulders heaving from silent sobs. I lent her my strength and held her up as she cried herself to sleep.

                Once she'd fallen unconscious Benn inspected her wounds. He deduced that the wires had been what broke through her skin first, hence why she discarded them and the stress of digging just made it worse. Had she been left alone any longer she would have worked herself literally to the bone. Yassop offered to carry her, surprising us all and we made our way toward the town. Benn remembered seeing a few structures that looked intact enough that we could rest in.

                It had been twenty years since I'd been on this island; I was a swabbie aboard Gol. D Roger's ship at the time. He was good friends with the mayor of the town who lived in a regal white house that stood in the very center of the inland village. The mayor was a kind hearted man with a deep distinct booming laugh. His wife was the most amazing baker and would always send us on our way with fresh baked pies and other mouthwatering baked goods. I often wondered what had happened to them over the years and whether or not he was still the mayor of the town. On our last visit they announced to the crew that they were expecting. The child would have been around Echo's age by now.

                The regal white house was still perfectly intact, the only structure that looked unaffected by the destruction. I bowed my head as I spotted the mayor lying in front of the house with a large fracture to his skull from some sort of bludgeoning weapon. We made our way up the steps and into the home. Once the door shut behind us, the smell of death and decay vanished. It was almost just as I remembered it. Warm and inviting, perfectly spotless and somehow still filled with love and warmth. There were more pictures lining the walls since my last visit and I froze as I spotted a picture of a toddler with snow white hair and murky sea green eyes. It was Echo!

                "Whoa." Yassop paused as he stared at the vast amount of pictures lining the wall, "I think this is her home."

                We headed upstairs where I remembered they were putting the nursery. It was much different than it had been back then. There was a small white desk in front of a window overlooking the backyard; it was littered with various notes and sketches of different plants. A white bookshelf stood near the door filled with various books on plant life and an assortment of trinkets, various treasures and sea shells. There was a canopy bed with varying shades of blue mesh fabric trickling down around it giving it an almost underwater type feel. A picture on her bedside table caught my eye. Echo appeared to be no more than seven years old and was proudly beaming as she held up a familiar devil fruit. The mayor was kneeling beside her laughing. She looked so happy, in every picture I saw she was smiling brilliantly and I desperately wanted to see that beautiful smile once again.

                Yassop placed the unconscious girl on the bed while Benn took off in search of more medical supplies to better take care of her wounds. Lucky Roo headed back to the ship to see if he could find anyone to volunteer to help Echo with the graves in the morning. Everyone would volunteer, they all loved Echo.