That evening went surprisingly tamely. Mana would’ve imagined pirates being some drinking and plundering brutes, a lot like the stories, both fictional and historical, she read. Despite their fear of portraying weakness in any way, demonstrated by Read’s booming desire to kill anyone showing any disrespect to avoid a mutiny, the pirates were behaving rather civilized compared to Mana’s imagined stereotype. While meditating in her small but slightly more pompous than Mana would’ve wanted quarters, filled with plants and multiple bookcases filled with both educational atlases and books of fiction to keep the girl company, the magician heard no loud cursing or brawling. Only occasionally someone passed by her door accidentally bumping into it with their broom while they scrubbed the deck.
The young magician wished to make no premature conclusions but perhaps the description of the pirates as just rebellious sailors wishing to be treated like human beings and running a humane if a little illegal ship was justified? After all she had seen with her own eyes the scars on a marine’s back, the cold and lifeless zombie-like eyes that each marine carried. It wasn’t tough to see the allure of a pirate’s life, a life where you were treated as a person as long as you stayed within your own bounds and respected the pecking order. After all, it wasn’t tough to imagine similar punishment befalling any sailor questioning the order of their superiors. If anything on a legitimate ship the sailor may have been questioned and tortured before being executed, dragged through the whole tribunal charade.
After confronting the emptiness of her own soul Mana was no longer afraid of meditating. There was nothing out of ordinary in her body, at least there didn’t seem to be, all was working normally, as long as one had Mana’s disability in mind. Her body was still intentionally withholding the ability to mold chakra, the girl felt like she knew why, it was because of how she treated that gift. It was a self-preservation mechanism that her body placed on itself, choosing to never regain the full grasp of chakra control since the magician constantly risked her own life with it. She’d have fought Shimo to save those crawlers, she’d have fought the pirates to save that misspoken fellow who was killed that day… She’d have lost both fights. It was a scary thing to know that one’s subconscious made more rational sense than one’s own conscious mind.
Mana opened her eyes and stretched her tired body out over her own compact bed. She felt rested despite only having meditated and not slept throughout the whole time. She was such an idiot for not having done so during the last night, after all, if she had placed herself in a trance she’d have remained oblivious to Hachiro’s antics and had a good night’s sleep. Just like Meiko did. Except Meiko was no meditating genius, she was merely a really good and almost comically deep sleeper.
A loud thud alerted the girl’s attention and she hesitantly walked to the door opening it. There stood a chubby elderly man wearing a bandana and a torn and dirty shirt.
“Captain Read would like to see you at the dinner table, she’s quite excited to tell you the stories you so wished to hear” the man bumbled out in a voice belonging without a doubt to someone’s grandpa. The pirate’s tone and voice was so soft and low pitched that it seemed like everything he said was an educational journey with rich rewards of experience and knowledge. It was the most grandpa voice Mana had heard.
The ex-kunoichi just bowed her head leaving through the door and following the man to a staircase below captain’s deck.
“Forgive me for the messy shirt, young lady, it’s just that I was fixing some gear-work before this and had no time to change, the captain looked urgent with her call for you” the round bellied pirate smiled looking back at Mana picking his drunkard’s red with pulsing blood vessels nose.
“It’s really no problem, why are we going downstairs? Aren’t we going to dine at the captain’s deck?” Mana shook her head once before inquiring.
“Oh no…” the man chuckled grabbing his slipping out belly and stuffing it back into his oily trousers. “The captain dines with her men, we all eat at the same time by the same table, I can imagine it to be a bit confusing as marines cannot imagine such a luxury…”
The magician and the chubby grandpa pirate descended into a lovely little room lit by gas lights instead of candle light which must’ve been due to the fire hazard. There were plenty of wooden parts on this ship despite most strong military vessels being made of water chakra particle infused hardened steel that had floating properties. This allowed ships made even of toughest alloys to float like wooden ones. Read must’ve been unable to afford such a ship, reasonably so, a single good military vessel like that would’ve been the pride of the country’s entire navy.
“Well, sit down, why don’t you?” Read smiled through her teeth before Mana’s gaze stopped on a rather grotesque detail on the woman’s exposed body.
Read was sitting not on a large and soft suede cushioned chair but on a backless stool with a soft red pillow on the seat. That was because now that Read had removed her coat her sister Bonny was in full vision where before she was concealed enough to just look like a fancy accessory of the coat or maybe a small hunch of Read’s.
Bonny was a frail and pale thing, a truly grotesque and a little miserable addition a bit less than half Read’s size to the point where Bonny’s miniature hands and legs dangled helplessly and the women were connected just by their backs. Where Read’s head was completely fiery ginger, Bonny’s shade was a darker pink one approaching a shade of purple even. The twin’s face was completely invisible as it was hidden in the flowing ocean of untrimmed hair that also did its best to cover up Bonny’s private parts that were completely exposed and it didn’t look like Read bothered to dress her sister.
Mana realized that she was staring for a little too long for both of their comfort so she rushed to the nearest seat she could find. The girl’s attempt to hide her discomfort seeing the seemingly lifeless twin of Read’s was unsuccessful as the pirate captain just lessened her grin and pointed at Bonny with a thumb.
“Yeah, I guess seeing my sis’ for the first time is a little… Something, huh?” the woman asked. Before Mana could answer she gestured for every present pirate and Mana with her team to dig into the food served. There was plenty of chicken, pork chops and beef. Some smoked meat and desserts. Such commodities must’ve been available solely because they were at a port town.
“Not really, I’ve actually seen a similar case. Sadly the sibling of that man was dead all along but he didn’t want to let go of his brother, he used physical chakra to manipulate his brother’s corpse like a limb” Mana replied remembering her time in Agbarah and the people she met there. Had she not had that memory to fall back on she may have caused some discomfort for both herself and the captain.
“So sad… Well Bonny is alive and well, she sort of sleeps most of the time but she’s quick and really sneaky when she wants to be. I love her a great deal when she isn’t just dangling on my back…” Read nodded appearing interested in Mana’s memory of the Agbarah coliseum. “Anyways, here you are telling me stories…” the captain realized after taking a large chunk of meat and ripping it off the bone.
“I wouldn’t like to trouble your meal, captain, but if it’s not too much trouble I’d love to hear more about the Pirate Lords. Since me and my team are heading right into the center of the triangle we’ll probably have to deal with them or their people at some point” Mana asked politely waiting for the woman to finish chewing. The magician tried to ignore Bonny’s slithering arm reaching for an unfinished bone and moving it towards its pile of flowing hair where its head would’ve been.
“Well… The Pirate Lord that I am working for, working for being a pretty loose definition, is Pirate Lord “Green” Hideo l’Ollonais. He doesn’t really bark out any orders, my primary concern is to uphold his code wherever I can and pay him a share of my earnings every year. Of the three active Pirate Lords he is possibly the most passive, after a gruesome massacre he survived while covering himself in blood and guts of his slaughtered crew he despises conflict and only justifies it when defending his honor, such as you would’ve seen today. He is quite a swift and skilled swordsman from what I’ve seen but he prefers it as a sporting interest instead of a full on art of murder…”
Mana saw the evident discomfort of talking of l’Ollonais amongst her crew, after all in a way the man was both Read’s and the whole crew’s superior so it would’ve been difficult to speak of him any ill and not expect retribution from the crew. Especially if this “Green” was so fixed on protecting his name and honor as to letting his subordinates decimate a port town in his name because the port town beat up on his own subordinates. Out of the three Mana expected to be mislead about Green the most seeing how subjective Read had to be when describing the man.
“The other one is Pirate Lord “Blue” “ Aomura Flint, he is more of an adventurer than a pirate. It is rare that one hears of Flint’s crew plundering anything, he doesn’t care that much of his name either. From his history serving in other ships he is an amazing fighter having travelled the world and mastered a great deal of fighting styles. He surfaced couple of decades ago, before that he served in Pirate Lord “Black’s” crew and when his master went down he wandered about training with the samurai of the Iron Country as well as the ninja and the martial artists. Hell, piracy may just be another page in his diary…”
The crew roared out and flipped their beer pints emptying them for a great pirate being described. It was unlikely that any marines or marine hunter ninja displayed such respect for anyone who wasn’t their direct superior. Even if they did so it could’ve been merely a façade and a feat of respect.
“The final one is Pirate Lord “Red” “ Akimichi Francho. I’m not sure how one can describe “Red”, he is typically a pretty stereotypical pirate, plundering and chasing any treasures he can find, he also goes after his booty himself unlike l’Ollonais often risking his life. He isn’t one for honor or good name, he has left his own men to die and allowed his captured captains rot in jail and get executed under several occasions and has committed acts that codes of no other Pirate Lord would permit. I don’t think he is a tyrant or a mean guy he just… Wants to be on top of the world and doesn’t let himself go down with his loyal men before he gets there” Read finally got some time to stop talking and have some beer. Bonny’s freakily flexible arm bent backwards by the elbow and smacked the woman in the head making Read spill some drink all over herself and begin coughing angrily.
The pirate captain reached the glass back and handed some to her sister. When the conjoined sibling was awake she appeared to be quite the handful and had a personality befitting a pirate captain.
Read continued to tell stories of her plunders and jobs that she had pulled off until the dinner was over and the night was suffocating the last breaths of life of the day before. Some were of her childhood and how she tricked her childhood friends into joining her into piracy. Some more stories detailing how each and every friend she ever knew was captured and executed by Kirigakure marine ninja and Black Ops. One story of how Read escaped captivity while pregnant and giving birth under heavy cannon fire…
“What? You have a son?” Mana shouted out in surprise after that revelation which initially appeared shocking but the more the magician thought of it the more casual it looked.
“Sure, the little rascal’s growing up in Kirigakure, a lot of Green’s captains visit him so he’s quite the popular brat…” Read grinned as wide as her face allowed, Mana’s surprise entertained and rekindled the flame of storytelling for the pirate captain.
Mana had long since lost count and there were some stories the validity of which was questionable but the girl honored her hostess by letting her engage in storytelling, simply choosing to nod and drink tiny sips when the captain gorged down her whole pint after each story or mention of a treasured friend.
*****
Mana’s head felt a little woozy, she had made a decent effort at barely taking in any beer handed to her, unlike Meiko and Kouta who got completely hammered under the table. Shimo on the other hand could certainly handle his alcohol. The young man easily drank with the experienced pirates doing his best not to slip down under the table where the scrubs of drinking slept peacefully. Even if she only wet her tongue sometimes the magician still felt a bit wobbly on her feet and while she couldn’t call her condition tipsy, her head was still a bit dizzy. Or maybe it was just the wobbling of the ship and the sea air forcing to summon the best of her effort not to throw up like some pirates that were throwing up into buckets that laid around everywhere.
Normally they’d have been too young to drink in any village however pirates cared little of such pesky laws and in the sea there was only their law, the code of the Pirate Lord one enforced upon their captains. There was also the matter of emancipation and being declared a legal adult once one completed the Academy and became a genin. A ninja would’ve needed to buy and consume alcohol or use and carry around weaponry as well as make deals and sign contracts even in their earliest years. For that reason the fact that Meiko and Kouta got so bashed or the fact that Shimo appeared to have acquired both taste and experience over beer worried Mana least of all things.
A known face stared at the endless ocean blocking Mana’s path as it was neither pressing against the ship’s wall nor leaning over the edge. Hachiro just stood right in the middle of the path to Mana’s quarters and looked into the darkness with endless waters in the horizons wherever one’s eye could see.
“Ummm… Can I pass?” Mana asked politely.
Hachiro jumped up after the magician’s voice broke him out of a trance of his own “ a deep immersion in his own thoughts forcing him to move back and press himself against the ship’s wall. The man grunted as an exposed screw of an illuminator dug right into his elbow.
“You’re not drinking or eating?” the girl asked while passing the Uchiha.
“Most dinners and parties I’ve been in ended up with too much murder for my taste. I don’t like getting drunk, getting drunk equals getting your belly or throat opened out there… Darn this ship, maybe I should stick to the quarters, if the Eight Tails’ tentacle grabed me from here it’d drag me tens of kilometers deep and crush me like a roll of toothpaste!” Hachiro began mumbling.
Mana leaned over the edge which scared the Uchiha to no end, it appeared bold and challenging his own way to the extent that he even screamed out something unintelligible to her.
“Aww… You care, how cute…” Mana smiled to him kindly. “You know, an important part of security is trust. If you won’t trust some people you’ll just make enemies out of them all and no matter how careful you are, even you can’t defend against all of them. Trust is just as important as carefulness in security” she tried talking to the Uchiha even if she knew there’d be no changing his ways.
“Well… You have your ways, I have mine. There’s no way I’m trusting anyone after my own idol fell from grace. Not with that madman out there…” the Uchiha replied surprisingly most clearly he has spoken in for a while.
“When you speak of this “madman” you speak of someone exact. Every other enemy or threat you create is abstract, it’s always “them” and something “might” happen but with the “madman” it’s real for you, isn’t it? Shimo lied to us about you being careless and aloof and I can see why but he was right about one thing “ whoever that madman is he seems an actual threat you wish to avoid at all costs whereas you speak of being captured and murdered as almost a joke. Like you did back then with Shimo” Mana spoke with a degree of interest into Hachiro and this “madman” he kept speaking of. Initially his ramblings seemed very paranoid and mad but the girl was curious if any of them could be forced to make some sense.
“Shimo didn’t lie about me. I am careless and aloof, that is why I became so… However I am over the years. When people out there see your goofiness they see how they can exploit it, get poisoned enough times and you’ll learn to avoid poison, if you can’t tell what poison is you only start eating and drinking what you personally can vouch for. Everything else is dangerous, but everything fades compared to him. If the world we live in is a table game he is going to flip the table. All the figures shall play by his rules or fly off… He’s doing whatever he wants to do and he has the ability to achieve every mad goal he wants to. Kidnapping people right out from under the village’s noses without them getting as much as a sniff of him…” Hachiro finally began speaking to Mana in a voice and tone resembling that which he used when the man was angry and fought the team of genin.
“I see. You wouldn’t happen to tell me the madman’s name or something to identify him by?” Mana asked just in case, something like that prophecy this man made would’ve been valuable info for the village.
“I can’t… If I would he’d sink every island in the Archipelago just to get back to me. He’d wield the fury of all the Tailed Beasts and blow the chunk of planet I’m in off the total package” Hachiro shook in his boots and where he was slowly approaching the rail Mana was leaning over he stumbled back to the wall again.
“Why would this madman fear exposure so? If he is as mighty as you say?” Mana wondered curiously.
“No. He fears nothing and no one, he doesn’t want YOU to know… Mana…” the man spoke before freezing up as if he had just told something incriminating and ran off as a paranoid old man he probably was. The magician just stood there wondering what those words could’ve meant. Why would she be of any importance to that man? Did she perhaps know that so called madman? The magician struggled to remember any name matching the description of such a man.
*****
Slowly and carefully as to not fall over and into the uneasy oceans below Mana stumbled back into her quarters. It appeared that the surprises would still not cease as inside her quarters Shimo was waiting and he didn’t look easy or calm. He was pretty fired up about something. Mana looked at the Yuki for a moment before his drunk mind let the fact of her awkward staring become evident.
“What are you doing? With all of this?” he asked her straight, all the beer he did that evening must’ve helped with the straightforwardness.
“What do you mean?” Mana asked the swordsman to be a little less straightforward.
“I mean Read… Bonny, whatever she is… You promised her a decent chunk of our Audra. You’ve heard today the jobs these men and women do, you know what they’d do with it. Promising Hachiro a couple of chunks is just fine, he won’t...” Shimo appeared to have been practiced this speech for a while. It was evident that the whole deal troubled him greatly but he feared confronting Mana until he was totally hammered and had no qualms about doing pretty much anything. Their fighting over moral matters must’ve interfered with it, Shimo didn’t want them to fight like they used to back in Otogakure. He clearly wanted things to be like they were back when they were friends. They clearly still were friends, just neither one of them wished to admit it and apologize for their fighting.
“Calm down…” Mana whispered, she thought about her following words for a good while before leaning up closer to Shimo.
“Back off, I’m not kissing you…” the young man pushed her rudely, “What would Kouta say if he saw you!” he mumbled out in a manner that suggested too many beers five beers ago.
“I’m not gonna kiss you!” Mana punched him in the arm shouting out. “Are you sure you’ve not been followed, can we talk here?” she asked.
“We can’t be sure of that ever. Any place can be filled with noise recording seals, also a ninja of superior skill may remain invisible to a lesser skilled eye no matter how hard they try to find them. I mean goddamn Black Ops can remain unseen even in plain sight to anyone but ninja of similar skill if they damn please. There could be five Black Ops in this room right now and we’d not see them unless they wished to be seen. If you have anything to say just say it…” the boy grunted angrily but despite his drunken stupor he had a point.
“I don’t intend to pay Read…” Mana answered awaiting for the lightning of consequences to strike after these words were uttered.
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