Find Things that are Precious to You

It was a strangely peaceful day; I was mostly alone and resting on my rowboat, cross-legged, in the middle of the sea. Considering I had eaten the Medium Medium Fruit, I should have considered this dangerous. Sometimes, I still do. But one could say that I had partly rowed myself away from my home island looking to die, and these waters looked like a good place to die…

"No. Bad thoughts, bad thoughts!" I said, being careful to not catapult myself back onto my rowboat, which probably would've led to my death anyway. I mean 'careful' as in landing on my butt instead.

"Ooow", I said. And I just sat for awhile, one hand on my forehead and the other hand on my oars, contemplating life, the meaning of the universe, all that stuff… alright, so maybe that was a lie; I was thinking back to my unimportant past: "'You should've been different', they said. 'You'd make a fine meat shield', they said — well, some of them for the latter, anyway — Annndd, cutting off at that immediately."

"Ritsuka?" A ghostly voice called to me.

"Huh!?" I said, startled out of my thoughts. Then, remembering the voice in question, I looked up and said: "Um, hi, Kii-san. What's up?"

Silence.

"Um, Kii-san, is there something wrong?" I finally said, tilting my head like a bird.

Kii-san, aka Kiito Arashi, was the most successful gangster on my home island, Las Camp; she led most of the others in keeping relative order and away from other islands. Kii-san was also shot by what appeared to be stray bullets in a gang war, and likely made sure as a ghost that those responsible paid for it with their lives. To this day, I'm not exactly sure why she decided to follow me off the island.

"Yes," Kii-san said. "You were rocking, and your face looked like a stormcloud. You OK?"
I noticed that my hold on my oars was tighter than I intended, so I quickly tried to loosen up. "Yeah," I said. 'You know. Like a liar.' "I'm fine. I was just thinking about the past. Thanks for asking, though." I tried to force a smile. I didn't know if it worked.

"You don't normally seem to have a happy face, but I can still tell when you're forcin' it, kid," The voice of a child said. Apparently it was just Eiji-chan, trying to be gruff and cool.

"You're the kid, Eiji-chan. Remember?" I barked back at the other ghost. I hated having to correct Eiji on that; having done so enough times would've made anyone hate it a little. He just seemed to like bugging me in general; calling for a game of tag or hide-and-seek when he knew he'd win handily, calling me a kid when he was literally seven-years-old — or at least that was what he and the other ghosts kept telling me — and poking me with one of my oars… the last of which he was doing right now.

I felt my left eye twitch. "OK, Eiji-chan, you can stop now," I said, in the most placating voice I could manage. Admittedly, it wasn't much.

"Oh, come on, I wanna find where you're ticklish," Eiji said, to my mounting annoyance.

But Kii-chan stopped him, apparently: "OK, Eiji, that's enough. Mission accomplished."

"Fine," the annoyed ghost said, dropping the oar. Take that, brat - 'Annd, just remembered he's literally a dead child.' I thought.

Taking a moment to breathe, I said: "Thank you, both of you… Though I'm guessing there's another reason you're here?"

"Yeah," Kii-san said. "There's a cluster of ghosts further up ahead. They said they'd been dead for nearly twenty years and that their island was annihilated by the World Government. Well, that was what the more coherent ghosts said, anyway." Her delivery was as dispassionate as usual, and that signalled a return to equilibrium.

"Well, this'll give me a headache at best, and render me catatonic at worst," I said grimly.

Silence fell over the boat again.

"Yes, you two, I'm still going," I said in annoyance.

"Never doubted that,", the two ghosts said in unison, as I got to rowing.

… Eventually, I just started saying "sea" for every row I made; apparently, Kii-san and Eiji-chan went pretty far when I asked them to leave me be for a bit.

"Sea. Sea. Sea. Sea. Sea. Sea - What the Hell!?"

It was… I could try describing it, but I don't think I'll ever capture the full scope of this madness. There were hundreds of voices clustered on an empty point in the sea; apparently that spot used to be their island. Most of them were screaming, wailing, sobbing. Some had apparently formed some kind of mishmash monster out of their sheer screeching anger, and I wasn't clear at the time about whether or not they could change back; the Sea King-esque cries were all I needed to hear. Some seemed to be trying to call up a storm.

And according to what Kii-san and Eiji-chan on the way over here, others still were silent as the grave, with their faces lined as though they'd given up on being able to soothe their fellow islanders. Yet that wasn't the case… right?

I could only stare in shock at that baleful spot in the sea, a spot that wouldn't have meant anything to anyone else. Then I had to cover my ears, wanting to get away from this hellhole ASAP, but not wanting to leave these people to this.

I was about to row closer, but Eiji-chan put a cold, cold hand on me. "Stay here." He said. "We got this."

… No. No they did not. Because in a minute that seemed like an eternity to me, the screaming ghosts saw me and started, well, screaming in my face! "Give us our island back!" Some said. "Give us our lives back!" Others said. "Get us out of here!" said others still.

… It was a bit much. "Stop," I said. Still more screaming. "Stop it." Still more screaming. "Please, just stop!" The screaming continued. "Stop! Stop!" And… the screaming stopped. Was that really all of it, or was I just tuning the rest out? I didn't know, I tried to just… get myself to think again.

… I heard some of the ghosts mumbling out that they were sorry. I had to chuckle a bit, even as I started to uncover my ears: "Sorry? Sorry for what? You're all in pain, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but… you're crying." One ghost said.

"Huh?" I said. Then I checked, and as it turned out, I was. Huh. I quickly made to wipe the tears away.

"That face you were making just now? That look is what we intended to give to the people who destroyed us. Who destroyed our home. We… We can't even begin to apologize for what we've just done."

Well… I didn't have an answer for that — well, most of that: "Don't worry. I've had worse."

Breathing again, I said: "OK. So. What do you want me to do here?"

"I can answer that," The voice of a grown woman said. "I want you to find my daughter, and I want you to bring her back here."