Author's Notes: I Live... Again! Wow, but it's been an age since this updated, and I'm sorry, but real world has just been abusing me since October. Highlights include having to dig in an enormous new rainwater tank, barely escaping going completely broke, and what will probably be the upcoming extraction of a tooth. So I want to apologize for all of that.
On the good side of things, firstly, thank you all for the generous outpouring of support for this story, and in particular the inclusion of the original characters Miriam and Harumi. This has been my first ever story with major OCs, so it's been very nerve-racking to place them in the spotlight. I do apologize to those who don't like them, but as I've said, the goal from the start here was not to just make this "Ranma tags along on Luffy's adventures", and whilst I can understand the appeal of using canon side-characters (some of the very earliest drafts of this story featured Boa Sandersonia as a new love interest for Ranma and the Baroque Works Unluckies being adopted as Kodachi's pets), the fact of the matter is that those characters are largely tied up into Luffy's story, so if Ranma is forging his own path, he honestly would meet very few of them.
Another positive, Shampoo finally has art depicting her zoan forms! I love how they came out, and I hope you'll enjoy them too. Honestly, commissioning artwork for this story was intimidating at first, but I'm really enjoying doing it now; if folks have any ideas or requests for things they'd like to see drawn for this story, whether it be a scene from the story or just something creative, please share it in the comments - I might just be inspired.
That said... commissions cost money, and the unfortunate reality is that I don't have a lot of money to spare, especially with things being the way they are. So, I've bitten the bullet and made a Ko-Fi account. If you want to help me out with squirreling away funds for more art or even to get my computer replaced at long last, it'd be a big help; my Ko-Fi handle is "Rewind Gone Nuts" (no spaces).
Chapter 19: Racing to the Dead End Race!
*"Are you out of your MIND?!"
Ranma grimaced and stuck a finger in his ear, wiggling it to alleviate the pressure on his eardrum. "Geeze, Ryoga, think you could speak up a little? I don't think they heard you back on Sukumvit Island!"
The next thing he knew, the near-naked Ryoga had stormed over the deck and grabbed Ranma by his shirt lapels, which he used to hoist his old rival into the air.
"We almost got killed trying to hold up that stupid party, and you're already planning on another pirate stunt?! Are you absolutely insane?!" Ryoga bellowed, shaking Ranma back and forth.
"Ah, come on, Ryoga! We got out of there in one piece, what's all the fuss?" Ranma asked, with surprising nonchalance for somebody being manhandled in such a fashion.
"The fuss is because that was a stupid idea and you should have known it!" Ryoga snarled.
"Hey, there was nothing wrong with that plan! We had no way of predicting Captain Kiyoshi would show up, or that the Commodore would be so strong - everything worked fine until the last moment!" Ranma protested.
"And that's the most crucial part! How can you possibly think about running off to another hair-brained scheme so soon after this one went wrong?" Ryoga barked, shaking Ranma again.
"Because this is a completely different setup - there's no way we can lose this one, not with all our secret weapons!" Ranma snapped back, thrusting his face forward and making Ryoga instinctively recoil.
"What secret weapons?!" the incredulous Ryoga demanded.
"In a race like this, it's all about the ships, not the crew - doesn't matter how strong the crew are when they're trying to keep afloat! If they somehow catch up with our rabbit zoan-powered engine with their wind-powered sails, my Moko Takabisha and your Shishi Hokodan are faster and more precise than any cannonball, meaning we can sink them long before they clash with us! And that's not even talking about what Miriam can do to turn things in our favor, or did you forget she's basically a sea monster?" Ranma rattled off.
"Uh... oh. You... gotta point there," Ryoga reluctantly conceded in a soft, quiet voice.
Then he shook his head and tried to regain his former fury, loudly declaring, "Still, you can't just go running into another scheme!"
"Enough!" Ranma spat, before his hands thrust out and bodily shoved Ryoga back, the eternally lost boy nearly tripping as he stumbled away. Ryoga snarled in fury, but Ranma met him with his own coldly furious glower.
"Like it or not, Ryoga, this is the reality we live in now! We're pirates, and that means the Navy wants our heads on a platter anyway, so we might as well enjoy ourselves until we find this stupid One Piece!"
"E-Enjoy ourselves?" Ryoga spluttered, looking visibly poleaxed, before realization dawned on his face. "...You really have gone insane..."
Ranma scowled at that less-than-flattering assessment, before turning to the rest of the crew. "Okay, voting time! Who votes we blow off some steam and make a name for ourselves with a nice, simple, anything-goes race?"
There was a moment of hesitation, before every single member of the Kamikaze Pirates other than Ranma and Ryoga raised their hand in unison.
"The 'ayes' have it," Ranma declared smugly, crossing his arms and smirking as he glanced at Ryoga out of the corner of his eyes.
"That just proves you're all nuts," Ryoga flatly replied.
"Well, if you really hate it so much, Ryoga, you can always leave," Ranma shot back.
Ryoga staggered as if struck, jaw falling open in his shock. "Wh-what?!"
Rama shrugged nonchalantly. "Leave, then, if you hate the pirate life. We don't want to drag you along. This island we're coming up on, Hannabal, was it? It's supposed to be some kind of ex-pirate haven. If you really want out so bad, then fine; we'll give you as much of our cash reserves as you need to set up a life there, and you can wait for us to find the One Piece. I'm sure Umok can pick you up easily once he's fully recharged, right?"
"It'd be as simple as snapping my fingers," the imp interjected smoothly.
"Well, there you have it, then! So, what'll it be, Ryoga? You gonna stay on board, or you want off this wild ride?" Ranma demanded, tapping his fingers on his bicep as he waited for an answer.
The Eternally Lost Boy grimaced repeatedly, visibly thinking over his options, before his shoulders slumped and his face drooped in resignation. "...Alright, fine, I'll stay. I still think this is a dumb idea."
"Duly noted and ignored," Ranma brightly chirped in response.
Then he sighed softly and rolled his neck on his shoulders. "Now that's out of the way... Umok? Any sign of pursuit?"
"None yet, Captain," the imp replied.
"Alright, get back to the crow's nest and keep an eye out, but we should be fine now... the rest of you, let's get some lunch. That wasn't exactly how we planned to cut out of the party, so I know we could all use a rest and a bite to eat..."
As if on cue, Miriam's stomach growled in anticipation, the young wotan blushing and petting it in reprimand.
"Lunch sounds good to me," she giggled nervously, Harumi biting his lip nearby to hold back a laugh of his own.
"In that case, allow me to treat you all to a small selection of delicacies fit for the tables of royalty!" Kodachi boasted, heaving one of her iconic laughs.
"Shampoo help too. Will make nice change from okonomiyaki..."
"I haven't made okonomiyaki since yesterday!" an insulted Ukyo spluttered, sprinting after her two rivals as they swept on towards the kitchen, ignoring her protestations.
Their departure was the cue for the rest of the crew to start following in their wake.
"I'm going to my quarters. Sing out when lunch is ready," Ryoga announced, sullenly storming off.
"I think I'll grab a drink from my private stash first. Care to join me, Harumi?" Miriam asked casually, glancing down at her smaller counterpart.
"You know? That actually sounds quite delightful. Please, lead the way, lady Miriam," Harumi replied, bowing to her.
Miriam promptly turned and lumbered towards what was officially a cargo hatch, but in practice had been repurposed as a doorway into the wotan's private quarters. As she walked, her tail swept around with as much gentleness as she was capable of, the dorsal fin brushing Harumi's side in a surprisingly tender gesture, the uppermost fin's tip dragging along the side of his chin. Harumi blinked in confusion at the gesture, then smiled and hurried after her.
That left only two, and Ranma shot an amused glance at Nabiki.
"Not going to cook your own lunch, Nabiki?"
"Oh, please; it'll be a cold day on the Grand Line indeed before you catch me messing around in the kitchen. Why mess with perfection when I have those three running the kitchen already?" Nabiki quipped back, smirking as she did.
Without awaiting an answer, she turned and strode away, with Ranma following in her wake.
Several hours later...
Their first few meals at sea had been quiet, awkward affairs for the Kamikaze Pirates. Natural politeness around the dinner table combined with uncertainty and outright trepidation at being seated with rivals (enemies) had all combined to make for a stultifying atmosphere.
"Ranchan! That was mine!"
"Ya snooze, ya lose, Ucchan!"
...Those days were rather long gone at this point.
"Oh, c'mon, give that back!" Ukyo protested, reaching over the table to try and snatch back the titbit that Ranma was stubbornly holding out of her reach, a mischievous grin plastered on the young captain's face.
"You gotta work on your reflexes, Ucchan. That was easier than taking candy from a baby," Ranma teasingly proclaimed. Then he suddenly twisted his wrist and twirling his chopsticks, sending the titbit flying through the air straight at Ukyo.
Squeaking in shock, the chef turned pirate snapped up straight in an effort to snag her prize, and nearly ended up falling over in the process. Her cheeks burned at the chorus of snickers surrounding her, but Ukyo hastily stuffed her prize into her mouth, chewing hungrily and sighing in bliss as the flavors washed over her tongue.
"Yer lucky I'm such a nice guy, Ucchan. My old man wouldn't have hesitated to eat anything he stole," Ranma playfully chided her, clicking the tips of his chopsticks together for emphasis.
"Yes, but your father is what we call a jerk," Nabiki sagely interjected... right before she made a stab with her own chopsticks for Ranma's plate. A sharp wooden click announced Ranma's chopsticks snapping shut around hers in mid-thrust, locking her in place as if she had been nailed to the table.
Ranma smirked at her and playfully shook his head. "Just mastered the Amaguriken, and now you want to play with the big boys, huh, Nabs? You need to study your Martial Arts Dining before you have a chance!"
"Nabs?" Nabiki reiterated, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
"Would you prefer 'Biki-chan?" Ranma shot back, though he was smiling as he did so. "After all, it's not fair that only Ucchan has a nickname..."
"I think I'd prefer to be in prison," Nabiki scoffed.
"Well, I think it's charming, Ranma darling... though I do ask that you refrain from calling me 'Kochi'. That was my father's nickname for me when I was a child," Kodachi observed... right before she stole the same titbit that Nabiki had tried for whilst Ranma was distracted.
"Hey!" Ranma yelled.
"Shampoo suppose could live with 'Shamps' if must do," the cabbit Zoan mused, even as she too pilfered something delicious looking from her reluctant fiance's plate.
Miriam couldn't hold it in any longer, and burst out laughing at the antics of her 'superiors'. "You guys are a real riot! Martial Arts Dining, huh? Bet I'd be at least a black belt!"
She emphasized her point by thumping on her stomach with her palm, the drum-taut skin booming dully at the blow, grinning sardonically at this reminder of her appetite.
"Nope. You got potential, but you got a lot of training before you'd pass muster, Miriam," Ranma chimed up from where he was busily fencing with his chopsticks against a three-pronged assault from Ukyo, Shampoo and Kodachi. By this point, Ranma's plate was empty, so they were just fighting for the principle of the matter.
"...Yer kidding," Miriam flatly declared.
"Nope. First rule of Martial Arts Dining; if we can see you eating, you're too slow," a distracted Ranma explained.
"...Nobody eats that fast!" the wotan protested.
"Nobody should be able to use their tongue to grab a cake off the top of their head either, but they can do that too," Ranma shot back, by this point dual-wielding chopsticks and filling the air with the tiny clickity-clicks of wood on wood.
Miriam blinked slowly, partly from Ranma's words, partly from what she was seeing. Then, cautiously, she asked, "...I don't suppose you could train me to do that...?"
"Uh, maybe?" Ranma absently observed, currently trying to hold off Kodachi and Ukyo with one hand and Shampoo with the other. Which was when their chopsticks collectively broke.
"Ah, dammit!" Ranma grumpily pouted.
"Talking of training... you do know we've got to do it for real?" Ryoga interjected from where he had been calmly finishing off his own dinner.
At that, Ranma sighed and nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, I know. If there wasn't such a short window for us to get to Hannabal for the Dead End Race, we'd be on route to somewhere else instead. It's obvious that there's only so much training we can do aboard ship - we need to dock on an island and spend a month or two just training as hard as we can..."
"A month or two?! But what about the One Piece?" a shocked Nabiki cried in protest.
"What about it? Does us no good if we're dead," Ukyo bluntly replied.
Shampoo nodded before adding, "One Piece go unfound for twenty years now. No make much difference if we take time off to train."
"And given the surprising increase in the quality of the local warriors, it would behoove us to similarly work on attaining greater proficiency in our chosen martial arts," Kodachi observed.
A solemn mood subsequently fell over the Stormbringer's galley. It was fortunate that everyone had largely finished their meals, because nobody felt much like talking after that. In wordless mutuality, the last dishes were swept up and the table and kitchen were cleaned before they drifted off to their separate quarters.
That evening...
As the sun slowly sank into the horizon and night fell, the crew of the Stormbringer settled in for a normal night.
...Of course, 'normal' is a relative term...
In Ranma's room...
The light of the lanterns flickered as Ranma poured over the book that Ukyo had retrieved from Commodore Sukumvit's office in what precious free time he had available.
'Hate reading by candlelight... and lantern light's not that much better... just have a quick skim through this before bed...'
Slowly he paged through the small manual, running his finger down each light of text to help him distinguish what was actually being said in the poor light he had available.
'...Whoever wrote this was either a genius or a madman. Maybe a bit of both. My old man always used to talk about secret martial arts like cloudwalking and windstepping, but I just thought he was full of it. Even after Jusenkyo, they just felt so much like old kid's stories - something out of Journey to the West! But if this book's legit... well, I can see why the government wants it restricted!'
skrrch...skrrrch...skrrch...
"Whassat?!"
Paranoia carefully honed to a razor's edge spurred Ranma to slam the book closed and snatch it up even as he leapt away from his desk, spinning in midair to land in a threat posture, waiting for any possible attack. Only his eyes moved, darting from shadow to shadow, peering into nooks and crannies in anticipation of an imminent attack. When seconds ticked silently by and not a sound followed, Ranma slowly allowed himself to relax.
"Must've been a rat... man, I'm jumpy. Guess today got me more wound up than I thought... think I'll hit the sack..."
Turning back to his desk, he put the Moonwalk manual down and blew out the lantern before loping through the darkness over to his bed, which he fell into with a soft, tired sigh.
'S'kinda funny... you expect rats on a ship like this, but we really don't hear them much. Course, I'm pretty sure Shamps was just messing with Ucchan when she claimed she was eatin' them... wow, it's weird that it's still so hard to think of her actually joking around with someone...'
Lazily shaking his head to dispel the last thoughts from his mind, Ranma closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift off to sleep.
Meanwhile...
'That was entirely too close for comfort. My poor darling... your position as captain clearly has done nothing to alleviate your stress. I must rectify that... but first, the mission!'
And with that, Shampoo resumed what she had been doing before Ranma inadvertently disturbed her: scratching and gnawing a cabbit-sized hole in the wall.
'It has been quite a labor to create a set of hidden passageways that my bestial form can use to move surreptitiously around the ship... but it will all be worth it. Just a little further...'
Teeth like chisels backed by jaw muscles that, in Shampoo's case, probably could have given a crocodile a run for its money sank deep into the splintered wood, pulverizing it into pulp. She paused every so often to rake with her claws, tearing long strips of wood away. With an industrial energy she attacked the obstacle, the last barrier between herself and her beloved, and finally her efforts were rewarded with a soft crunching sound that echoed massively in her ears and cool air imbued with a very distinctive scent washing over her.
'At last, success! Hmm... scope the scale first... I require a slightly larger hole for successful egress, but that is swiftly amended!'
Now that she had edges to work with, Shampoo's teeth bit clean through the boards with every flex of her jaws, and within moments she had a hole that her sensitive whiskers assured her was plenty large enough to fit through. With a flex of her hips, she slipped inside, pausing for a moment to groom herself with her forepaws as she sat up on her haunches and listened to her surroundings.
'Good; Ranma is sleeping now. I'm sure he would not complain overly, but I feel that it is best to keep this little bonding exercise a secret... for now.'
She scampered silently across the floor to Ranma's bed, vaulting onto it with an effortless flex of her rabbit-like legs. There she perched, cat-like eyes gleaming in the dark as she took in the sleeping form of her husband-to-be.
'At last, we can be together. No stupid panda snoring next to us... no spoiled brat to disrupt our bliss in the morning... just you and me, as it was meant to be...'
A quick flex of a mental muscle, and the cabbit bloomed into the considerably shaplier form of a cabbit zoan in demihuman form. Shampoo shivered as the cool breeze caressed her naked skin, and quickly snuck under the covers.
'...I know that you are still too shy to appreciate my body, beloved, but I couldn't face sleeping in such tight, restraining clothing. I should be away before you wake, so it will be no issue.'
Reassured, she snuggled in close and leaned her head on Ranma's shoulder before closing her eyes. As she drifted off to sleep, one last thought flittered through her mind.
'If only you would welcome me into your bed openly...'
In the hold...
Harumi stared up at the repurposed length of sail that divided Miriam's quarters from the rest of the hold and swallowed hard, trying to choke down his heart from where it insisted on trying to claw its way up his throat.
'Why is this so hard...? Because you haven't tried to find a girlfriend in three years after the last one had her sisters beat you senseless, stupid...'
Biting his lip until he felt a sudden coppery tang wash over his tongue, he reached out and knocked against the hull.
"Come in!" came the sing-song reply.
The former Femille youth swallowed again, steeled his nerves, and pushed through the dividing 'curtain' and into Miriam's room.
"There you are, Harumi! C'mon, pull up a chair - I made it just for you," the wotan declared proudly, already sitting on the mass of blankets and pillows that served her equally as bed and beanbag. As she spoke, she gestured to a sturdy wooden stool, positioned before a small pile of rum casks, all of which were emblazoned with the words "Property of the Navy!" in bold, black letters.
"Thank you, milady," Harumi replied, half-bowing graciously as he approached her. He tried not to make it obvious that he was gawking at her room as he slipped inside, though truthfully there wasn't that much to actually look at. Two giant-scale seachests concealed all of the wotan's worldly possessions, apart from her anchors and her tools, which were laid out meticulously on a far wall.
"Am I your girlfriend or your queen?" the wotan asked playfully, giggling at his formality.
"Both," Harumi replied instantly, smiling brightly as he did, unable to resist the urge to tease in response. Even as he spoke, he took his seat on the stool, picking up a mug that he found placed on the floor beside it.
Miriam's eyes went wide in shock before she snorted and folded her arms.
"You are such a little flirt," she declared, but she was grinning as she said it.
"I fear it is one of my many flaws," Harumi confessed with a somewhat exaggerated mournful sigh.
Miriam just reached out and, with a quick jab of her fingertip, stove in the top of one of the casks. Harumi dipped his mug into the strong-smelling liquor within, and the wotan promptly picked up the cask. Harumi took a swallow from his drink, only to watch as Miriam raised the cask to her lips and began to guzzle. The sound of gurgling liquid and mighty swallowing echoed through the hold as she drank and drank, pouring the entirety of the cask down her cavernous throat. Once the last droplet had vanished between her lips, she wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist, belched thunderously, and then crushed the cask with a deft squeeze of her mighty fingers, the wreckage cascading to the floor in a clatter of wood. Then she seemed to remember she had company, as she blushed bright red and hid her mouth behind her hand.
"Sorry... old habits from the drinking hall," she confessed sheepishly, unable to look Harumi in the eye.
Harumi simply laughed lightly in response. "Believe me, I can think of far worse flaws. You really like your liquor, I see."
"Most giants do... it helps that it takes a ridiculous amount of alcohol to actually get us smashed," Miriam explained.
"I can see why it might. I suppose that's one advantage to sailing with a crew of teetotalers, hmm?" the swordsman observed, before sipping genteely at his own cup.
"It certainly is... still can't believe that none of them like booze," Miriam admitted, even as she broke open another cask and took a swallow - and just a swallow this time, instead of chugging the lot.
"They are a rather strange pirate crew in general," Harumi noted.
"Too true... but, that's why we're aboard, so let's be thankful for their being so weird, huh?" Miriam chuckled, raising her cask in a mock-toast that Harumi echoed.
They drank some more in silence, before Miriam spoke up again. "So... uh... what do we do now?"
"I must confess ignorance, milady. My social life prior to now is nonexistent... I was rather hoping you might be able to take the lead," a blushing Harumi confessed, sheepishly hiding his face behind his flowing hair.
At that, Miriam snorted bitterly. "No experience on my end, either. No boy on Shay-Lot wanted to date the local runt."
"Their loss... but, I suppose we shall have to try and muddle through things as we go along, then?" Harumi suggested, looking up at her with a hopeful expression.
"Seems like it," Miriam chuckled softly, a faint grin on her face.
They drank again, before Harumi spoke up.
"There is one thing on my mind... are we going to tell the others about us?" he aSked, looking nervously up at her.
Miriam blinked in confusion, looking down at her newly confirmed boyfriend. "Well, why wouldn't we? The captain already knows, for sure!"
"I just... I wasn't sure you'd want it to be something we'd talk about in public. I know I'm not exactly a boastworthy catch..." Harumi trailed off into a mumble, staring into the depths of his rum as if it might hold the answer to some private quest.
Which was when Miriam poked him in the chest and he nearly fell off of his stool. After frantically regaining his balance, he directed a shocked look up at his new girlfriend.
"Okay, first rule of us being a thing; you are gonna stop putting yourself down like that, hear me? It ain't cute, and it ain't funny. You're a sweetheart, and any girl who can't see how lucky she'd be to have you, ain't worth your time. If there's anybody dating upwards here, it's me, so you stop that, hear me?" she declared, her eyes dark and her face uncharacteristically stern.
Harumi just nodded silently, unable to find the words through the torrent of emotions clutching at his throat.
"Good boy. Now, I suppose one thing we could do is talk... we got free time, plenty of booze, so tell me about yourself. What was life like on Femille before I came along and rescued you?" Miriam asked, a playful smile on her face as she swished her tail in an almost canine expression of happiness.
In Kodachi's quarters...
Kodachi poked absently at the pile of green-black steel shards in front of her.
"How curious... whilst obviously it was a blow to his familial pride to steal such a token, why do I feel such a connection with this former-blade?"
The shards uncharitably declined to respond to her musings. Instead, Kodachi sighed and stood up, stretching the residual stiffness from her joints before sauntering over to her bed and collapsing into it.
"Not the most successful of missions... still, I believe I may have elevated myself in my darling's eyes. The war may be long, but I shall prove myself the victor!"
And in Ukyo's quarters...
The Kamikaze Pirate's chef lay atop her bed, stripped down to her undergarments to deal with the currently tropical-leaning heat and smiling proudly to herself, even as she fell fast asleep.
'A rare martial arts manual, and a clue to our next big adventure - who's pulling her weight on this crew now, eh? Betcha never knew I could be so helpful, huh, Ranchan? Just think on that...'
Meanwhile, in Nabiki's quarters...
'Well, all told, today's tally just about breaks even. And this Dead End Race could be quite profitable indeed...'
Nabiki lay on her bed in the darkness, mind working as she processed the day.
'But even harder training ahead? Not looking forward to that at all! Yes, it's necessary - I know Ranma isn't invincible, he's more of a win in the long-run kind of guy, but I can't remember the last person I saw absolutely manhandle him like that who wasn't Cologne or Happosai. And that guy was just a Commodore! Logic suggests that the Navy's higher ranks must be even stronger than that guy, which is just its own flavor of terrifying. Seriously, how in the world am I supposed to get ahead in all this? I need some kind of edge!'
'...Or a Devil Fruit...'
The thought whispered itself from her subconscious, causing Nabiki's eyes to widen in shock. She sat up, shaking her head in an instinctive effort to dismiss the crazy idea, but found she couldn't derail that train of thought.
'I mean... Devil Fruits are powerful stuff. Shampoo went from being somebody that Ranma could literally take out with his eyes closed if he really wanted to - and boy, he and Akane were so damn lucky I stuck my neck out and made sure that nobody dared let that little 'duel of engagement' nonsense slip into the gossip-sphere, or the old ghoul would have had them both by the neck... focus, Nabiki!'
She slapped her cheeks, pouting at the uncharacteristic distracted state; she knew she was trying to run from logic, and that wasn't like her.
'But the point remains; if a goofy Devil Fruit that offers only "the powers of a rabbit" can propel Shampoo to on par with Ranma and Ryoga as one of our crew's power houses... What could a stronger Devil Fruit do for me...?'
With that thought haunting her, she lay back down, cloaked in the embrace of the shadows and left to ponder.
Meanwhile, in Ryoga's quarters...
The eternally lost boy lay face-down on his bed, snoring soundly.
Several days later...
"Hannabal island dead ahead!"
As Umok's voice rang out, the Kamikaze pirates turned from whatever mundane tasks they were doing to peer out towards the ship's bow at the island looming across the waters, which the setting sun was staining in a myriad of pinks and oranges.
"Nice going, Kodachi - we made it just in time. Between the random marine patrols and that crazy weather we hit yesterday, I was a little worried we'd be too late," Ranma confessed, eliciting a proud, beaming smile from his helmsman and would-be girlfriend.
"But of course, Captain darling! Though, credit where it's due, Miriam did an excellent job patching up the ship even as we continued sailing," Kodachi admitted.
The wotan smirked smugly at the praise, even as she continued slotting the last of the repairs into place.
"So, what now, Captain Ranma?" Nabiki asked, only slightly teasing as she did.
"Well, even if this is an ex-pirate island, I doubt they'll be openly flaunting the existence of the Dead End Race. It'll be hidden somewhere underground - metaphorically speaking," Ranma mused, rubbing his chin.
"Logical place to start would be at a tavern. Everybody knows that sailors love to drink, and that goes double for pirates," Ukyo announced authoritatively.
Ranma nodded absently. "Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinkin'. So, sail us into port, Kodachi - we'll hit up a tavern first and find out what we gotta do to get into this race..."
"Aye-aye, Captain darling!" Kodachi declared, already steering the ship as directed.
Not long afterwards...
The "Hole in the Wall'' tavern was, despite its moniker, surprisingly clean and well-kept. Yes, it was built underground at the bottom of a set of stairs that wound their way through a downwards-sloping alley, but the atmosphere was quiet and polite. Though admittedly that might be because most people who looked up from their drinks to see a bunch of new arrivals which included a crewman who had to get down on her hands and knees to fit through the door, and even then it took a bit of hearty shoving from her companions to wedge her hips through, promptly decided that they didn't want to get involved.
"Owww," Miriam whined, rubbing her left hip just above her usual loincloth. "Stupid narrow doors-doof!" She rubbed her head, which she'd just banged against the roof when she'd made the mistake of straightening up too far, and then cast a baleful glare at her surroundings, muttering imprecations about the ancestry and sexual appetites of the builders.
"Okay, we're here... now what?" Ryoga muttered to Ranma, trying to go unheard by those around them.
Ranma just muttered non-committedly, taking in his surroundings and trying to work out the answer to that very question. His gaze swept over the bar, and an unknown instinct made him hold for a moment. He watched as a slender, bearded blonde man in a bandanna with a heavily tattooed left arm deliberately placed two 100-berie coins on the counter, looking the barkeeper straight in the eyes. The barkeep nodded, just once, and then jerked a thumb at a door set in a wall to his right, behind the counter.
As the stranger slipped behind the counter and vanished through the door, a wicked smile bloomed on Ranma's face.
"Follow me," he told his friends, and then led the way confidently over the barkeep. The man, an older fellow with short-cropped brown hair and a thin, tightly groomed beard, looked up from the glasses he was washing as Ranma approached. Doing his best to imitate what he'd seen, Ranma plucked two 100-berie coins from his pocket, held them up deliberately between his fingers to be seen before placing them on the counter with a gentle clink.
The barkeep simply lifted an eyebrow, expression carefully neutral. "Rather young, aren't you?"
"We fought our way here all the way from the East Blue, old man," Ranma shot back.
"Tch. Kids. Well, if you want to throw your lives away, that's your business, I suppose. Follow me... wait, just one moment," the barkeep stopped, looking them over with narrowed eyes.
"What is it?" Ranma demanded.
"Is she coming with you?" The barkeep asked, pointing deliberately at Miriam, who blinked and gingerly pointed a finger at her own face in confusion.
Ranma blinked, then looked from his wotan crewmate to the door and back again before wincing and rubbing the back of his head. "Ah... yeah... sorry, but she's part of the crew. Miriam, get ready to suck it in... Everybody else? Get ready to give me a hand..."
"It is bigger beyond the door," the barkeep assured them.
"Then why not put in a decent-sized door?!" Miriam snarled, even as she got back on all fours and did her best to crawl over the counter without either crushing it beneath herself or smashing her tail into the liquor shelf behind it. Her head disappeared into the darkness beyond, followed by her shoulders as she twisted and shifted to work them through the narrow gap.
"This remind Shampoo of midwifery lessons back in the village," the Chinese Amazon mused aloud, seconds before Miriam spat a Giantish profanity.
Wordlessly, the rest of the Kamikazes piled up behind the wotan, pressed against her hips and thighs, and began shoving her with all their collected might, eliciting yelps of pain and the odd curse from the half-stuck halfbreed.
"C'mon, guys; we'll get her through this if we have to tear down the wall to do it!" Ranma declared, putting his shoulder into the effort.
"Please don't," the barkeep declared, his voice so level it was almost monotone.
Thankfully, for the barkeep's sake, one final mighty push and Miriam popped through, her tail fins nearly concussing some of her crewmate as it zipped past their heads. Even as she cursed a blue streak, they filed in behind her, their barkeep turned guide the last to enter.
Beyond the door was a tunnel - plenty wide to fit even Miriam, but sadly even lower-ceilinged than the bar had been, forcing her to continue crawling. The barkeep lit a lantern on a shelf next to the door, which miraculously had not been knocked down during their efforts.
"Follow the route straight ahead. Show the man at the far end those two 100 beries. That's all I can tell you, and this is as far as I go," the barkeep declared, before passing the light to Ranma.
"Thanks, old man," Ranma declared, accepting the lantern before leading them through the gloom.
Minutes slowly crawled past as they made their way down the tunnel, but finally they reached the far end as a man materialized from the gloom; older than the barkeep they had left behind, but still strong looking, with muscular arms hidden behind his barrel-round body. He just looked at them silently, face blank save for a half-smile on his lips, waiting for them to make the first move.
"We're here to compete," Ranma declared, flashing a pair of 100-berie coins as he had been told.
Face fixed in his blank stare, the strange old man didn't say a word, but instead walked backwards away from them. Still keeping his arms hidden behind his back, he took the handle of a door that they realized had been just behind him before crab-walking to the side, letting light spill into the gloom.
"Not another damn midget door!" Miriam howled in protest.
For a final time, the Kamikaze Pirates bent their backs to assisting their largest crewmember in forcing her way through an opening she really shouldn't have been able to fit through. In a small mercy, this door was wider than the one behind the bar counter had been, and there was nothing to risk damaging. Finally, with one mighty push, Miriam popped through, the whole motley crew ending up sprawling on their faces in the confusion.
Spitting out dust, Ranma pushed himself upright and wiped his tongue on his arm. "Yech! Ryoga, you're digging us a better way out of here!"
"Anything's better than going through that again!" Ryoga grumbled.
For all their complaining, though, they swiftly forget their troubles as they took in the miracle that surrounded them. The tunnel had led them to a vast, circular underground cavern, so huge that even Miriam was a tiny speck in comparison, its walls gleaming with myriad lights. It had been shaped with countless tiers, stretching from the cavern floor so far below to the ceiling high above, and each tier was studded with multiple smaller caves, almost like inverted balconies, where men and women caroused at miniature bars. And, everywhere one looked in the central cavern, there were Jolly Rogers flying proudly, hung from the stony tiers.
The Kamikaze Pirates stared over the wooden balcony that kept individuals from falling off the edge in awe, drinking in the sight.
"Now this is a pirate tavern!" Kodachi sighed dreamily.
"Is so big!" Shampoo marveled.
"I'll say - hey, holy crap, there's a pair of giants down there!" Ukyo yelped in surprise, leaning over the balcony and pointing.
"What?!"
Her crewmates followed her jutting finger, and sure enough, at the very bottom of the cavern, around a massive central pool, two enormous men were seated against the far wall, taking up three tiers of the chamber and yet still utterly dwarfed by their surroundings.
"Maybe you won't need to go digging us out of here after all, Ryoga," Ranma proclaimed, unable to help teasing his old rival, even as his gaze swept all the way up to the ceiling, where a full-fledged galley, complete with oars, was hanging from a set of very strong chains.
They probably could have stood and marveled at their surroundings for a while yet, but they were interrupted by a voice from off to the side.
"Hey, cuties! How about you leave those little boys and come have some fun with some real men?!"
Every single member of the Kamikaze Pirates rolled their eyes, even Ryoga; one of the downsides of being one of the few female-dominant crews on the Grand Line was that they tended to get hit on, denigrated, or both, depending on their genders at the moment. And it happened a lot.
"C'mon, hot stuff, we got plenty of food, plenty of booze - don't you want to have fun while you bet on the results?" Came another voice from the same direction.
"Why would we bet when we came to compete?" Kodachi haughtily proclaimed over her shoulder, not deigning to honor such vulgarity with her full attention.
"Wha-what?! Are you nuts, girlie?!" came the startled squawk of the would-be Lothario.
"If I was running this show, my office would be up on the top floor, so I could oversee everything," Nabiki casually commented.
"Sounds like a plan to me - let's go sign up!" Ranma declared.
Without hesitation, the young pirates trooped off, working their way along and upwards through the cavern's various tiers.
"Do you think all of these guys are here to enter the race?" Ukyo wondered.
"It's possible, but I doubt it - that loser from before mentioned betting on the results, so I'd wager there's far more here to watch and gamble than participate. I'd estimate probably only a third of the people here will be racing," Nabiki replied.
Ranma nodded sagely. "Sounds reasonable to me, and you'd know better than anyone, Nabiki."
"Pft. I don't care how many are competing, I know we'll crush them all!" Miriam grinned, slamming a fist into her palm for emphasis.
Soon enough, they found themselves standing in front of the bookkeeper - as Nabiki would point out, it only made sense that the person who registered the entrants would also manage the gambling surrounding said entrants. He was a tall, portly man, who wore his pink leopard-print shirt open to give his hairy belly room to breathe. He was bald save for a short-cropped black-and-blonde mohawk, disembodied sideburns that joined a thin mustache, and a small strip of beard adorning his first chin. It was an ugly hairstyle, but somehow it matched his ugly looks, with small, piggish eyes, broad noise and flabby lips. He squinted at them over a pair of comically tiny black glass spectacles that he perched on the rim of his nose.
"Betting or entering?" He asked simply, cupping the rear of a tall, slender, shapely young blonde woman who was sitting on his knee.
"Entering!" Ranma replied proudly.
The bookkeeper responded with a disinterested grunt, clearly less enthused, and placed a heavy, well-worn ledger on the table between them, open and facing Ranma. "Sign with your captain's name, ship's name and crew name, then hand over the 200 berie entry fee."
Ranma picked up the quill and then hesitated, wincing slightly as painful memories of his farcical Martial Arts Calligraphy match with Sotatsu Jikei'ien surfaced. After a moment's further hesitation, he sighed and passed the quill to Shampoo, who blinked in surprise but mercifully stepped up and began busily inscribing their entry in the ledger.
Trying to cover up his embarrassment, Ranma placed the coins on the table in front of the bookkeeper and asked, "Can you tell us about the Dead End Race? We didn't hear much, and this is our first time entering."
The bookkeeper gave them what could have been a friendly smile, or could equally have been a salacious leer; it was hard to tell on his face. "Don't expect you would have. It's largely focused around Hannabal. The rules are simple; you'll get an Eternal Pose to your destination, and you start the race from here. First one to get to the destination wins. Anything goes along the way."
Having said that, he reached down into a bag by his left side and tossed an Eternal Pose at Ranma, who deftly snatched it from the air before passing it without looking to Kodachi. "Why's it centered on this place? I'd have thought a race like that could be held anywhere."
"Tradition, mostly. See, every three to five years, we get a powerful wind and current that slams into this island. It's a little like Water Seven and Aqua Laguna, but way less destructive. The surge drives any ships that are willing to catch it up the rivers that run to the mountain's peak; the race starts once you descend the other side. Ensures there's plenty of push to get everyone off to a relatively equal start. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't other islands that hold their own version of the race, but the tradition started here."
"I see... and are these Dead End Races held every time the stormfront hits?" Kodachi interjected.
"Pretty much, though usually there's somebody actively sponsoring the race by donating at least the seed of the prize money. This time, it's Captain Jack 'Moonscar' Morgan of the Moonscar Pirates - part of a retirement blowout or something."
"Retirement?" a confused Ranma asked.
"You'll have to ask him yourself - he's down on the lower tiers somewhere. Now, if you're done, I got other people to look after," the bookkeeper grunted, looking pointedly past the young pirates to where a small line was forming behind them.
"Alright. Thanks, man," Ranma replied, turning and starting to walk away, waving over his shoulder as he went.
"If you make it to the finish line, watch out for cyclones. Partia is a hotspot for them," the bookkeeper dryly called after them, before turning his attention to the next in line.
Once they were out of the way, Ranma turned to his crew. "Well, we know the rules now... might as well enjoy a night on the town before the race today. Meet back up when we're ready to leave?"
A chorus of assent greeted his words, and the Kamikaze Pirates promptly split apart.
Steeling her nerves, Nabiki reached out and gently touched Kodachi's shoulders.
"Can we talk?" she asked softly, pitching her voice so that only Kodachi could hear her.
The former noblewoman looked at her with surprise, but nodded and allowed Nabiki to lead her to an unoccupied table to seat themselves. Once they were settled, she looked attentively at the eldest of the Neriman crewmembers. "Alright, what is it, Nabiki Tendo?"
Glancing briefly aside, to make sure that nobody was eavesdropping, Nabiki told her, "I want to talk about Devil Fruits..."
"Really? Whatever for?" Kodachi asked, eyebrow raised in intrigue.
"Like Ranma said, we need to get stronger... but I'm not a fighter, not like you all are. And after seeing what that Rabbit-Rabbit Fruit did for Shampoo... I'm wondering if maybe I should seek one out. For my own safety, at least..." Nabiki confessed quietly.
Kodachi didn't say anything at first, instead developing a thoughtful expression. She hummed softly to herself in interest, absently stroking her ponytail. "Hm... interesting..."
"I know Ranma probably wouldn't approve, but this is my life, here! There's no way I'm going to catch up with you guys on my own merits - I can't learn in sixteen days what took Ranma sixteen years!" Nabiki defensively pointed out.
"I understand your logic, Nabiki Tendo. In all honesty, I believe Ranma would as well. It does make sense... but there's also a gamble to your gambit..." Kodachi observed.
"Yes... where are we supposed to even find a Devil Fruit?" Nabiki sighed mournfully, slumping in her seat.
"That is a problem as well. Then there's the issue of ensuring you find a worthy Devil Fruit as well. After all, a Logia of mist or a Paramycia that manipulates space would surely render you a powerhouse to be reckoned with. A Zoan that grants you the form of a bonnacon? Not so much," Kodachi elaborated, unconsciously posing in a manner reminiscent of one of her teachers back in Saint Hebereke.
"...A Zoan of a what?" Nabiki repeated, staring incredulously at her crewmate.
Kodachi blinked, then blushed faintly. "My apologies; I forget that not all of us have my education. A bonnacon is a monster from Medieval European mythology; a cow with horns so elaborately curled and braided that they are useless as weapons, forcing it to defend itself by..."
She trailed off, blushing brightly.
"By...?" Nabiki repeated, leaning closer.
Kodachi glanced around nervously, cheeks flaring red, before leaning in the final distance to whisper into Nabiki's ear.
Nabiki recoiled as if stung, lip curled in disgust. "Seriously?! Ugh, Westerner mythology is so weird!"
"In fairness, it's not as if our own mythology is lacking in similarly perverse creatures. Or have you never heard the stories of the shirime or the akaname?" Kodachi asked teasingly.
"Still gross! Ugh, I never even thought about how hard it would be to find a decent Devil Fruit in terms of power," Nabiki lamented.
"Yes, it is a challenge... still, for what it's worth, despite the obstacles, it's not an inherently flawed idea," Kodachi assured her.
"If only there was some way we could figure out what powers a given Devil Fruit has..." Nabiki sighed.
Kodachi nodded patiently for a moment then stopped as a stray memory caught her attention. "Hold a moment... didn't you retrieve a book from the quarters of Commodore Nelson Royale branded as the 'Devil Fruit Encyclopedia'? Wouldn't that logically have such information?"
Nabiki stared at her silently. Then, slowly, she bowed her head and covered her face with her palm.
"...I have been hanging around you muscleheads for too long. I can't believe I forgot all about that damn book - it's been sitting in my quarters for weeks now!" Nabiki lamented aloud.
"It seems, then, that you have some studying to do on the morrow," Kodachi chuckled.
"You know, I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself, why are you following me?" Ryoga complained.
"Because Ryoga could get lost in broom closet. Shampoo make sure you come back to ship... unless you change mind about leaving crew?" she asked, only slightly sarcastically.
"No, dammit, I'm stuck with you jerks," the Eternally Lost Boy grumbled.
The two wandered aimlessly through the crowd for a few moments, before a high-pitched voice suddenly cut through the low-level noise of so many people gathered in celebration.
"Unhand me, you cog-warping lummox! Release me this instant!"
"That sounded like a kid?!" Ryoga noted, but even as he spoke, he was already moving. For all his faults, Ryoga couldn't stand bullies.
With Shampoo hot on his heels, he soon found the source of the disturbance; a bandanna-wearing, bushy-bearded dark-skinned bull of a man, easily head and shoulders taller than Ryoga and half again as wide across the shoulders, holding a girl upside down by her ankle. The kid couldn't have been more than ten or twelve years old... although that honestly did nothing to explain the weirdness of her outfit; a dirty white skirt adorned with stitched-on black straps with brass buckles, green stockings, and knee-high, multi-buckled black boots. As if that wasn't weird enough, one of her arms was clearly artificial; a skeletal contraption of brass that somehow was articulated enough to take hold of a black-and-white checkered, symbol-covered tophat and keep it from falling to the ground.
"Ruffian! Cur! Bounder! Unhand me, I say!" the girl screeched, trying to kick with her free leg.
Her captor was unphased, and simply jerked his hand up and down, making her bounce around in midair. "Shut yer yap! You spilled hot tea all over my lap, ya little bitch!"
"And I'm the one who should be complaining - that was Gold Tips Imperial!" the girl interjected.
"I don't care what it is, you got no right pouring it over mah goolies! What the hell kind of little girl runs around drinking tea, anyway? Matter of fact, what's a little girl doing in a place like this?" the brute asked, anger fading slightly and being replaced by a confused expression.
"None of your business what she's doing here, but you better put her down or there's going to be trouble!" Ryoga interjected loudly, bristling with pent-up righteousness as he took a stance just behind the oversized pirate.
With speed far beyond what his bullish frame suggested he was capable of, the other pirate whirled to face Ryoga, his hand snapping out and launching his captive into the air with a frightened squeal.
"Stay outta mah business!" he roared, now-free hand balling into a fist bigger than Ryoga's head and rocketing squarely towards the younger pirate's face.
Even as he moved, Shampoo was doing the same, snapping into her hybrid form and propelling herself into the air. With an acrobatic flourish learned from watching her beloved Ranma, she caught the underaged cyborg in mid-plummet, pulling her in tight before backflipping to sharply reverse her momentum, twirling through the air to land nimbly back on her paws where she had began, child wrapped safely in her arms.
Even as the Zoan was landing, the meaty smack of flesh on flesh echoed through the air, almost rising above the general clamor of the hidden tavern. The bruiser grinned a broken-toothed grin of triumph... which then changed to one of dull-witted incomprehension.
"What?!"
Ryoga smirked in a rare show of pride as he effortlessly held back his opponent's fist with one hand, despite the fact his opponent's hand was several times the size of his own.
"You brought this on yourself," he warned, right before powering forward and snapping out a fist in a picture-perfect uppercut that slammed into the startled pirate's chin hard enough that the displaced air ruffled Ryoga's shirt. The bruiser's head snapped back as he rocketed upwards, launched almost completely straight upwards into the air by the force of Ryoga's punch.
Spurred on by the sense of drama that he would forever deny he possessed, Ryoga turned to Shampoo even as his opponent was still in mid-air, trying to flash a cocky smirk at the little girl held in Shampoo's arms in an imitation of what he was sure Ranma would have done.
"Are you okay?" He asked, even as his would-be opponent crashed into his table with a crunching of wood and a squelching of splattered food.
The young cyborg nodded slowly, blinking copper-colored eyes - which had gear-shaped irises, Ryoga absently noticed.
And that was when a glass stein of beer launched upwards by the bruiser's crash promptly landed on the Eternally Lost Boy's head. This would have been humiliating (and painful) enough, but of course Ryoga's luck stayed true; it shattered and drenched him in cold booze, triggering his transformation and leaving a soaking, sticky, sulky blonde girl where the Kamikaze Pirates' first mate had once been standing.
The young girl's eyes went wide, and Ryoga braced himself (not /her/self, never that!) for the inevitable.
"What a transformation! Have you also fallen afoul of a scoundrel with a most perfidious Devil Fruit?" she asked, leaning forward in an effort to better study Ryoga.
Ryoga blinked slowly, needing a moment to parse what had actually been said, before she hesitantly replied, "Ah... yes...?"
"Fascinating! Was it the Horm-Horm Fruit? It was last seen in the hands of the miracle worker Emporio Ivankov, but alas, that brilliant soul was lost to the darkness of Impel Down..." she mused, tapping her lip with the finger of her organic hand as she thought it over.
The two Kamikaze Pirates were spared the awkwardness of trying to answer that strange question when a voice suddenly cut through the air.
"Marjory Hamlin, are you alright?"
Ryoga, Shampoo and the newly named Majory looked up as a troop of newcomers marched over to them - all of them young girls around the same age as the cyborg. As if the sight of a bunch of little girls in a pirate tavern wasn't already odd enough, they were all dressed up in a strange hybrid of a maid outfit and typical pirate costumes... which almost, but didn't quite, drown out the fact that one was wearing fake bunny ears and a tail, and another was wearing the cat equivalent, with both of those girls staring with unblinking gazes at Shampoo, and a third girl was freakishly tall, thanks to inhumanly long legs with two separate knees on each leg.
Leading the pack, and the sole exception to the "pirate maid" theme they had going on, was a pale-skinned, black-haired, green eyed young girl who looked like she would grow up to be quite beautiful. She was dressed in a very finely tailored dress of dark blue and stark white in what the two would have described as the Gothic Lolita style... if they'd had any idea what that was, paired with a black and red bicorne hat, adorned with an image of a skull at the center of a triangle of three symbols that neither Ryoga nor Shampoo recognized; an upside down horseshoe, a circle with a plus sign sticking out of the top, and what they could only describe as a Western character for 2 attached to the left of a wall.
"Fit as a fiddle, Captain Liddle!" the cyborg cheerfully chirped, slapping her hat back on her head before squirming out of Shampoo's arms and striding over to the other girl.
The young pirate captain gave just the slightest incline of her head in acknowledgement of her crewmate's words, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on Ryoga and Shampoo. "I appreciate your intentions. Not many in this den of ruffians would have stepped in like you did."
"No problems... but this is really not a place for little kids to be hanging out in," Ryoga protested.
The icy look the Eternally Lost Girl received in response would have made a penguin complain about needing some new thermal underwear.
"I'm twenty-six years old," she flatly declared.
"Yeah, and Shampoo's an Amazon princess," Ryoga bluntly retorted, gesturing to the Zoan for good measure.
'Why can I never be this witty when I'm in a battle of words with Ranma?' Ryoga mentally lamented.
Captain Alice Liddle's eyes bored into Ryoga's soul, making the transformed boy squirm uncomfortably, before she spoke in a dry yet chilly tone of voice. "Believe me or don't. But a word of advice; if, in your travels, you encounter a pirate by the name of Jewelry Bonney, aka The Glutton?"
"Yeah...?" Ryoga hesitantly asked.
"Shoot her. Shoot her until she resembles a pile of blood-soaked rags. Then shoot her some more. Come, ladies."
And with that, the gaggle of children turned as one and drifted away, leaving a very confused Ryoga and Shampoo in their wake.
Ukyo sighed mournfully to herself. 'How did I end up getting left all alone? Everybody else seemed to pair up before we split!'
"What troubles you, young lady?" Came a sudden voice from behind the forlorn chef, a deep baritone voice that nonetheless was surprisingly warm and friendly.
Curiosity tinged with wariness prompted Ukyo to turn and look at the speaker... and she nearly fell out of her chair in shock at the sight of him. Standing next to her was a towering mountain of a man - not as tall as Miriam, but a pretty close second, with muscles bulging beneath his clothes. He wore what looked like it had once been an outfit similar to a Buddhist monk's, complete with a necklace of huge red spherical beads strung together, but the sleeves had been torn away and he wore some kind of cloak knocked around his waist. He grinned jovially, barely seeming to register the weight of the hexagonal pillar he carried slung over his shoulder. But the weirdest thing of all was that he had small, white-feathered wings.
"An angel?!" Ukyo blurted out, then slapped a hand over her mouth, blushing at her rudeness.
The stranger let out a hearty guffaw. "No, my dear, just a humble fallen monk. I am Captain Urogue, and who might you be?"
"Oh, uh, I'm Ukyo Kuonji. I'm a pirate on the crew of Captain Ranma Saotome," Ukyo explained, bowing politely.
"Ah, a fellow traveler of these seas! Well met to you! What brings you here? Gambling? Fine drink? Companionship?" Urogue asked, a seductive lilt creeping into his tone on the final word.
"My crew will be competing in the Dead End Race tomorrow," Ukyo explained politely, trying not to look nervous.
'Is he hitting on me? Ew! He looks old enough to be my dad! But, he hasn't done anything too creepy yet, so I won't kick up a real fuss just yet...'
Whether he was oblivious to Ukyo's discomfort or simply chose to ignore it out of a sense of politeness, Urogue simply grinned at her in response. "Is that so? Well, as it so happens, my crew will be competing there as well! I wish you good fortune, young lady; may the best crew win."
"I'm sure they will," Ukyo replied non-committedly. It took everything she had not to sigh in relief as the towering self-proclaimed fallen monk turned and wandered off, pillar bouncing lightly on his shoulder as he went.
Miriam hummed to herself as she maneuvered through the crowd, aided in part by the pirates scrambling to keep clear of the towering sharkgirl's feet. Something about a four meter tall woman carrying what amounted to a whole table in her arms tended to make wiser people give way.
'Let's see... couple dozen sausages in assorted flavors... a few kilos of chipped potatoes... several dozen fried eggs... a bushel of jalapeno poppers... and two barrels of beer to wash it all down with. Nice simple dinner! Now, where did Harumi... go...'
The wotan's happy mood waned as she saw her new boyfriend sitting on a chair... and leaning away with a look of blatant discomfort from a barracuda fishman who had plunked himself into a seat at Harumi's side. As Miriam advanced on the pair, she could make out their conversation, which didn't exactly improve things.
"I'm a boy!" Harumi protested indignantly.
The fishman simply laughed. "Hey, don't sweat it, cutie, the Reefster's open minded when they look as fine as you do!"
"Even if I swung that way, which I don't, I have a girlfriend already," Harumi bit back.
"More the merrier! A threeway's always plenty of fun - you rather be the filling or the bottom slice?" the fishman asked.
"He's not interested!" Miriam snarled, by now looming quite intentionally over the stranger.
There was something darkly satisfying in the way the fishman promptly fell over, his chair clattering over the floor as a flailing leg kicked it away. He quickly scrambled upright, and his panic vanished as suddenly as it had arrived when he caught sight of Miriam. A smug smile bloomed on his face and he ran a webbed hand through his hair in what he evidently thought was a seductive gesture.
"Well, hellooo there... what brings a fine fish-woman such as yourself to a place like this?" the barracuda-man crooned.
"Seriously? You were just flirting with him when I arrived-" Miriam began, rolling her eyes in disdain.
"In my defense, I thought he was a girl originally," the strange fishman interjected.
"And now you're hitting on me? Even if he wasn't my boyfriend, I still wouldn't be interested," Miriam continued, ignoring his protests.
"You're the girlfriend he was talking about?!" the fishman blurted, staring incredulously from Miriam to Harumi and back.
"That's right. Now, are you gonna beat it and let us enjoy our dinner, or am I gonna have to make you scram?" Miriam flatly announced.
The barracuda fish-man's lip curled in disgust. "You mean, you'd date a pathetic excuse for a human like this over your own kind?! What kind of race traitor are you?!"
Miriam twisted sharply to the side, putting her hip into the action of swinging her tail. The distinct caudal fins at its tip almost scraped the ground as they rushed through the air and slammed into the fishman's torso like a cartilaginous wrecking ball, propelling him off of the ground and over the railing, where he dropped like a stone, a squeal of shock tinged with pain dopplering after him until it was cut off by a distant splash as he crashed in the central pool on the bottom floor.
"Miserable hypocrite," Miriam snarled, even as she slammed her table on the floor and then sat down beside it, the thunderous report of her considerable bulk hitting the floor echoing even in the noisy confines of the cavern.
"Are you alright, Miriam?" Harumi asked gently, reaching over the table to gently stroke her hand.
The wotan sighed gustily and shook her head. "Yeah, I just... I knew I'd get judged by humans for being with you, I never expected fishmen would do the same thing..."
"Hate is a sword that cuts two ways, alas," Harumi declared with a soft, sagacious tone.
The wotan blinked gently in surprise. "That's... really poetic, Harumi."
The young warrior from Femille simply smiled sardonically and shrugged his shoulders as he confessed, "I read it in a box of wisdom crackers when I was younger."
Despite everything, Miriam couldn't help but giggle, which only made Harumi smile proudly.
"That's better - you're too beautiful to be paying attention to idiots like him. Now, did you bring me anything, or do I need to go and get my own dinner?" he asked, making a show of looking over the piles of food the wotan had brought them.
"Well of course you're sharing this with me! Did you really think I'd forget about you?" Miriam playfully scolded him, gently poking him in the forehead with one finger.
The two of them started to eat, a few minutes passing by as they worked their way through the mountain of fried, greasy, salty goodness - Miriam doing the heavy lifting, of course. Eventually, though, she took a pull from her cask-turned-mug and commented, "Jerk that he was, I was surprised to see a fishman here."
"I wasn't - there's a whole crew of them over there. It's weird he doesn't seem to be one of them, though," Harumi observed, before taking a bite of a garlicky pork sausage.
Miriam blinked in surprise, before looking in the direction that her boyfriend had indicated. "Whoa, you weren't kidding - wow, and their Captain is an orca fishman! Cetomorphs like that are one of the rarest varieties of fishmen!"
"Rarer than ones with tails?" Harumi inquired.
"Almost!" Miriam assured him. At this point she was sweeping her gaze across the tiers, looking for other interesting figures amongst the assembled pirates. Almost inevitably, her eyes fell on the giants sitting down at the cavern's floor.
"Hey, I recognise those two - that's Bobby and Pogo!" she announced.
"You know them?"
"They're from Shay-lot! Older than I am, but I knew them when I was little - they were always talking about running away to sea to become pirates, and eventually they did it. Who'd have thought they'd end up here?"
"They do say it's a smaller world than you expect..."
The bottom of the cavern was a roaring party, where rivers of booze sluiced the throats of countless drunken pirates who danced and sang and joked and laughed. At the center of it all was a table where sat a man on an impromptu throne; a tall, slender figure in his late 30s to early 40s, made all the older by his pale blue eyes and his snowy white hair, which despite its color was thick and luscious, kept in a slicked back hairdo that matched a well-kept, medium-sized beard and an elegantly coiffed handlebar mustache. He was a handsome fellow, despite the massive crescent moon-shaped scar that wound from his right temple down his cheek, curving just above the line of his beard, and he accentuated his looks with elegant clothes. A dark purple jacket with high collar and long coattails, pinstriped pants, well-polished black boots, white cuffs, purple gloves, and a purple bicorne hat adorned with a skull and crescent moon Jolly Roger all combined to give an appearance at once piratical and aristocratic.
He carried an ivory cane topped with an amber gemstone the size of a baby's fist, which he was using like a conductor's baton when Ranma sprang up onto the table in front of him.
"Yo! You Captain Moonscar?" Ranma asked.
"That I am, my good fellow. And who might you be?" the self-identified leader of the Moonscar Pirates jovially asked, completely unperturbed by Ranma's brazen interjection into the festivities.
"I'm Captain Ranma Saotome, leader of the Kamikaze Pirates!" Ranma boldly announced in reply. "I heard you're the man we have to thank for this year's Dead End Race and I wanted to talk to you."
"Bold young fellow, aren't you? What's on your mind, good chap?" The older pirate captain replied, making a grandiose flourish with his cane as he spoke.
"Well, I was wondering...why? Why give up your treasure for this race?" Ranma bluntly responded.
At this, the older man's pleasant expression morphed into a forlorn one, eyes downcast. "But of course you would be curious... Well, there are several factors behind my decision. I'm not getting any younger, and I soon will have responsibilities that really are best served off of the sea."
Rama just gave him a befuddled look, then followed Captain Moonscar's gaze to a nearby woman; shorter and seemingly younger, with raspberry pink hair worn up in two high pigtails, clad in an equally formal suit to the captain's that now strained to contain a very pregnant belly. Ranma blinked and let out a soft, "Ah" of understanding at the sight.
"But the major motivation behind my generosity is, I'm afraid, more depressing than that... my crew recently had an encounter with Vice-Admiral Onigumo..."
Even Ranma could pick up the undertones in his counterpart's words and his haunted gaze. "A tough battle?"
"The worst of my long and illustrious career. Vice-Admiral Onigumo is a bloodcrazed brute who pursues the path of what the marines call 'Absolute Justice'. He would kill his own men without second thought to bring down a pirate, and so you can imagine how he treats pirates," Captain Moonscar explained.
"Yeah, I'll bet," Ranma muttered.
"Several of my dear crew fell, buying our escape from that monster... none of us have the heart to continue sailing anymore, and we thought it wrong to take the shares of the fallen for ourselves. So, we decided to place it as the winnings for the Dead End Race; at least this way, the money will be going to a true pirate," Captain Moonscar finally concluded.
Ranma nodded absently, digesting what he had been told. Then, in a rare moment of seriousness, he bowed his head to the older pirate captain. "Sounds like your crew were quite something. Good luck with your lives... and I promise we'll try to win that race like proper pirates would."
Captain Moonscar stared at him in surprise, then smiled and chuckled warmly. "Well, I can't say I oppose your attitude, young man, but fair warning; there will be stiff competition in this race!"
He wagged a finger in playful warning. Ranma just chuckled in reply.
"A prize is no good if you don't have to work to win it! I have every faith in my crew, so you just wait and see, old man!"
With a flippant wave of his hand, Ranma turned and walked away, vaguely planning to reunite with his crew.
Soon afterwards...
"So, we having a good time?" Ranma asked, smiling at his newly reassembled crew as they gathered on one of the higher tables.
Before any of them could answer, he suddenly looked confused and inquisitively sniffed the air. "Why do I smell garlic?"
Miriam blushed and desperately tried to swallow a belch, only to blink in surprise as Ryoga suddenly spoke up.
"I had a little accident with some jerk and his bowl of soup," the Eternally Lost Boy muttered sourly.
"At least was after you already have accident with other jerk and their pitcher of beer," Shampoo commented in what she intended to be a commiserating gesture.
"Huh. Only two fights, Ryoga?" Ranma asked, raising an eyebrow.
"They weren't my fault!" Ryoga protested, raising a fist at his captain.
"Not saying they were! I was just surprised at how quiet this place is for a pirate bar," Ranma explained.
"I think everybody's saving their energy for the big race tomorrow, Ranchan. Which makes sense; 300 million's a pretty pot," Ukyo observed quietly.
An ecstatic squeal of delight that trailed off into an excited giggle of anticipation made the whole crew roll their eyes in mixed degrees of exasperation to fondness.
"Why am I not surprised that you are behind this nonsense one hundred percent?" Ryoga muttered.
"Well, it's not like we aren't all going to benefit! Just think; you can buy your own pretty dresses with your share, so you won't have to wear Ranma's hand-me-downs any more," Nabiki shot right back, smirking as Ryoga turned a very deep shade of red.
"So, you guys hear of anyone worth watching out for tomorrow?" Ranma interjected, hoping to cut that little eruption off at the pass.
"Bobby and Pogo definitely; I knew them back on Shay-Lot, and if they haven't sunk that crazy wind-surfer contraption of theirs yet, then they've obviously worked out the worst of the kinks," Miriam announced, gesturing towards the edge and the unseen giants on the cavern's floor.
"The White Foam Pirates found their way here, and if they're as good at sailing as they are at surfing, they may give us a run for our money," Kodachi warned them.
"And the little fact they're your fanboys wouldn't have anything to do with that glowing commendation, hmm?" Nabiki dryly observed.
"Certainly not!" Kodachi snapped back, a faint dusting of red on her cheeks.
"Um... the White Foam Pirates?" Harumi tentatively interjected.
"Bunch of surfers turned pirates. We met them at the Great Octopus Shogunate's Grand Octopree," Ranma explained absently.
"You competed in the Grand Octopree?!" Miriam and Harumi cried as one, shock and awe on their faces.
"Competed? Kodachi here won first place!" Ranma chuckled in response, even as his helmswoman preened proudly at both the memory and Ranma's praise.
"You never told us that! Wow, I always dreamed of competing," Harumi sighed longingly.
"You surf?" Miriam asked him, visibly surprised.
"It's one of the few sports approved for both sexes on Femille. Do you?" Harumi replied.
The wotan shook her head. "Nah, I was always more of a swimmer. Bobby and Pogo loved to surf, though - that's why they invented that goofy ship of theirs."
"By the way, Ryoga, were you the one who ran into Reefster, that sleazy fishman of theirs?" Ranma asked his old rival and newly minted fellow sex shifter.
"Wha? No, never saw the oversexed creep," Ryoga replied, looking askance at Ranma.
"Huh. When he came flying off of a ledge and into that spring or whatever it is down below, I could have sworn it was your doing," Ranma noted.
"Um... that was my doing, Captain, I'm sorry," Miriam interjected, blushing slightly and lowering her head meekly.
"You, Miriam? Eh, he had it coming... can't believe the creep actually complained about me not being the 'real' Captain Ranma... my breasts aren't that big!" Ranma muttered, more to himself by that point than to the rest of his crew. Then he realized they were all staring at him and he coughed purposefully.
"Uh... so, anyway, we have the White Foam Pirates, those two giants, that fishman crew... anyone else stand out?" Ranma asked.
"Only two other crews really seemed to be in favor for the potential winners," Nabiki explained. "The Fallen Monk Pirates, under somebody named Urogue-"
"I met him! Friendly guy, but he's almost as tall as Miriam, and built like a mountain - he'd be a tough one in a fight," Ukyo interjected.
"But the real favorite is Gasparde, that traitor marine. Apparently, he's won the last couple of Dead End Races, so he's the big favorite for this one as well," Nabiki continued smoothly.
"Makes sense; repeat winner is a logical bet," Ranma mused, nodding absently. Then he gave them all one of his more wicked grins. "Pity they'll be betting on the wrong guy this time!"
"Don't you mean the wrong horse?" Kodachi asked mischievously, then blushed at the looks the rest of her Neriman crewmates gave her.
"I thought it was a rather clever pun!" she protested, only to pout as they collectively shook their heads.
Behind them, Miriam and Harumi exchanged confused looks before shrugging it off.
"No other competitors stick out?" Ranma asked, breaking the momentary awkward silence.
"Well, I don't know that they have a name for themselves as such, but Shampoo and I ran into a crew made up entirely of little girls," Ryoga offered.
"...What?" came the articulate response from every member of the crew except Shampoo.
"I'm serious! They said they fell afoul of some Devil Fruit using pirate called Jewelry Bonney!" Ryoga protested defensively.
"There's a Devil Fruit that can make people younger?" Nabiki asked, ears metaphorically pricking up in interest.
"Well, I guess there's all sorts of crazy powers that Devil Fruits can offer... what we really know about them anyway?" Ranma observed with an unusual level of philosophical contemplativeness.
"You seem particularly interested in that Devil Fruit, Ms. Tendo... starting to find a few wrinkles?" Kodachi giggled.
"Our birthdays are only a few months apart, Kodachi, and you know it!" Nabiki dryly shot back.
"Wherever did you hear such scurrilous rumors?" Kodachi demanded.
"From your brother, last year, when he came to me for help getting you a birthday present," Nabiki quipped back, folding her arms and smirking.
"You lie!" squawked Kodachi.
"That's enough, both of you! Save that venom for a real enemy" Ranma interjected, pushing his way between the two of them.
And that was when a shot rang out and a bottle on the table nearby suddenly disintegrated, sending glass shards flying. Squawks and shouts rang out from all and sundry as more shots were fired, and the Kamikaze Pirates instinctively reacted. Ranma and the girls immediately blurred into motion, shifting around in order to make them harder to target, whilst Ryoga flung his arms over his face to protect his softest spots, trusting to his Bakusai Tenketsu-gained durability to ward off the relatively weak pistols being used. Miriam, meanwhile, snatched up Harumi before even he could react and crushed him to her breast, twisting around as bullets bounced off of her inhumanly thick hide, leaving at most tiny welts like the scratches of thorns.
Fortunately, the attack was over soon, and it didn't take a genius to figure out where it had come from. A short distance away, a group of fairly standard-looking thugs were furiously brawling with a single young man; clad in a bright yellow zippered jacket with black stripes along the arms and a high black collar, black cargo pants and tall black boots, this youth flashed a wicked sneer, the crimson hook-and-line tattooed under his left eye adding to the menace in his expression. He brandished a sword with a skilled flourish, and it spoke volumes that despite their superior numbers, his opponents hesitated.
A skinny man with close-cropped pink hair and a tattoo on his left cheek of two swords crossed over a stylized pair of black wings snarled and waved his own blade in what he evidently thought was a commanding flourish. "Damn you idiots, get the bastard! He's only one man!"
"Not any more he's not!"
That defiant cry was the only warning the leader of the pirates had before Ranma seemed to materialize in front of him, eyes blazing as he punched him square in the jaw, sending him flying back into a table with such force that it broke under the impact, sending him the floor in a cacophony of crunching wood and splattering food.
To give the nameless pirate credit, he actually stayed conscious despite the blow, even if he had to take a moment to literally shake the cobwebs from his mind. He spat blood on the floor and lunged to his feet, brandishing his sword at Ranma.
"Who are you fuckers?!" he roared in a rage.
"Innocent bystanders, until you got us involved - sic em, guys!" Ranma thundered.
The Kamikaze Pirates needed no encouragement; they had been prone to reacting to accidental attacks by lashing out like a hive of maddened hornets even back in Nerima, and life on the Grand Line had done nothing to discourage that behavior. They surged forward and slammed into the startled pirates like a tidal wave made of wrecking balls, leaving the original target of the gang's wrath blinking in confused surprise as he found himself suddenly ignored.
Bodies flew through the air as the Kamikaze Pirates plowed through their would-be foes, quickly and decisively crushing all attempt at a resistance. Shampoo whirled and hopped through the melee, oversized paws flashing out in lightning-quick kicks that launched foes to the ground in senseless heaps. Kodachi's whip painfully struck weapons from hands and herded pirates into small groups that Ukyo and even Nabiki promptly beat senseless. Ryoga smashed whoever was stupid enough to stand in his way into the floor. Or the nearest table. Or whatever other nearby surface looked convenient to bounce a skull off of. And even these geniuses were capable of realizing it was best to stay out of the way of an angry wotan, though that didn't stop Miriam from plucking up anyone who was too slow and tossing them away like rubbish. And those who thought that the effeminate youth Harumi was an easy target found themselves quickly disillusioned of that, assuming they retained consciousness long enough.
The resultant melee ended as quickly as it began, with groaning semiconscious bodies strewn about like leaf litter, the last of them still clearly coherent being their pink-haired leader.
"Y-you bastards will regret this! We sail with Gasparde!" he stammered defiantly.
"Then he better put up more of a fight than you did in the race tomorrow," Ranma jeered back, before he laid the thug unconscious with a final blow. Dropping the body on the floor, he dusted off his hands and turned his back on the fallen pirate.
"That takes care of that," he announced, even as he walked steadily towards the original target of the now-unconscious pirates, who continued to hold his sword in a defensive position as Ranma approached.
Ranma gave no sign of noticing this, outside of stopping at a distance from the stranger to give the impression of being less of a threat. "Hey, man; sorry about butting into yer fight..."
The stranger blinked, then cautiously relaxed, slowly lowering his blade. "It's alright. The more the merrier, right?"
"What were those jerks after you for, anyway?" Ranma asked casually.
"Just a little disagreement over dinner, that's all," the stranger replied, brushing a stray lock of his wavy, light-brown hair out of his face.
"My name's Ranma Saotome - I'm the captain of the Kamikaze Pirates. What's yours?"
The stranger blinked, then grinned a half-grin. "Bascud. Shuraiya Bascud. You're obviously competing in the Dead End Race tomorrow."
"And going to win," Ranma added, smirking proudly as he did.
"Issat so? Well, I'll wish you luck, at the very least..."
And with that, Shuraiya took out a wide-brimmed black hat and placed it on his head before turning his back on Ranma and walking quietly away.
"Weird guy... Alright, you all had enough for one night? I reckon it's time we went back to the ship and got a good night's sleep - we want to be fighting fit for the big race!" Ranma announced.
A chorus of assent rang out around him, and the Kamikaze Pirates promptly began the trek back to their ship.
Chapter End & Closing Notes
And so we prepare for the beginning of the Dead End Race in true! I apologize for ending things here, but between how long it took me to finally get this chapter together, the fact I'm looking at 3 weeks of seminars at my job-seeking association, and the simple fact that the two-thirds-complete pre-splitting chapter was over 26K words, I decided to follow my beta-reader's advice and split the chapter. With luck, I'll have the second half of this saga and perhaps even the next chapter finished before the end of December.
