DISCLAIMER: All CLAMP stories were created by CLAMP. Characters have been adapted without authorization or approval, and I am making no profit from their use.

"Let the Games Begin" is the seventh story in my Pirates vs. Ninjas alternate universe, "Fifteen Mokona on a Dead Man's Chest". Reading the previous stories is not required. That said, if you would like to read the stories in order to take advantage of the continuity, details are on my profile page.

[By Any Other Name]

A fine spray of warm, fresh water was like a miracle. Kamui felt like he could breathe, which in turn made it easier to remember that technically speaking he'd survived situations a lot more uncomfortable than the one he was in. The underwear he'd rinsed and hung on the towel rack wasn't dry yet, but that was nothing he couldn't fix by pushing the water out with his telekinesis. One mind-push later: dry underwear - a commodity no sailor underestimated.

He heard the door opening and looked over his shoulder just in time to see the Magami woman snapping a portrait with Imonoyama's fancy picture machine. The flash was blinding as it bounced off the shining tile walls through the steam clouding everywhere even after the water was off.

"Do you mind?!"

"Akechi-sensei wasn't able to get your official portrait before the show."

"It's common courtesy to knock." And to mention to people when you were about to make portraits featuring bare backsides, he assumed, especially when you looked unsettlingly like that person's mother, and even though instant portraiture wasn't a phenomenon Kamui had even bothered to imagine before visiting this ninja hellhole. But this woman didn't seem the least bit concerned. He studied her face, with its cryptic half-smile, and Kamui scowled. He hated games. "If you've got something to say to me, just say it."

"I could say the same to you."

"Well?!"

"You should get dressed, Kamui. You'll want to be ready when they call your name," she said, and left without another word.

Goddamn fucking ninja. This was why nobody sensible liked them. With exceptions for individuals who were likeable personally. And as if it would take him more than two seconds to "get dressed" for this show! With his briefs in place, he took a glance at the mirror to make sure his hair wasn't sticking in funny directions and headed outside. If the ninja didn't like what they saw, they could talk to Fai about having a massive, "Go fuck yourself!" party.

Actually, he mentally belayed that particular grumble. It'd probably end with an orgy in his living room, which would just make his life even more inconvenient.

Off stage right, Magami Tokiko was hustling Mr. Fahren with his purple thong and his armful of newly cut paper dolls out of the waiting area, and off stage left most of the remaining competitors were huddled by the snack bar, whispering. "She called him 'Shirou', didn't she?" asked Tawny Curls, aka Miss Chevrolet, who apparently favored boy shorts the same shade of green as Subaru's eyes and was slim enough to disdain brassieres.

Miss Kragero, whom he recognized as Ookawa Makoto when she wasn't flanked by three other femmes/hommes fatales, warned Kamui with a glance not to approach. Meanwhile, she told her friends, "Can't we talk about something else? This is boring. They'll announce him in a minute anyway." Because of course one of the Ookawa scions was covering for him.

Clef looked like he was trying to ignore the white haired man from Civic growling at him, "He can't be the Death Shirou. Who could get him here? But then there's that tattoo..."

Oh, his tattoo. Not that he didn't like it, but there were reasons he and Fuuma didn't go out drinking with Kotori as their only sober chaperone anymore. The two of them waking up one afternoon with matching, aching full-back tattoos in addition to the usual hangovers was one of those reasons. And Kotori had never denied culpability, or been sorry.

"Well," Makoto said, "Don't forget that double wings are Impala's sigil. Angels are practically their mascots and all."

"But they don't usually advertise the demon part, and the intel did say Death Shirou has an angel wing on the left shoulder and a demon wing on the right, just like that. I heard the mirror wings were part of some blood pact with Fuuma the Levy to harness dark powers over the earth, air, and tides."

Catching Kamui's slack-jawed stare, Clef nodded him toward the line to go on stage. The list of people who seemed to have conspired to bring him here was just getting stranger - although now he could settle the fleet's long-standing bet over whether Clef wore boxers or briefs. It seemed he'd been hiding fundoshi under the vast swaths of his robes. Hibiya, naturally, was the other 'contestant' on deck, but Kamui was just as happy for a familiar face while taking in the odd sight of an excellent classical fan dance performed by Ms. Xinan in her red lace brassiere and panty set.

"So, any tips?" he grumbled to his erstwhile nemesis.

"When you go on stage, look at the audience as if you were looking at your favorite person. That's your absolute minimum. Beyond that, don't stare at the judges, and stop crossing your arms..." she added, tugging his elbow away from his chest. "Wave, shoulders down, chin up. You might want to show them your back, too. That tattoo is gorgeous."

"That was a rhetorical question."

"The correct answer is, 'Thank you'."

"I'll let Kotori know you approve of her choice in body art."

"You're welcome."

From past the entry curtain, Akechi called out, "Everyone, a round of applause for Ms. Wol Mae!" so the Magami lady could show her out as well. "And now, I'd like to give you... Miss Ceres! The dashing and always poised... Hibiya Chitose!"

She posed with a hand on her hip and an arm in the air when the curtain parted, walking down the short stairs to stage level to riotous applause. Damn it. The rest of his crew was never going to let him live it down if he frowned and fussed his way to losing next to Hibiya, even if the competition was a catwalk, and she put on a hell of a good show.

"Now, Chitose-san, are you ready for your question?" Akechi asked, smiling at Hibiya's nod like he'd already picked who he wanted to win (although to be fair he smiled at everyone Kamui had seen the same way). "All right then. Please tell me, when was the last time you failed, and how did you handle it? You have twenty seconds."

"Goodness! I'd have to say that was a few months ago, when one particular pirate whom I'm sure everyone knows stole a number of books from my library, and dove off my walls before I could apprehend him."

Oh, she was not doing this to him.

"Naturally, you can't let these things depress you. I fixed the damage he'd done the next day-"

As if a couple collapsed archways and one garden path broken into pillars of earth he'd used to push himself up to the walls constituted 'damage'!

"-and spent a week strengthening my security measures, of course. Then, naturally, I enacted a plan to retrieve my property, gaining several new prizes in addition to my books."

Damn it! He'd known those jellyfish had been from her!

"It simply isn't productive to dwell on what went wrong before. You have to think about what can go right next time."

"What a lovely answer from our Miss Ceres! And now I understand you're going to demonstrate your skill at painting for us! Takeshi, Kentarou, if you would..."

While two boys hauled out an easel with paper and a table loaded with watercolors and brushes, Kamui contemplated the degree to which he wasn't going to take Hibiya's jabs without utterly destroying her. This was on. Which left him with one question. How was he going to make sure he was the only person the judges remembered today?

What would Fai do? No one ever forgot him.

No, Kamui thought. He didn't have the props for that.

So, that left him with the only other people of his acquaintance who random people couldn't take their eyes off of, ever, and since he couldn't do Karen's walk-thing without very different hips... What would Arashi do right now? Besides cut everybody in half lengthwise?
Honestly, she made much more of an impression when she looked like she wanted to kill you than when she was happy (or neutral, which was as happy as Kamui could be sure Arashi got). And based on every situation where Sorata or Karen had proclaimed him good-looking, that was probably a good way to go. How convenient. He wouldn't have any problem acting like he wanted everybody in view to die a horrible death. Except Hikaru and Sakura, but they'd understand, he was sure.

Kamui slapped his cheeks a few times to bring back some color, since washing up always made him go pasty, and fluffed his hair a little in a mirror that was hanging in the metal rafters for some reason. And straightened his underwear. Might as well. He caught a glimpse of the fairly impressive picture Hibiya had painted (a dragon with some kind of a bunny-eared creature in a pink dress riding its back on the way to an underwater mansion), but he wasn't going to be cowed. Nobody fucked with a pirate, especially not a ninja.

"Thank you so much for that. Honored guests, a round of applause for Miss Hibiya Chitose! And now, it's my true pleasure to present our next representative, Mr. Impala... the mysterious, the elusive... Aye Ur!"

So that was what they'd called him. Well, if these people had put Death Shirou in their show, it didn't matter what name they'd written down. Death Shirou was who they were going to get. Just before the curtains parted, he turned his back to the audience, and the first thing they saw was the inked picture of wings stretching from his shoulders to his hips.

The crowd didn't roar, cheer, or clap like they'd done for the other competitors. They fell dead silent slowly rising to hushed whispers as he turned to stride down the steps, and Kamui couldn't have been happier about it. That was how ninja should react to seeing him there. He scowled his way through a slow prowl from stage right - where that bastard Eagle looked like he wanted to die laughing and Hikaru was holding out two thumbs up - to stage left, where Syaoran had clearly been talking to Kurogane when he'd made his entrance. The younger ninja was still canted towards his master. Just his head was turned to the stage, and he was frozen with jaw hanging, his eyes open to saucers, and an uncomfortable-looking blush darkening from his nose to his cheeks. Kamui let himself smirk. You could do that and still look like you wanted to kill everyone.

"But who is he?" a soft, female voice mused from somewhere behind Syaoran. It wasn't hard to pick out the crowd of kindly faces and pink armbands amongst the throngs of duplicitous assassins. He was looking at Impala's representatives (an absurd number of whom were gleeful, bright-eyed children), and a dark haired lady who looked in charge was asking one of the Kudous (the younger one - Kamui could never keep the Shini-whatsits straight), "Is he from one of your squads?"

"Not one of mine. I figured he was your cousin. He's got your look, Sayaka."

"Well, we certainly didn't register him. I'd recall. But it's true, he does look familiar..."

"You don't think... not actually..."

Kamui broke away before he lost the rest of the crowd. He wasn't thinking about the Impalans right now. There'd be time for that later. Right now, he decided, he was going to break every rule in Hibiya's book, and he crossed his arms while giving the judges a death glare, not looking away till they put up their scores.

Of course Imonoyama Nokoru, right in the center, put up a ten without a pause, grinning like there was no tomorrow. His blue-haired companion who had "Security" written all over him seemed to wish he was anywhere else, so Kamui called it a good bet they were in on the conspiracy to get him here. Not long after, the blond from Impala with the name plate "Kohaku" held up another ten, high and proud. Two ladies from Xinan in short cheongsam whose names were listed as Cho Lee and To Lee (the one in blue sitting on the lap of the one in red) held up yet another ten. Blue kept trying to hold up an extra .5 with a wicked smirk, but Red batted it down every time. Still, at least he could be sure he hadn't gotten a lower score than Hibiya yet.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, the Civic man - "Jeremiah Gottwald", who kept giving Kamui suspicious glares - finally finished writing a number that turned out to be 9.8. He'd take it. But Fahren's representative (none other than the ancient woman calling herself "Lady Sumeragi", as if she had any right to connect herself to Subaru!) had crossed her own arms and met him steel for steel with her gaze. At last, she picked up her pen and wrote 2.1, drawing a stunned gasp from the crowd.

For once, he was in absolute agreement with a crowd of ninja, many of whom were whispering that this was absolute bullshit. Which it was. He might not have been as good looking as, say, Fuuma, but he was a damn sight better than a two! Sorata, who'd never shut up about him some days, did have actual standards for good looking people, and they were pretty damn high! He'd never heard Sorata sigh over anyone who wasn't at least a nine or-

Huh. He'd never considered that he might actually be hot.

Around the stands, his ongoing staring contest with the Sumeragi had prompted louder and louder shouts of, "You can't be serious!" and "Come on! Him?!" or a host of more complex things he couldn't hear clearly over the general sound of discontent. It was odd and somewhat uncomfortable to have an auditorium full of ninja defending him against allegations of not being good-looking.

Oddest of all, the entire Impala contingent was on their feet, with the children standing on their chair arms, every one of them chanting, "We say fair play!" over and over.

"All right, now," Akechi laughed as he waved for the audience to settle down. "As you know, the judges' scores represent their personal opinions, and are final. We've all seen that Lady Sumeragi has exacting standards, haven't we? So, let's move on to the interview!"

The audience settled to a grumble, with a few Impalans calling out, "You can do it!" and "Go for it, Aye!" as they sat. One little kid thought he was extra cute and yelled out, "Aye aye!", then got the rest of the kids chanting it until the one named Sayaka got them to stop.

Akechi managed to keep his focus, even though the sudden call of "Aye, aye!" seemed to flip a switch in his memory. His eyes suddenly widened as he looked back at Kamui, but in a flash the perfect announcer smile was back on his face. For Kamui, this was getting weirder, and probably more dangerous, by the second, but he kept telling himself their own rules meant they probably couldn't try to kill him until he was off-stage at last.

"All right. For your interview question, Mr. ... Aye Ur. ... Could you tell us your favorite thing about your home? That is... about Impala," he finished, giving Kamui a meaningful look. As if he expected Kamui to talk about how much he loved his actual piratey home of Takifugu in front of... Well, all right. He supposed the warning was justified. "You have 20 seconds."

Kamui glared at the question card, ignoring as best he could the hum from the audience that he was fairly sure was the massive gaggle of Impalan children whispering a refrain of, "World peace!" Between that and the other interviews he'd heard, it was like the questions had been written by a precognitive sadist! Then again, he was apparently the only one who'd found out about this contest two seconds before it happened. The people running it would've had plenty of time, so they only had to be sadists, which of course were in abundant supply among ninja, just as they were among pirates.

With a sigh, Kamui answered, "Your favorite thing is whatever you miss when you're not there, right?" Favorites weren't his expertise, any more than Impala was. Most of his few trips to Impala had been forgettable jaunts to stash treasure somewhere remote, or supply stops on the way to Eunos since Impala was less of a threat than Ceres. But he did remember one thing. "I like the sunrise over the Griqarran Sea. The dark breaks to rose, the whole country seems to go silent. It sticks with you." After Akechi nodded for him to go on, Kamui scowled. "You can stop the clock. I'm done."

"A-all right, then. Let's go to our judges!"

This time, Kohaku was the first one up with another ten, and so happy the blond seemed to flutter off the chair. Looking more begrudging about it, Lady Sumeragi put up a 9.6 almost as fast. Kamui had no explanation. Imonoyama went with a 7.5, the Lee girls with an 8.3 and a considering smirk, and Gottwald seemed to think a 6.0 was more appropriate, which Kamui couldn't get upset at. How did you judge something like this anyway?

"A strong response from our Mr. Impala! Now, I'm afraid we don't have your talent written down. Would you like to tell us what you'll be performing today?"

"Umm..."

Kamui definitely didn't have anything he'd call a talent that didn't involve a sword, or breaking things in general - and that might have been more provocative than he wanted to get right now even if he hadn't known that "fighting" wasn't an admissible talent. But he sucked at art, he didn't dance, nobody here had gotten him drunk enough to sing alone (not that he'd call his singing voice "a talent", nor would the chanties he knew go over well).

"I guess... I build sandcastles?" That was the one thing he was sure he reliably did better than anybody else, although he wasn't sure how it'd help him in a stage contest that wasn't even at a beach.

"Did you hear that, everyone?! Today, Mr. Impala is going to treat us to a demonstration of his sandcastle construction skills! I wonder what marvelous design he's got in mind? Takeshi, Kentarou, if you please..."

The two boys came out on stage, just like they had with the easel and paints for Hibiya. One who looked like he hated his life was rolling an actual fucking beach diorama the size of the entire stage, with a functional tide rolling up in waves on the sand. Real salt water, too, if Kamui could judge by the smell, and he never mistook the smell of salt water. The happier boy had a toy bucket and shovel.

"Here ya go!" he said, handing them to Kamui, then both Akechi and the happy boy flicker-stepped behind the judges, clear of the approaching beach.

Kamui himself flicker-stepped right on top of the tallest sand dune as the wheels shrank into the contraption and the lighting on stage turned the backdrop into a sunny, blue sky. To make it that much worse, seagull cries echoed from who the hell knew where.

"You've got to be shitting me..."

~/~

Although Watanuki naturally kept his ginger miso mackerel bites and tempura vegetables on the warming unit in his hidden storage space right up to the moment he reached Yuuko's parlor (no reason to be silly about carrying two precisely arranged, heavily laden trays!), there was the matter of presentation to consider. One simply did not enter empty-handed when serving guests! Certainly not guests of the blood ro-

"Watanuki! Nevermind!" Yuuko called from past the door. Watanuki barely managed to sidestep before the paper screen crashed open. The flying pink tresses of Civic's Princess Euphemia barrelled past him so fast, the air whistled. She stopped for the briefest moment to acknowledge his presence and let him bow (as properly as he could while carrying two trays), then picked up her skirts to zip off in a blur.

"Our apologies," her attendant Kururugi said as he followed her out, although he never got around to saying what for, being too busy running away while yelling, "Euphie! Wait for me!" at the top of his lungs. The manners some people lacked!

Watanuki grumbled something even he couldn't make out, ready to try the door again. It seemed her Royal Highness wouldn't be staying for mahjongg after all! Although they did still have fou-

"Pardon us!" Namiya-san laughed, being the next in line to nearly bowl him over. The hulking bodyguard at his shoulder made four - as if Watanuki would have allowed any harm to come to Mistress Yuuko's guests.

Hmph. If she had any guests left, that was. Even as Chevrolet's author laureate and accompanying guard-slash-date shouldered past him, disappearing down the front hall, Watanuki saw Nihon's Snow Princess flying through the bay window, riding sidesaddle on one of her many wolves that seemed to multiply every time he looked at her. As if waiting for the door to clear was too long to endure staying in the house! Hmph again! Nobility or not, such behavior from guests was downright rude.

"Would someone tell me what's going on?!" he yelled, directing the full volume of his well exercised lungs at the only people left - specifically, Yuuko, who was pulling on a sheer, ruffled blazer that would theoretically make her lounging-around palazzo-panted jumpsuit suitable for wearing in public, while Maru and Moro "packed up" the mahjongg set.

He would obviously take down the domino course they were building next time they were distracted.

Yuuko stopped next to him on her way out the door to snag a bit of mackerel and a tempura carrot slice (perfectly crinkle-cut, not that anyone seemed to care about the effort he'd expended cooking for the party they were suddenly not having!) "Mm-mmm! You've outdone yourself. Well, have a good afternoon! You're free for the rest of the day!"

"But what in holy Hell is happening?!"

"Oh, didn't I mention? A little bird came to tell us the beauty pageant has gotten wild and we had to see it to believe it. Well, have fun! I'll see you at the ghost story contest!"

Watanuki screamed, "I beg your pardon?!" at her fleeing back, to no avail whatsoever. "And what am I supposed to do with all the snacks I've prepared? I can't exactly un-tempura the vegetables for later! They have to be eaten fresh! And if you think I can un-pour and un-heat an entire case of sake, I'll have you know, I cannot reverse the flow of time itself! Gyaaah!"

Kohane-chan poked her head out of the kitchen, soap-covered ladle in hand. "You should find your boyfriend," she said. "He could probably use a rest from winning all the shooting games at the festival booths."

"Doumeki is not my-!"

Her unimpressed stare withered his words to a wretched pill on his tongue. Which he swallowed.

It was impossible to argue with Kohane - literally, not just figuratively. She never answered back with logic you could refute or arguments you could deny. She looked at you, nothing more, and you had to either face hard facts (such as, for example, overwhelming evidence that you'd been unequivocally dating and possibly cohabiting with a pirate for going on ten months) or lie to her face with full knowledge that you were lying, and she was aware you were lying. And he could never lie to Kohane-chan.

"Shit," he whispered.

This wasn't how how today was supposed to go! Or ever!

"Shizuka-kun likes your food, and with the way he's done in the drinking contest-"

"Even he can't drink an entire case of sake on his own! Or if he can, he shouldn't. As such, you and I will take thirty seconds to finish up the dishes, and then we will find my lover - he is neither young nor cute enough to be called a boy, and thus is not my boyfriend - and the three of us will have a picnic. And that is that!"

~/~

Kamui could hear that damned Lady Sumeragi clicking her tongue while he worked, but he was all out of fucks to give. Any of the judges who wanted to dock his score because he'd cut one of the stage ropes to balance over his sandcastle while he carved stone details on the inside of the tight-packed wall could kiss his-

No, the girls from Xinan looked just as shameless as Fai. He wasn't going to give them an inch. But carving details with the side of a toy shovel while trying to hang steady on a rope was no easy task. Usually, he'd have Fuuma holding him by the ankles as they hung off some beached ship's mast, or something like that - nobody on Kaizuka ever won sandcastle competitions without having nicely carved insides anymore, and stepping around sand was asking for trouble. Of course, the sweat made his hands slippery and his eyes sting on this hot stage, under the watch of thousands of ninja (and growing every minute, with crowds now huddling around the opened doors of the auditorium). If he didn't work fast, those same hot lights were going to dry out his walls, and he'd lose the carvable framework he'd built.

He swung on the rope to the side of the castle (well, city, but who was counting?) so he could flip to the ground without hitting anything. As the fake waves lapped at his ankles, Kamui looked over the outside. Carving the structural details would be easy, but what this really wanted was flags on the ramparts to finish it.

Actually, he was pretty sure he had some spare red fabric from one of those shadow-stuffing exercises Icchan had him doing. He pulled it out of nowhere space from over his shoulder. It was easy enough to rip off five miniature flag-shaped pieces. And he had his pufferfish-print hankie and his sewing kit in the bag he'd stuffed away, too. There was no driftwood on Imonoyama's fake beach to make the kinds of flagpoles he'd normally use, but he never went anywhere without toothpicks. Not the best flags he'd ever made, but they were nothing to be embarrassed of either.

Time for the last round of carving sand. Exhaling slowly, he picked his course, then flicker-stepped through all the motions. There was no way he'd get it all done before the sand dried otherwise. In his wake, he left five red pufferfish flags waving right at the places where his sand city's five crossing thoroughfares met in the points of a star, and the etched outlines of stones with inset wooden gates. The gate facing the audience, of course, had the pufferfish relief bordered in laurel that everybody gasped when they recognized.

As if they expected him to build anything but their own city. He'd never be so naive as to risk his sculpture betraying the layout of any pirate structure he knew, and even his imaginary castles would probably resemble the things he knew best.

"Well, folks," Akechi announced. "You really do have to see this to believe it. Let's get a better look, shall we?" The mirrored rig he'd seen before dropped out of the ceiling, reflecting the image of his sand carving where the audience could see it. Because apparently that's what it was for. "A scale model of Kragero itself! I think our Mr. Impala deserves a hand, don't you?"

While they clapped, the judges considered their score, and Imonoyama's blue-haired muscle looked like he wanted to die. Served all of them right. If they didn't want pirates knowing the layout of their city, they shouldn't have invited pirates to stay in it. But once the numbers went up, he'd be able to leave this stage and disappear.

Kohaku won the race to put up a ten, with Imonoyama in a close second. This time Gottwald put up a 9.6. Lady Sumeragi took her time putting up a 3.4. Meanwhile, Cho Lee and To Lee stared at him with blank faces, and definitely weren't looking at his eyes. More in the region of his abs, which were aching just remembering the number of hanging sit-ups he'd done off that rope. Fabulous.

Akechi cleared his throat. "Judges Lee, do you have a score for our contestant?"

They blinked at each other, and scrawled on their card, both of them holding it above their heads with both hands - both of them nodding furiously.

It said, "Room #224". Of course it did. He was pretty sure that made twenty-five invitations for sex so far this trip. Or twenty-six, if both of them counted. He couldn't be sure about these things. He wasn't Fai.

"Ah, Judges... would you mind rating our contestant's talent on a scale of zero to ten?"

They put up a ten with an eyeroll. Kamui was so done, he didn't even wait for his outro, just walked offstage to the sound of applause that echoed with a joy bordering on obscene. He glared at the Magami lady showing him the way out. The first person he saw who wasn't trying to turn him into a ninja, he'd ask where he could find another shower so he could get all this sand off his skin. Then he'd stop being mostly naked.

At least, that'd been the plan. Two steps down the hallway leading away from the stage, he ran into a knot of expectant faces, half of them clearly ten years old or younger, all of them with pink armbands emblazoned with double wings, and the dark haired woman who was apparently Hibiya's best friend right out in front.

He should have known Impala would track him down.

Taking the sight of the woman in, from her sleek black hair to her light-toed but immovable-looking feet, he sighed and extended a hand. "Hi. I'm told I took your place in the contest, and I'm sorry about the mix up. If you want me to step down-"

"Oh, goodness no!" she gasped, clasping his hand in both of hers. "You're the first chance we've had to win in ages! Mr... Aye Ur? It's nice to meet you. I'm Okiura Sayaka."

His body froze, hand tightening on her wrist. "Okiura?!" Kamui hissed.

If hearing Subaru's personal surname attached to a ninja had stuck in his craw, it was downright ridiculous for a ninja to even know that name, let alone use it. No ninja should've been calling herself a member of one of Eunos's most ruthless pirate clans. Lord Kigai gave them free reign to keep order back in his home fleet, and was just as happy they'd never shown any interest in breaking into international waters. The Okiura weren't much for diplomacy, or mercy, and Kamui'd understood that when they did meet ninja, they didn't leave any trace behind to spread their name.

But there the name was. And maybe they had a reputation as pirates who preyed on pirates, but they were loyal to their own. If one of them had gone turncoat, he'd have heard.

Too late, he saw in this Okiura's eyes that he'd made exactly the reaction she'd been looking for. She knew as well as he did, no ninja should've known that name's full reputation. The lady smiled a kinder, less backstabby version of Fai's 'gotcha' smile. "So you are a pirate," she said, as sweetly as if she'd been asking if he liked cream pies. "I thought the way you walked reminded me of my husband. Death Shirou, I presume."

There wasn't much point in lying. She could see his tattoos clear as day on his back.

"Kamui," he growled. "'Death' is a fucking hyperbolic nickname."

Which didn't throw off her pleasant face for an instant. "It's nice to meet you, Kamui-san. And thank you for representing Impala so spectacularly. People are going to be talking about this for years, don't you think?" she asked the crowd around her, slowly encircling him as they drew closer. All smiling. And agreeing. Happily. It was creepy.

A long-haired girl in a hat piped up, "Have you decided what you'll do for the evening wear competition tonight?"

"I ... don't have any- Wait, what are you talking about?!" He turned away from the unnerving sea of encroaching smiles to find the Okiura woman, who couldn't be as soft as she seemed if she'd baited him like she had. "You can't actually want me to compete for you! I'm a fucking pirate! I've got a price on my head in this goddamn town."

Sayaka-san laughed like nothing was wrong. "Getting a pirate to represent us, especially an elite member of the Pirate King's Council, is such a coup! No one's had that kind of audacity before. Finally, people are talking about something other than how nice they think we all are." A chorus of murmurs from the other adults backed her up while kids - so many kids! - beamed. "If it worries you that much, we'd be happy to extend you citizenship in Impala. You've clearly picked up significant proficiency in nin-"

"That's not what I was asking for!"

"And don't worry, I'll undertake the civil duties of the year's Mr., Miss, or Mt. Impala back at home. I know you'll be too busy abroad to stop in often."

"There are civil duties?! It's a beauty pageant!"

"But any time you have a chance to visit, we'd be honored for you to come be a role model for all of our children."

Kamui wanted to object that he wasn't a ninja, and he shouldn't have been a role model for anyone, let alone the tiny ninja in training bustling around him and now poking at the bottom of his tattoo faster than he could swat them away. But objecting wasn't going to help; he could tell. That look in this Sayaka-san's eye seemed harder the more he looked at it, like ice or steel. With that pale skin and dark hair, and the reddish lips in a fragile seeming face that wasn't fragile at all, she was like a living reminder that Impala still had Snow White's blood in the ground somewhere. She was lucky her eyes were a blackish brown, not gold, or he might have killed her on the spot, which he didn't see ending well for him.

"You don't hear 'No' very often, do you?" he asked. She smiled quizzically, probably playing innocent, while everyone over the age of sixteen (he estimated) shook their heads in unison. "Well, I didn't pack evening clothes, so-"

"Oh, we can find something for you. Fujimoto-kun, do you think he's more Doumoto-kun's size, or Kohaku-kun's?"

"I'd go with Doumoto's tux," a man with a ponytail murmured. "It'll be easier to alter."

With her smile still intact, Sayaka-san waved took him by the shoulder. "Why don't you come with us, Kamui-san? We'll get you cleaned up, find you something to eat, and fit you for alterations. I'm certain we can have something ready by the bonfire this evening!"

"Fine! Fine! I'll go!" It was a damn sight better than going back to Icchan, after all, and he knew better than to cross people who seemed nice - although he was going to have a hell of a time explaining today to Fuuma. He narrowed his eyes at the woman leading him away. "Just don't try and make me a citizen. I'm a pirate, and we have a code that says I don't owe allegiance to anybody but my ship, all right? And I'm the fucking Admiral."

"Well, if you insist. But we'll always consider you one of us in our hearts. Won't we?"

"Aye, aye!" the children chorused, over and over, more gleeful every second.

He had no clue how he'd even start explaining this to Fuuma.

Notes:

I know this story has been a long time updating, but hopefully Chapter 8 will be up on Halloween! That should be just in time for me to catch up to my updates planned for this past March before I take November off for National Novel Writing Month, and then spend all of December writing Yuletide fic and other gifts (including the regularly scheduled chapters of this one). Because my projections about how long this story would be were off by about an order of magnitude, it looks like this story will continue through both the holiday update cycle (probably posting through January, maybe into February since these chapters are long), and will finish during the Birthday Gift update cycle (March-April). I will do my best!

As always, many thanks to my lovely beta readers, sumeria and vikki. Their help is beyond measure. And! I am thrilled to link gifts from both of them as well! I will place those links in my profile page under the "Fifteen Mokona" story list. Thank you all for reading, and after one more chapter, I will bid you adieu for the season. Much love,

psiten