When Ryuko got back to Honnou Island the next day, it was somehow even quieter than before. While she assumed it was nothing, she kept her guard up nonetheless, and when she returned to Satsuki's mansion, she decided she was right to do so.

The mansion was empty save for an unsettlingly polite butler, who nonetheless refused to volunteer any information beyond Satsuki currently being absent. Eventually, the door was closed on her, and already she was running low on options.

It soon occurred to her that Mako might still be of help, since she knew the island better than Ryuko did. If nothing else, Mako could tell her whether or not this was a common occurrence, and with this in mind, Ryuko made her way back to the inn.

But the inn was also considerably more empty than it was earlier. Sure, there was only one less person than before, but that one person had one hell of a presence, at least in Ryuko's opinion.

Once again freely entering the back room, she turned her attention to Mako's family. "Where's Mako?"

"Oh, she's been invited to a nice tropical island for lunch," Mako's mother said, "as a way of apologizing for the trouble she went through yesterday. What was it called, now... Isle Abekamo?"

"Isle Abek..." Ryuko stopped herself. "That place is run by cannibals! She'll be lunch unless someone saves her in time!"

This was met with the exact response Ryuko had expected, but hoped against: Instant panic. It took her some time to make herself heard over the commotion, but when she punched the floorboards hard enough to split one of them in two, there was silence again.

"And we can save her in time," she said firmly. "Or rather, I can. The rowboat I came in only has room for me, but it'll be faster than an entire ship. Trust me, I have experience with this, and you'll be safer here."

The others reluctantly agreed, and Ryuko soon made haste, setting out to save this girl she barely knew.

"Oh!" If Mako's hands weren't tied, she would have slapped her forehead. "Now I get it! I'm the main course, aren't I? Well, if you'd just said so... You know, I think I'd make a better dessert... Put some whipped cream here and there, some hot fudge, and a cherry on top..." She began to drool. "Yeah, I don't blame you guys. If I wasn't so busy being me, I'd eat me too!"

The cannibals of Isle Abekamo were very tempted to lower her into the cauldron and get it over with. But Fukuroda had insisted she be kept as a hostage, under Satsuki's orders. The cannibals' irritation was beginning to outweigh their hunger, and if nothing happened soon, they considered taking the risk of trying to eat Fukuroda.

But finally, something happened. A rowboat with a cloaked figure inside could be seen on the horizon, and it was getting closer much more rapidly than it should have been. As it drew nearer, it looked like the person inside the boat was rowing with their bare hands, and the cloak was struggling to stay on them.

When they finally reached the shore, the cloak had flown off, and Ryuko Matoi leapt from the boat, landing several yards in front of it. She had a very stern expression on her face, but everyone present was distracted by another detail.

Simply put, the outfit chosen looked very questionable, for a pirate or otherwise. The absurdly short skirt was perhaps the tamest thing about it, but the rest was just a pair of red suspenders connected to two large epaulettes that seemed to be there just to cover what needed to be covered. There was, of course, a strap going around the front and back of her collar to keep them connected, but that seemed more of an afterthought than anything else.

But the strangest thing about these epaulettes was the fact that they seemed to lean forward slightly, and on top of one of them was a large eye. The other was simply black with a cross over it, like some form of eyepatch.

"Lady Satsuki thought you'd be back," Fukuroda said. "But if you're going to come here looking like that..." He held back laughter. "...you just shouldn't have bothered."

Ryuko continued to advance towards him. While her movements didn't seem at all hesitant, her facial expression showed great reluctance. She knew perfectly well how ridiculous she looked, but now she had the power to take on Fukuroda.

"Start eating that spinach," she said. "You're going to need it if we're going to settle this."

With a confident smile, Fukuroda reached for a pile and started chewing, swallowing more quickly than he probably should have. Once Ryuko saw his muscles assume the shape they had before, she brought out her cutlass and swung it towards him.

He blocked, just as he had before, but he was caught off guard when the blade managed to leave a nasty scratch on his arm. With a yelp of pain, he jumped back and reconsidered his strategy, knowing all too well that he'd have more than a scratch to worry about if he got careless.

Seeing no other option, he ran straight at her while swinging an arm until it became a circular blur at his side. As soon as he was close enough, he threw a punch, which immediately hit her cutlass with an unsatisfying "thunk".

"Don't you have any other tricks up your sleeve?" Ryuko grinned spitefully. "Then again, I doubt there'd be any room with your arms swelling up like that." She grabbed one of the arms and squeezed it tightly, earning another cry of pain. "Not very practical, if you ask me. Right now, that extra muscle's just dead weight." She chuckled slightly upon noticing a tattoo of an anchor on one of the arms. "Really though, strength-granting spinach? I've seen a lot of strange things as a pirate, but that's just going..." She lifted him from the ground. "...overboard."

Upon hearing Mako's enthusiastic cheers, Ryuko effortlessly tossed Fukuroda over her shoulder and into the ocean. Finally, the only obstacle standing between her and Mako's rescue was the horde of cannibals, but they all seemed eager to move out of the way after seeing what Ryuko was capable of. Once the cauldron was moved aside, Ryuko cut through the rope holding Mako and quickly caught her.

"Oh my gosh!" Mako squealed. "Pirates are so cool! Where do I sign up?"

Ryuko couldn't help but smile at her spirit. "We can talk about that later. First, let's get you home."

A/N: It's so tempting for the author's notes to be "ARRR!" for every chapter.