A/N Phew. Trying to cap this one off at about 100 - 150 ish pages. We'll see how that goes, ha! I suspect I'm going to have my work cut out for me fixing pacing issues when this is finished. Updates weekly Thurs/Fri

Firenight

Chapter 8

It had been three months since they had last seen land. It wasn't bad, Misa reflected, running a finger along the creased pages of a map she was perusing. Admittedly the quality of food was a slippery slope – she could hardly pick out the green-brown flecks in her bowl that could have been vegetables. It was the only thing between her and scurvy, after all. She gave a shudder and rubbed the skin of her arm nervously to stave away a phantom pain.

The killer of the seas, she thought. They say it drives people mad. She thought about the Captain and the cheshire grin he wore when she'd approached him to hand back his coat. Taunting her. He was practically begging for his death, leaving food unattended for mysterious periods of time and constantly going off alone in conveniently dark and isolated corners. Misa was almost tempted to oblige. If not for that smile he wore.

That smile, she knew, meant business.

Life, to him, was a game. Misa was simply the newest playing piece. Maybe the scurvy had gotten him already. She imagined him dropping dead a few weeks later, raving mad and shook her head with a wry grin. He didn't seem like the kind of person to fall quietly into the obscurity of death in the isolated center of the ocean. He'd go down fighting, or at least doing something obnoxiously memorable. Something like sailing his ship to the land-locked capital and bowing grandly before the king before setting both himself and the palace alight.

Misa summoned the image and was surprised to find she believed it.

She glanced about the ship. It was peaceful now. They'd caught the wind a few hours ago, and the anonymous rowers had retired. Now it was just Shousei at the helm, a quiet guy who held the spokes steady with a grim set to his hands.

Then Shousei wrenched the wheel to the left. The wheel spun, and kept spinning.

Surprised, Misa stumbled back, lost her balance and fell to the floor. The ship groaned as it swerved, the deck tilting in a steep gradient that sent Misa scrabbling for a handhold. The book she was holding slipped from her grip, and she watched as it skidded down the deck and landed with a soft thump at the other end.

"What's going on?" she shouted.

Shousei didn't answer her. His eyes remained intent. The muscles of his arms stood out as he held the wheel steady in that sharp turn.

Misa looked quickly around. Some people were already filing onto deck, caught off guard by the sudden swerve.

Even the Captain arrived soon after, a frown on his lips as he gave his vessel a quick once over. He gave Misa a lingering look before turning to Shousei. The helms-master was backing away, having already dutifully tied the wheel to course. He whispered something to the Captain that made green eyes set into a look. He snapped, "Everyone get below deck. Now."

Misa had retrieved her book. "What's going on?" she demanded.

The Captain turned to her sharply. Misa was taken aback at the whiteness of his face. "Now!" he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

I've never seen him look so frightened.

Misa started back to the cabin, about to break into a run when a wail rose from the water behind them.

"Cover your ears!" she heard the Captain shout, but his voice sounded far away and had a strange hollow quality to it, as if it was echoed from the bottom of a well. A well that seemed to grow deeper and blacker by the moment, drowning the sound with it.

Misa felt a spike of primal fear. Instinct tugged at her hands, willed them to move even as she felt lost in an absence of sensation. A dull pulsing started at the base of her temple, the feeling of a pressure on her eardrums that filled them to bursting. She willed her hands to move, and had to double check with her eyes to make sure they were. They did, coming up to her ears way to slowly. Floating, disembodied appendages that felt hardly her own.

Misa was suddenly overtaken by a sensation that she had become just as disembodied as her limbs. She thought she should double-check her body. Just to make sure it was still there.

She looked down, expecting to find her feet and the brown leather shoes they were enclosed in. To her surprise, she met a pair of eyes. They were blue and watery, framed with coarse scales the colour of mollusks.

"Hello." A tingling rush passed through her, setting fire to her veins. The voice was music. It held both the resonance of a church bell and the ephemeral fairy sound of harness bells. It echoed in her empty well of sensation and filled it with light, softness, sound.

Misa found herself smiling. And why not? What a beautiful voice! "Hi," she replied. She heard a dim echoed 'hi' repeated back.

"Come, come here." The voice rose again, eager. Misa marveled at how the sound filled her with flashes of starlight and the universe.

"Sure," she replied absently and sent an off-hand thought to her feet to move.

She supposed they did, because her visual field shifted.

"Goo-d, goo-d. This way. This way."

Something was grabbing at her arms and legs. She slapped them away with strength she didn't know she'd possessed. She supposed she threw a few punches as well. There was a vague remembrance of something soft crunching beneath her fist but it all seemed so far away. So insignificant. Another remnant of the emptiness that had consumed her before the voice came and filled her up.

She stepped onto the railing and observed a marvelous landscape. Rolling blue hills heaved and dipped into rich valleys. Coral landscapes ruled by kingdoms of fish played out below her. But it was the eyes that caught her.

In a sudden moment of clarity, she thought they looked green with a vicious edge. They reminded her of the Captain, but conjured a spike of fear that lodged in her stomach and her throat. It was the same fear that had struck her on their first meeting. She recalled it, and realised that she didn't feel this same mindless need to escape. Was her fear swallowed by a desire for vengeance? Or lulled by the peace and harmony she felt aboard the ship?

The ship?

But the memory fell behind her. She tipped over into the ocean and met the embrace of triumphant green eyes.

"Yes. Yes. Yes," the thing whispered.

Misa winked out of existence.

"Captain, Captain!"

Aoi jostled elbows, bodies, pulling himself through the crush of people. Not for the first time, he cursed his small size. He cursed the day as well. Of all the days to run into sea nymphs- not to mention the probability. They'd sailed past the very same coordinates year in and year out, multiple times. And never, never, never...

"Aoi." The utter calm that lay like a foreboding undercurrent in the Captain's voice frightened him more than he'd admit.

He wrenched the door shut at the clamouring crowd behind him, pushing back a few concerned and curious limbs from the doorjamb. The room was plunged in a blessed quiet. Aoi breathed out a sigh of relief and made his way towards his Captain.

"Captain-" he started.

"It's Takumi in here." His voice was monotonous, dead.

Yukimura had a white cloth in hand and was running it gently over the Captain's – Takumi's – cheek. Aoi felt sorry for the kid. He looked hopelessly embarrassed to be touching him so familiarly, face taking on the colour of tomatoes that stained all the way to the roots of his hair.

A swelling purple bruise bloomed like a malignant rose from the socket of Takumi's eye to the top of his cheek. Yukimura ran the gauze over red skin and Takumi hid a sharp wince. Aoi frowned, running his eyes over the bruises and scratches on display, cataloging the injuries.

He was looking for something. A mark – relief filled his chest – that wasn't there.

Aoi blew out a breath. "They didn't get you. Wonderful, you live to fight another day."

Takumi gave a snort. "They wouldn't have been able to. The witch's already claimed me and inked her filthy blood over my skin. They'd need to be much stronger to come close to pulling her influence off."

Aoi raised an eyebrow. "I've always felt you've been unfair on yourself, calling it a 'her'. It's hardly animal, let alone human. Honestly... Takumi... I'm glad you look like your usual bad-humoured self. Where are the others?"

Takumi gave a brief nod to his right and made a study of avoiding his eyes.

Let him stew. Today he fucked up. And the tenseness of his posture, the flinty eyes showed he knew it. Aoi just hoped they would recover.

He turned to his left – the Captain's right – and entered a small alcove.

The room was used as their impromptu first aid tent. He'd commissioned it himself, back when they'd gotten into a lot more scuffles and everybody had sustained injuries on a regular basis. Stretchers folded into the walls. Supplies and medical equipment tucked neatly into the walls. Some were concealed by clever wooden panels, others were displayed in carefully ordered arrays on overhanging shelves and cabinets.

It was a cramped room. It currently housed one claustrophobic Hinata and an apathetic Shousei.

"Aoi!" Hinata's eyes had widened. Aoi could see the sheen of sweat breaking over the boy's skin and admired his tenacity as he resolutely bound up Shousei's injuries. "I feel horrible. In more ways than one." He made a gagging motion. Aoi had the sick feeling it wasn't just for show.

"Hey, get some air. I'll take care of him."

Aoi met Hinata's glare and quickly backed off.

"My responsibility." Hinata said. "Stay out of this, Aoi. Don't you dare force me outside. I'll break down the fucking door if I have to."

Aoi frowned but took a seat. He glanced at Shousei. The boy was pale, barely lucid and moaning.

"He's stronger than he looks, for someone so skinny," Hinata said eventually.

"Shousei?"

"Misato," Hinata clarified. Catching Aoi's look, he scowled and continued. "They got him."

Aoi opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He carefully closed it again, lest he accidentally swallow the daggers Hinata's eyes were throwing his way.

Then Hinata turned away, a scowl on his lips and Aoi realised that the daggers were for himself. Hinata probably wished he had a mirror right now, Aoi thought, just so he could glare at himself, and heap all that undeserved blame on by the spadeful.

"Whatever you think, Hinata, it's not your fault."

Hinata shot him a heated glare. Whatever Aoi thought before, the daggers were definitely aimed at him now. "You think? What do you know what I was doing? I wasn't at the crows nest, where I was supposed to be. The Capt'n put me up there to prevent these things from happening. The sea nymphs aren't exactly inconspicuous you know – their hair glows like a fucking light globe, plus they move in swarms as wide as the Thymas river. I should've been there – I would've been there except I slacked off. Rigging a bucket trap when I should've been watching. And now look at him!"

Hinata flung the gauze strip down in disgust. Shousei mumbled something and turned, a clump of hair sliding back to reveal the pale skin of his neck.

Aoi bit his lip. The skin was marked. If it had been red, it could easily have been passed off as an incidental bruise. It looked like one – had the same blotchy quality. Except this bruise was neon blue. It pulsed along the delicate skin of Shousei's neck, drawing the veins and arteries to the surface of the skin. Spidery webs of red bulged and pulsed along with Shousei's slow heartbeat.

The breath rushed out of him as skin suddenly broke. A pin-prick of red welled as the thin walls of a minor vein ruptured from the pressure, the skin stretched tight enough to split from the force of it. Hinata was on it in a flash, gently wiping the bead of blood off and applying a salve.

"Self sacrificing idiot." Hinata's lips were pale. "He should of left the helm. But he stayed. Tied the wheel down as calmly as if he'd forgotten about the nymphs."

Aoi sank into a stunned silence. You'll be okay. You'll be okay, Shousei.

"I'll tell Kuuga. It isn't right to keep this from him." Aoi rose, about to leave.

"Why are you talking about me... as if I'm already dead?" Shousei had opened his eyes a slit. They were clouded over, the whites a sick grey.

Aoi hesitated. He looked at the bursting veins at Shousei's neck. The mark was from poison secreted by the finger nails of the nymphs, and could have only been a spot the size of a pea when it'd first made contact. The blue growth had grown and swallowed Shousei's skin like a cancerous tumour in mere minutes. I'm sorry. But realistically... speaking realistically... Shousei... Aoi struggled to formulate the thought.

"I'm getting Kuuga," he managed, and fled the room.

Nobody should die. Not like this. Wasted, when our life could serve someone else's.

When he reached the main chamber, Takumi's eyes were closed.

"Is he dying?" His voice was so quiet Aoi wasn't sure if he'd heard him right.

"Yes," he found himself saying. "Are you going to...?"

The question hung in the air between them. A phantom presence. Neither reached to touch it. But it had to be asked, Aoi knew. It had to.

Takumi seemed shut off. Even though his eyes were closed, Aoi could imagine them. The vacant look of them. "No, not yet." It was said softly, as if to convince himself.

Aoi felt a swell of unease. He had a sense – a compulsion – that said his Captain, Takumi, would wait until it was too late. "Do it," he found himself saying. "Just do it. Remember last time? You waited, you waited and-"

A sound of glass splintering.

Yukimura had ducked, and cowered under interlocked hands as Takumi rose with an angry green flame in his eyes. He had knocked down a glass paper weight in an angry sweep of his hands that ripped out of him like a spasm. It lay in shattered scintillating pieces on the ground. A bitch to clean up.

"Don't presume I need a reminder." His voice was cold. Aoi could hardly remember the last time he'd been dismissed by the Captain in such an non-negotiable fashion.

He looked at the blood streaming down the Captain's knuckles. Aoi's lips peeled back from his teeth in a half snarl, half smile. "Fine. I'm not going to presume anything. If you're going to destroy yourself, and all that you've worked for, go ahead. It's hardly my responsibility." He gestured to the blood dripping down on the floorboards, at Yukimura's cowering form, at the fractured mess on the ground and looked at Takumi. "Just don't be a fool, and stop dragging everyone else into the problems you create."

Takumi looked back at him, white faced.

It's a pity, Aoi thought. A pity that he was born royal. A pity that he got into one fight too many. The personality beneath that corrupted circumstance had a real strength when not applied to foolishness. As his Captain was being now. "If you want to stop making these impossible decisions. Do something. Don't run away." Slightly more sympathetic he added, "Heaven knows you're better at this 'doing' thing than I am."

He needed to talk to Kuuga. Takumi was born to fight the big battles, the earth-shaking, country moving ones with millions of lives on the line. Him? He had his work cut out for him just keeping the crew in line. He would talk to Kuuga, who would then talk to Kouma and Yuujirou. They were the ones closest to Shousei.

He wondered if they'd ever come to terms with it. With Shousei. His death, and the fact that, if they acted early – before he died – they could surrender him to the Captain to save somebody. They'd probably have better luck getting through to him than anything I can say.

He had his hand on the door when a memory took hold of him. The strength of it pulled a gasp from his throat. The smell of spring pervaded the air. Aoi fought the urge to sneeze from the phantom pollen.

"I'm going to save them. Everyone."

A young voice, clear and strong. Yet, it still bore a slight tremor, the mark of a man too close to childhood undertaking an impossibly large task.

"Sure you will." Aoi responded unconsciously, an imitation of a more naive self.

Back then, the words were truth. Now?

The older Aoi mouthed the syllables and they rang with sarcasm.