Disclaimer: Do not own One Piece. All plot and OCs belong to Volleys-chan and I.
The Dragon Chronicles
Chapter 16 - Heightening
"Leadership is a privilege to better the lives of others. It is not an opportunity to satisfy personal greed."
-Mwai Kibaki
"I guess I should have warned you preemptively about her," Kaito chuckled at her sulking expression as the two of them walked down the street. "Holly loves shopping. I wouldn't hand any young kid over to her unless I know they like clothes shopping. You don't pin me as someone who does."
Rei pouted a bit, but decided the best thing she could do was let it go, even if that was two hours of her life she'd never get back. "Thou should have indeed warned this one." If she ever saw a clothing store again, it'd be too soon in her opinion.
"Hey, I was asleep or I would have." Kaito defended himself, in a much better mood than when they had gotten to the salon. He had been able to sleep for at least two hours and was now back in his newly dry clothes. He had also quickly eaten another bento provided by Merryweather, who had given one to him and one to her.
"But, Holly did good." Kaito admitted, "those clothes are quality, but not outrageous or anything. You'll be able to blend in better than what you were wearing previously."
Rei fiddled with a pair of dark circular sunglasses Holly had made sure to purchase her as well as her cap. Unlike the clothes, the accessories would take time to get adjusted too, much like wearing shoes again, but she did have to admit that the lace up leather boots were nice and kept her feet warm.
"You definitely look more civilized than before." Kaito teased with a mischievous grin. Rei did her best to ignore the barb at her previous appearance. Again, not her fault she lived where all she had were a dead woman's clothes. "Now, if we can ditch the weirdo pelt you've been dragging around, then you'd be perfect!"
"This one will not ditch her possessions." Rei was immediately holding the leather strap that was connected the fur pelt closer to her. "This was a gift and this one will not leave it by the wayside!"
"Maah," Kaito backed off about it. Again, Rei noted that even he understood talking about worldly possessions to a parentless child was a taboo. "I'm not saying throw it away, just... We need to find a place to store it. It's big and strange and attracts attention. There's no way you can run around with it on your back without someone noticing you. When living on the streets, you do your best to blend in and disappear. That's your best defense."
"Fine." Rei relented, understanding where Kaito was coming from. It wasn't like she would have run around the jungle or climbed with such a thing upon her back, but at the moment, it wasn't like she could store it within her void pouch. Not without causing Kaito be become suspicious. "This one will look for a place to store it later."
"Good." Kaito nodded, glad he didn't have to argue with her about it. He was much better having slept, but he still was tired and didn't want to have to fight a stray tooth and nail about every damn thing that needed to be done. Luckily, Rei wasn't like most children and seemed capable of learning and adapting without always asking 'why'. One of the pros of her being older, he supposed.
"Art thou taking this one to thy sanctuary now?" Rei asked him after a time of silence between them.
"Why? No one's there at this time of day. Everyone's out and about." Kaito explained nonchalantly. "No one goes back till it's later in the evening."
"Then what will we be doing instead?" Rei was curious as to what he expected her to do until he decided to show her where she would be staying. It wasn't like she had asked Aron to summon him for any other reason.
"You said you'd be staying here a while," Kaito shrugged, "so that means you need to learn the lay of the land as well as the do's and don't's of being a street kid."
"This one supposes that thou art correct. So, what? Thou expects she to shadow thee all day till it tis time for thee to return to thy sanctuary?"
"Hey, you're pretty on it for a country bumpkin who talks so weird!"
Rei nearly stomped her foot at that as she turned her red gaze onto him and let her ire with him be known by the harshness of her tone. "This one doth not speak strangely according her those who raised her! And she is not some country bumpkin, she hath been living within a jungle. She has been hunting and playing within jungle canopies since she was but an eight year old child. The jungle hath merely been changed from natural flora to concrete buildings. That tis all."
"Sure," Kaito snorted rudely. "And tell me, oh great hunter, if all that has changed is what the jungle is made of, then what do you expect to hunt? We have no wild animals. That whole island is the city. Sure, we have some stray cats and dogs, pets, Yagura Bulls (which is very frowned upon here to eat since all of them are vital to our culture), and rats- but nothing that you'd catch in a jungle. And unless you like eating diseased animals like rats, you'll need to learn to adapt to how we street kids survive. Got it?"
Rei narrowed her eyes, not liking the scolding she had just received, though internally she had to agree. She didn't know how to survive if she couldn't hunt. It wasn't like she could fish. She'd more likely end up drowning than catching anything. However, there was one thing that was bothering her. "And how doth thee survive on the street without something to hunt?"
"Oh, we hunt," Kaito smirked haughtily. "Only our prey are people's wallets and the beli inside them normally."
Rei stopped walking outright, causing Kaito to have to spin around when he realized she had done so. "You steal."
"Hey! No 'thou' this time, I see!" Kaito ignored the blunt words of the ruby eyed girl and her dissatisfied tone.
"You steal from others. You take what does not belong to you." Rei didn't know how to feel about that. It went against how the dragons had raised her. They did not steal. They did not take what did not belong to them. Then again, they were not worldly beyond their vanity and adoration for beautiful objects to adorn themselves with. The only time dragons took what belonged to a different dragon was when that dragon had perished, or so Tatsuo and Ayane told her.
"We do what we need to survive. No one else is going to take care of us otherwise." Kaito frowned, his eyes darting about to make sure that there were not a lot of people. Luckily he was taking one of the lesser traveled streets at this time of day and no one was in earshot. He hated conversations like this out in the open. "I've already told you. It's a dog-eat-dog world. We take from others only what we need to feed ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less. You try going hungry for days on end and watching while others waste away because nobody out there gives a rat's ass about some parentless child who would rather live out in the street than be forced into that farce of an orphanage!"
Rei didn't know what to think or to say. She felt conflicted by the sudden information and didn't know if she wanted to seek sanctuary with these children if they were all a bunch of thieves, but at the same time wasn't Gin a thief? She loved Gin and the woman had been a thief and a pirate. Both things went hand in hand and she still found that Gin was a wonderful, loving woman. She suddenly remembered what Aokiji had told her about the world not being black and white. She couldn't believe that she had almost slipped into that mindset once more. She sighed as she lowered her head a bit, relenting to his words.
"The world is not merely black and white, but shades of grey. Thou survives by stealing, but that doth not make thee malicious or evil. Please forgive this one. She nearly forgot a lesson taught to her long ago, long before living among such harmonious people as the ones who raised her the last six years."
"Yeah well," Kaito looked away, unsure of how to respond to such straightforward words. "As I said, we do what we need to survive, but that doesn't mean that I don't try to get the older ones real jobs and spare the younger ones from as much petty thievery as I can. It's not like I steal because it's fun. Well I do sometimes, but I used every beli I steal for a good cause!"
"This one believes thee." Honestly, how could she not? She felt no lies from the older boy and knew that he was blunt in his words and withheld no honesty when speaking with such conviction.
"Good, that's important if you're going to be sticking around the place." Kaito recovered fast enough to cover up how flustered she had gotten him with such forthright comments. His version of blunt honesty was harsh and sarcastic at times, but hers, in his opinion, was down right startling. Though both of them spoke their minds and did not pull punches when they spoke, it seemed that their ways of communication were still vastly different enough, even without including the archaic way she would articulate her sentences.
"Anyways," Kaito coughed, turning the subject back to the original matter at hand. "Since we're not heading back to the place all of us kids live at till the sun begins making its way down the sky, let's see what you've got, oh mighty hunter of the jungle." He gave her a teasing grin as he spoke that last part, letting Rei know he meant it in good fun. "Let's see if you can keep up with someone like me."
"This one hardly doubts it will be hard to keep up with a pauper prince." Rei snorted mockingly and crossed her arms in front of her chest, going along with his verbal game. She couldn't help but feel her chest puff up a bit in her confidence that she would have no trouble keeping up with someone like him. He had never once climbed forest trees, scaled many cliffs, or jumped from tree branch to tree branch. Keeping up with him would be simple comparatively...
Or so she thought.
With one haughty smirk, Kaito was off like a bolt of lightning, hardly giving Rei time to understand that the chase was on. He had accepted her challenge and now was going to make her eat her words and bring her down a peg or two. Or at least that was the overall plan in Kaito's mind. Rei recovered faster than he thought and, though he had a lead in this game of one-sided tag, Rei was hardly left in his dust. It didn't matter anyway, the game was how he gauged her and tested how able-bodied she truly was. Some kids could keep up with him for a time, but eventually they winded and tired out long before he began to even break a sweat. However, Rei was at a slight advantage since he wasn't fully rested, but then again, he was more familiar with the area than she was and thus putting her in his mercy to lead the game. If she lost him, she'd be lost.
In the beginning, Kaito let her chase him through the main streets, observing how well she could dodge natural obstacles (like crates, stands, people) put in one's everyday path before kicking it up a notch. Seeing as she easily was able to maneuver about without knocking into things, he began to lead her down alleyways that twisted, turned, got narrow, or even had roadblocks such as high fences blocking the route. Nothing phased her, not like it did when he usually took newbies through this run. Even the fences she cleared with as much grace as he executed when fence hopping and never even batted an eye at the task, keeping her eyes well focused on him and his next move.
Kaito couldn't help the smile on his face as he decided this game was getting fun and that it was time to see how far he could push it before she couldn't keep up with the street urchin. Increasing his speed, Kaito took a sharp turn down one alley, jumped up upon some stacked crates before taking another quick turn and, with a little push from the opposite wall, jumped and grabbed onto the window sill on the opposite wall before pulling himself up and beginning to scale up the side of the building, heading towards the roof.
Rei paused as she observed what stunt the surprisingly acrobatic male did. She had been shocked at how much of a chase she had already given and yet been able to catch him. He was fast on his feet, well versed in the area, and used his surroundings against her. He was much more difficult to catch than a deer or even a draco. He was smart and seemed just as confident in his abilities as she was in hers. At times, if she was not so aware of herself and the things around her, she would have crashed multiple times over from random obstacles that would get in her way. It definitely paid off having run around with a tail as long and as large as hers for the past six years since it gave her a better sense of her surroundings and where she was in accordance to the rest of the area.
Still, this street dweller had definitely humbled her, especially with this last stunt. She had not thought that anyone could freestyle up a building as easily as she could climb up the side of the jungle cliffs. Rei, however, wasn't about to admit defeat merely because of something as trivial as him scaling up a building side. Quickly tugging out her gloves and shoving them on, Rei summoned her claws and with a running start up the side of the building, began to scale up after the other teen, using the cracks between the bricks as holding for her clawed fingers.
She was nearly at the top when she heard a low whistle and looked up to see Kaito staring down at her with some respect showing in those blue eyes. "Wow, seems like the mighty hunter isn't as much of a joke as I thought. But, you haven't really caught me yet, have you?"
"It would seem that thou art indeed the pauper prince, superior to thy subjects in thy kingdom of streets and alleyways, but doth not think that this one is out of the game just yet. The best way to catch one's prey is to let them wear themselves down. Doth thou truly think that thou has more stamina than she?" Rei countered, still climbing up the side and the building.
Kaito merely smirked as he moved away from the side of the building and lazily took a few long strides back. "We'll see who tires first, you or me... though I doubt it will be the latter of those two."
"This one doubts the former of the two." Rei commented as she almost reached the top. She was startled when she realized Kaito had backed up to dash towards the roof edge and leap onto the opposite building. "Art thou crazy!?"
Kaito laughed as he easily landed on the other roof with room to spare. "Nope! Just know what I'm doing!" His laughter stopped when Rei pushed off from her spot on other building with her feet, twisted her body in midair, and grabbed onto the roof ledge he was on.
"Are you crazy!?" Kaito bellowed as he started backing up the roof and began to flee from his pursuer.
"Hardly, if thou cannot be counted among the insane." Rei shot back playfully as she easily pulled herself up with her upper body strength and continued to give chase.
Kaito continued his trek over the rooftops, hopping easily from one roof to the next with plenty of space to spare. Not a lot of people could actually rooftop hop without some training, but he supposed that struggling for survival and avoiding being apprehended counted as training. He was actually surprised that Rei was easily able to keep up with him, only slipping up a few times due to her boots. He could tell that she was use to running barefoot and had better footing when without shoes. He was determined to use that to his advantage.
Rei had to give it to Kaito, he was definitely worth of respect in matter of speed, wit, fast thinking, and keeping a level head while resisting capture. He didn't run straight lines, always throwing her off by suddenly jumping from one building to another than to a different building on a different side of the one he landed on. He always seemed to be thinking two or three steps ahead of her and she was trying hard to think at least five steps ahead of what was going on. So he was always mentally eight steps ahead of the present chase. She nearly lost her footing altogether at one point when he, instead of leaping to the next building, fell short purposely. It nearly gave her a heart attack until she realized there was a tall fence he had landed on halfway down before leaping off of that and bounding down some random alleyway.
By the time she had followed him back onto the ground, he no doubt thought that she had lost sight of him, which, to be honest, she had. However, she hadn't lost him entirely, already zeroing in on his unique Qi that she had already familiarized herself with seconds within the beginning of the game and began pursuit once more. If Kaito thought that she would quit so simply, then he wasn't familiar with how life and death her ability to hunt had been to her in later years living on Soshi Shima.
"Damn it!" Kaito bellowed when she had managed to catch up to him. "I thought I'd had you back there."
"Hardly. Thou art not as difficult to track as thou might think." Rei called up to him, leaving out that it was only because of her training with Qi that she had found him at all. Let him sweat it a bit.
Kaito, however, wasn't discouraged for long. Rei soon found herself staring nearly dumbfounded when he ran up to one of two water horse creatures, Yagura Bulls, Rei mentally corrected, leapt into the open carriage upon its back, yipped at it, and the creature took off with a grin and a whinny.
"The hell!?" Rei couldn't help but bellow as she stopped running and watched in mild confusion. Had he just hijacked someone's Yagura Bull?! And it was game for that!
"Don't worry, they'll come back here when all is done. They're smart enough to know who their family is! We're merely borrowing them for a bit!" Kaito called back.
Rei shook her head, but hopping onto the small one man carriage like seat strapped to the Yagura Bull before it whinnied and took off after its counterpart that Kaito had hijacked for his use. Rei couldn't help but feel like a bit guilty. The guilt didn't last to long when she realized how fast these Yagura Bulls could go and couldn't help but let out shout of laughter as her Bull fought to catch up with Kaito's. He was leading his by the reigns, well familiar with the area and the destination he wanted to go that he probably knew when to turn before the Bull he was riding did itself.
Soon, Rei found their chase had taken them high onto a waterway and just as they had gotten over the top and were shooting down in a rush of speed, Kaito gave his thanks to the Bull he was riding and leapt right off the Yagura Bull, over the waterway, and rolled into his landing on yet another freakin' roof. Rei had little time to do more than follow, only instead of rolling into her landing, she used her experience in landing from higher levels to push straight into a dash. This game of cat and mouse continued for a long while, somehow leading up to the upper level of Water 7.
"Aren't you getting tired at all?" Kaito complained loudly as he leapt from one roof to another.
"No, art thou finally growing weary of thy game?" Rei called back. She was a little winded, but her stamina was excellent from all her days living on Soshi Shima.
"Hardly." Kaito couldn't help but be excited. This was probably the longest game of this that he had ever played, but he unfortunately was growing weary from his lack of sleep and his hunger cramped his stomach painfully. If he wasn't always so damn hungry or tired, in this case, he would have been able to keep this game up longer than this.
"Then thou art finally depleted of thy stamina reserves." Rei nailed the problem on the head. "Unfortunately for thee, this one is still hardly winded and can keep chase for a long while yet."
"Damn it!" Kaito nearly wailed, forcing himself to keep ahead of the ever gaining Rei. She had stamina reserves that were putting him to shame. He hardly ever was winded compared to everyone else, but she made him look out of shape respectively. He pushed forward, deciding upon the final destination before he'd quit this game of chase. He had learned what he needed from it and could see that Rei really was quite able-bodied and capable of keeping up, regardless of what he threw at her- and he had climbed several buildings to make sure that her scaling the first wall had not been a fluke.
He pushed ahead, forcing himself to stay ahead of her now that he had a location in mind as the end goal of this game. He was slowly running out of steam, but he'd be damned before he let her catch him before he got to where it was that he had in mind. He forwent his previous methods of staying ahead, too tired to try to zig and zag and merely lead her to their final destination. There were a few times when she almost caught him and last moment he had to pull a trick out of no where, like hopping off the roof, onto some fence or stacked up crates, and into the alleyways for a bit, before getting to where he wanted, collapsing tiredly as a way to end the game. She hadn't caught him, per-say, he merely had given up.
"Art thou giving up?" She slowed to where he was now lying on the ground, nearly gulping the air around his as he fought to catch his breath. He knew better than to lay down after running around for so long, but he had wanted to prove a point.
"Not giving up," Kaito slowly sat up and looked at her. "This is simply the end of the trail. Our destination."
The look Rei gave him told him that she didn't actually believe him, but she didn't actually verbally call him out on it. Secretly, he was thankful she didn't. He honestly could not have lasted much longer with the way he was and she had a lot more stamina than one might think. He didn't really say much either, slowly standing and walking about the small platform he had led her to, he allowed the view to do the talking instead, because, in fact, it was no doubt the most beautiful view in all of Water 7.
Rei was indeed greatly admiring the view. She had not realized where their game had truly taken them until Kaito had strategically ended the game before she could catch him and greatly wound his pride as the alpha of the Mizu Mizu Tribe. Now that she wasn't focusing entirely on him, she was able to pay attention to everything around her and she realized they were at the very top of the city of Water 7, standing on the rim of the giant fountain. It was almost like flying, the view she was given from up here.
"Pretty, isn't it." Kaito broke the silence after a while, having walked around a bit to keep from cramping too badly. He sat at the rim of the fountain, his feet dangling over the side, as he stared out at the city below them. "Welcome to Water 7, Oh Mighty Huntress."
Rei laughed as she joined him in sitting, she couldn't stop smiling at the sight before her. "This one hath only dreamed about coming here in the past. She never once thought that she would actually make it on her own. Feels almost like a dream that she will wake from at any moment."
Kaito chuckled a bit before reaching over and pinching her. Hard.
"Hey!" She slugged him in the shoulder, causing him to wince and lightly curse under his breath as he rubbed his abused arm. "What doth thou think that thou art doing?"
"And again, ow." Kaito mildly whined. "Here I was, doing you a favor by proving to you it wasn't a dream and you have to hit me." He rubbed his arm a bit more before gripping a bit more. "Geez, if you're sticking around for a while, I think I'm going to have a permanent bruise there by the time you do go."
"Thou art being a baby." Rei sniffed. "This one hardly hit thee."
"Maah...If that's hardly hitting, I'd hate to see what you consider to be a decent hit." Kaito told her with a somewhat apprehensive look. He had a feeling that if he didn't watch his mouth a bit better with this girl, he would be on the receiving end of her fist- and she would not be withholding her strength.
Rei looked at him, but instead of giving him an answer, rolled her eyes, telling him through her motions that she thought he was being melodramatic about the whole thing. Besides, the ruby eyed girl had hit Akira three times harder than that and the baby draco never flinched at all. She used up a lot more energy trying to flip the overgrown reptilian than she did all the times she had hit Kaito thus far combined.
Silence continued for a while until Kaito's stomach began to growl loudly. Rei cast him a look of mild disbelief, she could not understand how he could be hungry again so soon. As she stared at him, he looked anywhere else other than her inquisitive gaze. There was a light blush on his face as he pretended that his stomach had not noisily announced his ever present hunger. Seriously, it was not his fault that he was so damn hungry all the time and that game of his had not helped the situation at all. He was running on little sleep and he never had enough to eat, even though he was the best pickpocket on the streets.
The blue eyed boy was extremely shocked when suddenly the girl beside him placed the bento Merryweather had given to her as her lunch on his lap. He quickly turned his head to give her a confused look before glancing down at the tantalizing temptation she had set before him.
"Take it." She instructed him, her eyes resting once more at the landscape before him.
He frowned. "Not that I'm ungrateful, but you should keep it for yourself. Food is practically sacred when you live out in the streets and full out meals like this aren't easy to come by."
"This one is quite aware of what she is doing." Rei turned her crimson stare to meet his cerulean one. "Her culture is not without its own unspoken standards about food and sharing. However, though this was a gift from another, this one has come to the conclusion it would be put to better use by giving it to thee." Her gaze returned back to the view before she informed him of one last fact. "Besides, this one still has rations from her journey here. She will be fine eating those instead."
Kaito's stomach growled loudly again and he looked down at the food with slight hesitation before shrugging. "If you insist." And with that, he was chowing down food again with no regards to his pervious apprehension.
"So, why didst thou truly bring this one to this place. It was surly not to stare out into the distance till the sun began its decent." Rei finally breeched the subject of why the fountain at the top of the city was their main objective- other than the fact that he had made it his end goal so he didn't lose their game of cat and mouse.
"So you could learn the layout of the city." Kaito told her, talking between bites of her bento. "Its easiest to explain from up here. Less walking... less traffic... less interruptions."
"Right," Rei said, non-believing. "This one is sure that was the reason."
Kaito gave her a warning glare, but didn't argue back, not wanting it to end up where he insulted her again and ended up back into the water, this time it the large fountain at the top of Water 7.
From there, he began to point out the seven different shipyards, which ones where currently owned by Galley-La and which ones where about to be obtained once all the paperwork went through. He pointed out the few pieces of land surrounding the city island and explained how once there was more land, but their island, after each Aqua Laguna, was slowly beginning to sink. He informed her of the two different tiers of the city and the social status that was assigned the citizens of each tier. Rei learned quickly that the more upper class and upper middle class citizens lived on the upper level while some lower end middle class and lower class citizens lived in the lower tier.
"Though, in my personal opinion, the lower levels have much better markets and the people look out for one another more than the upper class." Kaito made sure to tell her. "But of course, not everyone always fits into that stereotype, so you still have to be careful."
He pointed out a few more places, like the general area the thugs hung out, where the orphanage was located and the general perimeter to steer clear of as to not wind up committed into the orphanage.
"It might not look like it, but its damn hard to get out of that place, those people are always watching you, waiting for you to try to bolt or mess up so they can take their crops and beat the shit out of you." Kaito sniffed with distain as he glowered at that area. "Nearly ended up there myself, but I was too fast for them, luckily."
Rei decided that she wouldn't press her luck, despite her ability to sprout wings and fly. She didn't want people to know about her abilities unless she trusted them. Her powers were unique and she wasn't sure how others would react to such things as wings, a tail, horns, or her mastery of ice and fire qi.
As Kaito was wrapping up his introduction of Water 7, ending with pointing at the warehouse at the edge of Water 7 near the northwest direction, something caught Rei's attention. It was not a large sum of land in comparison to the whole of Water 7, but she recognized it as quite a significant amount of land nonetheless. What drew her attention to this portion of Water 7 was the fact that even from up here, in a blur of blue, white, and grey that decorated most of the land, this small plot of it was distinctly green. There was flora in that area, surrounding a blue roof house that Water 7 seemed to be known for.
Kaito noticed her staring and smirked. "Of course the Might Huntress would spot the only bit of green we have in Water 7. That is the home of one of our greatest businessmen. I heard that he use to travel the world before he settled here. Use to the trees and flora of other islands, he brought in a lot of his personal favorites so he felt more at home. He's one of the main reasons our city began to thrive after our severe economical depression. Once Tom-san got the Sea Train working, that man started working out trades, commissioning work, buying retail, putting men to work to rebuild the city. Next to Iceburg-san, he is the greatest man in this fare city."
"He sounds like a good man. Prithee, what tis the name of that man?" Rei stared at that patch of green in silent longing. It had been a long while since she had seen the jungles of Soshi Shima and she suddenly realized how much she missed its natural beauty.
"His name is Yokoyama Tetsuya." Kaito informed her. "Its unlikely that you'll ever meet him, but, trust me, you'll know him when you see him."
"Is he really that much different than other men?"
"Maybe~" Kaito drawled with an impish look in his ocean like eyes.
Rei scowled, knowing that the boy would most likely not answer her inquiry, though she cuffed him in the arm a little harder than she had been to inform him of her irritation.
"Yup..." Kaito muttered as he rubbed his tender arm. "I'm going to have a permanent bruise there till you either decide to stop or you leave. I think the latter is more probable than the former."
"And this one thinks that thou shalt always be overdramatic." She shot back with amusement flickering in her crimson eyes. Though Kaito was sorta of an ass, he was at least a fun smart ass, willing to banter and provide vital information she needed to survive her stay in Water 7.
Kaito pointed out a few more places, informing Rei on tidbits on the goings on in those areas until the sun was on its decent in the sky and he felt it time to finally take her to the Mizu Mizu Tribe's sanctuary. With a short playful glance at Rei, Kaito took off like a shot, the other teen chasing after him.
The children that made up the Mizu Mizu Tribe were of all ages from mere infants to fifteen years of age. From what Rei could ascertain, the older children were slowly looking for jobs by the age of fifteen and once they had either an apprenticeship or a decent job, a group of the older kids would pool in their money together to leave the warehouse that the Mizu Mizu Tribe called home and would rent a meager apartment and live on their own from then on without the constant support of the tribe of street children as they once had before.
The warehouse wasn't the most superb of buildings, however, it served them well and hardly and marines or local law enforcements ever seemed to come into this district. The warehouse had once been used to build ships in and so the lower section of it, especially with how Aqua Laguna had been treating the sinking island, was flooded with sea water. Rei was relieved when Kaito took her in through a ladder that lead up to the second floor from a neighboring rooftop. As they walked near the railing, Rei could see children on the lower level stripped of their clothing and wading about in the ocean water as a method of rinsing the day's sweat and grim from their bodies. She even suspected that this was where the older children taught the younger children how to swim under their careful watch without worrying about them drowning. No one even seemed bothered by the nudity of both young and older kids as they swam about. The little of humanity that had stuck with her throughout her time with the dragons caused her to blush a bit and advert her eyes, but she knew it was something she would have to get over if she were to stay here. There was probably little where else they could go to wash with the protection of the group.
"There's a flow of fresh water that comes out of a pipe underneath us and merges with the sea water after a while, so if you want to wash your clothes, you wash them close to the pipe so that the salt does not sully your clothes." Kaito informed her, before pointing to the third floor of the warehouse. "That's where everyone sleeps. And this floor is where everyone either eats or visits before we go to sleep."
Rei nodded, as she looked about at the meager furniture the orphan children had within their 'home'. Everything was either very old that it was falling apart or it was junk that they put together to compensate for the lack of real furnishings they could find out in the scrapyards of the city. The floors were very unique since it was all designed to hug the walls and leave a huge portion of the middle ground wide open for when the warehouse had been used to build ships, so there wasn't too much room despite how large the warehouse truly was.
Kaito watched her for a second, gauging her reactions before deciding she'd be fine and excused himself to check up on the rest of the kids and see if 'that little shit Ratigan was stupid enough to show his face yet'. Rei hadn't wanted to part with him yet, comfortably with his company, but nodded her head nonetheless and quietly went to explore the warehouse. Not a lot of the children were on this level yet, most of them on the floor above or below, but Rei could see that the ones that were on this floor were curious about her appearance.
She did her best to ignore their stares, happy now that Holly had thought of getting her the sunglasses she still wore as it was keeping her abnormal eye coloring from sticking out too much. It diluted the vibrancy, though it was still noticeable if one was close enough to her. The young drake moved about in silence as she continued to familiarize herself with the place she would be staying in at night. As she walked about, something drew her attention. Upon a beam that ran from the foundation of the building to the top, there was a photograph taped to the wall of a beautiful woman with endearing blue-green eyes and long curly blond hair twisted up in a simple, but elegant hairstyle. She bore a smile on her lips that was a cross between the beginnings of a laugh and pure bliss and her eyes seemed to be filled with life, joy, and, most importantly, love. Her dress and apron where simple, but on her, they were fitting and enhanced her beauty.
"That's Mama." A child voice sounded from a makeshift couch not to far away. He had taken notice of her staring at the photograph and had decided to inform her of who the woman was.
"Oh." Rei stared at him. He had dirty blond hair and steel blue eyes. To be honest, he looked nothing like the woman in the picture, but Rei was not about to mention that. Instead, focusing on her dialect, she continued. "What was your mama's name?"
The boy laughed, shaking his head. "No. Not my real mama. I don't remember her face. Mama is the picture that Kaito put there so that anyone who couldn't remember what their mama looked like could... sub... substi-" He struggled with the word. He was no older than seven and it was remarkable that he was even trying to use such a large word.
"Substitute?" Rei guessed, getting a huge smile from the boy.
"Yeah! That one. We could substitute our mama's face with hers, since we can't remember our real mama's face anyways."
"So... who is she really?" Rei wondered aloud as she turned to stare at the picture once more, noticing a few familiar features within the woman's face.
"Pro'ly Kaito's Mama." The boy told her. "It was his picture after all." He looked down at the book he had in his lap and frowned a bit as he tried to read the words.
Rei blinked in surprise as she looked away from the picture to where Kaito had disappeared. The coloring wasn't anything like Kaito's but... She looked at the picture once more. He had some of her features, possibly her smile if he actually smiled like that, but his were always full of impishness and a dark mirth, not bright and brilliant like hers. She was broken from her staring by the boy once more.
"Hey. Can you read?"
"Yes." Rei blinked at the question since it seemed to have come out of no where in her mind. She had not taken notice at how the boy was trying to pour all his attentions on reading the book on his lap. "Thi-er... I can read and write Romaji fluently."
"Oh! Good!" The boy beamed up at her before holding out the book in his grasps. "Can you read this to me? I found it in the trash and wanna know what it says."
Rei nodded quietly as she walked over to him to peer at the book. She frown as she stared at the scribbles that made up the handwritten book, no doubt scrawled by a child with no knowledge of writing or grammar. Knowing the child was hopeful for a wonderful treasure to call his own, Rei quickly had to think of a way to explain the situation to the child without crushing his hopes entirely.
"It seems that this is not real words..." She told the child honestly, but added in before the child's face could completely crumble into on of pure disappointment. "But if you are looking for a story to be read to you, I have a book and it has real words in it. I would be happy to read it to you."
"Really!" The child looked so happy that his loss was overshadowed by his excitement.
"Truly." Rei came to sit by him, slinging off her fur pelt with her swords and placing them on the side of the couch as well as pulling out her backpack and rummaging through it for her book.
Pulling it out, she curled up so that the contents of the book were out of view as she began with one of her favorite stories the book held within its pages. As she read, she didn't realize how much attention her reading was gaining, too absorbed with her retelling of each tale. At one point, she was interrupted by Kaito's voice, calling to her large audience that it was time to eat and the children pleading for the leader of their collection of ragamuffins to save their rations while the 'girl with pretty red eyes that read super good' finished the tale she was currently reading to them.
Realizing she was holding them from their dinner, Rei closed the book with a grin. "Guess we will have to finish this tomorrow night."
There were groans from her young audience as well as pleads for her to continue reading after they ate their meager dinner rations and Rei playfully pursed her lips and said in a familiar drawl, "maybe~". Though they all didn't necessarily like that answer, they had learned a long ago to take what they could get and all but the little boy with dirty blond hair and grey eyes took off.
"You too Radcliffe," Kaito prompted as he jerked his head off in the direction of where the food was.
"Kay." He nodded before turning to Rei. "Thanks for the story! It is probably a million-zillion times better than what my book would have said- if there had been real words."
With one last grin, he took off to get his own rations as Kaito approached Rei with a pleased smirk on his lips. "Looks like you've won their approval."
"Twas not hard." Rei shrugged as she slipped back into her normal way of speaking.
"And here you were doing so well..." Kaito sighed. "You read the book without the slightest hint of your weir-err-" Kaito caught himself when he caught a glimpse of Rei's darkening look. "Your interesting accent."
Rei decided to be merciful and not hit him, seeing as he was attempting to be polite as he spoke to her. "This one was merely reading aloud the words that the page had upon them. Tis not difficult to do since the words are preset- not sentences that must be formed at a second's notice."
"Okay, I think I get it. You have to think about it when your conversing while when you are reading, the words are already set in place." Kaito reiterated for his own benefit.
"Thou art correct in thy comprehension of this ones words."
"So..." Kaito cleared his throat as he tried to be casual about the next subject he wished to breech. "How does that particular story end?"
Rei's answer was not the one he wanted from her. "Thou will have to wait for tomorrow, like the rest."
He frowned. "I might be busy and be unable to hear it. Can't you just tell me or at least lend me the book? I promise to give it back in the same condition it came in."
"No." Rei told him. "It would do thee no good to read my book and this one will not spoil the ending in case she might spoil it for the others."
Kaito frowned, insulted by her words. "I can read, you know."
"This one guessed as much." Rei told him with a secret hidden in the twinkle of her eyes. "Thou doth not look like an illiterate fool, merely one unable to read this book."
"And what the hell makes you so special that only you can read that book?"
Rei thought about it for a few minutes before deciding that perhaps it would be best if she allowed him to view her old tattered gift from Drake. She lightly tossed it to him without a word and the older teen caught it easily in his grasp. He was frowning still, very confused by her words until he opened the book.
He stared at it in shock, turning a few pages and even to random parts of the book to see how far it spread. He looked back up after a while to stare at Rei in quiet admiration. It was obvious she had read this book countless times. The book's pages were wrinkled, tattered, sunbaked, and at one point or another had probably been completely saturated with water with how rigid the pages were. He recalled her saying that she had been on that island for six years at one point in their conversations and he could easily deduce that this was the only book that was in her possession during that time. One which she had read over and over and over again.
That was the only way she could even know what was once written on the pages she read. She had memorized every single page, down to the placing of the letters and punctuations (of which he had no doubt) because where there were once letters, were now barely noticeable markings of some of the ink that had managed to hold during the book's six long year abuse. Everything else had faded into nothing.
Kaito couldn't help be view the ruby eyed girl before him as a complete enigma. A mysterious young girl who appeared out of no where, dressed in clothing that looked to mature and tattered for a girl as youthful as she. Eyes red as crimson blood, athleticism far beyond what seemed believable for her stature, too educated for her alleged upbringing, too foreign to understand her social shortcomings, too untouched by human nature but all to familiar with its cruelty, too exotic to be able to blend in easily, and, perhaps, most of all, the only person he felt he could truly call his equal.
He was going to have to keep an eye on this one personally and show her the ropes of being independent and surviving on her own within civilization's territories. He knew she would never need help surviving at the opposite side of the spectrum, that much he had gleaned from their earlier game. No. She knew how to take care of herself within the wilds, but she had not the faintest idea of how to survive on the streets of civilization, but, damn it, if he had any say in it, she was going to learn.
He was going to teach her personally, and, while doing so, slowly try to chip away at the mystery that surrounded her till he figured out the truth about the girl he had let into his protection.
Little did either child know, that this was the first of many, many years to come of a relationship that transcended all means of normal bonds. For the thick red cord of fate that lead Rei to Water 7 found its other end in Kaito.
A/N: Finally, the update you've all been waiting for *cough cough* a few months... Yeah, we apologize for the long break between updates, but as mentioned in other notes as well as in my profile, real life takes precedence over everything else and Volleys-chan has been taking care of a few family things as of late, including taking care of her mother who had surgery a while ago before going and visiting with her sister to help her as well. All this has been making it difficult for her to finish this chapter of the story, especially since at her mother's place, its a little difficult to find the time, energy, and focus to write.
Now, about the chapter. As you can see, it is a continuation from last chapter and hopefully you get to understand Kaito's character a little better and what Rei is in for while living here at Water 7. Kaito's definitely going to be a important character in this story, not just during her stay in Water 7, though how important of a character, we're not telling! ;) Let us know what you think of him, since he will be in the story for quite a while and honest feedback is essential for us to write! Plus, it honestly doesn't hurt to get more reviews!
Also, while the two where running around on the rooftops of Water 7, did anyone else imagine it somewhat like how you'd chase after someone in Assassin's Creed? ;)
By the way, Volleys-chan is going to draw something special for our 100 review as well as throw in a Omake of the 100th reviewer's own choice of theme. Good luck guys.
See you in next chapter, which will hopefully be posted sooner than later.