Author's Notes: I'm really glad that folks enjoyed the previous chapter, by and large! I'm slowly starting to get back into the swing of writing semi-regularly, so I hope to get better at this as things progress.
Foxbox: I never said that Shampoo's father was dead in the previous chapter. I was basically stealing the backstory I gave Shampoo in my fic "Heated Storm Yields a Wild Horse's Heart".
KinggamerJ: Because we don't know enough about any Blue other than the East to really set a fic there, and frankly our cast of screwballs do need a fairly gentle sea for their training wheels period as they teach themselves how to actually sail. They're good fighters already, but the basics of being a pirate outside of cracking skulls? That they need to work on.
Foxofninetails: Thank you! That's fascinating!
Spiderfan: The crew will eventually start expanding, but not before they reach the Grand Line. As to whether or not Ranma will become considered a Supernova, well...
If folks would like to see another truth or dare chapter, well, it's not off the tables; suggest challenges, dares, questions, etc, and I might be able to work one into the future.
As for the topic of if our heroes will get Devil Fruits, and how those will interact with Jusenkyo curses... You'll see. I have the Devil Fruits planned, but if folks want to suggest possible Devil Fruits that our heroes might come across and consume, feel free; if I like your ideas enough, I might do omakes about them!
Chapter 5: Wax On, Wax Off
Ship's Log; Day 1 (3? Screw it, we just made the decision to become pirates today, I'll call it day 1)
I don't really know about this, but Umok said that all ship's captains, pirate or otherwise, keep a journal of what happens on their cruises in case they stumble across something that might be useful in the future, so I guess as the new captain, that makes it my job to keep one.
Well, whatever. At least it keeps me out from underfoot.
Oh, I suppose I should start by summing up who I am and what happened. I'm Ranma Saotome, 16, heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, and current reluctant pirate captain. Thanks to yet another bit of magical mayhem, this one weirder than usual even for Nerima, me an' five other people from Nerima - my rival Ryoga, my would-be fiancées Ukyo an' Shampoo, Kodachi and Nabiki - all got zapped to some other world. There's this weird little imp called Umok who says he can zap us all back, but first he needs us to power him up, 'cuz apparently he ran down his wizard batteries or somethin' zapping us here in the first place.
So now we're pirates. But not the evil kind of pirates. We're the kind of pirates who go around beating up other pirates and stealin' their treasure. Oh, and we also fight the Navy, because apparently they're a bunch of judgemental jerks who won't listen to the fact we didn't mean to do anything wrong, so now they're going to chase us as if we were real criminals. Well, they'll try, but we'll just beat them up too.
We don't know too much about this world just yet. All we know is that it's got some really weird geography. According to this book I got today, the world's literally made up of four seas called the Four Blues - North, South, East and West. We're in the East Blue. They're apparently divided from each other by something called the Red Line, which we think is some sort of mountain range that circles the world, and something else called the Grand Line, which is apparently a super-dangerous sea that's full of pirates hunting after this legendary treasure called the One Piece.
But that's not our concern. We just need to sail around, beat up bad guys, and eventually Umok will get us home. Simple, right?
...Well, I guess I should stop writing in this and go and grab some dinner. Ukyo's cooking with this giant cow-shark-thingy I fished up yesterday, says she wants to make the most out of it before it goes off.
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
Ship's Log, Day 3
We hit our first storm today. We all knew this was going to happen at some point, but this one really sunk it in for us. We got out alive, although it was a near-thing for Ryoga.
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
"Furl up those sails, or this wind will pull the ship over!" Kodachi screeched at the top of her lungs, doing her best to hold the ship steady as waves and winds buffeted their ship like a toy in a bathtub full of sugar-rushing children.
"I'm working as fast as I can!" Ranma cried back, scurrying along the wooden beam that was attached to the mainmast and from which the sails dangled - if it had a proper name, Ranma didn't know it and he certainly didn't care. All that concerned him was hauling the heavy canvass up to try and tie it into place, a task his freakish strength and agility was assisting him in doing despite the wind's best efforts to pluck him from his precarious perch and dash him to the deck. Even Umok was pitching in, a steady series of staccato beeps showing his censorship curse was still in effect as the little imp cursed a blue streak whilst defiantly floating along and attending to his half of the mainsail.
Down below, the other members of the crew attempted to help by tugging on the unfamiliar tangle of ropes that controlled the ship's two sails...
"Where's Nabiki?! Why isn't she helping?!" Ukyo spat, hauling on a rope with all her considerable strength.
"She feeding fish," Shampoo snapped back from her position at the hindsail
The sounds of retching managed to rise above the furor of the storm, the eldest of the girls currently bent double over the gunwale. In fact, she'd tied herself to it, which honestly was probably the smartest thing to do, given how violently the ship was tossing and how limp Nabiki had gone.
Painstakingly, they got the lines wrapped up tight against their spars... which was when the biggest wave yet hit the side of the ship, cascading over the deck in a sweeping wall of cold water. It wasn't high enough to reach Shampoo on the quarterdeck, nevermind Ranma up on the sails... but Ryoga was working on the main deck, and so when the water spilled through the gunwale on the other side, it carried a squealing, thrashing piglet with it as it returned to the frothing waves below.
"Man overboard!" Ukyo hollered instinctively, still clinging to the rope for dear life to keep her footing.
"Ryoga!" Ranma cried in distress.
Without a moment's hesitation, the reluctant captain sprang from his perch atop the sail, arcing through the air and knifing into the water in a picture-perfect dive. A redheaded girl surfaced, spitting saltwater and glancing desperately around. "Ryoga! C'mon, answer me! Ryoga!"
Frantic squeals answered Ranma's cry; Ryoga's normal stubborn pride having been forgotten in the face of both the wild seas in which he found himself and memories of just what he'd seen Ranma fish up from these same seas only days beforehand. Ranma struck out immediately, ploughing through the turbulent surf with a skill honed in his (currently her) long-ago trip to China, swiftly catching up to the desperately paddling pig.
"I gotcha, Ryoga! Grab on!" Ranma instructed, even as she swept the pig into her grip. It said something for how scared Ryoga was that he didn't even try to bite his rival, instead latching onto Ranma's neck and shoulders with the tightest grip a little pig could muster.
"Don't worry, Ryoga, I gotcha now, just hang on tight an' well get back to the ship," Ranma assured her porcine rival, even as she powered back towards the ship. Sure enough, Ukyo was already lowering a rope to the choppy waves to give Ranma a way to get back aboard.
Ship's Log, Day 6
Becalmed. Luckily we got books and stuff while we were on that shopping trip. I'll be damned if I ever let Nabiki trick me into a game of 'truth or dare' again!
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
"Wow, this world has some strange stories," Nabiki commented, slowly paging through the book 'Myths and Legends of the Four Blues'.
"How so?" Shampoo asked, glancing up from the card game she was having with Ukyo, and prompting her rival to do the same.
"Well, take a look at this one: Devil Fruits. Alongside the Grand Line, the Devil Fruit remains the most well-known yet little understood of the mythical landscape of the Four Blues. Legend has it that whoever eats one of these fruits will forever after gain a magical power, but at the cost of earning the sea's undying enmity. Stories abound, and it is claimed that there are three kinds of Devil Fruits; those which grant the power of an animal, known as Zoan; those which grant the power of an element, known as Logia; and those whose powers defy classification, known as Paramycia."
Nabiki trailed off, then blinked as she realized that she was being intently watched by all five of her fellow teens. "...Yes?"
"Well, what else does it say?" Ranma pushed.
"Nothing. That's all it says," Nabiki patiently explained.
A chorus of groans met her words, eyes rolling and heads shaking in exasperation.
"Figures, it was just getting interesting," Ranma muttered.
"I'm sorry, but this book is actually really dry. Whoever wrote this wasn't very good at doing their job," Nabiki explained.
"Ranma just likes the idea of a cheap power-up," Ryoga interjected, smirking at the chance to get one in on Ranma in the verbal arena.
"You're one to talk, bacon breath!" Ranma snapped at his old rival.
"You really think such a fruit could exist?" Ukyo interjected.
At that, Ranma shrugged. "Well, it wouldn't be that weird... I've run across edible magic before."
"Really? Like what?" The okonomiyaki chef asked, sincerely intrigued.
"Well, there was those dumb hypnotic mushrooms that Shampoo used..."
"That one plan that could have worked so well," Shampoo sighed, ignoring the stink-eye that both Ukyo and Kodachi were giving her.
"Then there was those love-predicting sakura-mochi that Akane got her hands on..."
"Yech! Don't remind me!" Ryoga groaned, clutching his stomach. Even by Akane's standards, those had been utterly vile!
"What about dragon's whisker of hair growth that Ranma eat back in China?" Shampoo asked innocently.
"Ugh, I'd rather not remember that," Ranma groaned, shaking his head. "Lemme see, there was that super strength-granting soba, I guess technically the magic water created by the Moss of Life in Ryugenzawa..."
"Don't forget the Mushrooms of Love," Nabiki observed. "You know, the ones that nearly had you and my sister head-over-heels for life?"
"I told you once, I told you a thousand times, Nabiki; stop making that up!" Ranma snapped back.
"It's true! Ryoga's a witness!" Nabiki cheerfully shot back.
"Hey, leave me out of it!" Ryoga quickly interjected.
Ship's Log, Day 7
Still becalmed. Started training under Kodachi in learning how to actually sail a ship. I'd talk about the blind leading the blind, but she's actually a lot smarter than she acts. I think we're starting to get the hang of things.
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
"I said port to starboard!" Kodachi snapped.
"Why can't you just say left to right? Why do you have to make up directions?!" Ukyo snarled, hastily twisting the wheel in the proper direction, the ship groaning as it tried to sharply turn.
"Because left to right changes relative to your facing! Port and starboard create fixed positions that you can always identify regardless of personal direction; it's similar to why we use east and west on a compass," Kodachi explained slowly.
Ukyo blinked in surprise, realization visibly spreading across her face. "...Oh. Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Sorry, Kodachi."
"Apology... Accepted. Now then, let's try a gentle portside turn, shall we?"
Ship's Log, Day 8
Finally ran into another pirate crew. Must say, I kind of expected there to be more of them out there. Especially since we found out that people really take being a pirate seriously in this world...
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
"You can't do this!" the fallen pirate captain protested through swollen, bleeding lips.
"Course we can! We won, you lost; ergo, we get to steal your treasure," Ranma replied, even as Ryoga trotted past with a great mass of chests stacked precariously in his arms.
"That'd be all fair and fine if you were fellow pirates, but you're just civilians! You have no right to steal our hard-won treasure!" Ranma's former foe complained.
"We are pirates!" an indignant Kodachi interjected from where she was securing the last knot on the bound cremates.
"Hah! Then where's your Jolly Roger? What's your Crew Name? You can't call yourselves proper pirates without those things!" the captain mockingly laughed.
"...We can't?" a confused Ranma warily responded.
"Of course not! Without a proper Jolly Roger, nobody knows who you are, and nobody will remember you - you can't build a reputation without one! And a Crew Name is just as important; it tells your opponents who you are, it speaks of your dream... basically, you can't be considered a proper pirate without one!"
"...Huh. That explains those Nori Pirates Kodachi and I beat up when we got here," Ranma mused to himself.
"And those Lolly Pirates I took down a week ago," Ryoga interjected, having halted in his advance to listen to what was going on.
"So tell me, good sir, who are you? What is your Crew Name?" Kodachi asked.
"Myself? Why, I am Captain John Lovelace! I sail under the proud Jolly Roger of the heart-and-arrows, as leader of the dashing, gallant Lovely Pirates! Together, we sail the seas aboard the good ship Sea Cupid to pursue our dream of a true nautical romance!" Despite his injuries, the captain had sprung to his feet, gesturing dramatically at his flag, which audibly snapped into a flamboyantly waving expanse of cloth, despite the fact there had previously been nary a breeze
"Here-here!" cried the crew with great enthusiasm.
The captain returned his attention to Ranma, giving the younger boy an icy look. "So tell me, boy; who are you to defeat my crew?"
"I-ah-well, we're definitely pirates! We just... haven't decided on a Jolly Roger or any of that other stuff yet," Ranma declared. 'Wait, why the heck am I on the defensive here?'
"Defeated by such amateur ruffians..." Captain Lovelace sighed. "At least your lack of a name means we can leave this distasteful encounter out of our story..."
"Hey, we beat you fair and square!" Ranma protested.
"Without the proper pirate trappings, you don't count as true pirates," Captain Lovelace patiently declared.
Ranma grit his teeth, pride seething in the face of such a telling blow. "...Doesn't change the fact we still stole all your treasure."
"Bah! Mere baubles and trinkets! Easily replaced!"
"You tell 'em, captain!"
Ranma snarled, then spun on his heel and marched back to the Milka, gesturing to the others to continue looting. For once, they wisely kept their mouths shut and just focused on doing the job.
Ship's Log, Day 10
Two days and not a thing happened. We haven't been becalmed, we've just been drifting aimlessly around, waiting on the next fight... you never read about this part in any pirate manga! I thought being a pirate captain was supposed to be all fights and action and stuff, not so much waiting and drifting with the tides!
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
Ship's Log, Day 11
Well, there's no arguing that we aren't real pirates now, flag or no flag. Today was the day we had our first fight with the marines since we beat up those jerks from Becop Isle. In our defense, they started it! But it really cemented things... we're pirates now, in the eyes of the law. Alright, if they want to play it this way, then we'll play their little game, and beat them wherever they show themselves!
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
"Well, Captain? What are your orders?" Umok asked, a frosty undertone to his seemingly polite query.
Ranma bit his lip, mind racing. '...What do I say? I know what that jerk from Becop Isle said, but still, we're not really criminals! Should we attack these guys? Nabiki said that guy back on Becop was corrupt, maybe there are navy people who are reasonable... we haven't really done anything wrong yet, after all... but on the other hand, Umok said the more we fight, the sooner we can get home... what do I do?'
Whilst Ranma wrestled with the moral implications of his decision, on the Navy vessel "Smite the Infidel", the Marine Commander was having a very different response to the sight of Ranma's vessel...
"Ensign, have the gunners target that vessel and open fire!" barked Commander Yurei.
"Sir?" the hapless ensign dared to ask.
"That vessel flies no flag, displays no identification! It's obviously a pirate's ship, and the captain must be a particularly lowly sort to try such a ruse," the Commander explained.
"Aye-aye, sir!" The ensign snapped a sharp salute, before scrambling to complete his assigned task.
Ranma was about to open his mouth and announce his decision when a high-pitched whistling noise cut him off. He exchanged confused looks with his crew, only to find the answer when a splash in the water just off of their prow was followed by a muffled explosion that rocked their whole ship.
"We're under attack!" Ryoga blurted out incredulously.
"We hadn't even done anything yet!" Ukyo complained.
"Some people have no respect!" Kodachi griped, even as she did her best to take evasive maneuvers.
"Oh, that's it! Ucchan, Shampoo; run below decks and bring us back as many cannonballs as you can find!"
"On it, Ranchan!"
"You can count on Shampoo!"
As the two female martial artists raced below deck, Nabiki shot Ranma a confused look. "When did you learn how to use the ship's cannon?!"
"I haven't," Ranma flippantly. Ignoring Nabiki's squawk of protest, he turned to his reluctant first mate. "Yo, Ryoga; you remember gym class? That day with the shotputs?"
Ryoga stared back at Ranma with incomprehension. He opened his mouth, clearly about to lambaste Ranma's sanity (or lack thereof), only to visibly catch himself. Puzzlement gave way to reflection, and in turn to a sudden dark grin of understanding.
Back on the Marine ship, Commander Yurei chuckled grimly to himself. "Keep firing, men! They can't dodge forever! ...Wait, what's that sound?"
A series of high-pitched whistles resolved themselves when a cannonball suddenly descended onto Smite the Infidel's deck like a manmade meteorite, punching through the sails and smashing a hole clear through the deck. And it was only the first; cannonballs fell from the sky like rain, sending marines into a blind panic as they raced back and forth, desperate to avoid being hit by the iron spheres as they tore through sails, rigging, spars and deck without mercy.
"How are those pirate scum doing this?! They can't possibly have that many cannons aboard that little ship!" the Commander bellowed, before snatching up his trusty spyglass and fixing it on the deck of the pirate ship.
What he saw made his heart sink: two black-haired youth, a pile of cannonballs at their feet, talking to each other. As he watched, one reached down and picked up a cannonball, idly juggling it in one hand as if it were nothing more than a baseball.
"Oh, no... they're pulling a Garp..." Commander Yurei moaned.
He promptly flung himself to the deck as a cannonball came whistling through the air in a straight-line trajectory that passed disturbingly close to where his head had been, allowing it to bury itself into the mainmast.
Ship's Log, Day 13
How the heck did we get becalmed again?! This world's like, one giant ocean, isn't it? How the heck can there possibly be times when there's no wind blowing out here?!
Learned a new lesson... we can't rely on just having books on-board to counter boredom. We may actually have to do stuff as a group more just to keep from going stir-crazy. Ucchan and Shampoo even asked to spar with me!
...I still don't intend to ever play truth-or-dare again.
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
Ranma sighed as he stared out over the flat, glassy expanse of blue that surrounded the Milka. Nothing more than the faintest gusts had stirred the sails all day, leaving them drifting in the open sea. Worse, the ship's supply of books had swiftly become exhausted over the time since they were first purchased, as the crew had gotten into the habit of reading them just to pass the time in between chores. The result was that they found themselves with nothing to really do now.
He raised an eyebrow as the women of the crew cautiously approached him. "Yeah? What's up, girls?"
Ucchan shuffled her way to the front of the crowd, fidgeting as she did. "Ranchan? I... we were talking, and..."
"We wanted to try and clear the air a little, Ranma darling?" Kodachi interjected, eliciting a scowl from her crossdressing counterpart.
Ranma blinked in confusion; that was not what he was expecting, to say the least...
"Uh... about what?"
"About your mother... we're sorry that we brought her up," Ukyo explained, hanging her head contritely.
Ranma sighed softly. 'Great, now I gotta deal with this...' "Look, don't worry about it..."
"Don't worry about it?! But you said -"
"Mom is... she's a complicated issue. Maybe one of the most complicated things in my life," Ranma added with a shrug.
Kodachi let out a short, humorless laugh. "You have a talent for understatement, Ranma darling..."
"Don't get me wrong, I love my mom! I'm glad to know she's actually okay, and I want her to be part of my life again! It's just, well... the whole seppuku pledge thing is a bit of an issue, y'know? I mean, it's not like she really wants to find me in breach of the stupid thing..."
"Airen, we get it. Is complicated," Shampoo gently but firmly interjected.
"We just wanted to say we're sorry for bringing her up; we didn't realize it'd be such a sore spot," Ukyo added.
Ranma waved his hand. "Like I said, don't worry about it. You didn't mean any harm and... well, maybe I overreacted a little. It's alright."
He was almost swept off his feet by the sigh of relief coming from three of the four girls present, Nabiki being content to just watch them like her own personal soap opera. Ironically, it actually made Ranma feel a little tenser, and he tried to push away the unfamiliar feelings their reaction elicited.
"So, was that all...?"
"There was one other matter," Kodachi began.
"Wait! Before we talk that, Shampoo want clear air too!"
"Okay... and what are you apologizing for, Shampoo?" Ranma asked, a little more flippantly than he'd intended.
"Shampoo not apologizing to Ranma this time. Shampoo want explanation from Ukyo! Why you think stupid idea like Shampoo want make Ranma into house-husband, huh?"
Ukyo actually blushed at the sudden interrogation from her Chinese rival. "In my defense, it's an easy idea to get watching you ordering Mousse around..."
From the way Shampoo's eye twitched and her jaw clenched, that evidently wasn't an answer that she liked. Still, she deliberately turned away from Ukyo and back towards Ranma. "Okay, now that settled... we want spar with you, airen."
"What? Now?" Ranma unthinkingly blurted out.
"More... in general. After all, it does serve both a practical purpose and a way for us to pass the time," Kodachi explained.
"Huh... okay, I guess, sure, why not? I used to spar with Akane, after all," Ranma admitted, shrugging his shoulders.
Nabiki bit back a laugh at Ranma's words. She'd spied on Ranma's sparring sessions with Akane a couple of times, back when Ranma had just moved into the dojo and she was worried he might hurt her little sister... oh, how naive she'd been then. 'I have a sneaking suspicion you girls are going to regret this... and not for the usual reasons...'
"Hey, do you want to spar too, Nabiki? I didn't know you practiced..." Ranma admitted.
"Glrk! No! No thank you! I just came along for moral support!" Nabiki quickly replied, holding her hands up in a warding gesture before fleeing as swiftly as she could.
"Strange girl," Kodachi declared, a sentiment Ranma, Shampoo and Ukyo echoed with their mutual nods.
Ship's Log, Day 14
We are idiots. I can't believe it took us two weeks at sea before the idea of creating oars to deal with those periods when the wind isn't blowing came up.
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
"Are you sure this'll work?" Ranma asked skeptically, looking over his makeshift "oar" - really a bunch of planks nailed together into a square at the end of a long, sturdy wooden pole.
"The theory is sound. A paddle's a paddle, however basic, and people have relied on muscles to compensate for wind throughout time and space. If a dozen men working normal oars can propel a ship like this, then surely four superstrong teens with oars, even makeshift ones, can propel a ship like this," Umok explained.
Ranma glanced over at Ryoga, then back towards the stern, where Shampoo and Ukyo were positioned. Seeing the confidence in their eyes (well, in the girls' eyes, anyway; Ryoga was more apathetic), he turned back to the imp and nodded. "Alright, let's give this a go!"
He lowered the paddle-part of his homemade oar into the water and waited for Umok's signal, which didn't take long to come.
"And... stroke! Stroke! Stroke!"
Ranma swung the oar through the water with all his strength; fortunately, it wasn't his first time rowing, albeit he hadn't done so from this position in a while. At their respective positions, the other teens worked with similar enthusiasm, whilst Kodachi watched on from her position at the wheel.
With a long, creaking groan of timbers, the Milka shuddered and then began to move - slowly, at first, but then with increasing speed as her crew rowed.
"It's working! It's actually working!" Ryoga laughed
"Next stop, civilization!" Ucchan cheered.
Ship's Log, Day 15
Our second ever official raid on a Navy ship. Also, Shampoo ended up going cat on a boat for the first time, which meant I made an idiot of myself in front of the others. Stupid old man and his stupid Nekoken...
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
In hindsight, it was a stupid mistake. But, as Shampoo protested, it was a sincere accident. She wasn't going to hurt the dumb kid who'd been mopping the deck! She was trying to get past him to attack one of the ship's ensigns. How could she predict the stupid kid would panic and fling the mop bucket at her, resulting in her being covered in cold, dirty water when she instinctively smashed it? Who would have known her intended target would quickly realize her vulnerability, and then attempt to capitalize on it?
But those defenses would come later. Right now, Shampoo was a scared little kitten running for her life from a cackling, sword-waving maniac, who was making a bad situation even worse by the way he kept audibly slobbering in anticipation, tongue lolling freely from a gaping, open-mouthed smile.
"C'mere, kitty! Kitten dumpling roly-poly pudding, yahahaha!"
"What kind of sick freak are you?!" Shampoo screamed in catonese, running even harder as the marine's boots thundered along the deck behind her. "Ranma! Please, Ranma, help me!"
And then, as if delivered in answer to Shampoo's prayers, Ranma loomed out of the confusion, grinning hugely as he fought with what was evidently the ship's captain - or commander or whatever fancy title the navy liked to dress it up behind. Despite the fact his opponent towered over him, Ranma was clearly winning, especially when his foe swung his cutlass at Ranma, only for the Saotome school's heir to simultaneously dodge the blow and shatter the blade to pieces with a well aimed finger jab - a trick he'd used against Mousse in the past.
"Ranma! Save me!" Shampoo yowled, unthinkingly springing at her beloved and clawing her way up his shirt - and just in time, too! She narrowly avoided being split in half by a downwards chop from her pursuer, the cutlass biting deep into the decking.
"Yaaagh!"
Unfortunately, in her panic, Shampoo had forgotten the tiny little detail of Ranma's reaction to being grappled by cats... or even girls turned into cats...
On the bright side, Ranma did end up knocking out most of the remaining marines by himself. On the downside, he nearly scuttled the marine ship, ploughing through walls and snapping rigging until finally he ran off the deck entirely and wound up floating in a fear-induced coma in the sea, forcing Ukyo to fish him out.
Ship's Log, Day 16
Pulled into an island to restock today, treated myself to something to eat whilst the others were shopping. Met this weird kid while I was there; nice guy, but seemed a little dim. Decided to be nice and buy him a meal. Probably won't ever see him again.
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
"C'mon, old man! I want ribs! Just one plate!"
"Piss off, ya little brat! I already tol' ya; no grub unless ya can pay!"
"But I'm hungry!"
Ranma glanced over from his seat at the source of the commotion; the grizzled restaurant owner, a gray-haired old man with a beard that a bear could use for a blanket, staring daggers into the wide-eyed youth before him. A short, scrawny-looking character, clad in a sleeveless button-up red shirt and blue shorts, wooden sandals clicking against the floor, the youth was giving the old man a pleading look that made Ranma remember some of the darker days of his own youth. Before he could even think about it, Ranma whistled sharply.
"Hey, pops? Give the kid a plate of the rib-racks, will ya? I'll pay for 'em."
The bearded man glanced over at Ranma, scowled, but then nodded. "Alright, wait here, brat..."
Ranma turned his attention back to his own plate, peeling off some of the last of the saucy, surprisingly tender flesh. 'I don't know why this island is selling American-style barbeque ribs, but I really don't care! This stuff's great!'
The sound of a plate being thunked down on his table made Ranma glance up, and he blinked as he took in the youth sitting across from him. "Yeah?"
"I just wanted to say thanks! You're a really nice guy, mister!" The kid replied, eyes squeezed shut, letting Ranma take in the small, crescent-moon scar under his left eye, and grinning hugely, an old straw hat resting firmly on his head.
"Eh, it was nothing. I've been hungry myself. Go on, eat up whilst it's still good an' hot," Ranma instructed the stranger.
"Don't need to tell me twice!"
Ranma watched in a mixture of amusement, shock and horror as the stranger gluttonously devoured his barbeque ribs, stripping bones bare in a series of wet smacks and chomping slurps so quick that if he'd blinked, he would have missed them. In barely two seconds, all that was left was a pile of picked-clean bones, with the boy absently sucking on one like a lollipop. The stranger worked it around in his mouth, then pulled it free with a soft, wet 'pop'. "Hey, so, I got a question..."
"No, I will not wager my future daughter's hand in marriage on a Martial Arts Dining match," Ranma firmly replied.
His tablemate gave him a blank-eyed stare, then grinned that same huge grin from before. "Shishishi! You're funny!"
Ranma glanced up at the clock hanging above the central bar, and shook his head. "No, unfortunately, I'm late. I've gotta get back to my crew."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the beries to pay for his and the stranger's meal... then he took another look at the kid, and added some more to the pile. "Ah, heck; give him another plate, pops!"
"Wow, thanks! Your crew is lucky to have such a generous captain! ...Hey, my name's Luffy - what's yours?" the kid called out as Ranma started heading to the door.
Ranma stopped and turned back to Luffy. "My name's Ranma. Ranma Saotome"
"Nice ta meetcha, Ranma! Maybe we'll see each other again, after I assemble my own crew!" Luffy cheerfully asserted, waving to Ranma as the latter returned the gesture and then left. Then the waiter arrived with his plate of ribs, and Luffy forgot all about it.
Ship's Log, Day 18
Got caught in a storm today... well, 'storm'; more a really heavy rain than the wild weather from when we started out. It meant both Ryoga and Shampoo were useless to us this time.
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
A soaking wet redhead stared grimly out over the rain-shrouded seas, and idly spat into the bubbling depths. "I hate rain..."
"Look on the bright side, Ranma darling," Kodachi called to her from her position at the wheel.
"What bright side?"
"Well, the weather could be rough enough that it would take more than yourself, myself and Miss Kuonji to handle the ship! We'd be in considerable trouble then, since Ryoga and Shampoo are both confined below decks," the Kuno heiress pointed out.
"Lucky jerks," Ranma grumbled, grabbing hold of some rigging and pulling.
Ship's Log, Day 19
Our first ever attempt at doing the pirate thing; we attacked a Navy base on some little nowhere island today. We didn't really need anything, but... well, we were bored and we needed to blow off some steam. Especially Shampoo; I think she was feeling a little useless after having to hide inside all day yesterday.
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
The sounds of mayhem echoed in Ranma's ears; warcries, groans of defeat, splintering wood and shattering stone, walls being smashed down. It was chaos distilled into pure noise, and something about it just made a part of him, deep down, the wild and crazy part of him, swell with joy. And glancing at the rest of his crew's fighters, they evidently felt the same way.
There was Kodachi, laughing like a loon as she swung her trusty ribbon, the silk writhing like a serpent and slamming into multiple foes with the force of an iron bar.
There was Ryoga, grinning like an oni as he shattered four men's cutlasses with one contemptuous swing of his umbrella.
There was Shampoo, punching one marine so hard that he flew straight through the wall into a nearby barracks, even as she leapt over a jabbing spear and descended upon her would-be assailant like a hawk.
There was Ukyo, spinning her battle spatula in shining arcs like a battleaxe, carving and cleaving her way through marines as if they were so much firewood.
Ranma couldn't hold back a wild cackle of amusement as he drank in the frenzy, lost to the baser parts of himself that thrilled in the fight and the triumph of strength.
"What's so funny, ya damn pirate?! Got any last words before I clap you and your worthless crew in irons?" Roared the base commander, striking at Ranma with his weapon of choice - a quarterstaff so massive it could have been a support, with lit braziers dangling from it like an ornately impractical flail.
"Just three! Hiryu Shoten Ha!"
The villagers of Nagisa Island had been watching the looming fortress of their local Navy outpost ever since a ship had come careening out of the open sea and slammed into the Navy's personal docks like a thunderbolt. Even from here, they could hear the carnage. But as a tornado suddenly sprang to life inside the fortress, tearing it apart and hurling its walls skywards, they dove as one for cover, and prayed that whatever terrible monsters could be doing such a thing inside wouldn't turn their attention to them next.
Ship's Log, Day 21
So, it turns out that part of being a pirate crew means we sometimes need to clean the boat. And I don't just mean mopping or washing up. I mean we have to drag this damn thing out of the water and scrape off all the worms and barnacles and other nasties that have taken up residence on the hull.
...I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we actually did a good thing by stealing this ship, because whoever owned it last clearly was not big on maintenance day.
Signed, "Captain" Ranma Saotome.
"...Y'know, pops 'n' me actually did a bit of hull scraping for cash when I was younger and we drifted towards the beach," Ranma admitted. "But this just takes the cake..."
"...Do those barnacles have teeth?!" Ukyo demanded feebly.
"Shampoo think that actually some sort of clam..."
"...What is that thing, and why does it have tentacles? I don't like tentacles," Kodachi whimpered.
"Oh, come on; are you martial artists or not?" Nabiki mockingly chided them. "I thought fighting monsters was supposed to be your bread and butter?"
"That may as well be the case, but I am also far too aware of the Dream of the Fisherman's Wife to be blase about getting anywhere near anything that looks like that!" Kodachi snapped.
There was a wet squelching noise, and the girls collectively shivered.
"Oh, great, I think you just gave it ideas!" Ukoy whimpered.
The abomination, a cross between a centipede and an octopus that had to be as thick around at the waist as Ranma's arm and easily as long as any of them were tall, began to unfurl itself from the tangles of barnacles and shells adorning the Milka's hull and stretching out towards them, chelicae wriggling and uppermost tentacles probing out towards them all, black beady eyes glinting in the light...
Whereupon Ryoga stepped in and, with a swift swipe of his now sword-like belt, decapitated the monster from the deep with all the effort of a gardener plucking an errant blossom. Greasy black-blue blood spurted from the stump where its head had once been, the mass of chitin and suckers falling limp and slowly peeling itself from the hull to lie as a twitching, bleeding mess in the sand.
"So, now that the big creepy-crawly is dead, do you ladies think we can get to work?" Ryoga dryly asked them all. He blithely ignored the collective stink-eye from the others before walking over to the hull and starting to pry barnacles off of the wood with his inhumanly strong and tough fingers.
Still, the others walked over and joined him, applying chisels, knives, and any other bladed tool they had to hand to the laborious task of scraping and prying the various parasites free of their ship.
"What a mess... this is going to take us all day," Ukyo grumbled, despite the fact that her battle spatula was actually proving to be a surprisingly effective barnacle scraper.
"Well, yeah, but you gotta look on the bright side," Ranma declared, then cursed softly as the wavering in his attention caused him to cut his fingertips on a jagged shell.
"What bright side?" Shampoo asked, halting her attempt to pulverize a batch of mussle-like shellfish with her chui.
"Well, most of this stuff is probably edible. We'll make a nice big seafood lunch!" Ranma replied cheerfully.
His cheeky grin never wavered, even as he ducked flying seaweed.
Chapter End & Closing Notes
And there we are; our first big timeskipping chapter. I tried to strike a balance between showing our heroes are progressing through their " training" and actually making it interesting. The point of this East Blue Arc, if you'll forgive the terms, is to essentially give our heroes a chance to learn the sailing skills they'll need once they reach the Grand Line as well as to start developing closer bonds than they would have had in canon. It's going to take a while, but we don't really want them to be in "blindly backstab each other" mode when they reach the area where they're actually going to start getting challenged, now do we?
In our next few chapters, well, more time will pass, but things will start getting serious. The East Blue Arc of this fic is almost played out...