Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse

by rewind gone nuts

Becoming a pirate captain in a fantastical world was never in Ranma's life plans. But when magic strands him in the Grand Blue, he has no choice. With an impish wizard as a guide, Ryoga as his navigator, and a crew made of unwanted fiancees (plus Nabiki), Ranma sets out to find the One Piece and return to Nerima!

30. Chapter 27

Authors Notes: Okay, first of all, wow, let me say I was surprised by the sheer outpouring of support I got for Penelope and Lilith (if slightly more for the former) in the reviews of the last chapter! Honestly, I may have been misremembering just how many people were actually complaining about the lack of canon side-characters in this fic. I'll leave the poll open until I reach the official endpoint, but I must say, based on this initial outpouring, I'm not expecting to say bye-bye to either of our two lovely ladies!

I'm also happy that folks largely enjoyed the last chapter; I've been hyping up Nabiki's eventual Devil Fruit for ages now, and I was determined to make it a good debut. Plus, I was really hoping to get some scares going with the last chapter, so I hope it was suitably shiversome.

Tellemicus... What can I say? I'm sorry, but Nabiki getting the Vampire Zoan was the original plan, way back when work on this story first started! The idea of Dragon Nabiki was a very late addition, largely inspired by my first exposure to MHA's Ryukyu, and I just couldn't justify the change without a clear preference for it. Didn't help that it was much harder to figure out what powers such a Devil Fruit would offer... I do hope you'll keep reading; it wouldn't be the same without you in the audience.

---

Chapter 27: Climbing the Cloud Way

---

Ranma watched the Stomach Baron's burning form dwindling in the darkness behind them, the flames reflecting in his eyes as he stared solemnly over the Stormbringer's stern.

'Okay, Shiki; you won this round, but we'll be back. You made this personal, you bastard, and if that's what you want, then that's what you'll get!'

Pushing those dark thoughts down into the depths of his mind where he could let them slowly simmer, he turned to face his tired, battered, bloody crewmates. Ranma inhaled softly, trying to get the words just right...

"You guys know I ain't one for speeches, but I just wanted to say... I'm proud of ya. This was a fight we weren't asking for, an enemy unlike anything we've ever seen, in the worst conditions we could'a imagined... and you kicked ass, every one of ya."

A funny warm feeling slowly seeped into his heart at the way that his ragtag band of miscreants visibly straightened and puffed out their chests, smiles blossoming on their assorted faces. Even Ryoga seemed pleased, despite his usual gruffness, and he'd swear that Dyna herself smiled softly before quickly falling back into her usual mechanical placidity.

"Shiki expects us to be dead, but I want us to be well out of range by the time he finally notices our going-away bonfire. Dyna, I hate to ask, but -"

"I will man the helm and sail the ship. It is only logical; I do not require sleep and sustenance as you do," the gynoid interjected.

Ranma nodded his appreciation to her before turning to the others. "As for the rest of you-"

Suddenly, Lilith interjected, "Aren't we going to celebrate, Captain Saotome? After all, that was a pretty impressive victory, and you have a new Devil Fruit user on your crew - isn't that worth a party?"

She sounded legitimately disappointed that Ranma might be thinking of not having some kind of celebration. Ranma looked at her, finally taking in the hybrid form that he'd largely ignored in the chaos and confusion of their desperate struggle in the killer plant's core. She was still recognizable as her old self, but the changes were quite undeniable; scaly skin, legs and lower torso melding to form a serpentine tail on which she now slithered, huge venomous fangs in her mouth, and a distinctive cobra-like hood framing her face and elongated neck... rather oddly, given her distinctive long hair was still visibly trailing down her body. The biggest change, pun unintended, was just how large she was now - if she wasn't looking Miriam in the eye, that was because about two thirds of her six meter length was in the tail she used to support herself; from ground level to the top of her head was still well over two meters, easily, and she probably could have reared back higher still.

"First things first; all of us need a bath and then we need to get these wounds cleaned up - who knows what those things were carrying!" Ranma told her firmly, refusing to admit that he hadn't even thought about a victory party before that moment.

"Oh good, Shampoo no have to hold down and scrub you, then," the Kamikazes Pirates' designated medic announced cheerfully.

"Sounds good to me - this stuff is drying fast and it feels disgusting," Nabiki grumbled, flicking one of her wings and scowling at the spray of multi-colored gore this produced.

"You're complaining? Look at me!" Miriam added, visibly stopping herself from scratching at one of the countless bites littering her towering frame.

"And then we party?" Lilith asked hopefully, tilting her head in a way that was honestly surprisingly cute even given that she was a six-meter-long snake monster.

"Tomorrow. Give us a chance to recover before we go partying," Ranma firmly insisted. "Now, we just gotta figure out who's bathing first..."

"Obviously, we guys go first," Ryoga stated bluntly.

"Says who?!" Ukyo demanded, the other women of the crew collectively turning their baleful eyes on the Kamikaze first mate.

"There's three of us and seven of you! We'll be done far faster!" Ryoga protested.

"Not to mention that two of you take up... a little more room than we do," Harumi sheepishly added, blushing and unable to look Miriam in the eye.

"He's got a point," the wotan casually accepted, looking Lilith squarely in the eye.

The reptilian zoan looked at her in confusion, before comprehension visibly dawned and she snapped back to her original human form... admittedly now sporting a visible pot-belly. She sashayed over towards Ranma, only to stop, blink, and then cover her mouth with a hand.

"BWORP! Scusie, must have been someone I ate. But Captain Saotome, surely you won't let innocent girls freeze in the cold wind whilst you're in a nice hot bath? I'm sure we can come to a compromise...?"

She smiled seductively, and reached out to gently trace her fingers down Ranma's chest... only to run her hand through empty air as Ranma skipped away from her so sharply he was a blur, visibly paling under his patina of blood, mud and sweat, eyes going wide.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa! I ain't that kinda guy! I'd never force a girl ta do something like that!" he all but shrieked, hands held up defensively and fingers splayed wide as a metaphorical barrier between them.

"But... I didn't say I didn't want to...?" Lilith slowly pointed out, looking visibly confused by Ranma's reaction. She would have stepped after him, but halted... a pair of swords suddenly crossing before her, razor-sharp blades hovering a hair's breadth from her throat, tended to have that effect on a girl.

"Lesson one for enjoying a long, happy, healthy stay aboard our fine vessel," Kodachi commented breezily, smiling warmly even as a madness burned in her eyes.

"No flirt with our Ranma," Shampoo growled.

"Duly noted. But you can't blame a girl for trying," Lilith proclaimed, turning that same seductive grin on the two younger girls as she did.

"Yes we can," they flatly chorused.

Ranma hastily backpedaled away from the three whilst they were distracted, which inadvertently brought him closer to Nabiki - a fact he became aware of when she reached out and gently brushed her thumb-claw up his back. The martial artist turned pirate captain squeaked in dismay, visibly jumping and twisting around to face her.

The newly minted Mythic Zoan smirked at Ranma's expression. "Still scared of girls, huh? Mister big strong martial artist..."

"I-I ain't scared of girls! I'm not Ryoga!" Ranma protested indignantly.

"Leave me outta this!" Ryoga angrily snapped from where he and Harumi were edging towards the door into the Stormbringer.

"Oh, yes, every manly man's man cringes when a lady starts flirting with him," Nabiki cooed back, the needle-like tips of her canines glittering in the corner of her smile.

Ranma drew himself up, clearly ready to respond to that obvious blow to his pride, but then stopped as he looked hard at Nabiki. He reached up and rubbed his chin as he leaned forward, the visible focus on his face making Nabiki blink and shuffle backwards nervously.

"Uh... what are you doing?" She asked him.

"You look... different, Nabiki," Ranma absently informed her, head tilting from side to side as he did so.

"...Gee, no kidding," she dryly replied, making a show of flaring first one wing and then the other before running a thumb claw up the length of her right ear.

"Not that..." Ranma dismissively declared, waving a hand for emphasis. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he clapped a fist into his upheld palm before pointing sharply at Nabiki and loudly, triumphantly blurting, "That's it! Your boobs got bigger!"

His reward was the still incredibly rare sight of a visibly gobsmacked Nabiki.

"Whu-What the hell kind of thing is that to say to a girl?!" She screeched, cheeks flaring bright red.

Ranma gulped, memories of similar faux paus in Nerima immediately surging to life in his mind's eye. Without hesitation he turned and bolted for the bathroom as fast as he was capable of moving, leaving little but a streaky after-image and a tailwind that ruffled the hair of those he passed by.

That was evidently all the signal that Ryoga and Harumi needed, because they bolted right after Ranma, leaving the female members of the Kamikaze Pirates standing shocked on the deck... at least, until reality kicked back in.

"Get back here, Ranma! We didn't agree you could have the bath first!" Nabiki screeched, leading a charge of the Neriman girls in hot pursuit, with only their native-born counterparts left behind.

"Sneh-hahaha! Well, this crew certainly doesn't look like it's going to be boring!" Lilith laughed, demurely covering her mouth with her hand as she did.

"Oh, you haven't seen the half of it yet," Miriam giggled, a surprisingly girlish sound for such a monstrous-looking figure.

---

Five minutes later...

---

Ranma cupped steamy hot water from one of the bathing buckets between his hands and then rubbed it hard into his face, hissing as he felt the scabbed cut on his cheek break open and start seeping down his face again. Still, he persisted in scrubbing away the grime caked on his skin, then hung his head and sighed mournfully.

"That was too close," he proclaimed gloomily.

"Chased by three girls, engaged to a fourth, and you still can't figure out how to talk to them without sounding like an idiot," Ryoga scoffed from where he was soaping himself up rigorously in anticipation of a cleansing bucket.

"Oh, you are the last guy here who can call me out on that, P-chan!" Ranma spat back. But then he slumped on his bathing stool again. "...But you ain't entirely wrong. How the hell do you do it, Harumi?"

The last of the masculine members of the Kamikaze Pirates looked up in surprise from where he was busily combing... let us say 'detritus'... from his long, silken hair. "Pardon, captain Saotome?"

"Well, you and Miriam never seem to have problems talkin' ta each other," Ranma pointed out.

"I spent over a decade on an island where not only are demureness and politeness of speech considered masculine virtues, but virtually every woman was just waiting for an excuse to pummel me senseless," Harumi replied flippantly.

Ranma and Ryoga both winced at the reminder of their bathmate's homelife. "Sorry..."

"I won't deny that I am fortunate that my lady Miriam is such a sweet and gentle soul, however," the effeminate swordsman added absently, having returned to his haircare routine.

"...She kicked a Marine Captain clean over a fortress wall into the bay on the other side," Ranma pointed out.

"She's never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it," Harumi primly protested.

"Well, yeah, you're right about that," Ranma admitted. "Anyway, lets hurry up, the girls need to get clean too..."

---

And five minutes more...

---

"Ranchan! C'mon! It's cold out here!" Ukyo protested, hammering on the door to the baths.

"Oh, it's not that bad," scoffed Miriam from behind her.

"How would you know? You run around in a glorified bikini!" Ukyo argued, instinctively turning to face the wotan even as she continued to pound her fist on the bathroom door. As such, she failed to realize it had swung open until her fist was smacking meatily against Ranma's chest instead of the hard wood.

"Ruh-Ranma!" she squeaked, cheeks blazing red as she turned around and found herself face to face with her roughly half-naked love interest.

"Baths are all free; you girls can have them now," he announced, the faintest hint of a cheeky smile on his lips despite the pale blush dusting his own cheeks.

"About time! Was this some kind of payback for having to wait for us outside the baths in the Tunnel of Lost Love?" Ukyo asked, trying to sound tough as she visibly rallied her wits. "You could have enjoyed a soak in a beautiful spa too, you know!"

"A beautiful spa? Is that what you girls got? We guys got a giant iron cauldron simmering over fire, with water so full of rust and rock salts it looked and smelled like blood, in a dingy, slimy dungeon," Ranma unthinkingly explained.

Ukyo and Shampoo both stared at Ranma in surprise, blinking slowly.

"Suddenly, that part of tunnel make much more sense," the Chinese Amazon observed.

"I hate to interrupt this trip down memory lane, but we're not getting any cleaner back here!" Nabiki called, which prompted the embarrassed trio of Ranma, Ukyo and Shampoo to shuffle aside and allow the two gender-based divisions of the crew to trade places.

"Shampoo want you come to her room to check your injuries!" the Chinese Amazon called to them, before she closed the door behind herself.

She was pleasantly surprised as she turned to take in the bathroom, the air thick with sweet-smelling steam that largely drowned out the unpleasant odors of blood and other, less identifiable fluids as they seeped away through cunningly concealed drains. All of the other girls were already stripping off their clothes, eager to begin rinsing themselves down, with just one exception...

"So... how do I make these things go away?" Nabiki asked dryly, experimentally flexing first one wing and then the other as if truly seeing them for the first time. She looked between her new appendages, and then glanced meaningfully over at Shampoo.

The cabbit zoan walked over to her new contemporary, shedding her filthy clothes as she did.

"Is no so hard, Nabiki. Just focus on being human; will self to be human, and it happen," Shampoo confidently assured her, emphasizing her point by snapping between her hybrid and demibeast forms.

Nabiki watched her, inclined her head just slightly in acknowledgement, and then closed her eyes so that she could concentrate.

And then... the world seemed to dim around her. Sounds became muted, scents grew all but non-existent, and the light that had been so crisp and sharp before grew just that little bit duller. Cautiously, Nabiki opened first one eye and then the other, looking at her now perfectly human hands. She reached up and stroked her ear, sighing in relief as she found it once again the proper size, shape and position.

"That's better... thank you, Shampoo," she declared. Then she blinked in confusion as she realized that Shampoo was staring fixedly at her, studying her as if Nabiki was some low-level Marine idiot who had made the insult of daring to challenge her. She felt an icy finger trail up her spine despite the steam filling the air, and it took all her courage and will not to take a step back as Shampoo stepped forward...

And then reached out to poke Nabiki in the breast with her fingertip several times, before wrapping her fingers around it, slowly turning her wrist back and forth as she palpated the newly minted Mythic Zoan's bosom.

"...What are you doing?" Nabiki hesitantly asked. 'And why do I feel a sense of deja vu?'

Suddenly, Shampoo's finger jabbed upward, Nabiki flinching as the sharp-nailed digit came to rest just in front of her nose, its owner triumphantly crying, "Airen was right! Nabiki do have bigger boobs!"

The bathroom went as quiet as a grave, the only sound to be heard the faint 'plink' of a drop of water into a bucket. And then Kodachi and Ukyo were at Shampoo's side in the literal blink of an eye, leaving Nabiki feeling like a deer caught by an encircling wolf-pack, and the rest of the ship's women wandering more casually over to see what was happening didn't help.

"Oh, come on, this was a bad joke when Ranma did it!" she protested, trying to back away only to feel her shoulders pressing against the bathroom wall.

"Is no joke," Shampoo flatly declared.

"I must confess, I never expected to say this, but Shampoo is correct; your bosom has expanded since this morning," Kodachi declared, tentatively poking Nabiki with an expression of fascination.

Nabiki couldn't help but glance down at her chest, mouth opening to rebut the ridiculous assertion... only to then fall open as she finally took in her assets.

"Holy crap, my boobs are huge!" she yelped in shock.

"Shampoo just say that," grumbled the Chinese Amazon.

"Let's not get carried away! You went up two cup sizes, maybe three tops," Ukyo interjected. Despite her words, she still looked nakedly jealous.

"Is this a side effect of eating a Zoan Devil Fruit?" Nabik wondered, experimentally cupping herself and feeling her newly increased heft.

"Shampoo's bust no go boom-boom," pointed out Shampoo, and anyone who said she looked jealous would have been a filthy liar deserving of her claws.

"Every Zoan fruit reacts a little differently with its host. Why, my Snake-Snake Fruit made my breasts shrink," Lilith interjected casually.

Once again, the sound of ripping water echoed like gunshots as every single girl present, zoan and non-zoan alike, turned to stare at their new guide's jaw-droppingly obvious... "talents". She allowed them to stare, leisurely twining her arms behind her head and thrusting out her chest, before she gave them a wicked grin.

"I'm just joking! Sneh-hahaha, you girls are so easy to tease!" she giggled.

And with that, the mood burst like a balloon embraced by an amorous blowfish.

"Can we get cleaned up now? I'd rather not sit here in the nude all night, even if none of this blood is mine," Nabiki grumbled.

"That-That sound like good idea to Shampoo," the senior Kamikaze zoan declared.

"Would you like some help washing your back, Miriam?" Lilith asked, turning a winning smile on the largest of the crew.

"Oh, uh, thank you, Lilith," the wotan replied, scratching the side of her neck uncertainly.

"Whaddya say, China Girl? I scrub your hair, you scrub mine?" Ukyo offered.

"Shampoo say thank you, Ukyo; Shampoo need rinse in worst possible way," The cabbit zoan grimaced, running her fingers through her clot-riddled scalp before the two longest haired members of the Neriman girls headed to grab a showering place.

"Oh... um..." Penelope looked hesitantly around the room as her fellows paired off.

"Nabiki, why don't you and I give Penelope a hand? No offense, dearie, but you look like you need more haircare than we do," Kodachi suddenly spoke up, nudging Nabiki with her hip as she spoke.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, I just need a quick rinse," Nabiki asserted... somewhat unconvincingly, given she was currently a rainbow of dried gore slowly reconstituting in the moisture of the bathroom's steamy air.

The humanoid skunk shyly smiled at them both. "S'ank you. I... I have never had ze sisters to bathe with before..."

"Well, you're one of us now; we run our own personal beauty spa," Kodachi assured her, before giggling loudly, an act that made Shampoo and Penelope's ears flatten themselves against their owners skulls.

The bathroom grew quiet as the seven young women busied themselves with the soap, hot water, damp towels, combs and loofahs that their male counterparts had thoughtfully left out for them.

"Do let me know if I'm being too rough, dearie; I've never groomed a tail like yours before," Kodachi cautioned Penelope, even as she gently soaked and then combed the striped black-and-white appendage.

"Mmm... you are doing ze wonderful job," Penelope sighed, almost purring at the attention, even as she helpfully scrubbed Nabiki's back with a soapy loofah.

"Kodachi, how is herb garden coming? Shampoo running low on formula 224," the Chinese Amazon asked from where she was massaging Ukyo's scalp.

"Come and see me tomorrow; I have a fresh harvest ready to pluck," Kodachi assured her.

"You girls make your own shampoo?" Lilith asked from where she was industriously scrubbing Miriam's back.

"Well, Shampoo does. She's a wizard with herbs and things. I don't know what she puts in it, but it's the best," the wotan assured her, pouring several buckets over her front as she carefully scrubbed her various bites and scrapes. "She makes all kinds of beauty stuff - ointments and lotions and skin creams, too."

"Ooh, that sounds lovely - think she'll share with me? I'd kill for a makeover," Lilith sighed in slightly exaggerated emphasis.

"You see Shampoo tomorrow, we discuss, okay?" Shampoo chimed up, purring as Ukyo scrubbed her back.

"Oh, I most certainly will! You're a master of your craft, if this cutie here's any indication," Lilith giggled.

"Um... thanks?" Miriam hesitantly responded, looking uncertainly over her shoulder at the sky-lander. Lilith smiled innocently up at her and continued to painstakingly wash the wotan's back, her hands circling just above the base of her tail.

Before the awkward silence could really linger, there was a knock at the door, all seven heads turning in its direction as Ranma called out from beyond it.

"When you gals are ready, there's a change of clothes out here. Sorry, Lilith, but you're going to have to borrow some of Harumi's wardrobe - he's the closest here to a decent fit."

"That's more than generous - tell him I said thanks for being such a sweetheart," Lilith cheerfully called back.

"Thank you for thinking of us, Ranma darling!" Kodachi added, smiling broadly.

---

Soon afterwards...

---

'I am not ticklish, I am not ticklish...' Nabiki reminded herself, biting her bottom lip and doing her best to stoically endure as Shampoo alternatively poked and stroked the newly minted Mythic Zoan's bare midriff, frowning as she did so.

"You sure she get stabbed, airen?" Shampoo asked, directing a serious look at Ranma.

"Impaled like a takoyaki on a skewer," Ranma assured her.

"Is not even scratch here now," Shampoo declared, poking Nabiki in the ribs as she spoke.

"Zoans all heal a lot better than regular humans - it's kind of a standard ability for our Devil Fruit type," Lilith chimed in from where she was sitting on the bed, kicking her legs with childish abandon.

"Shampoo not know; Shampoo focus on avoiding getting hit," the cabbit zoan absently quipped back.

"I've been meaning to ask - what is your Devil Fruit, anyway, Lilith?" Ranma asked their newest guest.

"The Snake-Snake Fruit, Model Type: Monocled Cobra - it's a breed of spitting cobra," Lilith proudly replied.

"Can we focus? I'm intact, I'm not sick, can I put my shirt back on and go to bed?" Nabiki loudly protested.

"Well, Shampoo disinfect and dress all other wounds... no can do anything with wound what no there. Even Joketsuzoku medicine no work miracles like that. Shampoo say it okay for everyone to go to bed now. We need sleep after long night we have," the Kamikaze's medic announced, her decisive statement and authoritative tone of voice only slightly undermined by the fact she suddenly yawned hugely, barely covering her mouth with her hand in a gesture of demureness.

A chorus of agreement echoed around the nurse's office - well, Shampoo's room which doubled as the medical room, but close enough.

"So, where do I sleep? Do I bunk up with somebody?" Lilith asked innocently, hugging her knees to her chest and tilting her head as she glanced at them all in turn, a soft but strangely knowing smile on her lips as she did.

"There's a couple of spare rooms we haven't found a use for - just find one you like and call it your own. Nabiki's the quartermaster; she'll set you up with blankets and things," Ranma told her.

"What? Oh, right, yes, that is part of my job," Nabiki declared, tugging her shirt back on before yawning softly and stretching. "Come with me, new girl; we'll get you settled in..."

---

And so...

---

"Okay, this should be just peachy, so long as you don't go turning into a giant naga in your sleep," Nabiki proclaimed, swinging the cabin door open wide and allowing Lilith to step through with her bedding.

"I haven't had that problem for years; this room is perfect," Lilith assured her, stepping inside and beginning to set up her bed.

"Well... good night then," Nabiki shrugged, and began to turn away.

"One moment, if I may?" Lilith suddenly interrupted, serpentine eyes gleaming above an innocent smile in the lantern's light.

Nabiki turned back to her, tilting her head inquisitively, wordlessly beckoning for her to continue with her body language alone. It was a skill she had refined in Nerima, which seemed almost like a lifetime ago now.

"Just what is the story behind your dashing young captain and those aggressive lovelies who are so protective of him?" Lilith asked sweetly, and yet despite her affectation of innocence, Nabiki could feel that she was being sized up and studied like a mouse before a snake that was trying to decide if it was hungry or not.

"It's a very long story, best saved for the morning," was Nabiki's diplomatic response. As she turned back to the door, Lilith asked a final question.

"Are you seeing anyone?"

Nabiki promptly tripped and fell flat on the floor. The smack of her skull against the wood barely registered against the shock, which propelled her back to her feet as if she were a marionette being jerked upright.

"Yes, yes I am!" she blurted unthinkingly, before covering her mouth with a curled fist, as if trying and failing to snatch the words back and stuff them back down her gullet.

'Since when do I overreact to questions like that?' Nabiki chided herself, before rebutting, 'But then again, since when do I get questions like that?!'

"A pity. But you can't blame a girl for asking," Lilith giggled musically. "I've kept you long enough, and it has been a very long day. I bid you goodnight..."

"Yes, we'll talk more in the morning," Nabiki declared, and then left, in as dignified a manner as she could muster.

---

Dawn the next day...

---

Breakfast aboard the Stormbringer was hardly a sedate and dignified event at the best of times. But this day, with the exhaustion of the battle now overcome and the chance for the sheer thrill of survival to finally flood through their minds, things were particularly raucous. The kitchen was a riot of movement and sound as pans sizzled and bodies twirled, ingredients appearing and vanishing in blurs as three culinary experts worked to feed the considerable appetites of their crewmates.

"Y'know, I'm perfectly capable of making breakfast," Ukyo complained, but her words lacked heat and she was smiling as she said it.

"Is party! No can let Ukyo do all work!" Shampoo cheerfully rebutted, deftly turning sizzling strips of bacon.

"More cooks means more grub - I certainly ain't complaining!" chuckled Miriam, chugging down a firkin of limeade.

"Certainly not when ze food is zis good! Oh, Kodachi - I never knew zat you had such ze way with Fraucen food! Iz like being back at my 'ome with my family, that it is," Penelope gushed, accent thickening momentarily with sheer emotion before she stuffed a massive forkful of crepe dripping with jam and cream into her mouth and moaned throatily around the cheek-bulging mess.

"Ohhh-hohohoho! But of course; I am skilled in many dishes, my dear Penelope, but, uh, 'Fraucen' is my specialty! Few other cuisines are so dedicated to the wonders of sweets and pastries, in my experience," Kodachi boasted, proudly flipping her latest crepe onto a plate.

"And what about you, Miss Lilith? Care for something in particular?" Kodachi asked, turning her attention to the newest face at the table.

"Well, I hate to impose, but... I'd love something rich and decadent," Lilith purred, long tongue sliding sensually over her full, plush lips at the thought.

"Is that so? Well, I may have something to tickle your tastebuds," Kodachi giggled, before blurring into motion. Long, supple arms reached out and snatched up a crusty baguette and two jars from the sandwich-making portion of the kitchen. Her knife flashed as she split the loaf and hollowed it out, spreading the contents of each jar on one hollowed out half. Finally, she snatched up a mound of just cooked bacon from Shampoo, ignoring the Chinese Amazon's indignant protest, and stuffed it between the two half-loafs, sealing it together with toothpicks before plating it and triumphantly placing it on the table in front of the skylander.

"There you are, madame; one Fool's Gold Loaf," Kodachi proudly announced.

Silence fell over the assembled Kamikaze Pirates as they stared at the oozing, gooey, bacon-stuffed sandwich, then turned to look at the beaming Kodachi.

"...What the hell is that?" Miriam asked, voicing the question on all their minds.

"In the East Blue, many years ago, there was a singer of legendary talent, much beloved for his skills. Sadly, in his later years, he became addicted to food, which led him to a very tragic death. He was said to be very fond of the Fool's Gold Loaf; a pound of crispy fried bacon, and at least eighteen ounces apiece of sweet fruit jam and peanut butter, all stuffed into a hollowed-out loaf of bread. Some say he would eat two of these each night, but that's probably an exaggeration - he was known to be inordinately fond of fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, though," Kodachi added as an afterthought.

"...Where the hell do you put it all? You're a bamboo shoot!" an incredulous and rather indignant Ukyo demanded.

"I never said I ate them! And secondly, there's nothing wrong with my figure!" the affronted Kodachi shot back.

"I can't believe she wasted that much effort on a bad joke - you're not seriously-!" Nabiki's sarcastic drawl turned to genuine shock as Lilith reached out and picked up the unholy abomination claiming to be a sandwich, cutting Nabiki off by opening her mouth and biting deep into the front end of the loaf.

She chewed as delicately as was possible given the size of the mouthful she'd taken, and then let out an orgasmic moan, eyes fluttering shut as she wriggled in her seat.

"Ohhh, yeah, that's the stuff! Crunchy and gooey and salty and sweet all at the same time... Mmmm... I don't know who's the bigger genius; the singer who invented it or you for making it..."

And with that said, the serpent zoan began to dig in heartily, her new crewmates blushing and wriggling a little further away from her. The noises she was making... well, let's just say they weren't the sort of noises you normally wanted to hear around the breakfast table.

An awkward silence fell over the table, until Miriam sheepishly looked over at Kodachi, daintily tapping the tips of her index fingers together.

"Uh... could I try one, maybe? Th-That sandwich can't be as awful as it looks, right?"

"We might as well use the bread up before it goes moldy - it has the shortest lifespan of anything we bring aboard ship anyway. One Fool's Gold, coming up!" Kodachi assured her, and with that, breakfast kicked back into life as everyone resumed cooking and/or eating. Or even a little of both, as Shampoo hastily slapped some bacon and eggs on some buttery toast and began gobbling it down even as she resumed her frying duties.

Pleasant minutes passed before Ranma lifted his tankard of limeaid and banged its iron rim with his knife. "Hey, can I have a moment? Quiet, please. ...Guys? C'mon! ...Hey, I said shut up! I got somethin' ta say!"

The sudden outburst from their leader, however nominal he may be, finally cut through the furor and everybody paused what they were doing to look at him. Ranma cleared his throat, rolled his shoulders, and began to speak.

"You know I ain't too good with words, but I just wanted to say... you guys are awesome. You took a ship and turned it into an airship in a week, you got us away from that loony Shiki, and even when things seemed like they were done for in that monster plant, you kept fightin' until the bitter end. We just faced some of the creepiest, scariest shit we've seen, and I'm including Happosai in that count, and you guys kicked their asses. I didn't plan on starting this pirate thing... but I'm proud to be your captain. Cheers to all of you!" He cried, raising his tankard high.

"Cheers!" came the joyous chorus as everyone, even Ryoga, raised their tankards and clashed them together, sweetened lime juice splashing as they did.

"An' speaking of piracy... we got two new faces to talk about. Penelope, you been with us the last two weeks, yeah, but you finally trusted us enough to let us meet the real you, and we're happy to have ya with us. Welcome aboard!"

"You are being too generous, mon capitan," Penelope asserted sheepishly, ducking her head and turning away, but they could see her grinning and blushing before she covered herself with her tail.

"And to our newest face; Lilith! I know this is just a gig for ya, but I hope you'll feel at home until yer ready to move on. Our ship is your ship, as long as you want to be here."

"Thank you, Captain Saotome; I know I didn't exactly have a choice in setting aboard, but you've already been more than hospitable. I'm happy to be your guide to the wonders of the Sky-Seas for as long as you need me, sneh-hahahaha!" she laughed happily, raising her half-eaten Fool's Gold sandwich in salute before taking a bite out of it.

"Lastly, Nabiki! I know it wasn't exactly yer choice to eat that particular Devil Fruit, but you really saved our bacon. I ain't sure if we'd have won through if it weren't for you pulling the big damn hero move. Ta Nabiki!"

"To Nabiki!" chorused the crew, clashing their tankards together again.

"Oh, don't make such a fuss, I said a Mythic Logia would be my second choice," Nabiki defensively mumbled, aware of the treacherous burning in her cheeks and the strange fluttery feeling in her belly at Ranma's words and her crewmate's actions.

"Of course, now you've got a Devil Fruit, an' a Mythic Zoan of all things, that means we need to step up yer training! You 'n' me are gonna spar after breakfast," Ranma warned her, pointing his knife at her as he spoke, undercutting his words with a cheeky wink.

"Of course you are," Nabiki sighed forlornly.

"We go back to eating now? Food getting cold," Shampoo interjected.

"Wha? Oh, yeah, I'm done - let's eat!" Ranma replied, before taking a swig from his tankard, which was all the signal that the rest of them needed to do the same.

---

Soon afterwards...

---

"Ohh, man, what a meal!" Lilith sighed leisurely, leaning back in her chair and picking her teeth clean, one hand rubbing a stomach that visibly bulged under her loaned dress. "If you pirates eat like this on the regular, then I'm going to enjoy sailing with you."

"Hah! Yeah, never any complaints about the grub on this crew!" Miriam guffawed, slapping her own protruding gut and belching contentedly, making the post-meal detritus of stacked plates and pottery rattle on the table.

"So, Lilith, now we've got a moment to catch our breath... let's talk," Ranma said, pressing his fingertips together and leaning forward slightly as the rest of the crew began gathering up the dirty dishes for cleaning.

"What can I do for you, Captain Ranma?" Lilith cheerfully asked, turning to him.

"Well, first of all, let's talk a little about you..." Ranma declared.

"Oh, really? Well, I hate to disappoint, Captain Ranma, but there's not really much to say. I'm just Lilith; a simple drifter on the Sky-Seas, looking for excitement and the things that make life worth living; good food, strong drink, cute girls and pretty boys! Life's too short to waste it with worries; I believe you should live for fun, and your crew certainly seems to have their heads on straight... the scenery's nice here too, sneh-hahaha!" she laughed, and then she winked in the direction of Harumi and Miriam, her grin never faltering as Miriam surreptitiously placed an arm and her tail around the blushing youth.

"Uh... okay, I've heard worse philosophies for life," Ranma conceded slowly.

"If I might ask... what's your story, captain? What brings you to the life of a pirate, and how did you become involved with such lovely ladies?" Lilith asked, looking genuinely curious.

Ranma opened his mouth, ready to begin, only to be cut off.

"Our relationship with our beloved captain is a tragic tale, a veritable Gordian Knot of conflicting honor ties and bonds of love," sighed Kodachi, taking the opportunity to partially drape herself over Ranma. "For myself, it was love at first sight - only natural, seeing as how he saved my life."

"Ranchan and I were engaged as kids, but his father tried to run out on the deal - but I never stopped loving him," Ukyo added, taking her own opportunity to wrap her arms around Ranma.

"Ranma win Shampoo's hand through dominance in battle... but he win Shampoo heart through being himself," announced Shampoo, who plopped herself firmly into Ranma's lap and make a show of wriggling in close, an action that clearly triggered certain biological reactions given the blush on Ranma's face.

"As for me, well, it's a stupid promise between a pair of less than brilliant fathers. But he's not so terrible... a girl could do a lot worse," Nabiki casually announced, sipping at her drink.

Ranma managed to push his way partially out of the dogpile of affectionate young women, doing his best to appear cool and collected despite the fact he was blushing like a horny young idiot. "As for becoming pirates... well, the World Government took something completely the wrong way, and -"

"Say no more. If the World Government was involved, then that explains everything," Lilith declared dryly, her former grin briefly evaporating into an icy expression.

Then it vanished like rimefrost melting under the dawn's light as she turned a winning grin towards Ryoga. "So, what about you, handsome? Why are the rest of you on the crew?"

"I'm here because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got stuck with this jerk," Ryoga declared bluntly, pointing at Ranma and ignoring the collective stink-eye from Ranma's girlfriends.

"I always wanted to leave home and see the world, and Captain Saotome was the first to give me a chance," Miriam commented.

"My story is the same," Harumi added.

"To be honest, my story largely is gelling with Miriam and Harumi's," confessed Penelope. "I wished to be seeing ze ruins and relics of ze Grand Line, and if that meant becoming a pirate, then I decided it would be ze price worth paying, non? I am glad that I chose a captain like Captain Saotome though."

"And then there's Dyna, who's the reason we're up here in the first place... speaking of which, what can you tell us about the sky-seas?" Nabiki asked, looking right at Lilith as she did.

The snake zoan stared calmly straight back at her. "Quite a bit, I expect; but wouldn't it make more sense to hold this conversation with Dyna around?"

The Kamikaze Pirates looked at each other, and collectively nodded in unspoken agreement, before they began to stand up.

---

Moments later...

---

'Damnit, was the sun always this bright?' Nabiki wondered to herself, blinking and subtly moving to stand somewhere a little shadier. The whole of the Kamikaze Pirates, now numbering a dozen if one included both Umok and Lilith, were gathered on the deck. Kodachi had taken over for Dyna, allowing the fembot to focus her one-eyed gaze on Lilith, who was standing confidently at the center of a loose circle of watching pirates. Even Umok had emerged from his hidey-hole in the crow's nest and was now sitting on one of the rope loops dangling from the belly of the balloon, watching what transpired with evident curiosity.

"The sky-seas are different from the Blue Seas from which you came. They're not... what's the word...? Homogeneous, I think. They're large and they cover much of the world's skies, but they're broken into distinct patches that move and shift with the currents in the wind. Areas of the sky-seas break off and merge as the weather compels them, and those few that are stable are usually anchored around cumuloregalis patches, such as the ones over Jaya," Lilith began, hands clasped behind her back and rocking back and forth on her heels.

"I'm supposing that's partly related to how they're separated into the White Sea and the White-White Sea?" Kodachi asked from her position at the steering wheel.

"Oh, so you know about those?" Lilith asked, sounding genuinely impressed.

"Just the most basic facts from Shiki," Ranma confessed.

"Well, that's better than nothing! The layers of the White Sea and the White-White Sea are relatively stable, but it's not unheard of for sky-islands to sink down or rise up to join different seas. Luckily, the minerals in island-clouds are close enough to Grand Line island soil that Log Poses still work, otherwise it'd be even more impossible to sail the sky-seas than it is to sail the Grand Line..." Lilith shook her head as she spoke, clearly picturing such a turn of events.

"So the Log Pose we have would actually be pointing the way towards the nearest sky-island, and thus leading us to the nearest patch of the sky-seas?" Kodachi asked, checking the large Pose that was permanently fixed in place near the wheel.

"Exactly! Most inhabited sky-islands are found in the White-White Sea, but where you reach the White-Sea, the White-White Sea won't be too far behind," Lilith explained, nodding sagely.

"All good to know. What else can you tell us about the place?" Nabiki asked from where she was now leaning against the mast.

"First thing to watch out; the air. At seven thousand meters above sea level, the air gets much thinner than you're used to down on the Blue Seas, and it's only worse in the White-White Sea! Your strength will be sapped until you get accustomed to the difference - the fact you've been hanging out at five thousand meters for a week will have given you a head-start on that," Lilith added as an afterthought.

"Second thing; we don't use beries up here. We use our own currency; the extol. So that might make trading a little tricky until and unless you can get to a merchant willing to do some currency conversion," the snake zoan continued, holding up two fingers for emphasis.

"What's the exchange rate?" Nabiki immediately asked.

"Uh... last I checked, I think it was about ten thousand extol to the beri," Lilith explained, shrugging as she did.

"That's ridiculous! Why so high?!" A startled Ranma protested.

"Remind me, what was your last grade for economics, Ranma?" Nabiki dryly quipped, smirking as he blushed and muttered something under his breath.

"It largely has to do with two factors. Firstly, we're very isolated up here - there's not a lot of trade between the sky-seas and the Blue Seas, so it largely doesn't matter how powerful our respective currencies are. But the biggest issue is metal - beries are based on the gold standard, and there's very little gold in an extol," Lilith admitted, cutting off Nabiki's fun.

"Further data requested," Dyna demanded bluntly.

"You need to understand; flying islands like Merville are extremely rare - damn near mythical, in fact. Most sky-islands are made of island clouds, which are dense enough to live on. That means no metals to mine up here. So we make do with chemically altering the composition of island clouds, and with dials, which are the shells of various crustaceans and molluscs that've adapted to live in the sea clouds," the skylander zoan patiently elaborated.

"There's life in the Sky-Seas?" a curious Penelope interjected.

"Why are seashells - er, sky-shells - so valuable?" Nabiki asked at the same time.

"Yes, the sea clouds are full of creatures that have adapted to living there, as have the island clouds - how did you think we survived up here?" Lilith laughed. "As for dials... well, they kind of replace our need to use extensive amounts of wood and metal. There's different kinds of dial, but they can all store disproportionately large amounts of different kinds of energy and matter - our societies depend on them! Breath and jet dials store wind to provide motive thrust; heat dials store heat for cooking; light dials give us light; freeze dials help us preserve food. I could just go on and on..."

She shook her head. "But that leads to my last important note; the single most important thing in the sky-seas? Is soil - or, as we call it, 'vearth'."

"You gotta be kidding," Ryoga blurted out.

"Nope. Funny thing about island clouds; they'll sustain plants just fine, but seeds won't sprout in them. Nobody knows why; the reigning theory is that it's some missing chemical, and people have been trying to find what it is for ages. So every island cloud needs to harvest as much vearth as it can in order to grow seeds - most farms up here consist of a relatively small sprouting bed made of vearth and then paddocks of island cloud where the seedlings get transplanted. Of course, that requires vearth in the first place, and most of what we get is dust blown up here by storms or volcanic eruptions," Lilith sighed, looking absently off into the distance.

"Why not just import soil from the ground level? It's hardly a difficult commodity to find," Nabiki pointed out inquisitively.

"There's only a few places where you can reliably travel from the Blue Seas to the Sky Seas, and the World Government has them locked up tight. They hate that we're largely out of their reach and don't need their protection, so they keep a stranglehold over all trade - and vearth is the most heavily taxed commodity. And smuggling's all but impossible; the trade routes are so heavily guarded that it's said it's impossible to force your way past without losing at least some of your crew, and nobody in their right mind takes a Knock Up Stream if they can avoid it," came the bitter response, Lilith's gaze growing colder as she glared at something only she could see, something that doubtlessly only existed in her memories.

"...Knock Up Stream?" Ranma reluctantly asked.

"An uncommon Grand Line phenomena; enormous, semi-predictable geysers created when volcanic caves beneath the seafloor fill with pressurized steam due to water seepage," Dyna answered for him.

"How do you know that?" Ranma asked her, turning his inquisitive expression to her.

"Data acquired during our month-long furlough," she bluntly explained.

"How do you know about all this 'vearth' stuff, sugar? Sounds a little... personal, if you don't mind me saying so," Ukyo asked Lilith.

Lilith shrugged and sighed softly before she replied. "My folks were farmers. Anyway!" She turned back to them, suddenly all smiles once more. "And that should be everything important you need to know before we reach the White Sea. Any questions?"

"...No, I think that's largely what we need to know for now," Ranma declared, nodding slowly.

"I aim to please," Lilith chirped merrily.

"And we appreciate it... okay, now that's out of the way, I think it's time we took care of business..." Ranma proclaimed, rolling his neck until it cracked and then popping his knuckles as he stared meaningfully at Nabiki.

"You really are a glutton for punishment, aren't you?" Nabiki sighed with exaggerated irritation.

"Well, we gotta figure out what the new you can do, don't we?" Ranma asked rhetorically, taking a combat stance. "Come at me-!"

Before he could even get the challenge out, Nabiki had exploded into action, rocketing toward him so fast that he literally only dodged her at the last minute. For the first time ever since he'd started training the former non-combatant, Ranma found himself involuntarily on the defensive, dodging and deflecting as Nabiki came at him with a barrage of punches and swipes.

"Oh, what's wrong, Ranma-baby? I thought you wanted me to come at you?" Nabiki asked sweetly, a wicked grin on her lips.

"Nuh-Not bad, Nabs! You definitely got a boost!" Ranma conceded, evading her attempt to grab him and force him into a brawler's lock.

"A boost? Oh, Ranma, you always had a gift for understatement!" Nabiki laughed, breaking off her attack. "Face it - I haven't even transformed yet, and I'm already kicking your butt! With my new Devil Fruit, I'm invincible!"

Ranma frowned at the arrogance at that statement, and he wasn't alone either. But that didn't prepare him for what came next.

"Airen! Tag out!"

Ranma and Nabiki turned mutually confused looks on Shampoo.

"Uh... Shampoo?" Ranma asked hesitantly.

"Let Shampoo duel with Nabiki! Show her that fancy new Devil Fruit not be-all, end-all of fight!" The Chinese Amazon and senior zoan asserted, giving Nabiki a blatant stink-eye.

"What's the matter, China Doll? Jealous? I'll be happy to show you who's boss girl now!" Nabiki shot back, beckoning with a crooked finger.

"Girls..." Ranma declared firmly in warning. When neither of them so much as glanced his way, he sighed.

"Just don't hurt each other too badly, okay?" He pleaded, walking out of the immediate firing line.

"Shampoo promise she stop with just spanking bat-girl," growled the cabbit zoan as she stalked out to stand opposite of Nabiki, snapping into her hybrid form and taking a battle stance.

"Talk is cheap, Shampoo," Nabiki chuckled, nonchalantly folding her arms over her chest and waiting for Shampoo to make the first move.

The Chinese Amazon exploded forward, hurtling towards Nabiki like a human bullet. But even as she was in mid-flight, Nabiki shifted to her bat-like "beast" form, propelling herself into the air over Shampoo's head with one powerful flap of her wings.

"Too slow - doof!"

Nabiki's mocking call was cut off as she crashed head-first into the bulbous under-carriage of the balloon, having put too much strength into her jump. She dropped back down, shaking her head as she arrested her descent, only to find that Shampoo had already caught up with her in mid-air. She quickly crossed her arms in front of herself, a last-second block as Shampoo drew her legs up until they touched her chest and then lashed out. The kick slammed into the Mythic Zoan with so much force that the displaced wind ruffled Shampoo's own hair a half-second before Nabiki went flying away like a human bullet.

Nabiki hit the deck hard enough to make it creak, the impact causing her to bounce and then skid until she slammed into some spare barrels, reducing them to a spray of broken timber that buried her under its bulk. A feral shriek of fury split the air as the vampire zoan exploded up from beneath it, now in hybrid form and viciously rending planks into splinters. Her misplaced wrath found a better target as Shampoo hurtled towards her in a spinning roundhouse kick that slammed brutally into Nabiki's jaw and propelled her across the deck again.

Nabiki dug her claws into the deck, gouging cuts as she bled off her momentum, before rolling clumsily onto her back and then jumping to her feet. Her crimson eyes seemed to glow as she grinned ferally and launched herself at Shampoo. Her taloned hands stabbed at her in an impossibly fast series of knife-hand strikes, with the cabbit zoan dodging each by the barest minimum.

"Give it up, Shampoo! I'm faster than you now!" Nabiki taunted her opponent.

"You may be fast, but you have no finesse!" Shampoo spat in rebuttal. She proved her point by grabbing Nabiki's overextended arm and yanking her off balance, giving Shampoo the chance to launch an Amaguriken-level series of kicks to Nabiki's midriff that left her tottering backwards, clutching her injured stomach.

"You dirty little cheater..." Nabiki growled vindictively.

"What wrong, Nabiki? Where all that pride?" Shampoo mockingly asked in return, an overly saccharine smile on her lips as she spoke.

With a screech, Nabiki launched herself at Shampoo in a flying tackle, bearing her Chinese rival to the deck in a tangle of limbs. Undaunted, Shampoo's hands stabbed up like a set of angry serpents, jabbing wickedly into nerve clusters in Nabiki's arms and torso. Nabiki let out a cry of shock and dismay as she suddenly toppled bonelessly forward, but Shampoo snapped into her beast form and slid her now-tiny body out through the gap beneath Nabiki's thighs. Once free, Shampoo resumed her hybrid form and sat on the deck, reaching out to grab Nabiki by her hips and drag her bodily into Shampoo's lap.

"What do you think you're - OW!" Nabiki squalled instinctively as Shampoo brought her hand down on Nabiki's exposed and vulnerable buttocks with an audible clap of flesh on flesh that had their audience wincing.

"Shampoo just fulfilling promise. This teach you important lesson - nobody is invincible! Certainly not arrogant little girl what just get power up handed to her!" Shampoo declared, punctuating her words with a series of further strokes, spanking Nabiki in a way that she hadn't suffered through in over a decade.

"Ow-ow-ow! Alright, alright already! I'm sorry! I won't let it get to my head again! Just stop it!" Nabiki wailed pitifully, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"You better! Shampoo spank you again if Shampoo must!" The cabbit zoan warned her, emphasizing the words with one final clap against her buttocks.

"Kinky girl," Lilith observed approvingly from the sidelines, making the others inch away from her.

Deciding her point was made, Shampoo unceremoniously rolled Nabiki out of her lap and then stood up. She dusted off her hands and sauntered over to rejoin her crewmates, leaving Nabiki humiliated on the deck behind her.

'I saw this coming,' Ranma mentally grumbled to himself as he watched Nabiki push herself upright, fangs bared in a snarl and eyes gleaming with rage. With a sudden mighty exertion, he skimmed across the deck and interposed himself between the two of them, grabbing Nabiki's shoulders to add weight to his action.

"Hey, cool it, Nabs, she beat you fair and - yo, what are you doing?!"

Ranma found himself fighting to keep Nabiki in place as she suddenly surged forward, grabbing him with her own clawed fingers and trying to wrestle her way past him.

"Stop it - OW!" He bellowed in pain as Nabiki suddenly thrust her face into the crook of his neck and bit him viciously. It was like being stabbed with an icicle as a deep, burning cold radiated from where her teeth were sunk into his neck, a chill that washed through his body and rapidly stole the strength from his limbs.

"Stop it! That hurts! Nabs...!" Ranma tried to shove her away, but found he could only feebly push at her in vain, his vision growing blurry as the world dimmed around him.

Suddenly, Nabiki jerked herself away, but it was too little, too late. Ranma collapsed like a doll whose strings had been severed, his last sight the confused and horrified look on Nabiki's face, the words she spoke through crimson-smeared lips following him down into the darkness of unconsciousness.

"What've I done?! Shampoo! Shampoo, help!"

---

?

---

"Shampoo done all Shampoo can... now is up to airen..."

The voice echoed from far away, penetrating the dark fog that engulfed him, making him stir slightly.

'I...I know that voice...?' he mused to himself. His thoughts felt like the mental equivalent of fighting his way through a soggy, clay-heavy swamp, every footstep a struggle to pull free of the sucking quagmire.

"But he'll be alright, yeah? I mean, this is Ranchan we're talkin' 'bout - you can't kill Ranchan!" Came a new voice, this one with an underlying tinge of hysteria in its desperate protestations.

"Of course! Shampoo just mean Shampoo no have anything else Shampoo can do to fix this - but airen strong, he bounce back from this, you see!" Assured the first voice, full of equal parts confidence and defiance.

"He had better - this is all your fault, you little witch! What the hell did you think you were doin'!?" snarled the second speaker.

'Ucchan... Yeah, Ucchan, Shampoo, that's who's talking. But what happened ta me...? Gah, my head feels so heavy...'

"I didn't mean to do this! I don't know what happened!" protested a third voice, choked with dismay but palpably forcing themselves to sound calm and in control.

'Nabiki...? Oh, now I remember... she bit me. Why'd she bite me?! And why'd a bite make me come over all faint? I've taken worse than that before!'

"You don't know? Ranchan is lying here damn near dead 'cuz'a you, and that's all you have to say?! You don't know?!"

Ukyo's words trailed off into a wrathful snarl, followed by the sounds of scuffling.

"Lemme go! Lemme at her!"

"Ukyo, calm down! You know she didn't do this on purpose!" Asserted a fourth voice.

"How can ya just let her get away with this, Kodachi?!"

"Because I believe there are extenuating circumstances!"

"You two stop fighting! This place of healing, not battle pit!"

'Okay, this has gone on long enough. Gotta give it my all... one... two... three...!'

Ranma groaned hugely as he sat up and opened his eyes. He'd describe the effort as akin to running a marathon, but the reality was that he /had/ run marathons before, and this was worse. He gently massaged his forehead with one hand, trying to knead away the ache consuming his very brain.

"Sheesh, you girls are loud enough to wake the dead..." he drawled, opening his bleary eyes.

"Ranma!"

"Ooph!"

And the next thing he knew, he'd been knocked flat on his back again as a feminine body crashed gracelessly but enthusiastically into him, pinning him in the bed and unintentionally enveloping his face in something perversely soft and warm. Whilst Ranma could abstractly appreciate the protection from the light, which his eyes had been struggling to cope with, it did make it a little hard to breathe...

"I'm... I'm sorry, Ranma, really I am! I didn't mean to - I don't know what happened! I just saw red, and then the next thing I knew... I'm so glad you're alive!" Nabiki sobbed, wrapping her arms tightly around Ranma's shoulders and clutching him with a strength even Shampoo would have found admirable.

"He won't be alive for much longer if you don't stop smothering him, ya damn blood-sucking cow! Let go!" Ukyo growled, yanking on Nabiki's shoulders with all her might.

Nabiki blinked, looking down at the boy she was hugging, then blushed and quickly let Ranma go, lightly pushing him away and scooting back on the side of the bed.

"A-Anyway! I knew you'd be alright, Ranma, but you had these girls so worried. They should have had more faith in you," she declared loudly.

"Oh, you not fool anyone with that," Shampoo scoffed, nudging Nabiki roughly with her hip and nearly shoving her off the edge of the bed as she sat down and hugged Ranma.

Ukyo hurriedly scrambled onto the bed and embraced Ranma from the other side, burying her face into Ranma's free shoulder. He could feel her tears dampening his skin and the trembles wracking her body as she clutched him for dear life.

"You had me so worried, Ranchan! I thought I was gonna lose ya!" she sobbed.

"Hey, it's okay, Ucchan, you know I don't die easily!" Ranma assured her.

"But... speakin' of death... what the heck happened? I remember Nabiki bit me and then I just blacked out...?" He added, trying not to sound like he was being too accusatory.

Nabiki still flinched, a rare guilty expression blossoming on her face before she visibly schooled herself back into her usual cool, collected demeanor.

"That would be an unfortunate side effect of Nabiki's new condition... Ranma darling, do you know what a vampire is?" Kodachi asked patiently, sitting on the bed in turn and reaching out to place a comforting hand on his chest.

"Some kinda bat monster, isn't it?" The puzzled pirate captain replied immediately, eyebrow quirked as he focused on her.

"It's a little more complicated than that, darling. In short, a vampire is a kind of yurei created when a restless soul refuses to accept its passage. Instead, it possesses its own body and preserves its corporeal existence by drinking the blood of the living," Kodachi patiently explained.

"...But Nabiki isn't dead, she just ate a Devil Fruit," Ranma pointed out in confusion.

"Evidently, that's close enough to the myth to give her a similar thirst for blood, metaphorically and literally," Kodachi elaborated.

"...Huh, that would explain why she was acting so out of character once the fighting started," Ranma mused, glancing over at Nabiki, who blushed and looked away from him, fidgeting with her fingers.

"Not to mention those zoan instincts are a real rush for first-timers," a new voice suddenly interjected.

Ranma and his 'bedmates' looked up at Lilith, who was slouched jauntily against the doorway and whistling to herself as she filed her nails.

"What did you just say?" Ranma asked her.

"That's the drawback of having the simplest powers to access; zoan Devil Fruits mess with your head a little. Beast forms come with certain instincts, and even a bit of physical tweaking - I can't stand the cold and I love to sunbathe, y'know? And carnivorous zoans get it worst of all, because they get a triple dose of aggression as part of the package. That's why Nabiki went nuts after she first transformed; all those new instincts and feelings hitting her like a thunderbolt out of the clear blue sky," Lilith explained, before blowing the dust from her nails and admiring her handiwork.

"...Is that why she licked me?" Ranma asked, unable to help himself.

"I did not!" Nabiki immediately squeaked in dismayed protest, cheeks burning red as she turned an irate expression on her bedridden kind-of sorta boyfriend.

"Sneh-hahaha! Honestly, the amount of hormones pumping through her head at the moment, you were lucky she didn't just rip your clothes off and make you hers right there on the battlefield!" Lilith giggled loudly.

'...Wow. I never seen anyone turn blue with shock in real life before,' Ranma absently mused to himself as he took in the sheer mortification on Nabiki's face.

"Th-That's not funny!" the newly fledged vampire cried out in protest.

"...Shampoo not only one that think that idea sound kind of hot?" The Chinese Amazon quietly asked Ukyo and Kodachi. The latter looked intrigued, rubbing her chin thoughtfully, but Ukyo grew red and shook her head.

"Can we get back on topic, please?! Anyway, regardless of why she did it, what Nabiki did when she bit ya was suck out a lot of yer blood - so much so that ya fainted," Ukyo explained to Ranma, before burying her face back in his neck again.

"Well, that explains why I feel so awful... blood loss always was the worst," Ranma grumbled.

"...Shampoo not even going to ask what stupid panda do," she sighed. "But anyway, Shampoo give Ranma herbal medicine, boost blood resupply, but that all Shampoo can do - no blood or equipment here for transfusion, so Ranma must stay in bed until body heal self, understand?"

"Oh, come on, you can't just expect me to sit around all day!" Ranma protested.

"But nothing! This not like bruise or cut or sprain! This serious! Ranma stay here until Ranma get better, and this is final!" Shampoo snapped back, leaping up from her former position at Ranma's side and partially straddling him, her hands on his shoulders to force him into the bed as her eyes bored into his, lip curled in a feral borderline snarl.

Ranma stared defiantly back at her, his pale blue eyes locked on her own rosy wine-colored orbs, looking into their depths with all the will that he could muster.

'...S'funny, I never noticed this before, but Shampoo's got really pretty eyes...'

Finally, he tore his gaze away and grumpily rolled over, eliciting a squeak of protest from Ukyo as he pulled away from her. "Alright, fine, I'll stay here."

"That better. Be good airen, and you be back on deck soon enough," Shampoo proudly announced, reaching out and petting Ranma's head before he irkedly swatted her hand away.

Undaunted, the Chinese Amazon rolled nimbly out of the bed. "Okay, we all go now - Ranma need his rest."

"But he only just woke up! Oh, alright, fine," Ukyo grumbled. She gave Ranma one last affectionate squeeze and then climbed out of the bed. Kodachi bent over and kissed Ranma on the cheek, and then gracefully stood up in turn.

As three of his four bridal candidates filed towards the door, only Nabiki remained behind, fiddling with the hem of the blanket.

"You... you know it was an accident, right Ranma? I wouldn't do that to you on purpose..." she assured him softly, her usual aloof demeanor melting away like a snowflake on a bright sunny morning to reveal the uncertainty beneath.

"I know, I know - Lilith already told us it wasn't your fault, it was the zoan instincts, remember? You'll get the hang of controlling them - you're Nabiki Tendo! Nobody controls your mind but you!" Ranma assured her, reaching out unthinkingly to brush the back of her hand.

"Damn straight," Nabiki replied, but she still smiled softly as she said it. She twisted her wrist and captured Ranma's fingers with her own, gently stroking his knuckles with her thumb before she let him go and sighed softly.

"Still, some fiancée I turned out to be, huh? Putting you in a hospital bed..." Nabiki shook her head.

"In fairness, Akane did that once too, and at least you only did it by accident," Ranma unthinkingly pointed out.

"I wish I could at least give it back to you - I mean, I wish I could fix this," she mournfully continued, glancing at him guiltily before looking away.

Ranma wracked his brain, trying to come up with something comforting to say and cursing himself for being awful with words yet again. Only for those concerns to melt away as he spotted something far more important to focus on.

"Nabs - you're crying!" he blurted in horror.

She scoffed haughtily. "Gee, thanks - I didn't realize you thought I was such a cold-hearted bitch too."

"No, I mean you're bleeding! Shampoo! Shampoo, get back here!" Ranma shouted at the top of his lungs.

Nabiki twisted to properly face him, confusion writ large on her features... features that were growing increasingly concealed beneath a layer of crimson as rivers of blood flowed from behind each eye, welling up and rolling down across each velvety cheek with every blink.

"What is it - Nabiki?! What happen to you?!" Shampoo cried out, horror washing across her own face as she took in her crewmate's gore-stained visage.

"Nothing! I didn't do anything, I don't know what you're talking about!" Nabiki protested emphatically.

"You bleeding from eyes, and you not know?!" Shampoo snarled, snatching up a bundle of bandages and herbal mixes.

"What are you both talking about?!" Nabiki demanded in disbelief, unthinkingly reaching up and touching her cheek with the first two fingers of her right hand. When she raised the now crimson-stained digits to the light, her eyes went wide in horrified realization.

"What the hell?!"

And that was when things got really weird. Shampoo almost skidded to a halt in shock as the blood on Nabiki's face defied all laws of gravity and began to rise horizontally away from her face, lifting from her skin into little rivers of crimson that undulated through the air. They curled in on themselves in the air over Nabiki's upheld fingers, swelling fatter and fuller until her face was clean as a bone, and instead a pulsing sphere of blood the size of two large fists held together was hovering in thin air over her fingers.

You could have heard a pindrop... which made the sound of glass shattering as Ryoga tripped and knocked one of Shampoo's clay medicine jars to the floor almost deafening.

"Clumsy fool! You know what Shampoo pay for that?!" The Chinese Amazon snapped, staring lividly at Ryoga.

"Don't we have bigger things to worry about?!" He spat back in disbelief.

"Nabs? Do you feel alright?" Ranma asked her.

"Apart from being scared out of a week's growth, I'm fine... I'd like to know what's going on," she replied dryly.

"If she's able to snark, she's fine," Ukyo opined from where she was watching the spectacle.

"As for an explanation... I believe we may have just discovered Nabiki's special Devil Fruit ability," Kodachi interjected, her eyes never once leaving the bouncing bubble of blood.

Everyone turned and looked at Kodachi once she said that, before Lilith thumped her fist against her open palm.

"That's right, Mythic Zoans are reputed to gain powers like Paramecias or Logias alongside their basic Zoan shapeshifting," the cobra zoan proudly proclaimed.

"Exactly. And it seems evident to me that Nabiki's Mythic Zoan has given her the power of haemokinesis - the power to telepathically shape, move and otherwise manipulate blood," Kodachi announced, dramatically pointing at Nabiki for emphasis.

Nabiki looked at the bloody bubble with renewed interest, brow visibly furrowing as she concentrated. It went from hovering bare inches away from her fingertips to soaring just under the roof, then dropped back to where it began. It zigged right and zagged left, orbited her wrist in several loops, then quivered before shifting its shape from a sphere to a cube to a pyramid to a diamond and then back to a sphere.

"Wow... You're right. Alright, Ranma, just give me a moment to figure out how to put this back in you..." Nabiki declared, turning a scrutinizing gaze firmly on Ranma, who instinctively tried to backpedal away inside the confines of his borrowed bed.

"What you think you doing?! You stop that this instant!" Shampoo snapped, reaching out and slapping Nabiki in the back of her head.

Nabiki yelped, instinctively reaching for her blood bead as it fell, and it somehow tumbled into her grip like a ball, remaining solid in between her sheltering fingers. She sighed in relief, then turned an irritated glare on Shampoo.

"What was that for? This is Ranma's blood! He needs that to live!" she protested, then blinked and scowled as what she'd actually said. She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, muttering, "Needs that to live... gods, my vocabulary has taken a hit since coming here..."

"You not know how to put it back, you not try, not when meddling with Ranma's blood!" Shampoo spat irritably, glaring at her.

"Not to mention that's very unhygienic, dear," Kodachi casually added.

Nabiki pinched the bridge of her nose again, before looking between Kodachi, Shampoo and Ukyo. Seeing them united in their decision, she sighed and nodded slowly. "Okay, if you're sure... sorry, Ranma; looks like you're going to have to replenish that blood the old fashioned way."

"That's okay Nabiki; it's the thought that counts, right? So, uh... are you gonna throw that away?" Ranma asked uncertainly... but then, what was the proper response in a situation like this.

Even as he was asking that, Nabiki was staring enraptured at the floating bubble of blood. A subtle twist of her fingers and it floated over to where she could lean forward and place her pursed lips against its surface as if kissing it. A loud slurping sound filled the air as it visibly shrank, Nabiki's throat pulsing as the vitae rapidly slid back down her gullet. Within seconds the blood had vanished, leaving only the faintest smear on her lips, which she dabbed up with a quick flick of her tongue.

"Mmm... delicious," she purred sensually, smiling a besotted smile before daintily covering her lips with her fingertips to stifle a genteel burp.

Then she blinked her eyes and seemed to come back to her senses, looking at her crewmates in confusion. "What? Why are you all staring at me like that?"

"...Do me a favor, girls? Have Nabiki practice mastering her new instincts with Lilith while I'm resting, will ya?" Ranma flatly declared, his tone making it quite clear that the words were no 'request' as he settled back down and covered his face with his sheet.

"We do, airen. Come on now, airen need his rest, so all of you, out!" Shampoo ordered them.

"What'd I do? Hey!?" Nabiki protested as she was unceremoniously shoved off the end of the bed and shepherded along with the rest of the crew.

---

Soon afterwards...

---

Miriam broke the seal on a barrel of Navy-grade rum, looted from the last Marine supply ship to fall into their clutches, and scooped out a mugful for Harumi followed by one for herself... hers having been repurposed from a pin, as a four gallon cask was formally known amongst those who handled liquors.

"It's sure been a hell of a morning, hasn't it?" she mused as she passed Harumi his share.

"Quite so - poor Nabiki. That can't have been how she was expecting today to go," the crossdressing swordsman sighed, shaking his head and taking a delicate sip.

"Bet it makes you think twice about claiming your own Zoan Fruit, huh?" Miriam asked, trying to make a joke out of the question.

"Honestly, I was never really thinking of eating one in the first place," Harumi answered, staring into the contents of his mug as he swirled it around.

"Yeah, I should have expected as much - the swordsman's pride, right?" Miriam observed nonchalantly, before taking a swallow from her own mug.

"I suppose that as well. Mostly I just don't want to lose my ability to go swimming with you," Harumi replied flippantly.

The wotan swallowed half a laugh and half a mouthful of hard liquor, wiped her mouth with her arm, and then giggled in amusement. "You are a terrible little flirt, Harumi."

"I am. But I'm your terrible little flirt, right?" He asked hopefully, looking up at her with innocent eyes.

"Damn straight you are," she shot back, reaching out with her free hand and gently stroking his face.

A sudden knock at the door made the couple turn inquisitive gazes in its direction.

"Were you expecting somebody else?" Harumi asked.

"Not me... It's not locked!" Miriam raised her voice so that whoever was on the other side could clearly hear her.

The hinges creaked softly as the door opened, allowing Penelope's unmistakable face to tentatively poke around the edge.

"Excuse moi, but am I interrupting?" She asked politely, looking from the human to the wotan.

"No, no, you're fine. Come on in, take a load off," Miriam beckoned to her in welcome.

Shyly, the skunk-featured demihuman slipped through the doorway, closing it behind herself as she walked over to where Miriam and Harumi were seated. As she walked, her eyes swept over the room, taking in every single detail with the efficacy of a trained tomb raider.

"You have the most lovely room, Miss Miriam," Penelope politely informed her hostess as she took a spare seat and lowered herself into it.

"Be it ever so humble, it's home," Miriam chuckled, grinning proudly all the same.

"So what brings you down here, Miss laFloo?" Harumi asked her.

"Well, I am not wishing to be prying, but... back in ze Davy Back Fight, Captain Saotome mentioned that you are a fan of romance novels, non?" Penelope asked, looking hopefully up at Miriam.

The wotan blushed. "Uh... well..."

"We both have a somewhat eclectic taste in literature, yes," Harumi interjected.

Penelope looked at him, surprise quickly giving way to delight. "You as well? Trey bien! That iz wonderful! One of ze things from home that I am missing very much is my book club - I have brought as many on my journey as I dared, but you know that ze traveling, it must be done lightly, zo..."

"Wait, wait, slow down... you wanted to ask if you could go through my library?" Miriam asked in confusion.

"Certainement! And of course, I would tre giving you access to my own humble portfolio in exchange... perhaps we can be ze 'book buddies'?" Penelope asked, clasping her hands delicately in front of herself and turning an expression that was classic 'doe-eyed hopeful waif' upon the wotan, despite her being a little hairier than the standard user.

"Uh...Sure, I got no problem with that; what about you, Harumi?" Miriam asked, glancing haplessly at her boyfriend.

"I would be honored. But I must ask, why did you decide to reach out to us?" The swordsman questioned the mink.

"Oh, I am intending to speak wit' ze other ladies aboard, but you two were my first choice, because... well... you are being ze most approachable, shall we say?" Penelope smiled sheepishly and shrugged.

Miriam stared incredulously before letting out a bark of laughter and slapping her stomach. "I've been called a lot of things in my life, but that's a new one!"

The skunk-girl's ears flattened against the sides of her skull as she looked at the floor, a gesture at once embarrassed and contrite. "I am sorry... despite mother's best efforts, I never had ze gift of words."

"Hey, you talk better than I do - and than my mom does, come to think of it," Miriam giggled.

"So, what do you like to read, Miss laFloo?" Harumi asked her.

"Well, before I was leaving Frauce, I was beginning to read ze works of Pierre Pevel; are you familiar?" The mink replied, giving him an inquisitive look.

"I think I have some of those! He's the guy who writes about this fantastical otherworld, where people use clockwork devices and furnaces fueled by the crystalized blood of dragons to achieve supernatural feats, and brave adventurers armed with swords and pistols duel for the honor of noble queens, right?" Miriam asked excitedly.

"That is the author that it is! Oh, I loved those books, but I was only able to read ze first two stories before I departed," Penelope sighed, her initial good cheer giving way to a mournful look as she remembered that fact.

"I took some of his books as booty about a month ago! Man, they're awesome - where did this guy even come up with this stuff?!" Miriam asked excitedly, gesturing with her now-empty mug as she did.

"I can't say I've heard of him," Harumi interjected.

"Oh, you are missing out - wait here, I'll get my copies! And a tankard for you, Penelope, we can't have you going thirsty while you're here..."

"Uh, may I have something non-alcoholic, please? I do not have much tolerance for liquor," Penelope sheepishly admitted, even as Miriam rose to her feet and went stomping away.

---

Elsewhere and meanwhile...

---

'Don't lose control... don't lose control!'

The mantra ran through Nabiki's mind as she stood on the deck in her new hybrid form, eyes squinting slightly as her augmented vision complained at the relative abundance of light, claws raised in a defensive position as she studied her opponents. To her left, Shampoo flexed long, leporine legs, all-too feline claws extended as she raked the air. To her right, the scaly bulk of Lilith coiled from side to side with deceptive sluggishness, waiting to explode into motion.

With a defiant scream that made Nabiki's ears ache, Shampoo exploded forward, attacking Nabiki with a lightning-fast combo of punches, kicks and sweeps. Using her superhuman speed, Nabiki dodged each blow, twisting, weaving, stepping and even jumping, all without making a single counter-attack.

Suddenly, Shampoo twisted around in a spinning sweep, and without thinking Nabiki leapt sharply backwards out of her reach. A tingling sensation flooded her veins, and in an act of pure instinct she stepped sharply to the side, allowing Lilith's tail to come slamming down where she had been standing with force enough to make the deck shake, the wind of its passage ruffling Nabiki's hair.

"Taking things a little seriously, aren't we?" she asked, her tone cold and dry as the Gobi Desert at midnight.

"Test of control no good unless we push Nabiki will to its limits," Shampoo replied calmly.

"And if I just so happen to get clobbered, that's just the price of training, huh?" Nabiki quipped back in the same snarky deadpan as before.

"If what airen say about Nabiki's new healing is true, then we no need be gentle with training no more," Shampoo shrugged, grinning a darkly sardonic grin as she spoke.

"Doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt... But come on, then; let's get this over with," Nabiki sighed, readopting her defensive stance once more.

"Wow, you're really taking this seriously! I didn't realize you cared about the captain so much," Lilith noted with an amused giggle.

"I-It's a matter of pride, it's nothing to do with Ranma!" Nabiki immediately snapped in response.

"Pride?" The cobra zoan asked her.

"Before all this... this pirate nonsense, I was known and feared for my mind, not my muscles. I was always calm, collected, and kept my wits about me - they called me the Ice Queen, behind my back, but I took it as a badge of honor. To let this fruit tear all that away, to be reduced to some slavering beast? No. No, I refuse to let that happen to me!" Nabiki snarled, eyes briefly burning in their sockets, teeth visibly sharpening into a forest of needles before snapping back to normal.

"That's the spirit! Keep your chin up, tuck that pride around yourself like a blanket, and I'm sure you'll get the hang of this quickly!" Lilith chirped.

Then she snapped out the end of her tail like a scaly whip right at Nabiki's head, forcing her to duck, and the battle resumed.

---

That evening...

---

The Stormbringer's kitchen was, by necessity, extremely well stocked and almost fortified. It had been designed with the intent of provisioning half a dozen teenage martial artists, whose metabolic rates were often comparable to blast furnaces at the best of times, not to mention Miriam, plus whoever else might join the crew in due time. Still, there was a reason that the Kamikaze Pirates included fishing as part of their daily routine, as well as raiding the food-stores of any marines or rival pirates foolish enough to cross their path.

All that cooking required a chef who knew what they were doing, one who was used to working with large quantities at great speed, and fortunately for the Kamikaze Pirates, they had exactly that in Ukyo Kuonji, veteran of ten thousand lunch hour rushes and just as many late-night post bar-crawls. And as she bustled about the kitchen, the air filled with sizzling and delicious smells, she felt a warm contented glow in the cockles of her heart.

'So what if I'm not the biggest powerhouse on the team? This crew wouldn't be goin' nowhere if it weren't for my cooking!'

As if summoned by her thoughts, she heard the doorway out onto the deck swinging open, and she instinctively turned from her stovetop to greet the new arrivals.

"Hey there; you girls were really going at it! Well, don't worry, I'm fixing up a dinner that should be sure to... by Sun Wukong's flea-infested nutsack, what happened to you!?"

The rest of the assembled pirates looked up at Ukyo's outburst, following the appalled chef's stare to the three newcomers and wincing in chorus. Slowly hobbling towards them from the doorway was Nabiki Tendo, topless save for her bra - not an uncommon sight on the Stormbringer, between tropical heat and intense workouts all of the girls had gone around indulging in a little 'impromptu air conditioning' at one time or another. But what was unusual was the fact her exposed skin was a deep, unhealthy, scorched-looking dark crimson, dotted with blisters and practically radiating heat even from this distance. Nabiki held her arms out awkwardly at her sides to keep from touching her seared torso, and the tears nakedly glistening on her cheeks spoke volumes as to how much pain she was feeling.

"Kodachi... this vampire myth... it no mention vampires not liking sun, maybe?" Shampoo asked, menace lurking beneath her sweet tone like some monstrous predator beneath a tranquil lagoon.

"As a matter of fact, one of the few things that the myths largely agree on is that the sun is anathema to vampires - depending on the story, it may force them into an inescapable torpor, strip them of all their powers, or, and this is most likely, burn them to ashes within seconds of its touch... Oh," Kodachi's pleasant tone and cheerful smile faded away as the realization sank in, the former heiress turning a concerned look at Nabiki.

"I didn't think it was that bright and sunny out there today," Ryoga observed, and even he looked perturbed by the obvious pain on Nabiki's face.

"It wasn't! I mean, I've never really sunburned since I ate my Devil Fruit, but even so, we were under the shade of the balloon all afternoon, and there was never any direct exposure," Lilith observed.

"I thought I was supposed to heal faster with this Devil Fruit - why does this hurt so much?!" Nabiki whimpered.

"Nabiki come with Shampoo; we use ointments on skin, make you all better," assured the Chinese Amazon as she slipped back into 'medic mode' and carefully guided the severely sunburned mythic zoan away.

"...So, who do you think Nabiki is going to want revenge on first? You or Shampoo?" Ryoga asked Kodachi.

"Muh-Me?! But how could I have known that this would happen?!" Kodachi spluttered in protest.

"You really think Nabiki's gonna care?" Ryoga asked, a cruel grin on his face.

Kodachi looked genuinely dismayed, flinching when Ranma's shocked cry came echoing back up to them from the depths of the hold.

---

It's close to midnight...

---

Nabiki squirmed atop her covers, rolling first left and then right. She fluffed her pillow within an inch of its life, then buried her head beneath it. Then she yanked it off, sat up and nearly threw it across the room in frustration.

"Damn it all, I just can't sleep! Maybe a little moonlight stroll will help..." she muttered to herself as she wriggled to the side of her bed and stood up.

Closing her eyes, she willed herself to change shapes and assumed her hybrid form. The difference was like night and day, when she opened her eyes, the faintest shaft of moonlight through her porthole now lighting up her room like it lay under the blazing summer sun.

"If nothing else, I'll save a small fortune on candles and lamp oil," she mused to herself, a sarcastic smirk on her lips as she did.

She stalked towards the door, her elegant passage ruined when she stopped and scratched at herself like a streetcat with a really bad flea infestation.

"Damned sunburn! I don't know if it's Shampoo's skin goop or this stupid fruit finally healing, but at least the burn's all gone... but this dry skin is almost as bad!"

Itch relieved, she swung open the door and slipped out into the dark corridors of the ship like a specter loosed from its grave. She was utterly alone as she prowled the halls, the only signs of life those that drifted to her hungrily pricked ears.

'It's funny... this is my first night really hearing them, but yet, I think I can tell where everyone is just by listening to their heartbeat and their breathing. That sound, like a great drum in the deep - that's Miriam, no question there. And what's that accompaniment...? No way, that must be Harumi! Are they sleeping in the same room?! ...You go, fishgirl!'

She slunk through the halls in absent-minded silence, only the shadow she cast in pale rays of moonlight proof that she was there as she drank in the ambience of the night.

'Kodachi, Nabiki, Ryoga, they're all in their rooms. I can hear Dyna up on deck, taking the night shift for steering the ship. Lilith and Penelope, what a duo; Lilith's heart beats oddly slow, and Penelope's is oddly quick. And then there's... Ranma...'

Nabiki looked at the door to the captain's bedroom, snatching a cautious glance in all directions, and then purposefully walked over to Ranma's door, swinging it open just far enough that she could slip inside.

Within lay a scene that would have fit perfectly in one of Kasumi's "bodice ripper" romance novels, the one her oh-so-perfect older sister hid in the laundry and that she thought nobody knew about. The moonlight shone boldly through the porthole, lighting up the room to the extent that Nabiki probably could have made her way just fine even without her half-bat eyes. And right beneath the center of the moonlight lay Ranma, flat on his back and snoring quietly. With her new ears, his heart beat a rhythmic tattoo just for Nabiki, his handsome features taking on an otherworldly edge to their beauty by the pale moon's light.

Nabiki wasn't even cognizant of stepping forward; she just seemed to blink, and then she was at Ranma's bedside, her captain - her fiance, by technicality; her boyfriend, from a certain perspective - sprawled defenseless before her.

'...Why does this scenario feel strangely right?' Nabiki wondered to herself. Gently, she reached out and placed her hand with a feather-light touch on Ranma's cheek, stroking the surprisingly velveteen skin with the greatest of care, her claws brushing downwards without so much as nicking the flesh.

Ranma sighed softly, but failed to otherwise stir. His lack of a protest excited something deep inside of Nabiki, and for once in her life, she went with her gut. She began to lean in, gaze fixated on his soft, partly open lips, licking her own in anticipation...

'How ironic, sisters; you always joked I had no romance in my soul, and yet my heart's beating so fast!'

'...That's not my heart...'

Instincts surged within the Bat-Bat user, and she found her control brushed aside like a flea in a downpour. She whirled around, hand whipping out in a crude imitation of the deadly accurate throwing arms of her Nerima counterparts, and a projectile hissed through the air to sink into the floor with a classic TUNK sound.

Bosom heaving, she took in the tableau before her; glinting in the moonlight was a crimson shape of gleaming-sharp flanges and protrusions, like a half-melted icicle designed by a mad blade-smith. And but a hair's breadth from it, body partly twisted to ensure it failed to strike home, a green rabbit with an oddly feline face wreathed in blue, a little blue puffball tail bristled to nearly twice its normal fluffiness in cold rage.

"Well, that answer question if Nabiki can attack with new powers," Shampoo sarcastically observed.

Nabiki stared at her fellow Neriman zoan, and then she smiled. It was not a nice smile. It was a smile that had inspired cold sweats and even nightmares back in Nerima, and that was before she had acquired teeth like knives and eyes that burned like blood-red coals in the darkness.

"And whatever might you be doing here, hmm?" she purred darkly, taking a step towards the cabbit.

"Shampoo could ask you same question," came the reply, Shampoo putting down her hackles and scratching at one oversized ear with her hindfoot.

'...Damn it. Mutually assured destruction. I hate when that's the result...'

"I'll keep my mouth shut if you will," Nabiki declared, stepping back and lowering her arms.

"None of Shampoo's business what you do in Ranma's bedroom. Honestly, Shampoo impressed; Shampoo not think Japanese girls have the ovaries for this, certainly not Nabiki," the Chinese cabbit declared candidly.

"Gee, thanks," Nabiki drawled sarcastically.

"So, why Nabiki up? New hearing no let you sleep?" Shampoo asked inquisitively,head tilted as she looked at the newest zoan on the crew.

"No, just... I wasn't sleepy for some reason. Maybe it's the whole 'bat' thing," Nabiki mused, scratching her chin.

"Shampoo know how Nabiki feel; Shampoo more comfortable in dark of night too, since become zoan" the Chinese Amazon confessed, stretching her back in that distinctly feline way.

"So how do you cope with it?" Nabiki asked, genuinely curious.

"Meditation help somewhat," Shampoo observed solemnly. Then she smiled mischievously and chirpily added,"Sleeping with Ranma work better!"

"...Yeah, I think I'll skip that," Nabiki dryly retorted.

"Is your choice, plenty of room in bed for us both," Shampoo declared, hopping across the floor and bounding up onto the bed as she spoke.

"So what Nabiki do instead?" She asked.

"I think I'll go take a bath, clean off all this nasty dead skin. Maybe even try a little moon-bathing afterwards, since apparently I've got to give up sun-bathing now," she noted sourly.

"Well, Shampoo admit she not know much about the style, but for what it's worth, Shampoo agree with Kodachi; Shampoo think Nabiki look good in elegant gothic lolita," the cabbit observed, before stalking over to nuzzle up next to the still-slumbering Ranma.

"Oh, you'll tell me anything," Nabiki scoffed, but she was smiling as she spun around and stalked silently out of the bedroom.

---

Dawn of a new day...

---

"All hands on deck!"

Ranma jolted upright in his bed, gasping hugely as he did.

"Who? What?! Gah, my chest! So hard to breathe!" He panted, sucking huge lungfuls of air, feeling lightheaded.

"Gotta find out what's going on," He muttered to himself, throwing aside the bedclothes and yanking on a proper outfit as he headed for the deck.

Moments later, he had joined the rest of his crew, plus their new guide, on the Stormbringer's main deck.

"Captain Saotome - admirable relocation speed," came Dyna's unemotional acknowledgement from the ship's wheel.

"What's going on? Why the big fuss? And does anyone else feel like crap this morning?" Ranma asked, thumping his chest and coughing.

"I...(wheeze)...I've definitely felt (huuuh) better," moaned Miriam, who sank to her knees, mouth hanging open and gills fluttering in her neck as she panted like only a fishman could.

"Miriam, what's wrong!? Miss Shampoo, help her!" Harumi pleaded desperately.

"Shampoo coming - Shampoo no feel so good either," moaned the ship's medic, visibly swaying.

"Calm down, everyone! It's perfectly natural!"

As one, the Kamikaze Pirates turned to Lilith, who pushed decisively forward once all eyes were upon her, marching over to Miriam and gently laying a consoling hand on her cheek.

"Just take deep steady breaths, in and out, hold as long as you can before releasing - that goes for all of you! It's all the same problem, Miriam's just getting the worst of it because she's so big," the skylander asserted.

Ranma glanced over at Shampoo, and when she nodded, he began to breathe in the rhythm she had described. Seeing their captain obeying her instructions caused the rest of the crew to imitate him, and they spent the next few minutes breathing.

Finally, Miriam sighed hugely in relief, her own breathing much more even now. "That feels better... still kind of light-headed, though."

"It's the oxygen. Remember what I said yesterday? The air's a lot thinner up here at seven thousand meters, and you Blue Seas folk aren't used to it. Your bodies will adjust in time, but even then, your strength and stamina are going to take a hit," Lilith asserted confidently, petting Miriam's cheek for emphasis.

"You don't seem to be feeling it," Nabiki observed suspiciously.

"I grew up in the White-White Sea, ten thousand meters above Blue Sea level. My people are adapted to be at home in this environment. Why do you seem to be unaffected?" the cobra zoan flippantly shot back.

"Uh... good question?" Nabiki admitted, looking confusedly at herself.

"It's probably an unexpected benefit of her new Devil Fruit and the power it gives you to control your very blood," Kodachi opined.

"Make sense to Shampoo; blood carry oxygen, after all. Maybe Nabiki subconsciously adjust blood so it carry oxygen better?" Shampoo mused.

"Fascinating as this is," Ryoga suddenly interjected, the sarcasm thick enough you could cut it with a cheese knife, "There's gotta be another reason we're here, right?"

"Affirmative. We have not only reached the desired height... but we have finally crossed into the territory of the sky-seas proper. Behold, Kamikaze Pirates! The White Sea!" announced Dyna, gesturing grandiosely with her gun-arm.

The Kamikaze Pirates followed the motion, no longer distracted by the sensations of their bodies collectively betraying them, and what they saw made their jaws drop. The Stormbringer was advancing on an enormous expanse of seething white foam that blotted out the horizon from east to west and north to south.

"Prepare for contact with White Sea in three... two... one...!"

The hull of the Stormbringer struck the swirling mass of cloud-stuff, and the impact shuddered through the whole vessel, just as if they had been hit by a strong wave back on the Grand Line. The cloud-stuff parted before the prow as it tore into the once-virgin surface like a dagger, the rotors chopping in the ship's wake as it surged onwards.

"I don't believe it... it's actually all real! This wasn't just some crazy fantasy of Ranma's!" Ryoga marveled quietly.

"My sketchbook! Oh, I must begin sketching this!" Penelope gushed.

"Welcome to the White Sea - a sight few of the Blue Seas have ever been fortunate enough to witness. Just keep following the Log Pose, and eventually you'll make landfall," Lilith explained warmly.

"Query; why is the Log Pose continuing to point upwards?" Dyna asked.

"It's a quirk of the sky-seas; most sky islands, being made of island clouds, float in the White-White Sea, but the bulk of the sea clouds tend to be concentrated in the White Sea. This means you tend to need to rise and fall between the two layers in order to get to different sky-islands... well, unless you're using an impossible flying vessel like this one," Lilith amended herself with a giggle.

"Come to think of it, you mentioned sea clouds yesterday, but you never really went into detail," Ranma observed patiently.

"I didn't? My apologies, Captain; it must have slipped my mind! Well, if island clouds are clouds close in composition to solid rock, then sea clouds are close to water. They're basically the backbone of the sky-seas! All of this you see around you is sea cloud; if you deflated the balloon, you'd be floating on the stuff, same as if it were ocean water," Lilith elaborated, gesturing out at the magnificent expanse of white.

"When you say they're close to water... Does that mean you could swim in them?" Ryoga wondered aloud.

"Why, yes, you could!" Lilith confirmed.

Ryoga suddenly grinned darkly and lunged, grabbing Ranma and hoisting him into the air.

"What the hell, bacon-tits?!" Ranma shouted.

"Think of it as adding to your legend - the first pirate captain to swim in a cloud!" Ryoga yelled, even as he heaved Ranma with all his might and launched him through the air. Ranma's instinctive wail of protest echoed in their ears as he soared over the gunwale and into the White Sea with a mighty splash, cloud-stuff fountaining upwards like water.

Ryoga laughed triumphantly, hand on his hips as he mockingly called out, "How's the cloud, Saotome? Cold enough for ya?"

"You miserable traitorous wretch!" Kodachi snarled, snatching up Blooming Garden as she did so.

"Oh, he'll be fine - see, there he is now!" Ryoga scoffed, pointing to where he had thrown Ranma.

Sure enough, a redheaded face surfaced from the white morass, spitting a streamer of milky white liquid. She raised an angry fist and shook it violently in the direction of the Stormbringer. "When I get my hands on you, Ryoga...!"

"I'd like to see you try! Hey, what are you doing?" Ryoga asked, turning inquisitively to Nabiki, who was eagerly climbing over the gunwale.

"You may be a jerk, but you had a good idea - who else can say they've swum in a cloud?" Nabiki asked, an excited grin on her face.

"No, wait, stop!" Lilith shouted, but it was too late.

Nabiki swung herself out over the side of the Stormbringer and leapt in feet-first with an excited cry, hitting the sea clouds with a great splash... and sinking like a stone.

"You idiot! Devil Fruit users sink in clouds like it was water!" Lilith shrieked aloud, eliciting a chorus of dismay from the Kamikaze Pirates.

"Nabiki!" Ranma screamed, and immediately dove into the clouds herself, arms and legs powering her forward with all her might.

'Shit, I can barely see a thing in here! And there's so little resistance - gotta go faster! Gotta save Nabiki before she drowns! Wait a minute... does this sea actually have a floor?'

That momentary flash of curiosity was the only warning Ranma had before her arms breached the bottommost edge of the sea cloud and she found herself sliding clear of the floating not-water. Gravity asserted its dominance once again and with a scream the boy-turned-girl found herself plunging headfirst towards the ocean floor thousands of meters below, just a vague smear of blue in her terror-widened eyes.

"Hang on!"

A blurry shadow sped towards Ranma, Nabiki's open wings blotting out the sun as she reached out with her bestial feet and wrapped her prehensile toes around Ranma's ankles. A great jerk of counter-motion rippled through Ranma's body and the beating of the wind filled her ears as Nabiki began powering back up once more.

"Ohh... that was too close. Nice save, Nabs, I owe ya one," Ranma sighed, hanging limply from her savior's upside-down grip like an overripe banana.

"I think we're even... and what've I told you about calling me 'Nabs'?" the vampire zoan added as an afterthought, angling her ascent to skirt around the periphery of the sea clouds and come back down onto the surface from them.

Neither of them could have predicted what they would see once they were back in the proper position.

"Is that a giant octopus?!" Ranma blurted, shading her eyes as she took in the enormous tentacles emerging from the White Sea and waving menacingly towards her ship.

"Or at least the world's biggest killer balloon," Nabiki drawled, beating her wings steadily as she hovered in the air.

"Whatever it is, c'mon, we need to help! Charge!" Ranma gestured sharply with her arm.

"Who's doing the work here?" Nabiki reminded him, but even as she complained, she was angling herself and diving towards the Stormbringer, Ranma yelling wordlessly as the aquatranssexual found herself snapping in Nabiki's wake like a human streamer.

Even as they hurtled towards the embattled boat, they saw Miriam hurling herself at tentacle, jaws gaping wide as she sank them deeply into the bulging, tumescent flesh... which promptly detonated in a burst of pressurized wind that nearly knocked Nabiki out of the air and a literal cloud of gore. Even as the bat-girl corrected her flight, the balloon-like octopus bellowed in cephalopodian agony and sprayed a cloud of thick, inky smoke that enveloped the Stormbringer before jetting away across the White Sea.

"...Well, that was anticlimactic," Nabiki grumbled, slowing her descent as she swooped towards their ship.

---

Minutes later...

---

"Oh, c'mon, Ranma; can't you take a joke?!" Ryoga shouted angrily back, the newly minuted buxom blonde beauty desperately thrashing her limbs in an effort to keep her super-heavy umbrella from dragging her through the sea clouds.

"You pull a stunt like that again, I'll show you a joke!" Ranma snapped angrily back at her.

Then, as an afterthought, the currently female pirate captain barked, "And will you stop groping my tits?! Why do girls keep groping my tits?!"

"In fairness, they are a most magnificent pair of tits," Lilith shamelessly observed, smiling lecherously as she continued to physically admire her employer's new assets.

"And what if I did this to you, huh?!" Ranma snarled, hop-stepping sharply away from her molester.

"Sounds like a good time to me!" Lilith giggled. "Just joking, just joking!" She hastily amended at the quadripartite snarl that suddenly echoed all around her, four sets of battle aura blazing into life.

"Uh... Captain Saotome, 'ow long will you leave Ryoga there?" Penelope timidly asked.

"...Ohhh, I guess you can pull the idiot in now. And once that's done, let's set sail, guys! Our first sky-island awaits!"

---

Chapter End & Closing Notes

---

And so, at long last, we've reached the White Sea, and formally begun the Sky-Sea Saga! Bit of a filler chapter, I know, but after how the last chapter ended, I felt a certain degree of decompression and worldbuilding was called for. Wanted to flesh out who Lilith was as a person somewhat, and give us a better look at what Nabiki can actually do, though of course we'll see more of both of them in the coming chapters!

Speaking of coming chapters... After the Sky-Sea Saga ends, I want to get a very special art commission for this fic: a full-crew shot, depicting all of the characters on the crew in one single image. But that's going to be expensive! So, if you would like to see this image become a reality, it would be really helpful if you could chip in with saving for it! Even just five bucks on Ko-fi could go a long way towards making it a reality...

On a different train of thought, just for fun, would anyone be interested in a non-canon omake of our heroes making a little extradimensional excursion to Roanapur and showing the City of Devils what REAL demons look like when they come to play?