Morg: Heyo! So I just realized how long I've been writing this fic.

Ikuto: Do you mean how long you've been dragging out this story?

Amu: Not that I want you to, but you should update faster.

Morg: I fully intend to make this year be the year where I actually do that.

Ikuto: You say that now…

Amu: But you still don't own us so it doesn't make a difference.

Morg: Someday, Amu. Someday I will and you'll love me for it.

Ikuto: I know I will!

Amu: Not likely.

~The Eighth Sea~

Exiting the cabin just behind Ikuto, Amu gave a nod to the captain before heading off to find the other girls. They'd picked the island that they were going to be stopping at. Of course, they figured they could do it after retrieving the next piece of the map. Ikuto had decided that and Amu couldn't argue with the captain.

Watching the pinkette move across the deck for only a moment, Ikuto turned back to face his sailing mistress and first mate. They were chatting quietly while doing their jobs. Utau had a firm hand on the helm while Kukai watched over everyone on the ship. The captain hated to break them up when they barely got time to be together, but there were things that needed doing.

Moving up the stairs, Ikuto covered the distance between the other two and himself easily. "Set course, Utau. We finally have our heading."

Utau gave a grin before following the instructions Ikuto gave her. They'd already been going in the right direction, but it helped that she knew now exactly where to go. "Aye, Captain."

Unable to help the grin that stole onto his lips, Kukai leaned his weight onto one leg as he looked over at his captain. "Ten minutes."

Lifting an eyebrow, Ikuto looked back at the other male. "What?"

Gesturing across the deck to where Amu was speaking to some of the other crew members and gesturing up at the rigging, Kukai kept his grin firmly in place. "She was in there for ten minutes."

Not understanding what the other male was getting at – not that that was unusual because Kukai was a weird one – Ikuto frowned at the other male. "So?"

"Ikuto," Kukai couldn't keep the exasperation out of his words as he spoke. "You've been glaring at that riddle since we got that paper over a week and a half ago."

Coughing, Utau pretended to not notice when both males looked at her. She understood exactly where Kukai was going with this, but she'd be damned if she laughed in her own brother's face about it.

Turning back to his first mate, Ikuto reminded himself to grab some water for his sister later. "Yeah? It took me longer to solve the riddle from the fourth piece."

"Did you let her see it?"

Narrowing his gaze at his first mate, Ikuto realized that Kukai was going to bring this all back to Amu. Ikuto felt uneasy about that. "I didn't let her see anything. She came in to discuss stopping for more wood sometime in the near future. I happened to be looking at the riddle when she did and she asked about it."

Keeping his easy attitude in place, Kukai moved slowly so that he wouldn't piss off his captain enough to earn him a swim. It was fine messing with Ikuto every now and then but the other male had limits and Kukai knew them. "So in less than ten minutes the two of you solved the riddle."

It wasn't a question, but Ikuto felt that he needed to answer it like one. "Does it matter? The riddle got solved and we know where to go. Two more pieces and we'll be heading for the Seven Seas Treasure."

Stepping in without actually moving from her spot, Utau gave her brother a look that meant that she would be speaking and he would be listening despite him being the captain and she not. "Ikuto, if the riddle was that easy for the two of you to understand then how come you hadn't solved it before today?"

Looking anywhere other than at his sister and the pink-haired girl speaking now with other members of the crew, Ikuto gave a huff. There were things that Utau didn't know. She and Ikuto were only half-siblings and had grown up away from each other. They'd only come back together after Ikuto had gotten his ship. While they talked about a lot of things, there were some that Ikuto had never told her. He wasn't about to now. "I've been… distracted."

Letting out an unamused sound, Utau turned back to look out over the ship and toward the horizon. "I suggest you get undistracted quickly. Especially if the seventh piece of the map is soon to be found."

Grunting, Ikuto turned away from the two to also look out at the sea. They didn't even know the half of it. Sirens weren't going to be easy to deal with. However, he had some time before he actually needed to tell them. Somehow, he knew that Amu wasn't going to say anything just yet either. It was better to wait.

XXX

The prison was dank and musky. Clearly, no one really bothered to clean down there, but it wasn't like the men and women that got thrown into the cells were expecting them to be clean. Tadase sat with his butt barely on the edge of what he figured was a bed. There was no way that he was going to ruin his clothing by touching the disgusting things in that cell. He was a governor's son and would be treated better. Even if no one else at the prison seemed to think so.

"Well, well, well. It isn't often that I find my little cousin in such a predicament."

With his back already straight and his head held high, Tadase looked out through the bars to see someone rather familiar to himself. "Kiseki."

Snorting at the way that the proper little spoiled brat before him could still act high and noble and look down his nose from inside a prison cell, Kiseki moved closer to the bars while jingling the keys. "So do tell me. What could ever make you stab a man seventeen times in the chest in the middle of the day?"

There was blood on his hands and his clothing still, but Tadase refused to be cowed, especially by his own kin. "He had something of mine, so I took it back."

Far more intrigued than he had thought he'd be, Kiseki moved just a bit closer to the cell. "Oh, and what would that be?"

Narrowing his gaze, Tadase glared at his cousin before shifting his eyes to the wall behind the other male. "My bride was kidnapped by pirates on the night of our wedding. She was brought here and forced to sell her dress. I was simply taking it back. Once I find her, we will be wed."

"This is the girl that aunt doesn't like?"

Baring his teeth at his cousin, Tadase almost shifted from his spot. "My mother has no say in who I marry!"

Laughing, Kiseki shook his head before moving to the door of the cell. "I will take you with me, cousin. It'll be an easy enough thing for me to do. After all, I'm a high-ranking official in the navy."

"And they would let you just take a murderer?"

The words were almost spat out like Tadase couldn't believe he had to say them. It made Kiseki all the more happy to hear that his cousin thought of himself as innocent even though he did admit to committing the crime. "A murderer that has valuable information on a certain pirate ship that I've been hunting."

Smirking now, Tadase raised himself from his seat. "Always good to see you, cousin."

Returning the exact smirk, Kiseki let the other male out of his cell. "The pleasure, as always, is mine. However, I must inform you that this pirate captain I'm looking to hang has rumored to have a new little vixen in his crew. She, apparently, is quite the actress and definitely a pirate, according to my sources."

Scowling, Tadase moved to lead the way out of the prison. He wasn't staying there any longer than he had to. The smell was atrocious. "That vixen is my bride. I will wed her. You can kill the others. Think of it as a wedding present for your favorite cousin."

Kiseki had always known that under the golden hair and cute face of his cousin lay something far more dangerous than people ever realized. "The girl is yours. I will have the crew."

Maybe going to jail for murder wasn't such a bad thing after all. Tadase couldn't help but grin to himself. His actions, as always, got him exactly what he wanted.

XXX

The week that passed while they were heading for the Siren's cove went rather quickly for the captain. He wasn't all that surprised to see his ship in better shape than it had been in a while. Amu was keeping the other carpenters busy. The captain knew that she was teaching them everything that she could. He figured she was doing so because she wasn't yet part of the crew and could be left behind at the next port since she wasn't at the last.

Seeming to understand Ikuto's thoughts, Yoru moved to stand next to his captain. The boy was by far the youngest member of the crew and served as Ikuto's cabin boy. It was really just a job title since Yoru didn't exactly have to do much. He did have the whistle to call out orders that way, but that was about all. "Are you going to let her join?"

The boy beside him was young and somewhat innocent still. Ikuto wasn't going to kid himself into thinking that Yoru didn't know what was going on because the lad, while young, had seen a lot of the world already. "You think I should?"

Shrugging, Yoru played with the string that kept his whistle around his neck. "She's been very helpful."

Nodding, Ikuto looked out over the ocean before them. "She has gotten this old tub back into shape."

"Don't speak about The Lynx that way. This ship has always been more than an old tub."

The ship they were on was Yoru's home. Had been ever since Ikuto had saved the boy from a wreck when he was even smaller than he was standing there beside him. Like Su, Yoru rarely felt the need to go ashore whenever they stopped somewhere. The boy liked being on the ship. It was where he felt safe. "This ship is my pride and joy, Yoru."

The cabin boy wasn't at all cowed by his captain's response. Mostly because he knew how kind Ikuto could be. Nightmares had plagued him at first, but the captain had always been there to help him wake from them and leave the past in the past. "For taking such good care of our home, Captain. I think you should make her part of the crew."

Sighing, Ikuto flicked some of his hair out of his face before looking across the deck to where Amu was quietly sitting. She was looking out over the water. "I don't know if I can, Yoru."

"You are the captain, Captain. You can do anything."

The amount of faith that one boy that wasn't even close to being a man yet had in him made Ikuto smile. "Once we get the next piece of the map, I'll think about making her a real member of the crew."

Nodding, Yoru moved to go down the stairs. "Good, because I like her. She's funny and pretty and she works hard."

There was nothing from what Yoru said that Ikuto could argue with. Amu was all of those things and more. So much more that it made Ikuto ache. There was very little that he could do about it at the moment. They were quickly approaching the cove and he had to ready the crew. In the morning, the next step in their grand adventure would begin.

.

Morg: Not one of my longest chapters, but I'm happy with it.

Ikuto: I don't see why.

Amu: I like Yoru. He's cute.

Morg: That little guy is one of my favorites.

Ikuto: Mine, too.

Amu: I think that'd be obvious.