Morg: Heyo! I have an announcement at the end of the chapter if you want to stick around to read it.

Ikuto: Do we actually care?

Amu: I don't.

Morg: It isn't for either of you.

Ikuto: So now I care even less.

Amu: Same.

Morg: This is part of why I don't own you.

~The Eighth Sea~

It wasn't right for her to be hiding when she could be helping. Amu hated that she was more of a danger to the rest of the crew than someone able to help. They knew what they were doing, but Amu had put them into this situation and now she had to hide while they tried to get her out of it. This was the last thing she wanted for them. They were her friends now, not just a means to an escape.

Pacing around the cabin, Amu made sure to stay back from the windows that lined the back part of the boat. Having Tadase spot her in there would make her hiding pointless. Just because she was staying back from the windows didn't mean that she wasn't looking out of them and at the ship that was following after theirs. Seeing it getting closer to their ship did little to calm Amu's anxiety.

Amu knew that the other ship wasn't going to give up pursuit unless The Lynx totally disappeared from their sights. The sound of their cannon fire was enough of a point for Amu to understand that. They weren't close enough to hit them yet, but their point was to scare the pirates and it was working on Amu. She also knew that from the way the other ship seemed to be gaining on them, their escape was very likely not going to happen.

"Fuck this."

It wasn't often that Amu swore. She slumped onto Ikuto's bed and glared at the windows on the other side of the cabin. She was so done with other people fucking with her life. Amu really just wanted to go on this adventure with the crew and wished that the people from her past would just let her.

XXX

"We're gaining on them."

"Are you surprised, Tadase? I told you that this was the fastest ship that the Navy has."

Shrugging, Tadase snapped his spyglass closed before heading up the stairs to where his cousin stood on the forecastle. "I believe you now."

Kiseki would have snorted at the façade of calm that his cousin was trying to cling to. Tadase's reaction was always the same. He grew anxious anytime they caught sight of a ship on the horizon. "Do you think she'll be on this one?"

"The ship looks like a pirate ship. There's a chance."

Smirking at that, Kiseki turned back to face the ship they were gaining on. "I do love sending pirates to the bottom of the sea."

XXX

"We aren't going to outrun them."

Grunting, Ikuto shifted his hands on the wheel to move the ship with the sea in order to gain more speed from the wind. He motioned for Kukai to give orders with his head, trusting that his first mate already knew what needed to be said and done.

Kukai turned swiftly away from Ikuto to address the crew that was still scrambling around them. "Gunners, prepare to fire! No one has ever taken this ship from us! Today will not be the day that they do!"

The crew cheered as they continued on with their work. Il, Daichi, and Temari scrambled to follow Musashi's orders to load the long cannons and have more ammunition for when they had to fire again. They knew what they were doing and wouldn't let the rest of the crew down.

Turning to Utau, Ikuto nodded before he released the helm for her to take back over. While he was great at steering, Utau wouldn't be stopped. Once his sister was back in control, Ikuto stepped up to her before pulling her into a half hug. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head before looking back at Kukai. "Ready your weapons, Kukai. Have the others take up arms. We will not go down without a fight."

Sneering, Kukai turned back to the crew to start barking out more orders. He placed his hand on the gun at his hip as he did so. "Take up arms! No man or woman shall be without a weapon!"

Ikuto watched for only a moment before he turned to head back to his cabin where his sword and pistols were. He hesitated at the door for only a second. Going in there to face Amu before this battle wasn't a good idea. She was sure to try and come out to join the fight.

Sure enough, Ikuto opened the door to find the pinkette standing not too far from him holding his sword and guns out to him. "You have to stay in here."

Nodding quickly, Amu helped Ikuto ready himself. "I will until they board us. I'm not going to hide at that point. It would only be a matter of time until they saw me and I won't just wait for someone to spot me when I can help."

"Amu-"

"This is me compromising with you, Captain. I could just ignore your orders and go out now."

Sighing at that, Ikuto made sure that his guns were easily accessible before turning back for the door. "If you join in this fight then you better be careful."

Smiling a bit, Amu cocked one of her hips to the side before picking up a knife that Ikuto had ignored while getting his other weapons. "I never did like the Navy."

Ikuto forced himself to leave his cabin before he said anything else. That woman was going to be the death of him. She was becoming more and more of a pirate with every day that she spent with the crew and Ikuto found himself falling in love with her all over again whenever she did things like that.

"Are you ready?"

Snapped out of his thoughts by his sister's question, Ikuto gave her a short nod before taking his stance next to her. "I'll protect you."

Snorting, Utau held the helm steady as she kept her eyes on the horizon. "We both know that I'll be able to handle myself in a fight if it comes to that. Don't worry about me, big brother. You're the captain. If anything happens to you then the rest of us will be in trouble."

Ikuto gripped his sword just a little tighter as he turned to glance at the ship still gaining on them. "Do you think they're close enough yet?"

Utau looked back to study the distance between them and the Navy ship. "To make a stand? I think so."

"What are the chances of us sinking them before they have a chance to fight back?"

The grin that Utau sent to him was nasty. It was one filled with glee at the thought of them pulling some underhanded trick. At that moment, Ikuto saw just how similar his sister was to him. "Slim to none but let's give it a try."

Matching her smirk, Ikuto turned to find Kukai already shaking his head at the two of them. "You heard the lady."

Kukai never had to question two things in his life. The rest he was constantly analyzing. The first of the two was his love for his captain. He was loyal to the end and there would never be anything that could change that. Kukai would follow Ikuto to their deaths. The second was the love he had for Utau. There would never be another woman like her. Kukai didn't have to look to know.

Bracing himself, Kukai glanced back once more at the ship gaining on them before taking a deep breath. "Brace to stand! Hard to port! Gunners take aim! Why don't we show these scallywags our colors!?"

XXX

Tadase felt dread overcome when the ship before them suddenly swung around. "What are they doing?"

Kiseki barely looked at his cousin as he rested one of his hands on the railing of the forecastle. He watched with a hint of a smile playing at his lips as a pirate flag was run up the mast of the ship that was preparing to fight them. "Gunners to arms! They're coming around! Prepare to fire!"

Hands tightening on the spyglass within his hands, Tadase gasped when his cousin simply turned to walk away. "Kiseki! None of the others have ever done this!"

"They're pirates, Tadase. They have no honor."

Gaping after the other male, Tadase scrambled to follow his cousin across the main deck and to the quarter deck. The sailors around them hastened to follow orders as they prepared for whatever it was the pirates were planning. "Should I be worried?"

Smirking now, Kiseki stopped next to his helmsman. The other ships that they'd boarded and searched had been boring compared to the battle that was about to happen. "No, my sailors are trained to fight. This is the Navy, Tadase."

"You said that part of what made this ship so fast was the fact that it didn't have the standard large cannons that other navy ships had. That means they have the chance to sink us before we'd be able to do anything in return."

"They won't sink us."

Tadase didn't want to point out that Kiseki didn't exactly know what he was talking about. Instead, he lifted his spyglass once more to watch the people on the deck of the pirate ship scrambling to be ready. Lifting the lens so that he could closely look at the pirate flag, Tadase couldn't help but tighten his grip as he gasped. "There she is! I can see the pink of her hair in the crow's nest!"

Kiseki clasped his hands as he tried to hold himself back from showing too much excitement. He'd been waiting a long time to catch up with The Lynx and Captain Tsukiyomi. "Excellent. Let's go get her."

XXX

Amu chewed on her bottom lip as she stood before the small porthole that gave her a view of the ship that they'd turned to face. They hadn't fully turned the ship to go back toward the other, but they had turned so they could use more cannons that the Navy ship could currently use.

She'd known when Ikuto had come in for his guns that he was going to have them fight. There was no way that they'd be able to outrun the other ship and Ikuto wasn't going to let them be sunk because they wouldn't turn and fight. It was clear now that the other ship was certain that they were pirates and not some merchant's vessel.

The booming of their cannons had Amu quickly covering her ears as she winced. That didn't mean she looked away as two of the four cannonballs hit their target. The pinkette could already hear Musashi yelling for the gunners to reload.

Moving away from the wall when the notion that the Navy could potentially hit their ship in return, Amu crossed her arms as she went back to Ikuto's desk. "If they put holes into this ship then I swear to the gods I will end them all. I do not need to be fixing more things already!"

XXX

They gave the Navy ship a run for their money. Ikuto knew that they did. They'd hit the other ship several times, but it still came closer. They took hits and did their best to minimize the damage. Most of that didn't matter as he realized that they were going to have to move to hand-to-hand battles. "Ready your weapons! Musashi, get another good blast and then take up the guns!"

Watching as his crewmates moved together to ready their ship for a battle, Ikuto removed one of his pistols from its holster. "Nagihiko, Rhythm, El, and Dia, standby! I don't want any of those seadogs setting foot on my ship!"

A blast of cannon fire from the Navy ship had Ikuto ducking while also pushing Utau down so that she wouldn't be hit. "Someone take out their cannons!"

"Captain! They have men preparing to board!"

"Prepare to fight!"

Amu couldn't stay hidden any longer at those shouted words. Still, she knew better than to just throw herself into the chaos of the fight that was already taking place. Slowly, she slipped out of the captain's cabin, keeping her head low. "Ikuto!"

Turning, Ikuto frowned to see that Amu was coming out to join them. "We aren't boarded yet, Amu! Go back!"

Ignoring the orders, Amu stayed low as she moved closer to Ikuto's side. It took only one glance for her to realize that the amount of sailors on the Navy ship was far more than the number they had in the crew. "We're not going to win this."

Gritting his teeth, Ikuto frowned before turning to yell more orders to his crew. When he was finished, he rounded back on the pinkette before him. He hadn't thought she was one that would lose all faith when they ended up in a battle. "Go back if you aren't prepared to fight!"

"It isn't that I don't trust you all!" Amu shouted as she stood up. It took her a second to realize what she had done before she dropped back to hiding. "They have the upper hand! We can't stay here and fight, we're going to lose."

"What would you have us do?"

Amu looked at the other ship once more before she smirked back at the captain. "We're going to leave."

"They're faster than us."

Winking at the male, Amu began to move toward the starboard side of the ship. "Not if they can't move."

Ikuto felt his mouth fall open as Amu gathered a coil of rope. "Rima! Miki! Help Amu with whatever she needs you to do! The rest of you, keep those scums off my deck!"

Kukai cut another rope as the hook attached to the end of it snagged on their railing. He wasn't about to give them any chances to get across to their ship. "Aye, Captain!"

Motioning to the other girls, Amu glanced over her shoulder at the captain before they moved around to where they wouldn't be seen by anyone on the Navy ship. "Just get ready to move!"

"Utau!"

"I'm ready whenever they give the signal! Get someone up on the sails!"

Ikuto did as his sister suggested as before he shot a sailor that was getting ready to swing over to their ship. "Someone tell me that Kairi is ready for any injuries!"

Kukai laughed as he punched a sailor that had tried to swing over to them. "With this crew, the doc is always ready!"

Snorting, Ikuto fired his other pistol before tossing them to the side. He didn't have time to reload them now. He would worry about it when they weren't in the middle of a battle.

Amu ignored the fighting as she fitted a harness made out of the rope around herself. All she really needed was the knife that she'd taken from Ikuto's cabin. "I'm going to swing down and around to their rudder and disable it."

Miki helped secure the rope that Amu was using to the mizzenmast before slinking back over to where the other two girls were. "Do you know how to do that?"

Hoping that the look on her face said more than any of her words ever could, Amu simply made sure she was ready. "The moment you see me swimming back for the ship, you have to alert Utau so she can give the order to lower the sails. We have to get out of range as quickly as we can."

"The drag of the ship could hurt you!"

Shrugging, Amu tested her knots before climbing over the railing and holding herself in place. "All sorts of things could hurt me while I do this."

Rima shook her head before giving Amu a quick hug. "Usually you jump from the mast."

"I can't, they'll see me and I don't want them to have any idea that we're up to something."

"Just hurry, Amu. Please!"

Nodding once, Amu jumped.

.

Morg: So I was going to keep going, but I think this isn't such a bad place to stop.

Ikuto: Rude.

Amu: What was the announcement?

Morg: All of my stories are getting moved to AO3. So if something goes missing from here then go look for it there.

Ikuto: That's it?

Amu: That wasn't worth sticking around.

Morg: Whatever.