Queen of Pirates - Chapter 5
Title:Queen of Pirates Author:razzie89 Beta:hamano_chiaki & bakaibaland Pairing(s):Akame, Kameda, Ryoda, many more Rating:PG-13
Summary
Descending from a rich family, Kame was the only survivor of a ship raid several years ago. A group of pirates found him and decided to take him in, treating him as one of their own from then on. One day, Kame is kidnapped from the ship for no apparent reason. His friends are determined to bring him back, but that task proves to be harder than they had thought.
Author’s Notes
I'm so sorry for being late as hell. >___< I've just started working and somehow I didn't find the motivation to post this up. But it's here now so enjoy! ^__^
Chapter 5
Kame stared at his plate of food with a big pout on his face. He had never been this worked up over a misunderstanding before. Arashi truly believed they were doing him a favor, but in reality all he wanted was to return to the Queen of Pirates. He missed Ueda’s heart-warming smile, Junno’s carefree attitude and even Jin’s attempts to teach him how to look after himself.
Actually, in some way he missed Jin even more than the others. He decided it must be because Jin was the last one he saw before being taken away by Arashi. Still, even though he didn’t have good conversations with him the way he did with Ueda, somehow he yearned to see Jin’s face.
After all, these people weren’t the same ones who murdered his family - they were the ones who saved him. But no matter how many times he tried to explain, he was never allowed to finish his sentence.
“Are you going to eat that?” Sho asked when he noticed Kame wasn’t touching his meal.
“He’s still being stubborn”, Jun thought. “Give him some time, he’ll come around.”
Ohno nodded in agreement before he brought a spoonful of soup to his mouth. “He’s been with them all that time, he doesn’t know any better.”
Aiba ignored the conversation, too busy deciding on what he was going to eat next.
Only Nino doubtfully stared at Kame’s face, his eyes a little warmer than the others’. Kame realized he was analysing his behaviour without looking up. It was obvious from the beginning that Nino would be his only chance to get the truth out. Nino is the only one who would listen to his story - if only he had the chance to talk to him alone.
He sighed, giving in to his hunger for the time being. Refusing to eat would not get him anywhere right now, waiting for the right moment was his only option.
Their meal was disturbed by the sound of a bell, signaling the presence of a smaller boat nearby the Firefly. Sho took a sip of his wine and got up to take a look over the railing.
* * *
“What is that bell?”, Junno wondered warily. Maru studied the giant ship in front of them with a frown on his face. “I think they might have figured us out.”
“But we’re not even on the ship yet!”, Junno whined. They slowed down their paddling so they could analyse the situation better. A sudden movement on the deck drew their attention. Junno cursed as he saw Sho looking down at them with a superior expression on his face. He was joined by a few more guys not long after.
Too far away to undertake any action, Junno threw a hesitant glance at Maru. The other guy met his gaze and nodded softly before turning his head back to the ship in front of them.
“You can’t get aboard the ship! Leave or we’ll shoot!”, Sho yelled loudly so that his voice could be heard over the waves.
“We’ve come to talk!”, Maru replied immediately, attempting a different approach.
“We don’t talk to you!”, Matsujun shouted back. Junno’s eyes narrowed as he noticed the gun in the guy’s hands.
“We’ve searched all over for Kame! Please hear us out!”
Nobody replied to Maru’s plea at first. Both him and Junno stared up at the Arashi members at the railing intently as they turned to each other and discussed in a voice too quiet for them to understand. After what felt like way too long, Matsujun turned back to face them while the others disappeared from their sight.
“We’ll prepare a ladder”, he clarified before walking away too.
“Did it work?”, Junno asked Maru unbelievingly. The other guy didn’t reply, but his lifted eyebrows indicated they would have to be cautious.
* * *
“You’ve misunderstood the situation. We’ve taken good care of Kame all these years, and he is like an equal to us”, Maru explained. Junno kept quiet, preferring not to take any chances but simply rely on Maru’s negotiating skills.
And frankly, he was quite impressed with his friend. They had dealt with Arashi before, so they knew how much they looked down on negotiating with pirates. The word practically meant filth to them. But now they were sitting in a small room inside of the Firefly along with Sho, Matsujun and Ohno, and it looked like they were actually giving them a chance.
“The ship you took him from was full of corpses. You must know what it looked like to us.”
Maru nodded understandingly while Ohno was talking, but he wasted no time to explain himself. “But we weren’t responsible for that. We happened to pass by and see him on the deck, screaming and in shock. If we hadn’t found him…”, he shook his head slightly.
“So you’re saying…”, Ohno asked while staring back at him with an unreadable expression.
“That he belongs with us. He’s happy with us. We want him back.”
“Happy with you?” Sho chimed in suddenly.
“Exactly,” Maru nodded again. “I bet he hasn’t been as cheerful as you expected, now that he’s freed from our ‘slavery’, isn’t that right?”
All three of them furrowed their eyebrows, and Maru quickly stopped talking. He knew insults weren’t a good way to get something done, but it had seemed like such a good point to make. Ohno’s eyes wandered off then, and he couldn’t resist studying his face to grasp what he was thinking about.
“We’re going to need some privacy”, Ohno finally spoke. “Please leave the room for a moment.”
“Can we see Kame meantime?”, Junno couldn’t keep himself from asking excitedly.
After exchanging a few glances with the others, Matsujun stood up and opened the door for the two of them. He indicated the right direction to go in with a gesture of his hand.
“Just keep your distance”, he added warningly.
* * *
“What happened to him?”, Junno wondered, astonished. He tried to approach the half-sleeping Kame, but was immediately stopped by Aiba’s hand on his chest.
“Once he realized you were here, he drank all of our rum”, Aiba shrugged. “I guess he’s not that eager to see you after all.”
Unable to go any closer, Junno tried softly calling out to Kame instead. The boy opened his eyes partially, but it didn’t look like he was registering very much.
“Junno?”, he eventually whispered.
“Kame, it’s us”, Maru tried to reassure him. “We’ll take you back with us, so just hold on a bit longer.”
“Maru…”, Kame replied while trying to sit up, but falling back down dizzily. Nino was sitting next to him with a concerned face, supporting his back so he wouldn’t hurt himself in the process. He didn’t look up to see the two visitors even once, focusing only on Kame.
“Kame - why did you drink so much?”, Junno asked carefully.
“I told you, it’s because he was afraid you’d take him back”, Aiba shot back immediately. But Junno analysed Kame’s face carefully, and he didn’t miss how the boy shook his head weakly. It reassured him, and he let a sunny smile flash over his face.
“Kame-chan, get some rest. We’ll be waiting when you wake up.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Aiba muttered beneath his breath.
* * *
Junno removed his hands from the table when Ohno dug up a big map, spreading it open carefully.
“A map? What for?”
“It’s a treasure map”, Ohno explained. “This area”, he pointed vaguely at the center of the map, “depicts the long-abandoned eastern part of the Island of the Sun’s Tears.”
“I assume you’ve heard of it through one of your friends”, Sho grumbled at a rather violent memory.
“You want us to find the treasure for you?”
“The treasure is not the most important part. We’re no gold-diggers like you pirates are”, Aiba explained while rolling his eyes.
“See it as a test”, Matsujun added.
“What test? It’s easy for us”, Junno retorted, offended. “Of course we can find that treasure.”
“Whether or not you can find it is not the actual test, though of course we do expect you back with that treasure.”
“So the test is?”, Maru wondered, about equally confused as Junno was.
“Kazuya is going with you. And so am I”, Sho clarified.
“You? Wait, Kame? We don’t take him on dangerous quests like that”, Maru replied decisively.
“Well, now you do. I’m sure you pirates know how to protect him, and I can always help if it doesn’t appear to be the case.”
“Why are you two coming too?”
“It’s true that you’ve been going to great lengths to get that boy back, and to be fair, he really has been fairly stubborn. During the treasure quest, we want to analyse how you get along together. If you’re only pretending like you are ‘friends’ and ‘equals’, as you put it, we will find out soon enough.”
Finally, this deal was starting to make some sense to the two of them. But there were still a few things Maru wanted to clear up before accepting.
“Are we all going on the trip?”
“Only one of you is coming with us”, Sho continued.
That made Junno look up in surprise. “Only one? Who?”
“We’ve been talking about it”, Ohno started. “Because the cooperation throughout the quest is more important than the result, it would be better for someone who’s already been on the island to go.”
“That’d be Jin”, Maru understood.
The other guy nodded. “Moreover, if I’m not mistaken Jin is the main warrior on your ship - not very gifted at talking. If someone like him can convince us of his friendship with Kazuya, then that’ll take away our doubts about the rest of you too.”
Junno smiled softly, and he had to agree. However, Jin did go out alone to find Kame, even if it was partly because he felt guilty. Arashi didn’t seem to think of it that way, and he wasn’t about to remind them.
Maru’s face was still serious, but he must have realized the same thing behind that mask.
“So if Jin and Kame cooperate the way friends would, you will return him to us for good?”
“If they also succeed at the quest, yes. As we said before, we do need to see the treasure as proof.”
“I see no reason not to take this offer”, Maru stated. “Junno?”
“Let’s do it”, Junno agreed as well. The Arashi members stood up, indicating they should do the same.
“You can pick up Kazuya from the room you were at earlier. I’ll be waiting in your boat”, Sho said before taking off in the opposite direction.
Junno took a deep breath, excitement suddenly shooting through him at the thought of taking Kame home with them. Of course, it wouldn’t be long before Jin and Kame would have to leave, and even during that short time Sho would be around to analyse their every move. He expected Arashi wouldn’t be far away either, otherwise they would never allow Sho to be that outnumbered. Who knows, maybe they even had something up their sleeve to make sure Sho had the upper hand no matter what. But all of that didn’t change the fact that they could finally be together with the six of them again. And simply because of that realization, the rest didn’t matter to him. With a bright smile, he walked off to carry Kame to their boat.