First Nakama
Chapter 2: First Nakama
Gin met his Captain on an Autumn Island at the Grand Line. Granted, at the time he had no idea of just how important the young man would become to him or how the casual encounter would shape his future beyond his wildest imagination.
The pirate had been staying at the island for the last three weeks, not really sure of what to do.
After splitting away from the Krieg Pirates, he had travelled the East Blue and found the beginnings of what seemed a promising crew. Soon enough, their captain decided it was time to head to the Grand Line.
A few close calls and some unsavoury people joining the crew had Gin realising it was time for their paths to separate. And he found himself alone in the Pirate’s Graveyard.
He hadn’t yet figured out what to do when he came upon an unusual sight at the market.
Off to the side in a back alley, a young man stood surrounded by four rough looking men. Well, he said young, but at the time it was nothing more than an assumption based on the height and short black hair, the stranger’s face hidden behind a white mask.
Gin had stood back and watched as the men taunted the youth and tried to rob him ―he was still a pirate and had nothing to do with what was going on, so why bother interfering?― only to get their asses handed back to them when the masked man defeated them with little fanfare.
The ex-First Mate of the Krieg Pirates took in every detail of the fight, from the way the youth’s red coat opened revealing the green shirt underneath when he moved to break a blonde’s nose to the way his black-clad legs flexed as he delivered a kick to another’s sternum or how he twisted out of the way of a tall brunette in a fast twirl to avoid his leg being cut and jumped over his back, using the momentum to slam his opponent’s head against his last standing foe’s.
It was only when one of the downed men levelled a shaky pistol at the man’s back that Gin’s eyes narrowed and he moved.
His tonfa intercepted the bullet before crashing down on the fool’s head, knocking him out.
“Thank you.”
The words were soft and politely spoken in a voice that he deemed male. Definitely a man, he thought. Unless it was an okama, which seemed all too common in the Grand Line.
“You’d already won fair and square.” Replied Gin with a nonchalant shrug, his tonfa resting against his shoulder.
“You still helped.” Said the stranger, staring at him.
Gin had a feeling he was being sized as otherworldly green eyes took in every detail about him. Instead of showing how unsettled he felt, the pirate returned his perusal, seeking any details he might have missed.
A dark red long coat draped over a lithe body, covering a leaf green shirt and black comfortable pants held up by a silver belt. His feet were clad in black boots and a plain black bandana hung around his neck. Dark slightly wavy hair framed his face, covered by the white mask.
The mask itself must have cost some money, since it was articulate, the lower half moving with the man’s jaw. It was otherwise rather plain, with the only decoration being two vertical black stripes across the eye holes.
His most striking feature wasn’t any of that: it was his eyes. Soulful and fathomless, those forest green depths were open with the emotions they conveyed, unlike the closed-off air the mask gave.
It was those eyes that prompted him to introduce himself.
“Name’s Gin.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Gin. You may call me whatever you like.”
HPOPHPOPHPOPHPOP
Gin and the newly dubbed Karasu ―meaning raven― bonded over a shared meal when the young man insisted on inviting him as a thank you for his help.
Karasu, Gin discovered, was a young pirate looking for a crew he could join, like him, with one small difference: he had a small boat on which he moved from island to island in search of his future nakamas.
Being able to sail the Grand Line like that could mean two things: he was strong or he was lucky. If it was the first, that’d be great, but if it was the second… well, luck only lasts so long.
Still, Gin was interested enough after the little he’d learned of him to risk it.
“So you’re also looking for a crew, Gin?”
“Yes. I split up from mine some time ago.”
“Why?”
“We wanted different things from life.”
“Would you like to come with me, then? Until you find yourself a crew or whatever.”
Gin arched an eyebrow.
“You’d let a man you know nothing about travel with you?”
“You seem like a good man, maybe a bit rugged but I guess that’s expected of a pirate, isn’t it? And traveling alone gets boring real fast.” Answered Karasu.
His eyes were eerily still then, as if they could look right at his soul and lay all his secrets bare to the world.
That’s how the ex-First Mate of Krieg’s Pirates joined Karasu.
HPOPHPOPHPOPHPOP
Their acquaintance soon turned into friendship as they sailed through two more islands, getting in trouble and having fun as only pirates can do.
Gin learnt a lot about Karasu ―or Aiko, as the young man had offered his name when it became clear they wouldn’t be parting any time soon. Not about his past because Karasu never offered and Gin didn’t ask, bu about his unusual person.
His first impression hadn’t been wrong: he was young. Karasu was, in fact, only seventeen. He didn’t act his age, though, seeming at times too mature.
Also, he was definitely strong, as he proved when he defeated with barely any trouble a Devil Fruit user with some kind of control over wind.
The fact that he only got into that fight because the man had beat up Gin after he’d got offended or some shit spoke by itself. That he had a temper wasn’t up for questioning either.
But that strength hid a surprisingly gentle and forgiving nature. He’d watched Karasu give his food away to a couple of orphans with the same easy he’d beat up those four thugs the day they met.
So it was no surprise when Gin got, not only attached, but protective of the younger man. Without even realising it, Aiko had won the ‘Man-Demon’s’ loyalty; something hard to earn but even harder to loose.
His companion’s sigh brought him back to awareness and the twenty-six, soon to be twenty-seven, year old pirate looked at him questioningly.
“I think I’m going to fall asleep.”
Gin’s eyes widened and he reached out, just barely managing to catch Aiko before he fell. His lip quirked up a bit in fondness and he wondered how his friend had managed before he came along. Then he carefully dragged Karasu to a corner and settled on the floor to wait for him to wake up, his left shoulder serving as a pillow.
As he had discovered travelling with him, Karasu had a ‘mild’ case of narcolepsy. The first time he witnessed it, he’d fallen asleep whilst manning the boat. The second, he’d almost drowned in a bowl of miso.
Ignoring the looks passing people sent them, the pirate shook his head and looked down at the masked man leaning against his side. He had yet to ask about the mask, but seeing as he’d already decided to stick around for the foreseeable future, he didn’t see the sense in asking.
Aiko would tell him when he felt comfortable enough talking about it. Or he wouldn’t.
HPOPHPOPHPOPHPOP
Aiko and Gin sat at a table near the tavern’s only window, two cups full of tea ―something the younger man had been very insistent he try―and with steam rising lazily from the surface resting between them.
The first was watching the snow fall like a heavy curtain over the little village outside whilst the latter was leaning back on his chair watching him.
They had docked at a small winter island a few days before, having seen the three pirate ships docked there. They had watched the crews for a while and soon decided not to get involved with them.
The one with a flag with flowers in its skull’s sockets had been weak, defeated on their first day at the island by the crew of pirates with three crosses on their flag.
The crew with the three crosses had been an unsavoury sort, bragging about their strength when only a couple of its members had any noteworthy bounty and it was only due to how violent they were and not any real skills on their part. They had left two days before, leaving only the crew with two knives as the resident pirate crew.
They had been approached by a member of the crew the day before and were offered a meeting with the captain. Their hopes were dashed soon.
As if the man’s arrogance and crassness hadn’t been off putting enough, the liberties he took by reaching to take off Aiko’s mask had upset Gin enough to have him slam the captain to the floor with his tonfa.
If Karasu was at all upset at being confronted by the crew for Gin’s hasty action, there was no visible sign of it.
The Man-Demon felt further reassured by the grateful gleam in those green eyes as Aiko announced that they were definitely not interested in joining such a crew.
That was how, after another disappointment, they found themselves at the small out of the way tavern.
“Why don’t you build up your own crew?” asked Gin seemingly out of nowhere.
It was something he’d been thinking for a while, but it caught his companion completely off guard.
“Build my own crew? As in me being the captain?”
Gin shrugged casually, as if saying ‘why not?’ Karasu was already shaking his head.
“That’d be easier if we were in one of the Blues, but people in the Grand Line look for crews that have already been established and shown strength. Besides, who would want to follow an inexperienced seventeen year old with barely any money and a fishing boat?”
Gin frowned. Of course, he was right, if one disregarded the fact that he would join him. There must be more people out there that would see the potential in following Aiko, right? They just had to find them.
“I won’t deny I’ve thought of it,” added Karasu in a low voice, as if he was voicing the thought for the first time. “but I concluded it would be better to join a crew first, learn the ropes. Maybe I’ll find good nakamas and just stay with them. Who knows? I’ll admit, though, I never thought it would be this difficult.”
Gin smiled in understanding. He’d joined Krieg the very same day he’d set out to sea and stayed loyal to him until the day he left, doing anything he was ordered despite his personal beliefs. Afterwards, he’d felt lost as he wondered around looking for a new crew. He’d found it, but he’d never felt truly comfortable with them and it hadn’t been so hard to leave when it became clear they wanted different things.
Now, Gin knew what he wanted, he just didn’t seem to find it. Which made building up a crew the most logical thing.
“Why don’t you build one up, instead?” shot back Aiko. “You’ve got the experience.”
“I’m not cut for leading.”
The twenty-seven year old was honest enough with himself to admit that, no, he was not captain material. But he seemed to have found someone who was and, now that it had taken root in his mind, the idea didn’t seem about to leave him anytime soon.
“Well, I guess we’re back at the beginning. We’ll have to keep looking.” Sighed the masked pirate.
Gin hummed non-committal, his head already spinning around an idea.
HPOPHPOPHPOPHPOP
“You know, that spot you’ve got on the side looks like the kanji for ‘happiness’.”
Gin almost sweat-dropped at his companion’s casual remark.
Forget any idea about following him: Aiko must be suicidal.
Still, his hands tightened around the handle of his tonfa, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.
To his surprise, the Sea King reared back instead of immediately attacking, looking ―dare he say it― confused.
Gin almost had a heart attack when the beast, more than big enough to eat their whole boat and them and still have room to chew, had raised its head from the sea, now shadowed by the bulking shape of its underwater body.
And now he almost had a heart attack again when Aiko, with no regard to the razor sharp looking teeth, walked right up to the beast and raised himself on his tip-toes to tap a spot high up on its chest.
“This one.” Mused the masked man aloud. “If you draw two lines across it like this,” he continued following with his hands the two imaginary lines. “it would be a perfect match, don’t you think?”
The Sea King tilted its head to the side, its eyes looking at the youth in bewilderment. Those big red eyes darted to the older man for a moment, its expression spelling out clearly a question: ‘is he for real?’
Gin thought he understood how it felt. A worrisome thought.
“I think you should consider drawing it. What do you think, Gin?”
As Karasu turned on his heels to look at him, his eyes wide and curious and totally serious, the Man-Demon spoke without a thought to what left his mouth.
“I don’t think a Sea King had the right anatomy to do that.”
Both the beast and Karasu blinked at him, looking like kicked puppies. Just how did they do it when one of them hid his face behind a mask and the other wasn’t even human, he had no idea. The pirate’s grip on the tonfa tightened again.
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Muttered Aiko.
In cursed in his head, his eyes widening as he saw the Sea King behind his companion visibly shake himself, angrier than when he’d first broken the water’s surface, and open its mouth, ready to swallow them whole.
“I could draw it for you.” Offered Aiko out of the blue, turning back to the animal.
That made the Sea King pause again, its mouth snapping shut.
“If you really want, I can do it for you. I’m not good at drawing, but it’s only two lines. It’ll be easy.”
The Sea King seemed to think about it before nodding vigorously, looking suddenly much happier.
“We’ve got no paint, though, so we’ll have to stop by an island and actually buy some.” Said Karasu rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. “Do you know where we can find an island nearby?”
The Sea King nodded again before diving underwater, its head poking out of the sea again right under their feet. Gin’s eyes widened when the small boat tilted precariously, now out of the water and on top of the beast’s head.
“Oh, you’re taking us to it? Great!”
The older pirate held onto the railing with a white-knuckled grip as they begun to move, picking up speed even as the wind beat at them. He must have gone wrong somewhere to end up following someone so crazy, even if he still didn’t know where it was.
HPOPHPOPHPOPHPOP
The Sea King became a permanent fixture after Karasu helped turn that random mark into the kanji for ‘happiness’ with the help of some waterproof paint.
It spent the following week strutting around showing off the mark like an oversized peacock, to the point that Gin had taken to calling it that. In the privacy of his head. It had a temper.
Gin himself spent the first day questioning his own sanity. After cracking a smile at the looks on the villagers’ faces when they saw them appear on top of an honest-to-God Sea King only to ask for paint as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
He had to admit, though, that it did look like the kanji for ‘happiness’, much to the thing’s obvious pleasure.
Once Aiko caved and named it ―Yuki, for ‘happiness’―, declaring that their new friend needed a name they could call it by, the twenty-seven year old knew they weren’t getting rid of it anytime soon. Worst of all was, the bloody thing grew on you.
And it was that way that they got a pet Sea King following them around like a puppy. A puppy that could rip you apart in a protective rage if he saw you as a threat to its new friends ―the smaller Sea King that attacked their boat a weak later would be able to confirm it if it weren’t serving as fish food at the depths of the sea, or at least the part Yuki didn’t eat might be―, but still a puppy.
HPOPHPOPHPOPHPOP
If Gin had still been looking for a crew they could join, he’d probably be regretting having Yuki with them. Or maybe not.
Yuki’s presence kept the weakest pirates away, which was good. On the downside, it also attracted a lot of attention from psychos and power-hungry fools that wanted to use Aiko’s apparent ability to ‘control’ a Sea King.
It had led to Gin suggesting that Yuki keep away from people’s sight as much as possible unless it was truly necessary. They didn’t want to attract the wrong sort of attention yet. It had been nothing they couldn’t deal with yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they came across some big fish.
So it was with a small pang of regret at how downtrodden the thing looked that he patted Yuki’s scaly neck where it rested on the sandy beach.
“Come on, don’t look so sad.” Comforted Aiko. “It’ll only be a few hours before we’re back.”
Yuki groaned pitifully and Gin sighed.
“In the meantime, you can hunt something for dinner.” Offered the Man-Demon shouldering his tonfa. “We’ll be back sooner if we don’t have to worry about getting something to eat.”
The Sea King perked up, looking at Karasu for confirmation. The younger pirate’s mask might cover his facial expressions, but his eyes were enough to tell them that he was smiling as he nodded.
A fiery glint of determination entered Yuki’s eyes before it ―or he, as Gin should start referring to him― dove back underwater, presumably to carry out his new task.
Exchanging an amused look, both humans set out to find the island’s nearest village.
HPOPHPOPHPOPHPOP
Unfortunately, peace doesn’t usually last forever and it didn’t for them either.
As they were nearing Lulusia Island, a place dangerously close to the Marine Base G-2 ―too close for Gin’s peace of mind―, something happened that changed the course of whatever path they’d been on. Steamrolled right over it before derailing and hopping into a roller-coaster might be a more fitting description of what happened, truly.
Lulusia wouldn’t be visible for a while still when the sky darkened suddenly. It was almost like someone had turned off the sun. The sea had just begun to grow restless when Yuki emerged ahead of them, a keening whine coming from deep in its throat. His eyes looked panicked, but they had no time to wonder at its reason, for the sea under the boat started to swirl.
That was all the warning they got before they were launched towards the sky.