Just as I was about to set the newspaper aside and return to the books I had promised myself to finish in this voyage, a muffled yell stirred the air above. A burst of shouts—garbled, indistinct—rolled down from the upper deck, rising like a tide of panic just barely held back by planks and canvas.
I stared at the roof of my cabin.
'Probably a brawl.'
The sea can do strange things to a non-sailor's nerves. Much less a punch of passengers with a lot of free time and access to booze.
Barking at a child for breathing too loudly, threatening to throw someone overboard for misplacing a cigar box, hell, even a full-blown fight over which is better, pony tails or twintails.
'Aside from the blasphemy of doubting the pony tails' supremacy, a fight on board is a very normal thing.'
I leaned back into the bed, cracked open a can of MAXX Coffee, and tried to focus on my book.
But the clamor didn't fade.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. The noise swelled instead of shrinking, gathering weight and urgency, timber creaked above more and more, footsteps thundered across the deck, and then—
BOOM!
The whole cabin shuddered as if a sea king had struck the hull with its tail. My bed skidded a few centimeters on the planks, and dust leapt from the rafters, raining onto the floor. I was already up before I realized I'd moved. My hands moved fast, sweeping aside the curtain covering the cabin's window.
'Nothing.'
Just sea and the sun through the distant sky.
But something was wrong. A cannonball had hit us, and last time I checked, you don't use those in bar fights.
And not just anywhere—it had struck the back of the ship.
I snapped open the bag at the foot of my bed, yanked out my belt, buckled my sword, and holstered my pistol.
Hooestily, I didn't want to bother myself with anything in this journey, I just wanted to relax my tired mind and mope on peace, until I have to deal with the next shit the world going to throw at me.
'And looks like it came early!'
I shoved open the cabin door and burst into the corridor, nearly colliding with a crewmember carrying a tray full of guns and gunpowder, moving with a flow of passengers and crewmembers.
"They hit the rudder!"
"Damn!"
"What's going on?"
Pushing past the flood of bodies, all of them angling toward the same direction—the upper deck.
Cries filled the corridor, feet pounded the boards, and a child clutched his mother's skirts, sobbing. The woman stared ahead, numb, her lips murmuring something silent. A prayer, maybe.
Other passengers and stewards are murmuring anxiously to each other as they move around.
When I made it to the top of the stairs and burst into the open air, the wind slapped me across the face. Smoke coiled in the sky. The scent of gunpowder and burning tar choked the breeze.
Everyone stood pressed against the starboard railing, eyes glued to the stern.
I followed their gaze.
At first, I saw only the wake of the ship, wide and white like a scar in the sea.
Then the shape emerged.
In the water, a big ship with its long oars out, dipping in rhythm and moving the ship toward us. With a dozen or so sailors at the bow of the ship, with dirty and mismatched clothes, and the glint of steel in their hands.
At the top of the ship, an ominous black flag is moving with the wind.
Pirates.
Someone shouted the word, and it passed like a wave through the passengers and crew.
"Pirates—!"
"Dear God—"
"Where's the Captain?!"
"Why are they here—"
I moved closer to the edge, elbowed between two gentlemen who looked as if they'd never fired a shot in their lives. One of them held a walking cane. The other was trying to button his coat with shaking hands.
I squinted at the ship behind us.
They were closing fast—too fast.
"How'd they get so close without being seen? Why didn't we avoid them?" someone asked.
That's when words started rolling out, one voice at a time, all tangled together in a mess of panic.
"They had a man aboard, someone in disguise."
"Killed the lookout in the crow's nest, slit his throat without a sound."
"Didn't ring the bell. Nobody saw the pirate ship until they got close."
"They've taken out the rudder with their front cannon, blasted it straight off."
"We can't steer, we're sitting ducks!"
The look on the faces around was full of fear, eyes wide, hands trembling. Seemed like in shock of what is happening, moments away from complete panic, like their worst fear had stepped out of the dark and grinned, and they are stunned and look at it.
But my mind was working fast, piecing together the stray words flying around, giving me a picture of what happened.
I turned my head and caught a glimpse of the lookout's post.
There were two crewmembers, one at the crow's nest and one down the mast, using a rope to bring down one of their members.
But the person didn't have blood or any gaping wounds on his body, other than him being a little dark.
'Was it poison?'
I ground my teeth.
'A spy on board. That meant they had planned this. This is not one of the normal pirate raids where they find a ship on the sea and chase it. They were targeting this ship.'
'Which means… they are going to kill us all.'
"Fuck! of all the cursed luck," I muttered, hand on my sword's hilt.
Before I could curse louder, a voice barked over the noise.
"Prepare for battle!"
The captain had emerged from the helm, sword already drawn, hat yanked low over his brow. His coat flapped in the wind. A musket hung from his back as his voice cut through the noise like an axe.
"Arm yourselves! Form up along the rail! If they board us, they'll cut us all down—man, woman, child! We fight, or we die!"
Gasps answered him. Someone dropped a flask. Another man actually staggered backward, shaking his head like he'd misheard.
"We're not sailors!" a passenger yelled. "We paid for passage, not war!"
"You'll pay with your life if you don't pick up a weapon!" the Captain snapped back. "They've already murdered our lookout, they were targeting us. Do you think they'll spare your wife? Your sons?"
No one answered that. The silence that followed was louder than the shouts.
Then a few crewmen moved. One handed out pistols and rifles to those willing to hold them. Another dragged a crate of cutlasses from the storage hold, flipping it open with a slam. I pushed my way to the crate and grabbed a second pistol, loading it on instinct.
I'd fought before. Not like this—not on a civilian ship.
Even though I have not been in this world for a long time, I have heard of what the pirates do when they get their hands on a civilian ship, the horror stories they leave behind.
And these pirates? They just weren't here for the cargo.
They were here for blood.
Hooks clanged against the starboard rail like the ticking hands of a crooked clock, announcing our coming doom in five-part harmony. Metal scraped wood, and ropes lashed through the air and coiled like snakes around the ship's bones.
The pirates were here, and unfortunately, so was I.
I stood near the mast, pistol in one hand, Barbossa Sword in the other, flanked by a bunch of trembling passengers and stiff sailors who looked about as qualified for combat as a middle-school drama club. I glanced at one of the older crewmen—wiry, wrinkled, scarred—and got a shaky nod back.
'That didn't help…'
"HERE THEY COME!"
"GET READY!" Someone shouted. The crew surged forward like a tidal wave of adrenaline and unresolved trauma.
The ropes went taut, the first pirate swung over the edge with the enthusiastic smile of a child on a playground swing—if that child had a beard, a gun, and an axe bigger than my future in this world and many others.
He landed hard, snarled, and raised his weapon.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
We shot him before he even finished his 2-star entrance.
Gunfire tore through the air, sharp and hot. I fired with the others—one, two, three shots.
The first pirate dropped like a sack of poor decisions, the second caught one in the leg and tumbled backward, screaming something unintelligible, the third—well, I don't know what he was planning, but he wasn't planning for my bullet to meet his chest like a rude handshake, but with the force of a sludge hammer.
That was the good part.
Then our side's clearly ancient firearms coughed out smoke and silence.
Unlike my expensive firearm, the sailor next to me pulled back the flintlock mechanism of his rifle again and again, but still nothing.
Not only he, but most of the shooters on our side were the same.
Great, Perfect! Just what we needed—outdated weapons in a naval nightmare.
Around me, a few others still fired like me, but most were in the same reload purgatory. And pirates don't wait politely while you fumble with powder and balls. They boarded like a tidal wave: yelling, laughing, swinging cutlasses like angry chefs looking for revenge against ingredients.
Someone screamed, and blood spattered the side of the helm. A passenger, around my age, was already down, his makeshift spear snapped in half. A cutlass had opened him from shoulder to waist.
I forced my eyes away as another pirate rushed me, pistol in hand.
BANG!
He fired, the bullet hissed through the air like an insult aimed at my chest.
It struck, but I was ready in time.
My cloak shimmered, Hamon flaring like a wave spreading too fast, and the bullet stopped at my cloak, like it had been caught by something invisible.
Still pushed me back a bit, but that beats pain and bleeding every time.
The pirate gawked for a second, then charged, swinging a cutlass as if brute strength could overcome poor life choices.
'If that were possible, we would all quit school and go to the gym!'
I raised my sword, our blades clashed—metal rang, pressure surged, and I triggered my special move just before the collision to not draw attention.
Hamon hummed up through my wrist, coiled through the steel like a whisper.
The pirate convulsed, his eyes rolled back as the energy passed through him. My Hamon didn't burn, didn't slice, it shocked.
A ripple cracked through his sword, into his bones, and then—
PAAK!
He flew backward like a puppet cut loose, slammed against a crate, and didn't move.
I didn't have time to admire my work. Another one was already closing in, slashing wide like he was mowing grass, not fighting people.
I shot him before he got close, one shot on a reflex, faster than Isshiki's rejections, and he collapsed, twitching.
The next was quicker, but this time, the strange Voice returned.
/A Downward Slash With Full Force/
Like the Voice said, he swung down hard.
I stepped aside, barely like a martial arts movie, and felt the edge of his blade brush my sleeve. I twisted my body, came up with my sword, Hamon already pooling in my blade, striking his side.
Sun-like ripples were unleashed, pulsing like a wave, and he dropped like a fish pulled too fast from the depths.
The third guy was the same as the ones before him. Sword high, loud roar, and charging like an idiot. The strange Voice didn't need to tell me what his plan was, as it was very obvious.
I met him head-on, our blades sparked, Hamon surged, he screamed, and fell.
Two more fired from the stairs with their pistols aimed at me. I turned fast, cloak wrapping around me like a second skin. Their shots pinged against it, dull thumps, no penetration.
Confusion was on their faces, but not mine.
My pistol fired back.
BANG!
BANG!
Two shots, two targets, two thuds. They weren't confused anymore, just unconscious. Or that's what I hope, at least.
I lunged forward once more—another pirate, another fight. It all blurred into a ridiculous rhythm. Clang of steel, shot from a gun, pulse of Hamon, another one down.
I started to lose track of how many fell. Seven? Ten? More? I stopped counting.
But they weren't the only ones falling.
Slash!
"AHHHHHH!"
A man beside me went down with a hole in his throat. Another was dragged away screaming. A crewmate lost his arm at the elbow. It thudded wetly on the deck, followed by the rest of him a moment later.
I realized, then, the numbers were tipping. But not in our favor. Every pirate we cut down, we paid for with two or three on our side.
The difference in combat experience was obvious, they were sea-brewed pirates, while we were civilians and cargo ship crew.
I stepped back, breathing deeply. Looked around. The world had narrowed to blood and wood and smoke. The ship groaned under the weight of battle. And the Sword in my hand hummed with power, ready to be used.
I didn't want to use it.
My goal is not to play hero in front of some NPCs, my goal is to go back home.
Heroism? That always seemed like someone else's disease. An affliction of the idealistic, the naïve, the dumb. Heroes were the ones who charged in, got stabbed in the back, and died thinking their sacrifice mattered.
But then I saw them.
Passengers—people who weren't supposed to be here, holding weapons they didn't know how to use. A mother shielding her daughter with a rusted dagger. A deckhand was still swinging despite a gash down his side. An old man with no weapon at all, just fists and rage.
And corpses. So many familiar faces were now stiff and broken.
'Damn…!'
When I had that self-sacrificial tendency before, it wasn't because I wanted to be a hero, it was because I thought I had nothing to lose, so sacrificing someone like me was more logical.
Now that I have a goal to achieve, something to lose, I was acting the complete opposite.
'So pathetic…'
Like a complete douchebag, someone who will make a hypocritical person like Hayama look like an angel from heaven.
That idea of staying low when people are dying? To not do something when you can feel smaller and meaner now.
'Damn, how pathetic could I be!'
I tightened my grip on the sword. My mind protested, telling me that I would regret it, but I moved anyway.
Acting on impulses was Hikigaya Hachiman's greatest taboo, but I couldn't stop myself from acting.
Not because I believed in heroism. But because I imagined the look on Komachi, Yukinoshita, Yuigahama, Hiratsuka-sensei, and my parents would be.
For once, I didn't think, I didn't overanalyze, I just moved, and did what was right.
And my Sword, as if it were waiting for me, hummed again! Its power is spreading around me.
The next moment, the two ships shook!
…
A\N: Well, That's it for now.
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