The buzzing laughter kept going around him.
He walked straight to the highest stool at the bar, climbed up, unhooked the empty wine flask from his waist and set it down on the heavy wooden counter with a soft thump.
"Fill it."
The boy's clear voice cut cleanly through the rowdy jeers, calm and out of place in the smoky air.
"The booze here is strong, you might lose your way home after one drink."
The old bartender behind the counter was wiping a glass. At the sound of Aren's request, he lifted his head.
It was a face full of wrinkles but still sharp and spirited, the same impatient old man who had sold him wine through the crack in the door last night.
The cloudy eyes paused for a moment when they fell on Aren. The hand wiping the glass stilled for half a second.
That pause did not last long. The old man's eyelids lifted just a little. His gaze did not linger on Aren's young face, but dropped instead to the old wine flask that clearly had seen years of use.
"So it is you from yesterday."
He muttered under his breath, raised an eyebrow, and did not waste time with nonsense about minors and drinking.
Out on this sea, anyone who lived with their head tied to their belt, even a baby, became God as long as they had the Beli.
He reached under the counter and pulled out a thick-bottomed glass with a chip on the rim, setting it down with a heavy clunk on the scratched and stained wood.
Dark red liquid poured from the bottle, catching a murky glint under the oil lamp's yellow light. A sharp, biting aroma crashed into the air, shoving aside the smell of sweat.
"Do not say I never did you any favors. Try a sip first. If you pee your pants from the burn, I am not giving your money back."
The old man chuckled, eyes glinting with mischief, clearly waiting for a show.
The laughter in the tavern dropped a little. Several pairs of eyes were focused on the boy, waiting to see this soft-skinned brat embarrass himself.
Aren said nothing. He reached out and picked up the glass.
The moment his fingertips touched the side, he felt a faint warmth. The wine had probably been kept near the stove.
He flicked his wrist and tipped the small glass into his mouth in one smooth motion.
It was rough as it went in, like a coal sliding down his throat. The alcohol content was high, with almost no sweetness afterward, only a dry heat that slammed straight into his skull.
To someone used to the clean rice wine of the ninja world or the crafted brews from his previous life, this might as well have been industrial alcohol cut with water.
But to a traveler who had been running around a damp, cold island all day, this direct, unpretentious burn was the best comfort there was.
"Ha..."
Aren exhaled. White vapor drifted from his lips in the chilly air.
The furrow between his brows eased.
"The kick is strong, that makes it good."
He set the empty glass down lightly and tapped his finger against the wine flask, producing a crisp note.
"Fill it up again."
For a heartbeat, the tavern fell quiet.
The men who had been waiting to laugh at him glanced at each other. Then someone whistled low, and the earlier mocking tone shifted into something else, a rough sort of acknowledgment between "the same kind."
In a place like this, anyone who could knock back liquor like this without changing color was a man, never mind his age.
A flicker of surprise passed through the old man's eyes, then he grinned, revealing several chipped yellow teeth. He said nothing more, just hauled on the tap of a massive oak barrel and began to pour directly into Aren's flask.
The reddish brown liquid spiraled through the funnel, gurgling as it flowed.
Aren rested his chin on his hand and watched the surface rise, his thoughts drifting slightly with the fumes.
This kind of empty, idle spacing out, more than swinging a sword or weaving seals, made him feel like he was actually "living."
Just as the flask was nearly full and the smell of alcohol was at its strongest...
Bang.
The tavern door, which had only been half closed, was slammed open. A gust of cold wind laced with the stink of the sea and the weight of the night roared inside, whipping the oil lamps into a wild dance and stretching everyone's shadows into clawed shapes on the walls.
"S... something happened!"
A man in a rough short jacket stumbled in, chest heaving like a bellows. He had clearly run all the way here.
One of his shoes was missing, his bare foot caked in mud.
"Old Pete, did a Sea King bite your ass?" the scar-faced man at the bar snapped. "You are letting the cold in, shut the damn door!"
"N... not a Sea King!"
The man did not even glance at the door. Hands braced on his knees, he greedily sucked in air, his face twisted from the stitch in his side, eyes bulging wide, voice sharpened and broken from lack of breath.
"It is Isshin Dojo... something happened at the dojo!"
At the words "Isshin Dojo," Aren's fingers twitched slightly. A drop of liquor that should have fallen right into the flask slipped aside and landed on his fingertip, cool and sticky.
The tavern went dead quiet.
In Shimotsuki Village, Koushirou's Isshin Dojo was the pride of everyone who lived here.
"What could happen to the dojo?" the bartender asked, frowning as he stopped the flow of wine. "Did that moss-headed kid Zoro finally go crazy and knock the building down?"
"Haha, I knew that brat would cause trouble sooner or later," someone chimed in with a laugh.
"N... not Zoro!"
The breathless man snapped his head up. His eyes shone with an almost haunted excitement.
"It is Kuina! That Kuina who has never lost... just now, she was beaten!"
"Huh?"
The scar-faced man's hand froze in midair, his expression full of disbelief.
"You drunk too much? Other than Master Koushirou, who within ten miles could beat that monster girl? Even a grown man would get his teeth kicked in if he fought her."
"I swear it is true, I saw it with my own eyes, in the back court of the dojo!"
The messenger gulped, gesturing wildly as he spoke.
"And the one who beat her was not some grown man, not even someone from our village. It was someone who came out of nowhere, a..."
He trailed off, trying to describe the victor. His eyes swept the room, searching for something to compare to that shocking figure he had seen.
Aren calmly screwed the cap onto his flask and flicked a few coins onto the counter.