Three days out, and the sea was flat and uninteresting in every direction.
"Three days," Lucien said, not quite to Idris and not quite to himself. "Are we really going to spend a week on this ship and not even see the man?"
Idris wiped his glasses with the same small cloth he had been using since the first morning. He did not look up. "We're not deep enough into the route yet. Their last raid was over a month ago. By the workers' accounts at port, they strike once a month." He held the lens up, checked it, and folded the cloth away. "We'll see them."
Lucien watched him go through the whole process and said nothing for a moment.
"Idris. Tell me about yourself. Why'd you start bounty hunting so young?"
Idris looked at him. The look said: you first.
"Me? My father handed me a notebook, pointed at the sea, and waved me off with a smile on his face. Four years later, I've seen most of North Blue, and apparently, this is my life now." He paused. "Your turn."
"For money. I need to send it home. Guns made it easier to stay safe while hunting."
Lucien nodded slowly. "Money's honest. Small proposal, then. Whoever kills Virex collects the bounty. The other one gets whatever's left on the ship worth taking."
Idris considered this for a moment, then gave a single nod.
Two more days of open water and nothing.
On the evening of the fifth day, just as the sun was flattening against the horizon, the lookout's voice cut across the deck.
"PIRATES. Black Ledger flag, coming straight at us."
Lucien was mid-conversation with two of the workers when the shout came. He stood up and looked toward the water, already smiling. The ship coming at them was considerably larger than the one they were standing on, its silhouette growing against the low light.
The workers scattered below deck. The paid guards moved into position. The merchant, somewhere behind Lucien, was already at volume.
"BOY. I HOPE YOU ARE ALIVE, BECAUSE THE PEOPLE YOU WANTED TO MEET ARE HERE."
Lucien didn't answer. He kept his eyes on the ship, now close enough to read properly, and let everything else narrow down to Virex and the million berries.
Then he heard the shot. One clean crack, a scream from the pirate ship, the faint ring of a spent casing hitting the deck. He glanced back. Idris had his rifle up, already working through the crew at distance with the calm efficiency of someone running through a checklist.
"That's a bit unfair," Lucien muttered.
He took a few steps back, turned to face the approaching ship, and broke into a full sprint. At the rail, he jumped, caught the momentum, and pushed off hard toward the pirate ship closing across the gap. For a moment, it looked like he wouldn't make it. He caught the edge with both hands and hauled himself up.
He didn't get a breath. A sword came for his head almost immediately, and he ducked under it, drawing his own blade as he came back up. The adrenaline from the jump was still loud in his chest, but his feet found their spacing, and his eyes started sorting the deck into problems and solutions.
There were a lot of them. He got to work.
Swords came at him from multiple sides, accompanied by some genuinely creative cursing. Lucien kept moving, reading the angles through his Haki and countering where he had openings.
He drove his sword into one man's chest and felt his Haki spike before he'd even registered why. He abandoned the blade and rolled right. The deck where he'd been standing splintered under something heavy.
He looked up. The man holding the hammer was enormous, a full two heads taller than Lucien and built like something that had never been told it couldn't keep growing. He roared and wound up for another swing.
"What are they feeding you?" Lucien said, already moving to the side as the hammer came down and shook the deck. He wrenched his sword free from the body behind him. "Judge had the whole genetic engineering operation going, and he still didn't produce anything this ridiculous."
The man's size was never the problem. Size without speed is just a large target. Lucien watched the hammer wind up, ducked the swing at the last moment, and brought his sword across the man's wrist in one clean motion. The hand hit the deck. The man went to his knees, the sound he made loud enough to turn heads across the ship.
Lucien put him down and straightened up.
The crew had thinned. Idris's work from the other ship, mostly, and whatever Lucien had cut through getting here. Enough of the deck had cleared that he could finally see the man he'd come for. Virex stood near the far rail, axe in hand, one of the ship's guards freshly dead at his feet. He was already looking at Lucien, and he was smiling.
"You're not one of theirs," Virex called out, his voice carrying easily. "Bounty hunter? They sent a kid?" He laughed and twirled the axe with the ease of someone who had done it a thousand times. "You must be dreaming, boy."
He came forward fast, the first swing wide and testing. Lucien slipped it and drove his sword at the man's side — and felt the impact travel straight back up his arm. His grip nearly went. The blade had not gone in. It had skidded off something hard, something that was not skin.
He stepped back and shook out his hand.
"The Stone-Stone Fruit," Virex said, grinning. "You can't cut me, boy. Doesn't matter how hard you try. So just DIE." The axe came around again.
Lucien moved and let himself think.
************************************
1 Chapter For Every 50 Power Stones. Please Do Support.