Around him, Naruto saw only wood. It could have been a building, but it didn't smell right. After a few moments, he decided it didn't sound right. And after getting his bearings enough to realize why he was having such a hard time comprehending what he was feeling, he came to the understanding that it didn't move right, either. He was on a ship. An old fashioned wooden sailing ship.
That was just concerning for so many reasons.
“Naruto, you're awake?” Hinata called. Naruto turned and saw a door crack open and Hinata peek in.
He smiled. “Yeah. Killer headache though. What happened?”
Hinata looked down. “I think I messed up. We didn't get through the barrier. We failed the mission.”
Naruto frowned. “Your fault?”
“I...I didn't stabilize the chakra enough,” Hinata mumbled. “If I had done my job right...eep!”
Naruto held Hinata tighter. “Come on, you did better than anyone else could have. If it didn't work, it didn't work. We just have to get back to the Arthra and come up with a new plan. Are the others on the ship?”
Hinata found herself unable to reply. Her head was against Naruto's breast, he was saying kind things to her, and his heart sounded so soothing...
Naruko came in and sighed at what she saw. “Again?”
Naruto gently laid Hinata down on the hammock he woke up in. “Yeah. Wish we could figure out what she's allergic to. It isn't ramen, is it?”
Naruko rolled her eyes.
[Troublesome,] Gungnir reported.
“Anyway,” Naruko said. “Hinata fill you in?”
“A bit. We bounced off the barrier, right?”
Naruko nodded. “It gets worse. Maybe it was the hit, maybe it was the surge, but Renard lost her coordinates. Most likely Gungnir's been scrambled, too.”
Naruto frowned and looked at his staff. “You okay, Gungnir?”
[Systems check in progress. All systems online. Warning. Datavault sector 7A fragmented beyond expected parameters. Dimensional coordinates not found. Data recovery estimate, twelve percent.]
“Is that enough to find where we are?” Naruto asked.
[Operational safety suffers below 85% integrity. We're in trouble, boss.]
Naruto blanched. “First principles?” he asked.
[Detail scan of major ley line required. Junction point recommended. Class four convergence needed to reach 87% data reconstruction.]
“Class four?” Naruto whimpered. “We can't make it with a class three?”
[Data reconstruction estimated 57%.]
“Too low for transporting this many people,” Naruto grumbled. He looked to Hinata. “Class four,” he repeated.
Naruko nodded. “It gets worse, bro.”
Naruto looked up. “How?” he asked warily. “Why are we on a ship, anyway?”
“We showed up here, apparently,” Naruko said. “Kurenai and Kiba were the only ones conscious on arrival, but you took an hour longer to wake up than Hinata and me.”
“Oh. And the captain is on our side?” Naruto asked.
“Um, maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Well he said a lot of confusing things, then asked 'savvy.'”
Kurenai stood on the ship's deck and looked out to sea. She had been on a ship only rarely, but even then she knew that in the worst case she could get back to Konoha. Now, adrift in more ways than one, she felt the trepidation she had seen in the eyes of civilians who lost sight of shore for the first time.
The wind shifted and she glanced up at the ruffling sails. Black as night, yet somehow not ominous, she'd never seen a ship with so much sail on her. It was effective, that was clear enough. The water seemed to part before the ship.
“Penny for your thoughts, love.”
Kurenai turned and looked over the speaker. Captain of the vessel, rather handsome is an effeminate sort of way. Rakish hat, a strand of beads in his hair, held in place by a silver coin, black eyeliner that made him look tired or drunk all the time, and a tasteful dash of facial hair keeping him from looking like a woman. He wore a grey-black longcoat with a fair number of minor baubles and moved around in fluid, circular motions that made them weave distractingly, although for the moment he was still. “I was thinking about home,” she confessed.
“Ah, now that's a thing, isn't it?” the captain agreed. “Never been one for a home meself. Deck under my feet, sail over my head, breeze in my lungs. Aye, it's the life of a...merchant...seaman. Take me home with me!”
Kurenai smiled slightly. He was quite good at the game. “What about port?” she asked.
“I prefer rum,” he answered. “Rum's good.”
“Making port,” Kurenai amended. “You have to berth somewhere, get off the ship, resupply.”
“Ah,” the captain said shortly. “There's an island town not far from here. Tortuga. Last free port in these waters.” He glanced up briefly. “We should be there by noon tomorrow.”
“At which point you will want us off your ship.”
“Now love, there are a few things about having passengers on a ship. See, passengering on a ship is a great adventure but captaining a ship that others are passengering on causes all kinds of problems when the cost of captaining outweighs the price of passengering.”
“In other words, you're not just going to toss us into the ocean, but since we haven't actually paid for the trip you want to be rid of us as soon as possible,” Kurenai translated.
While the captain thought that over a parrot landed on the deck railing and squawked “Woman on board, abandon ship.”
“Well there's that, too,” the captain added. “See it's just bad luck to have a woman on a ship.”
“Three,” squawked the parrot.
“And as Mr. Cotton's parrot has pointed out, there are three women on this ship. And you appeared out of no where. Now love, I've seen my share of crazy things, but I'm still alive because I know when to employ that oldest and noblest of fighting traditions, savvy?”
“What tradition is that?” Kiba asked, walking over.
The captain glanced at the boy. “Run and live,” he said bluntly. He looked back to Kurenai. “So what's your story?”
“What's yours?” Kurenai asked with a knowing smile. “O honorable merchant seaman captain?”
“My story? It's simple love. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow.”
Kiba looked up at the clear sky. “Why do I hear ominous thunder now?”
“You get used to it,” Sparrow said.
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(Posted Sat, 25 Feb 2012 19:03)
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