“I don't understand,” Kiba complained. “Can you teleport or not?”
“I can teleport, I just can't tell where I'm going,” Naruto explained.
“But you teleported to worlds you'd never been to before,” Kiba objected.
“Because I knew where I was and where I wanted to go,” Naruto explained. “All I had to do was find dimensions between Konoha and MidChilda.”
“How can you find worlds to teleport to and not find a convergence?” Kurenai asked. “And what is a convergence anyway?”
“Worlds are pretty darn big, Kurenai-sensei,” Naruto replied without a hint of sarcasm. “And a convergence is a place where lines of power cross. Such places are charged with natural magic and make it easy to read the world's place. Or something like that. Yuuno used a lot of fancy words, but basically I need to be able to put our location on a map before I can teleport safely.”
“It's like charting a course,” Naruko explained. “If you don't know where you are, it doesn't matter how good your maps are. Renard and Gungnir were too scrambled by the jump to track our course and lost too much data to extrapolate from what we can pick up from here.”
“If Gungnir's data was intact, I'd be able to get a rough fix on us, enough for a short range dimensional teleport,” Naruto explained. “The better my data, the further I can teleport safely.”
Kurenai nodded slightly. She wasn't going to try and break down the theory of that, but she could grasp the concept easy enough. “So how do we find a class four convergence?”
Hinata hung her head. “It won't be easy,” she mumbled. “If we get near one I can...but they're really rare.”
“Are they dangerous?” Kurenai asked.
“Sometimes,” Naruko said. “Usually they're just strange. Especially class threes and higher. All the energy causes side effects. Crystal caverns, fountains of magic water, the occasional giant monster. Small convergences usually become gemstone mines or potion mixing towns or something. Bigger convergences are usually tricky to harvest, and get looted by opportunistic fools looking for a quick payoff.”
“That's interesting,” Captain Sparrow interrupted. The ninja all looked up and over at him, having quite forgotten he was there. “And you would say such a place is important to you? Perhaps, the most important thing in the world?”
“Something like that,” Naruto said suspiciously.
Jack smiled. “Well, I think we can help eachother after all. I can lead you to one of these vergences.”
“You know where one is?” Naruto asked, surprised.
“Yes,” Jack said. “Well, not so much yes as no. But even though that's a no to knowing it's a yes to finding. Although it's more facilitating the finding because I wouldn't quite find what you want to find if I tried to find it. Savvy?”
“What are you talking about!?” Naruto demanded.
Jack held up his compass. “Let me tell you about my compass here...”
Hinata looked out past the bow, then looked over the crew, then finally the captain, then back to Kurenai, who was doing much the same thing. She glanced at the compass in Kurenai's hand. “Are you sure that we can trust that thing?” she asked uncertainly.
Kurenai smiled. “A compass that points to the deepest, truest desire of the heart? Oh I'd say so. Remember where it pointed when you tried to use it?”
Hinata blushed hotly. “Se-sensei!” she squeaked.
“No, I don't think it was pointed at me,” Kurenai teased. “And if that wasn't enough, remember where it pointed when he held it?”
Hinata let out a strangled eep and collapsed with a smile.
Naruko caught her on the way down. “Why exactly isn't Naruto allowed to catch her?” she asked.
“Because we want her to think fainting is a bad thing,” Kurenai explained with undisguised amusement.
The crew nearby burst out laughing at this, causing heads to swivel and take in the sight of the three females chatting and fainting. Naruto scowled at the crew and glared menacingly at the ones who dared to laugh at Hinata. For some reason, this seemed only to cement their amusement, even if they quickly got back to their duties.
Naruto sighed and tried to shake off the feeling that he was missing something important. “Hey, Gungnir? Any idea why that compass didn't work for me?”
[You are a moron, boss.]
Sparrow smiled as he stood at the helm. He had the Pearl. Barbossa was dead. Jones was dead. The Turners were content to leave him alone until he was dead. That damned monkey was no where to be found. And now fate had delivered to him five guests who wanted nothing more than to go to a place with a high possibility of having an unguarded treasure of immense value...just so they could look at it and leave his ship, his world, and his life forever.
It was a good day to be a pirate.
“Cap'n!” Gibbs called out. “We have another bearing!”
“Excellent,” Jack called back. He spun the wheel, changed course three points to larboard, then straightened her out and lashed her down. “Where away?”
“Thirteen point seven, cap'n,” Gibbs replied.
Jack smiled. “Good. Then if you'll excuse me, I believe I have some diagramming to do.”
“Pardon me, cap'n, but do y'know where we're headed yet?” Gibbs asked.
Jack gave his first mate a cold, dispassionate look.
Gibbs remembered how Jack lost the Pearl the first time. “Sorry.”
“Quite alright, Gibbs,” Sparrow said, all smiles again. “Just don't forget it again, mate.” He went to his cabin and locked it before unlocking the charts. Never again.
He frowned, all business now that he was alone. A simpleton would just follow the compass where it pointed. Jack, though, he knew better. If what you sought didn't move, you sailed at an angle to your destination and took a few readings along the way. Those bearings from those points should cross at where your destination was, and then you'd know how to get there, how long it would take, and more.
Sparrow used compass and straightedge and constructed his lines with the skill of a Greek philosopher and the steady hand of one who had had inadequate rum. And then he saw where the lines intersected...
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(Posted Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:12)
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