During the years of bullying, he'd learned that strength was everything. His only friends had been the stray cats he'd been able to befriend. Up until one of the bullies had seen the chance that had provided and killed those little friends in front of him. The sight, the laughter of the other little bullies, had stayed with him.
Years later, puberty. When he'd suddenly shot up in height and bulked up. Strength was what mattered and he'd pursued it with a dedication that Maito Gai would have approved of. He'd learned his lessons well in the town of Solace. Strength is everything. Friends are a weakness. Hate makes you strong. Life is worthless without power.
One of those childhood bullies had thought that because he'd been broken so many times before, that some minor physical developments were nothing. They would just hurt Jakobiru some more and have a good laugh at his expense.
After breaking the boy's neck, Jakobiru had fled his home village of Solace - vowing silently to come back and show them how well he'd learned the lessons they'd taught him. He'd changed his name, worked hard, and eventually become a pirate captain of some repute. Pero, the Black Flag Pirate. Pero, whose crew routinely sacked coastal cities then set them to the torch - it tended to throw off pursuit if the survivors were busy trying to keep their homes from burning down.
Pero figured he was about ready. He'd just hired a couple of missing-nin. Solace would be a memory by the end of the month.
"Captain! Lookout says sails to port."
Pero blinked as he came out of the unaccustomed reverie. "What flag be they flying?"
"No flag sighted."
"Could be a merchant then," said Pero, tugging lightly on his beard. "We be pretty full on cargo and trinkets. Let's head alongside until we can get a better look-see, eh?"
"Aye, Captain," said the midshipman.
A little extra cash never hurt, after all.
"Parallel the course," said the Captain, glancing towards the boy. Technically he'd taken over the gang, but five minutes in had admitted he had NO idea how to run a ship and so had quickly done something unexpected.
Which was to find out the previous Captain had not elected to return to the vessel, Dolga apparently deciding to go off and do banditry or something. So the previous First Mate was now the Captain.
Captain Dolza. He rather liked the sound of that. He'd gone from being a merchant, to a pirate, worked his way up to First Mate, and now he was Captain. And, as the name was mostly spelled the same, he could have someone just blank out the last part on the door plate on the Captain's room and rewrite it.
Simple and efficient. He liked that.
"Aye sir!" called out the helmsman.
"So, sir," said Captain Dolza of what he was pretty sure was a chunin ninja on some elaborate secret mission. "Do ye have some elaborate jutsu to be crushing them?"
"Uhm, spell. And yeah, but let's see what we got first." Naruto looked around. "Got any place relatively quiet and fairly dark?"
"We can shutter up the chart room I 'spect," admitted Dolza.
The massive form reached up and adjusted his eyepatch.
"Why do you even WEAR an eyepatch, Captain Pero?" asked a masked ninja wearing a Mist forehead protector.
"Because this eye tends to freak out normal people that see it," said Pero. "Which is good when you're facing enemies. Not so good when your sailors are trying to tie off the sails."
"It IS kind of odd, what with the red slit and all, but it doesn't look like any kekkei genkai I've heard of," said the ninja as the eyepatch came off.
"It's not," said Pero. "If it were one of those ninja-things, I'd need chakra as I understand it. I got this eye from Loro."
"The mad scientist of Breakneck Bog?" asked the ninja. "Risky."
"Aye, but enow of that," said Pero. "What of the prisoner?"
"She's still wearing the chakra disrupting chains, in a cell with wards to keep her from escaping," said the ninja. "She's fine."
There was a loud thump from the barred door.
"See?" said the ninja.
"Well, we may be getting into a little fight soon, with fresh plunder," said Pero, fitting the eyepatch back into place. "Smaller vessel. Doubt we'll need yer services on that."
"They can't hear us, can they?" whispered Dolza, watching the scene playing out in the mirror.
"Nah, it's all one-way," said Naruto, manipulating the image to follow the other Captain.
"Captain, this means never attacking a ship and finding out that it really IS a garbage scow," said the new First Mate.
"Indeed," said Dolza with a nod. Another reason to be glad of Dolga's departure. "How far away can this operate?"
"About a mile," said Naruto.
The Captain in the mirror opened a door and went into a cargo hold.
"Now, that's VERY interesting," said Captain Dolza.
"Oh yes," said First Mate Rached.
"What's he doing?" asked Naruto.
"Those ropes are to keep the cargo from shifting around," explained Rached. "There's another ninja there."
"Both are missing-nin," noted Dolza. "That's what the line through the symbol means."
"So they're criminals?" asked Naruto.
Dolza stared for a moment, then came to the conclusion that this chunin was probably testing how much a civilian knew about their profession. Well, this was all common stuff anyway. "Nah. Missing-nin are often mercenaries or bandits or something. Not always though. Especially with Mist being prone to attacking their own people, or ordering someone who failed a mission to die by their own hand, or any number of things like that. Most likely - yeah. If they were the other kind, these guys would likely have thrown away their forehead protectors."
"Like that one guy on the docks," realized Naruto.
"Tapu," agreed Dolza. "Doesn't know a lot of that stuff, but what he does know - he practices a lot. Handy to have someone who can stop leaks with a couple of hand-signs."
(Posted Tue, 19 Aug 2014 17:36)
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