The callous moon loomed high in the sky, presenting nought but a sliver of its true form behind the gallant clouds shielding it from the world below. The trickles of moonlight cascaded across the vast expanse of the ocean, faintly illuminating its surface as a single orange light drifted across the calm waves. The lonesome galleon gently floated along its path, its metalic wood glistening under the refracting moonlight which mixed with the orange light spilling from within the boat's gun ports. The galleon's deck was unoccupied, leaving the mild salty ocean breeze to go unappreciated.

Zallino, the galleon's captain, stood at the stern, manning the helm of the unmanned ship, his reflective hand firmly on it, and steering the ship in a perfectly straight line. Zallino stared off into the far distance, his piercing gaze cutting through the expansive darkness and fixed on the divide between the sky and the horizon, his intensity unwavering and unmatched.

(Zallino is a super tall humanoid kitsune ego, The Path of Acceptance, with the appearance of an adult human male; his entire body is made entirely of slightly liquidy magicsteel[glowing steel], slick-back spikey solid magisteel hair, pale white eyes with glowing white ring-shaped pupils, two large phoenix wings with white tips, and six long phoenix tails with white tips)

(Zallino's clothes are all  made from his body; he is wearing a tartan-patterned waistcoat, a tailcoat with six buttons, trousers with large white spike patterns running down their sides, and knee-high boots with the top quarter being folded outwards)

"What's the point of this ship having a steering wheel, Mr Lino?" Nola murmured sleepily, rubbing her eyes as she scaled one of the side stairs leading to the upper helm area of the deck. Zallino remained stoic, his imposing demeanour going completely over the girl's head despite the faintest hints of hostility escaping his stoicism.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping, as stipulated by your parent's conditions for you and Master Minia to be on the ship?" Lino replied, turning his head a few degrees so he could visually see the banana-themed pyjama-wearing girl in his peripheral vision.

(Nola is a rather short seraph[mutant] with the appearance of a thirteen-year-old girl; she has elbow-low royal blue and golden yellow hair, a yellow left eye with flowing blue parts, a blue right eye with flowing yellow parts, tanned skin, pointy elf-looking ears with small ring-shaped ends, and glowing palms/soles)

"Bad dream," Nola stated boldly with a mild stutter, fuelled by her tiredness. Lino remained silent for just a moment, choosing to remove his hand from the wheel, and crossing his arms as the wheel continued to correct the ship on its own.

"Logically sound.".

"So, I can stay up—". A section of the floor beside Nola jetted upwards, snapping the girl fully awake as the extension morphed into a seat, accompanied by a normal pillow fazing up through the chair's base. The chair's appearance brought a cheeky, albeit small, grin to the young girl, who sauntered over to the chair and plopped her butt firmly on the pillow. The back of the chair rumbled before a collection of arms emerged from it, brandishing all the necessities for styling hair.

"Care to share?" Lino asked dispassionately. Nola raised a hand to her chin and deeply hummed in recollection as the hands of the chair worked away at her hair.

"Just the usual, seeing people dying is all," Nola remarked nonchalantly.

"But this time was different?". Lino's question struck a chord with Nola, making her grin falter from the weight of recalling her dream. She leaned to the side, resting her chin on the arm of the chair as she sighed, the hands of the chair continuing to style her hair.

"Yeah... bound to be when your parents are the topic," Nola admitted softly, a distant gaze in her eyes as she looked up to the metalic kitsune ego. She averted her eyes to the floor of the ship, her mind racing as she became lost in thought. Like the galleon, her mind wandered, filling her with mild amusement which caught Lino's attention.

"Something else you wish to say?" Lino asked emotionlessly.

"Nah, just realising how dumb it was for my brain to think Mother and Father could be beaten by giant gummy bears," Nola remarked cheekily. Her newfound amusement fuelled her mood and revitalised her grin as she swung herself back to a prim and proper sitting position.

Lino nodded, taking in and mulling over Nola's words as he shifted his attention back to the horizon. The following silence filled the salty air, the sounds of the waves taking the place of prior conversation. Nola pouted, her lower lip quivering in annoyance as her anticipated reaction from her barber did not come to pass.

"Mr Lino, can't you humour me a little?" Nola pleaded, cupping her hands together and pitifully kicking her legs about. But despite her pleas, Lino continued facing onward, his eyes zeroing in on the faint sickly green light far off in the distance. As it became evident the ego wouldn't respond, Nola slumped into the chair's arm, forcing it to bend like rubber under her weight. She dramatically sighed, her body going limp like a noodle as she relented, accepting the guy didn't have an ounce of emotion in his body.

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The squishy, metalic hands of the chair finished their work, carefully pulling away from Nola's hair. Her once untamed hair, now styled into a large, intricately woven braided ponytail with two smaller ones by its sides. The pouty girl couldn't help but raise a hand to her hair before running her fingers across it and reluctantly admiring Lino's handy work.

"Not bad, not bad at all," Nola purred contently. A small snicker murmured from the base of the right stairs, snapping Nola back to reality and making her turn in the voice's direction with mirth.

"Master Minia do reframe from residing on the stairs in the dark," Lino stated calmly, his voice dispassionate but stern. With a startled "eep!" accompanying it, the righthand stairs sprung to life, slowly revolving like an escalator and transporting Minia to the top. Her head slowly crept over the metalic railing, her arms crossed with her cheeks and borders of her gelatin features burning a shade of pink from embarrassment.

(Minia is a slightly short humanoid [Inky Slime Mutant] mini female oni and kitsune hybrid with the appearance of a fifteen-year-old girl; she has a knee-low spikey mess of inky-textured black and white gelatin hair with faint cyan blob tips, cyan eyes, super dark royal blue skin, and four four foot long ink-like gelatin kitsune tails with the same colours as her hair)

"How come I'm called Master, but she gets to be Mistress?" Minia asked in a huff, blurting out a random question in a vain attempt to distract Lino from her obvious violation of the bedtime requirement. Lino simply sighed and crossed his arms.

"I'm starting to think, your parents weren't being serious with that curfew mandate.".

"Ya think?" Minia asked in a snarky manner as she hopped onto the metal chair and sat next to Nola.

"... it was an oversight on my part it would seem," Lino murmured, placing a hand on his chin and mulling over something. However, the gargled clangs of a distant bell drew the trio's attention, piercing through the weak air like an arrow. The sisters jumped from their shared seat, bouncing off it and landing on Lino's shoulders. The trio narrowed their gazes, the younger ones filled with concern while the older guy with a glower.

The ghastly, greenish-grey sailboat sailed in from the horizon, oozing a pale green glow as the droning bell shrieked from its crow's nest. Its skeletal crew clambered across their deck, their withered bones creaking and cracking with each movement. The pulsing emerald clusters protruding from their bodies radiated an eerie glow, matching the sinister aura permeating the sailboat itself. Lino vaguely softened his eyes as he took in the sight of the skeleton's tattered leather scraps around their body, the remnants of their long-gone armour, and the rusted swords in their claw-like fingers, the blades of them dulled from their years submerged at the bottom of the sea.

The skeleton crew's dire state caused Lino's defensive demeanour to completely melt away and relax his posture as the two sisters energetically bounced on his shoulders. With excitement exploding from their very souls, the sisters tracked the skeletons, their pupils dilating into feline slits as trickles of mana[wavey energy] seeped out their eyes into a wispy mask; Minia's a super pale blue in colour and Nola's a mix of blue and yellow.

The duo's mana seeped into the air, its density on par with the salty air itself. Lino knew stopping the duo now would only spell disaster for any nearby islands, especially if he had to restrain both of them by force. However, he did have something to fall back on, a solution put in place by the duo's mother in the event this very situation occurred.

"That vessel appears to be a Three-Pearl," Lino stated nonchalantly. His remark only caused the sisterly duo to become even more erratic, knowing without a doubt what Lino was going to say next.

"Does that mean we can fight them, Mr Lino?" Nola asked pleadingly.

"Yeah! Can we, can we?! Minia added, her voice erratic and chaotic as she pulled at the guy's shoulder for permission. Lino didn't utter a word, his expression unreadable. His silence attracted the sisters' attention and drew their faces closer to his. They quietly purred at him as their puppy-dog eyes grew with their building anticipation.

"Chair," Lino commaded firmly, his tone indicating the end of the conversation. The sisters turned their heads in excitement and watched the metal chair as it began to morph; its gelatinous wobbling pulled their attention in even more, its form shifting and contorting until bursting into two bronze cutlasses with the edge of their blades coated in glowing gold.

Nola and Minia squealed in delight, each snatching one of the weapons with their sticky fingers and fiercely staring at the sheen of moonlight on the blades. Without another word spoken, the sisters raised their cutlasses to the sky before turning heel and booking it for the front of Lino's galleon.

"Is letting them fight those sanarui a good idea?" a small voice asked. Lino glanced down in search of the voice, peaking his head around the helm and spotting Zalxelphia in her small spider form standing on the railing surrounding the helm.

(Zalxelphia is a hamster-sized pink-furred tsugaki[spider with a lot of fur] with two large spider eyes and four smaller ones around each of them, and eight legs)

"You mean the Juvarui?" Lino asked brashly, brandishing his lack of worry for the situation on his chest. Xelphia slumped her head at Lino's response, the guy's lack of interest in anything, especially for the girls' safety, being too much to comprehend. She could only shake her head at the guy's absence of an attitude, a palpable sigh escaped her lips as the distant murmurs of Nola and Minia's planning passed the tsugaki's ears.

"That's not the thing you should be concerned about...," Xelphia grumbled in a huff before crawling away.