As the bell of the ghastly sailboat droned on, the juvarui shambled their skeletal bodies across the decrepit deck of the once vigorous ship. Their bones chipped and flaked with each rugged action, and their heavy steps forced creaks and groans out of the withered floorboards beneath their feet. Their movements were almost robotic, devoid of any higher thought as they mindlessly searched for something with their eyes locked on the sea.
As the skeletons continued their search, the sisters dropped from above and landed on the bow of the ship; Nola landed with a graceful descent, while Minia stomped her feet aggressively. The duo's obnoxious arrival caused the juvarui to freeze on the spot, the beedy embers in their hollow eye sockets flickering to life as a newfound malevolence manifested in the skeletons.
With light green flames seeping from their eyes, the juvarui gradually swivelled their heads towards the sisters, affixing them with a motionless, vigorously intense glare as the once droning bell stunted to a halt.
As the sole skeleton brandishing a tattered tricorn captain hat raised its rusted longsword to the sky, the three juvarui unleashed a cacophony of distorted warcries, the intensity of their emeralds matching that of the fire in their eyes, before charging at the duo. Minia brandished a sinister, ear-to-ear grin, her expression almost deranged to the point a sane person would question her sanity.
"Well, well, well, look who decided to grow a backbone," Minia cackled, her gelatin tails spiking up in a frenzied craze as she slammed them against the floor. Her giddy cackles rang through the deck, besting the warcries of the skeletons as she lunged at the approaching skeletal trio.
In contrast, Nola stood in place, her expression a mix of confusion and mild amusement, as she watched Minia clock one of the juvarui in the head with the flat side of her cutlass.
"Why'd she have to make a pun...," Nola murmured defeatedly. She brought her free hand to her face, covering her growing blush as she dreaded more of them to come. Minia reeled her cutlass back, the golden gleam of its edge shimmering in the moonlight. The skeletons hurled slashes of their own at Minia. She simply smirked as she took a single hop back to avoid their attack. With the snap of Nola's fingers, a wave of rainbow mana opened under Minia and she disappeared into the floor before dropping in from above behind the trio.
Minia hovered in the air for a second, darting her eyes for the perfect opening. With a swift, clean motion, she sliced through all three skeletons in a single move, dividing them neatly in two. The flames in their eyes fizzled out as their skeletal remains dropped to the deck, rattling upon impact.
Glancing down at the scattered skeleton parts, Minia scoffed, watching as the emeralds on the bones cracked and turned a lifeless grey.
"Heh, too easy," Minia remarked cockily as she twirled the cutlass by its blade on one of her tail tips. In her hubris, the kitsune was completely oblivious to the pirate captain juvarui marching up behind her. Without making a sound, The captain raised its longsword, the shift in the skeleton's balance causing the board beneath its feet to release a deafening creak.
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Minia widened her eyes, a dread-filled chill crawling up her spine as the tip of the longsword loomed above her peripheral vision. Realising her blunder, Minia aggressively threw her gaze to the floor, her body beginning to shake with frustration and her eyes flickered a glowing pale blue for a split second. The sailboat sharply rocked, minorly diverting the skeletal captain's attention but it quickly turned back to Minia as trails of mana seeped out of her.
But before she could fully snap, Minia felt a light jab against the back of her neck. Her limbs went numb, allowing her cutlass to slip through her fingers to clang against the floor as she collapsed. Nola dropped her own weapon, slapping the sides of her temples in utter terror as panic seized her.
"We're so dead" Nola uttered pitifully. The juvarui captain briefly stared at Minia, tilting its head, as a looming inhumane silhouette landed behind it without a sound. The silhouette raised a hand to the back of the skeleton's skull. With a light flick, the juvarui captain's head was separated from its neck and sent hurtling into the clouds. The headless skeleton shivered, folding like a stack of cards into a pile of bones with the emeralds cracking and decolouring.
"Lino really is playing with fire, that captain was clearly a four," the topless Zalroth remarked in between yawns whilst holding onto his black, white and grey tartan lounge pants to keep them from falling down.
He half-heartedly chuckled, imagining the fit Chronia would throw if she were awake right now before covering his mouth in preparation for an impending wave of drowsiness. While mid-yawn, the guy flinched, feeling the sleeping Chronia cling even tighter to his cluster of tail fur and sending ripples of pain through his body.
(Zalroth is a tall humanoid U.kitsune with the appearance of a young adult human male; he has shoulder-low unkempt silver hair with cyan ends, pale white skin to the point it's faintly cyan, eight long tails that are double his height with the same colour gradient as his hair, and kitsune ears with the same colour gradient as his hair)
(Chronia is short, translucent humanoid S.seraph with the appearance of a fourteen-year-old human female; she has long and spikey pale lime and dark teal hair with glowing faint blue clock hand-shaped spots all over her hair, her hair below her neck is styled into a large hoop and tied together at the end by a square-shaped azure blue crystal hoop, pale lime eyes with teal pupils, thick tighs, and pointy elf-like ears)
Zalroth scrunched up his face, balling up his fists as he fought against the urge to scream in pain and risk waking up Chronia. He lowered his head, falling onto one knee, and lifted Minia off the floor by the back of her pjs as the cutlass merged into a mini Lino.
"My lord, we've arrived at the destination of the ruins," the mini Lino explained emotionlessly. Zalroth sighed, feeling exacerbated at realising Lino used Minia having an outburst to wake him up. His annoyance was only made worse as Chronia smugly giggled in her slumber, signifying her involvement.
"You two really are..." Zalroth uttered, letting his words trail off as he caught himself. Even with the pain clouding his judgment, he remembered Nola was present and that even uttering a single syllable of his last word would spell his doom. He looked up at Nola, who nervously wrapped her fingers together from being directly stared at while squeezing her legs together.
"Scoundrels?" Nola quietly asked.
"Yeah... let's go with that...," Zalroth said quietly as he staggered to his feet. He directed his gaze to the mini Lino before saying, "I'll head out in the morning, also deal with this boat.". Mini Lino bowed, his form devoid of errors in execution before Zalroth hopped back onto the galleon with Nola floating after him.