A rickety boat was all that guarded Eri and her friend, Saran, from the Black Sea. “Are you sure we’ll find the ship?” Eri asked nervously. They had been sailing for a good five hours, and the deep sea was starting to creep Eri.
“I’m just as skeptical as you are, Eri. If we don’t find the Caprian ship by afternoon, I’ll turn the boat back to Sango. Alright?” Saran said. His voice was stern and cold, but Eri could spot his fingers fidgeting with the blue demon mask in his hand.
The mask was a wicked one, covering all of Saran’s face when he wore it. Its face was painted a dark blue, similar to the sea they were currently traveling on. Dark red spots stained its cheeks. When Saran had first worn it, Eri had joked that it looked like blush. The unamused Saran only had said that it was religious and left it at that.
The demon’s canines were extended completely outwards. It more or less reflected the kind of person Saran was.
She stared down at his own, which was not nearly as well made as Saran’s. Eri’s mask was just a white medical mask you would wear if you were sick. It hid Eri’s facial features well and masked the scent of blood, so it did the job.
In her spare time, she had taken a permanent marker and doodled a little cat face and whiskers on it, just to make herself a little less threatening.
Eri rubbed her right forearm which bore her tattoo. Saran noticed her, “Don’t let them see your tattoo.”
“I know,” Eri replied, though she was definitely going to ignore that rule once she was on the ship, a little form of revenge for walking her up so early. Several minutes passed by and Eri was starting to feel bored.
“Okay,” Eri said, reaching for the binoculars near her feet. She pulled it up and handed it to Saran. “You watch while I take a nap.”
Saran scowled but took the binoculars to his eyes. He muttered to himself about Eri being a lazy city girl, but he didn’t care enough for what the petite boy had to say.
She stared up at the murky blue sky, which was just a dryer version of the sea. It always looked like it was about to rain, but never did, though Eri would kill to feel the cool rain hit her cheeks.
A small fish no bigger than her pinky finger managed to flop its way onto the boat. Eri was still looking up at the sky, and Saran quickly took the opportunity to toss it back into the ocean. Eri wouldn’t admit it, but she was deathly scared of fish.
If she had to gauge, she would say a few minutes passed, and Eri was beginning to feel peckish. “Saran, would you give me the crackers?” She called out, knowing Saran would definitely comply.
“Shut up, Eri.”
“What’s wrong? Is the deep sea scaring you?” As soon as she said that, Eri felt a rush of wind as Saran grabbed a hold of her white button-up shirt collar, and before she had the chance to respond, Saran shoved the binoculars in her face. “I found the ship.” He said.
Eri whistled, “Good job Saran.”
“Don’t congratulate me like some kind of dog.”
“Sure thing,” Eri said unapologetically.
Saran started paddling, with no help from Eri whatsoever, towards the ship. It looked small at a distance, but as they both edged closer and closer it eventually towered over them.
I can’t believe the Caprian soldiers didn’t spot us. I guess they thought capturing a few Amberians was all they needed to do. Eri thought smugly.
Saran withdrew a small hatchet and began chopping away a hole into the side of the ship, but the exterior of the ship was made of metal and even Saran’s full force wasn’t able to harm it.
“Damn it, I assumed we would just be able to sink the ship from the outside,” Saran said. He looked back at Eri. “Please tell me you have another idea.” He pleaded.
Eri grinned and pulled a screwdriver from her trouser pocket. “It seems you need my help, my dear friend.” She put an extra emphasis on my help, which made Saran’s face cringe.
They both looked back at the ship’s exterior. “Wait, Where are the bolts?” Eri asked. Frantically running her hands along the ship.
Saran simply sighed. He slowly placed Eri’s hands back in her lap in a calming manner, “It looks like the Caprians decided to bolt the screws on from the inside, and now we have we’ll also have to go inside.”
“I can’t believe this…” Eri grumbled, The one time I beat Saran in planning and my screwdriver isn’t even used.
“Alright,” Saran said grimly, “I’ll take the top, Eri. You take the deck.” With that, he slipped on his demon mask. All Eri could see was Saran’s coffee eyes staring through the eyeholes. He dropped the hatchet into the sea and it made a bubbling sound before descending to the deep.
“What a waste of a hatchet,” Eri commented.
“Nothing I can do about it now, so hurry up and get ready to climb this thing.”
Eri groaned. She was expecting this to be a quick trip. Just sink a Caprian ship, go back home, and sleep on her comfy bed. Eri wouldn’t have felt so tired if Saran hadn’t dragged her from her sleep at the crack of dawn.
She yawned softly as she wore her mask. He turned back at Saran only to see him already scaling the metal wall by bouncing on the tips of the nails sticking out.
Seriously, who in their right mind hammers nails on the wrong side of the ship? She thought again.
If she were to ask Saran, he would first say that that’s a stupid question and then say it’s to keep out intruders like them, but then again, no sane person attacks a Caprian battleship without one of their own.
As soon as Saran reached the top, a commotion broke, and he quickly glanced back his blue eyes shining at Eri before turning to face the enemies.
It took Eri even less time than Saran to scale the wall. Eri pulled herself over the ship’s rim, and she saw that Saran was already in a fighting stance, surrounded by mostly dead and bloody soldiers. Their blood was already starting to stain the floorboards. Eri felt bile rise up her throat as she saw the red substance slowly oozing into the floorboards.
A few Caprians turned to fight Eri as she emerged, but Saran jumped in and kicked them in the face in a move that could only be described as a triple somersault and returned to fighting the onslaught of soldiers.
“Saran! Caprian ships usually have one or more Jubilee on board. Be careful if you see one!” Eri shouted over the flurry of soldiers fighting him. “Hurry up and go below!” That was all that Eri got as a response.
She would, just as soon as he cleared the captain’s room.
A large metallic chunk hung about twenty feet above the ground, and Eri strode up to it. She looked up and spotted a glass panel. That’s the control room alright.
Eri jogged around the parameter from the right until she found the stairs. As well as several soldiers. She stood for a brief moment to collect her breath.
The soldiers, who had now noticed her, were charging head-first at her. “Tsk.” She growled. “I really don’t get a moment of peace around here, do I?”
She rolled up his sleeve, preceding to the exact thing Saran told her not to, and revealed her tattoo. People from the rest of the world called them runes, and originally, Eri had to. But her time in Sango had taught her otherwise. She didn’t complain though, saying that her powers came from a sea leviathan tattoo sounded a lot cooler than the rune.
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Eri drew a breath and started counting down from sixty in her head. It wasn’t a countdown for her powers as much as it was a test to see if these so-called Caprian ‘soldiers’ could survive even a minute against her.
She pulled a pair of twin daggers from her belt. There were two water bottles strapped to it as well.
The first of the three soldiers reached Eri first. She drew her slender silver sword directly at his neck. Hoping to chop her head off in one move. Eri pulled both daggers to match her, and the metal hissed. She bounced back, recovering as her comrades shielded her with their bodies.
Two girls and one boy.
They only wore one piece of armor, which covered their torsos, and each bore a silver sword. Thirty seconds.
Now, all three rushed him at the same time. In a straight line. Their strategy confused Eri. “Has no one taught you how to fight? You look like a lamb to the slaughter.” She said, raising an eyebrow.
The soldiers had a brief moment of confidence that evaporated as soon as she spoke.
The boy was first. He was running so incredibly fast that all Eri had to do was hold his dagger up to his neck.
Slice.
The head fell. Eri shook her head. No matter how many times she fought, the feeling of blood always seemed to be new and scary. A girl with blond hair screamed, “James!”
She hit her in the kidney before she could cry out to her comrade more, and the other below her chin. Both of them buckled and fell. Not dead, but only just fainted. Eri bit her tongue. If only he had been that merciful to the boy. The boy’s name was James.
A shame, though, the Caprian soldiers didn’t even last a minute against Eri. She bent down and wiped her dagger clean on one of the girl’s shirts.
She then stood. She couldn’t spare the body of the boy another glance and instead ran up the stairs and thankfully didn’t encounter any more soldiers. She opened the door to enter and half expected to be met by the captain. Or anyone.
To Eri’s surprise, no one was there. She placed her right dagger back on the belt next to the water. She looked around to see the steering wheel sitting nicely in the center.
Wasn’t Hunter Orion supposed to be the captain? She thought, but then let out a smirk, Yet another way Capria underestimates, Orion most likely saw his victory and left ahead of time.
To her right, a sturdy-looking bookshelf filled to the brim with cartographic maps and novels. A small antique table sat to the left of it. And of course, the signature steering wheel stood proudly where it could see all that was going on on deck.
Eri walked over. She grabbed a bunch of maps and sprawled them all over the table. Most of the maps fell as Eri began scouring the maps.
After a while, she took two different maps. The first is a map of the world. The second is a detailed map outlining Sango and Capria. She shoved both of them between her trousers and belt and ran out.
She managed to find the staircase to the deck above all the screaming and yelling and descended below two stories. Recalling where the exterior of the ship lay, she headed toward her left. As soon as she turned her head, however, a voice yelled from behind.
Eri twisted her head to see a young Jubilee boy accompanied by a giant soldier.
She held a giant, shining claymore with both hands. The young boy had a signature silver sword given to Caprian soldiers. The tip, however, held a hue of green. Marking the boy as a Jubilee soldier, as opposed to a normal one.
These two were definitely better trained than the ones Eri had met before.
“Alina, you go from in front and guard me against him. I’ll be right behind you. With that strategy, she’ll be down in under five minutes. Jubilee or not.” The curly-haired boy said he was facing the woman as he said, but Eri knew it was directed at her.
“Aren’t you a bit too confident you can beat me?” Eri bantered. She slid her weapons out and prayed to any god that was listening to let her survive. From where Eri was standing, the boy’s tattoo wasn’t visible.
Alina charged first. She was much more confident than the soldiers from before. Eri tried sidestepping her like last time, but she recovered quicker than she had expected and she swung her claymore straight into Eri.
She used her legs to propel herself backward and just narrowly evaded the gigantic woman’s attack. She opened her water bottles in mid-air and by the time she landed; the water had wrapped around his daggers and solidified.
“Tsk, another Jubilee,” Alina said like she was some type of pest. Her mask prevented Eri from breathing completely. The boy was right behind her. Either he wasn’t using his power or he had some kind of physical buff.
“You’re power affects both me and your teammate. That’s why you’re not using it.” Eri said. The boy didn’t say anything. Eri smiled.
Bingo. I’m right again. Second time today.
Alina brought the enormous weapon down right on Eri’s head. She didn’t have enough time to react and only managed to bring her watery blades up to defend herself. Eri could withstand the original blow, but the woman kept putting more pressure. Anytime now her legs would give way.
She let the pressure break her stature and stood on both knees, fighting the force of this seemingly thousand-pound woman.
“Damn it, this is a cheap trick to use, but it seems like I don’t have much of a choice.” She said, not giving the pair any time to react.
She liquified the water, bending it to her will, allowing the water to wrap around the claymore and make its way to the hilt. Using her full force, she sliced both hands of the woman and threw her weapon out of the way.
A horrific scream came from Alina as now her knees were the ones that gave way. She tried cupping both her hands to stop the bleeding. The boy was in shock as well. Eri used the opportunity to finish both of them off as harmlessly as possible.
Three dead from my two hands today. He shook his head. That’s three people who might have had a good future.
“This is what happens in war.” She tried and failed at comforting herself.
This day reminded her of the first execution she had. As nobility in Capria, all children were required to see execution on their eighth birthday. A form of propaganda to ensure the youth knew exactly what happened to traitors.
The memory was still fresh in her brain, even after ten years.
She still remembered how scared she was as the soldiers lined her and another five kids to see a Loffanion die by guillotine.
She still remembered how after he begged for mercy, with tears and snot running down his face.
And the worst thing that she still remembered was how his head rolled faster than Eri had expected and touched her legs.
Since then, the metallic smell of blood terrified Eri more than any Caprian or Jubilee ever could.
That’s what will happen if I’m ever caught. Eri thought... If Saran is ever caught.
She stopped running when she saw the end of a corridor. A small metal door sat ominously to her right. She opened the handle to be immediately met with the smell of tens, if not hundreds, of unwashed bodies.
She placed a dagger in between the door and frame. Something was telling her that once this door closed, you couldn’t open it from the inside. She took a step inside and descended a short flight of metal stairs.
As expected, the end was a prison sector. Her right hand delicately touched her mask, it blocked most smells, except those which were too strong. Even with it on, a strong scent of blood still lingered, as if the walls themselves were coated in it. It made Eri feel nauseous and made her want to vomit.
Her feet slowed as she saw a bent-down figure. For a moment, she was unsure of what to do. She silently edged closer to the boy, the tip of her dagger mere inches away from his nape.
Eri was about to end another Caprian’s life when she heard him talking to himself. He said strange names of people she didn’t recognize, Norman, Lilia, and Glory, … He finally said one that she did recognize, Orion.
Orion? Why would this random soldier know Hunter Orion by name? And why was he saying his name with such hate?
Eri herself looked at what the boy was staring at. She saw a man with a heavy suit of armor and a woman with a huge white fur coat who had been bloodied. Their eyes were wide and lifeless. Eri cringed as she saw their gray, dead eyes. Concern burbled inside of her.
“Are you alright…?”
Eri saw his eyes widen, and a split-second later he turned around to fight her. His torso was covered in bandages, this man was seriously injured and ready to fight her.
Eri slipped her daggers into their respective sheathes and held up her hands. “I come in peace.”
She could see tears streaking his face but even so, he retorted, “Really? The Caprians who killed Lilla are now suddenly coming to peace. What a damn joke.” Even in the dark, he could see her bright blond hair.
“Use your brain, do I look like a soldier to you?” She said, pointing to her attire.
“Wait,” he said, taking a slow step towards her, “You're the foreign raiders.” He pointed an accusatory finger at her.
“Yep,” Eri said, the Amberian remained quiet. “And you're a prisoner, aren’t you?”
“So what if I am?”
“You probably want to escape, don’t you?”
“I can beat you in combat and escape on my own.”
Say’s the prisoner, Eri thought. “Look, we might have a common interest. I’ll gladly rescue you from this ship.”
“What’s the catch?”