It had been a lot easier than the previous time to get to the ship’s hold. As the Haga were no longer there, it had been left unbolted and unguarded, leaving the two Giya women to simply saunter in and get their payload in place with no further challenge.

The Dung Beetle had given Nana four strange cones, made of the same insect-carapace as their swords and filled with a rough gravel-like substance.

All that the Dung Beetle had told Nana was that she should place the wider end against the wall and stick it there with some sticky tree sap. After she did that, she’d have to connect the fuses, light the end end and then, quite simply, make sure she’d be nowhere near when the fuse reached the cones.

It all was simple enough and after lighting the fuse with a piece of flint, the two women rushed back up the stairs.

Had they stayed to watch, they would have seen three of the four cones explode, their concentrated fury pushing the metal plating aside enough for the first of the water to creep in. It started as a slow drip, then an open faucet and finally a deluge of brine that tore the remains of the plate towards the ocean floor, giving the water free range to take over the ship’s hold.

Meanwhile on deck, some of the sailors had discovered the mounts Rei and Nana left behind, tied to the ship’s railing. Terrified, they stared at the monstrous insects, wondering what they were doing there.

Unsure what else to do, they sent for the captain.

Kaba took some time to appear, taking the time to groom herself properly and having her valet dress her. They didn’t seem to be sinking, and she had hear no gunfire, so she felt she had time.

When she finally arrived, she looked at the hornets with some mild interest, then smiled when she understood what was happening.

“Oh dear,” she said out loud, though mostly to herself, “A rematch. How quaint.”

She brought a finger to her chin, thought for a moment and turned to her valet, “The rapier please. The one with the golden basket hilt. And a pair of stools.”

The valet nodded, inclined her head politely, then rushed to collect the weapons.

“Oh,” Kaba called after, “And find out if any of our unexpected guests speak the local language.”

“Nana,” Rei whispered, her tone worried, “ We can’t cut our way through all of them.”

She leaned out of the hallway they were hiding in to see the crowd of sailors, pulled back, then checked again, before sharing her observations.

“ They left the hornets alive.”

“Did they? Seems like they want to talk then.”

“We don’t speak their language.”

“No, we don’t,” Nana agreed, contemplating her options, then looked in the general direction of where she thought the ship’s missing plate was.

“Shouldn’t we be sinking?”

“It’s huge,” Rei shrugged, making it clear this was not where Nana’s thoughts should be, “Might take longer than you think.”

As she finished, the ship lurched lightly and Nana offered Rei a triumphant smile. Rei cast a dubious look, unsure if it was due to their sabotage or a normal shake of the ship. She felt like she shouldn’t stay on there for long though.

Rei leaned out again and to her confusion saw one of the foreigners bring the captain two stools and a sword.

The black woman sat down, exchanged a few words with another woman, then yelled, in a thick accent, “Miss Giya. I am ready.”

Rei and Nana shared a look, concerned and unsure how to respond to this new development. Nana sighed, then headed out on deck.

“Make sure we can leave,” she said to Rei. The girl nodded and rushed towards the other exit.

The captain smiled when she saw Nana approach, strangely welcoming to somebody who had tried to take her life not days before.

She cocked her head, gestured to the empty stool for Nana to sit and then, if possible, smiled even wider, then finally spoke a sentence of which Nana understood but a single word.

“Wine?”

Nana shook her head, sat down and observed the woman across from her curiously. Even though she had the bare face of a child or prostitute, the woman clearly took a deliberate approach to her appearance. Very much unlike the image Nana had of the foreigners. The slovenly woman next to the captain, fidgeting and shuffling her feet, fitted her mental image better.

The captain stood up and Nana immediately reacted, rising and reaching for her weapon. Still smiling, the captain raised her hands in surrender, showing she wasn’t planning to attack. When Nana let go of her sword, she politely stuck out a hand.

Unused to the gesture, Nana grabbed the woman by the wrist to assure there was no hidden dagger waiting under the voluminous sleeves of her jacket. She curiously stroked the buttons for a moment, getting a quizzical, though still amused, look from the captain, before both sat down as once.

The captain placed a hand on her chest, then very slowly elocuted her name, “Kaba.”

Nana copied the motion and, purely to annoy the woman, introduced herself with her full name and title, confusing the captain, as well as everyone around them. The nervous woman gave her a desperate look.

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“I sorry,” she said, “Your name is…?”

Nana smiled, “As I’d said. Lady Hoshitentou Nana. Fifth Dragonfly. Second in line for the Hoshitentou domain. Beloved of the Flowers.”

“...Shorter?” the woman pleaded.

“Lady Nana is fine. What does she want?”

There was a short exchange, in which Nana heard her name mentioned several times, before the interpreter spoke again.

“Kaba, the lady of,” the nervous woman started, then gestured to the ship to show what Kaba was the lady of, “She offers you a.”

She sighed, then brought her hands together, shaking her own.

“A deal?”

The woman nodded in relief.

“What deal?”

“You and she… you.”

She swung her arms, pretending to be wielding a blade.

“If you…”

She pumped her hand in the air.

“You can have…”

She pointed to the rapier on the floor.

“If she…”

Again the fist.

“She takes…”

She pointed to the blades at Nana’s side.

“Why?” Nana demanded.

“She doesn’t want to… Long sleep.”

“Die?”

“Die… And she you...not kill.”

Nana arched a brow, surprised the women knew the word ‘kill’. It seemed an odd word to be needed at a trading post.

“If I say no?”

The woman repeated the question to Kaba, who chuckled and raised her hand. She had no need to speak. A dozen rifles were almost immediately trained on Nana.

Nana laughed at the implied threat, “Fine. You win. We duel for the swords.”

The captain took a sip of her wine and stood up, raising her brows at Nana.

Nana nodded and stood up, accepting the unspoken challenge.

The sailors had made a wide square on the deck, fencing them off with their bodies and preparing for the oncoming entertainments by making bets or appraising the combatants.

Nana knelt on the deck of the ship, calmly inspecting her blades as if she were at home and preparing to go to bed.

Kaba had more showmanship, taking off her long jacket with a flourish and demonstrating some basic cuts. Nana had some trouble resisting a chuckle at the ruffled shirt the woman wore under it. The garment seemed unnecessary ostentatious, but she supposed that to the foreigners it was nothing out of the ordinary. She fixed her eyes on her swords, then closed them tightly as if she were mentally preparing for the upcoming fight. Finally, she stood up, tied her blades back to her belt and drew the longest of the two.

Kaba cut the air with her own blade and stepped into the circle. She greeted her opponent by bringing the blade to her face, then leaving it hanging from her side, seeming oddly relaxed.

Nana responded with a polite bow, took her sword in one hand, then advanced on her enemy.

She knew better than to underestimate the woman, slowly approaching and circling as she did.

Kaba simply danced with her, keeping the distance exactly the same as when she started, until she had Nana standing sideways, with her sword arm away from Kaba. Which was what the captain was waiting for.

She brought up her own sword, lunging at her opponent. What Kaba had not expected was that Nana would go for the attack from that same position. She jumped in, twirling past the offending weapon. She didn’t have the time or room to bring the sword in to cut with the blade, instead choosing to ram the hilt into Kaba’s gut several times. The captain grunted as the blade connected. Finally she managed to grab Nana’s wrist, pulling on her arm to overbalance her. Nana let herself be pulled, took a few skips and spun just in time to block another lunge of the rapier, hitting it aside so hard that Kaba’s arm was thrown into the air.

Nana stepped back, reassessing her opponent and immediately jumped in again, using a standard attack pattern to probe at Kaba’s defenses, to her frustration watching Kaba weave past or block every blow.

Kaba giggled as she did, then suddenly lowered her sword to stop blocking but still artfully dancing past Nana’s attacks.

Nana saw this as her to chance to bring up the sword for an overhand cut…Which was when Kaba roughly slammed her forehead into Nana’s chin.

Both stumbled back. Kaba rubbing her head and Nana wiping the blood off her lips. She pushed her tongue against one of her teeth and a second later spat it to the deck. The sailors cheered.

Kaba laughed, stopped the pearly white with her foot, then picked it up and tossed it back to Nana.

Nana offered her an annoyed smile after she caught the molar and put it in her purse.

With the short intermission over, the two women brought their swords up again and the flurry of blows started once more

This time, Nana was on the defensive as Kaba brought calculated blow after blow, driving Nana back. She took a step back, then lunged at her.

Nana leaned right, left, backwards and finally fell to the deck.

Not noticing this was a feint, Kaba stepped in for the final hit, which was Nana had been counting on. She wrapped her legs around Kaba’s ankle and pulled her down, rising to her feet in the same motion.

Raising her weapon, she pulled it back for the finishing stab.

Kaba rolled aside just as she struck. Frustrated, Nana directed a kick at the woman, who stopped rolling, grabbed Nana’s ankle and pulled her down, her head painfully slamming against the metal deck.

For a moment, both women lay panting on the ground, then rose and prepared for the third exchange. Swords went up, feet were planted and then suddenly the ship lurched. Slowly toppling. Had the two women not just braced themselves, they would have followed a few dozen of the sailors, who fell to the deck.

Kaba raised her hand to Nana, indicating that they should stop the fight, then threw a quizzical look to one of her sailors. The man shrugged. There was no need to answer the question. The ship was sinking.

“It’s been fun,” Nana said, whistling, “But I think I’ll be leaving…”

None of the sailors had been paying attention to the hornets, rather avoiding the giant insects and as such, they had had not noticed the lone Giya girl collecting them and being ready to leave.

They came into action now, skittering through the crowd, unbothered by the sideways deck. They snapped their jaws or angrily buzzed at the sailors as they crossed the deck towards Nana, who quickly climbed her mount.

She wiggled her fingers at Kaba, grabbed the reins, then took to the air.

It didn’t take long for Kaba to realize what had happened. The woman had never planned to win, or even finish, the fight. It had been a distraction while they waited for whatever sabotage they had planted on their ship to work. She sighed, called for the alarm bells, then started the process of making sure everyone made it to the lifeboats.