Pirates of the Skies

Chapter 22

Number 4

There was a silence that fell over the three when Mary mentioned the man's name. She struggled to keep her voice from shaking as she uttered the name that she obviously feared. By the silence that was radiating from Shinji, she knew that he must also feel the same amount of fear as she did. He too had probably heard about the fearsome Eri Misugi.

"Ah don't get it, am Ah suppose to know him?" Shinji said, breaking the silence.

The man raised an eyebrow while Mary's mouth fell open. "He's- he is one of the most dangerous people in the world. He is both an excellent thief and a notorious assassin and he is number 4 in GAP's most wanted list!" Mary said, with her voice growing more hysteric as she listed facts on the man in front of them.

"I'm honoured you know so much about me." Eri said in a charming and relaxed tone.

"Number 4, huh?" Shinji repeated the fact. "What number am I?"

"You're not even on the list!" Mary said after a moment of disbelief at the question he had asked. "Which should tell you how hopelessly outmatched we are against him."

"Not on the list? Come on now, Ah'm a great sky pirate, how can Ah not be on the list? Are there any pirates on GAP's most wanted list?"

Mary could not believe what Shinji was asking at a time of such danger. To her, he was focusing on the wrong detail. He should be more worried about Eri Misugi than if he is on the most wanted list or not.

"Last time I check there were two pirates and none of them were in the top 5." Eri offered.

"Sounds like a weak list." Shinji commented.

"Would you stop worrying about the list!" Mary said.

"Look, I don't want to kill you." Eri calmly said. "I won't even report your activities to the ship's authorities. I just want what you stole from me back. I found the door to my room kicked in and my things were taken. You can keep whatever you found but I want a silver and brown box that you took back. This is a limited time offer, so I suggest you give it back quickly."

"Well that couldn't have been us!" Mary said, her voice picking up in volume and octave as she tried to be cooperative. "You see we use lock picks to break into rooms. We don't kick them down." She produced her lockpicking set as proof of this.

As she was talking, Shinji dug into his jacket pocket and produced a brown box with a silver pattern and silver center. "Is this what ye wanted?" He asked holding it out.

Eri noticeable stiffened at this for second before quickly regained his composure. Mary saw the quick change in the man that he had tried to hide and it made her nervous. She began to realise that whatever this thing was, it was very important to him and she feared what he may do to get it back. She was hoping that after Shinji returned it, Eri would keep his word and let them live.

"Shinji, give it back to him." She pleaded more than commanded.

"No," Shinji said causing Mary to almost fall over in shock.

"Why? He's going to kill us if you don't!" She said.

"Ah'm not giving this back. Ah plundered it fair and square." Shinji said. "If Ah gave it back, me pirate license would be confiscated."

"Pirate license? There's no such thing!" She said.

"It's a figure o' speech." Shinji said in a-matter-of-fact tone.

"The offer has expired." Eri curtly said before they could both say anymore. He began reaching into his coat. Mary grabbed Shinji by the wrist and began running away. She produced two throwing blades from her black jacket and threw them at Eri. Eri pulled out his black semi-automatic pistol and blocked the two thrown blades heading for his neck with it, sparks exploded from where the gun and knives met.

Mary risked a look back and saw, as if in slow motion, Eri stretched his gun arm out to aim at them. She half pulled Shinji, half dove into the nearest room. No shots went off and she breathed a sigh of relief as she got back to her feet.

Eri reached back into his white jacket and produced a long black tubular silencer. He began screwing it on the mouth of his gun as he walked towards his prey.

/

Yuki entered the boys' sleeping quarters with some of her soup. Green smoke eerily rose from the sandy green bowl. "Shuji, I have your soup here. This will help heal your… arm?" Yuki stopped talking once she heard her voice echo back to her in the empty room. Yuki breathed out of her nose, almost making steam come out. "Shuuujiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

Shuji had his small tool set out and his rifle lying on his lap. It was difficult for him to tinker on the weapon with only one functioning arm. He jumped a little when he heard his mother angrily shout out his name, spilling some of his tools in the progress. He sighed sadly as he knew that his rouse was discovered. His mother would probably look for him now.

Currently he was sitting down under the desk in the captain's personal office. Shinji had never been one to use the office as he was not one to read or write or even have an office. Even when he needed to write something, he just pushed the work off to Shuji. Shuji had spent more time in this room than anyone else on Dream Glider, which may be why it was the first room Yuki barged into.

"Shuji!" She called out and looked around.

Shuji pressed himself closer to the desk and tried to make his form smaller. He looked longingly at his rifle on his lap. All I want to do is work on you, Shuji thought to himself, why doesn't anyone understand that? I mean look at you, three clip capacity, aiming system that incooperates the chronomally effect, you're perfect. Shuji began getting emotional. Soon enough he was moved to tears by the thoughts of the rifle.

Yuki was about to go until she heard snivelling noises. They were so quiet that she could have easily missed them. She turned her body towards the source before stalking closer.

Shuji tried to keep as quiet as possible. He wiped his face with his sleeve, hoping that he had not been discovered. He suddenly had a strange feeling. He felt like he was an ant, under a magnifying glass or an amoeba under the gaze of microscope. Instinct told him he was being watched and that he should look up. His head slowly raised, fear was building with each angle he elevated his eyes from the floor and his heart almost stopped when he saw his mother looking down on him from atop the desk he was using to hide.

"Shuuuujiiiiiiiiiii!" She shouted as he got up and ran for the door. "You should be in bed!"

"But I don't wanna go to bed!" Shuji shouted as he ran out, with rifle in hand, followed by his pursuing mother.

/

Kai was stumbling along the hallway with the cannonball in his hands. He was struggling with the weight and had to settle for walking like a crab, in order to carry the cannonball to… to… It became apparent to him that he did not really know where he was supposed to be taking the cannonball and all the other goods he had on him. They had no prearranged rendezvous so he was walking blind.

Captain Ikazu appeared around the hall and was confused to see a young boy such as Kai with a cannonball. He sighed to himself, Oh great, another unattended brat I have to deal with.

"Hey, you there, what are you doing with that?" Ikazu said approaching Kai.

"Uhm… with what?" Kai said looking around and feigning confusion.

"With that cannonball!" Ikazu said as he stood in front of Kai.

"Oh this!" Kai glanced at the heavy black object in his hands. The weight was slowly becoming too much for his still developing arms to carry. "Oh, I… uhh… found it… lying around. So I thought I'd get it out of the way before someone slipped on it."

Ikazu looked at the boy for a while in unconvinced silence. He looked at the cannon and saw a bag placed on top of it. Gold and silver could be obviously seen through the bag.

"What is that?" Captain Ikazu asked, pointing at the bag.

"Oh this? This is bag that has donations for the uhm… Boy's Without Cannonballs Fund." Kai said, sweat now flooding down his face from the strain caused by the weight of the cannonball and the lies he told.

"Who are you?" Ikazu said, starting to realise that Kai may not be the normal children he was used to dealing with. "Who did you come here with?"

"I… came… here…" Kia began, swinging the cannonball backwards and forwards with each word, "with… the greatEST… PIRATE …EVER!" He said before letting the metal ball go. The ball landed on Ikazu's foot and as he jumped around on one foot, Kai grabbed the bag of silver, gold and other valuable things and ran for his life.

"Stop that child!" Ikazu said limping after the blonde haired boy.

/

Footsteps made by finely made shiny black shoes echoed through the hallway, accompanied by the sound of a finely crafted silencer being rolled into place in front of the barrel of an expensive gun. Mary's breathe quickened, adding its own melody to the sounds of coming death.

Eri Musigi looked at his gun and saw a small silver line reflecting form its black sheen. It was like a shining blemish on the guns perfect black surface. "You two scratched my gun. For that there will be no mercy."

Mary could not help but squeeze her eyes shut. Her mind was racing, desperately reaching out to the place where ingenious escape plans came from but all she could come up with was, What am I doing here, scratching a madman's gun?

"Ah'm sure a prissy boy such as yerself c'n buy another one!" Shinji, who was beside her on the floor, shouted back at Eri.

She looked at him with outrage. For the life of her she could not understand how he could be exchanging insults at a time like this. "Shinji, don't antagonise the man. If we're lucky, he may let us live."

"Nonsense," Shinji said. "Ah once defeated 132 men with only three bullets in me pistol and me trusty sword." Shinji said as he risked a peek out from the room they were hiding in. His head slowly made an appearance past the door but because of his pirate's hat, it became painfully obvious to Eri what he was doing. Shinji was able to get a peek before Mary pulled him back by the back of his jacket collar. A bullet silently whistled past his head, punching a whole through his sandy brown hat and planted itself on the wall behind where Shinji's head had been only a moment ago.

"Bloody hell! He seems te be a good shot." Shinji remarked. "If Ah hadn't dodged in time, Ah would be dead."

"Shinji, do you see now that we don't stand a chance?" Mary said. "We should negotiate."

Shinji got off the wall and walked halfway into the room. "Ye heard him, Mary. He said he was gonna kill us. There be no negotiating." Shinji said as he sheathed his blade and drew his pistol. "I guess I'll have to fight a little more seriously."

Mary looked at the confident man in front of her. He had no doubt that he could defeat GAP's fourth most wanted man. Images of Yuki fighting Branson flashed into her mind and she thought that maybe she had been underestimating the captain on the Dream Glider crew. If Yuki was as powerful as she is, it stands to reason that Shinji, her husband, could take on Eri.

"Ah suggest you move aside." Shinji said as he pulled his jacket tail back, revealing a row of bullets that led to a silver tin box. Shinji squeezed the side of the box and the lid popped off. Mary, from where she stood, peered at the box. There were three bullets in the tin box attached to Shinji's belt, a green one at the bottom, a yellow one in the middle and a red one at the top.

Shinji flicked open the chamber of the pistol. The chamber was strange. It was neither an 8 or 6 chambered revolver, it had three chambers, one huge one and two smaller ones. Shinji unlatched the green bullet from the tin box and slotted it in the biggest chamber and pushed the chamber back in place. He widened his stance and took aim at the wall.

Although by now, the sound of the silencer sliding into place was gone, he could still hear the calm and rhythmic footsteps of Eri as he made his way to them. Shinji guessed his position by this and adjusted his aim at the wall.

He squeezed the trigger… There was a green flame that burst from the barrel of the gun which traced the initial path of the bullet that came out with a louder BANG than normal. If one were to listen carefully to all the sounds during the bullets path, they would have heard a Boom… Clank… Boom. The first Boom was accompanied by a small circular cloud created adjacent to the bullet's path. The Clank was the sound of the bullet punching a sizeable hole into the wall and the final Boom sounded as the bullet passed inches away from Eri's surprised face.

The recoil knocked Shinji off his feet and sent him crashing backwards into a closet. Eri quickly dove into the nearest room to get to safety. His eyes were wide and the usually calm and confident look on his face had been wiped away. He stared down at his gun hand and noticed that it was unwillingly trembling.

"That… was a Power Bullet." He said to himself fearfully.