Disclaimer: Umi doesn’t own Rave nor the world and its seas and the birth of pirates.

Author's Notes: Short... really short.

Surgeon General's Warning

4. Only an ass would try to steal from me

Haru just stared at what happened to his comrades. He had no idea whether he should laugh at their stupidity or ignore their misfortunes. All he did was wonder what happened to the two, especially with his new recruit.

They were walking another alleyway around Punk Street, just for the sake of avoiding the Knights, the land-equivalent of the Navy. Haru had stubbornly refused at first, but Shuda insisted they shouldn’t take any risk if they don’t want to get caught.

So, they walk.

From a stinky alleyway to a dirty one until they end up in a street void of life. Deciding that it’s finally safe, they allowed themselves a break. After a few moments, Haru decided to heed the call of nature and the two just stayed in their places, waiting. But by the time he came rushing back to the two after hearing loud yells and strings of curses, Haru found his two men tied to each other’s back… and only in their boxers. At least someone was nice enough to leave them their shoes—in Shuda’s case, his coat—even if it did little justice.

“Don’t just stand there! Untie us now!”

Haru sighed. Glaring at Musica, he grabbed the small knife hidden underneath his jacket’s left sleeve and cut the rope. Swearing, Shuda shoved Musica to the side and quickly buttoned his coat. Haru was very sure the embarrassed blush didn’t leave the redhead’s face at all. With a huge grin, Haru looked at Musica and threw his own jacket at the silverclaimer.

“So, care to explain?”

“Some bitch just fucking stole our clothes!” Musica swore again, trying to pull his boxer’s waistband higher.

“Don’t forget my swords too, damn it.” Beside him, Haru had finally taken notice of Shuda’s coat…. And it’s furriness. “You killed animals for that, you know.” The younger boy suddenly said, his finger pointed Shuda accusingly. “Good for you.

Musica saw the vein popping in Shuda’s head, and how he suddenly grabbed the boy by the head. It was all he could do to hide a smirk when Haru got smacked. That kid deserved it anyway.

“Anyway, let’s find that girl and get our stuffs back.” Musica said, crossing his arms. It would have been really convincing, if only he wasn’t wearing a jacket sizes too small, striped boxers and dress shoes.

Shuda then narrowed his eyes in thought while Haru pouted, clearly peeved.

“I’m the cap—”

“You reckon where she run off to?”

“Oi! Don’t igno—”

“Yeah, she ran straight there.” Musica pointed further down the street, leading to the bazaars. Somewhere between them, Haru’s throwing the ignored-captain fits.

“We have to hurry,” Shuda nodded and crossed his arms too. “I have a bad feeling she’s going to sell them.”

“Stop ignoring me! Oi!”

Musica’s frowned darkened, but not before he remembered the poor kid waving his arms like mad. Eyes trailing to their seething captain (how adorable), they saw much to their chagrin that the boy was sitting on the dirty street with both arms and legs crossed, glaring… no, pouting at both of them.

A bushy red eyebrow twitched. Leaning slightly, Shuda whispered softly to Musica, though his eyes didn’t leave Haru.

“Will I be dealing with more of this in the future?”

“Uh… considering you can’t just leave this crew… yeah.”

“‘If it can even be considered as a crew,” Shuda would like to add, but thought otherwise as the two of them grabbed the kid by the arms and went to the bazaars, dragging a protesting Haru along the ground.

*

“And what gave you the idea that he’s there?”

“Because he is there. I saw him with my own two eyes.”

“Then go and get them checked.”

“…”

Sieg stared dully at the arguing pair, Iulius not wanting to lose to Lance’s judgment—or the lack thereof. But it’s not like Iulius had made any sense either for the past fifteen minutes. So frankly, he didn’t know why he’s bothering to watch them banter. He didn’t even know why he’s wasting his time coming all the way from Eastern Experiment Base to here in Punk Street. Lance’s already a captain, though a little useless and stupid.

As for Iulius…

His head throbbed in pain at the mere memory of it. At any given time of the day, that flamboyant moron would always take any chance to be outside the base, itching to leave the huge metropolis. Sieg himself couldn’t even believe he was able to make it this far into Punk Street without bleeding an ear, stuck with the noisy captain.

“Sieggy! Tell him he can’t be here!”

“Oi! Who the hell are you pointing that finger at?!”

Then Sieg bored his gaze at Iulius steadily. His eyes locked with those mahogany ones, trying to burn another mole into his face (Iulius had always claimed he was the one responsible for that certain mole under his eye), until the man flinched and turned away, grumbling.

“Dispatch Squad B, Captain Lance. Tell the Knight’s headquarters there’s no more need for any Knights. From this point on, I’m letting Lieutenant Go handle the rest.”

“Eh? We’re going to handle this case?”

“Dismissed.”

“Sieg!”

He left the meeting room as fast as he could, high-tailing his way out of the Navy base without daring a glance over his shoulder to check on Iulius.

Being left inside the room with a grinning, arrogant and dumb fellow captain was like grating a frozen cheese, in Iulius’ opinion. Sneering at the town’s captain, Iulius quickly departed from the base, spotting for the blue-haired captain outside. He’s so going to get that stuck-up drunk.

*

“Eh? So the guy did send something.”

“Yeah. I highly suggest that we heed—” Alpine’s eyes widened suddenly as Shiba threw the still-wrapped box over his shoulder. The box made a loud splashing sound when it hit the sea surface. Blinking, Alpine stared from the deck’s railings to his captain who’s sitting on a barrel, looking quite casual with just a plain white dress shirt and black trousers. He was only identified as the captain because of the huge sword beside him, leaning against another barrel.

“You… do know that box contained substances of highly dangerous poison that may just kill every sea creature in this part of the ocean, do you?”

Strangely green eyes inquired the Symphonia Knight’s captain, a frown marring Alpine Spaniel’s delicate face. His captain just grinned broadly, swinging another bottle of rum.

“Tell me, do you know from the very start or do you just find it humorous throwing it away like that?”

Shiba grinned at his green haired first mate and tapped the floor of the deck with worn black boots. “Both.” He answered, flashing Alpine one of his trademark grins.

“You worry too much, Alpine,” a new voice entered their conversation. Shiba greeted Dalmation with another grin, infuriating his right-hand even more. “Besides, I’m sure that Ogre never means well-health to Shiba.”

Symphonia Knight’s medical specialist, Dalmatian stepped up onto the deck, the pipe never leaving its perch between his lips. Nodding at the physician, Alpine welcomed him but sighed when a seeming loud booming voice and light footsteps so opposite from the first followed the physician’s footsteps. “And I’ll have to say, Captain here sure is pretty stupid, throwing something like that away! We could have used it!”

“And then what? Get our mothership blown to bits? Grab yourself a brain, you oaf!”

Shiba smirked at them. Finally, all of his crew—the original and main one, that is—were here. His grin widened even more when Dalmatian edged away from the large burly figure of Deerhound, who’s being punched in the head by Clair Maltese. Alpine just sighed at the two new additions, receiving a pat on the back from his captain. He had been doing a lot of that the entire day, anyway. No harm done in doing it again.

Looking out at the sky, Shiba idly fingered his sword’s hilt. The sky had never been this blue before, being able to blend with the sea, with the clouds dancing gaily above.

The new shift of wind had given him a new feeling, something that made him grin brightly, expecting something big coming up.

TBC