#echoing conches

Ako Domeki, master of the seas, responded to the retort with a sour grunt of indignation, turning away from her with arms still crossed. “Hey, well, we’ll find a way, just you watch!”

Funny, this girl kind of reminded him of Hibiki, in a way…so naggy and fretful, never giving an inch to his antics, not ever…

He wondered how she would be, once he got back to Serai Island. She would be so angry at him, wouldn’t she? The thought brought a smile to the stranded pirate’s face. Aunt Hibiki would surely be there to give him a tongue-lashing like she always did.

(But she broke the ward. No one else could have done that. He tossed her off his ship, giving some wild excuse about how “women would slow him down” to keep her from being implemented in his war, and then she went and broke the wards keeping the violet glede at bay. The Shogunate fleet was torn to pieces by the ensuing storm—such a poetic end for the followers of the Electro archon. But Hibiki, that old hag, really went and did it herself…was she alright? Did something happen to her when she did that? Did the Shogunate get to her? Nah, no, that was impossible. She was too stubborn. She would still be there, when he came back…she was still waiting for that Konbumaru guy to come back, she couldn’t kick the bucket yet…)

Domeki had to keep his head about him, for his own sake and for his men’s sake. But this really was creepy as hell. He took the ship in a single direction, into the fog, and somehow, he ended up returning to exactly the spot he came from. There were no restless seas to steer him off track, no weird currents that he could make out. Just that same damn fog.

He took the ship out again and again. The results were the same. Now it was just him, his crew (the remainder of them who survived that battle with the Shogunate), and that samurai puppet. His men mourned the loss of their treasure, but as the awe-inspiring captain he was, he laughed it off as another cruel twist of fate.

At least the islanders were good to them, for the most part. Some weren’t so keen on the presence of the rough-looking strangers, or on the presence of that samurai puppet, but they were all still good people. The longer he spent here, the more ol’ Captain Ako was of a mind that he couldn’t possibly leave this place with only his crew, although that was his initial intention. He was going to leave with everyone else who wanted to.

It was probably what auntie would have done, anyways.

“Why are you still waiting for that old gambler, anyways?” Domeki asked one day while helping Hibiki do upkeep on the shrine offering box. “Isn’t he married, or something?”

Hibiki sighed sharply, as if she thought the question childish somehow. “I’m not entertaining fantasies of being with him, if that’s what you mean. I just have his bow, that’s all. I plan to give it back to him one day.”

Right, the Thundering Pulse. Nice bow, but too much of that Shogun purple for his tastes. Of course, it was no fair comparison when every weapon out there surely paled to his own! Although Hibiki always said his “The Catch” looked like an overgrown fork…

“Yeah, you mentioned that it was a bet or something. He returns safely from his battle with the Abyss, you give it back to him, right? But that was years ago. Don’t you think he might be, well…you know…”

“Dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that is for time to decide.” She looked back at him solemnly, a sort of weird deepness in her eyes. “Relationships will come and go, Domeki. You’ll learn that, one day. Our job is simply to do our part for the people we do have, whether they are with us or not. Not that responsibility is something that someone like you could possibly comprehend. But you’ll learn. I know you’ll learn.”

 He figured it out. By the stars above, he figured it out. He knew he would.

“The fog seems to come and go following a regular pattern!” he proclaimed, proceeding to explain to everyone gathered how it worked. He was sure he got it right, this time. He was too stuck on trying to explain the phenomena naturally before, figuring it through in a way that would put his nautical prowess to use. But in the end, it was just a puzzle. A matter of seeing the pattern that lay hidden in the fog all along. “…All we need to do is find it, and we can get everyone out of here!”

“Really?” Haru’s eyes, so skeptical of him before, now shone with just the faintest glimmer of hope. Everyone here had that same glimmer—subtle, like they were scared it might still go wrong, but not so drenched in negativity that they would pass this chance up.

“Take me with you!” she declared, and Ako Domeki, for one, wasn’t about to tell her ‘no.’

 They were getting out of here today, and he was going back to Serai Island and Hibiki as soon as it was over. Who knows? Maybe some of these islanders would like to tag along. He would be only too glad to introduce them to his favorite naggy old shrine maiden and her cats.