Rebellious Duo (#Wattys2016)

3: The Journey Begins

Kaine ran upstairs to pack a few essentials. A change of clothes, plenty of food, and of course her magnifying glass with her notebook and pencils. All this was stuffed into a briefcase. She followed an anxious Nori outside her house. "I left the Oxblood at the docks," Nori started.

"Oxblood?"

"My ship."

"Ah."

Nori rubbed her hands together. "By the way, is London always this cold?"

"This is quite normal weather." Kaine gestured to the tiny swirls of fog curling around the buildings.

"This ain't normal, not normal at all. I can't wait to get out of here."

Kaine disregarded Nori's complaint. "Tell me about your ship. How and when did you acquire it?"

"My partner and I stole it when we were... what was it... thirteen? I can't remember. It's pretty small, but it gets the job done. Here we are!" Nori pointed at the Oxblood docked in the marina. "Come on board!" She jumped on board and lowered the gangplank for Kaine.

Kaine immediately started examining it from top to bottom with her magnifying glass. "Burn marks," she said.

"Yeah. That was me." Nori crossed her arms. "And who gave you permission to--"

But before she could finish her sentence, Kaine had went inside to the galley. Nori rolled her eyes. Kaine couldn't do much damage inside anyways. Nori hauled up the anchor and untied the Oxblood to set sail. Meanwhile, Kaine found herself in Nori's bedroom. "Nothing much," she muttered, gingerly lifting one of the bed sheets. On the wall was a display of katanas, stained with blood. Kaine felt the floor underneath her lurch. They must be casting off. She staggered outside, trying to balance herself on the rocking floor. Nori turned around and chuckled at Kaine's balancing act.

"Nice. You should walk like that all the time," Nori sniggered.

Kaine clutched her stomach, trying to regain her posture, but fell backwards. She passed it off as a casual lean against the wall, so she put one of her feet behind her and took her pencil and notebook out. "That's nonsense. Now, where were the past five places you have been before your crew disappeared?"

"Acceso, Quasi, Ziehen," Nori ticked off her fingers, "Vagans, and Cadenza." Kane scribbled these names down furiously in her notebook.

"And what was your business in these places?" Kaine asked, covering her mouth momentarily. She could taste bile rising in her throat. Damn, seasickness! But she straightened up and held her pencil poised over the paper.

Nori smirked a bit. "Well, I remember in Ziehen we were really trying for some money. We even used the sleeper missiles. That time it wasn't very bloody. BUT, let me tell you about Cadenza! Ha! They had a mage with them! Not very skilled, obviously, but we had to kill a couple 'a kids to get him to stand down. But after that, we had to kill him anyways. Pestering bloke, y'know. At least we got some gold out of it. And don't get me started in Vagans! They thought their entire military could stop us! Poor Masa had to scrub bloodstains off the Oxblood for three days stra--"

"That's enough," Kaine interrupted. She couldn't take much more of this. She was rebelling all that she stood for just by listening to this murderer. What would the police say when she told them she had accepted help from a pirate who mercilessly killed children for no reason? The sweet sick taste gathered at the corners of her mouth again. Her hand flew up to her mouth once more, but again, she was able to pass it off as a dainty cough. She swallowed painfully. "Well, Nori. I suppose we'll be spending quite a lot of time together, we may as well be acquainted." Kaine sat down on the deck, and Nori sat opposite. "Could you tell me a bit about yourself?"

Nori shrugged. "You know all of it. I ran away from home. Well, burned it down, more like. And I just gathered a crew. But a few years ago, I ran into a really nasty character, the Ivory Prince. Did you hear about him? Tetsuya Kazuhiko?"

"I may have read something in the papers."

"Well, I took him down," Nori finished proudly. "And recently, my crew went to Jete island, of all places! The most dangerous island of them all! And we--" Nori suddenly squinted at Kaine. "You just want to know where we stored our treasure, don't you? Askin' all these questions?"

"No! No!" Kaine didn't want to get on Nori's bad side, not in a million years. "Fine then, I'll tell you a bit about myself. I suppose I had a broken childhood. But Mr. Frank took me in, taught me like I was his own daughter. I loved going into the library and reading the Sherlock Holmes books." Kaine smiled sadly. "Those were the days. But Mr. Frank... he was killed."

"Heh. Only one important person in your life was killed?"

"How can you laugh?"

Nori sighed, almost in exasperation. "My teacher was killed. My mom is dead and my dad's a drunk. My best friend was murdered. I almost killed my... well, my friend. And I've murdered countless people." A dark look clouded Nori's eyes, startling Kaine. "So don't talk to me about loss, why doncha?"

"I- I'm sorry. I didn't know." Another lurch. Kaine clapped her hand over her mouth.

"Railing's over there," Nori said unemotionally, pointing to her right.

Kaine got up and sprinted to the side of the Oxblood, where she promptly threw up. When Kaine straightened back up again, she muttered, "I... had not predicted seasickness."

Nori roared with laughter. "You're the greatest detective in the world and you can't predict that you won't get SEA SICKNESS from travelling on a BOAT? You're joking!"

While she continued to laugh, Kaine frowned. "It's going to be a long ride," she mumbled.