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“DUCK!”
At his partner’s shout, Tatsumi instinctively threw himself down on one knee and felt the whoosh of air above his head as a rusty broadsword was swung with deadly intent at what had been the general vicinity of his neck. Still down on one knee, Tatsumi tucked into a ball and rolled forward narrowly escaping the down swing of said same sword.
Bounding to his feet on the far side of his opponent, he became away of his partner gleefully applauding his effort.
“Sweet move, Tatsumi!”
Perched on the edge of rotted wood posing as a ship’s railing, Watari was wearing a cheerful grin as he watched his partner clashing swords with the skeletal remains of a hundred-year-plus dead pirate.
Glaring Watari’s way, Tatsumi hopped back quickly as the skeleton took a wicked swipe at his belly.
“I have a brilliant idea, Watari. Get down here and help me!”
“Oh, I’d just get in your way, Tatsumi. By the time I was born sword fighting was a lost art! You’re much better at this then I would be.”
Turning his arm in an awkward parrying motion, Tatsumi gave ground as the surprisingly frisky skeleton drove him back towards the mainstay. The skeleton wore death’s grin and Tatsumi found it extremely unnerving.
“I’m not expecting you to pick up a damn sword, Watari. I’m thinking perhaps you could figure out what is blocking our magic here and fix the problem so we can end this.”
“Why didn’t you just say so? I figured that out a while ago. Before we came aboard if you remember. Your shadow power and my own summoning magic is being interfered with by the curse that kept this fellow locked to this ship over 230 years ago.”
Tatsumi spared his partner another quick glare. Watari was stretched out on the pocked railing, ankles crossed, one slim hand wrapped around a piece of moss-covered rope to hold his balance on the rocking ship. The younger man’s long green coat and moon washed hair fluttered in the stiff ocean breeze but he was grinning like a fool and looking completely amused at their predicament.
The predicament had sounded disgustingly simple at the time. Head out to the Pacific Ocean during the next full moon cycle and retrieve a soul, which had been lingering for the past 230 years. Tatsumi had looked at Konoe-sama with a baffled expression as the man had shoved the case file across the desk at him. Konoe had appeared to be having trouble keeping a straight face and Tatsumi now understood why.
I have got to spend more time listening to office gossip. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this turkey.
Watari had. The younger man had groaned when Tatsumi had poked his head in his partner’s lab and announced they had a case.
“We’re going where?”
“The middle of the Pacific Ocean it looks like. If I’m reading these coordinates right.”
“Wait, wait… the middle of the Pacific Ocean?”
“Yes, isn’t that what I just said, Watari?”
“Not one of the islands?” There was a definite hopeful tone in the younger man’s voice, which Tatsumi attributed to Watari’s desire to lounge on a beach like a lizard.
“No, Watari-san. It’s the middle of the ocean.”
“Let me guess, during a full moon cycle?”
“Mmm yes.”
Watari groaned and beat the heel of his palm against his forehead.
“Tatsumi…you let Konoe-sama give you the Pirate case?”
“The what?”
“The Pirate case. You know, the sole survivor of a mariner’s curse leveled by a siren I believe. It’s this one soul, stuck on a ghost ship out in the middle of the Pacific. He’s a stubborn bastard who refuses to ascend until he reaps his revenge against the siren who cursed him and his crew over 230 years ago. Only the siren in question was punished about 200 years ago for messing with mortals and no longer even exists. However, her magic exists. No Shinigami has been able to retrieve this soul and we’ve been trying for over 100 years. It’s gotten to be sorta the office joke.”
Tatsumi looked at his partner blankly, causing Watari’s eyebrows to arch upwards.
“You really do live in your office 24/7 don’t you? You’ve never heard of this case?”
“No.”
“Well… you have now and it looks like it’s our turn to get our serving of humble pie.”
“Whatever do you mean, Watari-san?”
“I mean this case is irretrievable. We are going to get our asses kicked.”
“Don’t be silly. We will retrieve this poor soul and be done with this situation.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that my friend.”
Another near miss of the skeleton’s sword called Tatsumi back to the present. Twirling neatly to the side, Tatsumi put a rotting crate between himself and the pirate. Sword fighting really wasn’t Tatsumi’s forte. He’d had basic training in his youth, nothing like the formal training that Kurosaki-kun had undergone. He was holding his own against the pirate only by out maneuvering the skeleton.
“Climb the foresail tie down, Tatsumi.” Watari suddenly called out.
“Why?”
“Because it would amuse me?”
“WATARI!”
“No, really I have an idea but I need Bones-san to get up on the cargo netting.”
Skeptical but running out of ideas himself, Tatsumi blocked a high cut coming his way, turned about gracefully and dove for the rope Watari had indicated. Bracing his leather-soled shoes against the rotted wood of the foresail mast, Tatsumi clambered up towards the top arm of the torn sail.
Above the howl of the ghostly winds through the ripped sails, Tatsumi could hear Watari laughing down on the deck below.
“I told you not to wear wingtips!”
“Budget-cuts… lots of them!”
Bending himself almost backwards, Tatsumi watched with a smirk as Watari was kept from a retort by having to duck a wild swing from the skeleton, which had paused on his way to the cargo net to take a few swipes at the younger Guardian.
“Hey, hey hey now. I’m not the one with an overgrown butter knife! The guy you want is right up there. Now, be a good pile of bones and get up that… yikes!”
Now it was Tatsumi’s turn to laugh, softly, as his partner had to take off across the seaweed covered deck with the annoyed skeleton in pursuit. The long hem of Watari’s green jacket was trimmed a half-inch shorter by a swing of the rusted broadsword as the younger man dove for some rigging and scrabbled his way up the ropes and out of reach.
The only bit of luck they’d had on the case so far was the fact that the skeleton couldn’t free climb the rigging. His bony hands couldn’t grasp the ropes in the necessary way so he was restricted to using the cargo nets, which he could climb like a ladder.
Tatsumi watched as Watari swung in the breeze and tried to get his feet set in the rope. He had to admit it was an amusing picture and there really was very little left to do in the current situation but chuckle.
“Alright, my little genius. Somehow I don’t believe your original plan included you stuck up in the rigging like a monkey so now what do we do?”
Wrapping the rope a couple of times around his forearm, Watari leaned his head against the moss-covered hemp and sighed heavily.
“Well, let’s review what we can’t do. We can’t teleport off the ship.”
“I can’t use my shadow magic.”
“I can’t use any magic.”
“We have no way of alerting the Division to our predicament.”
There was a pause as the two men stared at each other.
“Not that…”
“That would be an option…”
“Even if it was.”
At least we agree on that! Tatsumi thought to himself.
Down on the deck, the skeleton paced back and forth between the two sets of rigging, like a patient bear, waiting for his prey to come back within reach.
A particularly strong gust of wind pushed Watari out over the water, setting his coat to fluttering and making the younger man look like a sail for a moment. As the wind died down and the rope lofted back into place, Tatsumi could see the death grip the other Guardian had on the rigging.
“And we can’t stay up here for the rest of our afterlives.”
”Agreed!” Came the emphatic response from the blonde.
“So, back to the original question. What can we do?”
“Ah, convince him to come with us?”
“We tried that.”
“Break the curse?”
“We need the siren to do that and she no longer exists.”
There was a long pause as Watari looked around at the ship and then back down at the skeleton that, with his permanent grin, seemed vastly amused by his two guests.
“You could go back down and continue to fight with him?”
“Watari, I’ve been fighting with him for the past 48 hours. Hisoka might be able to best that skeleton in swordplay but I can not.”
“Tatsumi, are you admitting there is something you can’t do?”
“Focus, Watari-san, focus!”
“Ah, right. Well… as I see it we have one option open to us.”
“And that would be?”
“Wave bye bye to the nice cursed soul, jump overboard and swim like hell.”
“Without the soul?” Tatsumi sounded incredulous.
“Tatsumi! The Division hasn’t been able to retrieve this soul since before you and I were born, let alone dead. Look at him, Seiichirou. He’s having a ball down there. We’ve been at this for the past 48 hours. In another twelve hours we’re going to loose the moon cycle and the ship anyway and I don’t feel like playing windsock for half a day.”
Another gust of wind broke off conversation as both men had to cling like burrs to their respective bits of rope. The ghost ship rolled to the side as a strong swell listed them starboard and Tatsumi got a good look down at the whitecap crested waves beneath them.
“Ah, Watari… are you sure that swimming for it is a good idea?”
Watari, who had gotten a similar up close and personal view of the angry ocean, swallowed tightly and hung on to the rope a little tighter.
“Well, maybe not a good idea but at the moment I think it’s our only option. We’ve only got to clear five miles then our magic would return and we can teleport the rest of the way.”
Tatsumi gave the skeleton one last, thoughtful, look. The pirate was standing casually on the deck twirling his sword deftly back and forth grinning the way only a bleached skull can grin.
“You know, I believe that Kurosaki…”
“Forget it, Tatsumi. The Kid knows better than to touch this loser of a case.”
Tatsumi looked back up and across at his partner. “Hisoka knows about this case?”
“Of course. Tatsumi, you have got to try surfacing from your office for more than coffee and to yell at Tsuzuki and Terazuma.”
The ghost ship was now rocking back and forth almost violently, caught in the powerful cradle of the ocean.
“Okay, okay… you and Konoe-sama have made your point.”
“Me?? What the hell makes you think I had anything to do with our getting stuck out here in Never Neverland?”
“Didn’t you? Isn’t this one of your underhanded lessons to teach me the importance of social interaction?”
To add insult to injury it had become to rain. It was a warm Pacific rain at least but it was still rain and in short order it soaked Watari’s hair, making the younger Guardian look like a soaked cat.
“Tatsumi, if I wanted to deliver an underhanded lesson don’t you know me well enough to know that I’d make sure only you suffered? Do you really believe I’d go along for the ride as well?”
“Watari, I gave up trying to figure out how your so-called mind works decades ago.”
There was a long pause and then Watari broke away from the verbal engagement to comment.
“If we’re going to jump, we’d best time it when the ship lists starboard.”
“So we’re definitely going to jump? I don’t remember agreeing to that plan.”
“TATSUMI!”
Tatsumi grinned. It wasn’t often that he got to the point of annoying the laidback Watari into yelling. Shifting himself around in the rigging, he made certain that he was positioned properly to jump the next time the ship rolled in the trough of the waves.
Seeing his partner getting ready, Watari waggled his fingers at the skeleton standing below and braced himself.
The ship swept upwards, turned and rocked hard to the starboard. Tatsumi pushed away from the ropes and threw himself feet first, towards the dark ocean below. Half way up the ship, Watari also pushed away from his rigging into a more graceful dive towards the water, his slender body arching like an arrow towards the whitecaps.
Both Guardians hit the water at the same time.
Tatsumi surfaced with a gasp, pondering what it was about being out in the field with Watari that seemed to result in his ending up soaked all the time. Shaking his dark hair out of his face he looked around, feeling a twinge of concern until he spotted the bright head of his partner. Watari was treading water about ten feet away and fighting to get his hair out of his face. Turning back towards the ship, Tatsumi saw the skeleton standing aft leaning on his rusty sword, grinning at them.
The pirate raised one bony hand and saluted them with a single middle finger against his forehead before he turned away, the ghost ship slowly disappearing into the misting rain.
Finally able to see, Watari struck out in a powerful crawl towards his partner. Tatsumi bobbed in the ocean glaring after the ship, as it’s tall masts winked out of sight.
“I am not done with that ship, Watari.” Tatsumi spat out a mouthful of ocean water as he spoke.
“Oh, hell.” Watari groaned, if only because he knew that the ship would become a personal crusade for Tatsumi.
“That soul needs to rest.”
“That soul is resting, Tatsumi.”
“I mean it needs to rest in a jar on my desk!”
Watari blinked. “Okay, now you’re just scaring me.”
Tatsumi shot his partner a glare. Then he reached up and pulled his glasses off his face, tucking them down into a water logged pocket of his ruined suit. Watari had taken his own glasses off before making the dive. Falling in side by side, the two Guardians began a slow crawl through the ocean.
After time, as they swam along, Tatsumi became aware of his partner… singing.
“I love the sea, I love the shore, I love the rocks and what is more, with you there they’d never be a bore…”
Laughing, swallowing seawater, spitting it out and laughing softly again, Tatsumi finished the line of the old Peggy Lee song.
“’Cause I love being here with you.”
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