The Ninja and the Pirate King

     Eiji snaps his folding fan shut against his palm, smiling demurely. “It’s been some time, hasn’t it, Brother?”

     Brother? Akihiko stares at his master in stunned disbelief, then swivels his gaze to Laurence. “You’re,” he rasps, his throat suddenly dry, “you’re brothers?”

      But the two ignore him.

     “Nice paint job,” Laurence quips. “And a fine eye for fashion to boot. I see you, too, grew tired of royal life.”

     “Wait,” Akihiko interrupts before he can stop himself. “Royal life?” He turns his desperate attention to Eiji. “Master—what in Neopia is going on here?”

     “Be silent, Akihiko,” Eiji says. “There’s no sense in involving yourself further in this quarrel between brothers.”

     Akihiko obeys, but his head is swimming. Master isn’t originally from Shenkuu?

     Laurence is his master’s brother? And they’re royalty?

     “I assume you know why I’ve summoned you here?” Eiji continues.

     Laurence crosses his arms. “You know, I’ve been thinking really hard about why some stranger in a faraway land would have me abducted and brought to him. To think that it was my own younger brother posing as a Shenkuu nobleman—truly the twist of the century! Really, Leon, couldn’t you have written?”

     Eiji snaps open his fan again. “You are notoriously difficult to pin down. Or, you were, until word arrived to me of a notorious ‘Pirate King’ heckling the inhabitants of Krawk Island—Laurence of Kingsgrange, he called himself. After going to ground all those years ago, you threw away your anonymity in the most dramatic way possible to reemerge as this wild persona of yours. Why the sudden change, Brother?”

     Laurence shrugs, but his shoulders are tense. “I finally decided to live my life the way I always wanted. It seems that you’ve made a similar choice, Leon.”

     Eiji narrows his eyes, a subtle motion, but Akihiko recognizes it as an indication of his anger.

     “That ‘choice’ wasn’t one I made for myself, you’ll recall,” the Gelert says tersely. “Which brings us, again, to my previous question. Do you know why I have called you here?”

     Laurence doesn’t back down. “I suppose it’s about the inheritance.”

     Eiji nods once. “The ring, specifically. Where is it?”

     Laurence is silent for a while. “I don’t have it,” he says at last. “Not on me, at least.”

     “Akihiko.”

     Akihiko stands at attention, surprised to be called on so suddenly but not daring to test his master’s patience in his agitated state.

     “Search him,” Eiji orders, without taking his eyes off Laurence. “You’re looking for a gold ring with a laurel and blade crest emblazoned upon it.”

     Akihiko already knows, with a sinking feeling in his chest, that he won’t find a ring. He already searched Laurence back in their cabin, when he’d confiscated the lockpicking pin on their second day aboard the Biyako. But he does as he’s told without delay. Laurence doesn’t resist as he begins his search, checking each garment thoroughly for any sign of a ring. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he fears what might happen to Laurence if he doesn’t have it.

     Of course, Laurence doesn’t.

     “It isn’t there, Master,” Akihiko says, bowing his head. Eiji tsks.

     “One day,” he says, gesturing to the old grandfather clock with his fan. “You have one day, Laurence, to tell me where that ring is. And if you do not—well. I trust you know what will happen to you?”

     “You would slay your own brother?” Laurence asks, disgust latent in his voice. “I thought our parents raised you better.”

     Eiji sets his jaw. Akihiko looks away on instinct; he has never seen his master so incensed.

     “Akihiko, confine him to the cellar!” Eiji snaps, turning his back on them. “Guard him through the night. Laurence, if you refuse to divulge to me the information that I seek by this time tomorrow, then our bond as brothers means nothing at all, and I will sever it gladly.”

     Without another word, he storms from the sitting room.

     Silence prevails in his absence. Akihiko catches Laurence’s eye; the Cybunny nods his head. Swallowing back something distasteful that threatens to rise to the surface, Akihiko leads Laurence into the foyer and then down a narrow staircase into the cellar.

     The cellar is a small, cold stone room deep beneath the manor. There’s nowhere to sit, so Laurence, on passing Akihiko into the room, lowers himself against the far wall to sit on the floor.

     “Well,” he says after a moment, “this is familiar.”

     Akihiko considers leaving without saying a word and simply standing guard outside the door as ordered. But he decides against it almost immediately. Instead, he closes the door behind him and sits down, leaning against it. They need to talk, he’s decided—and not just about Laurence’s past.

     “I’m sorry.” It spills out before he can even think to stop it, yet it’s the most honest thing he’s said in weeks.

     Laurence lifts his head, then tilts it. “For?”

     “You’re going to make me say it?”

     Laurence smiles. “On your honour.”

     Akihiko bites the inside of his cheek. Then he sits on his knees and bows deeply. “I’m sorry I brought you here. I’m sorry you saved me and I didn’t repay that debt. I’m sorry for abducting you and treating you like—like a token to be turned in for a reward. I’m sorry for everything, truly. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

     Laurence stares at him for a few moments before breaking into a grin. “You’re so cute when you’re this earnest, my dear little Aki!”

     In spite of himself, Akihiko glowers. “I’m being serious!”

     “I know.” Laurence sobers a little. “And that’s why I appreciate it.”

     Akihiko looks away bashfully. Somehow, he can’t handle a serious Laurence.

     They lapse into silence after that. Aikihiko doesn’t want to force Laurence to talk about his past, but the question burns on his tongue. Eventually, unable to contain his curiosity any longer, he says, “So… About your brother… Master Eiji…”

     “Oh!” Laurence says, as if he’d completely forgotten the encounter in the sitting room. “Are you finally willing to sit pretty and hear one of my ‘fantastical stories’?”

     Akihiko resists the urge to roll his eyes. “So… you’re brothers. And you’re royalty?”

     “Ah, yes. That.” Laurence stares wistfully off into a corner for a while before speaking again. “Where to begin? With Kingsgrange, I suppose—my home kingdom.”

     “So I’ve heard.”

     Laurence smiles ruefully. “It’s a tiny kingdom in the foothills of Meridell. It holds a negligible amount of economic power and no political power outside its own borders. In truth, it is of little consequence to most of Neopia. But, as it turns out, I am its eldest prince. Or at least I was until I… abdicated the throne. Unofficially.”

     “You ran away,” Akihiko says.

     “Oh, it was nothing so formal as even running away. I simply got the idea into my head one day and walked out, never to look back. It made sense to me—I never wanted to rule. And as I grew older, I was beginning to see the true disparity in wealth between myself and the people I was destined to rule. It was an ugly sight that I could not look away from—not like my parents had. In truth, Kingsgrange is nothing but a poor agricultural city-state ruled over by a blissfully ignorant monarchy.”

     Akihiko winces. “But your parents…”

     “Are blissfully ignorant, yes. They chose to avert their eyes from reality—the reality of our people. You see, they view awareness as a curse. To an extent, they aren’t wrong, but… To put it bluntly, they don’t relish in the suffering of our people. They simply don’t wish to shoulder the burden of awareness—or to accept the responsibility of knowing but not doing.”

     Akihiko considers this for a long while. He has been so caught in his own head thinking of Laurence as a shallow fool that he has never once bothered to listen to him—really listen to him.

     “Then,” Akihiko says at length, “the reason you steal from the rich and give to the poor—”

     “Indeed. It’s a sense of guilt that compels me to do it, I suppose. Yet even as a pirate, I have never suffered as most do. I cannot understand their desires, their fears, even their base needs. I have never wanted for anything in my life. I carry on like Robin Lupe, but it is ultimately just another facet of the privileges afforded to me as a child of opulence.” He sighs, pulling his knees up to his chest and leaning into them. “In the end, it’s only to satisfy my own ego that I cavort around like some folk hero.”

     “But,” Akihiko says, “the wealth you redistribute to the people—that’s something tangible. It makes a difference. So even if all of this is born of your desire to play the hero… Well, it isn’t nothing. It isn’t bad.”

     Laurence raises his head. “Hmm,” he says, thoughtfully. “You aren’t wrong, of course. Thank you, Aki. That does make me feel a little better.”

     But it doesn’t make Akihiko feel better. Laurence is still going to die by his own brother’s hand, and Akihiko will have facilitated it all.

     “The ring that Master had me search for,” he says then. “What is it?”

     “Ah, yes. The heirloom ring. Nothing more than a pretty trinket passed down by father to son in the Kingsgrange royal tradition. Those who don’t possess the ring are not recognized as true rulers of Kingsgrange. I suppose that’s why Leon wants it—he always desired to rule. I would have gladly abdicated the throne to him, of course, but my parents would not allow it.”

     Laurence hesitates there. “I’ve always been… something of the favoured child in our parents’ eyes. I don’t begrudge my brother for holding that against me.”

     Akihiko frowns. “Master may be strict at times,” he says, “but he has never been unkind to me. In fact, I have never seen him as angry as he was tonight.”

     Laurence perks up a little at that. “Really? I’m glad to hear that under all his pent-up anger, the gentle baby brother I know is still alive and well—in some capacity, at least.”

     “Master is wistful, at times, and melancholic most others. But I have never known him to be violent. And tonight… Tonight, he was frightening. I—does he really intend to kill you if you don’t produce the ring?”

     Laurence shrugs. “Who knows? Bitterness has twisted his heart. He’s become obsessed with the prospect of ruling. It was a surprise to me to learn that he left Kingsgrange—and apparently quite some time ago. I suspect that our parents refused to acknowledge him as heir to the throne after I left. He must think that they will never acknowledge him unless one of two conditions is met: One, he acquires the ring. Two, he shows them proof of my death.”

     Akihiko’s heart begins to pound. “Where is the ring?” he asks urgently. “If we can get it to him, perhaps he will spare you as he said. So where is it?”

     Laurence smiles sheepishly. “I haven’t a clue. I pawned that old thing off the moment I got out of Kingsgrange.”

     Akihiko feels a muscle twitch in his face. “You what.”

     Laurence laughs. “Well, I needed the money to get a boat to Krawk Island, after all!”

     “Of all the things to pawn off!”

     “But,” Laurence adds, “perhaps it would be for the best if Kingsgrange’s monarchy disappeared alongside that ring.”

     Realization dawns on Akihiko. “That’s… surprisingly wise of you.”

     And then his awe turns to horror. He leaps to his feet and pulls the door open. “If the ring doesn’t exist anymore, then we must leave here at once!”

     “Oh, we’re escaping?” Laurence says as Akihiko grabs his arm and jerks him up. “How utterly delightful!”

     “Come on,” Akihiko snaps. “Hurry.”

     “You would disobey your beloved master for someone you only met a couple of weeks ago?” Laurence asks, and Akihiko hesitates for only a fraction of a second in the middle of that musty stairwell.

     “Some things are more important than my orders,” he says.

     “Oh, really?”

     Akihiko stops dead, his heart sinking. “M-Master!” he stammers, skidding to a halt at the top of the stairs.

     Eiji is in the foyer, sitting in a simple wooden chair with his ankles crossed. “What do you think you’re doing, Akihiko?” he asks, his voice low and threatening. “Disobeying your master? After all I’ve done for you?”

     Akihiko swallows a lump in his throat. “Master, I—”

     “Quiet. I suspected something was amiss by the way you behaved around my brother. I was right to keep watch tonight, it seems.”

     Eiji rises from his chair, and Akihiko is alarmed to see his katana tucked into his obi. He unsheathes the blade and points it at Laurence.

     “Time is up, I suppose,” he says. “Tell me where the ring is, Brother. I will have a search party dispatched there at once to retrieve it while you remain confined here. And if you happen to ‘misremember’ its location”—he tightens his grip on the blade’s hilt—“you only get one chance. So think long and hard about where you left it, okay?”

     Laurence sighs. “Do you really mean to do this, Leon? All over a silly throne for a kingdom most have never even heard of?”

     Eiji’s face contorts. “That’s easy for you to say, Laurence—you, who have always had our parents’ love and support. The golden child, the heir to the throne who could do no wrong! You have always had a future for yourself whereas I—I have nothing. So tell me where the ring is. Now.”

     “It’s long gone.”

     Eiji freezes, his face morphing into a mixture of terror and rage. “What?”

     “It was the first thing I sold when I left Kingsgrange,” Laurence says. “And good riddance, I say. Everything about that life is absolutely stifling. I wish you had realized that long ago, Leon. I wish you would realize it now.”

     “Laurence—you—!”

     “Just admit it, little brother. It isn’t the throne you’re after, is it? After all, you have a good thing going for you here from the looks of it. A beautiful home, a lavish lifestyle, an attendant who’s loyal to a fault—what more could you ask for? What you’ve always craved wasn’t kingship—it was validation.” Laurence raises an eyebrow. “Am I wrong?”

     Eiji’s hand shakes on the hilt of his sword. “You won’t live to regret this.” He strikes out with his blade.

     “No!” Akihiko leaps to his feet, parrying the blow with his short sword. Startled, Eiji reels back.

     “Master,” Akihiko begs. “Don’t do this.”

     “Akihiko!” Eiji roars, swinging his blade again, but his swordplay is clumsy, and Akihiko easily blocks him. “‘Loyal to a fault’? You’re wrong, Laurence—even my own servant has left me for you!”

     “That’s not true, Master!” Akihiko cries. His arm shakes from the force of holding Eiji back, but he doesn’t let up. “This isn’t just for Laurence—it’s for you most of all!”

     With a growl, Eiji withdraws his blade. Akihiko staggers backwards but refuses to move from his place in front of Laurence.

     “Traitor,” Eiji spits. Akihiko flinches but doesn’t move. “After all I’ve done for you—”

     “Yes,” Akihiko interrupts. “And I’m repaying that debt to you right now, Master. Right as we speak. Because isn’t it a servant’s duty to ensure that his master isn’t led astray?”

     Eiji falters. “What are you talking about?”

     Akihiko shudders out a breath. “I don’t want you to become a killer, Master. I don’t want to see you destroy yourself like this.”

     For a long while, nobody speaks, and the only sound is that of Eiji’s ragged breathing. Then, after what feels like an eternity, the Gelert sheathes his blade.

     “Go.” He doesn’t look at either of them. “Get out of my sight, both of you! Before I do something that I—can’t take back!”

     Akihiko doesn’t wait for Eiji to change his mind. He grabs Laurence by the wrist, and together, they flee the manor.

     —

     They wait at the cliffside for Bohai to arrive. Akihiko borrowed one of Eiji’s carrier Naleaps for the purpose of conveying the message.

     “If you do change your mind,” Laurence is saying, “you know where to find me. I think you’d be quite the useful companion to have in my line of work!”

     Akihiko makes a face. “My life of crime is in the past,” he says bluntly. “And…” He pauses. “I need to look after Master. If he truly feels so alone, then it’s my duty as his attendant to take care of him.”

     “Ever the loyal subject,” Laurence says, but he’s smiling. “Actually, I’m glad for it. Leon needs stability more than anything. A blockhead like you is perfect for that. Oh, and—consider your debt repaid! A life for a life, and you saved mine—in a manner of speaking.”

     Akihiko nods once. “I don’t think Master would have—would have gone through with it. I don’t know your Leon, but… But the Master Eiji that I know could never do something so cruel.”

     “Certainly not,” Laurence agrees. “My brother is a masterful swordsman. Had he truly wanted me gone, I would not be standing here now. But I think it was necessary that we made him realize that on his own.”

     He lifts his arms above his head with a yawn and stretches. “Ah, I feel liberated as well, really! I always regretted that I left home without a word to him. My actions had consequences for someone else. I oughtn’t to forget that so easily next time.”

     A shadow drifts overhead, blotting out the rising sun, and the two of them look up to see the Biyako cruising toward them. Bohai is on the main deck, waving at them enthusiastically.

     “They got it repaired rather quickly,” Laurence notes.

     “I’m not surprised. Captain Bohai is very fond of his ship. Almost parental.”

     “Well,” Laurence says with a chuckle as he steps up to the cliff’s edge. “There’s my ride. Take care of my brother, won’t you?”

     Akihiko bows his head. “I swear it. On my honour.”

     Laurence gazes at him for several moments and then, suddenly, he rushes forward and sweeps him into a bone-crushing hug. “I’ll miss you, my dear Aki! Please come visit me on Krawk Island! Oh, and if you can’t find me, do check the dungeons, won’t you?”

     “Hey, enough of that!” Akihiko cries, but he lets the Cybunny hug him anyway. “I understand, alright? I’ll come visit! And—and maybe eventually, I can convince Master to come, too.”

     Laurence releases him and steps back, wiping a tear from his eye with the back of his hand. “Yes! I would like that very much!”

     The Biyako’s gangplank is lowered, and Bohai greets them both with a brusque pat on the head. Akihiko sits beneath a maple tree and watches the sky-ship depart until it’s nothing more than a black speck on the horizon line. Then he rises and sets off again, back down the winding forest path.

     Master will need someone to walk with him, after all.

     The End.