The sea’s weather was unpredictable and unkind.
One moment the water was calm as glass, the perfect send-off.
An hour later the wind had teeth and the rain was coming down in sheets.
A small sailing vessel pushed through the storm, riding the swells up and down like a cork.
But however hard the waves hit, the ship kept moving.
On deck.
Kuina gripped the mast to keep her footing and looked at Rocks beside her, a distinct edge of alarm in her voice.
“Should we take down the sails?
I feel like this ship is about to flip.”
Her first time at sea.
Her first time feeling the ocean’s real danger this directly.
Rocks thought about it, then shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?!”
“I don’t know anything about navigation.
The old man never taught me.
He used to swab floors on a ship, not steer one.” He looked at her.
“What about you?”
“I never learned.
So what do we do?”
“We need to find a navigator.”
Rocks shook his head at the situation.
“Sailing without one is genuinely dangerous.”
“I know that!”
The rain had soaked through Kuina’s clothes and plastered her hair to her face.
She looked at Rocks with undisguised exasperation.
“We can worry about finding a navigator later.
Right now we need to get through this storm.
Do we take down the sails or not?
You’re the captain.
Make a call.”
“Take them down.
Fast.
If the sails get torn to pieces we’re at the ocean’s mercy.”
Rocks nodded quickly.
“Being stuck for a day or two is manageable.
But if it drags on I’m going to starve out here.
Getting food on open water is not easy.”
Kuina said nothing.
First day out and they were already in a crisis.
The sea really was dangerous.
Following her captain’s orders, Kuina worked quickly and efficiently to bring the sails down.
It helped significantly.
The ship stabilized in the rain, still shaking in the wind but no longer in real danger of capsizing.
With the sails down, though, they were going wherever the storm pushed them.
Neither of them knew the first thing about navigation.
The storm lasted just over an hour.
It had come fast and left the same way.
When the sea settled back into calm, both of them let out a long breath.
That was over, at least.
The experience made one thing sharply clear to Rocks: a navigator was not optional.
“We need to find one as soon as possible.
I don’t want to feel like my life is out of my hands again.”
Kuina had already changed into dry clothes, her long black hair tied back loosely.
She agreed completely.
“We do.
Without a navigator, just the two of us, it’s only a matter of time before we’re completely lost.”
Rocks looked around at the open water in every direction, then spread his hands.
“Not a matter of time.
Already lost.”
The storm had pushed their little ship wherever it wanted.
Without navigational knowledge, Rocks had no idea where they were.
They were lost.
Kuina blinked, then her brow furrowed.
“That’s a problem.
Without knowing our position, the chances of finding an island are very small.”
The sea was immense.
Without a known heading, finding land in all that open water was close to impossible.
Harder than winning a lottery ten times in a row.
“Don’t panic.
Our luck isn’t that bad.”
Rocks understood that a captain’s job included keeping spirits up.
He said it immediately.
“People have crossed entire oceans in a barrel.
We have food and fresh water for a few days.
We’re not at the worst case yet.”
“My Observation Haki has a wide range.
If there’s an island nearby or a ship passing through, I’ll pick it up.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Kuina acknowledged it.
Because of Rocks, she already knew that Haki existed in this world.
With his Observation Haki actively scanning, they had a much better chance of spotting land or another vessel than they would with their eyes alone.
As long as their luck held, they weren’t going to die drifting out here.
“Once we get our bearings, the next priority is finding a navigator.”
Rocks already had a plan forming.
On the subject of navigators, one person came to mind immediately: a girl with short orange hair who knew the sea better than most adults twice her age.
With her on board, the relatively gentle East Blue would be no obstacle at all.
Even the New World’s treacherous waters would become manageable.
Kuina turned to look at him. New chapters come out on g.com first.
“You already have someone in mind?”
She had agreed to sail with Rocks three years ago at his invitation.
He had clearly been thinking ahead even then, not just acting on impulse.
Running into a sudden storm and losing their bearings was bad luck.
It wasn’t a failure of planning.
“Yeah.
I have someone.”
Rocks thought back to an encounter several years ago with a small girl selling oranges on a merchant ship.
He cracked his knuckles absently.
“Same as with you.
We have an agreement.”
“Either I give her a hundred million Berries, or I save her village.
Do either of those things and she’ll join me.”
After making the three-year promise with Kuina, Rocks had returned home.
On the way, aboard a merchant vessel, he had run into the girl who would one day be known as the Cat Burglar, Nami.
She had been selling oranges on that ship.
Rocks had immediately recognized the value of recruiting her early, and so he’d made his pitch.
The result was their agreement.
In hindsight, Nami had clearly not taken it seriously.
She had probably humored him because he’d bought a significant quantity of oranges, answered him with a few polite words, and promptly put the whole thing out of her mind.
Rocks, however, had not forgotten.
An agreement was an agreement.
He would be making a stop at Cocoyasi Village.
Kuina looked at him.
“She…”
She was also a woman?
Rocks didn’t notice the look.
He nodded.
“Nami should be about fifteen by now.
Old enough to sail.”
“Fifteen.”
Kuina’s expression shifted into something strange.
She was looking at Rocks the way one might look at someone with highly questionable interests.
“Talent doesn’t care about age,” Rocks said.
He’d caught Kuina’s expression and misread it as skepticism about Nami’s competence for her age.
He explained: “Her navigational knowledge is exceptional.
She helped a merchant ship avoid a storm when she was twelve.
That’s how good she is.”
“So you, at fourteen, decided to recruit a twelve-year-old girl.”
Kuina looked him up and down slowly, with a meaningful expression.
“Do you have some kind of particular preference I should know about?”
Recruiting a twelve-year-old girl as a crewmate.
It was hard not to read something into that.