Piracy? Unchanging facade in a new world!

"Ayanokouji! It's your turn to keep watch!" The navigator's voice reached from the deck. Languidly falling from my hammock, I make my way towards the door to take night watch. Opening the door and stepping along the creaky planks, I'm greeted by the pleasant spring breeze followed by the salty air and the darkening twilight sky.

"There you are. Getting a little rest before keeping watch?" She asked with a slight smirk.

"Thought I might as well, I'm not much use for the other tasks aboard after all." Self-deprecation was my default. Unfortunately, it may just have the opposite effect of causing her to worry again.

"That's not true, you're getting there. It's only been a few days; I'd say you're adjusting pretty well. Maybe it's muscle memory? You ever remember sailing or anything like that?" I wouldn't say sailing on the Speranza particularly qualifies in this sense, considering it was a glorified cruise ship.

"No. But it wouldn't be that strange if I had. After all I must've ended up on Gaimon's island somehow." It would be stranger to have absolutely no experience at all in my case. In which I can thank my excuse of amnesia for the convenience.

"Weren't there any clues when you first awoke on the island?" I had to be careful here.

"No. There was no debris in the sea or on the beach near me. Gaimon also didn't mention viewing any vessels around the time I turned up. Though if it were at night, he may have been asleep and missed any sign of them." I could've attempted to lie about the nature of my arrival, but I wasn't privy to exactly how much Gaimon shared with them whilst on the island. The last thing I need is to be caught in a lie right now. The small sliver of trust and complacency afforded to me would vanish into thin air.

"No debris… And you turned up without any sort of injury?" She asked me with a perplexed expression.

"My clothing was a bit dirty, but nothing more than that." Any injury would just cause questions, being in such close quarters, the nature of said injury and any remnants would be searched. In which case they'd find nothing. My body didn't have any marks from extraneous wounds.

"How strange…" You might even call it otherworldly.

"No injuries or signs of ships, not even debris from a shipwreck? If there were some major injuries, we could attribute the amnesia to that… But frankly I find it hard to believe many people are capable of that, given your skills." Amnesia was often attributed to a cause such as blunt force trauma. Of course, there were other things that could be held responsible for that same outcome. However, it wasn't a surprise that blunt force trauma would be the most known between seafarers, keeping the time period in mind as well.

"Then it could be…" She mumbled with a trace of trepidation in her voice.

"What is it?"

"N-No, it's nothing don't worry about it." The second most common cause that people would correlate to amnesia during this time is trauma. Not physical, emotional. She probably fought against her better judgement whether to mention that. When considering my cold disposition, she was grasping the most probable cause, in typical cases. You don't suddenly stop expressing emotion unless something inside is very wrong. Not that she's incorrect, the reasoning is slightly off though. I suppose it meant she was showing consideration in her own way, which was appreciated. Mainly because it'd mean the questions stop coming.

If the medical conventions were anything akin to what was present in my world, then they wouldn't assume something like early on set dementia or Alzheimer's disease, mostly because those terms don't even exist yet. Not like I can even cross those off for definite, the fact that this is a different world makes almost anything possible. Which is the current thing making me lose sleep. I could be convinced to have a quick nap during this watch…

"Well then, I'm going to bed. Goodnight Ayanokouji." The red head voiced with a small smile tracing her features. She was the last member of the crew still up. It meant I would be alone for the next while. At least it would be quiet…

"Goodnight. Should I wake you at first light?" Having little to do but travel whilst on the open seas, we got to sleep pretty early which also meant we were early risers as well. A totally different lifestyle from those of students. I had even taken the liberty to truly get into the same character by staying up very late and lounging until midday on the weekends. Something that the idiot trio would proudly talk about whenever they met on the Monday of a new week. Wanting to fit in I also tried it, unfortunately my routine from the past made sure that bit me in the rear. I would automatically wake at 6:00 regardless of how little sleep I had gotten. Eventually I begun to ponder if I even slept at all… You know the first sign of madness. At which point I immediately decided not to do that again, no matter how curious I was about the visions I might see with severe insomnia. Unless ending up in this world is due to that? I was rather well-rested when I awoke…

The masterpiece broken down by insomnia, died and reincarnated in a different world. Sounds like one of those books that The Professor talked about. Those ones with the incredibly long and mundane title, with a plot suffering from an aneurysm.

"Yeah, that'd be perfect. See ya!" She said whilst walking towards the female sleeping quarters. I'm jealous, it's basically just her own room. Meanwhile I share with the other three men. The swordsman, who basically always smells of booze and sweat due to his strict training regimen. The marksman who often talked in his sleep. And no matter how wholesome his romance with that girl is, if he grabs me in his sleep again. I may just throw him overboard… Keeps giving me flashbacks to that tent with Sudou… Did I just shiver? That's not normal.

Then there was the captain. I struggle to find the words…

Have you ever seen someone eat roast chicken in his sleep? Never mind if it's possible, should you even want to do it? The grease would get all over your sleeping quarters, where do you get rid of the bone, where did you even keep the meat beforehand? Many questions were playing through my mind in that moment, absolutely none of them important.

Shaking my head I climbed up the vast rope network which led me to the crow's nest. A small platform at the top of the main mast of the ship, granting a greater vantage point of the horizon. This way we could be prepared for anything in any direction. Resting my back against the mast I watched as the last vestiges of light passed the horizon line. The sea glistening with the trace of refracted light, as if millions of gems lay across the blue expanse. It was a sight to see. A quick look in each cardinal direction revealed no evident threats present.

Resting on the sea was always a dangerous proposition. Especially when creatures like the kraken and other previously thought of as mythological creatures, are in fact commonplace in this world. Remaining stock still in the sea, basically left us like sitting ducks in a pond in that aspect, but it also didn't give us many other options. Allowing the ship to continue on a course without the navigator's strict watch was a quick way to get lost. A person that didn't understand the fine controls of the wind, weather changes, even what direction we were going in, never mind the destination. That was why we opted to drop anchor in the open waters.

In an ideal situation we would stop at a small island, so we had some land nearby to protect from any threats. That not being an option here, this is the only other reliable method. As we are completely open to an attack from each and every direction, we need to operate with vigilance befitting the situation. That was why we always had someone watching at night, we switched that duty every night. The person on duty would immediately sound the warning alarm if there were anything out of the ordinary, in response the entire crew would be prepared for any situation.

My brief respite a few moments' prior was to prepare myself for this long and no doubt boring night's watch. I was still confused as to why they allowed me to participate in the same duties. Any other time I would assume it was because they trusted me and wanted to accept me as part of the crew. But to me it was fairly obvious that the only member of the crew completely off guard around me was their captain. I had no doubts that the others would either have immense difficulty sleeping or not even bother at all. Not that it mattered much. I'd have any amount of evidence I wanted in the morning. Said evidence was about as useless as a camera without film, I wasn't particularly bothered about whether they were going to treat me like a part of the crew. I still hadn't even decided whether I was going to stick with these guys for that long. To that effect I kind of wished they would stop pretending and just take the bothersome chores like these off my hands, especially if I wasn't going to be the only one awake.

The only reason I remained so far was because it was the most convenient option. We had yet to reach a major port the past few days we had travelled. I had already handed the sword back to green-hair and we all pretended as if I no longer posed a threat. Otherwise, the voyage would be awkward anytime I came on deck. Not that it wasn't still awkward. Now it was more my own fault.

Apparently, the redhead must have told them that I was actually worried about the situation after misunderstanding my intentions before we left. No doubt they didn't believe it for a moment. They probably thought that I was attempting to manipulate their dear navigator with honeyed words. Which is incredibly unfair, I don't really need to manipulate anything in this situation. It's in both of our best interests if we simply coexist until we reach a proper place to exchange farewells. In which case I'd wish them the best of luck finding the One Piece and take a hike, so to speak.

With the elevation the breeze also picked up, the salty air tousling the auburn locks that had grew long enough to block my sight. How old a profession is hairdressing? I can assume that it'd exist. Would there be a person that had such a business on every island? I mean everyone needs to get their hair cut, right? That wasn't something I could concretely conclude at the moment. Human society worked off of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, in which case the higher priority needs are met first before delving into the less urgent matters. In this world; clean drinking water, nutritious food, healthcare, weaponry and protection against invading forces e.g. my current disposition. Were infinitely more important than fashion.

Does that mean I need to cut it myself? Would I even trust myself to know what looked good? The answer formed in my mind almost immediately. No.

If I had to choose a single member of the crew to do it, I'd pick the navigator. Was that sexist? To just assume that because she's a woman she would understand these things better. I mean probably a little, but people are good at different things, fashion and the like were more feminine in nature. You could see as such from the male crewmembers as well. They bathed every… once in a while, barely changed clothes and the room reflected that. On the other hand, the navigator would change her outfit every so often, bathe most days and generally look better because of it. Maybe I was being a bit unfair, to the males of the crew, considering we are on a ship sailing in the middle of the sea. Still if it was possible for a single member of the crew to keep up with that, the others should be able to do the same.

I could only shudder to imagine what the others would do given the opportunity to cut my hair. The captain would probably just cut it all off, assuming that's what a haircut means. The swordsman would attempt to convince me he needs to use his sword to do it, in which case I'm sure my head would soon leave my body. The marksman… He actually might not be a bad pick, seeing as he was deathly afraid of me, he might incorrectly assume I'd kill him if he did something wrong. In which case it was equally likely he would faint in fear or jump overboard to get out of the situation.

If I could muster a chuckle, it would've escaped my lips. I was reminded of the idiosyncrasies of the group I now found myself involved with. From one group of odd people to the next. Was that natural? I mean, no one can be completely average. That was something I found incredibly early on in my time at that school. My façade was seen through rather effortlessly, although it did take insider information to do so. It was only after spending a month or so I realised manipulating my scores to such a degree was tantamount to painting a target on my back. I would've been better off pretending to be an astute student that wasn't adept at the special exams. Of course, that worked on the presupposition that I understood that Grim Reaper's goals before taking the entrance exam. Hindsight was 20/20 after all.

In comparison I wondered if I had such faults in my character. Faults. There's no doubt about that, but they weren't in character. If people found me to be strange it wasn't due to my character, no it was the opposite. It was the complete absence of a character. Due to my façade of immediate incompetence and the impossibility (in the eyes of normal people) of a human with no personality, I was hidden in plain sight. Hidden behind a thin veil of inscrutability, innocence via the benefit of the doubt. Turning over such a decision required probatio diabolica. As such I could pretend as long as I want. So long as no concrete proof was ever discovered. That was my position there, only changing due to a teacher's undeterred interference. But what was the position I should take here?

Unconsciously those same words played in my mind "Someone who has the ability and chooses not to use it, is a fool." In my own world living among the lower rungs of society whilst having access to all necessary human needs was possible, in fact they were the basic rights afforded to humans. So long as you had a shelter, home address and work you could live. It may not be comfortable, but it was something.

In comparison a world like this wouldn't afford such to the lowest rungs of society. Clean water, food, shelter. Even if you had those the possibility of bandits, pirates or any other number of unknown variables could immediately change your life. In which case the higher you stand the greater the chance of security and survivability. Meaning I was already constricted to aim for the highest echelons of society in this world and my original…

The only other option in this world was to remain as one of the third-party forces; The navy, pirates or bandits. In which case I would have to constantly fight and be prepared for attacks. The navy had the highest security until a large-scale conflict came about, in which case I'd have to take the orders of whoever was in charge. If I disobeyed, I would be court marshalled. Assuming I escaped I would immediately be a wanted man; meaning I may as well have just become a pirate or bandit in the first place.

Bandits were dependent on the crime they could commit on the townspeople before being apprehended. That assumed staying constantly on the same island. I didn't like being that limited in travel. The main force of police in this world was quite literally called the navy; marines. They would no doubt travel the seas constantly monitoring the situation of islands, in which case relocating often would be necessary.

We've circled right back around. Was pirate the only real option in the first place? I could take the position of an important job role, like a medical professional. With my knowledge the most coveted jobs in my world were possibly a century or two ahead of this world, depending on certain factors. But that would gather too much attention, I'm unsure of where medical progression has reached, if my own treatment was drastically more effective then I'd have all sorts of attention.

Above all else I was wondering how this worlds communication fared. If the Marines were constantly roaming the seas, they'd have to get orders from some sort of headquarters following intelligence leaks. Did they communicate via mail? What was the distance between most major ports? In my own world sailing before the creation of modern ships would take months between locations, especially the continents where most trade would occur. Was it the same here? With the revelation of the four seas and the redline from Gaimon I was unsure if the globe had a higher proportion of sea than even my original world.

Being completely clueless to all of this was rather frustrating, I couldn't make many moves without being sure of certain factors. But the overwhelming sense of curiosity would take over. The questions I had about everything from the physics of this world to the layout of its governmental systems. Unbecoming of myself I was feeling rather excited. I wasn't sure of the path I'd follow forward from now. But rather than the resigned tranquillity I felt in that school, rather than the cold isolation of that white expanse. I felt… liberated.

I continued to mull things over in my mind. The dull orange of a new day begun to peak over the horizon before I even noticed. It was a new day. Perhaps even a new…

No, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Word count: 3138

Some more background regarding Kiyotaka's situation before transmigration. By the lack of mentioning certain characters and the emphasis on others in his monologue I hope to have painted a decent understanding of the time frame, without spelling it out blatantly.

Kiyotaka also voiced his limited understanding of the world and his choices regarding that, which I felt would be accurate given his state of mind.

The next chapter will be the start of the Baratie and Arlong saga.

As always hope you enjoyed, feel free to let me know you thoughts.

Until next time.