...
I was tied to a post in Captain Vale's office, my wrists bound behind the thick wooden support beam beside her desk.
This was deeply insulting.
Especially because I wasn't even injured.
Annoyed, yes. Slightly sweaty, yes. One sleeve torn, yes. But otherwise? Fine. The same could not be said for Derren.
Derren looked like a public warning.
He was tied to two posts over and swollen into shapes I didn't think a human face was meant to take. One eye had gone a heroic shade of purple. His lip was split. His jaw looked thick enough that chewing would now be a group activity. One arm was hanging in a sling made from what had, until recently, been part of someone's uniform shirt. He was breathing through his mouth with all the quiet suffering of a man who had made terrible choices.
Which was making this harder for me.
Not because I felt bad, but every time I looked at him, I had to hold in my laugh. He looked so stupid, hah!
Captain Vale stood in front of us with one hand resting lightly on the back of her chair.
That, somehow, was worse than if she'd been yelling.
She didn't need to; she had the kind of stillness that made a whole room feel like it had already been told to shut up. The morning light from the office window caught on the brass buttons of her uniform, which was dangerously close to her prominent cleavage.
Her eyes moved from Derren to me, then back again.
Neither of us spoke; it was a very mature atmosphere.
Captain Vale exhaled softly through her nose. "Well."
That was all she said. Just one word, and yet it still somehow felt like a blade being set on a table. Derren shifted first and immediately regretted it. "Captain, with respect, he started it."
I turned my head. "Fuck you asshat!"
"You threw a chair at Mikkel."
"I threw a chair near Mikkel."
"It hit him."
"Well, yes," I said. "He kept moving into its path."
Captain Vale did not look impressed, which was a shame. I thought that was funny as her gaze settled on me.
"Voss."
Heh, I liked the way she said my name.
She was standing there, very much herself, and, unfortunately for me, that was enough to keep the screws loose in my head. I am very weak around women.
I hope I'll adapt to that. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
"Yes, Captain."
"You were ordered into town for supper."
"Yes, Captain."
"You then turned Food Foo into a battleground."
I frowned. "Again, not my fault"
Derren made a strangled noise beside me. It might have been outrage. It might also have just been his face failing to cooperate with him. Vale took one slow step forward. Not rushed, as she deliberated enough that my brain, traitorous little beast that it was, noticed absolutely everything about it.
Her boots stopped in front of me.
"You are tied to a support beam in my office," she said. "I would advise against disputing my level of drama."
Right.
Good point.
"Understood, Captain."
She held my gaze for another second, then turned toward Derren. "And you."
Derren straightened as much as a man with a face like a collapsed bakery could. "Captain."
"You have reported that Voss attacked ten recruits without warning."
"Yes, Captain."
Vale's eyes shifted to the side of his face. "Without warning."
Derren swallowed.
Because the thing about lying to an authority figure was that it only really worked when the authority figure was stupid, lazy, or already on your side, Captain Vale, unfortunately for everyone trying nonsense in her vicinity, appeared to be none of those things.
She turned back to me. "And your version?"
I considered that. Now, there were many possible answers to that question. Several were true. Several were useful. A very small number were both.
"My version," I said carefully, "is that things…escalated."
Derren made a furious sound through his ruined mouth. "Escalated?"
"Yes," I said. "That's usually what happens in a brawl."
Captain Vale's stare could've pinned a man to a wall without the rope.
"What," she asked, "caused them to escalate?"
Silence.
Derren looked straight ahead. I also looked straight ahead.
There was a gull outside the window. Beautiful creature. Unburdened by the command structures of the Marines. I wish I could be that bird right now.
Vale let the silence sit.
"You are both," she said at last, "doing a very poor job of convincing me that neither of you is protecting the others involved."
Derren's good eye twitched.
I said nothing, which, in my defence, was me displaying enormous maturity.
The truth was awkward.
Partly because it involved other recruits being idiots. Partly because it involved me being me. And partly because some things were better left between the men who had thrown the punches and the furniture that had suffered for it.
Captain Vale's expression did not change, but somehow the room got tighter anyway.
"Let me make this simple," she said. "Ten recruits went into town. One restaurant was damaged. 15 tables were broken. One cook threatened to resign. Mikkel lost a tooth. Jans had to be carried back. Pate is still vomiting. And you, Voss…"
Her eyes dipped over me once, annoyingly thorough.
"…do not appear to have been meaningfully touched."
I scoffed, "You wish…"
Derren made a noise that sounded like a groan, and Vale's mouth twitched.
"You think this is amusing."
That was a dangerous question, because the answer was yes, but only in ways that would make my current situation worse.
"No, Captain."
"You are a poor liar."
For some reason, hearing her say that in that tone made it suddenly much harder to keep my face straight. Which was ridiculous, I should not have been losing ground to a woman just standing there.
This was, frankly, a disgraceful performance by me.
Naoya would be disappointed.
Vale turned away at last and moved back behind her desk. "Here is what is going to happen. Since neither of you seems eager to explain how supper turned into a melee, I will proceed on the assumption that you are both stupid, both guilty, and both currently trying to be less guilty than the other."
"That seems harsh," I muttered.
"That was not an invitation."
"Yes, Captain."
She picked up a folder from the desk, glanced at it, then set it back down untouched as if the act itself had only been there to remind us she could bury us in process if she felt like it.
"Derren, you will spend the next week on stores and latrine duty."
Derren looked like he might cry.
"You will also pay half the damages owed to Food Foo."
His face somehow worsened.
Then her gaze came back to me.
"And you."
There were truly few phrases in the human language less healthy for my internal balance than that one in her voice.
"You will aid in repairs," she repeated, "and will pay the other half."
I blinked. "Captain, with respect, that restaurant started charging me extra the moment I arrived on the island."
"Then you have a motivated reason to keep it standing."
That was actually fair. Irritating, but fair.
"You will also report at dawn," she said, "for corrective training."
Now that sounded significantly less terrible.
Derren looked at me like he hoped I'd die.
I, being a visionary, immediately asked, "With whom?"
Captain Vale folded her arms.
"With me, Voss."
Oh. That was good for reasons I did not wish to examine in front of witnesses.
I straightened a little despite the rope. "Understood, Captain."
"I imagine you do."
Again, the room felt weirdly hotter than it should have.
She stepped closer one last time, stopping in front of me until I had no choice but to look directly at her. Her expression stayed cool, composed, and just sharp enough to make it obvious she knew far more than either of us had said.
"You are not nearly as subtle as you think you are," she said quietly.
I swallowed. "About the fight, Captain?"
Her scarred brow lifted the slightest amount.
"That," she said, "among other things."
Then she turned, took a knife from the desk, and in one clean motion cut the rope at my wrists.
I caught myself before I stumbled, which I felt deserved credit.
Derren, traitor that he was, actually looked offended by how gently I'd been untied compared to the sentence he'd just received.
Vale didn't even look back at me as she said, "Get out of my office, Voss."
I rubbed my wrists. "Yes, Captain."
"Go wash your face."
"My face is clean."
"Then fix your expression."
And that one, unfortunately, I could not do.
…
I stepped out of Captain Vale's office, rolled my shoulders once, then stretched my neck until it gave a couple of deeply satisfying cracks. You know the ones.
The rope marks on my wrists were annoying, but more than anything, I was just irritated. Not because I got caught. Getting caught was whatever. If anything, that part had gone better than expected. Captain Vale had only looked at me like she wanted to either kill me, improve me, or both, and honestly, that was about average for my interactions with authority figures these days.
No, what annoyed me was that I'd had to stand there and pretend this whole thing was some big mystery.
Before you ask, yes, I started the fight.
I know. Shocking.
But in my defence, they were tripping and being dickheads to Ririka.
For those who don't remember her, she's the mother of the kid trying to feed Zoro when he was locked up. She worked the bar at Food Foo and, at this point, was around 23 years old. She was cool, didn't talk with her much, but she was cool.
She remembered orders properly; she let me slide on the extra charge sometimes when she was in a good mood; and, most importantly, she'd never once spoken to me like I was some annoying little mascot just because I was younger than most of the recruits.
So when a bunch of the lads started mouthing off at her, leaning over the counter, acting slick because they had uniforms on and a few drinks in them, I told them to stop.
Very simple. Very reasonable. Very mature.
They did not, unfortunately, choose the path of reason.
Instead, they laughed, did that whole chest-out pack-animal thing dickheads do when they think the room is on their side, and one of them told me to mind my business. Now, maybe in another life, I'd have been one of those brooding weirdos. One of those "heh… not my problem" types who stands in the corner all mysterious while some girl gets harassed three feet away because apparently being aloof is cooler than having a spine.
Couldn't be me.
I wasn't some emo "I watch from the shadows" loser.
If you're a dick, you get beaten down like a dick. (Pause?)
Simple system, I thought.
There wasn't much to say after that.
In the present, I made my way down the corridor, hands in my pockets.
Marines passed me on the way, and more than a few of them looked at me strangely. Some were amused. Some were wary. One guy straight-up stepped aside to let me pass, which was very respectful of him.
The corridor bent near the infirmary, and the second I glanced through the open doorway, I nearly started laughing again.
Ah.
There they were—the rest of them, or what remained of them anyway.
The infirmary looked like a war crime against bandages.
One bloke had his nose packed and both eyes darkening. Another was laid out flat with his ribs wrapped, staring at the ceiling via the table leg. A few others had cuts, bruises, and swollen jaws. It was, in a word, magnificent.
And the best part?
They noticed me, every single one of them.
The conversation died almost instantly. One of the guys actually flinched. Another looked away so fast you'd think eye contact charged interest. Jansl, who'd been in the middle of saying something, just stopped completely and pressed his lips together like he was trying very hard not to lose any more of himself.
I slowed just enough for my boots to scrape faintly against the floor.
Then I grinned, and a couple of them visibly stiffened. I spat lightly onto the floor beside the doorway and kept walking. That got me some truly hateful looks, which was fair enough, but none of them said a damn word.
Good. That was how it should be because I didn't actually enjoy pointless bullying. I know, surprising given I'd just hospitalised a dozen or so guys, but it was true, and I loved fighting now; it felt amazing.
The only real shame was that Captain Vale had clearly known we weren't telling her everything. She'd taken one look at our faces and immediately understood the math wasn't adding up, and just so you know, I didn't say anything cause mama didn't raise no snitch.
Yet, I'd have to be careful. Annoying, sure, but not exactly bad. If anything, this was good for me.
A captain noticing me this early? Actually noticing me, not in the vague oh-that-kid 's-promising way either, but properly, directly, why else would she have me train with her?
That was huge, and the whole point of coming here wasn't it? Better training. Real opportunities. A chance to climb faster, and Captain Vale had her eye on me now. Which meant I was moving up; unfortunately, I was now in the deeply unfair position of having my future improved by a woman I was finding it increasingly difficult to get attracted to.
That was the issue.
Not the training. The training was perfect, and the pain was sure to be educational. Corrective training from someone actually competent sounded borderline romantic. No, wait. Strike that—bad wording.
I scrubbed a hand down my face.
The problem was that Captain Vale had this way of looking at me that made me feel like I was being sized up, insulted, and quietly challenged all at once, and instead of reacting as a disciplined marine recruit with a bright future, my brain kept short-circuiting like a kicked Den Den Mushi.
It was ridiculous.
I was Kai Voss, a soon-to-be rising star in the Marines. Both blessed and burdened by the power of limitless adaptation, and yet she had me like this…Man, I need to grow a spine.
I probably would.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
…
End of Chapter!
Word Count - 2453