The Silver Haired Pirate

Chapter 31

I read through the last chapter and it's so shitty I literally can't- so as compensation, have another chapter. Oh yeah and that's Aki as a smol bean.

The next thing he knew, Aki was staring at a straw ceiling. 

The sound of boiling water, the smell of tea. 

Aki sat up abruptly but regretted it immediately as his head now felt like it was full of ringing church bells, banging and clanging. He groaned and flopped back down only to realize that he was in a futon. 

"Ah, so you're awake." Came a deep voice. Aki looked to the side and saw a mysterious figure. He had on a yukata, and had a top knot. There was a little circular patch on his breast just above his heart that had there circles on it, each a different size. He was a samurai, the patch with circles on it belonged to the crest of a family he served.

His face was mean looking with sharp, cold, and calculating eyes that seemed to match his square face and deep frown. He was big too, muscly. Very muscly, even his face seemed to have strong muscles.

The man was sitting in front of a teapot that was on top of a fire, which was burning from a shallow hole in the floor. He was on a zabuton, sitting seiza, and lifted a shallow black dish to his lips and took a sip from it.

"It's morning, here you should eat something." The man handed the confused Aki a similar shallow dish that had an assortment of meats and steamed vegetables. When he picked up the bowl, the man slid him another, deeper, bowl that had rice in it and a pair of chopsticks.

Aki looked at him and then back at the food. He hadn't eaten this well since he was with his mother. The taste of raw rabbits and mice was something he had gotten used to.

"Go on." The man encouraged. Aki dug into the food, devouring everything and ignoring the boisterous laughter that rang through the room.

It was now the afternoon and Aki was back to full health. Another thing about the Lopsia was that their immune systems healed and their skin regenerated quickly. They were good at fighting off fatigue and most illnesses. Most.

"How am I alive?" He asked the samurai.

"Well you were found by a couple of ronin and brought back to our land."

"And where... is this land?"

"This place is called Sylivuur. We are in what people call, the Grandline."

"How-how am I not dead. I-I have the Red Disease, yes?" Aki couldn't help the way his words sounded. Formal. The way the samurai spoke influenced his own tongue to match.

The samurai smiled and patted Aki's fluffy, silver locks. Aki's ears, or at least his one and a third ear, swayed form side to side as the samurai's big hand ruffled his already messy hair.

"Where we are, you can't get sick. No that's incorrect. You can get sick, but the Red Disease isn't a problem." Aki looked at him, seemingly more confused, "you see, the doctors here have found a way to momentarily pause the effects of the disease. Since many, many people from your land have wandered into our territory, we have taken up the act of finding a permanent cure." The man lifted his hand form Aki's head and took a sip from his dish that Aki learned held sake.

"Of course, this will take a while but for now, you can have this." The samurai handed Aki a small bottle. Inside, there were several small pearl sized balls that stacked on top of each other as if trying to be the first to escape confinement.

The balls were clear, but they shone with a strong pink and blue hue and seemed to change color every now and then as they rolled within the glass.