Chapter 7. Inspector or Is the Inspector Coming to Us!? Part 5.

Here's a chapter for the power stones

***

Finally, the entire squad was able to see their captain in action. He was the one who made them watch, and all the free people on the ship came to see the inspector with their own eyes. During their brief journey together, all sorts of rumors had already circulated about him. And here was the living proof.

Even Captain Uli came out, not only to "have a look," but also to keep an eye on the other fighters, and to ensure Aki left a couple of them alive. After all, they needed workers in the prison.

For the first few seconds, Aki stood still, lowering his rapier down and slightly to the side, his eyes darting from one pirate to another to memorize their numbers, positions, weapons, and so on. It was a precaution - the captain's skills would be enough without assessment, but he had once underestimated an opponent, and paid for it. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

From behind, it looked incredibly cool, especially to the impressionable green fighters, because the captain's pose conveyed both complete relaxation and absolute beastly readiness to pounce.

And then he lunged forward, not wasting time with words for the scum. While soldiers and pirates alike saw him sprinting in a straight line towards the nearest pirate, everything else began to blur.

The captain's movements were so fast for the untrained eyes of simple soldiers that they often saw only a blur, as the rapier or Aki himself was already in another place.

For Akimaru, however, this was familiar speed - how many times had he fought like this with his master, and his eyes easily kept up with his body, as it turned out, the training in drawing wasn't in vain.

The pirates didn't even have time to realize how they were being slaughtered in various ways: Aki literally fluttered across the battlefield, never staying in one place for more than a second, and behind the tip of the blade, with which he slit the throats of the bandits, it seemed like a light trail remained - a thread, following from the very first pirate, who had just begun to understand what was happening, to the last one, whose skin was currently splitting open from the rapier.

As if in a rehearsed dance, Akimaru killed or knocked out almost all the pirates in a matter of minutes, which was not enough time for some to even comprehend what was happening. But that's why they were scum. Drunk, mostly sickly, accustomed to robbing almost defenseless trading ships, but even against trained soldiers they would have been losers, let alone against Akimaru.

The captain stopped his deadly dance when he stood in front of the entrance to the hold. He knew there were still pirates inside, and maybe even prisoners, but there was no need for beauty there anymore. Ultimately, he showed his squad the insignificance of pirates.

"Aki, the rapier!" Captain Uli shouted loudly, throwing Akimaru his scabbard. In the confined space, wielding such a long weapon wasn't worth it even for a master, and that's what Uli tried to convey with his short message. So, after wiping the blade on the pants of one of the nearest corpses, he, with a graceful movement, sheathed the rapier in the scabbard.

No one from the crew, not even Aki himself, could know that at that moment, the words of the captain of the Fire Nation ship reached the fading consciousness of one of the wounded pirates. Although slightly distorted.

"...kira..."

"So that's... what it was," flashed through the bandit's mind before passing out. He would manage to escape later when they handed him over to the local authorities, and he would tell the story of "Kira" to everyone he saw.

***

Well, I certainly made an impression, and even warmed up nicely. Now, all that's left is to clean up the ship, which I went to do, pulling my hatchet out from under my coat.

In the narrow corridors of small pirate ships, where it's not even possible to stand up straight everywhere, the hatchet was just the thing. There were still about a dozen pirates of varying degrees of illness or drunkenness in the hold. I didn't even kill most of them, I left them alive.

We have decent brig cells on our ship, where we'll put them, and then we'll hand them over at the nearest port. What else is there to do with them?

Leaving them lying around, I climbed onto my ship - now it's time to tie up and escort the poor souls.

They greeted me as a hero, of course, no more no less. There was enthusiasm in abundance, honest to God, but looking at the stain on the deck, someone even from afar couldn't hold their stomach.

"All right, listen to my orders: the living ones in the hold, the dead overboard, gather all valuables and put them in the hold. Lower the sails, hoist a white rag instead of the flag," I said loudly, "carry out!"

Phew, now it was their turn. As soon as they boarded the pirate ship, most of them started vomiting - guts and various guts were present in decent quantities, so the young and inexperienced immediately ran to vomit overboard. And then came the routine, which I didn't follow. Loading, escorting, and so on and so forth.

With the ports, everything went pretty well - everyone was glad to receive us. They replenished supplies with a smile from ear to ear and hardly demanded anything.

Which was very fortunate, we found places to store prisoners, replenish supplies, and many other things. Which was good.

Although the first reports on the coastal towns had already been sent - my poor guys sat quite successfully in the bars, listened to the locals' complaints about life, and brought me quite a lot of different rumors, which I then personally checked. So far, nothing too serious has happened: one likes bribes, another turns a blind eye to the brothel, and so on. I do mention such transgressions in the report, and then I deal with them myself. I give them a chance to come to their senses, after all, it's not really serious.

By the way, I discovered a new pleasure - tea. Well, more like you have to drink during voyages - otherwise, salt literally accumulates in your mouth, creating an unpleasant taste, and the only drinks here are water, tea, or alcohol, which is unacceptable. Too often. I didn't become a strong enthusiast of this drink, but now you could often find me sipping tea and gazing into the distance.

I was simultaneously practicing bending, you could say meditating, manipulating air back and forth in my mind and body. From a gentle breeze to a huge tornado. It turned out well, but I don't know what's beyond that tornado yet. And this is currently the only possible way to become even stronger, because I'm not really a good bender yet. More like a beginner, as I said. Although maybe I'm too hard on myself. With fire, I can burn meters in front of me in a second, and with wind, I can blow away almost any obstacle... yes, maybe I'm really too hard on myself. Against standard soldiers, I'm quite cool. But if you take someone from the "elite" sector, like Azula... well, I very much doubt that I can give her a fair fight using pure bending alone.

Anyway, for the next few months, we were largely doing the same thing. Spot a pirate ship, chase it down, board it. Although, when we were completely surrounded by pirates, I was already working as a fire bender, burning their wooden utensils to hell with a flick of my lighter.

My reputation on the ship was sky-high - it seems they put me on some kind of pedestal next to Lord Fire and don't plan to take me down at all, listening to my every word as if it were a divine revelation. Which didn't stop them from bitching as soon as I turned away. What kind of people are they?

So, burning them down wasn't really that difficult, but along with the ship, all the valuables and captives would also be lost, if any. Which was simply unacceptable.

So most of the time, we just boarded ships as a whole team, where I was more concerned with ensuring the safety of my poor souls, thanks to which we thankfully didn't suffer any losses. Except for various degrees of injuries, but nothing too serious.

But, I must say, the "poor souls" squad was growing at a rapid pace. Against all twenty of them, I already had to go all out, although still without any bending, to take them down. And that's a sign. There's nothing to say about all sorts of scum - they chopped and cut only so, except that the first raid didn't go very well.

We had to gather everyone in the cabin, ply them with alcohol, drill them with philosophy. Something along the lines of "Trash is trash," but it barely helped. We had to pour drinks for everyone, take care of everyone, and so on.

But then, on one of the usual days, when I already understood that it was time to sail as planned, Uli reminded me of the debt and the need to stop at Kyoshi Island.

Well, if we have to, we have to. The command is given, we're sailing.

Kyoshi Island is quite an interesting phenomenon. A pretty decent piece of land that was personally cut off by Avatar Kyoshi and continued to live there. Even with Lord Fire, the Avatar had agreements, or rather a vow from Lord Fire, that they wouldn't touch this island first. And since then, even during the war, the island, de facto fully belonging to the Earth Kingdom, is de jure a separate island.

Although there are many people from different tribes here, the overall color scheme is green, close to typical earth tones. All the merchants are newcomers - from the Earth Kingdom tribe, all the ships that arrive are with the Earth Kingdom people; you could say that despite the neutrality, this island has absolutely no business with the Fire Nation.

Except very rarely, because there are still peaceful people from the Fire Nation there. Well, what can you do, we'll see all this with our own eyes when we arrive. But it seems to me that we won't run into any problems there.

Hi, now for every 200 power stones there will be a chapter.

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