Natural Enemy 1-7A

The sigh left Kai’s throat, a burst of air with nowhere else to go but out. 

One hand rested on his stomach as he sat on his board, eyes still on the edge of the sea where he couldn’t see any further. The month might as well have dragged on — sunrise after sunset thirty times over — with each day feeling like walking through the thickest swamp ever. 

Before the white sails landed on the island, the quiet of Kaihua had a heavy warmth to it, a warmth he’d gotten used to; a thick blanket you pulled up to your chin on a rainy Saturday to feel lazy and safe under it.

After that, the air on the surfing island had felt all wrong; thin, stretched too tight and too quiet half the time.

Maybe I’m just imagining it. That was probably more true than anything else, and he hated that it was. The villagers didnt feel the same, not even close. It only took a day or two to get over the tension of the Marines paying them a visit and only a few eyes had gone his way when the chief told everyone they had been looking for a Devil Fruit.

A few too many eyes, being real.

But nobody said anything and sooner than later, the island was all smiles and laughter. No one even noticed how he spent the whole month trying to pretend he didn’t feel the static of nerves crawling under his skin as he tried to get back to the chill. 

Kai threw himself into the work, hauling fallen ironwood trunks all by himself until his shoulders screamed, and weaving nets until the rope rubbed his fingertips raw. S’alright. It’s over. They’re gone.

The lazy voice in his head he called Island Kai, the one he’d built up bit by careful bit over the whole last year, sounded a lot weaker all of a sudden They’re gone, Kai. Just cops doing paperwork. Relax, brah, chill.

By the end of the month, the itch was unbearable.

So, he went out on the water again, board beneath him; just past the reef break where the ocean floor dropped away and the water turned a little bit from blue to purple. He wasn’t on punishment anymore, no longer banned from the water on the chief’s order, for surfing in the storm.

“Yo, watah-brah!”

Kai blinked up at the sound, turning his head to see a shirtless Mako paddling up to him with a hand up.

The same Mako who’d won the last Great Wave without even trying, and the one six months before that with only a little more effort. The same Mako, tall and buff, who looked carved out of teak wood and polished by the sun.

“Hey, Mako!” Kai called back to him, their hands meeting in a high-five as Mako got close enough.

“Ow!” The taller boy laughed and shook his wrist out after pulling back from the high-five, one eye half-shut as he winced. “You got a heavy hand, Kai brah.”

I mean, yeah… Kai could only shrug, figuring it came with being a Conduit. “I got a heavy everything, Mako.”

The other boy laughed out loud again, the fat jokes always known to hit. “True dat, true dat, Kai brah.”

Kai had come out to surf and Mako probably had too, but in no time at all, it seemed like they’d forgotten all that as they both sat on their respective boards and talked about surfing rather than actually doing it. Just legs dangling in the water and staring off at the horizon as Mako gave a talk about what he loved the most and Kai chimed in where he could. 

“Nah, nah, see, I see you when you on the water, brah.” Mako clicked his tongue, a laugh spilling out of his easy voice as sunlight glinted off his wet shoulders. “You be putting all your weight too soon, Kai. No good for the break. You gotta let yourself feel, wait for the wave to tell you it’s ready.”

“I feel.” Kai pulled a face, considering he knew more than anybody else. “I definitely feel.”

“Nah, brah, that ain’t you. You tense on a good day. Nothing you do is feel,” Mako tutted his way, the other boy shaking his head. “Always tryin’ to tell it what to do.”

Kai’s mouth turned down further, his scowl a full mask as he paddled his own board back into position. “The water and me… We got a… different relationship.”

“Toxic relationship, water-brah.” Mako flashed a grin his way, all white teeth bright and clear as the shells he wore on his necklace. “No fight the water, ease into it. Maybe this time, no bailing off the board.”

Kai clicked his tongue back. “Shut up.”

“Just no big splash this time, Kai brah.” Mako laughed again as he splashed a handful of water his way.

Kai snorted, wiping salt water from his face. Yeah, sure.

“Boys!”

Both of them turned, Kai blinking through the water to see the sun-lined form of Uncle Haku drifting out to meet them. A cople dozen yards down the reef, the weathered old man was hunched over his lines in his little fishing skiff, hat pulled low over his eyes.

“Uncle!”

The old man with as much of an endless pit for a stomach as Kai raised his hand their way and kept on fishing as he and Mako continued drifting on the calm water.

…hm. It was a perfect day, the sun a gentle warm hand pushing down on the water as it sparkled like crushed diamonds, the sky above the color of a Blue Rasberry Slushie.

Despite the postcard perfectness, Kai couldn’t keep from looking at the horizon; eyes snapping to the line where the blue met the blue as he scanned for a white sail with a bird and a scale.

Cold water hit his face again, Kai blinking as he spluttered out the saltiness. “Kai brah, get your head out the sky. Set coming in.” Mako clicked his tongue again. “You the one take it or me?”

Kai blinked the last bits of water free, wiping his fish again. “Yeah. Yeah, I-”

A shout cut him off, the sound sharp and urgent as any he’d heard from the usually quiet old fisherman. What the? Kai’s head snapped toward Uncle Haku, the old man standing straight up in the skiff as the boat rocked a bit too much to be safe.

Haku didn’t seem to care, though. 

The old man was too busy pointing off into the distance.

Kai’s head snapped the other way, his heart beating faster in his chest as he stared off into the horizon again. Wait…  There was nothing there.

Nothing on the horizon, at least.

No, the old man was pointing at a spot halfway between them and the shore; a patch of water where the current swirled around the heads of the reef.

“What is that?” 

Kai and Mako looked at each other as the old man’s question hit their ears, the same one slipping past their lips at the same time. Without another word, both of the boys started paddling over, cutting through the water with their hands as fast as it would take them as Haku followed after them in his skiff.

Seriously, Kai’s blue eyes narrowed over, what is that? Some trash?

It looked like that… at first.

The seaweed and white foam around it definitely didn’t help the idea that it wasn’t. 

But the closer they got, the more they could make out a large dark shape, more jagged than any reef, sticking out of the water. Flotsam?

The word was new to him, but living on an island in the middle of a strange ocean meant you learned the lingo quick enough, if not eventually. Stuff falls off boats all the time, maybe a couple crates or stuff.

But as they got closer and Kai’s eyes widened at the size of it, the shape started making a lot more sense.

A chunk of a ship’s hull stood out, maybe six-seven feet of it sticking out of the water; the timber painted dark and stained further by the saltwater. The edges of it were splintered and shattered, wrecked all over and twisted as it stuck out of the reef.

“That’s from a Makani boat.” Uncle Haku pulled the skiff alongside both boys, one weathered hand running over the wet wood. “I… I know this boat.” A single finger pointed to a symbol on the side, a manta ray painted in a faded orange. “I know the man who owns it. Old Tano.”

Despite the sun hammering down on his neck, Kai felt a chill down his spine enough to make his teeth shudder as the hair on his arms stood up. Makani.

That was the next island over, maybe two days by sailboat.

No more than that.

“Uncle!”

Kai flinched at the sound of Mako’s scream, a sound he’d never heard the taller boy make. High and scared almost, it sounded too much like the kid Mako didn’t look like. The hell?