3. believe (bonds will form with time)

They leave Funemuri.

They drift in the sea, vaguely aware of their spot on the map. 

They come to a new island on the outskirts of West Blue-- and here, they come upon a strange man with blond hair.

-

The air here wasn't the nicest. Nowhere really was nicer air than Moribakari, but Cross wasn't one to be sentimental about locations.

He fiddled with the emerald in his pocket, keeping the little bear in his sight.

Cross liked Takara. He was mean and sometimes scary, but people that teach him things are always good people. So he will keep his promises with Takara. Promises are important, right?

Cross uprooted a dagger from under the mound of trash. He stared at it for a long second, before spinning and chucking it to the left.

A hidden man with a camera fell back, dagger between his eyes and mouth frothing with spew and blood.

Cross crouched down beside him, plucking the bloodied knife out from between his brows, determining that it was too dull to use, and tossed it away.

He stepped on the camera on the way out.

"Captain," he sang, "let's go somewhere else!"

Takara didn't say anything about killing, right? Just don't use his powers without permission, so basically he can do anything else.

That's a lot of stuff he can do.

-

"So you're trying to be a pirate, huh?" the nice mister from the ship-breaking port smiled at him, and Cross smiled back, Captain snarling in his arms.

"Takara said the Bevy just famed us, so we can't live normally anymore," Cross explained, ignoring the puzzled look the man gave him.

"I'm gonna put the pieces together and just roughly guess you're trying to tell me the Navy framed you guys and that's why you're turning to piracy," he said.

The man put down his load of lumber to address the child.

"And well, that's a pretty common story round these parts. It's always the Navy, or the World Government, or some shit royalty. Makes me miss the days Roger was alive..."

"Roger?"

"What, you're trying to be a pirate and you don't know who Roger is?" the man leaned forward a little with a bit too much cheer, "sit down, kid! Let me tell you a story. It's something you have to know if you want to be a pirate!"

-

Knock, knock.

Hm? Okay.

-

Cross' left eye was blue when the man finished talking. He could see the man flinch back in surprise, but only looked on with a puzzled expression, staring a little closer and speaking in a farce of not noticing.

"There are marines-- stronger ones once you cross into the Grand Line-- they'll try and stop you. But Roger's a guy that defeated them like they were nothing!" the man said.

From the way he was trying not to look too closely at Cross' face now, he must've realized staring was rude. Maybe he wasn't sure if the blue was there from the start.

He couldn't help but smile at that.

"So are pirates or marines the bad guys?" he asked.

The man hummed at that. "From a moral point of view? Pirates. But the Marines are corrupted now-- it's hard to say that they're the good ones. There are also plenty of pirates that grant islands protection. Whitebeard, for instance. It's hard to call guys like those completely bad."

"Morality's a gray thing, after all," the child said, twirling around the little plastic pipe he'd found within arm's reach. "In this world, the ones who get to choose the 'right' have never proved themselves to be worth the spot. That's why the world's a mess."

The man leaned his chin into his hand. "You sure speak some profound things, kid."

The child smiled. "Thanks for the story, old man."

And he stood up.

Strangely enough, Captain snarled at him, barking out a roar in hostility when the child tried to approach. He messed his hair up with a sigh and walked in another direction, hoping the bear would obediently follow.

-

He had a pair of blades hidden under his sleeves.

They're triangular and about the size of his palm, attached to each other with a long red string that curled somewhere hidden near his elbows.

To use them, he threw them out and lobbed, like chain-connected scythes or grappling hooks, whichever was preferable for the situation. Yes, with the mastery, these fragile-looking nonsense actually did work that way.

Unlike scrap daggers and random weapons in the dumpster, these were important weapons. It's not something to flaunt around, so he hid them even from Takara.

Cross loved them and treasured them enough to only use them for important means. He would never taint them with the blood of some random that wasn't worth his time. The boy religiously polished the blades every night.

But now he handed them to the baby bear, and admired the way Captain just crooned at it, poking interestedly and sniffing experimentally.

Captain dodged his hand when he tried to pet him, so he pouted.

-

Have it back.

Right.

-

Cross took the blades away from the bear and tucked it back into his sleeves, ignoring the little bear's whines.

"Let's go play somewhere else, Captain," he said, standing up and dusting himself. He blinked, and his eyes returned to their twin gray hues.

The bear nuzzled at the leg of his pants. Smiling fondly, Cross sought out something to build up their little pile of treasure again.

-

-

-

"Ooooohh!!"

Cross' eyes sparkled with excitement. Takara had finally come back from the city a little after sunset, and he came with a haircut, a tank top, a huge sack of something, and his metal parts in full view of the world.

Cross was never too fascinated by them, but they still looked cool. His body was flesh, but his joints were metal.

"I thought you wanted to hide your metal?" Cross asked him when he approached.

Honestly, Takara scowled so strongly at that. Takara then had a flashback of some sort before making a cringing noise. 

Then he said, mirthfully, "the people in this town are scary."

Cross tilted his head to the side curiously, but Takara didn't give him an answer.

"A-Anyways!" Takara cut in sharply, "I'm done with everything I needed to do. Even got us some food and a map of the West. Let's get a boat from the shipwrights and we can leave, alright?"

Cross' mood flipped around quickly after that, cheering.

And Captain jumped onto the sack of food, roaring something. Takara squawked when the bear started biting into their food stock, and Cross laughed.

-

A one-cabin fishing boat. There's a kitchen and a bed, though it's small.

"You guys don't have enough people to sail a caravel, so I'm not letting you," the older shipwright with a chubby temper growled at them. "I know you guys are running, but I heard you're trying to be pirates. Gather some friends before you get a bigger boat, aye?"

Takara chuckled sheepishly.

He'd really rather have a bigger, more pirate-like ship with a workshop, a kitchen, yada yada, but knowing his companions are a mentally-stunted brat and a literal bear, he wouldn't be able to handle sailing anything bigger in case of a storm.

Guess he has to give up on a ship until a few more islands.

"We're running?" Cross asked, turning to Takara. Captain, clinging to the boy's head, made a 'gawrah?' in confusion.

"Yes, Cross. We are running from Marines," Takara reminded them. He retrieved a cigarette and took a long drag.

"What's that?"

"Cigarettes."

"What's it for?"

"Magic."

"Oh, okay."

Takara thanks the man for the fishing boat, and he steps in. The night's already fallen, but Takara's been assured by scary shopkeeper Mister Daywarf that he was trustworthy. There are very probably no sabotages on the ship.

"So you guys come like a storm and you're already setting off," the man huffed.

Takara smiled, bashful. 

Cross and Captain leapt on, charging into the cabin and screaming all the words they know.

"I really can't thank you guys enough," Takara said.

And the man sighed. "This island is filled with sheep like yours-- forced to the wrong side of society for the world. You could call it empathy, but half of us aren't kind enough to be considered with that word. So call it indifference."

Indifference, pretending not to know.

"We never met you, we never talked," the man said. "Forget, then forget you forgot. Goodbye."

And he walked away, no longer making eye contact.

Takara smiled warmly. "Let's go, Cross."

The sails unfurl, and they leave the island, following the night winds and leaving into the moonlit night. They have until daybreak to make themselves scarce.

Their stop on this island was short, calm, and unbearably fortunate.

-

Takara screwed the buckle into the leather, then raised it to the moon.

Leaning back against the cabin, their boat drifted in the sea, heading in some direction. He checked his compass beside him, and resumed his work.

He set the diamond-shaped emerald into a socket on the other side, and clasped it shut with a X-shaped casing.

"Come here, Captain."

The bear hopped off the cabin and landed on Takara's head.

"Don't blame me if you fall into the sea doing that, okay?" Takara says, "none of the humans in this boat can swim, so if you drown, we'll let you."

Captain made a growling noise.

Takara let the bear fall into his lap with a flop. He wrapped the leather collar around the bear's neck, and buckled it with a sharp click.

"There," he said, satisfied, "now you can carry around Umma's gem with you wherever you go."

Captain whined, like it hated the stifling thing.

"No complaining," Takara told him, "you don't want to get eaten by the humans again, do you?"

Captain made a whimpering noise.

"Now go on and show that off to Cross or something."

And the bear ran off. The cabin door was left open, so he entered, and a moment later, Takara could hear Cross rambling off with him in excitement.

Takara sighed. He looked at the sky, and turned back to the compass, and his metal-coated hands.

He closed his eyes.

"I've sure come a long way from then, huh..."

-

Their wanted posters came the next day. They didn't have official epithets yet, but the media was dubbing them the Rejects.

Someone had given them an account. Something about how they were a pair of estranged children from a skeptical Professor's house.

One of them had a body made of metal, a heart made of machine-- and the other was a monster in the form of a child, who once walked out of the woods with blood on his hands and the remains of a human in their teeth.

The world deemed them monster experiments gone wrong. Apparently, they lost it, and burned down the island on the way out.

"So did you actually do that or are they exaggerating?" Takara oddly found the article humorous. Maybe he really was losing it.

"Huh? I didn't burn down the island," Cross said. He was sunbathing with Captain on the roof of the cabin.

It was daytime now, and they had little to do except wait for the boat to move.

"No, I mean the 'walking out of the forest all bloody' part," Takara clarified, "they're implying you're a cannibal."

Cross blanched, "human meat is disgusting."

"You ate human meat?!"

"No, why would I eat it if it's disgusting?"

There's a flabbergasted pause.

Then, "Cross--" he stopped himself. Was he going to placate this child for being a murderer of some sort? It wasn't as if he never knew-- Cross took human lives lightly and that was obvious from the start.

But Takara couldn't really reprimand anyone for any form of homicide right now. He'd be a hypocrite.

So instead, he sighed. "Nevermind."

-

-

"I'm borrreeed!!"

Cross whined and complained, but who could blame him? He was the kind of kid that ran around the jungle every day and night as a living. It's impressive he made a full day out at sea before he started making noise.

"If we get more crewmates, we can get a ship," Takara bargained, "then you'll have more space to run around. So be patient, okay?"

He continued making whiny noises.

Captain was enjoying himself, swimming around the vicinity of the boat to cool down from the heat. Takara made sure to tie a lifeline to the bear and watch him closely in case he started sinking too far down.

"Crewmates? Are you sure we can trust anyone else with our lives?"

Takara swirled around in surprise. He looked up sharply-- and Cross was laying stomach down on the cabin roof, looking down at Takara with a pair of heterochromatic eyes.

Takara gulped. Those eyes were never not ominous.

"We've been betrayed once," the younger boy said. "Twice. Or thrice. I don't know about you-- but that's how it's been for Cross."

Takara's eyes widened.

"You don't trust humans," Takara realized, trying not to instinctively reach for the nearest weapon-like object in the vicinity. He calmed himself down before he continued-- "they're not worth it, in your eyes. Is that it?"

The boy that wasn't Cross smiled.

Takara laughed, but his body language was stiff and his chortles are nervous.

"Well... if you don't like humans," Takara told him-- and he broke into a painfully empathetic smile, "then we just have to look for other monsters, right?"

The boy grinned, all teeth.

"I like you," it said.

Then Cross blinked, and the blue was gone.

-

-

"Sea, sea, SEA!! Nothing but sea!" Cross yelled out to the horizon. "Takara, why is it sea? Why is sea always there??"

Takara was carving into a lump of wood with a small knife. He inspected the curvature. "I don't know, Cross. Why don't you ask the sea?" he didn't even look up.

Cross slammed his hands into the sea's surface, "why are you here, sea?!"

Then he went limp, losing energy.

Yeah, he's an idiot.

"We'll get to Mug Island in a few hours. Bear with it until then," Takara told him, He raises his almost-finished workpiece to the sun. It's in the shape of a six-pointed diamond, about the size of his palm. He resumed carving.

And suddenly Cross was beside him, blocking the sunlight.

"What're you doing?" he asked.

Surprised, Takara cut it through too far-- and to his own amazement, cut it right in half.

Now he had two halves of a diamond. That's amazing.

He sighed.

"It's called rehab. It's what I do to practice moving my fingers properly," Takara explained, picking up the pieces and wondering what he could do with it.

He put them back together. They didn't magically fuse. Dammit.

"You need practice for that?" Cross asked.

"Yes. I've been doing it ever since I met you," Takara said. He raised the two pieces. "Want one?"

Cross received it brightly, "uhn!"

Cross went off to show Captain, but Takara honestly didn't know why he was so excited. Maybe Cross just liked anything as long as it was a gift. He sighed.

He picked up another slab of wood.

Time to try again.

-

"And... there." Takara blew on the collar, brushing off the sawdust and rough pieces. "There you go, Captain. Now your name's on it."

The bear growled.

"Don't growl at me. If you don't wear it, you'll become food," Takara hissed at him, "you wanna become food? You wanna become nutrients in our stomach? You'd have been useful three days ago but do you know why I didn't cook you? I don't know, honestly. Maybe I should. Alright, I'll go start the fire."

The bear's now crying at his feet.

Takara huffed.

"Hey, Takara! Don't make him cry!!" Cross hollered from the other side of the boat.

"Listen here, Captain," Takara ignored Cross, sitting down beside the bear, "Cross spoils you rotten, but I'm not gonna do that. We promised Umma we'd raise you. Part of raising you is the discipline, and if you're a man, you sit there and take it! Got it?"

"Takara, you're talking to a literal bear."

"Shut up, you're a literal monkey!"

Captain sat down like a dog would sit, looking straight at Takara with a resolved expression. Somehow, the bear could pull off that expression.

He made an affirmative noise, then pawed at the collar.

Takara patted him on the head.

Then he turned to Cross. "You know, I think Captain's much more well behaved than you are."

Cross looked terribly offended.

-

"Mug Island! Mug Island!"

"Cross, no."

He pouted. Sitting down on the cabin of their fishing boat, Cross puffed up his cheeks and decided to throw a tantrum up there.

They're attracting attention from the other ships on the dock, so Takara picked up a rock and flicked it at the boy's forehead.

"We have a ship now, so someone has to stay behind to guard our things," the older one said. He shrugged on his long sleeved, high collared coat again, "I'll get on land to restock, so you stay on the boat."

"What about Captain?" Cross whined.

"Captain stays with you..." Takara stopped. He swirled his head around. "Wait, where did he go?!"

Laughter came from the boat beside them. Takara looked over.

There's a blond man on that little sail boat, wearing a white button-up and a cowboy hat. The blond man chuckled. "If you're searching for a little bear cub with a collar, it ran off the moment you docked," he said, pointing in the direction of the city.

Takara screeched, "that idiotic bear!!" he yelled, clawing at his hair.

The blond chuckled again.

Takara pointed sharply at Cross. "You stay here!" then he turned to blondie, "thanks so much, sir! If you'll excuse me..." and he ran off.

Cross was still pouting. "No fair! Captain gets to go out and play!"

And a rock comes soaring from a mile away, smacking him right in the forehead with such force it sent him shooting backward on impact.

This is when the blond-haired man snorted out a disgraceful laughter, falling back on his boat in his discomposure. 

Cross turned to look at him, and the blond sat up, fixing his hat as he wiped away a tear.

"Oh, sorry for laughing, you guys are a riot!" he said. Leaning on the edge of the boat, he smiled. "My name's Titus. Nice to meet ya, kid!"

Cross grinned. "Nice'tya too!"