Chapter 4:Manifestation and Vessels.
Sanjay hit the egg back toward Nico with brute force. As the egg approached him, Nico felt a gust of wind and hit it harder than the feeling of being rejected, which means he hit that egg really hard over the net.
Sanjay was smiling confidently as he prepared for a blessed pendulum serve. The ball sailed over the net, and Nico thought to himself that if he didn't beat Sanjay, he'd give up everything. At the same time, Sanjay was perplexed by the immense aura Nico was releasing without seeming to realize it. "But what the hell?" Sanjay exclaimed as he chopped the ball. Nico responded with a fast, long serve, and the intensity of the game escalated. Jack watched, clearly impressed and feeling a tinge of jealousy, wishing he could play this well.
"This match will end soon," Sanjay proclaimed, confident he would win. "No, it won't," Nico replied with a straight face. "And how sure are you?" Sanjay asked with a smirk. "Kiri ga naikara." Nico says with a straight face, Sanjay has no idea what the hell "Kiri ga naikara" means. Nico told him to look it up. (The phrase is Nihonese and means "'cause it's endless." Nico is familiar with the words because he is partly from Nihonia, where the lingua franca is Nihonese, as I mentioned earlier.)
Sanjay performed a pivot step followed by a backhand drive with spin. "Your reverse pendulum won't work on me. Even if it did, Clown was able to deflect it, and I'm better than him in this game, so I'd obviously still block it," Sanjay said, trying to provoke Nico. Nico ignored him, and as the ball bounced, he struck another reverse pendulum. Sanjay easily returned the ball over the net. Nico replied with another reverse pendulum, but Sanjay just extended his hand to let the egg bounce off his paddle before sending it back over the net for Nico to receive and perform yet another reverse pendulum.
Sanjay taunted Nico, claiming he was destined to lose. Nico continued to execute the reverse pendulum, driving Sanjay to his limits. Finally, Sanjay decided to counter with his own reverse pendulum, but Nico surprised him by doing a pendulum serve. Although Sanjay managed to return it, the egg bounced out of bounds, meaning Nico won.
"When I said 'kiri ga naikara,' I meant 'Omae no haiboku wa ore kara kiri ga nai.' (The phrase means "your losses from me are endless".) Sanjay still has no idea what Nico said at all, and Nico replied, "I don't give a flying monkey."
Applause erupted from several guildmates. Nico turned to see five friends, including Jack, applauding him. An elf-eared guy told Nico he had passed the test, which shocked Nico since he had only defeated Sanjay and lost to two others. How had he passed?
The elf man explained that Sanjay was the best table tennis player on the volleyball court. Comparing the others to him was like comparing a hydrogen bomb to a coughing baby. He said that by defeating Sanjay, Nico had practically defeated everyone in the guild.
"Nico, you really did pass, and you also emitted aura from your body. Your aura was overflowing. Are you a vessel or can you manifest?" Sanjay asked. Nico was confused and didn't understand what Sanjay meant.
A guy with a durag and glasses, only wearing underwear, approached to explain. "You see, Nico Stars, your aura is the output of your life energy. Through this, humans are blessed with two abilities: one is called manifestation, where you use your aura to create an object that resonates strongly with you, granting you abilities. Sanjay, Jack, Gold, and I use manifestation. The second ability is being a vessel. A vessel is basically a regular human who cannot manifest objects but instead embodies the powers themselves. The vessels in the crew are Jojo, Clown, Iris, Rocky, and Paulina. I wonder what you are—a vessel or a manifester?" he inquired. Percy, the guy who was speaking with Nico, bet twenty thousand marion on Nico being a vessel, while Rocky bet the same amount but on Nico being a manifester, sparking a fight between them.
Chapter 5: Midori, The Girl in Armor.
Jojo comes back from her swim about fifty-something minutes after Nico won the match. No one's on deck. She's carrying a body, about Nico's height, on her shoulders. The person is wearing armor, and the body looks like that of a female because of the chest. Jojo takes her to the ship's sick bay and calls Iris to attend to her.
"I found her a bit deep in the water and managed to lift her up using telekinesis", Jojo says this in a nonchalant but caring way to Iris. Iris says that they'll have to remove the armor off her body for further treatment. They crack their knuckles and head in unison, getting ready to remove her armor. Jojo goes for the helmet and the neck to remove it so her carotid pulse can be checked by Iris, while Iris goes for her chest area to check her heartbeat, but the armor is too heavy and doesn't want to be removed.
The duo tries over and over again, but the armor refuses to come off, which is very frustrating, so they invite the strongest member of the crew, Jack, into the sick bay, to come and help with removing the armor of the girl, Jack agrees to come and remove the armor, but during the conversation between Jojo and Jack. Jojo had mentioned the girl being the same size as Nico. And Nico had overheard them, and like the curious fool he is, he followed them to the sick bay.
When they got there, Jack's boxing gloves had appeared covering his hands as if worn at lightspeed. Jack walked over to the girl and began to lift the breastplate up, but it didn't work at all. He tried again it didn't work. He tried over and over again, and it still didn't work. He began to cry as he grew bigger and his veins literally had veins. It was so freaky that Nico couldn't handle the sight of such huge muscles, nor could Jojo. Iris told Jack that he should stop before he bleeds to death then and there."STAR FIST OVERDRIVE", Jack says this as his fist glows with aura overflowing throughout his body, he punches the breast plate repeatedly over and over, he stops, and there's a dent on the breast plate now, and Jack stops punching.
About two seconds later, it looks as if Jack's being punched by the air over and over again, the same way he punched the breast plate, he's getting punched on his chest, and then there's a dent on his chest, the dent that was on the armor is gone, "what the hell??!!", Nico exclamated as Jack flies backwards towards him fom all the punches he received mysteriously.
"It doesn't make sense. What the hell was that?" Jojo wonders, Iris asks Jojo whether she was talking to her, 'cause she doesn't even understand herself. "Iris is clearly right, I'm in a bikini trying to save someone's life, bruhhhhh", Iris thought to herself. She also thought of what if the armor was a manifestation, could it be? She tells Nico and Iris what she thinks, and Iris says it might be possible, and Nico isn't too sure.
Iris begins to glow with aura, and so does Jack, as it looks as if the bruises he got from the punches are being reversed. Jack regains consciousness and stands up, then walks away with tears in his eyes. Simultaneously, Jojo and Nico both say "weird," referring to Jack. Jojo has a disgusted look on her face after that, and Nico just laughs it off and gets annoyed when he looks at Jojo's disgusted face.
"Iris is your healing ability, to reverse things?" Nico asks, Iris replies, saying that her healing ability indeed is reversing. She says she can reverse both tangible and intangible objects. Nico finds that to be cool as hell, even though hell isn't cool, but rather freaking hot. He still sees her abilities as a really beautiful one.
"Let's gather hypotheses of the girl/armor. Firstly, it's pretty obvious the armor isn't normal; she could be a vessel or manifestation. Secondly, she could be a guy in a female armor, so let's refer to her as "them" till further notice. Thirdly, no matter what you do, you can't remove the friggin' armor off their body, but I have an idea, what if Iris reverses them to a state before they were in the armor, and last but not least, they could be dead, and the armor could be their coffin. Well, that's all the gathered hypothesis," Jojo says to Nico and Iris. "By the way, Nico, you're not needed to answer this question," she says to Nico.
Nico gets pissed obviously, but he keeps his calm and just leaves the room. Iris has a disappointed look on her face as she stares at Jojo. Iris punches Jojo on her nose and tells her to go tell Nico sorry. Jojo walks away out of annoyance.
Iris begins to glow with aura, and so does the armor. The aura is smooth and isn't rough. The armor begins to reverse the dent comes back and goes away, the reverse is moving back as fast as Iris can control it, the armor remains on, and then the armor begins to vanish, "yes!!!, I finally did it, thank God."
The armor goes back to normal and instead Iris cloth begins to reverse, they reverse from colourless, to thread, to flowers. Iris quickly reverses her clothes to avoid being seen in such a questionable manner. Meanwhile, the same thing also affected Clown as he ended up without his clown makeup. He screams as he goes to hide himself, hoping no one will notice him, and he begins to make up again.
"What the hell, this doesn't make sense, how the flock did this happen, ughhhh, and the armor went back to normal, this is really and very frustrating!!!" Iris exclamates, suddenly, the armor begins to radiate with aura, and then the headgear vanishes, revealing a girl with long blonde hair. As her eyes suddenly open, they are brown in colour and are really beautiful. She speaks, saying: "Yo, my name's Midori Fujimoto and you must be an angel in heaven, is this my room in heaven it's not too bad and i'm sure there's more, obviously, thank you for letting me into heaven and why's there armor on my body?", Midori says with a calm voice as she speaks to Iris.
Chapter 6: Journey to Kaku Island
"Sorry, Iris, but you're not in heaven. You're on a ship. Have you heard of a small guild of sailors called Log 9 ?. Even though we're small, we're a popular guild. What happened to you?. What were you doing in the sea?. And what's up with your armor?" Iris says this in a concerned tone. Midori looks like she's just seen a chicken commit suicide, she's frightened, and she questions why she isn't dead, "What the hell is going on!!" Midori exclamates, "I drowned myself, why am I here!!!" Iris' expression changes to a worried and shocked one, she understands there's something wrong with Midori.
Iris asks her how old she is, and she says she's fourteen years old. Iris studied psychology and understands that it's normal for someone to have suicidal thoughts, but obviously, she wants to understand why this random girl wants to die. She asks Midori what happened to her, and where does she come from.
Midori says she comes from Kaku Island, close to the Gulf of Itho, in the country of D'jang."When I was in the Navy, I stopped a civil war that was going on the island.", There was only one war that happened on the island, which was about 70 years ago, making Midori question how the hell old is Iris.
Iris says that D'jang is the best country in Kante, she says it's the most popular tourist attraction country in the world, and she used to live there back in her younger days when she wasn't doing anything."But for what reason would you try to kill yourself when living in an island such as Kaku island in the best continent in the world", Iris asks Midori with a worried expression on her face.
"My dad causes a lot of trouble for the island residents he has his own small gang of "so called mercenaries" (she uses air quotes while saying that) love causing problems and so a gang warfare has spiraled between his gang and his brothers'. His brother created a gang to stop my Dad, so I couldn't handle it because I lost one of the kindest ladies on the island and it was because of my stupid Dad he shot her aiming for a someone else and my Dad has one lazy eye so why'd he ever try to shoot, stupid man, so I jumped in the ocean because they said they'd be coming for my dad and the rest of my siblings". Midori says this all to Iris with annoyance, frustration, anger and sadness. Iris feels the same way because she was in Kante as a soldier trying to stop a war from going on within the country and doesn't like the concept of war one bit, so she promises Midori that the guild'll head to Kaku to stop the war.
(Kante is the third largest continent in the world, stretching about 30,370,000 km² of land and having 55-57% of water. The continent is known for a strange phenomenon, which is the fact that it is both cold and hot, meaning it's warm, and you can enjoy the weather without complaint, making it dubbed "the best continent in the world.")
Iris tells Midori that she'd need to run some tests on her, just in case of sickness, but something else is bothering her, which is how the hell did Midori get from Kante to Jigi (Jigi is the continent that the guild is currently in).
Jigi is two continents away from Kante, so maybe Midori getting to Jigi was due to that armor, "Midori? Do you know what Life energy is?" Iris asks Midori, hoping to get a meaningful answer. Midori says she knows what life energy is, and Iris asks her what the two types are. Midori looks very, very, very confused, meaning she doesn't know the Life energy Iris was talking about.
Suddenly, Midori's armor begins to fade away as aura flows through her body. Iris asks Midori where she got that armor from. Midori doesn't know, she says she never wore armor to swim because she'd sink and it'd rust.
Iris explains to Midori of vessels and manifesters and tells her that one can unexpectedly awaken their abilities, She asks her whether she knows the day she drowned herself, Midori said that was friday the eighth of july, Iris is shocked because it's twentieth, she tells Midori quickly that she needs to be checked on immediately, she brings out a syringe and some needles, she needs to check Midori's blood as soon as possible to check for sickness.
Midori's temperature is checked it's thirty degrees and her heartbeat is a bit slower than normal, Iris pierces a syringe into her to collect blood to test, the results come back with Midori having malaria, Iris asks her what her favourite food is and it mustn't contain anything citrus like orange, Midori replies saying it's Spaghetti and chicken.
Iris runs out of the room to tell Gold the crew's chef the guy with elf ears from earlier to prepare Midori Spaghetti and chicken without adding anything citrus in it, so that she can regain strength and take the medicine Iris has prescribed for her.
Gold gets to work, Iris watches over Midori as she's on drip sleeping, Meanwhile, Nico is on deck sitting on a beach chair while reading "Saji Norisuke's School for Gurls" the same volume he was reading before he left Morgan,someone walks behind him he spots their shadow and it looks like the one of a female, the female taps him on his shoulder he swiftly removes her hand and walks away. it's Jojo who did that, she wanted to talk to him, to apologize but he doesn't want to hear any of that.
"Emperor!" Jojo shouts as she points at Nico, her fingers gesture for him to come closer to her, Nico does exactly that but he doesn't look conscious, he regains his consciousness when he's closer to her and when he tries to walk away his body refuses.
Jojo says she feels bad for what she said to Nico but he knows she's saying this because Iris told her to, "Nico let's just get to know each other better, the reason I got angry at you was because I thought you didn't need to interfere in any of the things we do that isn't related to finding your mom" She says this in an emotional way, Nico barely believes her and she knows that because she can read his mind and he's just saying how bad of a liar she is.
She uses her ability Emperor to change Nico's thoughts into believing her and it seems to be working, Nico says he forgives her by his own will, she asks him more about himselfthings like his goals and aspirations, He says he wants to find his mom, travel the world and draw his own manga one day, Jojo looks impressed that at such a young age he wants to do all this which really makes her happy.
She says that when she was in middle school her dad made her study and nothing else, she never knew that there was more tolife than studying, she never had friends and she just climbed the ranks of education quick, because by fourteen she graduated out of university,so the last thing she wants to do for the rest of her life is study, Nico says that's really cool, too bad that when it's September Nico'll be doing online lessons so he doesn't miss out on an education, that's what his dad made him do as he's searching for his mom.
Out of no where Jojo asks Nico if he's ever been in a relationship before, Nico laughs nervously as Jojo's face is red right now, he tells her he hasn't been in a relationship before, she was just wondering because back when she was still in middle school, she liked this boy in her class who's now a singer and goes by the name of Joey Castell, Nico knows of him and listens to his music once in a while and he looks impressed for the fact that Jojo knows him personally, Jojo reminds him that whenever communicated with anyone in middle school she spent a year there when she was eight and he was fourteen "ouuuuuuu sorry" he says in a funny babyish accent.
Jojo just laughs and Nico can't help but laugh too, Jojo begins to shiver while laughing and tells Nico that's she's got to go take off her bikini and put on real clothes because she's cold right now, he says alright and they wave themselves.
Midori just finished eating down in the sick bay and she takes her medicine after,Iris tells her to rest and that they are heading to kaku island to stop the war.