SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Daily Login Complete.
Daily Bonus: "Captain's Favor" (Consumable)
Effect: +10% Recruitment Charm (Duration: 44 hours)
Quest Update: Crew Node Count: 6/10 → Primary Objective: Expand crew to 10.
Active Objective: "Solidify Vinsmoke Memorandum — Draft Terms & Maintain Discretion"
Secondary Objective: "Teach Advanced Haki Drills to Nami & Nojiko (Sanctum Session)"
New Objective Unlocked: "Coordinate Controlled Field Trials — Vinsmoke Liaison Oversight"
MC Status Check:
Name: Vegito
Race: Full-Blooded Saiyan
Age: — (Biological: Prime Adult)
Special: Tail active; Appetite: Colossal
Abilities: Kame Style (Advanced); Advanced Haki Conditioning (Practiced); Gravity Manipulation (Adept); Marine Six Styles (Observer — Familiarity Phase)
Inventory: Compasses x2 ("True" gifted), Spices (Bell-mère's delight), Capsule — Gravity Chamber Accessory
Ship Bonding Level: 42/100
Crew Nodes: 6/10 (Nami, Nojiko, Bell-mère, Reiju, Hana, Kasumi)
Current Location: East Blue → En route to Vinsmoke-designated trial coordinate
Mood: Hungry. Focused. Pridefully theatrical.
P.O.V.: Vegito
Diplomacy has a quiet hour before it becomes performance. There's a long, patient inhale where notebooks are fanned open and the polite predators polish their claws until they gleam like ceremonial spoons. The Vinsmoke memorandum had been signed provisionally—but signatures, I had learned, were not promises so much as invitations to keep negotiating. Reiju and I had to turn "provisional" into something firm but invisible in the places it needed to be invisible.
The ship smelled like cinnamon and oil; Bell-mère's stew had become the sort of ritual that made people relax into truth-telling. Nojiko was threading thin reinforcement plates in the cargo hold, humming a small "Ufufu" that implied she trusted more than her voice allowed. Nami sat at the nav table with "True" in hand and a face that read suspicion like the weather. Hana had the infirmary in such neat, competent chaos that I wanted to kneel and weep with joy; she sang an old clinic song in a low voice—no words I knew, only a tune that smoothed things like linen. Kasumi cleaned her blade with a practiced, almost ceremonial motion; her dry "Ha!" was a razor of amusement.
Reiju was the calm in a storm of polite obligations and practicalities. She had laid out the memorandum's first draft the night before: clauses carefully written to protect our autonomy, black-inked margins where she had inserted conditions for data usage, and a conservative plan for publicity. I had been the flourish: agreeing to public tests in exchange for immediate med-kits and stabilizers, as long as the trials remained controlled and the Vinsmoke liaison accepted protocol.
Now the liaison was en route. The fleet stayed just outside of shipping lanes—politeness with teeth—and we had agreed to conduct tests at a shallow reef where fishermen often ran nets. The Vinsmoke people had been discreet thus far, but discretion is a thermometer that reads differently for nobles. It warms when convenience is near and chills into accusation if anyone is careless.
I paced the Embrace Sanctum like a man about to teach a sermon. The gravity chamber's runes hummed softly in response, sympathetic and oddly stirring. "Observation first," I told Nami and Nojiko when they stepped in. "Haki is the part of you that notices an enemy's bad habits before they do. Today we work on reading breath lines and timing responses."
Nami's face pinched in concentration. "If we do this right, we can stop being afraid three times before breakfast," she said, voice small and iron-laced.
"That's the plan," I said, and the system obligingly flashed a tip: "Timed breathing enhances Haki detection by 12%."
We started with the chamber at low gravity to fine-tune balance. I wanted them to feel small changes in center of gravity—where a foe would be likely to compromise stance, how the breath thinned when intent hardened. I demonstrated first, because people learn faster when a joke comes with a demonstration.
I pulled my energy taut like a bowstring and let a hollow, resonant Kame note stretch into the sanctum. The sound wasn't a blast—this was practice, not fireworks—but a pulse a foot over the floor. Nami's shoulders tightened; her eyes went into the soft, precise focus that belongs to people who read lines and roads by feel. Nojiko's fingers flexed. Reiju watched with an almost scientific interest, making tiny notes on a slate.
"Sense the edges of the note," I said. "Not the center—where it's loud. The edge. Where it fades. Intent often hides in the fade."
Nojiko connected first. Her hand moved as if it had been waiting to move like that its whole life. The air around her flared with a mild, controlled force that made a stray sieve clatter on a nearby bench. She laughed then, a startled, triumphant "Ufufu," and I felt something in my chest shift in a good way.
Nami's success was more subtle. She didn't move with a flash; she flicked her gaze and tightened a single core muscle, letting the momentum of the chamber teach her. Her smile then was small and a little embarrassed, the kind that belonged to people who had learned not to allow themselves pleasure. "Ha!" she breathed, a sound that read a whole victory in one syllable.
We stepped the chamber up slowly. Reiju monitored Haki readouts—lines lit like constellations when they focused. "Observation is about empathy and geometry," she said, voice clinical and oddly encouraging. "You must imagine how a body will betray its intent."
Kasumi, who'd volunteered to be a moving target, was careful. She came in light and fast, blade mapped to a non-lethal path. She moved like someone who'd known how to make money from metal, but she had the kind of careful violence that was almost affectionate: a blade that loved life enough to avoid ending it. When Nojiko parried and redirected with the gravity-assisted shifts we'd layered in, Kasumi's dry "Ha!" turned into something close to approval.
Hana watched, hands folded over a bandage as if studying stitches like scripture. She came forward after a set and adjusted a shoulder—gentle, professional. "Keep shoulders soft," she instructed quietly. "If you lock, you die. If you breathe, you survive."
Her practical lessons folded into the training like good seasoning. We closed the session with a shared bowl of Bell-mère's stew, the kind that healed and reminded people who they were. Bell-mère laughed loudly—"Ha!"—and passed bowls like diplomatic gifts. Reiju's laugh was precise—a bright, impulsive "Ha!"—and it made the sanctum feel less clinical and more like a homegrown lab.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Training Module Complete — Advanced Haki Drills (Sanctum).
Reward: +8 Haki Conditioning (Nami +5; Nojiko +3)
Note: Nami's trust increased. Nojiko's trauma lessened marginally. Continue patient instruction.
While the crew ate, Reiju and I went to the map table to draft the memorandum terms with legal precision and a captain's charm. Paper in the Vinsmoke world is currency; wording is the architecture of safety. Reiju's diplomacy was scientific. Mine was theatrical. Together, we made an alloy.
"We must insert a clause guaranteeing data anonymization," she said, pen moving like a scalpel. "The liaison can observe but cannot export raw schematics. Any tech transfers must be prototyped with our core values intact."
"Also," I said, leaning in and adding a clause that sounded nicer than it was—"field trials must occur with community consent and involve local med-training. No experiments without actual benefit."
She tapped the margin. "I can pressure that higher—require a third-party auditor in the event of dispute. But that might irritate them."
"Then charm them," I suggested, because I knew where my strengths fit. "And feed them stew. The diplomatic stomach is easily won."
She smiled at the absurdity and hummed—then paused. "Vegito, be mindful. They like public spectacles. We cannot let them decide the spectacle."
"I know," I said. "We'll put rules in the rules and locks on the locks. We'll show value, not vulnerability."
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Diplomacy Module Active — "Vinsmoke Memorandum."
Tip: Legal clauses that protect crew autonomy increase long-term security. Avoid handing over tech schematics; provide prototype interfaces only.
As evening folded into a certain polite violet, the Vinsmoke liaison arrived in a skiff that glinted with civilized menace. He was older—face like finely polished wood, voice smoothing like oiled brass—and he carried a notebook the thickness of a sermon. Reiju greeted him with her measured courtesy; his handshake was a test I passed with a practiced smile and an immediate invitation to supper.
"Captain Vegito," he said, voice polite enough to slice bread. "Your demonstration was… interesting. Our people noted your restraint."
"Restraint is an art form," I said, bowing like a man who'd been rehearsing bows since childhood. "And sometimes it's simply good taste."
He chuckled softly. "We will station an observer for oversight during trials," he said. "That is our condition."
Reiju slid a copy of the memorandum across the table, the clauses shaded with care. The liaison read without expression. He paused at our anonymity clause and arched a fine eyebrow. "You ask for very firm privacy properties."
"We ask because we need them," Reiju said. "You want data; we will give you data. But raw schematics leave us vulnerable."
He closed the book with a silent accord. "A liaison. A week of supervised trials. Your stabilizers and med-kits as preliminary provision. We accept, tentatively. We expect strict reports."
"Reports will be precise, academic, and flattering," I promised, with a grin. "We will also provide stew should you ever get hungry."
He stared at the word stew like he was processing a new, delicious theory. "…Stew?" he asked, a small smile working the edge of his mouth.
"Bell-mère's stew," Reiju supplied, deadpan. "Very good."
He laughed then—unexpected, not quite warm, but genuine: a small "Ha!" that made the Embrace's runes blink like someone pleased to be included in a joke. I loved that laugh. It meant we were not being scoffed at but considered.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Diplomacy Result — Vinsmoke Memorandum Draft Approved (Pending Signatures).
Reward: Stabilizers x2 (Allocated); Portable Med-Kits x3 (Allocated)
Caveat: Vinsmoke Liaison (Observer) — Onboard for duration of field trials. Publicity risk: +7% during escort/trial period.
We signed provisional pages as Reiju watched the pen like an artist watching varnish dry. "Remember," she murmured into my ear as the liaison toured the infirmary, "they can help us, but they also hone the coffin of interest."
"I will be charming in a way that distracts them with dessert," I whispered back. "Distracting diplomatically is my art."
That night the Embrace hummed like a cathedral that had been blessed and then humorously appropriated. The liaison slept in a cabin that smelled faintly of industrial perfume, and I arranged the ship's watches with the care of someone who adored their crew.
The following morning the Vinsmoke liaison—Inspector Gisuke (their naming was efficient)—asked politely for a demonstration at the shallow reef. "We will see the stabilizers in use," he said. "We will observe your protocols."
We sailed with an escort of polite chrome and the Embrace's wings held high like a showpiece. Villages along the coast watched as the convoy moved through, eyes calculating reputation like the bank calculated interest. Nami's fingers traced the coastline with a nervous energy that read as excitement under fear. "We teach them to mount and maintain," she said. "We leave something behind."
Hana and I set up the med-kit demonstration while Nojiko and Kasumi assisted with the stabilizer mounts. Reiju had insisted on a checklist, which she oversaw like a conductor. "We will show two things," she said quietly. "The utility of the device, and our capacity to train communities to use it."
The demonstration was methodical, careful, and undeniably moving. A small fishing hamlet—hand-stitched, careful with their possessions—gathered to watch. We installed a stabilizer at the mouth of their harbor and ran through triage simulations. The stabilizer hummed, a soft, precisely tuned vibration that would allow a clinic to hold a patient's physiology without massive equipment. The fishermen watched, mouths slack with a mixture of suspicion and awe.
Inspector Gisuke took notes that could have been calligraphy, his pen moving like tiny machines. He kept his expression polite. But his eyes—sharp, careful—took in how Hana taught with a kind of unshowy authority and how Reiju explained filters without hint of show. When the villagers carried an injured dummy through a staged triage and watched the stabilizer hold it steady, there were small gasps of real relief.
After the demonstration, a villager—an elderly man with hands like networked rope—took my hand. "You came to teach and left a tool," he said, voice raw as wind. "We will remember."
That moment, plain and true, is worth more than a shipload of titles in a ledger. I felt my chest ache with the delicious, stupid sense that I had done something right. Nami's face had changed—softened and not from relief only, but because someone had spoken without taking.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Field Trial (Phase 1) — Stabilizer Demonstration Successful.
Reward: Bonding Pulse +12 (Local Village)
Effect: Vinsmoke Liaison (Inspector Gisuke) — Approval: +1 (Neutral)
Note: Publicity increased; manage with discretion. Bounty interest: +3%.
But nothing useful ever goes without interest. On our way back, a courier barked that a scrap of a report had already been circulated in the nearby ports—someone in a tavern had seen the chrome and the Embrace and had a noisy talent for complaint. Gisuke paled a little. "They leak," he said. Reiju's jaw hardened.
We took a longer route back toward the Embrace's safe bubble, and I considered the consequences. A leak means more watchers. Watchers bring opportunists. Opportunists bring knives and loud promises about gold. I tightened plans for the week of liaison presence. We would be visible, but we would choose when to be spotlighted.
Back onboard, the training continued. I led a second, more intimate Haki session in the sanctum: focused armament drills and intent projection. Armament Haki is not just hardening—it's will. I taught them how to anchor their feet in intent and then to send a deliberate "thrum" through a strike that reads like a promise and lands like the closing of a door.
Nojiko, who had at first been all hesitation, landed a strike on a suspended training pylon that made the whole Embrace shudder in a small, delightful way. She laughed—an astonished, victorious "Ufufu"—and looked at me with eyes newly bright. Her hands were less tentative afterward; she tightened bolts with a smile that had the tiny edge of pride in it. Nami paired the armament drills with navigational training: breathing leads, intent mapping, and timing sails by the meat of a storm. She laughed too—"Ha!"—this time a bit freer.
Hana and Kasumi shared a rare, soft moment below decks. Hana had patched a small cut on Kasumi's palm, working with the practised patience of someone who'd seen worse and been determined to make better. Kasumi watched the motions with an expression that suggested she had been taught mercy before—and that she liked the teacher. "If I ever choose a fight," Kasumi said, clean and dry, "I want it to be one where nobody dies for reasons other than necessary."
Hana smiled, a small, sharp "Ha!" that had the scent of someone who believed healing was rebellion. "Then fight like that," she said. "And bring bandages."
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Bonding Update — Crew Nodes: 6/10.
Progress: Haki Training: Nami (Intermediate); Nojiko (Novice+).
Side Note: Kasumi & Hana rapport established. Useful for non-lethal conflict mediation.
We spent the evening drafting final memorandum clauses by candlelight—Reiju's choice, because candlelight makes negotiations feel like less of a ledger and more of a vow. Gisuke sat with us, pen poised, and asked questions that were all polite and sharp. He pushed on liability terms and requested that any long-term data transmissions go through Vinsmoke minor oversight. Reiju countered with something that made him sigh: "An independent auditor—someone both parties agree on."
Gisuke considered and then allowed a small smile. "Reiju," he said with that familial nod, "you have always been the trouble with principles."
"I accept my role," she said, with that exact, bright "Ha!" she reserves for moments of small victory.
As ink dried into agreements, I felt a satisfaction that wasn't the same as victory. It was quieter, certain. The Vinsmoke's attention had been tamed into a tool, not a leash. We had made concessions without giving away the skeleton of who we were.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Diplomacy Result — Memorandum Solidified (Conditional Sign-off).
Reward: Medical Aid Package (Immediate: Additional Portable Med-Kit x2)
Effect: Vinsmoke Attention (Network) — Access: +1 (Reiju link)
Caveat: Liaison Period Active (7 days). Publicity risk: +5% for duration. Maintain discretion.
Night settled with the Embrace a hush of contented machines and human warmth. The crew gathered—some to sing, some to plan, some to sleep. Bell-mère sang a sea-shanty of her own invention, words simple and strong, and the ship felt like a thing that had always belonged to this chorus. Her "Ha!" during the chorus was a drum, steady and welcoming.
I walked the deck with Reiju once the rest had drifted into smaller circles of conversation. The runes along the hull caught moonlight in a scatter like coins. She leaned on the rail, and for a moment the diplomat folded into someone less empire and more person—the kind of person who looked at a sword and wondered about its scabbard.
"You did well," she said quietly.
"I flattered you with the stew," I confessed. "And the rest was teamwork. You negotiated like a scalpel."
She turned that small, precise smile on me. "You were a surprisingly good captain," she said. "Not because of strength, but because you understand narrative. People will follow a story. You tell good ones."
I felt my chest swell with the ridiculous pride of a boy who'd once read his favorite lines in secret. "Stories make better kings than fear," I said. "And I prefer the harem that chooses me because of my jokes and my stew, not my fists."
She laughed—a bright, delighted "Ha!" that I felt like a warm coin in my pocket. "And you will need both—laughs and careful fists."
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Daily Summary Saved.
Achievements: Vinsmoke Memorandum — Solidified (Conditional); Stabilizer Trials — Phase 1 Completed; Advanced Haki Training (Nami & Nojiko).
Resources Gained: Portable Med-Kits x2.
Next Goal: Manage liaison period & complete controlled field trials. Recruit additional crew nodes: Healers, Skilled Rigger, and a Navigator's apprentice.
Hint: Keep public demonstrations controlled and involve communities to build goodwill. Nami's trust rising; use it to unlock navigational mastery.
I lay on the deck later and watched the stars like someone evaluating constellations for their romantic potential. The Embrace sighed softly under me, wings folded like a creature content with its day's hunt. My tail wrapped around the rail like punctuation, steady and warm.
We'd turned attention into alliance, and alliance into provision. We had trained muscle and will. But the Liaison's presence meant more eyes. More eyes meant we had to be careful in where we let the spotlight fall. I thought of the future—of recruiting more women, of building that ridiculous harem I promised myself in the privacy of my head—and I made the kind of small vow that is still worth the breath it takes to say it.
I would be kind. I would be careful. I would gather women who stayed because they wanted to, not because the world had left them with no choice. I would be everything messy and warm and gloriously loud and still make time for the softness that mattered.
A gull cried somewhere, a sound like applause. Inside, the crew breathed and counted blessings in their own languages. I reached for my daily login like a sailor reaching for his mug.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Daily Bonus Claimed: "Captain's Favor" (Consumed).
Effect Applied: Recruitment Charm +10% (Duration Remaining: 43 hours).
Objective Reminder: Recruit 4 more crew nodes to unlock full Embrace capacity.
I smiled into the dark, content and hungry in equal measures. The world had more maps to chart and more hearts to win. Tomorrow would bring more meetings and perhaps a lesson in how attention could be either a tool or a trap. For tonight, though, we had stew, a signed memorandum, and a sanctum full of students who laughed when they succeeded.
Nojiko's exhausted "Ufufu" echoed from the below-decks like a small, private victory. Nami's soft "Ha!" drifted across the deck with the scent of parchment and salt. Reiju's crisp "Ha!" chimed like a verdict of approval. Bell-mère hummed a line in the chorus again, a steady comfort.
I laughed once, big and unapologetic, because the world was a mess and also absurdly kind in its own ways. "Ha!" I said into the night, and the ship hummed back.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Tomorrow's Goals:
Continue liaison supervised trials (Phase 2: Expanded test network).Recruit at least one skilled rigger & navigator-apprentice near next port.Continue Haki coaching: focus armament projection.