SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Daily Login Complete.
Daily Bonus: "Fieldwork Focus" (Consumable)
Effect: +10% Training & Trial Efficiency (Duration: 24 hours)
Active Objective: "Coordinate Controlled Field Trials — Vinsmoke Liaison Oversight (Phase 2)"
Quest Update: Crew Node Count: 6/10 → Primary Objective: Expand crew to 10.
New Objective Unlocked: "Recruit Skilled Rigger & Navigator Apprentice"
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: 46/100
Crew Nodes: 6/10 (Nami, Nojiko, Bell-mère, Reiju, Hana, Kasumi)
Current Location: East Blue — En route to Trial Cluster (Vinsmoke Supervisory Route)
Mood: Hungry. Focused. Proudly theatrical.
P.O.V.: Vegito
Diplomacy is a long, slow wit test. It chooses a tempo that rewards patience and theatrical timing, and I have both in abundance—one thanks to practice, the other thanks to the sheer vanity of thinking people enjoy my voice. The Embrace hummed on a keel that felt like a promise; runes flushed like a polite blush whenever Reiju crossed the deck, which was every fifteen minutes because she loved everything that complained prettily when tinkered with. Inspector Gisuke—Vinsmoke liaison, formal and polite like a silvered blade—had been with us on the first set of trials, proving predictably useful and unnervingly thorough. He slept in a cabin that smelled faintly of ink and order, and he took notes in a ledger that might have had its own horoscope section.
"Vegito," Reiju said at first light, sliding a precisely folded memorandum across the table like it had been ironed by an engineer. "We need to refine the data channels. Gisuke cannot export raw schematics — but he will argue every semantic variance until the ink curls. Drafting must be precise."
I sipped stew—Bell-mère's stew is a liturgy—and felt my grin spread like a flag. "Drafting with charm is my preferred art form," I answered. "And if charm fails, food and theatrical apology succeed."
Bell-mère, who'd replaced my theatrical apology once with a ladle and a concept, laughed in that booming, maternal way she reserved for the particularly melodramatic. "Ha! You two argue like old lovers and make the rest of us feel like the chorus of a very complicated opera."
Nojiko hummed—Ufufu—at the corner bench, calmly prepping reinforcement plates, while Nami fussed with the route clippings on the nav table. Kasumi was quietly sheathing a blade she'd briefly shown a visiting rigger—just to test its edge on a bar of sunlight. Hana set up the infirmary trays with small, ordered patience that made the rest of the ship breathe easier.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Liaison Period Remaining: 6 days (Observer: Inspector Gisuke).
Caveat: Publicity Risk: +5% during Liaison Period.
Tip: Controlled demonstrations and community involvement reduce negative publicity.
We were about to begin Phase 2: an expanded test network across three hamlets nested along a jagged coastline. Phase 1 had proven the stabilizer's basic utility and our ability to teach controlled triage. Phase 2 required more—logistics, tutorial consolidation, and the subtle, diplomatic act of letting villagers feel like partners, not experiments. Reiju and I had agreed on the plan: set up a rotating training schedule, leave the villagers with accessible schematics (interface-only; core designs redacted), and send anonymous data to the Vinsmoke office that showed efficacy without revealing the engine's skeleton.
"Observe properly," Reiju told Gisuke in a tone that had the uncanny ability to read like both instruction and charm. "You may watch, you may comment, but you will not take our base code or ask villagers their family secrets."
Gisuke inclined his head with the sort of quiet gravity that suggests someone's had a long career in the small terror of bureaucratic patience. "Noted," he said, pen scratching like a gatekeeper on a list. "We will accept supervised reports."
The first hamlet was a narrow thing of salt and honest labor. We set the stabilizer at the mouth of a rocky inlet and began the training proper: Hana leading the clinic drills, Nojiko teaching quick field repairs, Reiju showing maintenance checks, and me doing what I did best—teaching intention and keeping the group laughing enough they didn't die of the anxiety I had no business enjoying.
"Breath to beat," I told a circle of villagers and crew in the Sanctum's portable console. "Map the breath of a strike like tracing a tide. If you read the breath wrong, you step where the ocean will take you. If you read it right, you walk through like you're owed lunch."
A fisherman—hands like rope—attempted the breathing with a fierce, embarrassed concentration. He exhaled, and his face went red with the effort of new learning. He landed the simulated movement like someone who'd found a lost knot in a lifetime's rope. He laughed when he realized he'd done it—a high, grateful Ha!—and the way the villagers clapped made me melt like butter in a pan.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Field Trial (Phase 2 — Hamlets) — Stabilizer Deployment & Community Training.
Result: Stabilizer operational in Hamlet #1. Training Progress: 38%.
Reward: Bonding Pulse +8 (Hamlet #1)
Note: Publicity managed; localized reporters noted but did not publish raw schematics.
Reiju spent the day moving through the hamlet with the clinical grace of someone who loves small, precise revolutions. She taught a group of women how to clean filters and explained the maintenance cycles like she was telling a story. I watched from a bench, tail curled, a spice packet balanced on my knee. The little things—the way a villager's hand stayed when Reiju adjusted it, the way a mother smiled when her child learned—felt like currency I wanted paid in warm bread.
By dusk we had a neat trail of satisfied villagers and a Vinsmoke man whose ledger had fewer question marks and more appreciation. "Your protocols are tidy," Gisuke said quietly as he watched Nojiko hammer a reinforcing bracket into a stabilizer mount. "The anonymization is acceptable."
"Good," Reiju said. "We keep interfaces and training public. We keep the core private. That way, they learn to use tools without inheriting vulnerabilities."
The system pinged, pleased with our measured progress.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Diplomacy Check: +9 (Success). Vinsmoke Approval Level: +1 (Neutral → Cautious Trust)
It felt like a small victory—neat, clean, and useful. But Variation, my old friend, always enjoys a cameo. Two days into Phase 2, word of the trials leaked despite Gisuke's protocols and Reiju's careful guardian clauses. An old friend of gossip—someone in a port tavern with a talent for telling the world anything that happened near chrome—had taken notes and sold them for a song. The leak didn't include schematics, but it included enough: Heaven's Embrace, Vinsmoke liaison, stabilizers—three phrases that read like a prize on a bounty board.
Within hours, the network behaved like a live wire. Bounty posters bloomed in the span of a long afternoon. Opportunists sniffed at the idea of tech for sale. Hunters who liked the shine of chrome and the sound of coin began circling.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Public Leak Detected — Source: Port Tavern (Old Capone Town).
Effect: Bounty Interest: +6%
Caveat: Operatives & Opportunists alerted. Heightened local risk level.
The Embrace's runes dimmed like a captain's sigh. Gisuke's face, for the first time, tightened. "Leaks are human," he said, which was both a comfort and a warning. "But they are also dangerous."
"Then we give them a demonstration they won't forget," I told him, because my temperament for problem-solving usually involved lessons in humility performed tastefully. "No blood. No theft. We frighten them like badly behaved dogs."
Reiju looked up from a filter blueprint and, for a breath, her eyes were stern. "We must be cleaner than that," she said. "Use restraint. Keep civilians safe. Make the spectacle useful."
And spectacle we made. We set a decoy—an outward array of prototype interfaces that looked valuable and plausible—and staged a mock "smuggling attempt." The idea was to let the opportunists bite on the false shinbone while we taught them a lesson in manners. The smugglers who took the bait were loud, arrogant, and spectacularly greedy. They boarded, thinking a prize sold presence.
We gave them exactly what they'd not expected: a carefully orchestrated and humiliating set of mechanical surprises that removed dignity but not life. Reiju's sonic rig sang a little lullaby that made eardrums cross their legs, I slid gravity underfoot so their balance became comedic, and Kasumi and Nojiko handed out polite, nonlethal disarmings that made the would-be thieves rethink their career choices.
When the biggest of them slipped into the water with a pompous curse and a soggy reputation, the villagers who had gathered to watch clapped. Bell-mère whooped like a woman who had watched too many fools and loved the sight of them humbled: "Ha!"
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Combat Avoidance — Success.
Reward: Bonding Pulse +10 (Ship & Local Observers)
Note: Non-lethal suppression preserved public reputation. Bounty interest reduced: -2%
The leak brought lessons: we had to tighten our public face and monitor tavern gossip. Gisuke arranged for a small Vinsmoke surveillance team to rotate in discreetly, which decreased opportunistic movement but increased the number of eyes on us. Reiju negotiated hard: observers yes, harvest of our prototypes no.
But a ship as conspicuous as ours is a lighthouse to trouble. By the time we finished Phase 2, a new objective had unfolded like an unexpected flourish: recruit a skilled rigger and a navigator's apprentice. The Embrace's systems hummed in agreement. We needed hands that loved sails and minds that could teach Nami to trust her sea charts to others if she needed to rest.
"Rigger," Nojiko said one morning while oiling a hinge. "Someone who can read metal like it's a poem. Someone who hears the ship's bones and answers back."
"And a navigator apprentice," Nami added, cheeks pink with a strange, pleased thought. "Someone who will learn from me, not be conscripted. I want to teach properly."
"Then we will find them in markets and taverns," I said, because the old captain in me loved the seediness of a harbor and the sort of fortunes that hide in alleyway laughter. "We will be visible but discreet. We will use charm most politely and stew secondarily."
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Recruitment Objective Active — "Find Rigger & Navigator Apprentice."
Hint: Skilled riggers often advertise near docks; navigator apprentices can be found in map shops, academies, or among seafaring urchins. Use charm consumable for best effect.
We stopped at a small port where the market smelled like iron and citrus and rumors. The docks were lined with crates and voices threaded through the air like music. I let the ship glide into a slip that suggested competence without distracting too much—no parade, just a polished arrival. Reiju and I split up; she went to test possible tech vendors while I hovered around the riggers—men and women who spoke to ropes like lovers.
The first to catch my eye was a woman named Misaki—hands callused, hair cropped to avoid getting caught in blocks, a laugh like a snare drum. She worked a block like a poet. When I watched her, I could see a mind that loved pulley ratios the way a chef loves a knife. I approached in my most theatrical but sincere manner.
"Misaki-san," I said, planting a grin that had charm and a hint of patience baked in. "You spin a block like someone who reads haiku in knots. Ever considered working for a ship that might one day be famous for both its fights and its stew?"
She looked me up and down like a mechanic checking if an engine had been emptied of useful oil. "You're not the first captain to promise the moon," she said dryly. "What makes you different?"
"Two things," I said, because simplicity is attractive. "I feed people well, and I don't sell them. Also, I apologize in soup."
Misaki snorted—a true laugh this time, sharp and surprised. "Ha! That's a new closing line. You better have better jokes and better pay."
I produced a small coin and a card with the Embrace's seal, along with a modest offer and the promise of steady work, respectful conditions, and a chance to level up a rigger's craft on a ship with a sanctum and time-dilation for experimentation.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Recruitment Attempt — Rigger Node (Misaki).
Charm Roll: +11 (Success).
Result: Misaki accepted conditional passage pending demonstration of workshop access and promised materials.
Reward: Bonding Pulse +8 (Ship & Misaki)
Effect: Crew Nodes: 7/10
She joined us with the candid smile of someone who'd bargained and won the sort of deal that meant independence, not servitude. She set to work immediately—her hands loved the Embrace like a child loves a puzzle—and Reiju and Nojiko were thrilled to have another mind that liked metal. Bell-mère approved by giving her a bowl of stew that tasted like victory itself.
"Ha!" Bell-mère declared as Misaki ate. "You keep hands that can fix things, and the ship will keep you. Simple bargain."
The navigator apprentice was a trickier catch. Nami had a specific complaint: she didn't want someone who'd replace her or idolize her—she wanted someone who could be taught sternly and then unleashed gently. We visited a map shop, a quiet academy outpost, and a tavern known for harboring kids who could read currents. There, by a battered table with a bad stain of ink, sat a young woman named Mitsuki. She had a head full of questions and a small compass that belonged to someone else tied to her wrist.
Mitsuki read maps like most people read bread labels—deliberate, hungry, reverent. Nami saw it first and did what she does best: she flattened her face into a look of careful judgment. Mitsuki, for her part, was brash in that way that is charming when someone is not asking permission to be brave.
"You'll teach me?" Mitsuki asked before I could open my mouth, the eager tilt to her chin making it impossible not to like her.
Nami blinked, and then a grin—small and half victorious—tugged at her mouth. "Only if you can hold a compass steady when it matters," she said. "And you have to like hard work and older women's tea."
Mitsuki laughed—an anxious but bright Ha!—and accepted our conditional offer to apprentice with Nami, provided she could be trusted to take notes and not tell the whole world we had a sanctum.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Recruitment Success — Navigator Apprentice Node (Mitsuki).
Reward: Bonding Pulse +7 (Ship & Mitsuki)
Effect: Crew Nodes: 8/10
Note: Nami's trust increased marginally; mentorship path initiated.
Two new women were aboard and the ship smelled of fresh oil and potential. The Embrace was learning voices. My grin had spread into a grin of practical, ridiculous satisfaction. My plan to make a fleet of brilliant, consenting women who would choose to be part of my chaos was moving forward like a well-timed punchline.
But the world doesn't stop for new cabaret numbers. During an evening of hammering and charting, the Vinsmoke liaison called for a meeting in the main salon. Gisuke's ledger had acquired a small list of annotations. "We've had an escalation," he said with the quiet clarity of a storm in a teacup. "A regional inspector has asked for further reports. Politics now wishes to wake and sniff the horizon."
"Politics like to sniff because they appreciate perfume and drama," I said lightly. "We must behave like a fine dinner guest: polite, full of stories, and careful never to insult the host's silverware."
Reiju, who'd been standing in a doorway with grease on her fingers and the kind of smile that suggests she read the same book for the mechanics, crossed her arms. "Or," she said, "we can control the narrative. We provide community outcomes, anonymize the tech, and present the stories of lives saved. People like sensible hearts dressed as heroism."
Gisuke nodded. "We draft a report with an independent auditor clause. We make the data human-first."
We spent the night drafting language, and the sanctum's console gleamed like a judge. We argued through clauses with the delicacy of seamsters and the stubborn patience of people who'd refused to be rushed. Reiju's penmanship on legalese was a small, dangerous art; she made "privacy protection" read like poetry. I added clauses that sounded charming and flatly practical: "No sale of prototypes to third parties without mutual audit." Reiju underlined them.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Memorandum Draft — Legal Clauses Updated.
Effect: Vinsmoke Trust Stabilized; Independent Auditor Clause Added.
Caveat: Publicity Management Plan Required (Action: Publish positive human-interest pieces; restrict tech details).
We scheduled interviews with local papers focusing on the human interest angle: the villagers, the fishermen, the mother who could sew a net and still sing. Bell-mère agreed to prepare a stew-and-story night for the press with no tech on display and an abundance of warmth. Nami reluctantly agreed to show a sanitized version of the maps—routes of safe passages and nothing of sanctum coordinates. It was theatrical, human, and the sort of narrative that convinces people to stop looking for the shiny thing and start appreciating the quiet, reproducible blessings.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Publicity Action Plan — Human Interest Campaign Active.
Reward: Reputation Stabilization +10 (Local Networks)
Note: Bounty Interest will gradually decline if community goodwill increases.
By the time the moon rose and the crew drifted into smaller circles of gossip and repair, the Embrace thrummed with a softer joy. Misaki had found a corner in the hull to call her workshop, and the smell of metal and oil was like a hymn to possible futures. Mitsuki sat with Nami at the nav table, eyes wide as a girl with a new book, and Nami's guarded patience softened into instruction that had the smell of an older woman giving away pieces of herself.
I lay on the foredeck later, the night cool and salted by the sea. Reiju joined me, the steady click of her boot a punctuation to the runes' whisper. She rested an elbow on the rail and watched the stars like they were an engineering problem.
"You did well today," she said softly, voice a small, efficient warmth.
"I fed people, refused to be eaten by rumor, and added two useful women to the roster," I said. "That's a day I would nominate for a parade."
She laughed—a clear Ha!—that warmed something in me like a coin held to the sun. "Vegito, you are theatrical and ridiculous, but you are also an unexpectedly effective captain."
"I collect hearts sloppily and try to keep them safe," I confessed, tail curling around the rail like a punctuation. "Is that a crime in your world?"
"It is a worthy sin," she said, with a smirk that made my ears want to glow. "Keep them that way, and you may have the Vinsmoke House's attention in interesting ways."
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Daily Summary Saved.
Achievements: Phase 2 Trials — Hamlet #1 Completed; Recruitment — Misaki (Rigger) & Mitsuki (Navigator Apprentice) onboard.
Resources Gained: Bonding Pulse +25 (Collective), Reputation Stabilization initiated.
Next Goals: Continue Phase 2 across Hamlets #2–3; Draft final memorandum with Vinsmoke & select independent auditor; Continue Haki & Armament training (Nami & Nojiko).
Caveat: Publicity risk: monitor. Liaison Period Remaining: 5 days.
I laughed into the night—big and unapologetic—because the world was a complicated, slightly dangerous opera and I liked the sound of my part. "Ha!" I said to the stars, and the Embrace hummed like a companion amused by its captain's sense of timing.
Tomorrow would bring more trials, more paperwork, and a further tightening of the net we were building—technical safety, community support, and a crew that could laugh and mend and, if necessary, strike. Reiju's crisp laughs and Nami's careful "Ha!" would be the soundtrack, and Bell-mère's steady "Ha!" would be the drum. Nojiko's Ufufu would be the low harmony. Hana's quiet hum would be the stitch. Misaki's sharp laugh—an approving, metallic Ha!—would become part of the chorus, and Mitsuki's bright Ha! would be the new, unweathered note that suggests hope.
I closed my eyes and pictured the rest of the coast—the hamlets that would come to like us and the ports that would take a long time to learn not to covet us. I thought of the harem that would never be a cage if I kept my promises: women who chose me, again and again, for reasons beyond hunger or safety. I promised myself, quietly, to be worth choosing.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Tomorrow's Goal:
Complete Phase 2: Hamlets #2–3 (Stabilizer deployment & training).Finalize memorandum draft & appoint independent auditor.Haki session: Armament projection (Nami + Nojiko focus).
I lay back and let the night wash over me. Around the deck, the ship breathed and my crew slept—or prepared to sleep—like a small, contented conspiracy against the world's cruelties. Above, a gull argued with the moon. Below, the runes blinked like eyes that had once seen entire cold empires and decided it preferred stew.
I smiled into the dark, content, hungry, and terribly hopeful. The East Blue was an ocean of small things that mattered, and I intended to make it kinder in my messy, flirtatious way.
End of Chapter 8