SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Daily Login Complete.
Daily Bonus: "Fieldwork Focus" (Consumable)
Effect: +10% Training & Trial Efficiency (Duration: 24 hours)
Active Objective: "Complete Phase 2: Hamlets #2–3 — Stabilizer Deployment & Community Training"
Secondary Objective: "Finalize Memorandum — Appoint Independent Auditor"
Quest Update: Crew Node Count: 8/10 → Primary Objective: Expand crew to 10.
New Objective Unlocked: "Recruit Independent Auditor (Neutral) — For Data Integrity & Public Trust"
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: 54/100
Crew Nodes: 8/10 (Nami, Nojiko, Bell-mère, Reiju, Hana, Kasumi, Misaki, Mitsuki)
Current Location: East Blue — En route to Hamlet #2 (Trial Cluster — Vinsmoke Supervisory Route)
Mood: Hungry. Focused. Slightly theatrical and very protective.
P.O.V.: Vegito
The morning smelled like salt, grease, and a plan that had teeth but no malice. The Embrace rode a competent swell; her runes glowed the polite blue of a ship ready for work. Reiju checked consoles with the same small, precise motions she'd used to tame runic temperaments; Misaki banged a fistful of metal into pleasing shape and then gave it a look like a proud parent; Mitsuki fussed with her compass and grinned in the way people do when their hands finally meet the right tool.
"Today we finish what we started," I told the crew over Bell-mère's breakfast, my voice a practiced baritone designed to be unthreatening and mildly inspiring. "Hamlets #2 and #3 get stabilizers. We teach. We don't publish skeletons. We make people safer and make the Vinsmoke ledger nod in approval."
Bell-mère ladled stew like a judge making mercy. "Ha! Feed them first, Vegito. A well-fed man listens better to being saved."
Nojiko's Ufufu sounded like a contented machine beneath her hum. Nami, at the chart table, traced the route with the concentration of a woman who spoke in coastlines. Her face was cautious—an old faith in maps and a new, more tentative faith in people. "We've tightened anonymization," she said. "But remember—some folks will still be curious."
Reiju tapped the memorandum she'd drafted the night before, lines neat, clauses scalpel-thin. "And we've added the auditor clause," she said. "We propose an independent third party to vet the outputs and hold both us and Vinsmoke to the anonymization promise."
Inspector Gisuke—Vinsmoke liaison—had been polite and surgical about the auditor idea, which meant his chest probably ached from having to weigh principle against prestige. "An auditor will be selected jointly," he'd told us yesterday, ledger poised. "We accept an independent auditor so long as they are recognized by both parties."
"Perfect," I said, though my heart beat at the idea with a strange, hot rhythm. An impartial woman on our side of the table made everything smell cleaner. But impartiality in politics is a thing with a cost. "Judge us by the people we help, not by the glitter we carry."
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Liaison Period Remaining: 4 days (Observer: Inspector Gisuke).
Tip: Selecting an auditor with local credibility increases community trust by +15%.
We chose strategy like we were building a temple: base first, adornments after. The plan for Hamlet #2 was conservative and humane. We would install a stabilizer near the clinic bay, train a team of villagers and villagers' youth in maintenance, and run at least three supervised triage drills. Reiju and Hana would lead the clinical portion; Misaki and Nojiko would teach maintenance and quick repairs; I would lead Haki-and-intent demonstrations to keep people from fainting when the rocks decided to get theatrical.
The hamlet was smaller than the first, a slender thing threaded along a jagged inlet. The people there had eyes like nets—used to catching fish and also gossip and caution. When we came in with a polite convoy that included one Vinsmoke skiff, several local volunteers came to watch with curiosity folded into suspicion. I saluted with a grin that had a performance streak dipped in sincerity.
"Vegito-desu," I said into a gathering cluster of faces. "We bring tools, bread, and the odd bad joke. We will show you how to hold a life steady until the doctor's boat arrives."
A fisherman with knuckles like rope blinked and asked the question I had been afraid someone would ask eventually: "What if the government takes it away?"
"Then we will have taught you to build it again," Reiju replied calmly. "And the knowledge will stay in your hands, not in a ledger."
There was a murmur—comfort, cautious and important. That murmur is what keeps small things alive. We set the stabilizer, humming low, its vibration like a heart pretending to be polite. Hana took the podium like she'd been born to it; her instructions were plain and precise. Misaki and Nojiko showed how to clean filters and check seals. Reiju explained the redactions in a way that made privacy sound like a skill, not a secret. We ran three drills. The villagers grew more confident. System pinged with warm little stars.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Field Trial (Phase 2 — Hamlet #2) — Stabilizer deployed & training initiated.
Result: Stabilizer operational. Training Progress: 47% (Hamlet #2)
Reward: Bonding Pulse +9 (Hamlet #2)
Note: Public observers present; remain discreet.
Then Variation—the romantic cousin of trouble—struck in the most humdrum, human way: a well-meaning local scribe sold a sketch of the stabilizer to a trader in a nearby town. The trader didn't know what it was, but he knew it could fetch a price in certain ports. Within a day, a rumor had a picture and a half-truth: "A device to keep wounded alive—Vinsmoke tech?" It was the kind of half-formed sentence the wrong ears made into a bounty.
Inspector Gisuke's expression went polite and sharp. "Leaks will become problems," he said, as if reading a ledger whose ink had just condensed into storm clouds. "We will tighten local information channels and ensure all demonstrators are strictly supervised."
"Or," I said with a grin, because I like the theatrical option and because sometimes showmanship is a lesson better than a lecture, "we make the leak taste like stew and humility."
Reiju's eyes narrowed in a way that suggested her smirk would be surgical later. "We will not stage anything that endangers civilians," she said. "But we will demonstrate nonlethal deterrence for anyone thinking of taking prototypes by force."
The universe responded, as the universe tends to do, with opportunists. A small team of chrome-laced men—cream coats and the look of those who believed in three things: coin, display, and courage—approached under cover of darkness. They meant to lift a crate that had been briefly left unattended near our demonstration field. Misaki's workshop dog (a mangy, affectionate thing that had belonged to someone else on its first life) barked the polite alarm and woke a small kettle of volunteers.
We caught them in the act, not with a blade but with a lesson. Reiju and I organized a nonlethal curtain: sonic pulses tuned to disorient, a quick gravity step that made boots find nowhere to grip, and a polite handoff designed to collect the crates rather than the men. The result was humiliating for the thieves and instructive for the watchers. One of them—a loud one with a bad taste in jewelry—slipped in the muck and fell into a puddle of his own choices. Villagers laughed; Bell-mère whooped; Inspector Gisuke noted down impressions.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Operative Interception — Success.
Reward: Bonding Pulse +10 (Ship & Hamlet Observers)
Effect: Bounty interest reduced: -3%
Caveat: Publicity risk still present; continue human-interest outreach.
The lesson spread: thieves prefer lonely targets and poor timing. The better lesson was the one we taught afterward: we walked into the market and bought a fish nobody wanted, then Bell-mère gave it away with a story about someone who stole fruit and later became a fisherman. Story and stew beat publicity when used kindly.
But politics demanded a more durable solution: the auditor. Gisuke proposed his own candidate first—an internal Vinsmoke statistician with a perfect ledger and the warmth of a recalibrated thermometer. Reiju shook her head gently. "No Vinsmoke internal auditors," she said. "That's exactly the kind of loop that raises hands and eyebrows."
I had a better idea, or at least an idea that suited my tastes. "Public trust is a delicate dish," I said. "We need someone who smells like sincerity and not like a ledger. Someone with local credibility, not a uniform. Someone who can be both a judge and a neighbor."
Reiju looked like she was about to design a treaty on the spot. "Any names?" she asked.
I had one already half-formed in the theater of my mind—a woman I'd heard about in a port we'd skirted two months past: Saki Tanemura, a retired maritime ombudsman who had a reputation for being ruthlessly even-handed and for liking stew more than influence. She'd spoken out against both smugglers and governors when both merited admonition. If she could be persuaded—and if she accepted the independence clause—we had a chance of convincing both locals and Vinsmoke that our data would be used to help, not to harvest.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Recruitment Candidate Suggested — "Saki Tanemura (Independent Auditor)"
Trait: Local Credibility; Experienced Auditor; Refuses Political Patronage.
Hint: Offer a stipend, clear autonomy, and a bowl of Bell-mère's stew.
We found Saki at a tiny map shop that smelled of ink and old rope. She sat behind a counter smeared with notes and stamps, her hair tied cold and efficient. When we offered the auditor position as a request, not a demand, she looked at each of us—Reiju with her technical clarity, Gisuke with his polite gravity, and me with my half-smile—and then at Bell-mère, who produced a bowl of stew as a gesture that had solved many problems in my life already.
She tasted it, made a small, surprised sound: "Ha!"—and then she considered us properly. "I'll do it," she said. "But under three strict conditions: my reports go to everyone involved, the raw schematics stay with you unless I sign off as safe, and the villagers get copies of the training schematics in plain language."
"Deal," Reiju said, fast and precise. Gisuke blinked, then wrote in his ledger with the same curving neatness he'd used on treaties before. "I accept those terms," he said. "An auditor with this independence will serve our interests if we are honest."
Saki agreed to stay for the duration of the trials. She was scrupulous, clever, and had the sort of voice that made promises sound like laws. When she walked aboard the Embrace—bellied navigator's satchel and an expression carved by storms—I felt a thrill that had equal parts relief and something like pride. She was the kind of woman who would not be cowed by titles. She would be a stone in a stream.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Auditor Appointed — Saki Tanemura (Independent)
Reward: Public Trust +12 (When Auditor Active)
Effect: Vinsmoke & Local Data Arbitration Clause: Activated.
Caveat: Auditor aboard increases scrutiny; maintain transparency.
With Saki on board and the Hamlet #2 trials stabilizing, we turned our attention to Hamlet #3: a place tucked under a cliff where storms did not so much approach as practice their loud monologues. The hamlet's clinic sat precariously on pilings. Its people were fierce and suspicious of aid; they'd been promised much and given little. We had to be better than promises.
The sky over Hamlet #3 brooded, and we knew a storm was a character in the day's plot. We set the stabilizer at the mouth of an inlet where the clinic boat could moor, and we trained the people in quick setup under pressure. This was a different sort of demonstration; here, the device needed to operate under real stress and we needed Nami and Nojiko to be the kind of calm people can anchor to.
Back on the Embrace, Reiju and I took a moment to run armament drills in the Sanctum. "You'll need them to steady hands under pressure," she said as we closed the chamber to a low gravity. "Armament Haki isn't pure strike—it's the voice you put on a strike when the world is shouting. Teach them to send a tidy thrum, not thunder."
I worked with Nami and Nojiko through a session focused on controlled projection—the kind that lets a hand stiffen the arc of a beam or the twist of a carb. The chamber hummed. I instructed them to anchor in breath: slow inhale, a small functional pause, and the release with intent shaped like a narrow spear. Nojiko learned to make her arm a shock-absorber, letting armament flow into the seams of repairs. Nami learned to push Haki into the maps, pruning the fear lines with deliberate pressure.
"Send it like a promise," I told Nami as she practiced, "not an ultimatum."
She looked at me, and the seabreeze through the chamber door smelled like ink and courage. "Ha!" she breathed when it worked—one sound that meant tiny triumph. Her projection wasn't a peal, it was a statement: steady, precise, and patient. Reiju watched with a half-grin and then added adjustments on hold-times and breath cadence until the technique felt like a shared instrument.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Training Module Complete — Armament Projection.
Reward: +8 Haki Conditioning (Nami +5; Nojiko +3)
Note: Nami's trust increased; Nojiko's trauma reduced marginally. Continue gradual exposure.
Storm day arrived with the kind of theatrics only the sea could manage: winds that argued, surf that wrote angry letters on the rocks, and a sky that moved in slow ink. The hamlet was tight with worry. They'd practiced under our hands, but practice and real work have the relationship of a rehearsal to a premiere.
When the actual emergency—an overturned supply boat—hit, it hit hard. The clinic needed stabilization for a head injury while the tide rose. The stabilizer engaged as we had taught; the device hummed its strange promise. Hana and the local medics rigged the kit while Nami, Nojiko, and a team of villagers secured lines, using armament projections to steady scaffolding bolts under the strain.
At one moment a support snapped; a length of the temporary mount went thrashing toward the medic. Nojiko didn't hesitate. She stepped in, sent a directed armament pulse into the mount's anchor, and the rope twitched like a fish startled but not freed. The mount held. Hana's hands didn't miss a beat. The patient's vitals steadied in the stabilizer's soft cradle. Reiju and Saki logged the readings and smiled like people who had found the right equation.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Field Trial (Phase 2 — Hamlet #3) — Stabilizer deployed under storm conditions.
Result: Stabilizer successful; Emergency triage executed; Training effectiveness: 82% (Hamlet #3)
Reward: Bonding Pulse +15 (Hamlet #3)
Effect: Vinsmoke Liaison Approval: +1 (Neutral → Cautious Trust)
Note: Publicity contained; Auditor Saki confirms anonymization intact.
We had done what we promised: teach, stabilize, and leave knowledge. The hamlet's people pressed on us with whatever they had—nets, small trinkets, and a raw, honest thanks that made Bell-mère's eyes shine as she took a small, frail spoon and cried quietly into the night. She later explained to me she was moved because the world rarely gave repair without debt.
"Ha!" she said, wiping her face and laughing the solid laugh of a woman who'd been given back something precious. "You lot did good."
Inspector Gisuke wrote his notes with the sort of ceremonious patience of people who write the first paragraphs of histories. He clipped a final line to the memorandum and sighed, which I took to be a good sign. "Your protocols appear sound," he said. "Our network will consider longer-term support contingent on continued adherence to training and independent auditing."
Reiju and Saki exchanged notes; the auditor's neutral, blunt assessment pleased the Vinsmoke men more than they would have admitted.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Diplomacy Check: +10 (Success).
Result: Memorandum — Final Draft Recommended for Signatures (Pending Auditor Clause Fulfillment).
Reward: Stabilizer Tech Grant (Deferment after audit): +2 Stabilizers (Pending)
Caveat: Liaison Period Remaining: 2 days. Monitor leaks.
The system rewarded us with a soft ding and a tidy package of "Bonding Pulses" that made the heart of the Embrace hum warmer. The runes blinked the color of a ship satisfied: we'd done political safety well and held to the sacred rules of "people before prototypes."
At dinner that night—Bell-mère serving something suspiciously celebratory and entirely stew-based—the ship became a small universe of exhalation. Saki sat between Reiju and Gisuke, and I watched her accept a bowl of Bell-mère's work like a judge tasting a fairness. She hummed—a clear, small note—and then looked at me.
"You have a habit of feeding people their courage," she said. "It works well with diplomacy."
"Food solves most things," I agreed, which is to say: yes, and diplomacy too, if you remember to stir gently while listening.
Nami laughed—a softer, more sure "Ha!" this time, a sound that felt like a small victory. Nojiko's Ufufu went quiet and content. Misaki clanged a spoon against a bowl in the galley and laughed with a metallic clank. Mitsuki, elbow-deep in map ink, sang softly a map song she had been learning from Nami. The Embrace sang with us.
We signed the final memorandum in candlelight because Reiju insisted that contracts look better if they felt like vows. Saki attached her seal—an inked loop that meant she had read, verified, and would stand between the data and the hungry world of rumor. Gisuke's pen scratched in a way that suggested history and caution. The Vinsmoke's banner fluttered politely at the edge of the harbor like a sentinel who had learned to hope.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Memorandum Finalized & Auditor Clause Activated.
Reward: Stabilizers x2 (Allocated pending audit confirmation); Medical Aid Package (Immediate: Extra Portable Med-Kit x2)
Effect: Vinsmoke Approval: +2 (Cautious Trust → Tentative Partnership)
Caveat: Publicity management required. Liaison period: 1 day remaining.
P.O.V.: Vegito
Walking the deck with Reiju, the night felt small enough to be shared. The runes hummed like a pleased audience. "You did well," she said softly, a phrase that had to travel through a lot of professional distance before it reached something like intimacy.
"I told the village I would teach them to hold life steady," I said. "I didn't expect to become a teacher of restraint."
She laughed—bright and quick: "Ha!"—and it warmed a strange place in my chest. "The world doesn't need larger claws. It needs better hands."
"Then we'll be very handsy," I replied, and she smacked me with a small cushion she kept in her jacket for reasons I pretended not to enjoy.
The Liaison would leave on the morrow, and with him went a small wave of protective attention and the obligation that our trials continue to be stellar. We'd gained stabilizers, med-kits, a deafening collection of human-interest stories, and the sort of reputation that is equal parts warmth and target. The Embrace felt full and soft with it.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Daily Summary Saved.
Achievements: Phase 2 Trials — Hamlets #1–3 Completed (Deployment & Training).
Resources Gained: Bonding Pulses +42 (Collective), Stabilizer Grant Pending (x2), Portable Med-Kits x2 (Immediate).
Effect: Vinsmoke Liaison Approval: Tentative Partnership established.
Next Goals: Finalize sign-off with Vinsmoke signatures; monitor for remaining leaks; recruit 2 additional crew nodes to reach full capacity.
Hint: Use Saki's neutrality and public human-interest pieces to reduce bounty interest and increase community goodwill.
I lay under the stars and let the Embrace breathe like a thing proud of its small, practical revolution. Around me the crew murmured—laughter soft, plans forming and being adjusted like sails. My tail curled around the rail; for once my hunger was matched by the satisfaction of a day done well. I had fed people, taught them to hold each other, and negotiated with a house that had a taste for spectacle.
Tomorrow we'd get signatures, and perhaps the sea would be calmer for a bit. Tomorrow might also bring rumors, because where there is light, always there are magpies who like shiny things. But for the night, the ship hummed, my crew slept in content disarray, and I allowed myself a ridiculous, loud, unapologetic laugh.
"Ha!" I said into the dark, and the Embrace seemed to agree.
End of Chapter 9