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Tsuru’s desk displayed a picture of a family Hina had never known her to have. A nice family, all in Marine uniforms: Tsuru in vice-admiral’s regalia, son in civilian clothing, grand-daughter proud in a cadet’s uniform. The mother of the girl was nowhere to be seen.
An empty coffin shipped home. Smeared mascara the only sign of the old woman’s tears.
“She’s going through the Rear Admiral exams right now,” Tsuru said, closing the door behind her with a click. “Kujaku, that is - my grand-daughter. This was taken just over ten years ago.”
Hina started and set down the picture. “Ma’am.”
“Rear Admiral Hina,” Tsuru said, taking her place behind her desk. “Have a seat.”
Hina obeyed, folding her hands into her lap. The old woman examined her with a critical eye. Most Marines wilted under Tsuru’s gaze, but Hina thrived under inspection. She waited, aloof but not insolent, drawing strength from her perfect posture and impeccable makeup.
“You’re good,” Tsuru said. “One of my best. Hard-working, disciplined, but willing to use your judgment when you need to. How are you with secrets?”
“Hina is great with secrets,” Hina said. She paused as two faces came to mind, one sporting heart-shaped sunglasses and the other a two-day stubble. “Hina is not so sure about her subordinates, though.”
“That’s fine. We want word to get out, eventually, though not right away.”
“Word of what, ma’am?”
“You’ll see.” Making up her mind, Tsuru nodded and stood up. “Come with me.”
Marines stood to attention as they made their way past the offices of the Marine Headquarters, down into the cells in which captive pirates waited for their transfer to Impel Down. Men in striped pyjamas glued their faces to the bars and shouted curses and lascivious comments at the two women. Hina stared ahead with ladylike indifference. “Is Hina going to escort prisoners?”
“Something like that. Mind your step. This place wasn’t built with permanence in mind.”
Tsuru led her down another flight of stairs, into a tunnel hastily carved from raw stone. Electric bulbs failed to reach all the way to the ceiling, which was shrouded in darkness. The air smelled faintly of brine. A massive reinforced steel door loomed at the end of the hallway.
“Here.” Tsuru entered a code into the security panel and stood straight, arms crossed behind her back, while the door opened with an earth-shattering groan.
Lights flickered on as they stepped over the threshold into an alien mausoleum. Alcoves carved into the wall held seven tanks, which ranged in size from slightly larger than Hina to as high as a two-story house. Inside the containers floated creatures that belonged to no race or species Hina could identify. Dark-skinned, white-haired, they bore black wings on their backs that seemed too small to let them fly. Tubes pumped a glowing green liquid into their bodies, which pulsated in response. Their eyes were closed, the expressions on their cherubic faces peaceful. Corpses of child angels, preserved for unknown purposes.
“Unnerving, isn’t it?” Tsuru said. Her voice, like their footsteps, echoed with blasphemous loudness into the silence of the room. “We’re all going to have to get used to this. It’s the future of the Navy, according to some.”
“Who’s this some?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” They paused in front of another metallic door, this one much smaller. Indistinct voices emerged from the other side. “Borsalino. We’re here.”
The conversation on the other side came to an abrupt halt. A fat boy with a square haircut opened the door and gazed at the two women, smacking his gum with teenage impertinence. “Finally. Come in, I guess.”
Admiral Kizaru sat in the middle of the sparsely-furnished room, shuffling a deck of cards. “Tsuru,” he drawled. “Long time no see. I assume this is the talented young recruit you told me about?”
Insofar as Hina was concerned, she had aged past talented and into accomplished territory, though she said nothing. “Yes, yes,” said Tsuru impatiently, taking a seat at the table next to the Admiral. “Rear Admiral Hina, at ease.”
“Why don’t you go wake them up, hmm?” Kizaru told the teenager, who sighed and left the room, closing the door after him. “My nephew, Sentomaru. He’s been following a special student program with Dr. Vegapunk. Sit down, Rear Admiral. Have you told her what we need her for?” he asked Tsuru.
“You tell her,” Tsuru said, crossing her arms.
From the other side of the door came an anguished scream of metal. Hina resisted the urge to look over her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” Kizaru said with a yawn. “Do you have children, Rear Admiral?”
Hina smiled. It wasn’t the first time she’d fielded the question from a superior. “No children, sir. Hina’s crew is all the trouble she needs.”
He chuckled longer than the joke warranted. “Very good. Though I’ve been told you are good at dealing with misfits. The maternal instinct never disappears, hmm? It only gets…sublimated.”
There’s nothing maternal about Hina’s instincts, Hina began to say. The creak of the door interrupted her.
“Come on in, babies,” Sentomaru said, an unmistakable hint of affection in his voice. Hina tensed in her chair as the six angel-like creatures filed into the room. A seventh head adorned with oni-like horns poked into the doorframe, though the rest of the body did not follow.
“Not you, S-Bat. You’re too big. Wait outside.” Sentomaru waited for the horned head to withdraw before slamming the door shut.
The angels stood before Hina for inspection, four boys and two girls, ranging in size from almost shoulder-height to tall enough to brush the ceiling. Their eyes gleamed as they caught the light, revealing uncanny star-shaped pupils. A peculiar flame haloed their heads. All wore a linen shirt and black shorts, except for one of the girls, who had been given a simple shift dress, and one of the boys, who wore plaid trousers.
“They tend to perform better if you let them express themselves a little,” Sentomaru said, noting Hina’s interest in the clothing. “Some of them are vain, like the girl, and this little shit over here.” He ruffled the hair of the boy in the patterned trousers, who grinned. “The others don’t care.”
“Fascinating,” said Tsuru. “Then they’ve held on to some remnant of the original personality?”
“Seems like it.” Sentomaru shrugged.
The angels studied Hina and Tsuru with childish curiosity. “You’re very pretty, but I’ll be prettier than you one day,” the girl in the dress informed Hina solemnly.
“Hina is sure of it,” Hina said with a smile that concealed her unease.
“The Navy’s newest weapons,” Kizaru said. “We’d like you to give them their first test run, Rear Admiral.”
“What do you mean, weapons?” Hina looked to Tsuru for guidance. The old woman gave her the tired shrug that she always used when her superiors made boneheaded decisions and left her to clean up the mess.
“Just what I said, my dear,” said Kizaru. “These adorable children are the Seraphim, merciless weapons of mass destruction. Sentomaru?”
“They can shoot lasers from their eyes, like the Pacifista, at a range of five hundred metres,” Sentomaru said, with the pride of a small boy showing off his action figure collection. “A well-placed punch from any of them can lay waste to an island.”
“The lasers come from me,” Kizaru added, beaming.
“Each of them has been given artificial devil fruit powers. They’re indestructible, too, unless you put out their flame.” Sentomaru ran one of his hands across the strange ghost fire between one of the Seraphim’s shoulder-blades. The child - the weapon - giggled.
“Two at a time could tag-team an emperor,” Kizaru said. “At least, that’s what Vegapunk says. We’d like to see them in action. That’s where you come in, young lady.” He nodded at Hina.
“For the trial, I’d recommend using S-Bat and S-Crocodile,” Sentomaru said. “This is S-Crocodile.” He patted the shoulder of the girl in the black shorts, who stared blankly ahead and did not react. “S-Bat’s the one that’s waiting outside. They’re the most tractable.”
“Is there a risk they’d act on their own or disobey?” Tsuru asked sharply.
“Not exactly. The more headstrong ones, like S-Flamingo, can be hard to rein in once you’ve given them an order. Never had any issues with these two, though.” Sentomaru threw his uncle a small metallic device.
“This is an authority chip,” Kizaru said, holding up the device. “It makes you, what do the kids call it these days? The daddy.”
“The kids don’t call it that,” Sentomaru said, with a weariness that suggested they’d had this argument before.
“You give them an order while you’re holding this, hmm? And they’ll obey. Scratch your nose, children.”
The Seraphim complied, some with more visible reluctance than others. The one with the plaid trousers stuck out his tongue. Kizaru slid the authority chip across the table to Hina. “Why don’t you try it? Be the daddy.”
She took the device and turned it between her fingers. Everyone’s eyes were glued on her, waiting. “Say hello,” she said helplessly.
“Hello,” said six childish voices at once. A seventh, louder voice accompanied them from the other side of the door.
“We’ll start with an easy mission, Rear Admiral, hmm?” Kizaru said. “Something with low stakes, few chances of going wrong. We’ll be sending you to Opportunity Island. A smuggler’s den, though it’s abandoned at this time of the year. You will tell the Seraphim to destroy it.”
Hina dropped the chip and wiped her hands on her trousers. “Hina doesn’t like this,” she said. “It’s - it feels wrong.”
“I told you we’d run into this issue,” Tsuru told Kizaru.
“The age-old problem, isn’t it?” Kizaru said. “Those who can be trusted to wield this kind of power don’t want it. What’s wrong, Rear Admiral?”
The Seraphim inspected Hina, some with curiosity and some with indifference. “They’re too much like real children,” she admitted.
“Giving them the likeness of people was a bad idea,” Kizaru said, still staring off into space. “Glue some eyes on a rock and people will give it a name. Make your weapons look like children and people will want to braid their hair and buy them candy. But what can we do about it, hmm? The die has been cast. We need your help, Rear Admiral. What will happen if she doesn’t help us, Tsuru?”
“If good people refuse the job, bad people will end up doing it,” Tsuru muttered. At once, Hina understood that this was the argument that had convinced her.
“Be kind,” Kizaru said. “Treat them like people, if you must. It’s not so different from ordering cadets, isn’t it?”
Hina’s first commanding officer had been cruel. She imagined him looming over the Seraphim, pulling their hair, boxing their ears, sinking his nails into their arm. Forcing them to serve him his dinner, to scrub his boots. Perhaps worse. He hadn’t been that bad, but she’d heard stories about other units….
“I’ll do it.”
“Good,” Kizaru said, smiling at Tsuru, who did not smile back.
The Seraphim had lost interest in the discussion and were now staring at their feet. Hina will take good care of you, she thought, surprised at her own fierceness.
The tanks were wrapped in tarps and loaded onto Hina’s ship late at night to avoid prying eyes. S-Bat’s tank, large as a small house, was hauled onboard by a complicated pulley system.
When the Seraphim had safely been stored in their secret quarters, deep within the hold, Sentomaru walked Hina through the process of waking them up from their sleep. “I’d leave them in their tanks until you reach your destination, if I were you,” he said.
“Why?” Hina asked. “Is it better for them?”
“You might get attached.” Before leaving, he lingered before S-Crocodile’s tank, palm pressed against the glass.
Sailing on government routes was uneventful. Once the ship left the harbour, Hina locked herself in the captain’s cabin, resolved to make inroads in her backlog. A bucket hat appeared on the other side of the cabin porthole, shortly followed by a matching cap.
“Lieutenant Commander Fullbody. Lieutenant Commander Jango. How can I assist you?” she said without looking up.
The hats disappeared. Muffled voices came from the other side of the door. Fullbody and Jango entered the cabin and saluted, looking sheepish. “Ma’am.”
She drummed her fingers on her desk and waited. Fullbody cleared his throat. “The men are concerned,” he said, exchanging a glance with Jango, who gave him a thumb’s up sign. “They’d like to know why we’re heading to Opportunity Island at this time of the year.”
“Some people - not us, of course - have been saying it has something to do with what’s being kept in the hold.”
Hina could let them in on the secret. They would learn, after all, sooner or later. The lights in the cell would turn on, revealing the child-like bodies in their holding tanks. Jango and Fullbody would gape, shocked, angry, horrified. Then they’d remember Hina was with them and look to her, confident she had a reasonable explanation. What would she say?
It ’s for a good cause.
They look like people, but they ’re not. Not really.
If Hina wasn ’t taking care of them, someone worse would do it.
Faced with their blind trust, she was no longer sure she’d made the right call.
“Hina hopes you told the men to keep their speculations to themselves and get back to work,” she said coldly.
“Of course, ma’am,” said Fullbody, abashed.
“The nature of the mission will be revealed.” She paused. “When the time comes.”
That was the rub, wasn’t it? The time would come and the Seraphim would rise from their tanks, all chubby fingers, cherubic faces and inhuman eyes, to lay waste to an island that had existed for thousands of years at her command. Hina would need to come up with a better explanation by then.
Against her better judgment, she made her way down to the hold. The secret cell was protected from prying eyes by two sets of doors to which only she had the key. In their floating tanks, the Seraphim slept their untroubled sleep. They were naked, insofar as she could tell, though the bands of steel that circled their tanks concealed their privates from view. An odd concession to modesty that reinforced their status as somewhere between person and thing. Hina watched the minute twitches of their faces, the clenching and unclenching of their fists, disturbed and oddly charmed.
She had wanted children of her own, once, a long time ago. A secret dream, so secret that she had never told anyone about it. It was already difficult enough to be taken seriously as a woman, a pretty woman, in the tight ranks of the Navy, with their hard masculine efficiency that left no room for the uselessness of beauty.
There had been five other women in Hina’s graduating class; all of them gone now. Four that she hadn’t heard from after they’d married, in spite of repeated promises to stay in touch. One missing in action. “Are you next?” Rear Admiral Ogura, her superior at the time, had asked her when the last of her colleagues had married.
Hina had laughed, because laughter was more dismissive than anger. “Hina never met a man that was worth her time.”
(And that part was true, though it also meant she’d never have a child of her own.)
Fuck it. She opened the control panel and dialled the code Sentomaru had taught her.
At first, nothing happened. Then the Seraphim stirred.
Two pairs of star-dotted eyes flew open. Two mouths gasped for a breath they could not take. Liquid drained from the tanks with a sullen gurgle. Pudgy fingers busied themselves to release the - charging? feeding? - tubes that connected flesh to mechanical apparatus. Hina looked away, embarrassed by the alien intimacy of the gesture.
The Seraphim emerged and, with small sighs, dried and dressed themselves, drawing towels and clothes from their lockers. S-Bat trailed liquid across the ground, where it gathered into a pool that Hina stepped back to avoid. “Make sure to clean up after yourselves,” she said. Both children immediately stopped buttoning their shirts and knelt down to towel the floor dry.
Oh, right - the authority chip. Hina had considered leaving it in her office, but Sentomaru had stressed the importance of carrying it at all times. Your life and the lives of your men are at stake, he’d said, uncharacteristically solemn. Maybe the fate of humanity itself.
Dressed and clean, the two Seraphim hung up their towels and stood before her, waiting for their next order. “Is it time to kill people?” S-Bat finally asked, growing impatient.
“You’re not going to kill anyone,” Hina said, startled.
The children registered the news with neither relief nor disappointment. “I told you so,” S-Crocodile said to her sibling.
“What do you do when you have no orders?” Hina asked. “Feel free to do that.”
Thrilled, S-Bat toured the room, excitedly crouching down to peer out of the portholes at the ocean and put an eye between the floor tiles. S-Crocodile knelt down before the low table that had been set in the middle of the room, hands folded demurely into her lap. The good girl position, Hina thought, with a painful flash of recognition.
“We’re going to see trees,” S-Bat informed Hina, delighted to be the one breaking the news to her.
Hina drew from her distant memories of geography class to remember if Opportunity Island did, in fact, grow trees. “I think so, yes,” she said cautiously.
“Some of them are taller than me.”
“You’ve never seen any trees before?”
“We have,” said S-Crocodile with a hint of condescension. “In books.”
“Do you like to read?” Hina asked the child, who looked down at her hands and did not answer.
“I do,” S-Bat said, unprompted. “Especially comic books. Do you know Sora, Warrior of the Sea?”
“Hina has never heard of it,” Hina said, smiling.
S-Bat launched into a rambling description of Sora and his adventures, which seemed to involve a lot of punching, setting things on fire and other antisocial behaviours. She nodded to encourage him, though she kept watching S-Crocodile out of the corner of her eye. The child continued to stare at her hands, though she glanced up at S-Bat and smiled once, so briefly and secretively that Hina thought she might have imagined it.
“So yeah, that was awesome,” S-Bat concluded. “Do you have any comic books?”
“Hina will look,” Hina said, resolved to find more age-appropriate content.
“Games too,” said S-Bat. “I like chess.”
“Chess,” Hina said, surprised. “Yes. Hina owns a chess set.”
"Bring it to us.”
“Say please.”
The children’s faces grew blank. “Please,” they said at once, in a toneless voice.
For the second time since she’d entered the room, Hina had forgotten about the effect of the authority chip. She’d need to choose her words carefully, if she did not want to abuse this great and terrible gift. “Hina would like you to wait here,” she said. “You will have the game soon.”
Hina had not brought her chess set, but she did find one in the recreation room, missing only a piece which she replaced with an empty tube of lipstick. The children watched her set up the game in solemn silence.
She left to submit her daily report to Navy Headquarters. When she came back, the game was already in progress. Both children hunched over the table, a thoughtful expression on their faces that made them look oddly grown-up. S-Bat reached down, plucked a game piece between two enormous fingers and popped it into his mouth. S-Crocodile greeted this unorthodox move with a respectful nod and turned back to the game board.
“That’s not how you play,” Hina said, torn between amusement and horror. “Spit that out, please.”
S-Bat regurgitated the knight he’d just swallowed, along with half-a-dozen other pieces he’d eaten. Hina could not entirely repress her disgust, and he stared at the floor, crestfallen, as she explained the rules. S-Crocodile listened carefully, staring at her hands, which she’d folded into her lap again.
“Let’s do a test game,” Hina told S-Bat. “S-Crocodile and Hina will play while you watch.”
Hina was no slouch at chess and could destroy the rest of her team without breaking a sweat, but S-Crocodile had cornered her within a dozen moves. S-Bat won the next game against her as well, though he lost ignominiously to his sibling. “He does not fare well when he cannot use his eating strategy,” S-Crocodile said, flashing him the slightest hint of a smile. It occurred to Hina that they might have known how to play all along and had only, in fact, been humouring her.
For some reason, the thought made her uncomfortable. “Time for bed,” she said, and helped them return to their tanks.
Hina did not intend to return to the hold until they had reached their destination, though her curiosity won over her better judgement. After a few discreet inquiries, she gathered a watercolour set, a sketching notepad, a jigsaw puzzle and a badminton set, which she brought down, one at a time, into the hold.
Far from mindless machines, the Seraphim exhibited the signs of a distinct personality. S-Bat was affectionate, talkative, exuberant. Whenever Hina would release him, he would pick her up and squeeze her into his massive arms. (She feared for her life, the first time, though he was surprisingly delicate.) He asked a lot of questions, about the ship, about sea kings, about the Marines, though he would often get distracted and lose interest halfway through her answers. She hurt his feelings, once, when she reproved him too harshly for spilling his watercolours on the table, and his eyes welled with tears that no apology could quell.
S-Crocodile, on the other hand, was quiet and standoffish. She seldom rose from her seat on the floor, though her unnerving star-pupil eyes would remain glued to Hina and S-Bat, as if she wanted to join in the conversation but was calculating the best angle of approach. Assuming she was shy, Hina tried to draw her out, with games, colour pencils, pudding from the cafeteria. S-Crocodile would play along, docile, and withdraw again once there was no longer any pressure on her to perform.
Hina knew she was supposed to prefer S-Bat. In a classroom, he would have been one of the popular kids, and he’d have used his popularity for good, to stand up for the bullied and the outcasts. And Hina liked him, she really did, but she had a soft spot for his sister. The good girl. The one who followed the rules, who did not colour outside the lines, who did everything right. The one who did not inconvenience others with her passion, her tears, her anger.
Hina would find a way to coax her out of that place, deep inside of her, where she was hiding.
Fullbody and Jango waited for Hina at the top of the staircase. “Whatever is in there, it likes dominoes,” Jango said, with a touch of insolence.
Hina hugged the box of dominoes closer to her chest and glanced over her shoulder to make sure the Seraphim were not visible. An absurd reflex, since they were hidden between two reinforced doors. “Hina put you on supervisory duty.”
“We just finished our tour,” Fullbody said. “We wanted to check up on you, ma’am. We’re not worried about the mission, not exactly, but, uh…”
“We’re worried about you,” Jango chimed in, suddenly earnest.
“With all due respect, ma’am, you’ve been out of sorts for the past few days. Knowing the kind of leader you are, we thought you might be carrying too much on your own shoulders.”
“We wanted to help you out, as friends.” Seeing the expression on Hina’s face, Jango amended, “Loyal subordinates.”
Hina hesitated. On the one hand, this was a serious breach of discipline. On the other, she’d gone clubbing all night with Jango and Fullbody before, and they’d held her purse and watched her drinks and said nothing when she’d emerged from the washroom with smeared eyeliner and the fresh taste of stomach acid in her mouth, and if that didn’t count as ride-or-die loyalty, then what did?
Besides, they were right. It would be a relief to let someone else into her secret, to share the ugly responsibility.
“Come, then. Hina will show you. But you must not tell the others yet.”
The massive doors opened, one after the other. Jango and Fullbody drew close to each other, frightened by Hina’s solemnity.
The two children looked away from their chess game, S-Bat with delight and S-Crocodile with indifference. “Children?” Fullbody said in disbelief. “We’re transporting children?”
“Woah, big guy. Hey!” Jango said, laughing, as S-Bat picked him up to inspect him.
“Set him down,” Hina said. She knew she should tell her men that the Seraphim were weapons, not children, but it did not feel right. “They’re children, yes. But they’re also weapons.”
While Jango taught S-Bat how to moonwalk, Hina shared Kizaru’s words with Fullbody. He listened, uncharacteristically serious. “And they are people, not just advanced automatons?”
S-Bat sprawled on the floor and, torn between tears and laughter, chose to laugh. Jango joined in enthusiastically, and even S-Crocodile cracked a smile. “Kizaru said something about them keeping some remnant of the original personality,” Hina said. “Hina thinks they were people once. That they still are, on some level.”
Fullbody nodded. “Machines don’t laugh.”
“You see it too.” She could have wept with relief to hear him confirm her own secret doubts.
He nodded gravely. “What can we do, ma’am?”
She’d been mulling over the question over the past few days. “After the mission, Hina will tell Tsuru that Vegapunk is mistaken. The Seraphim will be rehomed. Given a normal childhood.”
“Do normal childhoods involve dancing?” Jango enquired. “Because I’m of a mind to invite them to our little disco soirée. Especially this talented young man.” He patted S-Bat, who beamed.
“You idiot,” Fullbody hissed. “We hadn’t told her about that. Yet.” He glanced nervously at Hina.
“Disco soirée. No, Hina doesn’t think so.” She relished the ominous silence that followed. “Not unless Hina is invited too.”
Fullbody and Jango looked as though they wanted to hug her. If not for the immaculate uniform she’d just changed into, she might even have allowed them.
Opportunity Island barely deserved to be called an island. The shrubs that grew from its rocky surface barely deserved to be called trees, and the strip of sand that edged its cliffs barely deserved to be called a beach. The only thing worthy of its name on Opportunity Island was the network of caves in which smugglers concealed their merchandise and sometimes engaged in bloody skirmishes. Because a few notorious pirate crews had eliminated each other in this way, the Navy had allowed the place to stay unmolested for years, though their patience had clearly run out.
“You are to fly to the island and destroy it,” Hina instructed the Seraphim. “Leave nothing standing. Ensure that none of the debris hits the ship or the rowboat.”
“Understood,” said S-Crocodile. She stood up precariously in the rowboat and unfolded her wings.
“Understood,” S-Bat repeated, with a second’s delay. He was craning his neck to get a better look at the island. “I thought trees would be bigger,” he said, disappointed, before taking off.
A few moments later, a bright flash of light, followed by the crash of collapsing boulders, told Hina that the destruction had begun.
“I don’t like the thought of these babies killing anyone, even though they’re smugglers,” Jango muttered, watching the Seraphim’s rampage through his eyeglass.
“You used to be a smuggler yourself,” Fullbody reminded him without sympathy.
“I was a pirate. That’s not the same thing at all.”
“They won’t kill anyone, smuggler or otherwise,” Hina said. “The caves flood once a day at this time of the year.”
“Huh.” Jango lowered the eyeglass. “If that’s the case, ma’am, why is there a craft on the beach?”
“What do you mean?” A chill entered Hina’s heart. She snatched the eyeglass from his hand.
“There.” He pointed, though there was no need. A small sailboat had been dragged ashore on the inhospitable strip of sand. The sail had been removed, which was why the Marines had not spotted it right away. A wreck? No, a picnic basket had been tossed in the craft, under a checkered tablecloth.
A beam of white light obliterated the beach. She dropped the eyeglass. “No!” she shouted. “Come back!” The waves drowned her voice. Jango handed her the loudspeaker. She repeated the order, but the Seraphim did not respond.
Near the burning devastation that had once been a beach, three heads bobbed above the water, each wearing a mask and a snorkel.
“They’re fine,” a Marine said, releasing his paddle to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
“For now. Row us closer to the shore,” Hina ordered. Sentomaru had explained that the authority chip only worked within a limited distance.
The heads mowed towards the beach, where the remnants of their craft smouldered on the blackened sand. They had not noticed the Marines. S-Bat and S-Crocodile hovered above the ruins of the Opportunity Island cliffs, waiting.
“Stop!” Hina cried out again. Too late. Two pairs of star-shaped pupils flashed. The sea erupted.
Pillars of water rose from the ocean and collapsed with a roar that drowned out the screams of the dying, if there were any. The monstrous wave sent the Marines’ rowboat spinning back towards their battleship. When they had rowed their way back through the clouds of scalding steam, no signs of the snorkellers remained, except for a single mask that floated on the roiling waters.
An uncanny, almost human sound rose above the crackling inferno. S-Crocodile was laughing.
“Come back,” Hina ordered. The Seraphim looked in her direction. For a moment, it looked as though they might turn their terrible power on the Marines. Then their eyes dimmed and they returned.
“We killed someone,” S-Bat stated.
The Seraphim were back on the rowboat, wrapped in emergency blankets that were too small for them. S-Crocodile hadn’t stopped laughing, eyes wild, teeth bared. The sound was getting to the rowers, who shifted in their seats and exchanged uneasy glances.
“You killed three people,” Hina said. It was important for them to understand that actions had consequences.
“Can we bring them back?”
“No. Once people are dead, they are dead forever.”
The boy fell silent as he mulled over this.
“It will be hard,” Jango said. “For them to have normal childhoods.”
Fullbody elbowed him. “Don’t say that in front of them.”
The foolishness of the dreams Hina had entertained over the past few days was now obvious. “They’re not going to have normal childhoods.”
“But, ma’am-”
“It’s too late for them.” She added, more gently, “You’ve seen what they can do.”
S-Bat was quiet for the rest of the trip, though he did not cry. S-Crocodile never stopped laughing.
I knew that laughter.
I was fifteen years old when Junior Commander Culliford summoned me into his office. I showed up five minutes early, as usual.
“Cadet Hina. I told you to come see me at six,” he said, without looking up from his comic. “Not five minutes past six. Not five fifty-five, either. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked me over, searching for something else to nitpick. A crooked cap, a wrinkle, a coffee stain. Finding nothing, he huffed and returned to his comic. I waited.
He grew tired of the silence before I did. “You’re probably wondering why I asked you to come here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir. Yes sir,” he said, simpering. “It’s like talking to a machine. If there’s any thoughts in that head of yours, you hide it well. Though there must be something going on in there, given your grades.”
I wanted to say “Yes, sir” again, but thought better of it.
“You’re learning, hmm? Good for you.” He took his boots off his desk and sat up. “That brings me to the reason I asked you to come here. We’re going on our first field mission tomorrow. You’ll be staying behind.”
Blood rushed to my face. “Why, sir? What have I done wrong?”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he said, to my surprise. “This isn’t a punishment, Cadet Hina. I’ll put you on reporting duties. You’ll watch the intervention from a safe distance and send your report to Headquarters once it’s all over.”
“I need field experience to graduate.” Though I maintained an even tone of voice, I was shaking with anger.
“I’ll tell Headquarters that you passed. That’s all they need to know.” He sighed and looked at me, for the first time, with something like kindness on his face. “Look, Hina. It’s true, I don’t like you. I don’t like yes-men and teacher’s pets. But that’s not why I’m doing this. There’s people who come out stronger once they see action, and there’s people who break. You’re the breaking kind.”
“I’m not.” I stood up. “I’m not, and I’ll prove it to you.”
“First time showing some spirit, and it’s for this,” he said, addressing the dugong figurine he kept on his desk. “Very well, Cadet Hina. I’d hold you back if I could, but I can’t - not without risking my own neck, and I don’t care enough to do that. Let’s hope you’ll live to prove me wrong, then. Dismissed.”
“Don’t mind him. He’s salty because he knows he doesn’t stand a chance,” my friend Kahori told me before the fight. (She would go missing in action five years later; an empty coffin shipped home.)
She was right, but I couldn’t stop dwelling on his words. If not for them, I would have been strong and confident. I would have been glad for a chance to prove myself. I wouldn’t have had sweaty palms and a racing heart as I waited and watched the empty plaza.
As part of our graduation mission, we’d been sent out to deal with the Jazz Pirates, a rookie crew that had grown a little too comfortable at home to move on to the Grand Line. They ran a protection hustle on Ekkelcamp and, if rumours could be believed, dabbled in human trafficking. They’d be mean but not dangerous. Easy to shoot without remorse, if things went south. At least, that’s what Culliford had told us.
Hunched behind an empty vegetable stall, Kahori smiled at me. “Nervous?”
“Not really.” She waited, unconvinced. “Maybe a little, yeah.”
“We’ll be fine.”
I was usually the one who helped her with her homework, who cheered her up when she failed an exam, who got on her ass when she neglected her workout routine. The role reversal annoyed me, though I did not have time to object. From the roof where he was perched, Culliford waved at us. They’re coming.
The signal was unnecessary, as the sound of an improvisational trumpet solo announced the arrival of the Jazz Pirates. We’d lured them out with the false promise of a lucrative trade deal with a local kingpin, and true to expectations, they’d taken the bait. I raised my rifle.
A kid in a shabby top hat and overcoat sauntered out of an alley, followed by eight others. They lowered their instruments and gazed around the plaza, squinting against the sunlight. None of the lot looked any older than fifteen or sixteen years old.
Too young to be pirates. We’d miscalculated somewhere. I looked at Kahori to see if she shared my relief, but she was still staring alertly at the newcomers, body tense, rifle at the ready. I glanced at the other cadets, but they also seemed poised to shoot. On the rooftop, Culliford raised his hand again to command us to attack.
Except for me, no one had noticed anything was amiss. I opened my mouth to shout at everyone to hold their fire, but Culliford’s words came back to me. There’s people who come out stronger once they see action, and there’s people who break.
By the time I’d pulled myself together, it was too late.
“It’s a trap,” the boy in the top hat yelled, pulling something out of his pocket.
“Fuck, he’s got a grenade,” someone screamed. It was Kahori, though I did not recognize her voice right away, since I’d never heard her sound so shrill.
Shots went off. I wasn’t sure whether they came from the pirates or the other cadets. I might have pulled the trigger myself, though I hadn’t felt the recoil. White smoke billowed from the centre of the plaza, where the grenade had gone off. That was it, then. I wondered if I was dying, and why it didn’t hurt.
“Get the smoke bomb!” Culliford shouted.
Not a grenade. I darted out of my hiding spot. More shots went off around me, releasing black clouds of gunpowder smoke that mingled with the bomb’s. My eyes and nose burned. I tripped on someone’s leg and almost sprawled. “Sorry,” I said, but there was no response. (Whoever it was might have been dead; I would never know.)
A hand reached out and grabbed my arm. I almost struck out with my rifle, but Kahori’s voice soothed me. “I have the bomb. Let’s go.”
“How did you know it was me?” I could no longer make out anything through my tear-blurred eyes.
“You were laughing like a maniac.”
I stumbled around in the smoke and the detonations, holding onto Kahori’s arm. She cursed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m hit. No, it’s fine. Just a scratch.” She pressed something round and hot into my hand. “Alley’s just ten metres ahead. Go throw it in there.”
Simple, clear instructions. I took ten steps forward and launched the bomb blindly into the air. It was mostly useless, since I could tell, from the way it lay still in my hand, that it had been spent, but it was something to do, and that anchored me.
“I think that was the last of them,” someone called out.
“Good work, cadets,” said our commander’s voice.
The smoke cleared over the plaza. A dozen bodies lay unconscious on the ground, most of them wearing pirates’ finery. Most of the stalls and barrels had been destroyed by the gunfire, including my former hiding place. Music instruments lay abandoned in the dust.
One of the bodies on the ground stirred and sat up, propping another against its chest. “Back off!” it called out in a high-pitched boy’s voice.
Cadets raised their rifles. “I can’t get a clean shot, sir,” someone said.
“Lower your weapons or I’m killing her.” The pirate pressed a pistol to his hostage’s head. I recognized the black ponytail that flopped limply over his shoulder.
Culliford evaluated the situation calmly. “Lower your guns.” The other cadets obeyed.
“Good,” the pirate said as he stumbled to his feet, holding my friend’s body in front of him like a shield. He had his back turned to me. I took one step forward, then another.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Culliford yelled. I realized he was talking to me.
I also realized I could not do what he was asking me to do. Not if I wanted to live. Not if I wanted to go home. Not if I wanted to hold on to whatever was still left of me.
“That’s an order!” he shouted. And Hina did what good girls do and pulled the trigger.
“Hey. Hey. You OK?”
I snapped out of my daydream. Kahori crouched before me, concerned. Like the other girls, she wore fancy sleepwear she’d purchased on shore leave somewhere, wine-red silk and black lace. A sleep mask perched cockily on her forehead. Her right arm was bandaged.
I took a half-hearted swig from my bottle. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Hmm.” Kahori stood up and gestured towards her kitchenette. “Want another beer?”
“Still working on this one.”
A girl in a dinosaur hoodie strolled over. (Amina? Minata?) She looked at my standard Navy-issued pyjamas with a hint of condescension. “We’re about to have a makeover.”
More girls gathered around me, teeth and eyes gleaming. “A makeover?” I repeated, uncomprehending.
Kahori stretched out on the bed and squinted at me. “Yes. You’re getting a makeover, because you’re a complete fucking disaster.”
“I’m not a makeup kinda girl.”
“That’s your problem right there.”
I looked mutely to the others to appeal and found only ruthless delight. “If I was this cute, I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Marine uniform.”
“Never seen such natural gifts so shamelessly squandered.”
“What do you think of this shade, Kahori? She’s a summer, right?”
“Space, space, the surgeon needs space,” Kahori said, snatching the makeup kit from an over-eager assistant. Tiny scissors, files and other sharp objects gleamed among the coloured tubes. “Hold her still, girls. We’ve got a live one.”
“It’s fine,” I said, laughing helplessly as I fended off the manicured hands that reached out to circle my waist and grab my arms. “I’ll cooperate.”
“Good. Getting this shit in your eye is no joke.” Kahori held out a few jars of foundation to my face for comparison. “After this, we should go clubbing.”
“At this time?” I rolled my eyes to look at the clock, which read 11:00.
“What do you mean? That’s the best time to go clubbing.”
“I want the whole world to see my masterpiece,” Kahori said, unsmiling, as she dabbed cream on my face.
The other girls hushed as she worked, selecting brushes from her assistants, snapping cases open and shut, applying the cosmetics with a deft but merciless hand.
“Can I see?” I asked, eyes closed, as a pencil traced the outline of my lids.
“When I’m done. You can open your eyes, though.” Kahori set down the pencil and picked up a tube of lipstick.
“That’s too bright,” I protested.
“Trust me.”
The rough pad of a thumb parted my lips. I held my breath. “There.”
A mirror was shoved in front of my face. Instead of a fifteen-year-old girl with frightened eyes, I met the stranger that I would need to become to live with what I’d done. Controlled edges, haughty lines, eyes that revealed nothing. The perfection that I’d sought for years, through strict punctuality, diligent work ethic and obedience, had finally been coaxed out of me by paint and pencil and brush and all the weaponry of womanhood.
I smiled, self-possessed, enigmatic. Hina smiled back.
“Well, what do you think?”
“Hina loves it.”
The Seraphim looked up as Hina entered their hold. S-Bat did not rush to her for his usual hug, though he did give her a half-hearted smile. “Hina brought some comic books for you to read,” she said. The smile widened.
While S-Bat rifled through the comic books, listlessly at first, then with increasing absorption, Hina turned to S-Crocodile. “Hina will have some girl time with you,” she said.
“Girl time?” S-Crocodile said slowly, as if she were turning the words over in her mind, examining them from every angle.
Hina snapped open her makeup case. “Hina will give you a makeover. Have you ever had one of those before?”
The girl looked over her shoulder, appealing to her sibling for help. S-Bat, absorbed in a comic, did not notice. “I would rather not,” she said. It was the first time she’d expressed any preference, which was promising.
“You’ll love it, you’ll see.”
“I’ll see.”
Hina rummaged through the makeup case and brought out a few strips of colour, which she held up to S-Crocodile’s face, and set to work. “Close your eyes.”
The girl obeyed.
“Tilt your chin.”
“Can I try?” S-Bat asked, looking over his comic.
“Maybe later,” Hina said, absorbed in her work. “What’s your favourite colour, S-Crocodile?”
Instead of answering, S-Crocodile repressed a smile. Hina looked over her shoulder. S-Bat had gotten a hold of her black eyeliner and was trying to apply it to his eyelids, face scrunched in concentration. The pencil was comically tiny in his massive hands.
“No! Put that down.” Hina raised her voice.
S-Bat dropped the pencil, bottom lip trembling, though he mercifully did not burst into tears.
“Don’t touch Hina’s things without asking,” Hina said, more kindly, though she was annoyed. Of course he would intrude and make himself the centre of attention, just as she was finally beginning to get through to S-Crocodile. “Hina and your sister are having some girl time. Why don’t you go sit in the corner and read your comic books? Hina brought them just for you.”
He complied, crestfallen. S-Crocodile’s face closed. Hina applied some lipstick to her lips, drawing on the mysterious smile behind which little girls conceal the atrocities of womanhood. “Hina can’t protect you from the world and from the things you will have to do,” she said. “But Hina can help you become someone who can handle them without breaking. There. What do you think?”
Hina had hoped to startle a sincere reaction out of her. Astonishment, delight, even horror. S-Crocodile blinked twice and reached up to touch her own lips. She stared at her green-stained fingers in silence. Formulating the answer that was expected of her, Hina realized. “It looks good.”
“Doesn’t it? Say thank you.”
“Thank you.” The words came out with more than the usual reluctance.
Hina balled her fists, feeling more hopeless than ever. Perhaps the Seraph was more machine than girl, after all.
(Or perhaps she’d gone about things the wrong way, for reasons that were beyond her.) “Would you like to keep a few of Hina's makeup things, as a gift?”
Without hesitation, S-Crocodile pointed at the black eyeliner that S-Bat had appropriated without permission. “This one.”
Repressing her disappointment, Hina handed it to her. “What do you say?”
“Thank you,” said both children at once, staring at each other. If nothing else, she’d managed to teach them manners.
Hina did not visit the children the next day, troubled by the vague shame that comes from revealing the innermost parts of oneself and getting only silence in return.
“I can check up on them if you want,” Fullbody suggested, with unusual tact.
“No, no, it’s all right. Hina will do it.”
Before walking into the Seraphim’s quarters, Hina glanced into the porthole and froze.
S-Bat, eyes lined with ghoulish black, was bent over S-Crocodile. With a delicacy and a precision that Hina would not have expected from him, he was drawing a line across the little girl’s face.
The girl said something. S-Bat drew back to admire his handiwork, scratched his head and added a vertical crosshatch of lines. Stitch marks. He was drawing a scar, a scar that Hina could have sworn she’d seen before, somewhere.
Neither of the children noticed her. She withdrew, troubled by the sense that she had witnessed some secret ritual from which she was forever excluded.