Chapter 10: Ch10: Getting ready, crew members?
Going back to their talk, Caden explained that he plans to leave the island after turning nine years old to travel a bit and join a dojo. His plans include getting hired to work on a merchant ship that will come next year, the one that is going in a loop around their East Blue.
He intends to work there and leave after he finds a suitable place where he could learn how to fight and maybe wield a weapon.
Next he plans to go to some other places and then return here for a few years again before doing anything else.
The girls calmed down a bit, thinking about what he said. Well, mostly Bellemere did, as her daughters were rather thinking about how sad it is that he will leave.
Currently only Nojiko knows why he really wants to learn how to fight, so her mother had to ask him about that.
"Why would you need to know how to fight right now? You could just wait a bit until you are older. You aren't in any rush after all." She said, looking at him a little suspiciously.
"Mom, let Caden do what he wants, maybe he.." Nojiko tried to defend him with some excuse, but he stopped her.
"Relax guys, I won't go anywhere immediately. I will stay with you for the next few months anyway, since we don't get any suitable merchant ships which I could board." He said, trying to distract Bellemere from her suspicions.
"Hmm.. Right. So how do you want to get hired on this ship?" Asked Bellemere.
"Well, from all this training I got quite strong, maybe I could work in the area of moving merchandise. Since I am still a child, he could pay me less, so that seems like a good reason to hire me." He said, laughing about his own situation.
"It might work, but you still need to convince Mummy Mee and Daddy Dee, after all you are under their care until you grow up." She noticed, bringing up a very good point.
In their world, you become an adult much quicker than in other places. If in his past world you needed to be 18 to legally do most stuff, here you need to be just 16 to get that same treatment, if you are in a populous place. After all, there are islands where people just don't care about things like children drinking alcohol and the like.
In their village, you are an adult after being 16yo, so that's when the orphanage will stop supporting Caden.
Of course, if he can make some kind of deal with his caretakers, then maybe he will be able to leave and travel the world.
"Correct, that's also why I will wait till I'm nine, so I can convince them that I am old enough to experience the world etc…" He said, looking back at Bellemere.
"If that's what you want, then ok." She said, understanding that the boy before her is young and wants to experience the world more than just their tiny village.
"Thanks Bellemere. For now, let's have some fun before I have to go back." He said, taking everyone to play some games in the living room.
All these years that he spent in the orphanage, he didn't really break any of their rules. Getting back before dark was one of them. A little silly, but children are children.
Next day after breakfast, he told Mummy and Daddy what he wants to do.
They were both surprised that he decided to leave them so early, thinking that he would like to spend his next years with them until he was 16.
Thinking about it, Daddy Dee said that he couldn't legally leave their care until he's old enough or he gets adopted. Mummy Mee agreed that they might get punished if something happens to him while he's under their care.
Looking for a way out from this predicament, there were 2 options he could take.
Option one included getting adopted before his journey by someone who will let him travel alone.
Option two included him breaking ties with the orphanage and literally running away, which will only a little worsen the orphanage's reputation. Still, what does their reputation matter in such a small village?
Caden postponed deciding on this until he had no more time and moved back to the present and what could he do more before leaving for a few years.
Through the next months, he trained his devil fruit, becoming better at making masks, which included making some for the girls to play with.
The amount of trouble Nami caused with her mask was immense. So many pranks done on people made them quickly realize that it is her under the mask, as there aren't many young girls with orange hair who like to make trouble.
That was also one of the slime's problems, it was very hard to imitate hair. Trying to make one strand at a time was time consuming and not always worked. Sometimes the hair was too sticky and didn't act like real hair, other times it was breaking from being too thin.
Making slime hair made his fruit mastery in the micro region soar. Thanks to it, manipulating slime on a small scale became much easier, that included making detailed stuff, like small patterns and stuff.
His body control also got higher, with daily practice he was soon able to move some of his shorter hairs around.
'Looking at my arm, with the small hairs on it moving around was creepy, but also kinda fascinating. What could I do with this later?' He thought, making his hair move into some patterns.
He also didn't forget to train his body, making his strength higher and higher. Right now at just 9 years old he was as strong as some 16 year olds.
'Men, why don't I grow in strength any faster? Maybe it's the lack of Sea King meat, I remember that almost every strong person was eating that.'
His relationship with Bellemere, Nami and Nojiko also got closer. Around a month after their talk, Caden told Bellemere what actually happened the day when the pirate got into their village.
To say that she was pissed at him and Nojiko for keeping it a secret for so long is an understatement. Fortunately, they managed to reconcile.
Now, why did Caden tell her the truth? Well, it might have to do with his idea of being truthful with the people he keeps close.
It did make Bellemere understand why he got so much more flexible in that last month, with the whole finger chopping thing.
The face of Nojiko when he told her that the ability which healed his fingers works everywhere and that he checked it himself was priceless. The look of horror on her childish face, her thinking that for the past month he was chopping his body parts for no reason made her just flat out lose consciousness.
He had to apologize for making her worried many times later when she woke up. All that made her much more worried for him. It resulted in her trying to spend more time together, to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. Nami also joined them, so they didn't really change their relationship.
Caden told Nojiko that in the future he will travel the world with his own ship as its captain. She replied that if he really wants to do that, she will join him. After asking what she would even do on his ship, she stated that she will become a doctor and every ship needs a doctor. After all, what if someone gets sick while days away from any islands?
Caden thought about it. He tried to learn about medicine and how to heal people but his progress was very bad.
"Sure." He said at the time, not really thinking about it much more.
Nojiko was pleased and focused more on learning the next few days.
One day she wanted to tease Nami a little bit, so she said that Caden said he will take her on his ship in the future to be his doctor. That day Nami got so mad that she wasn't invited to his ship that she went out looking for him to confront him about it.
After finding him, she asked him why he hates her and started crying. Caden got a little confused, but she repeated what her sister told her.
He understood what the problem was, so he tried to fix it.
"You see, Nojiko will be useful on my ship when she grows up and gains more experience in treating people, that's why I agreed to her joining me." He said, before continuing.
"If you want to join us too, you also need to play some kind of role on my ship."
"Then what could I do? I love drawing maps, maybe I can do that for you! I will draw all the islands you visit." She said, trying to convince him with her favourite hobby.
"Hmm… Making maps is too little, you need to think about something else to add to that. Maybe ask Nojiko or your mother for advice? You still have time, you know?" He said, patting her back.
He didn't want to be the one pushing her in the direction of becoming a navigator, at least not now. Let the kid live out her childhood without such worries like 'What will I do when I grow up?'.
Fortunately, after a few days of thinking about it, Nami asked Bellemere for advice.
"Mommy?" Started Nami, waiting for breakfast to be done. Nojiko didn't get up yet, she was a heavy sleeper.
"Yes honey?" Replied Bellemere, making some sandwiches for her daughters.
"What are the jobs people have on a ship?" She asked, trying to probe for information.
"Well, there are a few of them, why do you ask?" Answered Bellemere, looking curiously at her daughter. Since she started drawing maps, she didn't get interested in traveling around but she expected for it to happen someday.
"I was thinking about it. What will I do in the future? Caden said that drawing maps isn't that important on a ship, so what else is similar to it?" Asked Nami, troubled about her lack of knowledge.
"Hmm.. If you had your own ship you could just be a captain, but you probably don't prefer it, that's a huge responsibility, not mentioning the danger involved." She started saying.
"You don't know how to shoot guns or how to fight, so that also reduces your options."
Hearing that made Nami much more worried. 'Maybe I should learn how to fight like Caden is going to.' She thought.
"You don't know how to cook or how to keep people healthy and you also can't sing or play an instrument." Bellemere kept listing things which made Nami feel worse with every second.
"There is one important position you could achieve without all that though." She said after thinking for a bit.
"What is it?!" Nami quickly asked, trying to find some hope.
"It's the navigator." Answered her mother, turning to her and giving her the sandwiches and some mandarin juice.
"What does he do?" She asked and started chewing her breakfast.
Bellemere sat down, put her elbows on the table and her hands under her chin, looked at her cute daughter and explained.
"He has a very important job on the ship. He needs to accurately grasp the ship's position on the sea, being able to guide it wherever he's required to sail. He also needs to understand the weather very well and be able to steer the ship away from storms and other things." She explained, smiling at her daughter.
"Also, he needs to know maps extremely well. It's the best if he can make ones himself." She finished, looking at her daughter getting happy with finding exactly what she wants to do in the future.
Later that day, Nami found Caden again and declared. "I know what I will do on your ship! I will become a navigator!" She shouted, looking at him for approval.
'Thank god it happened naturally.' He thought, before striking a pose and face of a person thinking hard about something.
Nami looked at him, getting more scared by the second that he won't approve her position.
"Hmm… I think you will do an amazing job as my ship's navigator. Welcome aboard." He said, smiling from ear to ear, looking at the elated girl in front of him.
'Looks like my crew is slowly taking shape. Now I need only a few more people and my dream team will sail the seas.' Thought Caden, having hope for a great future.
~2136 words.
A/N: We reached chapter 10, for the next few weeks I will have time to write before starting college. I'm not sure what will happen then, but for now I'm gonna give out at least 6 chapters a week, 7 if I don't feel weak.
Also important, any thoughts on lemons in the story a bit later down the line? I can write them no problem, just don't necessarily expect some devilishly good jacking material or something.
So what, yes or nay for r18 scenes and lemons? If you want to, please respond under this comment or the comment section.
I will add the necessary tag only when I'm about to write those, until then we are mostly family friendly.
In the case where I don't get any response or they aren't clearly decided on one side, I will literally throw a coin.
That's everything, if you had read all that, thanks and have a nice day/night.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone