AJ felt like his arm fall off every second as he swung it one last time in an attempt to fling his enemy's sword up from his hand. To his surprise, he succeeded and a loud clanking noise was heard soon after that.

“You're getting better and better. Get some rest now. Practice over!” his swordfighting trainer said and left the practice room, leaving AJ attempting to catch his breath on the floor. He's been practicing harder than ever because of the upcoming battle.

When Shinmi saw the practice end, she ran over to her young master with a bottle of cold water and a clean rag for him to wipe his sweat away with. AJ didn't say a word and took the bottle without taking a look at her.

“Do you need anything else, young master?” she asked. He shook his head, still not paying extra attention to her. She turned around and walked towards the exit.

“Wait.”

“Yes?” she stopped and waited patiently for next orders.

AJ hesitated a bit. “You... you always participate in father's battles, right?” he asked, more for the sake of bringing the topic up then for confirmation, because he already knew. Shinmi's special power was healing, so she was always forced to go on the crew's battles and heal the injured pirates. She was lucky she could stay in a relatively safe place inside the biggest ship, but even like that, AJ could only guess how terrible it must be for the weak and fragile fairy to be there and see all the fighting. But then again, she didn't show it.

She nodded, feeling slightly confused. “Then... what is it like? Is it really that...” he searched for the right word. She stayed silent for a bit.

“Oh, young master is participating the next time, right?” He nodded. He wasn't sure why he was asking the fairy. The truth is he felt nervous, which was natural. It was his first time participating in such a big battle. He would feel embarrassed to ask the other pirates about it, let alone his father. They would think he was a scaredy-cat.

“Umm... it's true there are usually a lot of injured people...”

“I know... well, I'm going to be okay, aren't I?” he asked, trying to assure himself.

Shinmi hesitated, she didn't know what to say in this situation. “Not sure...” she mumbled to herself, but AJ caught that.

“You're not very supportive, are you?” he smirked at the girl's reaction. Her eyes went wide open and she knelt down immediately.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to- I mean, I can't judge it like that- I'm sorry-”

He was surprised, he actually wasn't offended by what she had said. He stared at her, wondering how she could live like that, saying sorry for every little thing she does. He was about to tell her to stop, but was cut off by another fairy servant coming.

“I thought it was time for you to go to your battle strategy lessons, young master,” Giyeon said sarcastically, making it obvious that she called him young master only because of obligation.

Whatever, if she wants to live like that, let her be, he thought. Why should I care anyway, she's just a servant. She's here to serve me. Right. He ignored Giyeon's rudeness, which he was already used to, and left.

“What did the jerk do to you?” Giyeon asked Shinmi.

“Giyeon-ah! How can you talk about our young master like that?” she exclaimed, looking around if there was someone who heard her friend's disrespectful words. “And he didn't do anything! I made a mistake, that's all.”

“Doesn't mean he's not a jerk...”

“Giyeon-ah!!!”

“So you think something bad will happen?” Soohyun asked, feeling worried. Dongho nodded, not stopping to chew on his food with his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk.

“Can you be a bit more precise?”

Dongho shrugged his shoulders. “I also *munch* don't know what. *munch* I just have *munch* that feeling.” He swallowed his food. “I'll just be around for a while. It's been a while, after all.”

“Of course we're always happy to see you here,” Hoon nodded.

At this moment, a man in a royal guard's uniform ran inside, panting because of exhaustion.

“D-dongho... the... pirates attacked our mercantile ship...” At this, Dongho didn't say a word, suddenly started floating in the air and before the boys and guard could even blink, he was gone.

“So you're really going to the battle?” Kyujong, one of AJ's pirate friends, asked, curious about his friend's upcoming adventure. AJ glanced at the now clam sea from the open window of the bar they were hanging out in.

“Yeah. Aren't I awesome?” he smirked, hiding the nervousness building in his stomach. Kyujong, proud of his brave friend, nodded happily.

“Showing off...” Hyona remarked.

“Got a problem with that?” he got a bit irritated by her constant unfriendly behavior. “Anyway, I gotta go... see you guys.” He stood up and nodded at Kyujong, who waved at him.

“Good lu-” Hyona whispered in his direction, but stopped the the sentence because he was already walking off. “Tche... I hope you get thrown into the sea,” she mumbled angrily, but couldn't stop herself from frowning. He's going to be alright... he's strong and he trained hard, she thought. But if something happens to him, I'm going to beat him up.

Eli was preparing hard for the battle as well. He didn't want to disappoint his father, whom he respected very much. After practice, he rested for a while, thinking of the upcoming events. There were just two days left. Two days later, they are going to move from the west coast a few miles away, like they usually did once in a while. But this time they were planning a different route, which was probably why Captain Mordney decided to attack on that day. They were going through... Wait, he thought as he sat up abruptly. If we are going through the place I have on mind, aren't we going to have troubles with the wind? He was sure his father must have thought of this, but he still didn't know how it would work out. So he decided to go check it out.

He knocked on the door of his father's cabin. No one answered, so he entered on his own. He was his son, after all, so he could go there when he wanted to. Instead of waiting for his father to annoy him with his possibly pointless questions, he decided to search for a map with the planned route. He remembered his father studying the map, so he was sure it was somewhere near. He opened a few drawers, but didn't find anything. Then he got an idea. Because such a map was bound to be kept secret, he searched for a hidden place, such as another layer in a drawer. As expected, he discovered quite a spacious hollow in one of the drawers. And there was the map. But when he took the map out, he saw a few more objects on the bottom of the drawer. One of it caught his attention. He took a small gold pendant in his hand. It was round shaped and had the letter M engraved in it while it pictured a ship on the other side. He studied it with curiosity. What did this pendant mean? And why was it in his father's hidden drawer?

He heard steps outside the cabin, so he hastily put the pendant back, closed the drawer and hid the map behind his back. Luckily the person just passed by the cabin, so he had enough time to look into the map, find out what he had been unsure of and put everything in its original place.

He went back to his own cabin, but couldn't help but wonder... why would his father hide such an old, small and dirty pendant and what was the meaning of the emblem?