Air Pursuit

~~~☁️~~~

Rei enjoyed flying with his grappling gun. Back in Kyoto, there wasn’t a chore, errand, or commute he wouldn’t complete without first firing his invention and rising into the air like an angel, like Icarus trying to touch the sun—or like Momotarō soaring through the skies in search of his destiny.

This was completely different.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!"

The flying fisher groaned with a creak of wood and taut sails as it shot upward for the first time under Nessus’s command. At much greater speed, it should be said, since Rei had never seen a ship—or any vehicle—travel so fast. He felt the ground slip away under his feet. His body suspended somewhere between the deck and the abyss. The air hit him with a new whistle, sharp and harsh, full of sea salt carried high into the sky. Just a few seconds were enough for his vision to blur and his stomach to threaten throwing up his breakfast.

Instead of trying to touch the sky, Rei now felt like he'd become part of it.

"Shit..." he muttered, clutching his stomach with one hand while leaning against the deck's edge. Inches from a deadly fall.

"Rei!" Leonoris ran toward him. Though her footing wasn't totally steady, Rei noticed that somehow the raised bow shielded them from the headwind and the centrifugal force of the turn and kept them from being thrown overboard.

"Take a deep breath, it'll be okay."

"Okay," he tried to stand slowly, copying her stance. "I'll breathe—"

The deck tilted as Nessus, at the helm, swung the ship around with insulting ease. Rei collapsed back to his knees, dizzy, feeling like sea and sky had merged into one whirlpool.

"Nessus! Stop swerving so much!" his sister yelled, trying to give Rei a chance to get his balance back.

But a blast from the front—the thunder of a pirate cannon—grabbed both their attention and made them cry out together. The ship jolted hard again, threw them across the floor, tumbling side to side until they were once more lined up with their enemies.

There they were. A small pirate brigantine, black and rusted, cut through the air with a metallic roar. Runes glowed along its sides, driving the hull beyond what any ordinary wood should withstand. Its deck was clearly visible, and at the prow, tied to a mast, stood the figure of the hostage.

"You were saying?" Nessus shouted, laughing as though the chase were a carnival game. "They’re taking her—there’s no time to stop!"

Rei trembled when a pair of magical grappling hooks whistled from the brigantine, glowing with a dark light that sparked as they bit into the wood. Their weight tugged the ship sideways while Ettor intercepted as many as he could with his sword.

Rei forced himself to breathe deep and push to his feet. Adrenaline surged through his veins like fire, driving the nausea back down.

"Pull another stunt like that and I’ll kill you myself!" Rei roared, gripping the railing as the hull tilted dangerously.

"Hang on, inventor—you haven’t seen anything yet!" Nessus grinned ear to ear.

Their small vessel closed the distance to the pirates, forcing them to adjust their maneuvers. The brigantine tried to ram, its prow dark as a charging aerial ram. Nessus swerved violently, missing by inches, and the friction of the sails flared sparks in the air.

Rei clenched his jaw, trying to convince himself this wasn’t a dream or a hallucination. He breathed deep. Fighting was cruel, but also the only option. He pulled from his belt the makeshift launcher he’d cobbled together, bracing his arm against the railing as he loaded a crude projectile the size of his fist.

"Damn it! There’s no way I can aim like this!" he cursed. For someone far from a trained marksman, aiming between two moving airships—especially from the one that shook the most—was an impossible task.

Ettor, calm even amidst chaos, wielded his sheathed katana like a staff, knocking aside another hook seeking their mast.

"Nessus! How far until the exclusion line?"

"About…" Nessus squinted. "Ten kilometers."

"Damn!" Ettor cursed, stepping swiftly toward Rei. "If we reach it, we’ll have to face the rest of the pirate fleet. We strike now, or we let her go."

"What?" Rei’s terror spiked. "You mean board the ship?"

"How else do you think we’ll rescue the hostage? We board, just the two of us! Nessus will keep pace, Leonoris will back us up."

"But…"

Boarding meant facing the pirates head-on, fighting hand-to-hand again. Rei hated the idea—but…

He looked once more at the woman. And in that instant, Malbrine and Gorō struck his mind like two opposing currents birthing a hurricane. It was time to decide. And he did.

"I get it. But I can’t aim the launcher. My hook would shoot backward and I’d fall into the void."

Ettor already knew. Or at least, Rei felt he did as he nodded without hesitation.

"Nessus! We need to board the ship! You’d better truly be insane!"

"I’m offended by the doubt," he replied without breaking focus. "Leonoris! You know what to do."

"Yes!"

Apparently everyone knew what to do—except the damn inventor. Rei felt useless for a moment.

"What will you do?" he asked the girl.

"I’ll summon a wall of light in front of their ship. They’ll have to swerve and slow down, giving you and Ettor a chance to board."

"Wow… that’s brilliant. Smart thinking!"

Rei readied his gear. The launcher strapped to his forearm, his grappling pistol for maneuvering and dodging inside the ship, and his new ace tucked at the back right of his belt. And at his side, his pistol, holstered and loaded enough for a firefight. The sinister last memory of the workshop still flickered in his head—Malbrine’s face as he leveled the gun at him. “Last resort,” Rei thought, oddly comforted.

"Ready!"

"Rei! Ettor!" Leonoris paused for just a second before beginning the spell. Only the ether core’s hum and the wind’s whistle filled the air. "Don’t die, please."

A chill ran down Rei’s spine at her plea—a mix of tenderness for her sentiment and bitterness at once more brushing so close to death. He nodded, still terrified to leap from a ship he hadn’t even managed to stand on minutes before. Ettor, solemn on the other side, also nodded. With that, Leonoris closed her eyes and clasped her hands.

"Solaria, show them the path!"

A radiance burst from her hands, arching forward like incandescent flame. Suddenly, a blinding wall of white light appeared before the pirate brigantine, as though the air itself had become molten crystal.

The brigantine swerved, jerking violently to dodge toward the fisher’s side. Nessus, unfazed, yanked the helm and pitched their vessel higher.

"Grab the mast!" he shouted gleefully. "We’re flying like hawks!"

Rei barely managed to lash his hand to the mast’s rope, as did the others, when Nessus plunged the ship into a dive only to pull it skyward again. The deck became a near-vertical ramp, gaining altitude and shaving distance off the pirates. Rei felt himself flying, one foot practically dangling free in the air. He had never imagined an airplane, balloon, or dirigible capable of this. It was as if Da Vinci had built a mechanical dragon—only this one was powered by light magic. The thought filled him with adrenaline, carrying him into the shoes of a fairytale hero, and he let out a brief cry of elation.

Leonoris, however, fared poorly. She realized that after conjuring, her rope began to writhe like a snake, threatening to unravel. It whipped loose in an instant, leaving her with nothing to hold.

"Ah!"

Except Rei’s hand, once again seizing her wrist before she fell into the abyss—her recurring savior. The strain of the motion threatened to drag him down too, his rope slowly loosening.

"I… I can’t pull you up!" he gasped, arms trembling.

A whistle rushed past his ears, the miracle of a hook biting into wood. He spotted the three pirates on deck, arming themselves, ready to shoot them down like ducks in a gallery.

"Guys!" Nessus wasn’t tied down—he had wedged himself into some absurd position among the helm’s wooden protrusions, as if he did this daily. "We’re all sitting ducks here! I’ll give you a window—but you need to board!"

The first pirate fired, the hook zigzagging like a train undecided on its victim. Ettor, with his free hand, slashed it aside before it could strike—once again, Leonoris narrowly spared, the blade just grazing it. Inches lower and it would have ended differently.

"Pull her up!" he shouted to Rei.

"I can’t!"

"Then she’s coming with us!"

Leonoris stifled another scream, desperation shredding her throat, but she understood. It was that, or be skewered by the next hook.

"Nessus! You’d better not let us fall to our deaths!"

"Alright! On three, two, one…"

"Now!"

With a single stroke, Ettor severed both ropes, and the three of them began to fall. Rei had never felt such terror.

This time, literally, he was flying.