Even the clouds stayed still.
That's how Ogun knew something was off.
No wind. No gulls. No usual creaking from the Mermaid Princess as it cut the sea. Just silence, thick as wet wool.
He leaned against the ship's railing, one hand resting on the worn wood, the other tapping his sword hilt. Watching the horizon.
The crew behind him? Loud as always.
"You boiled the compass?!"
"I was sterilizing it!"
"You sterilized it with rum, you ocean-born moron!"
"Rum fixes everything!"
"It fixed your last two brain cells!"
"Captain! Permission to throw someone into the sea!"
"Denied," Ogun muttered. "I'm using him later."
The Mermaid Princess was beat up but proud. A patchwork sailboat with a stolen heart. Her crew didn't wear uniforms. They wore scars and bad ideas. Rebels, thieves, ex-prisoners, runaways.
Together, they flew no flag but the world called them Gun.
One crew out of a hundred scattered across the globe, torching World Government outposts and pulling chains off necks.
Not soldiers. Not saints.
Just people who had enough.
Then Ogun saw it.
A ripple in the sky. A flicker. A shape falling.
Not a bird. Not a cannonball.
A person.
"Uh... Cap?" called the lookout. "We got sky trash incoming."
The figure spun, arms loose, no wings, no sound. Just falling.
Straight down.
No control.
Ogun stepped forward. "Brace."
WHAM.
The ocean erupted like it had been slapped by a god. A pillar of water blasted into the air. The deck lurched sideways. Crates tumbled. Someone screamed as soup launched into their lap.
Silence followed.
Then
"So... should we go fish that out?"
"What if it's cursed?"
"What if it's rich?"
Ogun didn't speak.
He was already heading to the lifeboat.
Five rowed with him.
Steam rose from the crater. Water boiled in a perfect circle.
Floating in the middle: a boy. Face up. Eyes closed. Clothes torn. Bruised but breathing.
Teenage. Barely older than Ogun had looked in his mirror last year. No chains. No marks. No gear.
Just... a kid.
They hauled him in.
His hand was clenched tight like it was hiding something.
Ogun pried it open.
Inside, scratched in dried blood: "REMEMBER."
Back on the deck, the crew surrounded him like seagulls around a shiny coin.
"Is he alive?"
"Looks like it."
"Maybe he's a prince."
"Or a test subject."
"Or just an unlucky idiot."
Kammy , wild pink hair, tool belt, hands always covered in oil ,elbowed through the crowd and crouched beside the boy.
"Breathing's shallow, but strong. No broken bones. That fall should've liquefied his spine. So... magic, tech, or dumb luck?"
Ogun watched. Quiet. Measuring.
"Toss him in a hammock. If he wakes up, we'll talk. If he dies, we dump him."
"And if he starts glowing?"
"We light him like a lamp."
They stuffed him below deck, strung up in a netted hammock near the spare sails.
Above, the crew got back to chaos.
Ogun stayed out of the jokes.
"Bet he's some secret World Government project."
"Nah. He smells normal."
"What if he fell through a hole in the sky?"
"Then the sky has bad taste."
"He looked peaceful though. Like he meant to fall."
"Yeah. That's suspicious."
Later that night, Ogun sat on the bow, staring out past the edge of the ocean.
The clouds hadn't moved.
The sea was holding its breath.
He hadn't said it aloud ,but something about that boy itched in his ribs. The kind of feeling you get just before a raid turns sideways, or a king dies quietly in his bed.
He didn't glow. Didn't float. Didn't shine like the stories.
But something had decided to drop him.
And it had chosen Gun's deck.