On the different floors of the hold, there was excitement. 

It was necessary to remain manned by the enemy's guns but also to resupply the deck with powder for the pistols. Thanks to this, Seokjin was able to discreetly make his way towards the deck, mingling with the others. With his tall stature and his two blades, perhaps he would have been mistaken for Taehyung if he had thought to exchange their clothes and dress in his kimono.

Arriving on the deck, he dodged two pirates who were dueling and pierced one with his stolen katana. He didn't know if the pirate was from this ship or the other and he didn't care: they were the same in his eyes. 

Another enemy, seeing that he was hampered and doubtless thinking that he presented little danger, smiled evilly and lunged at him. Seokjin parried his sword strike before kicking him in the stomach which made him step back and then, he finished with a katana strike so sharp that the pirate took a while to realize that he had been hit. 

As a stream of blood flowed from the wako's cut throat, Seokjin looked at Taehyung's katana in wonder. It was an incredible weapon, light, sharp and deadly. It had been very well maintained, that was obvious. 

"I'll take good care of it," he promised, raising a hand in a kind of funeral prayer to Taehyung who was lying in his cell.

From a distance, he saw Jimin fighting with his bare hands and when he looked up, he also saw Yoongi fighting on the ropes of the main mast assailed by enemies. Higher up in the crow's nest was Hoseok who aimed his rifle at the enemies and seemed to hit the mark every time. He seemed to be an excellent shooter, a quality that Seokjin discovered in him.

When it became clear to Seokjin that the battleground was the Red Princess and not the other ship, that had been largely emptied of its men, it was obvious to him that he had to leave this teeming deck and join the other ship to take the powder of escape.

He began to carefully observe the battlefield to find a way to succeed in his escape plan. Several ropes spaced at regular intervals connected the two ships and had allowed – still allowed when Seokjin was watching – the enemies to rally the the Princess. This was not where Seokjin was going to go, he would be too exposed to enemy fire like this, he had to take another path.

He noticed the mizzen mast which topped the rear deck of the ship. It was the smallest of the three masts and Seokjin told himself that he would have quickly climbed it but it was also where the rudder and certainly Wakaï were located among his enemies. There were more enemies there and he would have a better chance of being spotted by the Princess's crew. So, he changed direction and joined the foremast at the front of the ship.

Along the way, he flew his blade and brought it down on all the pirates he came across. He had started to climb onto the upper deck at the front of the boat when he heard:

 "Wait, little amiral!"

Namjoon had just emerged from the hold, temporarily abandoning his position as gunner supervisor. Seokjin saw enemy pirates pounce on him, seeing him as easy prey with his back turned to them.

"You better get on with your battle!" Seokjin shouted at him, throwing his wakizashi like a spear, the tip of which stuck in the throat of the pirate who was about to decapitate Namjoon.

 Namjoon turned around suddenly and turned pale, realizing that he had narrowly escaped death and it was their escaped prisoner who had just saved his life

"That's for not killing me when you had the chance," Seokjin shouted at him, "now we're even, so farewell!"

Namjoon didn't have time to chase after him and Seokjin knew it. He could use the wakizashi to defend himself against the enemies who surrounded him if he knew how to fight. But it wasn't Seokjin's problem.

He continued his run to the mast and in the process, grabbed a coiled rope placed on a barrel, a precise arrangement which bore the mark of the tidy freak, Hoseok, whom Seokjin thanked in thought. 

Checking that his katana was securely attached to his belt, he began the ascent on the ropes. He was halfway on a rope tossed by the wind and the prodigious shaking of the vessel when he was spotted by a pirate on the ground who began shooting at him.

"Shit!" he swore.

He only owed his survival to the movement of the ship which allowed him to avoid the first bullet and spot the enemy. So he began to climb faster and after a while, realized that the pirate had been killed by another who had probably taken advantage of the fact that he was focused on looking towards the sky in the middle of a battle.

Relieved, Seokjin concentrated on his task and quickly arrived on a wooden platform where the foremast ended. Smaller than the crow's nest of the large mast, it still allowed him to balance and this gave him time to hook the rope securely around the mast and wrapped the other end around his waist.

Then, he looked at one of the booms which was reaching towards the enemy ship. It was a bar perpendicular to the mast which held the sail and which was much thinner than the mast. It was on it that he would have to balance before jumping into the void. Yeah, that's was his crasy escape plan. He exhaled nervously, refusing to flinch. He had enough rope to jump to the next ship, but if he fell before making his jump, he would crash onto the deck of the Princess and probably die in excruciating pain, his bones piercing his flesh.

"Hey, stop thinking, just go!" he shouted to himself.

He forced himself to put the disgusting image out of his mind and began to balance on the boom.  One step after another, he advanced into the sky while on the bridge, the battle continued to rage.

He had arrived halfway and saw the thickness of the wood shrinking little by little. Soon he felt like he was walking on a wooden line. He blew hard again to give himself courage, concentrating so hard that sweat beaded on his forehead.

"Where do you think you're going?!" a sharp voice suddenly shouted, piercing through the cries which resounded in dozens. It was the only voice that, amidst this cacophony, had caught Seokjin's attention in a powerful way. This voice had always been calm when talkingto him and this time, its edge made Seokjin panic.

Yet, now was not the time to be distracted. 

In surprise, he lost his balance and fell, uttering a cry of surprise mixed with fear. He barely grabbed the boom before remaining suspended at arm's length. He shouldn't have but he looked down and saw Wakaï staring at him coldly. It was surprising to see his calm broken and replaced by a mask of coldness even more frightening than if he had been enraged. It was scarier than Seokjin would like to admit.

Sensing an enemy approaching behind him, Wakaï drew his pistol and shot him without even looking at him, his dark and icy gaze still fixed on Seokjin. Such precision and instinct was frightening. Seokjin had no trouble understanding that he could aim at him from here. And as he was suspended in the air, with his arms tiring, the wako captain would have no trouble killing him.

"Look to your left, admiral," Wakaï said by indicating the direction with a movement of his pistol.

Perplexed, Seokjin turned and a few meters away from him, slightly elevated from him from the magpie, he saw Hoseok aiming his pistol at him, probably waiting for his captain's order to shoot him. And given Hoseok's skills he had witnessed previously, Seokjin was sure he wouldn't miss him. 

The bond he believed he had created with him to deceive him were completely false. Maybe it was Hoseok himself who deceived him and now he was going to kill him without the slightest hesitation. Seokjin had thought he was stupid, but it was he himself who had been stupid. He cursed.

He didn't know what to do anymore. He was at the mercy of the two men who held him at gunpoint. His arms burned and he felt he didn't have much time left if he wanted to have enough strength to hoist himself onto the boom and swing at arm's length on a rope to the enemy ship. Sweat ran down his temple.

"Tell me, admiral Kim, what have you done with Taehyung?" Wakaï asked.

"Is this interrogation necessary while I'm hanging in the air?" Seokjin managed to say and those few words left him breathless as all his energy was concentrated in his tired arms.

"It's your life you're playing with. What have you done with Taehyung?" he repeted.

"Who tells you I did something to him? The ship is crawling with pirates, maybe he was killed by one of them?"

He tried to speak lightly to buy time but his arms screamed at him that he was actually wasting time.

" He is my best fighter and bearer, he is absent from the fight and you are the one carrying his katana. So I'm going to ask you one last time: what have you done with Taehyung?" the wako asked in a harsh voice which announced to Seokjin that Wakaï's dark side would soon take the place of his calm side and that the next part would be dramatic for him.

"I think he's dead," Seokjin said, not lying. "He's in the hold but I didn't take the time to see if he was still alive when I came up, you'll excuse me."

Even from where he was, he saw rage glint in Wakaï's eyes. Perfect, he thought, seems I killed his favorite man. He's going to cut me into pieces for sure.

"Go back on the boom," Wakaï ordered, much to Seokjin surprise.

Relieved, he did not question himself more than was reasonable and did so. He was soon balanced again, crouching on the boom while the muscles in his burning arms throbbed. He sighed with relief and wiped the sweat from his face, grimacing while rubbing one of his wounds.

"Now," Wakaï continued, "go back slowly to the mast and then back down."

Seokjin was upset. He almost managed to escape and now he had to come back down!  

He figured, however, that he would have a better chance of survival if he could defend himself on the deck of the ship rather than hanging on a boom where two men could shoot him at any time. So, reluctantly, he began to turn back. 

He had almost reached the mast when he suddenly heard a bullet fired from the crow's nest and saw that Hoseok had just fired at an enemy. Seokjin's brain only fits one trick: it would take a few seconds before Hoseok could reload his pistol, he knew that. It was his chance!

He turned around and without launching into thoughts that would have dissuaded him, he listened to the crazy voice that guided him.

"Don't you dare do that!" Wakaï shouted, raising his pistol in his direction.

"Watch me!" Seokjin replied.

He unwound the rope from his waist and, holding it firmly with both hands, he ran onto the boom at full speed and, having reached the end, threw himself into the air, screaming. 

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"

His scream made all the heads of the pirates raise, who looked at him in bewilderment. For a moment, the duels stopped, no one made any noise, as if time had stopped for everyone except Seokjin which hung from the end of a rope and seemed to fly above them. 

Then, as suddenly as they had stopped, the clashes resumed, a chaos of screaming, metallic crashes and explosions.

Contrary to what he had naively believed, Seokjin did not rush to the enemy ship and began to spin in the air around the mast, while he held on to the rope with all his might. Gunshots rang out from the bridge and he understood that pirates from both sides were trying to shoot him down. He continued to scream while spinning while the bullets flew around him without hitting him, being more preoccupied by a furious urge to vomit than by the invisible bullets.

"Come down here!" Yoongi shouted at him, still hanging on the rope of the main mast, his pistol sheathed but his sword in his hand.

"No!" yelled Seokjin who knew very well that Yoongi would decapitate him in flight.

He was really starting to feel dizzy and wanted to get back to the ground, possibly without crashing on the other ship.

"Admiral!" the captain's voice shouted, "this is your last chance to get back to this ship alive: join me here or I will pursue you to the death."

He held out a hand and Seokjin wondered how much he hoped to see him fall into such a crude trap: he was going to have him executed the second he stepped on that deck.

"Thank you very much but I prefer to try my luck in escaping!" Seokjin yelled.

And as soon as he had the enemy ship in sight again, he jumped.

For a few seconds, he felt like he was flying like a seagull and shouted a spectacular "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" which earned him more stunned looks from the wakos.

The rope had provided him with a trajectory but not a smooth landing and Seokjin began to be afraid when he saw the enemy mast getting dangerously close to him. If he took it head-on, his bones would turn to dust.

He managed to roll himself into a ball and his body fell heavily to the ground before reaching the mast, ending up rolling to the rail. 

Panting and dizzy, body aching, Seokjin immediately sat up. He didn't have time to recover from his fall. He drew his katana and began to cut the ropes that connected the two ships one by one.

Realizing what he was doing, the enemy pirates began to try to cross the divide between the two ships again using the ropes but Seokjin quickly cut them and those who were clinging to them fell into the sea. The two ships were already moving away from each other, pushed back by the powerful waves.

Seokjin hurried to untie the ropes that held the sails and held them in place. Finally free, the enemy ship, much emptier and lighter than the Red Princess, suddenly launched, carried by the wind and Seokjin screamed:

"See you in hell, you rascals!" 

All he got was howls of rage which made him laugh: he had managed to escape!

But distinctly, in the wind that carried him, he heard the enraged voice of Wakaï screaming at him:

"Don't think you can escape me! I will found you, you can believe me, admiral!"