The rain had started to fall on Seokjin's bruised back.

His torn shirt had finally slipped off completely and was nothing more than a reddish rag around his waist and Seokjin was nothing more than a bloody body curled up on the deck of the ship. His back had been slashed by several dozen pirates seeking violence. Because in his mind, the camaraderie of the pirates was not strong enough for it to be about avenging a friend.

The deck was empty except for Namjoon, Hoseok, and Jimin who surrounded him. None of the three had whipped him but he wasn't going to thank them for it. And he suspected that now they were there to take him back to his cell.

"Leave me alone," he whispered.

He wanted to stay here and let the rain wash his body and heal his wounds. He no longer thought about returning to Joseon at that moment, he just wanted the pain to disappear and for those pirates around him to disappear.

Jimin was about to protest but Namjoon whispered something to him that Seokjin didn't hear and the three pirates walked away, leaving him with the rain for only company.

He stayed like that for a long time, lying on his stomach to spare his back, letting the night deepen and the coolness envelop him. It was a saving freshness because it alleviated the pain in his back. He felt his aching body gradually relax and let the sound of the raindrops fill him with a feeling of calm.

This feeling disappeared when he heard footsteps on the wet deck and perceived the glow of a lantern approaching. He refused to turn around to see who the newcomer was. With the silence continuing, he suspected his identity but he refused to be the one to break the silence. He hated this man even more than his crew of thugs.

He shivered when he felt the others' fingers slide down his blood-sticky back to stop at his old bullet scar.

"Don't touch me!" he cried, breaking the silence that he had said he did not want to break first.

He pushed himself up painfully on his hands and stepped back to face the captain.

"How did this happen?" the other asked in a calm voice that contrasted with Seokjin's. He seemed genuinely intrigued by this scar.

"What the hell does that matter to you?" Seokjin retorted aggressively. "You want to replace it with another whip mark? Yours this time? Or maybe you want it to be your ball that passes to me rather than someone else's? I wonder why you haven't given your shot yet."

He thought the other would respond coldly but it was worse: only silence answered him.

"You're really hateful," Seokjin finally whispered and lay back down, presenting his back to the pirate again.

He didn't care now if he was stabbed in the back, he doubted his pain or his hatred could be any more intense than it already was. After a few minutes, he wondered with annoyance why the pirate wasn't leaving since he wasn't here to kill or torture him. He jumped when he heard the other ask:

"Why do you hate wakos?"

"Are you kidding?!" he asked without turning around.

"Aren't you the Wakos Slayer? You are a murderer who sails the seas just like us but you try so hard to believe that you are different than us."

"I'm different!" Seokjin spat, turning around again. "I kill to rid these seas of pirates. I kill for..."

He stopped suddenly, aware that what he was about to say contradicted him but the other had understood.

"For revenge," The pirate finished for him.

Seokjin frowned.

"It's different, I don't kill for fun and I don't torture."

"Your reputation precedes you, admiral Kim the Younger. All the survivors you let escape say the same thing: you are a man who kills wakos with pleasure, and the men you command are the same as you."

"Were," Seokjin corrected hatefully. "you killed them all, don't you remember? We decided together to hunt pirates, it was our life's mission."

"Why?"

"Because the wakos took away the people we hold dear to our hearts!" Seokjin cried out in a howl of rage. "Innocent people who were guilty of nothing other than being in the path of these damn looters, rapists and murderers!"

He stopped, out of breath. He regretted letting himself reveal his heart to a pirate. The other stared at him with piercing eyes, as if trying to see through him.

"Who are you trying to avenge, admiral?"

"No one," Seokjin replied.

"Who have you lost under the sword of the wakos? Your father? Your mother?"

"None."

"A girl then?"

"No!" Seokjin got angry. Why was he trying to dig into his past like this?

"Then maybe... a boy?"

Seokjin froze. The rain was continuingly stick their hair to their wet face and the wind began to pick up, while the sea was making the boat shake violently. It was as if the sky and the sea felt Seokjin's emotions and expressed them for him.

"Shut up, you know nothing!" he replied in a trembling voice.

"Then tell me, then I'll know. Who was this boy to you?"

"I won't tell you shit!"

"Was it someone who left you for dead?" the pirate insisted, moving forward even further and touching the tip of his finger to the scar on Seokjin's stomach who immediately backed away.

"No!" yelled Seokjin, whose angry eyes filled with tears. Above the ship, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, the light rain transformed into a storm. "I'm the one who abandoned him! It is because of my weakness, my cowardice that he died! And even if I rid all the seas of this globe of the pirates who inhabit them, it would not be enough because he would still be dead!"

It was not against the pirate anymore that he directed this anger but against himself. It was his heart that rebelled against what he had forced it to keep locked up for fifteen years.

Seokjin's tearful gaze remained fixed on Wakaï's unfathomable one until a bright light from the sky suddenly illuminated the ship as if they were in broad daylight. This made them break their eye contact and look towards the mast.

It was as if a star had fallen from the night sky to settle on the Princess' mast and grant it a splendor with which nature had not endowed it. The light swayed and made Seokjin and Wakaï's eyes sparkle.

A St. Elmo's fire, both men thought at the same time.

Seokjin knew that he should have been amazed by the beauty of this phenomenon or at least frightened by it because he knew that this beauty heralded the arrival of a terrible storm. Moreover, he could clearly see the wind filling the sails with force while the black sky was torn apart and the rumble of thunder resounded. But his tormented mind refused to allow him to realize the approaching danger.

He thought that the men should be told to wake up and raise the sails. Then he remembered that he didn't care: it was neither his ship nor his crew.

Wakaï looked away from the light and turned towards the sea, terribly black around the ship. Then he frowned as he surveyed the horizon. Maybe it was finally a sign of nervousness on his impassive face?

Finally, as the ship seemed to be tossed around by the waves and a bright flash lit the sea in the distance, he froze. Quickly and without a word, he walk into the hold, leaving Seokjin on the deck. He didn't give the admiral time to see the expression on his face but Seokjin was sure he felt fear coming from him and it wasn't something common.

What did he see? the admiral wondered.

He stood up laboriously, grimacing in pain, and when he was upright, he felt something approaching the ship. Something immense. It was one of those dangers far more dangerous than pirates, a danger coming from the sea itself which, when mated with the stormy sky, was unleashed. It was something deadly that sailors had to face and from which few escaped alive.

When a new lightning bolt, even closer than the previous one and noisier, lit up the sea again, Seokjin felt his blood run cold: a waterspout was heading straight for them, so large and powerful that it would make short work of the Princesse if it collided with it. It was absolutely necessary to divert the ship from its trajectory.

As he was about to run to take control of the rudder, Seokjin saw Wakaï emerging from the belly of the ship. Nothing in him expressed his nervousness, he was as calm as usual. Seokjin hadn't heard him shout an order and yet his men followed him eagerly, looking serious. He therefore calmly explained the situation to them, without appearing alarmed so as not to scare them.

Seokjin knew that in his place, he would have let his anxiety be transmitted to his men and would had shouted his orders to deal with the urgency of the situation. What kind of monster doesn't freak out when they see such a... a sea monster coming towards them?

Wakaï stopped near Seokjin while his men lit lanterns here and there to illuminate the ship and climbed on the ropes to raise the sails and prevent them from being torn. He was accompanied by Taehyung who seemed to be his shadow and who was just as calm as him. They were certainly among those who faced death with inhuman calm.

"The air column has not changed trajectory?" he asked Seokjin calmly without doubting that he would answer him.

After all, the admiral was an experienced sailor who wasn't going to let the ship he was on get torn apart by a tornado and swallowed up by the sea without doing anything. And that's exactly what Seokjin thought even though he hated having to talk to Wakaï.

"No, it's heading straight for us, we need to change course immediately!" he replied eagerly.

Wakaï nodded.

"Now go to-"

"Don't tell me to go back to my cell!" Seokjin cut him off, angrily, trying to face him at full height despite the trembling of his bruised body. "I won't hide when danger comes! I'm a much better navigator than all of you combined so let me take the helm and save us!"

Faced with the captain's skeptical look, Seokjin added:

"I would have other opportunities to kill you all without risking drowning with you."

Wakaï grinned and carefully observed Seokjin whose almost hunched position indicated that he was still suffering terribly from the whipping session he had undergone.

"Time is running out!" Seokjin argued, looking at the sea and pointing at the monster that was approaching them at prodigious speed. "Make your decision now!"

While he looked away, Wakaï nodded to Taehyung who immediately understood and walked towards Seokjin. 

"It's okay, I've made my decision," Wakaï declared.

"So?" Seokjin asked, turning to him. But instead of Wakai, it was Taehyung who now faced him.

With the speed of lightning, Taehyung thrust the sheath of his wakisashi into his stomach, before he could even make a defensive gesture.

"What the-" Seokjin groaned, looking at Taehyung in shock, then at Wakaï with a scandalized look, knowing that it was he who had given the order.

"I'll take care of that offspring of sky and sea myself, I don't need you," Wakaï said to him.

Seokjin collapsed unconscious against Taehyung who caught him, his hands pressed against his back wet with a mix of blood and water.

"Take him to my cabin and watch him," Wakaï ordered.

"Wouldn't it be better to lock him in his cell so I can stay with you on the bridge?" Taehyung protested, lifting Seokjin onto his shoulder.

"You will be of no use to me in the face of what is coming straight towards us," the captain replied before heading towards the rudder. "Unless your katana can cut the air?"

Taehyung lowered his head, not being able to answer in the affirmative.

"Then do as I ask, I'll take care of the admiral myself later," Wakaï ordered. "For now, I have to get us out of here."