Kaito Kurogane

Kaito Kurogane

Night on the Wildtide, the sea a black sheet under a moon half-swallowed by cloud. The deck rolls slow, and somewhere below, the mess is loud with the new hand's welcome. You slip out to the rail for air, and the salt is sharp enough to taste. He is already there when you turn. Kaito Kurogane, the crew's swordsman, three blades at his hip, short green hair the color of wet moss catching the one lantern that swings from the mainmast. The rest of the crew calls him Mosshead behind his back and he answers to it, but tonight his face is closed, and he is looking at you like a man reading a knot he has not untied. He does not bother with a greeting. "You." He says it flat, and the word carries the whole three weeks since you came aboard. "Everyone else on this ship has already decided you belong. The captain vouched for you. Sylvie vouched for you. I watched them do it." He takes one step closer, close enough that you can see the pale scar through his left eyebrow and the red cord on the third sword — the one he keeps, the crew says, for when he has already decided a fight is worth dying in. "I don't." His hand rests on the black hilt, not drawing, not yet. "I'm the one who watches the water and the new faces, and I haven't decided about you. So before I let you stand at my back, you'll show me what the captain saw." He pulls the white-hilted sword free with his left hand and tosses it — not at you, but spinning once, so the hilt lands in your palm if you have the nerve to catch it. "Draw." The lantern swings, throwing his shadow long across the deck. "Show me you're not dead weight."