"Praise be, to think I'd see my Chiaki wearing a captain's uniform while I was still alive." Kenjo Kurihara, captain of the pirate s.h.i.+p Barbarossa, couldn't hold back his joyous tears as he watched his daughter pa.s.sionately play the part of a gallant, miniskirted pirate captain. "If Chiaki ever does inherit the Barbarossa, it'll be after I've pa.s.sed. I'd given up on ever seeing her like this; why, she could hold a candle even to her dear mother."

"I'm sure the old woman is smiling in her grave."

"Keep those filthy eyes to yourself!" Chiaki shouted, pulling her beamgun from its thigh holster unnoticed and firing into the air at full power. "What's this embarra.s.sment of a costume even doing on our s.h.i.+p in the first place?"

"I mean, a pirate s.h.i.+p needs a captain in order to engage in piracy, so..."

"I don't wanna hear it!" Chiaki seethed, pointing the sawed-off muzzle of her beamgun back and forth between the captain's bearded face and his attractive, long-lived first officer. "I get that you needed a doppelganger, but it wasn't enough to pa.s.s the Barbarossa off as the Bentenmaru, you really had to make me parade around in this get-up? Don't think I won't remember this, Katou Marika!"

"I owe the Bentenmaru a debt that can never be repaid."

"We're the ones doing them a favor! Make no mistake, you bearded old fool!"

"Receiving confirmation that the Gorgeous Magi has surrendered," a rabbit-eared communications officer reported, summarizing the contents of the message. “We've got the s.h.i.+p's control codes in our network. Should I switch the bridge camera back on?"

Chiaki glared one last time at her father, who smiled so contentedly he looked like he had scored a ticket to heaven, and returned her beamgun to its holster at her thigh.

"Do it!"

"Mark, three, two, one!"

At the unspoken count of zero, Chiaki's sweet, smiling, pirate face returned to the airwaves.

"Well, I see you've been good little children. If you stay that way and do as I say, then perhaps I can guarantee you make it to your next port unharmed. The Bentenmaru will now dock with the Gorgeous Magi; prepare whatever gold and silver valuables you have and hope they're enough to satisfy my crew!"

Chiaki offered up an ostentatious wink and puffed out her chest for the camera. The rabbit-eared communications officer turned toward the captain's chair, stopwatch in hand, arms waving as a signal to cut the camera.

"Visual transmission cut! Next transmission will come as we dock with the Gorgeous Magi."

"The camera's off, right?" Chiaki confirmed glibly, but with her expression frozen. She finally took a breath.

Next to the captain's chair Kenjo nodded approvingly at his beautiful daughter and grabbed the captain's mic. He switched channels to broadcast to the entire s.h.i.+p.

"Listen up you nitwits! It's been a while since we've done any marauding! We don't want the Bentenmaru making fools of us, so give it your all and show them what real pirates look like!"