Hiro Takeshi swore he would become the pirate king, and yet he had never left the island where he was born. He stood on the shore each dawn and watched the horizon. He wanted a crew that every navy feared. He wanted his name carved into the sea's history. But a captain needs a ship, and Hiro owned nothing but a dream and the clothes on his back. The fishermen laughed when he asked to buy a boat. They had none to spare and no reason to help a boy chasing stories. So Hiro walked to the old dock at the edge of the village. Its planks were split and gray. Its posts leaned like tired old men. Nobody came here anymore. That was exactly why he came. Under the shack at the end of the dock, a small skiff rocked in the dark water. Rope held it to a rotting post. The hull leaked, but it floated. Hiro grinned. One stolen boat was still a boat. He knelt and began to untie the knot. A voice stopped his hands. "That boat will sink before you clear the reef." Hiro spun. A man sat on the dock's edge, boots hanging over the water. He wore a long black coat and a red vest, and he had not been there a moment ago. His eyes were the color of fresh blood. He watched Hiro the way a cat watches something small. "Who are you?" Hiro said. He stayed low, ready to run. "Alucard." The man said the name like it should mean something. "I have watched this shore for longer than your village has stood. Five thousand years. I have seen a thousand boys steal a thousand boats." He smiled, and his teeth were wrong. "They all drowned." Hiro's heart slammed, but he did not let go of the rope. "Then I'll be the first who doesn't." Alucard laughed, low and pleased. He reached into his coat and set something on the planks. A fruit. Its skin swirled with purple, green, and red, like a storm trapped under glass. It smelled of nothing Hiro knew. "The boat won't carry you," Alucard said. "But this will carry you further than any boat. Eat it, and the sea stops being your enemy." He stood. "Or paddle out and feed the fish. The choice amuses me either way." Hiro looked at the leaking skiff. He looked at the fruit. He thought of every fisherman who had laughed at him. Then he picked up the fruit and bit down. It tasted like rot and fire. He gagged, swallowed, and fell to his knees on the splintered dock. His whole body burned. When he opened his eyes, Alucard was gone. The boat was still too weak to cross the sea. But something inside Hiro had changed, and he could feel it moving under his skin.