Crossing The East Sea

6 Ayumi

Shinsou spent the next few days trying to think of some way to get out of his predicament. He could, of course, resign from the Directorate, but at this stage it no longer seemed possible. Fujiwara, the Director-General, had believed in his abilities enough to have Aizawa seek him out and invite him to join, and Kaneshiro seemed to have expectations of him as well; he had said "don't disappoint me", and Shinsou realised that he didn't want to disappoint him, for he knew that Kaneshiro's Quirk had enabled him to look within him and see his potential.

There was also the possibility that the Shiramine was genuinely being used as a cruise ship and wouldn't go to North Korea at all. If the ship was really going to North Korea, Shinsou hoped that the port it docked at wouldn't be Wonsan, which was where Nakajima's ex-girlfriend lived. If it did dock at Wonsan, he contemplated the possibility of brainwashing Nakajima into doing nothing that concerned his personal affairs every time they were there. However this would incur his supervisor's wrath when he found out, of course, and set up a permanent war between them, something that wasn't desirable.

There was also no use brainwashing Nakajima into confessing his intentions to either Fujiwara or Kaneshiro. Shinsou suspected that the latter two might even be aware of Nakajima's plans, and were doing nothing about it. If Kaneshiro knew what Nakajima was up to, he didn't appear to be trying to stop him. If anything, he was carrying out Nakajima's orders to train Shinsou the way he wanted. So long as the team successfully accomplished the mission of finding out what the Shiramine was up to, it seemed that nobody was going to object to whether Nakajima was engaging in his personal affairs at the same time.

Shinsou could, of course, give in and help Nakajima. Perhaps things weren't as bad as he thought. Nakajima had been going to North Korea for years in the past, after all, and had been a competent agent, if not one of the best. He should know how to arrange matters properly. That is, provided he remained sober during the trip.

After agonising over all the different avenues that he could take, Shinsou still didn't know what to do. And so, he simply tried to put it all to one side in his mind, and continued with his training as he normally did. Ryoko, however, noticed that he seemed subdued.

"Miaow, you're worried about North Korea now, aren't you?" she said, looking at him in concern. "Maybe I shouldn't have persuaded you to brainwash Nakajima."

Shinsou scowled. He couldn't say that he wished she hadn't, for it was infinitely better knowing what he was in for than not knowing.

"Leave me alone," he said shortly, "If you want to improve things, focus on your training so that you won't add to my misery when we go over there."

He didn't have much time after that to brood over the matter, though, for Kaneshiro summoned him and Ryoko, and told them that the time was approaching for them to apply to work on the Shiramine. They would have to get the necessary certifications before they could do that.

"Shinsou, you'll be applying to work as a deckhand," he said, "you'll have to get a general purpose hand certificate. I'm giving you the website URL – go there and download the training material. It should take you about fifteen hours of self-study, and then you'll have to complete online assignments. Once you've done that, you're going to go for a three days' practical course on board a training vessel."

Shinsou glanced at the sheet of paper that Kaneshiro had given him. The training involved learning about knots and splicing, mooring and anchoring ships, survival at sea, collision regulations, and nautical terminology, among other things.

"Hirano, you'll have to be certified to work on board a ship as an assistant cook," continued Kaneshiro, turning his attention to Ryoko, "You're going for a ship's cook training programme, and you're expected to go there already knowing how to cook. You'll be learning about cooking procedures specifically for a ship, especially how to prepare meals when the weather is heavy, because the ship can be rolling quite badly during those times ..."