[h2]Dirk Messir[/h2]
Events progressed rather quickly after Dirk's arrival on the boat. The last few people turned up, some new guy began firing a blast that made the ship move really quickly... was that the same guy who made the explosion before? ...and then, to top it all off, another guy in full plate armour fell on to the boat out of nowhere and insisted that he was now a crew member, since explosion guy was also that. And then just when Dirk was about to start his speech about how he was in need of assistance to grow stronger, Captain Sunny fell unconscious. Ultimately, he was the one Dirk had wanted to discuss the situation with, so his unconsciousness was naturally a bother for him.

He supposed whatever speech he would make could wait until the captain was awake again. After all, he had plenty of time on his hands.

[hr]

[h2]Yuushuu Manor, Loguetown[/h2]
A little known fact of biology is that baleen whales can be extraordinarily loud, in fact proving to be some of the loudest living creatures on the planet as far as purely evolved means of sound production go. Many species routinely produce vocalisations upward of 150 decibels, with the calls of certain species reaching nearly 190 decibels, and the sharp split-second clicks of a particular species encroaching into the range of 230 decibels, though the rapidity with which the noise peters off often means it sounds quieter than its cousins.

[i]And yet surely none of these creatures can compare to the din my whale of a mother has been making,[/i] Yuushuu Yuudaina thought to himself drolly as he approached the noise's source, the bedroom of his mother and of his late father. Tall and strong, with a tanned complexion acquired from many hours of Marine work to complement his bright blue eyes and dark tousled hair, Yuudaina was a handsome creature whom many women would gladly lose an arm to simply be near. Indeed, his dear wife Alicia Vale [i]had[/i] lost an arm in years past, after an unfortunately-timed pirate attack took both it and her virginity; in spite of this forced deflowering, Yuudaina had taken a shine to her after but a single conversation, and it wasn't long before they were married, with a child along the way and an artificial limb replacing the one she had lost.

His fond memories were cut short by yet another pained wail of "SAAAIIDOOOUUU!!!", substantially closer than before. He doubled his pace, and soon found himself before the oak-lined gates of Hell, behind which surely lay an abominable creature fit only for bilious fascination in a zoo of some sort. Which was a shame, because he explicitly remembered an event in his childhood where she had calmly presented herself to the family in the most wonderful dress, and that all he could think was how beauteous his mother was. Those days were long past her. Twelve years in particular had been spent by her in a state of increasing despondency and lowering self-esteem, for naught once the ultimate cause of such mental issues had escaped the building.

He sighed, knocked on the door, heard his mother to screech "Oh, shove off, I need to get dressed!", waited another ten minutes until she cried out "Okay, come iiinnn~!", and finally entered the room. The place was decorated in a very untasteful combination of pinks, oranges, and disturbingly bright greens - not his father's choice, but he'd endured his wife's esoteric taste in decor until his death. Yuudaina highly imagined she'd also endured it long after it had outstayed its welcome, just to make a point to her partner. He glanced round before entering fully, just to see if all was in place, given her occasionally-destructive tantrums. Desk, check. Mirrors, check. Bed-

Oh, God. She'd been wearing the [i]see-through[/i] camisole again. The memory of the last time he'd caught her out in that slinky thing still haunted him, and he flinched at the sight of the object of clothing, before finally pushing into the room proper. At least now, she had on a very long blue dress which better suited her frame.

With a gasp, Yuushuu Kireina greeted her son with an unnecessarily loud exclamation of his name, and a hug he'd rather she hadn't given him. His earlier assessment of her looks held true - were he a less polite individual, he'd likely assess her rotund, tear-stained and overall unflattering appearance the same way his younger brother had, i.e. "fat old hag". As it was, he simply responded 'Mother. Have you been well?'

'Nooo, of COURSE I haven't!' she cried. 'My beloved Saidou is dead, dead, deaaaad! Oh, why would that little shit of a slave do that to him?! WHY?'

'Probably because he was being kept as a pleasure slave,' Yuudaina offered bluntly, for what must have been the fifteenth time since Dirk's escape. In truth, his opinion of his father had only been somewhat higher than that of his mother, less an object of disgust and more an obstacle to eventually be overcome; officially speaking, now that Yuushuu Saidou was dead, and though his mother technically still stood in the way complete with excessively-long mourning cycle, Yuudaina was now the owner of the Yuushuu fortune.

'Oh, toss to that! That bastard ought to have known his place, and instead he murdered the only man I ever loved and stole the most valuable object in our family's possession! We're bankrupt, bankrupt I tell you! No thanks to that ungrateful little shit who claims to be my youngest child!'

At least what was left of it. After the palaver Sugureta had invoked by buying that damned expensive Devil Fruit and telling the family's guards to fire the guy keeping all their slaves in check, their funds had been somewhat strained. It had recovered somewhat since then, but he worried his hysterical mother was hoarding wealth as it came back in, for the purposes of sending more men after him and whatever ship he'd stolen away on.

Speaking of which, Yuudaina had important news on that front. 'As it happens, mother,' he stated in a business-like fashion, 'you may be close to achieving retribution. The local Marines of Loguetown have learned that a very familiar face has been lodging with a group called the Red Hood Pirates; as of now, he's entered the Grand Line, complete with Supernova status for his crimes. Trust tha-'

'OHHH, well DONE, you wonderful boy!' Kireina interrupted, a distressingly wide, fat-stretching grin crossing her face at the news. 'Don't you know how much STRESS he's caused me over the years?! Oh, I can already feel the pounds just [i]melting[/i] away!'

'...trust that we'll soon have him back in our clutches, to do with him as desired.'

'Ohhhhhh, but how can I be [i]SURE[/i] you and yours will get him?!' the woman yelled, hands clapping to her face and sending the fat rippling. 'I'll have to make sure it happens, won't I? Look- hold on a moment-'

Yuudaina sighed knowingly as his mother bustled off, bending over- nope, he was looking away from [i]that[/i] sight with a grimace plastered to his face for the next few moments. He heard her unlock something, then pull out something heavy, close up whatever had been opened, and head back over to her son, now breathing heavily after her minimal exertion. The feel of a bag being shoved into his hands prompted him to turn back to the woman, and he hefted its weight with a contemplative, somewhat worried expression.

'Er... how much money is in this bag?' he asked, to which the fat entity who'd spawned him laughed in a way he was sure she thought tinkled just so. 'Oh, it's barely a trifle for the Marine forces, my delightful son! Only ten million Beli or so, nothing much.'

'Mother, our fortune prior to last month was only two hundred and fifty million Beli.'

'So? One-twenty fifth is only... er... five percent!'

'Closer to four, roughly speaking. But even so, we barely had [i]fifteen[/i] million Beli left after all that nonsense.'

'Closer to twenty now, and I've got a fund going to make more over time. So, what I want you to do,' Kireina stated, wrapping an arm round Yuudaina's shoulders and ignoring whatever protest he had been about to make, 'is to give that money to the Marines, and say in your strongest, most masculine voice:'

[i]Oh,[/i] Yuudaina thought, [i]please don't try to emulate-[/i]

'"Look here,"' came a rather high-pitched attempt at his own voice, '"my mother is donating this money and plenty more besides after this, and she wants you to send your best men out to the Grand Line and bring back that skinny little git Dirk alive and in one piece, so she can take him apart herself!" Got that?'

'Ten million is a pittance for the Marines.'

'Eeeeeeevery little helps, you know!'

Yuudaina closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then stored the money in his coat and said 'Of course. I'm sure they'll gladly accept the extra funding,' silently promising to take the money back to Alicia instead. She'd appreciate the emergency funding, on the off-chance that he died in the field and his mother squandered everything else the Yuushuu family owned in an effort to bring a single meaningless slave to justice.

'Oh, but what I wouldn't GIVE to be able to go after him myself!' the fat lady pined wistfully, hands clasping together around her son's neck- he managed to slip out after a few moments, at the cost of soaking most of his head in sweat- her eyes growing misty at presumably-disturbing and gory fantasies. 'You'll just have to do the job yourself, won't you, Yuudaina?'

'You do know, mother, that most Marines don't have jurisdiction over the areas they patrol, right?' Yuudaina pointed out, to which his mother pouted angrily, crossing her arms the way a spoiled child might. No wonder Suguremashita had left the mansion to seek her own fortune nine years ago. Apparently, she'd visited in the past month to pick up one of the family's other slaves for her crew, and was supposedly doing quite well as a travelling merchant. He couldn't verify that personally, but he didn't doubt it.

'Fortunately,' he continued, 'it just so happens that I've recently been promoted from Commander to Commodore, and can now pursue individuals into the Grand Line at my own leisure.' His mother gasped once again, and cried out 'REALLY?! Right past Captain, no less?!', to which he replied 'For my good work at hunting in the East and South Blues, of course,' before being all-but-smothered by the bear hug Kireina gave him.

'Ooooohhh, I'm so PROUD of you!' she squealed. 'My own baby boy, a Commodore of the Marines! I can only IMAGINE how much the extra money will increase our ability to start going after the slave boy! Oh, but you [i]will[/i] send some of the extra funds back home, won't you, my child?' she asked, finally releasing him from her grip. 'Please do, the family fortune...'

'Yeees, mother, that's been standard for our family's whole existence,' he noted. Certainly the entirety of his career, anyway, though now Saidou was dead, Sugureta had run off God knows where, and the costs of feeding both slaves and personnel had decreased, he imagined the extra money wouldn't even be necessary. Or rather, that his last remaining parent would dutifully spend it on both catching the pleasure slave and enhancing her own extravagant lifestyle. He'd rather she just died and saved everybody the trouble. Maybe he could finally move Alicia and little Francis in after all was said and done.

'You're such a good boy, don't you know, Yuudaina?' Kireina exclaimed, grasping his shoulders with a smile of what was perhaps intended to be cherubic delight on her face. Yuudaina simply nodded, then pulled himself away and moved across the room, reaching into his coat pocket to receive a non-existent Transponder Snail call, then exclaimed 'Wow, advances in Telesnail tech have been incredible, right? So quiet you can barely hear them nowadays, huh... I'm afraid there's been another pirate attack nearby, you know how it is...'

Apparently, the matriarch of the Yuushuu household was completely oblivious to even the most blatant of lies. 'You go and get them, my sweet child! Show those pirates what for!' she yelled, leaping and jiggling with a fist to the air. That, Yuudaina decided, was absolutely his cue to leave. Bidding his mother farewell, he set out toward the front of the mansion once again, ideally to never return, or at least not to do so until his mother's life ended. With his newfound rank in mind, he set his sights on the Grand Line...

And if he happened across a certain white-haired ex-slave, or any other pirate for that matter, then it'd be nothing personal.

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[u]Meet the Yuushuus[/u]
[u](or Yūshūs, if you want to use Romanised Japanese, but hell with that)[/u]
[i]Yuushuu Saidou[/i] - The patriarch and ex-head of the family, who held intentions to use Dirk as a sex slave in his old age. Deceased.
[i]Yuushuu Kireina[/i] - The matriarch, an extremely fat and ugly old woman whose only likely contribution to the plot is going to be sending ever-more-intense waves of Marines after the Red Hoods as the family's fortunes will allow.
[i]Yuushuu Yuudaina[/i] - The elder son, a Marine recently promoted to Commodore who intends to sail the Grand Line for his next pirate-hunting venture.
[i]Yuushuu Suguremashita[/i] - The daughter, who left the family mansion nine years ago, and currently bears the mantle of sea-faring merchant. Returned to the Yuushuu mansion recently to pick up a particular slave for her crew; otherwise, her current whereabouts are unknown.
[i]Yuushuu Sugureta[/i] - The younger son, who recently purchased a Devil Fruit on a whim using most of his family's funds, only to lose it to a slave. Promptly left the family mansion; his current whereabouts are unknown.

So there are the names you requested, [@CannedBread]. To all and sundry, you can use the family's living members in your own RP sections if you so desire, but please talk to me about doing so beforehand, and please don't kill any of them off unless I've allowed for it. I have significant future plans for at least one of them, and I'd rather those weren't thrown off for no good reason.

[@Renny][@JmerlRobot][@Tmitche23][@LokiLeo789][@dragonmancer]
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