"Flesh&Blood" - Bonus Material for Vol. 13 🏴‍☠ ⛵

[ekg]

“Flesh&Blood” series home thread

Welcome to the “Flesh&Blood” Pirate Series Reading Club

This thread is about the bonus material that was released after Volume 13.

The following extra stories were published after volume 13 and before volume 14:

• 夜警: Originally printed in a special booklet distributed to those who purchased CDs 4, 5, and 6 of the drama CD series and submitted proof
• 告白: Printed in Chara Collection Extra 2009
• 嫉妬: Printed in Flesh&Blood extra8, a doujinshi published by 松岡なつき
• 翠緑: Printed in Flesh&Blood extra9, a doujinshi published by 松岡なつき
• 船出: Originally printed in 小説Chara vol. 21 (Jan 2010 issue), and reprinted in Flesh&Blood 外伝 女王陛下の海賊たち.

Which of the bonus materials have you read?

• 夜警
• 告白
• 嫉妬
• 翠緑
• 船出
• None so far

When discussing the short story(s) for each volume, let’s figure out:

• When in the books’ timeline this short story takes place, and
• When a new reader should read the short story for best “timeline flow” (i.e., after which volume and/or chapter.)

here you go @eefara

[eefara]

Okay, I have all the stories listed and a poll created; I’ll start posting scans starting with the shortest first in a bit. Notably, these are the last two F&B stories published in doujinshi we’ll read. Unless I keep finding more 船出 also rounds out the first published F&B Gaiden book, for those looking for an opportunity to cross something off their “official” bookshelf me. 夜警 is the second drama CD booklet, so I’m curious to see how it compares to the first.

[eefara]

I’m a bit behind reporting my reading here; over the past week and a half or so I’ve read through both 嫉妬 and 船出. I’ve updated both their details in the master 外伝 document, though I’ll need a hand verifying that 嫉妬 takes place when I think it does. Horrifying as it is to say, I don’t completely remember what happened at the end of volume 10. Anyhow, the deets:

嫉妬
This one’s in …Kit’s… POV! Which was a nice surprise; it’s his second story (that I’ve read so far). I don’t know why, I feel like stuff from his POV is harder to read. It looks like it takes place just before vol 10 ch 10, but I’d need someone to check me on that; if that’s accurate, then reading this after volume 10 should be fine, I’d think. It’s when he, Geoffrey, and Nigel are in Madrid, waiting on contact from 蛇 for news on Kaito; interestingly, the 嫉妬 of the title refers to Kit’s jealousy of Geoffrey, given his close relationship with Nigel (no surprise there). Kit spends some time wishing he and Geoffrey could trade places, if only for an hour.

Fun small fact we get here, I think this is the first place we get confirmation of the names Geoffrey and Nigel were traveling under while they were in Spain. Kit was Cristóbal, of course, but Geoffrey was ホフレ (Jofré? Not entirely sure of this one; I took the romanization from Gioffre Borgia’s Wikipedia page) and Nigel was Jorge (ホルヘ) (based off of St. George, since one ancient meaning of Nigel’s name is “champion”).

船出
I was finally able to finish off Flesh&Blood外伝 女王陛下の海賊たち | L33 with this story; one more from Nigel’s perspective. It’s the latest “prologue” story I’ve seen so far afaik; it covers Geoffrey’s uncle dying and Geoffrey taking over as captain. There’s no “best” place to read this one imo; I just slot it in after the read of the “prologue” stories.

…I’m pretty sure I had more thoughts on this one, but these last few busy weeks have swept them away. I gotta be better about posting sooner… I’ve only got three more short stories for volume 13; I gotta pick up the pace so I can get back to volume 14 (and have a break from the gaidens, haha).

I did enjoy this story, though; I really enjoy seeing G/N’s pasts in more detail!

[eefara]

Oh, nice; not as much time has passed since I last posted here as I feared. Just finished up 翠緑 (which my Japanese input keyboard refuses to guess for me…) in a push to get through the last couple of volume 13 stories I’ve been stopped at. Can’t believe I read through like four F&B volumes in January, then’ve been seeing such gaps since… Oh well; once I can get through the last two stories here, I’ll be able to read through two F&B volumes without stopping.

I’d recommend reading this one after finished volume 12, since by then you know that Alonso does indeed get his wish to become friends with Vicente. Alonso’s not even that much of a major character until Kaito moves away from the palace anyway.

翠緑 was an awesome little story; it’s the final doujinshi story, and 松岡先生 gave us a great farewell with a story centering around Alonso and the genesis of his friendship with Vicente. Takes place starting to before volume 1 and ends sometime between volumes 9 and 10, I believe. Gaaah, that’s one big downside to having such large gaps between me reading these books; my memory starts to fade as to fine details, characters referencing specific conversations, etc.

Anyway, we’re introduced to a young Alonso being sent to the palace by his father and being warned not to trust anyone, that the palace was akin to hell. Alonso takes this advice to heart, and some undetermined number of years later we find him relatively successful at the palace, but lonely. When he finds out that his hated cousin Antonio was beaten up after he groped a lady at Mass, he’s immediately determined to find out who would do such a thing. The more he investigates, the more impressed he is by what he hears of the mysterious young man, eventually culminating in just barely missing him as he tries to track him down. Some time later, after Vicente has brought Kaito to the palace, Alonso’s finally able to meet Vicente face-to-face, and by this point he’s determined to make Vicente a friend, since he seems like a genuinely good guy.

Vicente’s a tough nut to crack, of course, but that only eggs Alonso on all the more. Alonso also figures out here just how in love Vicente is with Kaito; seems literally everyone knew about it hundreds of pages before these two did… 松岡 even called Vicente 天然 in the あとがき。 Reasonable.

Interestingly, Alonso first caught the king’s eye during his investigation into Vicente, which was a nice twist of fate. And when Alonso noticed Kaito staring at him when they first met, his first thoughts was “the kid prefers blondes over black hair” XD. I can’t believe even he’s in on the joke… One other neat detail they mentioned during Alonso’s initial Vicente investigation was that Vicente was recently returned from Nueva Espana; I can’t remember if that was mentioned in the books, but I wonder where he was/what he was doing? Dang, that’d be interesting to see.

One detail I’d like to learn more on if I can: Alonso mentions (and I think this is mentioned elsewhere in the main books) that Vicente’s green eyes are known superstitiously as 魔物の眼 by some people in Spain. I wonder if that’s a real thing? Thinking about that led me to double-check the difference between 魔物 and 悪魔; I believe Vicente refers to Geoffrey as a 金髪の悪魔 or somesuch, and I was curious about the difference in how their “monstrosity” is specified. Apparently 悪魔 tend to be more human-eque demons, while 魔物 are demons/beasts without human form. Dunno if it really makes a difference here, but I thought it was interesting. Also brings up some thoughts now on a manga I like where the demons are called 魔物 despite a good chunk being physically similar to humans, but that’s neither here nor there.

Two mores stories left! I’ll try to read 告白 next; I started it before and lost steam since it’s from Kit’s POV and the man won’t stop using large words. @.@

[eefara]

告白 done! I maintain that I would have finished this much sooner if the POV character would just using so many big words. It’s a pain to go back to the days of looking up a word (or two) every single sentence. >.>; And since it’s physical only modern insta-lookup technology can’t help me…

Anyway, this is is pretty neat insofar as that, unlike previous short stories that happen at some point during a novel published way back, this one actually takes place during volume 13, chapter 8 if my memory’s not mistaken or @ekg’s notes for that chapter. I think we even have a few direct quotes from Kaito; it’s when he tells the group about his illness and Nigel runs off and Kit follows him. Easy recommended reading sequence at reading it right after finishing vol. 13.

Anyway, our POV this time is Kit. He spends the first half of the story reflecting a bit on his history, which leads into him pondering Kaito’s brilliance and trying to figure out what’s going on there. Hilariously, Kit had circled back to the tried-and-true “he’s a Spanish spy” at one point. XD He was, at one point, convinced that Kaito was some kind of devious super spy or something. Apparently it was Vicente’s letting a sick Kaito return back to “enemy” England that’s finally convinced Kit that the spy angle doesn’t work out.

Anyway, Kit tracks Nigel down outside and stops him before he can run off and do something stupid, and convinces him that there’s still things he can do to help with Kaito’s illness (helping carry him around when needed, etc.). Kit also seems to be interested in doing some investigation on his own on tuberculosis; I wonder if that will pan out for anything?

We get a nice dose of KitxNigel in this one, as always. It was a cute story; thank goodness it was so short, all things considered. I can’t imagine reading an entire book/series narrated by Kit; my vocabulary would have to double at that point.

Just 夜警 left now, which I’m pretty excited about; it’s the bonus story written for the drama CDs. I remember the last one 約束 being pretty cute.

[eefara]

Finished 夜警! This was a wonderful little story to end my vol. 13 bonus readings on. It takes place during volume 5, from three different POVs: Vicente (while Kaito is in the Clink, as Vicente plans how to break him out), Nigel, and Geoffrey (both of theirs probably takes place some short time before chapter 11). As the title indicates, all of these sections take place at night. Recommended reading spot would be post volume 5.

Vicente starts us off, and I was so excited to be reading from his POV, haha. It begins with him checking out the Clink, below Kaito’s window. His informant gets greedy, and Vicente disposes of him right then and there. He heads back to his hideout, a local gay bar, to meet up with Newman, who I believe was part of the breakout team in the main novel. Hilariously, Vicente is hit on by Cyril, who’s still feeling the sting of Geoffrey’s break up with him. I got a good laugh out of seeing him there. Man, Cyril doesn’t realize the full extent of what he’s wrapped himself up in… Anyway, Newman mentions that his friend “Arden” could help him get into the Clink, and the scene ends with him and Vicente going to their next safe house (since Cyril pitched a huge fit at Vicente rejecting him and blew any cover they might have at the bar ).

Next up is Nigel, who’s watching over a now-rescued, ill Kaito. He thinks on his usual lovelorn thoughts, but interestingly is now able to piece together that Geoffrey probably had a crush on him way back (at minimum) as he compares his wants and behavior with Kaito with how Geoffrey treated him when they were younger. This was a nice, quiet section; it definitely feels like night time, if that makes sense.

Last is Geoffrey; Nigel has a tendency to skip meals when he’s keeping watch over Kaito, so Geoffrey asks Drake’s kitchen specially to make a chicken sandwich for him to eat. Got a good laugh out of the kitchen staff being horrified that they were asked to make street food, haha. Anyway, the smell of the food wakes up Kaito, who’s slowly getting his appetite back, and he asks for one as well. Nigel rushes off to ask the kitchen staff to make another, and Geoffrey slides in to steal a kiss.

I’ve really enjoyed these drama CD booklets so far; they’re a little bit longer, and feel like they could very easily and naturally slide into the books. I’m especially happy with the extra Vicente POV sections, since we tend to go long stretches without checking in on him in the main books.