Ah, that would make sense!
Ah, thank you! That makes sense! Phew, Kaito’s got so many things bottled up inside; it’s painful to read at this point, haha. It’s going to be a relief when it all comes out, no matter the consequences.
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Also, I was wondering, during chapter 5, did Geoffrey give Nigel a thumbs up as the “sign language” that everything was going well at the tail end of their performance with ウォード? 
It said he raised his thumb or something, and that’s the first thing that came to mind.
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I can’t actually remember the passage, but I bet Jeoffrey would belike 
wink wink to Nigel, ss soon as Ward turned his back on him. 
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Chapter 7; the truth comes out. 
Must keep reading…
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Chapter 7 chat
This is such a sad chapter. 
But the chapter art is lovely. 
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Alright; so I finished chapter 8 as well, because there wasn’t any possible way I couldn’t have continued to read it. (Both chapter 7 and 8 thoughts:) I had a feeling things might turn out like this; Kaito never quite worked up the nerve to tell Geoffrey straight out; heck, even after G found out Kaito couldn’t tell Nigel, and had Lily tell him instead. Maybe it’s for the best they found out like they did; Kaito still seems relatively healthy for the moment, and can hopefully still enjoy his time with them.
Lily said there might be some herb traditionally used to treat TB, but I have to wonder. Way back in like volume 11 or whenever, I was wondering if Kaito’s illness was going to be solved/interlinked in some way with Kazuya’s potential re-entry on the stage, and I’m still wondering that. It would be an extremely bold move for 松岡先生 to kill off Kaito entirely, and would feel like too much of a deus ex machina for him to just randomly get better, so I’m wondering if modern day medicine is going to be the honey that sweetens the deal to send Kaito back home. Geoffrey had a moment at the end of chapter 7 wondering what he would do in Vicente’s situation, whether he could send Kaito away somewhere he couldn’t follow for Kaito’s own good. Sounds like foreshadowing to me. 
I’m glad we got some Geoffrey POV for this section; it helps to soften things, I feel; Kaito’s got way too much going on up in his head, and it can get overwhelming, especially if you’re only reading a chapter at a time. Geoffrey’s worried about completely different things (at least up until this point), so it made a nice change of pace.
Again my thoughts turn to Nigel; I really really hope he gets a larger part in this story arc. I already felt like Kaito’s return to England was rushed; we got like 1 chapter on the Gloria and that was it. He’s dying, Nigel, be more than a periphery character. 
It was pretty slick of Kaito to arrange that Lily also stays in Geoffrey’s house. Speaking of, that illustration of her is not how I imagined her at all, haha. The glow up is real. I think chapter 8 even described her as “husky”; I was expecting a larger woman. Anyway, Lily is great and reliable like always; I’m a big fan of her.
Isn’t it though? Geoffrey even looks like he has flowers in his hair, I thought, with the soap bubbles? It’s a lovely scene.
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Ah, I already had her voice in my head, so I did imagine her something like this. But, from the story alone, you wouldn’t I guess? I can’t remember how she’s initially described, but yeah, my image is basically all formed from her voice actress. ^^’
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Geoffrey’s morphing into this into my head as I listen to more of the drama CDs. 
At least, my internal voice for him is.
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Well, I had voices for all of them before starting reading, so yeah, that does change things I feel. I do think it’s an incredibly strong cast. No real mistakes really, but all voices are suited for their roles. 
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Phew, all right! I’ve picked up F&B again (man, how time gets away from me) and read through chapter 9. Most of the chapter is Lily and Kaito chatting, first about Nigel and his concern for Kaito becoming a bit too overbearing, and then their current thoughts on when the time tunnel’s going to open up.
I don’t have much to say here; to be honest, while I was checking out chapter 10 and saw that it seems to be from Vicente’s perspective, I got so excited I almost didn’t pause to jot a note here in the thread, haha. Thank goodness we (hopefully) aren’t taking any sort of long hiatus from him; it’s hard enough with all the disrespect my boy Nigel is currently receiving.
I did have a question from the beginning of the chapter while I’m here, though:
海斗も似たような返事をして、ナイジェルの手元をじっと見つめる。その長い指先が踊るのは、ルーファス作の西洋将棋盤だ。ゆうべのうちに一手進めておいたカイトに、彼がどう返してくるのかも、毎朝の楽しみになっていた。
And then basically the rest of the paragraph and the next one; I won’t type it all out here. Anyway, I was having trouble figuring out what was being described in this scene. As far as I can tell, Nigel is visiting to play chess with Kaito (and letting Kaito win occasionally), but for whatever reason I’m having trouble understanding more than that. I was also a bit surprised to hear that Kaito didn’t know how to play chess previously.
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Chapter 10 read; I absolutely had to know what’s going on with Vicente’s side of things. As expected, the poor man is an absolute wreck. Unexpectedly adding on to that, however, is the fact that Raul somehow managed to escape. 
Ugh, that guy never stops. Well, maybe he’ll stay away from Kaito from now on since he knows the kid’s under a death sentence anyway.
Alonso continues being a bro, trying to take some of the blame for their recent failures as they brief the king on everything. King Philip is fairly understanding about it all; as he points out, Alonso and Vicente are clearly good men, and he’d be stupid to throw them away over this. He does take command of the Santiago away from Vicente, though to be honest I’m betting it’s just as set-up to Vicente’s post on one of the flagships during the Armada invasion. Vicente wasn’t too happy about it before, so it would make sense for the king to take this opportunity.
Speaking of not being too happy, this whole thing with Kaito was enough to depress Vicente enough to start questioning his religious views. Very interesting thoughts he’s been having: if Raul, an objectively terrible person, can live life carefree, but Kaito, a good person, suffers a life-threatening illness, how can Vicente justify the existence of a caring God?
After that conversation, Jan Grifus unexpectedly comes up in conversation; apparently he’s also disappeared along with Raul. Alonso and Vicente are wondering if he’s simply meeting up with Raul as a loyal servant, but I have to wonder… I wonder what they would think of Jan’s connection to Geoffrey. 
Alonso tries to comfort Vicente in a sweet scene, reminding him that his decision to let Kaito go was a very happy one for Kaito.
They’re concerned that Raul may still go after Kaito, and Vicente’s not sure how he’ll warn Kaito of the danger. He mentions sending a letter; I wonder how that works between countries in the 16th century?
Also, this is the first time we’ve seen King Philip in illustration form! He’s looking very handsome; I notice the artist left out his enormous Hapsburg chin, haha.
Right? He’s a good villain to keep around. Despicable, but not invincible.
That was such a sweet scene. 
Vicente really lucked out making a friend of Alonso.
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My attempt at a translation as detailed as I can:
Kaito gave a similar response, while watching Nigel’s fingers. Beyond, those long fingers was the chessboard Rufus had made. Last night’s game had stopped with Kaito one move ahead [next move is nigel’s]. Every morning, [Kaito] had started looking forward to seeing what move he [Nigel] would make [どう返してくる].
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Artistic freedom is the best type of freedom! XD
Also, this is such an interesting chapter. From Vincente’s religious doubts to Alonso being the best bro there is! 
As you say, Vincente loosing his command is a build up to things to come clearly. the war is still some ways off, but things are defo moving forward plotwise. We’ll see more of Vincent - and Jan and Raul on the loose! ^^’
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Oooh, thank you so much. 
Now that you type it out, it’s easier to pinpoint that 一手進めておいたカイト was really throwing me off; I couldn’t tell what I wasn’t reading right, haha. Just one of those times where I’m having trouble putting the whole sentence in context and then everything’s confusing. I’ve also never encountered people talking about board games as such either, so whatever typical vocab is used (even if it’s normal vocab) just went right over my head.
Yes, chapter 10 was excellent, despite how modest of a scene it ended up being. Can’t wait for the Spain crew to jump back into the main thick of things. 
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Now that I think about it, I might have learnt about vocab for boardgames in general from watching Hikaru no Go! 
Thinking some more about it, but I have defo encountered this phrase in many different contexts. It’s not just for “replying” literally, but more in a generalized way. So, whatever means are part of that exchange between two people. You can defo use it in sports. Or acting against someone, for example. So, some sort of response between people.
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Alrighty! I finished volume 13 back on Saturday; what a great ending! 松岡先生 is really good with those gotcha endings, I must say.
Chapter 11
We start off with another coughing attack; Kaito coughs up blood again. Nigel and Geoffrey have an argument about Lily’s effectiveness while Kaito’s unconscious; interestingly, Nigel’s all for kicking her and getting a real doctor.
Kaito gets to drink some nasty herbal medicine; poor guy. Hopefully it’s effective, haha. Anyway, he and Lily get to chat a bit after Geoffrey leaves, and she finally suggests the idea that I’m sure we’ve all been considering: what if you jumped back to your original time/world? They have medicine for TB there. Of course Kaito rejects the idea, but the seed’s been planted. 
He certainly doesn’t want to die, and neither do G/N. I’m pretty convinced at this point he’ll make the jump to get cured, but I’m curious if he’ll bring G/N up to speed on everything before that. Seems too cruel for him to just vanish one day.
And here we come to The Big One™. Maaaaan. What a cool scene. Kazuya’s figured out he miscalculated the time for the fairy portal, and it’s actually now, so he runs over and gets sucked in (probably while making a cool pose) while the police detective watches in horror. I was panicking right along Kaito: “Come on! Let’s go, let’s go! Got to get to Kazuya!”
Kaito does just that, sneaking out of the house, and is almost immediately caught by Geoffrey. Thankfully Lily’s able to back him up to convince Geoffrey to let him go to the Hoe, and all three head out.
Chapter 12
Surprisingly, we swap to Geoffrey’s perspective for this last, short chapter. It’s a good choice, though: we can see how bewildered he is at Kaito’s actions, and how he’s pretty certain at this point that Lily and Kaito are in on something together. Interestingly, he doesn’t seem to think it’s anything sinister; he mostly just tells himself not to be jealous that Kaito’s keeping secrets with someone other than him.
Anyway, finding Kazuya is a bust. I’m wondering if Kaito’s dream was another one of the future again; real hard to tell when Kazuya wasn’t staring at a calendar, but at least this gives him forewarning. Man, I wonder if these prophetic dreams will ever be explained? I don’t know if they could be explained well, to be honest; might be best to just leave them as-is.
Anyway, this was a great scene, with Kazuya not actually being there. We know it’s going to happen eventually, and likely under even more dramatic circumstances than Kaito sneaking out in the middle of the night. I hope Lily and Nigel are there when he does show up; I need maximum drama!
Overall, a very solid book; Kaito’s illness comes out to the forefront, and things with Kazuya are looking imminent. Even Vicente popped in for a quick hello~ As excited as I am to read volume 14, I’ll probably try to read a few of the short stories published in between this and that one. Reading 船出 will let me check Flesh&Blood外伝 女王陛下の海賊たち | L33?? off my list, and I love checking them off. 
Checking in on @NicoleIsEnough; how’s it going? Think you’ll be able to rejoin us anytime soon? (I say us; I’m just turtling along after @ekg, haha.)
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Will need to get off the boat now, but I’ll be back with a comment once Ive read yours! <3
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Finally getting into volume 13. I didn’t realize how late I actually am to starting this volume, the forum gave me a pop-up asking if I really wanted to revive a topic after 6 months. Gonna try and keep this brief because I want to go read the next chapter 
Chapter 1
Seems like we’re starting off pretty directly after the last volume. Now that he’s more sure of his illness, Kaito’s stuck trying to quarantine himself the best he can for the journey home. Having to deal with the guilt and stress of continuing to lie to everyone about his sickness on top of the dealing with being sick seems like a lot to handle, it really seems like he should come clean sooner than later. Seems like Geoffrey already senses something is up. Outside of that Kaito also has to try and navigate a whole new relationship dynamic with Nigel now that he’s being more open about his feelings. Their interactions feel a lot more stilted at the moment.
It was interesting seeing how Kaito’s thoughts on his mother have changed from the beginning of the series. He seems to think about her in a much more balanced way now and I feel like that shows a lot of character growth.
Chapter 2
Geoffrey and Kit discuss how to deal with Walsingham once they get back to England. They plan to send Kaito and Kit off first on a small boat to enter by river and meet up after the rest convince Walsingham’s henchman that they failed to rescue Kaito. Turns out Kit and Geoffrey have realized that Kaito is hiding something but Geoffrey doesn’t want to push the issue until Kaito is willing to talk about it himself.
Chapter 3
Kaito and Kit split off as the they put the plan into action. Kaito and Kit is an interesting duo, I don’t think there’s been a lot of situations before where it’s just the two of them. It’s nice for Kaito to have someone who he can have a frank conversation with that isn’t into him lol. That conversation about lies and things eventually coming to light makes me feel like it won’t be long before what Kaito is hiding comes out. He definitely needs to come clean about his illness but I wonder if there’s going to be a point in the story where he’ll be able to tell the truth about where he’s really from as well.
Now onto the next chapter!
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Oooh, very exciting! I’ll be reading your thoughts with interest!
Just when the forum thinks F&B has died, we revive!
Chapter 1 spoilers
Man, their convos were so awkward; poor Kaito’s just like, “please, I can’t deal with this right now”, haha. Nigel’s also surprisingly direct when he needs to be. (At least, more direct than I imagined him being, though granted you’re going to need an edge somewhere if you’re competing against Geoffrey…)
I was really surprised to see this section! I wasn’t expecting a revisit to his mother, and we got a much more balanced view of things, I think. It really does show some good growth on Kaito’s side for sure; far different from the “she’s ruining my life!” mentality before. I’d love an aside where his mom thinks about her own relationship with Kaito, but that’s probably pretty unlikely.
Chapter 2 spoilers
I also thought this was a nice touch, given how jealous we’ve seen Geoffrey can be (the most recent example that comes to mind is him telling Kaito to get rid of the clothes Vicente gave him). Granted, it could be he’s just a bit more level-headed when other men aren’t obviously involved, but I still liked it.
Chapter 3 spoilers
Also agreed here. Kit’s such a fun character; I’m really glad he’s gotten as much screentime as he has. (Even if reading from his POV is somehow 50% harder because of all the big words he throws around. @.@)
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Chapter 2
Yeah I liked it too. I feel like there’s been some character growth there as well. He still has some of that insecurity (especially if Vicente is involved lol) but he seems more self aware about it. I think it also shows growth in their relationship, with everything that’s happened by this point they have some pretty strong trust between each other.
My memory from some of the earlier volumes is starting to get a bit more fuzzy (that long gap hasn’t helped 
) I can’t remember if I’ve seen a Kit POV 
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