"...Jahahahaha! It's only natural that you don't recognize me. After all, I've been out of sight for nearly twenty years."
A flicker of displeasure crossed Shiki's face, but his hearty grin soon returned.
"Still, you might have heard my name. I am..."
After drawing out the last word, Shiki suddenly and inexplicably began dancing in midair. After an energetic dance that was rather hard to describe, he struck an equally hard-to-describe finishing pose, then picked up where he had left off-
"...a rooster!"
Xie Wen: "..."
That ship's helm on Shiki's head had affected him more than a little.
"Ah! No! Shiki, that's what I meant!"
Without his subordinate Dr. Indigo beside him to point it out, Shiki held that strange finishing pose for quite a while before suddenly realizing his own mistake. He spread his arms and proudly corrected himself. "I am the captain of the Flying Pirates-Golden Lion Shiki!"
Hearing the name "Golden Lion," the Palicoes aboard turned to look. But after sizing Shiki up, they could not see anything he had in common with the "Grand Guild Master," so they all looked away again in disappointment...
This left Shiki, who had been hoping to impress them, utterly bewildered.
"Shiki? That name does ring a bell... Where have I heard it before?"
Before Shiki could ask, Xie Wen spoke first, drawing his attention back while also steering the conversation away from the Felines' strange reaction.
Given Xie Wen's mischievous tastes, he would normally have teased Shiki a little longer. But considering that he still needed Shiki to take him to those artificial Sky Islands later, the "kindhearted" Sapphire Star abandoned the idea of toying with him any further.
After keeping up his act of struggling to remember for a while, Xie Wen let a trace of realization and