The water ahead of the submarine erupted into motion.
Not chaotic—controlled.
The smaller figure moved like a blade slipped between currents, darting in close, striking, then vanishing again before the Megalodon could fully turn its bulk. Each pass carved pressure scars through the water, thin violent lines where something had cut too fast to be seen clearly.
The Megalodon roared.
The sound rolled through the ocean in a crushing wave, vibrating the submarine's hull even at a distance. Karl felt it in his ribs, in his teeth, in the nanites still humming through the walls.
On the sonar, the contrast was obscene.
One contact vast enough to warp the scan.
The other barely registering, flickering in and out as it accelerated beyond what the system was meant to track.
And yet—
The big one was losing ground.
The Megalodon snapped again and again, jaws closing on empty water as the smaller figure struck at vulnerable angles: along the gill slits, near the base of the fin, across old scar tissue where regeneration lagged. Each hit sent brief spasms through the giant body, pressure ripples shuddering outward like shockwaves.
Agnes leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "It's exploiting regeneration delay. The core is compensating too slowly."
Karl swallowed, watching the shapes twist through the dark. "That thing is insane."
The Megalodon thrashed, tail scything through the water with enough force to flatten currents for kilometers. Stone from the ravine wall tore loose, pulverized into clouds of debris that drifted like underwater smoke.
The smaller figure vanished into it.
For a heartbeat, Karl thought it had been crushed.
Then it burst out through the cloud, streaking upward along the Megalodon's flank, leaving a dark plume behind it.
Blood.
A lot of it.
The Megalodon convulsed, its massive body rolling sideways as its eye flashed wide, core pulsing erratically now—brighter, faster, angry.
The ocean groaned.
Pressure spiked again, not focused this time, but spreading outward in an uncontrolled surge. The submarine rocked, systems protesting as Karl instinctively fed more nanites into stabilizers he barely had the energy to sustain.
VYTHRA ENERGY: 6% → 5.2%
"Agnes," he rasped, "I can't take another hit like before."
"I know," she said quietly. "And I don't think it intends to give us one."
The Megalodon stopped chasing the smaller figure.
It slowed.
Its movements became deliberate.
Calculated.
The massive head turned.
Toward them.
Karl's stomach dropped.
"No," he breathed. "No, no—"
The Megalodon surged.
Not a charge.
A commitment.
Its jaws opened wider than before, water compressing violently between rows of teeth as the pressure gradient collapsed inward. The ocean screamed silently as the space around the submarine was dragged forward, the vessel beginning to slide despite thrusters firing at maximum output.
"IT'S TRYING TO SWALLOW US," Agnes shouted. "Karl, the pressure differential is too strong—!"
Nanites flared across the hull as Karl forced reinforcement into overdrive, but the pull was relentless. The Megalodon's mouth eclipsed the forward lights, darkness swallowing everything but teeth and shadow.
Then something moved between them.
The smaller figure reappeared out of nowhere, streaking directly into the Megalodon's open jaws.
"Karl—!"
It didn't dodge.
It didn't strike.
It stopped.
The figure slammed into the space between the upper and lower rows of teeth and braced.
The Megalodon bit down.
Water exploded outward as pressure collapsed violently around the jaws. Teeth the size of skyscraper beams sank into the smaller body, rows closing, grinding, compressing.
The ocean shook.
The Megalodon's jaws stopped.
They didn't close fully.
They couldn't.
The smaller figure held them apart.
Karl stared, breath caught in his throat.
On the viewport, barely illuminated by scattered light and bioluminescent debris, he could see it now—not clearly, but enough.
Humanoid.
Small. Ridiculously small compared to the monster trying to crush it.
Its body was twisted sideways, limbs locked against opposing rows of teeth, water roaring around it as pressure tried to collapse the space it occupied. Blood poured from it in thick, dark streams, billowing out into the surrounding water like ink.
So much blood.
The Megalodon thrashed, muscles bunching, jaws trembling as it tried to force them shut.
Teeth sank deeper.
The smaller figure's body buckled.
And still—
It did not let go.
Agnes's voice dropped to a whisper. "Why is it doing that…?"
Karl couldn't answer.
He watched as the Megalodon shook its head violently, trying to tear the obstruction free. The motion sent shockwaves through the water, the submarine buffeted hard enough to rattle every bolt despite the distance.
The smaller figure was flung sideways, smashed against the inner curve of the jaw.
Teeth punched through flesh.
Blood exploded outward in a red cloud so dense it briefly obscured everything.
Karl felt sick.
"Agnes… it's going to kill itself doing this."
"No," she said softly. "It's choosing."
The Megalodon roared again, a furious, enraged bellow that rippled through the trench. Its core flared dangerously bright, energy surging as it tried to overpower the resistance.
The jaws closed another fraction.
Bones cracked.
The smaller figure convulsed, blood pouring freely now, torn from dozens of wounds.
And still—
It held.
One arm slipped.
Then locked again.
The Megalodon's teeth ground together, scraping, screaming as they met resistance they were never meant to encounter.
For the first time since it had appeared—
The legend hesitated.
The submarine drifted free of the pressure pull, the immediate danger easing as the Megalodon's focus shattered.
Karl slumped back against the console, chest heaving, eyes locked on the impossible sight outside.
The ocean around them was red now.
And in the heart of it, a small, broken figure held a monster's jaws apart with its own body, bleeding itself dry to stop something far worse from happening.
Whatever it was—
It wasn't fighting for dominance.
It was protecting them.
The pressure snapped.
Not from the Megalodon—but from the smaller figure.
Still wedged between rows of titanic teeth, its body mangled and bleeding, it turned its head.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Its face—what little of it Karl could make out through blood and turbulence—angled toward the submarine.
For a fraction of a second, the chaos stilled just enough for them to see it.
The figure's mouth moved.
Words were clearly being formed.
But this was the deep.
Only bubbles escaped, spiraling upward in uneven bursts, carrying whatever it was trying to say into the dark where sound couldn't follow.
Agnes froze.
"…Karl," she whispered. "It's… addressing us."
He couldn't respond. His throat felt sealed shut.
The figure's eyes—dim, unfocused, yet stubbornly present—held on the submarine for a heartbeat longer. Then its gaze hardened, resolve settling in like a final decision.
Something changed.
The water around the figure didn't just move.
It aligned.
Currents that had been wild and chaotic suddenly snapped into structure, bending inward toward the small body like invisible lines being drawn taut. The blood cloud surrounding it stopped dispersing and was dragged outward instead, forming spiraling rings.
Agnes's displays exploded with warnings.
"Hydrodynamic anomaly detected," she said sharply. "This isn't turbulence—it's forced flow. Directional. Focused."
The Megalodon sensed it too.
It thrashed violently, jaws spasming as the pressure inside them shifted. Teeth tore free of flesh as the figure was ripped loose, flung backward—yet it didn't tumble.
It hovered.
Centered.
The water screamed.
A massive current erupted outward from the figure's position, not like a wave, but like the ocean itself had been grabbed and thrown. A column of compressed water surged forward, engulfing the submarine in an instant.
Karl barely had time to brace.
"AGNES—!"
"I'm compensating—no, wait—Karl, this current is lifting us!"
The submarine was seized.
Not crushed.
Carried.
The world outside the viewport blurred as the vessel was hurled upward, the water around it turning into a roaring tunnel of force. Pressure peeled away in layers, depth alarms screaming as the ascent rate spiked far beyond safe limits.
DEPTH: 8,240 m
→ 6,900 m
→ 4,300 m
→ 2,100 m
Nanites screamed through Karl's nervous system as he fought to keep the hull intact, but the current did most of the work for him—stabilizing, cradling, forcing the submarine upward as if it were something precious rather than prey.
Agnes's voice shook. "This current… it's shaped. It's protecting us from decompression shock."
Karl stared at the readings, disbelieving. "It's… controlling the water."
"Yes," she said softly. "Perfectly."
Through the distortion, Karl caught one last glimpse below.
The Megalodon thrashed violently against the collapsing flow, its massive body dragged backward by the backlash, core flaring erratically as it fought to reassert dominance over the space it had lost.
And between it and the rising tunnel of water—
The small figure remained.
Hovering.
Broken.
Bleeding.
The current severed cleanly, like a blade cutting silk.
The submarine burst free of the column, momentum carrying it upward toward brighter, bluer water as the abyss fell away beneath them.
Depth alarms downgraded. Pressure normalized.
Silence rushed in where chaos had been.
Karl collapsed back into the pilot's seat, lungs burning, heart hammering.
Agnes's hologram flickered, her expression unreadable—somewhere between awe and horror.
"…It saved us," she said.
Karl closed his eyes.
Down below, far beyond sonar range now, a legend still raged in the dark.
And something very small, very stubborn, had chosen to stand in its way.
The ascent ended violently.
The submarine tore through the last veil of water like a thrown weapon, buoyancy systems screaming as the ocean abruptly gave way to air. For half a second, gravity forgot what it was supposed to do.
Then Tokyo Bay rose up to meet them.
"Brace—!" Agnes shouted, her voice snapping back into command mode.
Karl barely had time to lock his boots and throw nanites into structural reinforcement before the world inverted. The submarine skipped once across the surface, a colossal metallic wound gouging the bay, then slammed into the coast with bone-rattling force.
Steel shrieked.
Nanites flared white-hot through Karl's spine as the hull absorbed impact after impact, momentum finally dying as the vessel plowed into the shallows and ground to a halt in a cloud of steam, shattered water, and pulverized concrete.
Silence followed.
Not peaceful silence—just the stunned absence that comes after something survives when it probably shouldn't have.
Karl slumped forward in his seat, helmet thunking lightly against the console. His hands trembled, not from fear, but from depletion. Vythra reserves flickered dangerously low in his peripheral display.
"…We're alive," he muttered.
Agnes flickered beside him, her hologram unstable for a moment before re-solidifying. She looked… pale, for lack of a better word.
"Yes," she said quietly. "We are."
The emergency lights dimmed. Systems slowly powered down from combat-ready to barely-functional. Outside the viewport, Tokyo Bay steamed under a gray sky, the distant silhouette of the city rising like a wounded giant beyond the haze.
Karl pushed himself upright with a groan and looked back once—downward, toward the ocean they had escaped.
There was nothing to see now. Just water. Just depth.
He bowed his head.
"…Whoever you were," he said under his breath, voice rough, "thank you."
Agnes followed suit. She didn't bow physically—she couldn't—but her voice softened in a way that made it unmistakable.
"We will remember you," she said. "I promise."
For a moment longer, they allowed themselves to breathe.
Then Agnes straightened.
"Karl," she said gently, but firmly. "We cannot stay."
He nodded. "I know."
She raised her hand, and the air between them filled with light.
A digital compass unfolded in layered rings, translucent and precise, rotating slowly as data streamed into place. Ancient symbols overlapped with modern coordinates, ley-line geometry intersecting with city maps Agnes had reconstructed from fragmented satellites and pre-collapse archives.
At its center pulsed a single point.
Steady.
Unmoving.
"There," Agnes said. "The Erevos Prototype is beneath Tokyo. Deep. Shielded. Intentionally hidden."
Karl studied the projection, exhaustion giving way to grim focus. "Of course it is."
"The node is still active," she continued. "Dormant, but intact. Which means others may sense it once we get close."
"Demons," Karl said.
The compass shifted slightly.
The point pulsed again.
Closer than Karl liked.
Agnes hesitated.
"There is something else," she said.
Karl looked at her. "Define something."
Her eyes locked onto the projection. "The node is not alone."
The compass flickered.
For just an instant, a second shape appeared near the target—too large to be a structure, too still to be alive.
Then it vanished.
Agnes slowly lowered her hand.
"…Whatever is guarding it," she said, "has been waiting a very long time."
Karl cracked his neck, nanites stirring faintly under his skin as he forced himself to stand.
"Then we shouldn't keep it waiting," he replied.
Outside, the bay lapped quietly against the ruined hull.
Tokyo loomed ahead.
And deep beneath it, something ancient shifted.