The storm had passed, but the ocean hadn't forgotten.
Riku stood at the bow of the Hoshikage, letting the cold wind slap against his face. Dawn painted the horizon in ash-gray streaks, yet the water below remained darker than night—inky, heavy, unmoving.
It watched him.
He could feel it.
Behind him, Aya flipped through the damp pages of the old maritime journal they had recovered from Aomori's abandoned lighthouse. The ink had run in places, but the drawings were unmistakable:a tall, bald silhouette rising from spiraling waves—Umibōzu in its earliest recorded form.
"Riku," Aya whispered, "listen to this."
Her voice trembled as she read.
When the Black Tide rises, the sea becomes memory.It recalls every life taken… and every name whispered in fear.Never speak your true name on its waters.
Riku swallowed hard."So the ocean… remembers the people Umibōzu drowned?"
"It remembers everything." Aya shut the journal. "And it's remembering us now."
The deck creaked.
Not from the ship's weight—from pressure.
Something pushed upward from beneath.
Riku spun toward the railing just in time to see the water swirl into a perfect circle beside the ship, dark and impossibly smooth. No waves. No wind. Just a black, liquid eye staring up at him.
Aya backed away, clutching the journal to her chest."Riku… it's marking us."
The ocean surface bulged. A shape rose beneath it—a huge, rounded dome of a head. Bald. Dripping. Slowly, impossibly slowly, the creature pushed itself upward.
Riku froze.
He was looking at the Umibōzu in broad daylight.
But this time… it wasn't attacking.
It was listening.
The air grew heavy, thick like water. Voices—hundreds of them—whispered at once, some crying, some screaming, some begging for help. The drowned. The forgotten. The consumed.
Riku took one step forward, against every instinct screaming at him to run.
"What do you want?" he asked.
The whispers stopped.
And then, from the depths, a voice answered—a voice like crushing waves and collapsing mountains:
"Your name."
Riku stumbled back, heart slamming against his ribs.
The Umibōzu leaned closer, its massive silhouette blotting out the sun. Aya grabbed Riku's arm.
"Don't speak! If you give it your true name—"
The Black Tide's shadow expanded, stretching across the ship like a living stormcloud.
"YOUR NAME."
The sea quaked.
The sky dimmed.
And from somewhere behind them, something on the ship whispered Riku's name—but neither of them had spoken it.
Riku's blood turned to ice.
Something else was on board.
Something that had already given the monster what it wanted.
To be continued…