Disclaimer: Kannazuki no Miko and all its characters are properties of TNK Studio and GeneonEntertainment. They do not belong to me. This work is purely fiction and only meant to be a token of love and gratitude toward an anime series, a masterpiece that I truly love.

Note: Recently a reader just pointed out to me that I have forgotten to give credit to Andersen for writing the original story. That is true, and I definitely should. So, I apologize for my forgetfulness and extend my thanks to Andersen for giving me the very basis to create this fanfic.

CHAPTER ONE: HIMEMIYA CHIKANE.

Standing in front of the tall mirror, I quietly surveyed the reflection of the vessel of flesh that they had given me in what seemed to be a very long time ago. My facial features had not undergone any changes that I could see. Mine was still a heart-shaped face framed by long, flowing blue hair that fell almost all the way to my feet. My eyes still retained the sapphire color of the sea. My nose had not become any higher or lower. My lips never grew any thicker. What was no longer the same from what I had been born naturally with was my skin, the majority of which was hidden beneath the fabric of a white yukata. Before, it was so pale it could have been blue. Now, it bore the color of that of the folks who walked free directly under the sunshine. Before, it was slippery and impervious to any degree of coldness. Now, it was smooth as silk and did not do much to keep me warm against the winds blowing in from the ocean.

My gaze fell to my feet. I had not always had them. Nor those long legs with which Landers walked the earth and terrorized any other species. As far as I was concerned, what I was gifted with at the moment of birth was a long dolphin tail merged directly with my lower torso. I used to have a dorsal fin as well as a pair of flukes attached to the very end, all of which contributed to by ability to part the water and swim at a speed that no human could ever dream to match.

My name was Himemiya Chikane. I was no Lander. I used to be a mermaid who swam free in the warm waters of the world. I was one of the Eight Sages, powerful Priests and Priestesses of Yamata no Orochi the Serpent God. I served the denizens of the deep blue sea, whom had been wronged for centuries by the cruel Landers. As such, it was the greatest irony in my life seeing how I was currently clothed in human flesh, lived on human food, and even fell in love with a human girl.

My birthplace was Mahoroba, one of the numerous undersea cities scattered across the floor of the great Ocean of Everlasting Peace. My hometown, despite being just a small town of less than a million in population, was the most important place in the vast kingdom of the Merfolks. Here was where Shinkai Jinja, the Shrine of the Depths, home to the Eight Sages of Yamata no Orochi, was situated. As such, Mahoroba had been always considered the Holy Seat of the Seven Seas. The God we worshipped, despite bearing the frightening form of an eight-headed serpent, was actually a benevolent Immortal who cared very deeply about his people. Us. The target of his wrath was the Landers, in whose unfathomable greed had committed heinous crimes against the denizens of the sea. To punish them, he had sunk countless ships beneath the high waves and devastated many cities with great tsunamis on a yearly basis. Although it pleased the Merfolks greatly to see the murderers pay with their own lives, they also realized that the Landers were not going to stop. That was why they had been urging the Sages to ask our God to end this tragedy once and for all. What they sought was the Divine Wave, which supposedly would make the Ocean of Everlasting Peace more than just a title.

I did not share their thirst for punishment and revenge. I was, after all, too young to understand why they wished so fervently for the total annihilation of the two-legs. I was born seventeen years ago to the Himemiya, one of the more influential clans in the undersea world. My father, Himemiya Kyou, served our King in the capital as a royal advisor. Being such an important person, he could rarely come home. All I had with me since birth was my loving mother, Himemiya Kimika, who cared for me with all her heart. During my childhood, despite the absence of my father, I knew no sadness.

At least until my sixteenth birthday I did not.

On the very night that preceded my birthday, I had a dream unlike anything I ever had. In it, I saw something I never expected. There was no scenery of the vast ocean, no sight of the Holy Seat of the Merfolks, or any creature that dwelled beneath the surface of the sea. Waking up, I was terrified. Never in my entire life as a mermaid did I imagine that I would have a dream about a human girl, especially when all the knowledge I possessed about the Landers were from the stories I heard from the other Merfolks. According to the servants in my house, who claimed to have come to the surface many times, the Landers were at least seven feet tall, had horns and tails, and could breath fire.

They lied. The girl I saw in my dream was nothing similar to their descriptions.

Even after I had awoken, my breath was taken away every time I recalled her image. Her waist-length hair, fine threads of spun gold, seemed much shinier than the precious metal that the Merfolks dug out from the floor of the ocean and used to decorate the Palace of the King. Her eyes, brilliant gems of amethyst, were deep enough for me to dwell in for all eternity. Her nose was small, her lips delicate, her complexion the color of precious pearls, her face adorable beyond words.

I had never seen a lovelier and more graceful creature in the first fifteen years of my life.

Although the dream frightened me, I never revealed it to another soul. Having grown up in a city where the mentioning of a Lander drew heated stares and even more heated words, I knew that people would not take too kindly to me should I tell them that I had dreamed of one. Telling my mother was out of the questions, for I was afraid that she would come to hate me. That had been why I kept my mouth shut and prayed to the great Serpent God that the image of the golden-haired Lander would never again plague my sleep.

My prayer was not answered.

For every night that followed, the human girl reappeared in my dreams. She smiled at me. She laughed with me. She held me tightly in her tender arms. Oftentimes she kissed me on my cheeks. The first time she did, I had woken up with a face so warm it could have boiled the water around me. The strangest thing was that the kiss had felt so real I could clearly recall the texture of her soft lips, smell her fragrant breath, hear the beat of her racing heart, and feel her firm bosom falling and rising against mine.

Disturbing as it was to see a Lander acting as though she was my best friend, which I did not have, in my dreams, I did not dislike the intimacy. On the contrary, I found my fondness toward the golden-haired girl growing after every dream that passed. Before I knew it, I had already started to think about her at the oddest time. There had never been a time when I was more eager to go to sleep, I noticed. It was ironic how I paid so much attention to someone whose name and whereabouts I did not know. As far was I was concerned, she might not even exist.

My feelings eventually became violent. My longing for the mysterious human grew so powerful that I could barely get it under control. Every time her image surfaced in my mind, my heart would ache terribly enough for me to want to rip it out. I frequently experienced almost irresistible urges to swim all the way to the surface. Sometimes I thought that someone had had me in a leash and was pulling me up by force. I suspected that the main reason I never gave into that desire was due to the fact that my mother kept a very tight watch on me. Wherever I went, the Head Maid of my family, Kisaragi Otoha, but a few years older, would follow to make sure that I caused no mischief. Besides, any Merfolk less than seventeen years of age who came to the surface was heavily punished according to the King’s law. Perhaps somewhere deep within my heart, I was afraid of what could happen.

Then after a year of being torn between by unending bliss and inexplicable longing, my seventeenth birthday arrived. On that same day, I was officially an adult. On that same day, I was summoned to Shinkai Jinja, where the Sages resided. My mother had worn such a worried expression on her usually serene face during our trip to the Shrine in our family’s chariot, driven by a couple of gigantic sting rays, I could not help but be affected by her mood. By the time we arrived, I was feeling as though my destination was not the Holy Seat of the Seven Seas, but the Valley of the Sharks.

The Shrine of the Depths, a hundred-foot tall spire build from diamond-hard sea stones, stood solitarily amid an uneven landscape scarred by ragged ocean trenches and decorated by nothing but seaweeds. Since it stood at the bottom of a deep valley at least a thousand feet below the surface, it was blessed with no sunlight. The only source of illumination came from the eight-pointed star, eight lines of magically lit purple torches, centered by the stone spire itself.

I had seen many Shrines dedicated to our God in many other cities, all of them bearing such a look of grandeur and sanctity that they inspired me with awe and respect. Shinkai Jinja, austere and ominous in appearance, instilled distaste and a little bit of fear into the furthest corners of my soul.

It also did not help that only I was allowed to enter. My mother, to whom the summons was not extended, had to stay outside and wait. The worried expression never left her face even when a shrine maiden, a dark-haired and plain-faced mermaid, came to lead me into Shinkai Jinja.

As we swam in the still water that occupied every hallway, which looked more like natural passageways in a cave to me, I could not help but be nervous. Despite the cool exterior that I assumed in front of almost everybody, I was being slowly unnerved by the silence, the freezing water, and the flickering purple torches that made the shadows we cast on the walls appear something that had solid flesh. The other mermaid, swimming shoulder to shoulder with me, was perfectly calm. Sometimes, she would study me out of the corners of her eyes just to turn away abruptly when our gazes met. I could not be sure, but I thought I saw the look of recognition in her dark pupils. After a while, her surreptitiousness irked me so much I decided that I would either demand that she stop or force her to tell me why she was behaving in such a peculiar way.

It turned out that I never had a chance.

The moment I opened my mouth and spoke was also the one in which we arrived at the end of the large corridor, where I saw a large oval gap in the tall rocky wall, where the guiding mermaid pulled into a stop.

“Enter,” she gestured toward the entrance, “the Sages await.”

I gave her a nod and swam inside.

The Hall of Worship in the Shrine of the Depths was a large cavernous area the floor of which was carved with a mural that portrayed the shape of an eight-headed serpent. It was the Seal of Yamata no Orochi, our God. On the far side of the great Hall stood eight stone pedestals, upon each a humongous empty seashell was laid. All of them, except the one on the far left, were occupied.

The First Sage was a blade-slender Merman whose face was no warmer than the water in which he sat. His name was Tsubasa, a powerful Priest who was rumored to be able to wipe out an entire city with his magical abilities alone. The Second Sage was called Miyako, a bespectacled Mermaid whose skin was dark enough to give out the impression that she had spent her entire life under the light of the sun. According to the words on the street, her skin color was the result of a childhood being paraded through the streets of the humans even in the heat of their horrible summers. I doubted there was anyone in the Kingdom who harbored a greater hatred toward the Landers than the Second Sage did.

The Third Sage, a whale of a Merman, always had a large chain forged from oceanic steel wrapped around his body. Girochi, adopted brother to Miyako, suffered from an event no less traumatizing. When he was little, he snuck to the surface in defiance of the King’s law and fell into the net of a fisherman’s boat. Afterwards, he was passed from one hand to another like a soulless object. Although he managed to return to the gentle embrace of the sea afterwards, he had never reclaimed the courage to ascend to the surface again. As such, he was named a coward behind his back my many people in the Kingdom.

Korona the Fourth Sage, with her pretty face and with her brown hair tied into twin tails, was a young woman probably a few years my senior. Reiko the Fifth, looking no older than her fellow Priestess, had a face cold enough to rival that of the First. As far as I had heard from other Merfolks, the two female Sages were so insistent on staying by each other’s side that either one could have been the shadow of the other. Rumors had it that they lived in the same room, and might have shared the same bed. Seeing how the two of them could not seem able to take their eyes off one another, I decided that perhaps the rumors were not exactly unfounded. Although, I suspect that even if somehow they could work up the courage to express their love in public, no one would dare shout “Disgusting” to their faces the way they always would the others. After all, who would dare offend the Sages, who were closest to our God?

My eyes traveled to the left and found the sixth member of the Orochi Sages, who could not have been more than twelve year old judging by her diminutive appearance and her baby face. Although she wore a pair of seashell to cover her charms like any other Mermaid, she could have not have, for her bosom was practically non-existent. A look at her face told me Nekoko, who kept a catfish nearby like a pet, loved to smile. A careful study of her eyes, blue like the ocean, told me that she hid within herself a profound sadness. I had been informed by the servants, who seemed to know everything about everybody in Mahoroba, that the Sixth Sage’s family was slaughtered by a group of Landers who was convinced that eating the flesh of the Merfolks would grant eternal life. She was the only one who managed to escape.

Souma the Seventh Sage, blood brother to the First Sage himself, was handsome enough to make any Mermaid look twice. It was said that he was almost as powerful as his sibling. I did not know whether it was true, but I could see very clearly that he did not have the veteran look that Tsubasa possessed. Were the boy thrown into the middle of a raging battlefield, he would not survive the first ten minutes regardless of how much power he could wield.

The final seashell was empty. I knew why. My mother once told me that the Eighth Sage, a mermaid of transcending beauty and strength, had passed away a long time ago. Despite the fact that many Priests and Priestesses in the Kingdom had petitioned to fill the vacant seat, the Sages accepted none. Neither did they ever disclose to the public when or how they would start their selection process.

Also, it was noteworthy that however young the Sages looked outwardly, each and every one of them had lived for at least a thousand years. They did not age, they never took ill, and they would never die from natural causes. As far as the stories went, the final Sage only died because she was ambushed by the mightiest sorcerers of the two-legs. Not that her colleagues ever told their people how she died, though.

“Himemiya Chikane?” demanded the First Sage in a voice that matched his face.

“Yes, my lord,” I answered with a respectful incline of my head. A Priest would be made a Lord, and a Priestess a Lady, by the King upon Acceptance into the rank of the Sages.

“Do you know why you were summoned here today, girl?” said Girochi. His voice was gruff, the links on his chain clinking together as he shifted to a more upright position.

I shook my head. “No, lord.”

“Then listen closely,” said the Second Sage, her rectangular glasses reflecting the eerie light of the purple torches lit around the great stone chamber, “you, daughter to Lord Himemiya Kyou, have been chosen to fill the vacant post of the Eighth Sage of the Orochi.” A mysterious smile crossed her lips. “Rejoice. It’s not an honor any normal Merfolk can be bestowed upon.”

I was so shocked at the announcement that I could not say one single word for the next ten minutes or so. While I stared speechlessly ahead at the Sages, the latter silently studied me with a great variety of expressions. Tsubasa’s face betrayed no more emotion than a rock. Miyako’s amber eyes were shining with amusement. Girochi seemed bored. Reiko and Korona were eyeing me in what seemed to be a thorough mix of pity and sympathy. Nekoko was frowning as though she did not quite approve of what was just said. Last but not least, Souma himself was eyeing me askance as though I had done something to offend him. I was sure that I did not. After all, this was the first time I met him.

“But I am not even a Priestess,” I managed after a while.

“You do not have to be.” The Seventh Sage gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “An Orochi Sage is chosen at birth by our God. Normal conventions do not apply.” His words, despite sounding outwardly polite, were quite sharp.

His colleagues nodded in agreement.

“But I do not have any powers!” I insisted. I never had any idea why, but at that moment, my guts were telling me that being recruited into the Orochi rank was not what I truly wanted.

“You do,” declared the Sixth Sage as she gently stroked her catfish on the head. Her voice was squeaky. “They are simply lying dormant within your soul. Once we have awakened them, you would probably be as strong as any of us.”

“But...”

“There is no ‘but’,” the First Sage rode right over me. His eyes, harsh and hard, promised me that any more protest coming from me would do no good. Abruptly, the tall Merman left his seat with a powerful flip of his dolphin tail. In less than a heartbeat, he appeared a few feet away from me, his whole self radiating out menacing waves of aura. “Orochi Followers, let’s get this over with,” he growled.

Acknowledging his command, the other Sages rose from their seashells and formed a ring around me. Before I could do anything to dissuade them, they had already raised their right hands, the palms of which were directed toward me.

“Stop!” I shouted and attempted to swim away from them. Only that I could not. The water around me solidified in less than a heartbeat, consequently rendering me unable to move an inch to save my life.

“May the Lord have mercy on you,” murmured the Fourth and the Fifth Head in unison at the same time that theirs as well as their colleagues’ hands became alight.

As the water began to boil against my skin, heat bloomed fiercely on my back and made me feel as though I was carrying a burning log. Letting out a full-throated scream, I fell backward and passed out.

When I came to, I was lying on my back on the cold floor of the Hall of Worship, right atop the mural bearing the symbol of our God. Pain was smoldering under my skin, electric currents surging along my nerves. Upon realizing that the Sages were once more seated atop their gigantic seashells, all of which were still observing me with the same expressions that they had when I first entered this cavernous chamber, rage erupted from the pit of my stomach.

“How dare you?” I demanded heatedly.

To my astonishment, a wave of incredible warmth emerged from my heart. In a blink of the eye, it enveloped me whole and began to radiate outwardly. That was when the violence started. As soon as that wave of warmth came in contact with the water, the former drew an insane amount of the latter away from the far side of the Hall, where the Sages were seated. Shock seized them as a vacuum quickly engulfed and deprived them of the water, the air from which they drew to feed their lungs. Their eyes immediately bulged out of their sockets, their mouths opened, and their hands clawed at their throats. One by one, they fell painfully onto the wet ground. There, they thrashed.

Some of them fought back. The First, Second, and Seventh Sage, astonishingly enough, rose weightlessly into the air and flung their arms toward the great mass of water one smooth side of which pressed against the vacuum. Immediately, their powers were hurled toward me in the form of a wave of prickly icicle lances. Those were feeble attempts, I decided at a look. As though I had been working my powers for as long as I lived, I instructed them to take hold of the seawater around me. Vines of liquid then rose out of the vertical water surface, curled swiftly around the icicle shafts, and snapped them into pieces. A wave of my hand robbed the three Sages of their power of levitation and pinned them against the rocky wall on the other side of the Hall of Worship. They groaned out it utmost pain.

Stunned by the contemptuous ease with which I had defeated the mightiest magisters in the Undersea Kingdom, I could only stare at them in disbelief. After a while, I realized that if I kept on doing what I was doing, I would end up killing them all. Floating in the water, still and cold, I withdrew all my powers and braced myself for the result. The water, no longer constrained, rushed forward to fill the void and nearly destroyed my balance in doing so. In a thunderous noise, the great Hall of Worship was returned to its original state. Its masters and mistresses had the look of someone who had just walked away from a hungry kraken unscathed.

Watching the Sages gasping desperate for water, I thought about what Nekoko had told me before they proceeded to inflict that horrible pain upon my body. “They are simply lying dormant within your soul,” she had said. “Once we have awakened them, you would probably be as strong as any of us.” She was wrong. Judging from the event that just transpired in this chamber and the power pulses they gave out, I knew no lone Sage could survive my wrath. Their horrendous behavior earlier, coupled with the knowledge, wiped out the high regards I used to hold the Orochi Priests and Priestesses in.

“By your leave, honorable Sages,” I said mockingly before I turned around and glided in the water toward the exit. Halfway toward the oval gap, I was halted dead by the booming voice of the First Sage.

“Leave if you wish to die,” the cold-faced Merman declared.

“You should never have granted me these powers, Sages,” I replied coolly. “Now that I have them, your threat no longer holds weight.”

“You do not understand, Himemiya,” said the Fourth Sage. Her tone was so gentle, her face so kind, that I actually felt bad for having hurt her. I told myself that the next time I took my anger out on the Orochi Priests and Priestesses, I would go easy on Korona and her lover, the only two who had shown compassion toward me. “You know not a tenth of your strength. Without us to teach you, you run the risk of misusing your powers and having the rest of your natural life shortened to a heartbeat.”

“I think I will be just fine, thank you,” I answered stubbornly.

“You possess enough power to level Mahoroba, child. No one can predict what will happen when you make a mistake,” Reiko explained, sounding exasperated. “Are you willing to risk the death of everybody you hold dear?” Her words slammed sense into my head and made me realize that she was just trying to help me. Her sincerity nearly eviscerated my anger toward the other Sages.

Nearly.

“Very well,” I said in the end. “What do you wish me to do?” The Fourth Sage and the Fifth let out a sigh of relief. Their colleagues seemed to want to, but refrained from doing so.

“From now on, you will spend four hours a day in this Shrine,” announced Miyako. “Here, you will learn the way of power as well as your duties as a Priestess.”

“What duties?” I asked, curious.

The masters and mistresses of Shinkai Jinja exchanged unreadable looks.

“It’s for another day, girl.” Tsubasa waved his hand dismissively. “You have our leave to go.”

“I will leave you now,” I declared, my words leaving no false impression that I chose to go on my own volition regardless of whether they gave their assent. The Second Sage narrowed her amber eyes at me, but she said nothing. The difference in our powers must have stilled her angry tongue, I thought. Giving the bespectacled woman a frosty glance, I swam toward the entrance to the Hall of Worship. The mermaid who had shown me in was also the one who led me out of Shinkai Jinja. Since she kept throwing me sidelong glances that were filled with horror and respect, I guessed that she had witnessed what happened between me and the Sages. Not that it ever dragged a word out of her mussel-tight mouth, nevertheless.

My mother, Himemiya Kimika, said little more during our trip home in the chariot. Mainly she listened to what I had to say, once in a while murmuring noncommittal phrases like “Yes” or “Indeed” or “I see.” One thing I noticed was the lack of surprise on her part. She never once arched an eyebrow even when I revealed that I used my own power to subdue the strongest Priests and Priestesses of the Realm. She simply stared at the deserted rock fields beyond the chariot’s window upon being told that I had also been made a Priestess, and would be required to come to the Shrine of the Depth seven days a week to receive lessons from its masters and mistresses. Her lips were thinned into a straight line, her eyes troubled, and her fists clenched atop her lap. I never pressed her for the reason, however. Himemiya Kimika, when unwilling, would not give a straight answer even if she was asked whether she was a mermaid. She would tell me everything in due course, I thought.

As it turned out, she never did. She would sit motionlessly and stare blankly into the distance at the oddest time in the day, she would heave ponderous sighs seemingly over nothing, and her usual liveliness seemed to have never existed. The servants noticed this so they began to gossip at length as to what could have caused their mistress to be so depressed. She had taken ill, they guessed. No, she must be missing her husband dearly, they claimed. No, she had to be worried that her daughter would not be able to shoulder the heavy duty of being a Priestess to our God, they declared. A couple of them even had the gall to surmise that perhaps she was mooning over some pretty boy and planning to be unfaithful to their lord. Unfortunately for them, Kisaragi Otoha overheard their outrageous conversation. Needless to say, the Head Maid had dealt them such a severe penance that I doubted they would ever flap their tongues so carelessly for the rest of their natural life.

To my amusement, I realized that I was hardly concerned over my mother’s strange and inexplicable behaviors. Admittedly, I was rather worried about her health – her mood had left her appetite ruined since the first day – but I did not believe that I was harboring any sort of curiosity as to what secret she could be keeping from me. Partly, it was because the lessons I took with the Sages everyday had left me quite exhausted, for they pushed me as hard as they could, probably trying to make me learn everything in the shortest amount of time possible. Partly, it was because something else had occupied my attention whole.

The dreams had yet to release their grip on me. The passage of time had neither lessened their frequency nor diminished their intensity. Instead, they steadily and inexorably grew stronger. I usually found myself unable to distinguish between dreams and reality. I almost always felt myself caught in the throes of a powerful desire to swim to the surface and seek out the girl whose face had been engraved into the depth of my heart. I knew that since I had become of age, no laws stood between me and what lay above the waters of the world. There was nothing I wanted more than to find out who that golden-haired human was, why she appeared in my dreams, and how she managed to stir my heart so violently with nothing more than her smiles and her touches.

Yet, I managed to refrain from going. Young and ignorant as I was, I still understood that monsters lurked everywhere in the sea. I could hardly do myself any good if I ended up inside the belly of a shark. Although my powers were a force to reckon with, I was not confident that I could wield them anytime I wished. The Sages had proved to me, in a very humiliating fashion, that experience sometimes meant much more than the extent of one’s strength. They showed me that since I had yet learn to control my powers, they meant nothing in the face of danger, where my willpower and concentration broke down. I did not like being told that, but I had to agree their words made perfect sense. That was why I never surrendered to my desire to ascend to the surface and diligently stayed in Shinkai Jinja to learn what I was capable of.

As I expected, only Reiko and Korona ever expressed compassion and kindness toward me. They acknowledged my desire to learn with encouraging words and warm smiles. They genuinely wanted to teach me. While their colleagues were only interested in lecturing on how to torture or kill enemies with minimum efforts and maximum efficiency, the Fourth Sage and the Fifth taught me how to apply my abilities to more peaceful aspects of life. Sometimes, during the breaks given to me between lessons, they would pull me aside and simply had casual conversations just about anything they wished. Of all the Sages, only they treated me as equals. The rest of them viewed me as little more than an eyesore they were forced to deal with. Souma himself was especially hostile to me. He did not dare say much to my face – I guessed that was because he did not want me to pin him against the wall like I once did – but he always looked at me like an enemy. One that he would not hesitate to behead should he have the chance. I did not care enough to ask him why.

My days passed uneventfully in Mahoroba until one night exactly a month after I first came to Shinkai Jinja. That night I was sleeping soundly when a terrible heartache roused me in a most violent manner. Hand clutching at my seashell-covered chest, I thrashed on the bed, unable even to scream because a lump in my throat had smothered every sound I made. Even though I was completely immersed in cold water, I still thought that a flame was raging on every inch of my skin. A voice was screaming at the back of my head, urging me to leave the mansion at once and swim to the surface. The image of the mysterious golden-haired girl flashed across my vision continuously. Yet, this time, the desperate longing to see her was not the only thing I was feeling in my heart. There was also a sense of great danger and urgency I had never before experienced. This time, I could stop myself no more.

In the dead of night, when my mother and every servant were sound asleep, I hurriedly left the mansion and swam upward as quickly as I was able to. Strangely enough, I did not even need to look where I was going. A powerful force, invisible and irresistible, was pulling me to where I knew the girl in my dream was beckoning me, calling me, and reaching for me. Bubbles constantly surrounded me as I parted the water of the ocean with my entire body and plowed forward.

Even though I was already swimming as quickly as I could, the small distance that I covered every minute infuriated me no end. It was only then did I remember that I now carried within me a potential greater than that of any sorcerer ever lived. Cursing myself for having forgotten about such an important thing, I deployed my magical powers.

A deep sea current, materializing out of nowhere, caught me in its midst and hurled me along its rapid flow. In no time at all, it delivered me to where I wanted to go. Projecting itself from under the ocean surface as a humongous column of water, the powerful current tossed me headfirst into the air and allowed me the sight of what had been denied to me during the first seventeen years of my life.

The scenery was simply breathtaking.

While airborne, I saw a vast empty space spanning as far as the eye could see. Atop that space, separating the heavens where the Immortals lived and the endless surface of the sea, was an equally large and appearing seamless cloth dyed in the color of the night that was decorated by a disc of silver light and a myriad of twinkling sparks. I had read about them in books and heard of them from the Merfolks who had come to the surface and returned unharmed. That perfectly round disc, wreathed in such a tranquil and majestic luminescence, was the full moon, rumored to wax and wane periodically in the eternal cycle of seasons and time. Those sparkling dots, attending it like nobles would a queen in her court, were called stars, claimed to be the eyes of the Immortals who had nothing to do other than watching over the dwellers of the land and the denizens of the deep ocean. The maids in the Mansion always said with an impeccable certainty that those stars only revealed themselves at night because they could not withstand the dazzling brilliance of Amaterasu, the great Goddess of the Sun, during the day. Some of them even claimed that they had had a chance to lay their eyes on the famous deity during their trips to the surface. They told me she possessed a transcending beauty no imagination could possibly craft. I said nothing in response and thought that no woman, Immortal or mortal, could possibly outshine the lovely human girl I so frequently met in my dreams.

As the water column lost its power and disintegrated into a dense and terrible downdraft, I was still rising upward. Once I had reached the apex of my vertical climb, I fell down toward the embrace of the ocean. Surrounded by freefalling droplets of water that was gleaming like gemstones under the moonlight, I witnessed a tragedy taking place a great distance to my left. I liked to read during my free time, so I could identify a ship at a glance. Although the watercraft was so far away any other pair of naked eyes would have seen nothing but a small dot, mine, magically enhanced, could see it as though it was right in front of me. My lips tightened in pity for any poor soul caught onboard. The ship I was looking at was by no mean undamaged like those the pictures in the books had portrayed. Now broken cleanly into two in the middle, the great vessel, which must have looked quite grand when whole, was being caught in a massive whirlpool and about to be swallowed up.

During my descent, I sensed magic being deployed deep under the sea. My suspicion was confirmed the moment I parted the water of the surface and dove in, for I immediately saw three Merfolk sorcerers floating side by side and sustaining the whirlpool, now only visible as a tall downdraft drilling into the floor of the ocean at least half a mile away, with their own powers. In front of them was a humongous vision sphere, large enough to hold a hundred Merfolks at once, that allowed them to zero in on the sinking ship without getting too close to the terrible swirling body of water and endangering their own lives. In it, I saw the vessel disintegrating, its masts breaking, and its sails being ripped into pieces. People were screaming for help and reaching for anything they could possibly hold on to as they one after another disappeared into the gaping mouth of the killer whirlpool. The three empowered were laughing in great satisfaction and malice.

Narrowing my eyes at the magic users, I realized that all three were mermaids... and that I knew each of them. Nakashima Miho, Kouzuki Rikka, and Takada Izumi were all daughters to prominent ministers to the King himself. The first time I heard them speak in the King’s palace was when I decided that I disliked them immensely. Other Merfolks desired the demise of all two-legs because the former had been wronged by the latter in various and tragic ways. These three sorceresses simply killed Landers at sight because they wanted to and because it amused them to do so. No deep grudge. No hatred. Just a cyst of evil and malice for a soul for each. In my eyes, they were no higher than seaweeds.

I was about to put a stop to their cruelty – I only planned to command them to cease at once with my authority as an Orochi Sage – when my eyes caught sight of something in the vision sphere. My breath caught and my tongue was stilled as I finally realized why that inexplicably powerful urge had dragged me from my bed all the way to the surface of the ocean. It was because the golden-haired girl, whose name I never knew and whose lovely face I could not possibly fail to recognize or forget, was on that ship! Right now, she was being sucked into the vortex of the whirlpool along with the debris that was broken off from the body of the vessel itself. Her eyes were closed, her limbs motionless. She appeared to have passed out. My blood immediately grew cold. If this was allowed to continue, she would die. Anger surged fiercely in my veins at the same time magical powers spread like wildfire across my existence. My vision immediately became blood red. My mind was completely filled with murderous intent. How dare they harm a hair on the head of a girl who had become so dear to me during the last one year? How dare they put her into a situation where she would certainly lose her fragile life without my timely intervention?

Enraged, I flung out a hand toward the three despicable and ruthless witches. They were accomplished sorceresses. They were among the strongest of the empowered in the Undersea Kingdom. Together, they could probably lay waste to as far as the eye could see. Yet, to me, they were nothing more than a grain of sand on the beach. To me, who had no difficulty overpowering magic users ten times as strong as they, they were anglerfish trying to compete with the light of the full moon.

I could crush them in a heartbeat. I was going to. And I doubted I would be very gentle about it.

Nakashima Miho, Kouzuki Rikka, and Takada Izumi only knew that they were under attack the very instant it descended soundlessly upon them. Mouth gaping wide in shocked, they turned around to face me and had their eyebrows climbing off their scalps as soon as they realized who I was. They could do no more. The final weave of the spell had been laid, its effects irreversible. In the blink of an eye, all the heat in the water surrounding the puny empowered were completely removed. In the next, the saltwater froze and trapped each of them within a thick ice layer. Hurriedly, they sank toward the floor of the ocean. The last I saw of them were three faces painted with horror, bloodless and white as a pearl, on three unmoving mermaid bodies being consumed by the darkness.

They were not going to die, that I was sure of. The spell would unravel, so the ice would melt and release them before their life force was extinguished. Even though they deserved that fate, I thought grimly, staring into the vision sphere the three witches had left behind. In it, I saw that the whirlpool was dying now that its creators no longer supplied it with the power it needed to sustain its existence. Eventually, the water calmed once more and released its death grip on the destroyed watercraft as well as the people onboard. I hardly cared about them at the moment. Right now, all my attention was on the unconscious golden-haired girl who was being pulled into the depth. Fear overwhelmed me. My heart leapt into my throat.

Dismissing all else out of my mind, I once again invoked my Priestess power. A new undersea current was immediately formed and propelled me forward. It did not take the powerful flow more than a few seconds to take me to where the human girl was, swallowed her up, and ultimately delivered her into my embrace. Deathly worried for her safety – as far as I could see, the frail girl was not breathing at all – I poured all the power at my disposal into the spell and commanded it to bring us up as quickly as it could. The water around she and I could have been boiling as bubbles, emerging out of nowhere in an unthinkable quantity, engulfed us. When they finally burst and restored my vision, we were already at the surface, our head well above the cold water of the sea.

Examining the beautiful girl in my arms, I found fear and agony welling up rapidly within my soul. All her respiration has ceased. Her entire body, clung to by an outfit I knew the Landers named yukata, was chilled by the coldness of the ocean and was little warmer than the water surrounding us. Her chest was not moving. Her heart, to my small relief, was still beating although in an irregular rhythm. Chills slithered down my back. I could tell that her pulse was being weakened, her life being snuffed out. Unless I did something, and quickly, she would not be able to avoid death. I did not want her to die even though this was the first time we met in reality, and even though she and I belonged to races that had been at war since the last few decades. I knew that there was nothing I craved more than saving her at the moment. I had a feeling that if I lost her to the sea, I would live the rest of my days in heartbreak. I simply could not understand why.

I should try to have her breathe again, I thought in panic. It was then that I realized what was preventing her from doing so. As a Priestess who possessed a strong affinity to water, the element of life, I could sense very clearly that her lungs were full of liquid. Hastily, I channeled my powers and streamed them into the golden-haired girl’s body. Water was instantly pumped out of her lungs in a heartbeat and gushed out of her mouth. I heaved a deep sigh of relief and offered the God Orochi a prayer of gratitude the moment her chest began to rise and fall once more, however weakly.

Holding her a little more tightly in my arms and letting a side of her face rest on my shoulder, I called on my powers again and expanded my magical perception to seek the nearest shore. This human girl could not stay half immersed in the sea forever and I knew it. Fortunately for me, terra firma existed about a mile or so to our north in the form of a large island. Unable to be any happier, I crafted yet another water current, this one just right beneath the calm surface, and had it carry us toward the island itself. With my transcending powers increasing the speed of the flow every heartbeat, it took me and the unconscious girl, whom I was holding as though the most precious treasure of my life, no time at all to see the our destination looming ahead. Another few seconds brought us to the shore, a thin strip of land covered by smooth and fine sands that bordered a green forest to the north. Beyond it towered a mountain shaped like a cone the summit of which was covered by a thick blanket of what seemed to be white powder.

Normally, I would have been thrilled to feast my inexperienced eyes on the surface world. In any other circumstance, I would have marveled at sceneries never before seen. Yet, right now, I cared for them naught. Slowing down the current, I transformed it into a small wave that deposited us onto the sandy beach with the same gentleness one would employ to hold a flower. Carefully, I laid her on her right side upon the smooth sands and settled onto my left. My streamlined body caressed by the waves continuously rolling onto the beach, a side of my face propped upon my left arm, my ears full of the musical notes the saltwater was playing upon the sands, my mind reeling under the power of the emotions I was feeling in my heart, I beheld the mysterious girl’s breathtaking beauty.

She was already dazzling in my dreams. Right now, in the flesh, she was a hundred times as much. My throat ran a little dryer with every second I spent with my eyes glued on her. Unlike my skin, pale as the water of the sea under the sun, hers was much lighter than coral but every bit as pretty. As I placed my palm atop her cheek, I realize that it was silkier than any fabric that could be woven. The flesh it covered was softer than any pillow I ever reclined upon. I was under the impression that I would not mind spending the rest of the night lying here, looking at her, and touching her ever so lightly. A voice was buzzing at the back of my head that something very wrong was happening the way I was so fascinated by this one golden-haired girl... but I ignored it. I suspected that were the King to appear out of thin air and command me to bow to him in respect, I would hardly pay him any attention.

The rest of the world currently did not exist.

Blood suffused my cheeks as my eyes traveled beneath her lovely face. Her yukata, probably as white as the powder layer atop that mountain in the distance when dry, was soaked to every stitch, so the silvery moonlight had no difficulty in penetrating its fabric and uncovering just exactly what lay beneath. Her chest, little short of being bared to the starlit heavens, was gentle swells of curves and softness. Her shoulders and arms were slender and frail. Her hands, small and delicate, were clutching something very tightly even when unconscious. Her waist was slim, emphasizing her hourglass figure. Her legs, something quite alien to me, were shapely and no less beautiful than any Merfolk’s tail. Living in a place where hatred for Landers was as natural as water and abundant as fish, I had heard numerous of my kind criticize how awkwardly proportioned or ugly humans were. I thought it was because they had never seen a person as stunning as this. They would shut up as soon as they laid eyes upon her, I was sure.

It suddenly came to me that since the girl seemed so fragile, she might just fall victim to the coldness of the water and the night. I was not going to let any harm befall her, I decided.

A wave of my hand raised a water-repellent barrier around her. A second evaporated every drop of water on her body and hair and clothes. A third tucked her inside a blanket of warmth that would surely keep out anything that would threaten her health. Certain that she was now impervious to the harshness of Nature, I smiled and returned to caressing her with my hand. My fingers combed through her silken tresses. My palm rubbed affectionately upon her cheeks. My knuckles traced the outline of her gorgeous face.

Who are you? I wondered. Where did you come from? How did you appear in my dreams and unsettle my heart so? Why do you seem so dear to me although this is the first time we met? When are you going to wake up and teach me everything about you? I chuckled. I would like to know what you are called, at least. We have been acquainted for a year already, I cannot keep thinking about you without knowing your name. And I want to give you mine, too...

My maelstrom of thoughts ceased as I suddenly realized that I was being very silly. Merfolks and Landers shared no common language, spoken or written. Even if she could regain her consciousness this moment, nothing good would come of it. She would not be able to understand me, and I her, for the undersea denizens required water to carry our voice. Besides, perhaps she would not be very happy to wake up to the sight of a mermaid. After all, our races were at war, and either side would kill the other without much remorse.

It would have been much better had I been born a Lander, or you a Merfolk, I mused. That way, we could be friends, do you not think so?

She did not answer me. What did, were indistinct voices echoing from within the forest. Looking up, I could see the light of torches murdering the shadow lurking amid the trees.

Well, at least your people are coming, I thought. You are safe now, and I must not stay. Fare you well. I kissed her on the cheek and summoned a wave to carry me back to where I came from. Giving the golden-haired one last look, I dove into the dark water and headed back home, hoping fervently in my heart that a day would come where I could meet her again in the flesh. Little did I know that my wish was coming true in a fashion I never expected.