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A lump sat heavy in Sosuke’s dry throat. The pristine high school building loomed ahead of him, like some sort of impenetrable fortress of pain and mystery. He shuffled toward the front gates and wondered if it was too late for him to go back to homeschooling,Lisa, Sosuke’s mother, insisted that he and Ponyo attend a real high school. She said that it was important for the teens to get to know other kids their age. Sosuke didn’t doubt that logic, but that didn’t make it any easier to throw himself into a brand new, and quite frankly, terrifying situation.If Ponyo hadn’t been there to gently push him forward, Sosuke probably wouldn’t have gone inside. He might have just stood at the threshold of the building all day, hesitating until he convinced himself he belonged at home.Ponyo placed a calm hand on his small back and nudged him beyond the front gates. “You will be fine,” the red head insisted as she walked with Sosuke through the front doors. The two lingered just inside the entrance as Sosuke took a deep breath and mustered the courage that was buried deep inside of him.All around them, students were strolling leisurely to their classrooms. It was the first day of school, but everyone seemed to already have a place. Even fellow first years, indicated by the light blue ties they wore around their necks, seemed at ease in this place. Sosuke wished he could conduct himself with such confidence. He counted himself lucky that he had Ponyo with him, and that he just so happened to be sorted into the same homeroom class as she was. With Ponyo around, Sosuke figured he could get through anything.After the young man had the chance to gather himself, Ponyo took his arm in hers and strolled with him through the halls toward their classroom.Ponyo had grown quite tall in the past few years and she towered over everyone in the corridors—even the boys. Sosuke, on the other hand, had reached a bit of a plateau in his growth and found himself stuck at the measly stature of 4’11”. Ponyo told him not to worry about it. She said that his growth spurt would come, but Sosuke seriously doubted it. He tried to not let his height bother him, but that was easier to do when he wasn’t walking through a hallway where everyone was at least a couple inches taller than himself. Ponyo chattered at Sosuke, sensing his discomfort. “I hope our homeroom teacher is nice!” she exclaimed, tucking her awkwardly long red bangs behind her rounded, freckled ear. Her bushy ponytail swished gently with each step she took. “I might just jump back into the ocean if I have a bad first day of school.”Her companion chuckled at that and a genuine smile cracked the concerned mask he had been wearing all morning. “Well, don’t do that,” Sosuke tightened his arm around Ponyo’s. “I think I need you here.”The two were sat in class across the room from each other. Sosuke had hoped he and Ponyo would be right near each other, considering they shared the same last name, but unfortunately the teacher liked to organize desks by height.Because of this terrible decision, Sosuke was forced up front, and Ponyo was forced to sit in the back. Neither of them were very pleased about their positions. The last thing Sosuke wanted was to draw attention to himself. The front of the classroom is the worst place to be if one wants to remain unnoticed.Ponyo, alternatively, was upset because she found herself sitting as far away from the windows as possible. This meant the young girl couldn’t gaze outside and daydream. Her hopes of stealing long, wistful gazes out the window during class were dashed. She had seen girls stare out of classroom windows in her favorite television shows and movies, and she had hoped to replicate those scenes. Although Ponyo was disappointed, she got over it as soon as the teacher opened the room for ice breakers.“If each of you could stand and announce your names in order,” Ms. Saito began. She gestured to Ponyo, “Let’s start with the back of the room and work our way up, shall we?”Sosuke twisted in his seat to see as Ponyo rose from her desk. She bowed first, sporting a massive grin that accentuated her charming dimples, “My name is Ponyo Yamaguchi (last name taken from the voice actor who did the voice of Lisa in the original movie). It is very nice to meet you all!” She settled back into her seat with a pleasant smile.A boy next to Sosuke leaned into his friend as the next student began his introduction, “That Ponyo girl is super pretty.”The friend agreed, nodding and whispering back, “She looks foreign. I like foreign chicks.”Sosuke shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He stared down at his hands and tuned the two out, waiting for his turn to introduce himself.The moment came too soon, although he was the last student in the class to speak. He stood up, a little too sharply and made a loud scraping noise with his chair. Sosuke winced at himself before bowing slightly. He gazed at his shoes and wrung his fingers together as he stammered out his introduction, “My… My name is Sosuke Yamaguchi.” He swallowed as best he could, but his throat was still dry, “I look forward to a good year.”Lunch time couldn’t have come fast enough. It wasn’t that his first four classes were particularly difficult—Sosuke was actually quite good at English, history, Japanese literature, and math. It was just hard to focus with so many new people around him. He could feel Ponyo’s encouragement from the back of the classroom. It was like she was gently holding his shoulder from across the room. But even still, Sosuke’s stomach was doing somersaults.When lunch rolled around, Ponyo bounded up to Sosuke’s desk and placed both her hands on either side of the surface, facing Sosuke directly. She leaned down and locked her eyes with his, “How are you doing?”Sosuke stood from his desk and rubbed his neck sheepishly, “It’s a lot to take in.”Ponyo nodded in understanding and sighed, “It really is.” She wrapped her arm around Sosuke’s neck, leaning down to his eye level again, “Let’s go eat in the courtyard!” She held up her neatly wrapped bento box and pointed toward the entrance of the classroom. She let go of Sosuke and went striding toward the door.Sosuke barely had enough time to gather his own lunch before dashing after the energetic Ponyo.As he turned the corner out of the classroom, he almost collided head-on with a girl. He skirted out of the way just in time and bowed, mumbling a tiny, “Sorry,” before turning on his heel to pursue his adoptive sister through the hall. Ponyo was already halfway outside when—“Wait!”The girl he had almost knocked over called after him, gripping onto his arm with a surprisingly strong set of fingers, “You’re Sosuke, right?” She stepped in front of the confused young man to face him and gazed at him expectantly.The girl was slightly taller than Sosuke and had slick, mousy brown hair permed into a gentle wave. A pink hair band held her bangs out of her pale, dainty face. She was delicate and incredibly beautiful, and also unbearably familiar. Sosuke narrowed his eyes at her. She wasn’t in his class, that much he could tell, and her face was a memory from a dream.“Yeah,” Sosuke ventured, glancing over his shoulder to see Ponyo stroll out into the courtyard. She was so wrapped up in the excitement of her first lunch time in high school that she didn’t even notice he wasn’t behind her anymore.“I’m Kumiko!” the girl exclaimed, placing a hand against her chest. “From day care?” She giggled before continuing, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t remember me. Your fish spit on me, if that jogs your memory.”Sosuke stood there dumbly for a few seconds, letting his memory work. A lot had happened when he was at day care, but slowly, his recollection of Kumiko reemerged. He nodded and then smiled when the memory of Ponyo spraying water all over Kumiko’s new dress upon their first meeting solidified in his mind. Ponyo was still just a little goldfish back then.“That’s wonderful,” Kumiko pressed the tips of her fingers together and held her hands in front of her slender chin. “It was great seeing you. We have to catch up soon,” Kumiko waved as she continued down the hallway.Sosuke waved back, smiling to himself. He hadn’t seen Kumiko since he was five and she seemed very friendly. The heavy anxiety that had been weighing on his chest lifted slightly and he turned to share lunch with Ponyo outside, under the midday sun.
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Rain drummed against the classroom windows. The choppy sea was barely visible on the horizon, but a thunderstorm was slowly rolling in. The sky was heavy and steely gray, and Ponyo was frustrated with herself for forgetting to bring her umbrella today.She looked up at Sosuke as she recklessly shoved books and papers into the depths of her cramped backpack. Sosuke was still in his seat, his back turned toward Ponyo. Somehow, Kumiko was already sitting on top of his desk, chattering on and laughing openly. Kumiko always showed up at their classroom mere minutes after the final bell, even though her own classroom was located all the way down the hall.Ponyo paused momentarily, gripping her planner in her hand. She didn’t hate Kumiko, but she hated the way she threw herself at Sosuke. And she hated how Sosuke seemed to relish in the girl’s attention. She also hated how obvious it was that the two had a thing for each other, and that Sosuke refused to admit it whenever Ponyo brought it up. She loved seeing her brother happy, but he didn’t used to keep secrets from her.Ponyo would never dream of telling Sosuke about any of these feelings. So, she finished gathering her things, slapped on a wide grin and strolled over to Sosuke’s desk, “Ready to head home?”Sosuke turned to look up at Ponyo, “Oh, I forgot to tell you!” He stood and pulled his satchel bag over his shoulder, “Kumiko and I were going to head to our club.”“Your club?” Ponyo asked, slightly surprised. She shifted her stance slightly and held her hands behind her back, “I didn’t know you joined a club…”.“Yeah!” Sosuke nodded, rubbing his neck. “Kumiko convinced me.”The two paused for a second before Sosuke jolted, seemingly remembering something. He dug into his bag, pulled out his umbrella and held it out to Ponyo knowingly, “You probably forgot yours, right?”Ponyo nodded a little and took it, “But what about you?”“I’ll share with Kumiko after our club,” he reassured her before waving and turning to leave the classroom.Kumiko hopped off the desk and patted Ponyo on the shoulder before grabbing Sosuke’s arm, “Don’t worry! I will have him back home before six.”Ponyo nodded dumbly, watching the two’s backs as they walked away from her. She realized, stomach going sour, Sosuke had never ditched her like this before.It slowly became common practice for Sosuke to leave Ponyo to hang out with Kumiko instead. Ponyo knew that she was busy—the light music club, drama club, swimming club and student council took up much of her free time—but when she did have a day or a weekend of, Sosuke was never around anymore.It wasn’t like Ponyo didn’t have friends. In fact, she had many friends (that tended to happen when one was in so many different clubs). She just always expected that, naturally, her and Sosuke would always hang out. She never had as much fun with her friends as she did with her brother.Ponyo eventually stopped hoping Sosuke would make time for her and simply busied her schedule. If he didn’t have time for her, she would make sure she didn’t have time to miss him.It had been upwards of two months since the two last ate lunch together or hung out anywhere outside of their own home. At some point, they just stopped talking all together.Lisa could tell something was different over breakfast one Saturday morning. The house had been quieter than usual, but Lisa chalked that up to the kids being busy with schoolwork. It was time for midterms, after all. But now, Lisa could sense that something else had changed when she hadn’t been looking.She looked between Ponyo and Sosuke. They weren’t so much as looking up at each other, besides the occasional polite smile. There was no anger, or underlying tension (as far as she could tell). But instead of the kid’s usual friendly silliness that they always shared, there was a quiet apathy that made the air thick and uncomfortable.Before Lisa could voice her observation, Sosuke finished his meal and rushed to the sink with his dishes, “I’m hanging out with Kumiko today.”Lisa sighed and nodded, “Alright. Be back before five.”“I will!” Sosuke called as he tugged on his shoes and ran out the front door.Ponyo lingered at the table, finishing up her last grains of rice.“Is something going–“ Lisa didn’t have the chance to finish her question before Ponyo stood abruptly, much like Sosuke had.“Can’t talk. I’m late to swim practice.” And then she was out the door like a bullet.Ponyo didn’t really have swim practice. The young woman didn’t love the idea of lying to her family, but she had to know what Sosuke and Kumiko were up to. Every time he went out to see her, Ponyo could feel him buzzing with uncapped energy.Maybe it was because Ponyo was terrified of being left behind. Or maybe she was just nosy. But she had to know what was going on between her brother and that girl.It was this urge that led her to squatting behind trashcans as she pursued Sosuke down the hill that lead from their house into the main town. It was difficult to be stealthy, mostly on account of Ponyo’s height and the bright, carrot-colored mess of hair that sat atop her head. But she managed to trail Sosuke all the way to where he was meeting Kumiko.Kumiko looked up from her phone and noticed Sosuke approaching her. A smile popped onto her face and she ran up to him, taking his hand in hers, “You’re right on time!”Ponyo peeked out from the vending machine she slipped behind. She gasped slightly as she watched Kumiko plant a little kiss on Sosuke’s cheek. So they were dating! Ponyo knew it!Before she could think, Ponyo stepped out from her hiding spot and jabbed an accusatory finger toward Sosuke, “I knew you two were going out!”Both Sosuke and Kumiko jumped and looked toward Ponyo. And Sosuke’s face turned from joy to something Ponyo could only identify as frustration. Anger?“You followed me from home?” Sosuke pulled his hand away from Kumiko and walked toward Ponyo.“Yeah…” Ponyo fidgeted with her drawstring bag straps as she shifted on her feet. “I just wanted to know what was going on between you and Kumiko.”“That’s not really your business.”“You didn’t have to hide it from me…” Ponyo rolled her eyes and placed her hands on her hips indignantly. “And you’re my brother! So it actually is my business.”“I wasn’t– I wasn’t hiding it from you!” Sosuke scoffed. “Just because I don’t talk to you about my personal life every second of every day doesn’t give you the right to butt in like this.”Ponyo couldn’t understand why Sosuke was so upset with her. And this filled her with a type of confusing frustration Ponyo had never felt before now. She pushed a finger to Sosuke’s chest and stepped closer to him, “You haven’t been talking to me at ALL!”“Take a hint then! Maybe that’s because I don’t need you!” Sosuke hadn’t meant to say something so cruel. It just slipped out along with the anger he was vomiting up. But he had said it. And the heaviness of his words hung in the air.Even Kumiko stared at Sosuke with deep shock. The people around here all knew that Sosuke and Ponyo were closer than any siblings in town, and seeing them fall apart in a single moment of unfortunate misunderstanding was rattling, to say the least.Sosuke realized his words the moment he looked up at Ponyo’s face. Tears streamed down her round cheeks and her chin was wrinkled with her frown. He stepped forward, opening his mouth to offer an apology to his sister. But Ponyo moved away him as he did.As she stepped back, Ponyo was hit with a sharp pain in her heart and the confusion and despair caused by Sosuke’s words were replaced with an intense throbbing in her chest. Every time her heart took a beat, Ponyo felt a rush of fire surge through her veins.She clutched her shirt and let out a gasp, falling forward onto her hands and knees. She couldn’t hear Sosuke as he called her name and rushed to her side. She couldn’t hear Kumiko as she frantically dialed an ambulance on her cell phone.Her gasps stopped bringing air into her lungs. And Ponyo realized, she could no longer breathe. She turned her head, vision going spotty and locked eyes with the rolling ocean, mere feet away from where she lay.Ponyo stood on legs made of jelly and shoved Sosuke off of her. She couldn’t breathe, and Ponyo knew, nothing on land could do anything to help her anymore. She took one last, momentary glance at Sosuke before diving head-first into the sea.
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Kumiko stood, dumb shock lingering on her face. She had raised her hands in front of herself vaguely, almost as if she was reaching out to try and catch Ponyo, but before she could stop her—before she could even call out—the red head had thrown herself in to the sea.The girl’s legs wobbled, turning to mush as she collapsed onto her knees. Cold, numb panic washed over her and she hung her head, long, black bangs falling into her teary eyes. Ponyo just killed herself. And it was all her fault.“Why…” she exhaled shakily, trying fruitlessly to gather her scattered thoughts. “Why did she just do that?” She placed a shivering hand against the asphalt which was damp with salty ocean spray, and tried not to collapse into herself.Sosuke gazed out into the waves. As he watched, the water began to puff up and flashing storm clouds materialized in the distance. A wet wind rushed against Sosuke’s face and he brought it into his lungs with a deep inhale. The familiar scent of rain was spiked with something sharp, something magical. Sosuke had smelled a storm like this before, and the last time he had, the world was about to come to an end.“We have to go to my house,” Sosuke tore his gaze from the spot where Ponyo had disappeared and shifted his eyes to Kumiko. “Right now.” He held his hand out to her.Kumiko looked up at him, her eyebrows knotting, creating a defined wrinkle in her forehead, just above the top of her nose. “Shouldn’t we call the police?” She practically yelled, “Your sister just committed suicide.”“No she didn’t,” Sosuke shook his head. In fact, the young man was grateful that Kumiko hadn’t had the chance to call for help. How was he going to explain what was actually going on? This was a matter of magical persuasion. Needless to say, getting anyone else involved would have over-complicated the whole situation. The last time something weird and magical happened in this town, it was a miracle that nobody was killed. Sosuke had to make sure that, whatever was going on now, no innocent person would be caught in the crossfire like before.He sucked his teeth as he looked down at Kumiko. He wanted to keep her out of this too, if he could help it. But, she at least deserved an explanation. Kumiko shook her head at Sosuke, baffled at how casual he was about this whole thing. Had he not seen Ponyo jump into the water? She hadn’t come back up either and that meant one thing—she was dead! She let her heavy doubt show on her face and Sosuke exhaled sharply in response.He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet despite her questioning glare, “You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”Before Kumiko could object, Sosuke broke into a sprint, dragging her along. “I know it seems crazy,” He offered in a strained, yet comforting tone. “But Ponyo isn’t dead.”Sosuke bit on his lip as he ran, one thought bouncing around in his head. Ponyo might not be dead, but she was most certainly in trouble.“Ponyo did what!?” Lisa shot up from her seat at the dining room table. Her wooden chair, which the woman had sent flying with her sudden and sharp movement clattered across the floor and tipped over with a crash.It hadn’t been more than twenty minutes since she sent her children off to enjoy their Saturday, and now her son was telling her that his sister suddenly tossed herself into the ocean. Lisa put a hand to her forehead, reaching down to support herself on the table.Sosuke stood before his mother, rubbing his arm. Shame flushed his cheeks and he trained his stare on the floor.Kumiko chimed in, stepping away from Sosuke’s side, “We have to call the police!” She hollered, “Sosuke refused to, but we have to do something!”Lisa glanced up at Kumiko and bit on her thumbnail. Not only did the poor woman have to cope with the stunning information that her daughter almost certainly just turned back into a goldfish, and the fact that an incredibly concerning storm was brewing outside, seemingly in response to the latter, but she also had to find a way to explain this whole thing to a complete outsider.Sosuke noticed his mother struggling to gather the correct words, so he raised his head and turned to Kumiko. He cleared his throat, “Do you remember that goldfish I had when I was a kid? The one that spit on you at kindergarten?”Kumiko looked away from Lisa and gave Sosuke a deeply displeased stare. “Yes,” she scoffed. “How is that relevant to this situation?”“Well, that goldfish was Ponyo,” Sosuke stated bluntly. “Her father let her turn into a human to live with me and my mom, but now she’s turned back into a fish.”Silence lingered between the two teens and Lisa, and the frustration painted on Kumiko’s face slowly turned to fear and disgust. “You’re insane,” she backed away. “A girl is dead and you’re trying to tell me she turned into a fish?”Lisa pinched her nose and shook her head, “It’s the truth.”Kumiko took another step away from both of them, “I’m going to get real help.” She turned on her heel to run, but a loud crash, and the deafening sound of shattering glass stopped her in her tracks.The dining room window broke inwards, sending shards of glass flying into the house.Sosuke shielded his eyes against the fractals and when he took his arms away from his face, his heart skipped a beat. A girl with bright orange hair and light brown eyes stood before them.For a split second, Sosuke thought that Ponyo had come back, but after a moment, it became obvious that this was a completely different girl.Ponyo’s hair was shoulder-length, and the young lady standing across the room had a short cut with framing bangs tucked behind her large, round ears. She donned a pair of shimmering, red earrings. She was a lot smaller in stature than Ponyo as well. Still, the resemblance between the two was so stark, that there was no way their similarities could have been coincidence.The girl stood with impossibly straight posture and surveyed the three dumbfounded humans with a cold, steady gaze. She looked younger than Kumiko and Sosuke, but the intensity in her face made her seem much older than she probably was.After a moment, her stare locked onto Sosuke and she marched over to him with a confidence so strong that the teenage boy shrank back and offered a slight bow in respect. Her golden sandals crunched on the broken glass that lay on the stone tile floor.“Are you Sosuke?” she didn’t sound like she was asking him a question. It was more like a demand, or the world’s shortest interrogation.Sosuke nodded slightly. He couldn’t seem to look her directly in the eyes.“My name is Beatrix,” the girl explained, resting her hands on her hips. “And you have to come with me.”
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Sosuke held his hands up and stepped away from Beatrix. He didn’t care how much she looked like Ponyo, Sosuke wasn’t going to just leave with a random girl who just, quite literally, burst into his dining room. He chuckled, glancing over at Lisa in confusion.Beatrix let out a groan and rolled her eyes. She pinched the bridge of her nose, as if it wasn’t a normal response to be wary of a strange home invader. “I can see you’re confused,” she crossed her arms over her skinny chest and took another stride forward, inserting herself back into Sosuke’s personal space. She explained, “I’m Ponyo’s sister.”That would explain the undeniable resemblance. Still, it didn’t explain why Beatrix broke into Sosuke’s house, or why she wanted him to go somewhere with her. Sosuke cleared his throat and leaned against the table. It might have looked like he was trying to be cool and casual, but really, all the young man wanted to do was get Beatrix out of his face. “What are you doing here?”“My father sent me to get you,” Beatrix said, finally taking the hint and backing up to the middle of the room. She stood between the three of them and turned her head to look at Kumiko. She scowled slightly, the cold look on her face melting to show genuine emotion for the first time since she came through the window. “You’ll have to come too,” she turned up her nose and rolled her eyes back to Sosuke.Kumiko was ghost-white and her legs felt like a useless a pair of noodles. But, the moment Beatrix addressed her, she snapped back to reality. She scoffed, “No way.”Sosuke chimed in again, “Yeah, you haven’t even explained anything yet.” He felt himself getting aggravated, but something about this girl gave him the gut feeling that he shouldn’t try to pick a fight with her. “Fujimoto sent you to get us. Why?”Beatrix scowled once more and inhaled like she was gathering her patience. She acted like she was explaining 2+2 to a couple of children for the fifteenth time. “The promise between you and Ponyo was broken,” she said as she pointed to Sosuke. Then, she moved her accusatory point to Kumiko and uttered in a tone that was so sour, it could curdle milk, “Your presence lead to this. So you have to help fix it.”“What promise?” Kumiko asked, baffled. She eyed Sosuke.Sosuke rubbed his forehead gently and then his neck. He explained everything. Who and what Ponyo really was, the near-end of the world, their promise. Since the situation had been resolved, Sosuke hadn’t given Ponyo’s magical origins much thought.Kumiko wanted to call Sosuke crazy again. But, something about the way he shared his story told her that none of this was fiction. She thought back to when that goldfish sprayed her and ruined her brand new dress. Why had that memory stuck out so much? She remembered. The fish had a human face. And, she realized, that face was Ponyo’s.The girl swallowed, the implications of what Beatrix had said earlier knocking the wind out of her body. Your presence lead to this. Suddenly, Kumiko felt sick to her stomach.Beatrix continued, fiddling with the earrings that dangled from her earlobes. She seemed jittery now, like she was in a rush to get going. “So I’ve explained,” she gestured toward the window. “If you want to help Ponyo, we have to get going.”Sosuke felt helplessly unprepared. He didn’t fully trust Beatrix, but he knew this might be the only way to get Ponyo back. And, if what Beatrix said is true, he and Kumiko’s relationship was the reason for Ponyo’s transformation, and Sosuke knew that he had to take responsibility.“I’ll go,” he decided and stepped forward.Lisa hesitated before running around the table to throw her arms around her son. She had hoped her children’s perilous journeys into the unknown were over and done with. Still, Lisa always had a feeling scratching at the back of her mind that her son would one day have to play hero once again.Kumiko took a deep breath and shook her head. She couldn’t believe she was about to go along with this. She barely understood what was going. But she had hurt this nice family, although unintentionally, and she was determined to help. The young lady pulled her hair into a ponytail and stepped up next to Sosuke. She gripped his hand in hers and nodded definitively at Beatrix. They were going to find Ponyo and fix this mess—even if nobody knew how to do that at this particular moment.Beatrix cracked a smile, her pursed, grumpy lips stretching out into something pleasant, and she raised her hands to her earrings. The air around her began to glow an ocean green and in a flash, a wave swept up into the house, swallowing the three, and pulling them into the sea.Sosuke’s first instinct was to sputter and swim for the surface. One second, he was standing on dry land, and the next, he was inhaling a lung-full of salty brine.Had this all been a trap? Maybe Fujimoto was angry at him for breaking the promise.As Sosuke’s brain swirled with questions and he sank further into the blue, Beatrix came into view. The petite redhead was surrounded by the same green glow. She held his face between her delicate hands and pressed their lips together. Sosuke could feel his mouth, then his throat, then his lungs growing warm. And then he took in a breath of the sea.Sosuke was breathing underwater. And, he noted, his vision wasn’t bleary from the irritating salt anymore.He watched Beatrix as she swam away and repeated the process on Kumiko. She held her head, touched their lips together, and then Kumiko gasped with new life.Beatrix then grabbed both of their hands and closed her eyes. The magical light engulfed all of them and the three slowly grew heavier in the water. They sank all the way down, until they could stand on the muddy sand like one would on land.It took Sosuke a second to get used to the sensation. He expected to be floaty and weightless in the water, pushed by the currents. Instead, he was grounded and able to stand against the gentle movement and swirl of the water around him.Kumiko turned her gaze upward. The sun shone through the rippling water above and she could see waves curling from below. Ships sailed overhead, completely oblivious to the three teenagers just ten feet below. This was officially the strangest day of the poor girl’s life.A shark wriggled from the haze and Sosuke’s heartrate spiked. But, the formidable creature passed them by, seeming to throw an indifferent glance back at them.After a few minutes of allowing Kumiko and Sosuke to get comfortable, Beatrix began to walk. “Let’s get moving,” she ordered.Sosuke followed, once again holding onto Kumiko’s hand. The floor sloped gently downward and he could feel them going deeper and deeper. With each step, they ventured further from home and into uncharted territory.Sosuke only hoped that they were going the right way.
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The hazy blue enveloping Kumiko, Sosuke, and Beatrix was supremely beautiful—and incredibly terrifying. Sosuke stared into the watery void, and the void stared right back. He tried not to think about all of the unfamiliar creatures that might have been lurking in the murky deep, just beyond view.The vibrant sun had long since faded, and the only light to be found shone from Beatrix’s earring. Sosuke didn’t know how deep they had gone, and he was surprised he felt no ill effects from the water pressure, that of which should have crushed his bones and popped his lungs by now, but he supposed whatever magic Beatrix had cast protected him from that.None of the teenagers had spoken to each other since they had left the bay. Sosuke didn’t know what to say to Kumiko, considering he had dragged her into all of this, and he didn’t yet fully trust Beatrix. And the further the three of them ventured, the heavier the silence grew.“How far until we reach your father?” Sosuke finally asked, rubbing a hand through his floating hair. It twisted and curled around with the currents.Beatrix kept her head forward, offering Sosuke little more than a sideways glance. She said, “It’s a long walk. It should take us about twenty days to get to China.”Sosuke took a moment to process exactly what Beatrix had said. He didn’t have to react because Kumiko did it for him.“China?” Kumiko hollered, stopping in her tracks. A nearby school of fish scattered in fear, a blur of silvery scales. “Why are we walking to China? I thought Ponyo was in the ocean.”Beatrix stopped as well, turning to face Kumiko in full. She analyzed her with her brown eyes—eyes so painfully similar to Ponyo’s—and explained, “My father is searching for a natural well to replenish his magic so that he can change Ponyo back to a human, without a promise this time.” She shot a pointed glance at Sosuke as she jabbed her finger ahead of herself in the direction of their path. “He knows of a well off the coast of Norway in the Norwegian Sea. We’re meeting him there.”“So we walk to China,” Sosuke nodded. “Because it will be quicker to travel over land.”Beatrix should have explained the details of the situation earlier. She didn’t really have the justification to be angry at Sosuke and Kumiko if she hadn’t been clear in the first place. Although Sosuke found Beatrix horribly infuriating, he figured it was better to just grin and bear it instead of fighting her.“Precisely,” Beatrix continued forward.“I do have one more question,” Sosuke pulled up next to Beatrix and looked at her side profile. “Why doesn’t Fujimoto just ask your mother for help again. Wouldn’t the Goddess of Mercy be able to fix this madness?”Suddenly, Beatrix’s face went dark and her shoulders tensed. The light emitting from her earring fluttered, like it was drawing in a shaky breath. Beatrix bit her lip and sniffed hard before crossing her arms over her chest. “My mother died,” she breathed.“Died?” Sosuke’s stomach fell. He had never heard of a goddess dying. He wanted so badly to pry, but he had the common sense to step away and leave Beatrix alone. Whatever had happened, it was clear that she didn’t want to talk about it. Sosuke didn’t trust the girl, but he had the decency to respect her space.Were they ever going to stop to rest? Kumiko was starting to worry that Beatrix was planning to make them walk all of the way there without a single break. Kumiko didn’t know how weird fish people worked, but she was afraid Beatrix wasn’t aware that humans need sleep.The undersea terrain was treacherous and unpredictable. Kumiko had always imagined the sea floor to be smooth sand all the way down, but this assumption was quickly corrected. The three had to scale tall hills of mud and stumble over jagged rocks, all with barely any light to navigate by.Just as Kumiko was about to start complaining, Beatrix stopped. She looked around and nodded definitively. “This should be a good spot to rest for a few hours,” she told her companions.Kumiko let out a grateful exhale and sank to her knees. She didn’t want to get sand in her hair, but resting properly after walking for nearly ten hours was certainly more pressing. She collapsed backwards onto the sand, burrowing slightly into the soft floor. At least Beatrix decided to stop in an area with sand instead of stones.There was a huge rock towering over their heads. It felt a little safer to have a structure covering them from above—It provided a sense of grounding. Kumiko had quickly discovered that the ocean is oppressively lonely. On land, even in secluded places, there’s always some signs of life. Down here, life seemed so horribly distant sometimes.She stared up past the rock, straining her eyes, hoping to see the moon past the surface of the water. Her effort was in vain. They were way too deep to see that far, and all Kumiko could see was black. Logically, she knew from what she had learned in her science classes that they were less than a kilometer deep, but the water was an impenetrable curtain.“I already miss the sky,” she sighed. Kumiko didn’t know how she would survive nineteen more days without seeing the sun or the moon or the stars. She would surely break down before they got where they needed to go.Sosuke sat next to her, crossing his legs, and joining Kumiko in looking up into the dark, “I’m sorry I got you involved in all of this.”Beatrix was sitting across from them and she stared at the two with pursed lips. Not a few hours ago, Beatrix was certain that Kumiko was just a despicable person. That’s what she was told, and what she told herself. In this moment, her resentment towards both Sosuke and Kumiko for hurting her sister floated away, as if carried off by the swaying current. She cleared her throat, and said in a hard voice, “I can send you up.” She pointed upward, “To the surface? But only for a few minutes.”She hadn’t planned on sympathizing with these people, but here she was, softening in the face of their misery.Kumiko sat up, “You can do that?”“Simple magic,” Beatrix nodded, scuffing her foot against the ground.Sosuke smiled gently, “That’s really sweet of you.” He was taken aback by this kindness, and he let his surprise show through on his face.Beatrix rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively, “Don’t read into it.” She gripped her earring with her index finger and thumb, “Hold your breath until you break the surface, or else your weak human lungs will collapse from the pressure change.”Kumiko’s face went white and she quickly caught her breath just as Beatrix flicked her hand and sent the two floating upwards, shooting like a pair of freight trains toward the surface. Kumiko took in a massive gulp of air as soon as she felt her face breech the surface.She looked over at Sosuke who was floating next to her. He was still holding his breath, cheeks puffed out comically and his eyes screwed shut. Kumiko splashed him playfully, “Open your eyes, Sosuke.”Slowly, he did, releasing his breath, “I thought I was going to die.” He laughed, shaking the salt water from his hair. He held onto Kumiko in the water and they used each other to stay afloat. Sosuke looked up toward the sky and gasped gently. The sky was so clear in the middle of the ocean. Watching the shimmering stars and shining moon reflecting off of the miles and miles of softly moving water while floating in the currents was an experience that not many other people had the pleasure of having.“This kind of makes this whole thing worth it,” Kumiko mumbled in awe.“I’m sorry,” Sosuke said quietly, taking Kumiko’s hand in his. “I didn’t mean to get you wrapped up in this.”“I’m angry,” Kumiko admitted. “But this is important to you, so I want to help.”Sosuke smiled at her and opened his mouth to say something else, but a massive, rapidly-moving glowing blob of… something caught his attention. He looked past Kumiko, “What is that?”Before Kumiko had the chance to look behind her and see what he was talking about, the two were suddenly yanked back down into the sea.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Beatrix watched as Sosuke and Kumiko plummeted back into her view. She reached out for their arms, and as soon as she could close her hands around them, she dragged them off in a flurry of bubbles.She sprinted through the sea, the water doing little to slow her movements. She cut through the liquidy night like a knife. The water around them began to fill with a low sound—something large, loud, and impossibly fast was moving toward them.“What is happening?!” Kumiko was still disoriented from of being dragged back down so suddenly, like a rag doll. Her head was spinning and a sudden rush of vomit threatened the bottom of her throat.“Something is after us.” Beatrix could feel the intent of the beast resonating through the ocean like a wave of powerful electric energy. Whatever their pursuer was, it was angry. And it wanted them.Sosuke dared a glance over his shoulder. Mere meters behind them was something Sosuke wished he hadn’t seen.The creature was massive, roughly the size of the whales the trio had seen on their walk out here. Sickly black tentacles, glowing with muted rainbow colors, whipped out from its gelatinous mass, and a beak of elephantine proportions peaked out from beneath its oily flesh. The figure appeared so foul that Sosuke’s stomach turned just by looking at it.Beatrix gritted her teeth and shook her head. “We’ll never outrun it.” And she stopped on a dime.Sosuke and Kumiko continued forward in the water, tumbling head-over-heel into the sand. Kumiko pushed herself up to her feet, her shivering legs barely able to support the weight of her body. “Why are we stopping?”“Running is a fool’s errand,” Beatrix shouted over the increasingly loud sounds of the giant. “Our chances of living are better if we stand our ground.”Kumiko glanced up, and for the first time she got a good look at their attacker. As soon as she laid eyes on the writhing mess of tentacles, her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she collapsed to the sea floor.Sosuke rushed to her side, but Beatrix paid the girl no mind. She had simply fainted. And this would be much easier without her screaming in her ear. Beatrix dug her feet into the sand and gripped with her toes as she held her hands out in front of her. Her breath quickened and, if they had not been under the water, her forehead would have broken out in a sweat. Slowly, almost painfully slow, a shimmering golden field of energy formed from her hands. She moved her arms in a circle, and a solid bubble of light encased her, Kumiko, and Sosuke.A tentacle came down in a wide arc, making impact with the top of the bubble with a deafening crack. A shockwave of magic came from the shield and traveled up the monster’s arm. The thing recoiled as if shocked by a live wire, lingered for a moment, and then retreated into the depths.Beatrix let out a breath and became aware that her body had turned to jelly. She went liquid in relief and, like Kumiko collapsed into the sand.