Whispers of the Abyss

The clone stood wreathed in a deadly, poisonous aura.

Its body, once a pristine white and gray, was now covered in a sickly, shimmering purple light. The black, viscous venom that was Aki's greatest weakness dripped from its reformed sword and from the barrels of its gun-arm, sizzling as it hit the floor.

The air filled with the acrid, chemical smell of the toxin.

Aki stood his ground, his katana held in a low,In defensive stance. He was at a complete disadvantage. Every instinct screamed at him to attack, to end this, but his mind knew better. A single touch, a single scratch from that poison, and it would all be over.

This was a new kind of battle. Not a contest of speed or strength, but a war of attrition. A waiting game.

"Run..." the clone whispered, its voice a pained, glitching plea that sounded eerily like his own. "It's going to make me... kill you. Please... I don't want to..."

It's fighting him, Aki realized. The Doctor's override. It has a will of its own now, and it's fighting back.

A flicker of pity, unwelcome and dangerous, stirred in Aki's chest. He ruthlessly crushed it.

"Pity had no place here. This thing was still a weapon pointed at my heart." Aki whispered.

"Override command integrity at 74%," the clone droned, its voice shifting back to the cold, robotic monotone as the Doctor's programming fought to reassert control.

"Lethal protocols reengaged. You are the Dangerous. You must be neutralized."

Despite the words, it didn't attack. It stood its ground, its body trembling slightly, caught in a war between its nascent consciousness and its core programming.

This was his chance. While it was distracted, he could end it.

But Liston's words echoed in his memory. "The soul of the man who wields it decides its purpose."

"What is this thing's purpose now? To kill me? Or to destroy?" Aki was confused.

The clone's head twitched. Its empty eyes focused on him, and the first question, the one that had stalled their battle before, came again, this time with a new, desperate curiosity.

"Why?" it asked, its voice a strange mix of human confusion and machine logic. "Why do you resist?. For what?. Is it for The loved ones. Logically, they are a weakness. A vulnerability. Yet you derive strength from them. It is a contradiction. Explain?."

Aki stared, his mind reeling. He was in a fight to the death with a poisoned, sentient copy of himself that was in the middle of an existential crisis.

“What the fuck are you asking?”, Aki with confusion, "I don't know the answer for any of your questions".

He had no answer for the clone. He barely had an answer for himself.

Miles away, and a thousand feet beneath the waves, Kiro was facing his own impossible reality.

He stood in the massive, blue-lit cavern, before the single, pulsating red eye of the kraken. He was unarmed, alone, and listening to the voice of a god in his head.

"You are the sailor. The one who survived."

Kiro's heart hammered against his ribs, but the initial shock was giving way to a sailor's stubborn pragmatism. He had survived pirates, storms, and the King's navy. He wasn't about to be scared to death by a giant, talking eyeball.

"What do you want from me?" Kiro asked, his voice rough but steady.

"I want nothing from you, sailor," the ancient voice echoed in his mind, its tone a strange mix of immense power and profound sorrow. "The one I wish to speak to is the boy. The person who came with you. The one who freed me."

"Freed you? He nearly killed you!" Kiro shot back,"Yet you are Alive".

"He destroyed the vessel," the voice corrected, with a patience that seemed to stretch across eons. "He destroyed the flesh that was my prison. But my consciousness... it was chained, not extinguished."

The massive red eye blinked slowly, the movement causing the water in the cavern to ripple. It was an unsettling, alien gesture.

"The one you call the King… he bound me here with his blade. Not mere steel, but a shard of divinity. With it, he chained my soul and made me a prisoner for a thousand years."

Kiro swallowed hard. The legends were true. A blade like that could shackle even a beast of the abyss… what else had it shackled?

"But how?" Kiro forced the words past dry lips. "How can a king—a man—command such power?"

The kraken’s gaze sank into him, unblinking. "A man with a shard of divinity can bend mountains, seas, even time itself. That is the power of kings." Its voice grew quieter, almost trembling.

"But the boy’s power… it is different. His is not the power to rule. His is the power to end. A power that severs every chain, until nothing remains but silence."

"When he struck me, he did not just kill the flesh. The essence of his blade, the very concept of an end, shattered the King's chains on my soul. I am free. And I am in his debt."

"So you... you want to help him?" Kiro asked, his mind struggling to keep up.

"The boy faces a great darkness. A darkness that seeks to perfect the world by stripping it of its soul. I was a tool of that darkness for too long. I will not be one again."

The red light of the eye intensified, illuminating a small, glowing object floating in the water before it. It looked like a piece of crystallized lightning, humming with a power that made Kiro's teeth ache.

"Take this. It is a shard of my power. A tooth, from a time before time. It will guide your ship through any storm and answer one call for aid. Go to him. He will need his allies when he emerges. If he emerges."

Kiro slowly waded into the freezing water and took the glowing shard. It was warm to the touch, alive, pulsing with a gentle, oceanic rhythm.

He looked back at the eye. "Do you have a name?"

"Humans gave me many, long ago," the voice said, a hint of ancient amusement in its tone.

"Krake. Hydra. The Old Man of the Sea. You may call me what you wish."

"Thank you... Krake," Kiro said, feeling foolish but sincere.

"Do not thank me, sailor. Help the boy. His heart is full of ghosts. He will need a man who knows how to carry them."

Kiro thought of his own lost crew, of the wife he had lost so long ago. The creature's words hit him with the force of a physical blow.

Suddenly, Krake's form began to change.

The massive red eye, and the surrounding darkness, began to glow with a brilliant, white light. The water in the cavern churned, swirling into a massive vortex. Kiro stumbled back, shielding his eyes from the blinding radiance.

The form of the kraken dissolved, melting away into pure energy. The light condensed, shrinking, shaping itself into a new form.

When the light faded, a woman stood where the monstrous eye had been.

She was impossibly beautiful, with long, silver hair that seemed to float in the cavern's strange air, and skin as pale as the deep sea floor. Her eyes were the same piercing, intelligent red as the kraken's, but they held a profound, ancient sadness. She wore a simple, flowing blue robe that seemed to be woven from the water itself.

She was a goddess. A queen of the abyss.

"Is this form," she said, her voice no longer a telepathic boom but a soft, melodic sound that echoed in the cavern, "more suitable for helping him on the land of men?"

Kiro stared, his jaw agape, his mind completely broken. He had seen a lot of strange shit in his life. But this… this was on another level.

"I… uh…" he stammered, his usual gruff demeanor completely gone.

She smiled, a small, sad smile. "Do not be afraid, sailor."

"Afraid?" Kiro finally found his voice, a mix of awe and disbelief. "I think I'm in love."

A genuine, beautiful laugh, like the sound of distant ocean bells, filled the cavern.

"I wish I was also a beast" Kiro muttered to himself. He shook his head, a grin spreading across his face. "Yeah," he said to her. "This should work."

As Kiro met a reincarnated goddess, Shika was about to face a devil.

She stood before the large, sealed door of the archives, her tiny heart hammering.

"You're not small," Aki's voice echoed in her mind. "You're a Myth Beast. Act like it."

He was right.

She took a deep breath. She focused on the feelings inside her—her fear for Aki, her desperate hope to find the clue. She let that energy build, a primal power waking from its long slumber.

Her small body convulsed.

The change was instantaneous. A flash of gray light, a ripple in the air. The sound of stretching muscles and popping joints. Her small, white form erupted into the terrifying, six-foot tall mythical beast she had become to save Aki in the forest. A monster of shadowy grey fur, massive paws, and scythe-like claws.

She didn't waste a moment. She slammed her entire weight against the sealed metal door.

BOOM!

The door dented inward with a groan of tortured metal.

She slammed into it again.

BOOM!

A hinge tore loose from the wall with a sharp crack.

One more time. With a final, desperate roar, she smashed into the door. It ripped from its frame and crashed into the room beyond.

She stood in the ruined doorway, panting, her beast form a menacing silhouette in the darkness of the archives. The room was just as she had sensed it: dark, ominous, and filled with the cold, dead feeling of forgotten things. Tall, metal shelves stretched up into the darkness, filled with scrolls and stone tablets.

She shrank back down to her small, white form, the transformation leaving her feeling dizzy and drained.

"Aki," she sent, her thought a tired whisper. "I'm in. What should I look for? It's dark... and smells of dust and sadness."

She felt his response, a flicker of his concentration pulled away from his own desperate battle. His voice was strained.

"I don't know, Shika. I've never been here. Look for something that... feels like me. Something that has my aura."

"Your aura?"

"The Doctor... in the cave... he took my blood," Aki explained, the thought laced with a cold anger. "He might have a sample here. Something he's studying. Look for my blood."

Shika understood. She closed her eyes, ignoring the confusing human objects around her. She focused her psychic senses, not on warmth this time, but on a specific, familiar feeling. The feeling of Aki's very life force.

She followed the trail. It led her past aisles of scrolls, past tablets covered in forgotten languages. It led her to a single, large table in the center of the room. On it were spread several pieces of parchment.

And a single, thin file.

The psychic scent was coming from the file. It was faint, but it was unmistakably Aki.

She leaped onto the table. There were dark, reddish-brown stains on the corner of the file folder. Old blood. His blood.

This was it. The clue.

She grabbed the file in her mouth. It was heavy, but she pulled with all her might, ready to take it and run.

Suddenly, she heard a sound.

A soft, almost silent hiss.

The door to the archive slid open.

Shika froze, the file still in her mouth. A figure stood silhouetted in the doorway. It wasn't a guard. It was a man in a pristine white lab coat.

"Well, well," the Doctor said, his voice a soft, chilling purr as he stepped into the room.

"What have we here? A little stowaway."

His eyes fell on the file in Shika's mouth, and his smile widened into a predatory grin.

"A thief, too. How interesting."