Everyone: "..."
Um… what? W-where did those blades come from? Could you, I don't know, perhaps, switch back to the scary-looking jaws you were using earlier? No? Okay then….
"Um, guys? We're not going to die here, right?" Ran was usually not a pessimistic guy, in fact he's usually the opposite, but he failed to see a way out of their current predicament. And so, he spoke out his not-very-helpful mind.
Hearing such candid words come out of Rans mouth, Ann couldn't help but slap the top of his head in an effort to make him snap out of it. Immediately, a red lump peeked through his thick red hair.
"Ow! You didn't have to hit me, I was just being frank." He frowned slightly in pain, but suddenly, his face started to pale! And yet, his facial expression did a complete one-eighty.
Oh no! Ran, buddy, you alright? She didn't hit you too hard on the head, did she?
"Bob, when I tell you to, swerve left!" Ran was agitated and sweat trickled down his cheeks, but the smile never left his face.
And in Rans eyes, several thick red streams were flowing into his nose! Clearly, he was expecting some company. Besides that, the Bloodthirsty piranha was preparing to attack at the same time.
and while Bob didn't say anything, determination shone in his green eyes. He never speaks much, but his actions were more than enough for people to know his intentions. Plus, I didn't know what Bob would say, so let's go on with it.
"Now that we've made it this far, it's about time to finish this game, don't you think?" The piranha was livid that it was still prancing around with these blokes.
The jagged blades started shining with a bloody light as the Bloodthirsty piranha raised them with his arms. When he slashed down, two crescent rays shot out from the swords!
"Now!" Ran bellowed loudly, and as soon as a sound escaped from his mouth, Bob swerved the ship sharply to the left.
At the same time all this was happening, from within the dark depths of the ocean, over a dozen shadows suddenly shot out of the water and headed towards the ship. Clearly, all the ruckus they were creating had alerted nearby parties. They were curious as well as hungry, and these people had just so happened to move past them, so of course they would pay a visit.
However, things didn't go as planned for these two fishy parties. For one, a bunch of idiotic fishies came and accidentally blocked the Bloodhirsty piranha from enacting revenge, successfully earning his ire.
The other was even more angry. Their boss, who was a rank-4 Fiddler crab, had taken the full brunt of the attack!
And guess what? One of his arms fell off! It was his good crab arm too!
No longer did he, and by proxy his men, pay attention to the escaping ship. Instead, the fury that had started festering in this crab didn't allow it to let the piranha go. Its beady eyes shook as it raged at the piranha.
In the end, what could have doomed the ship, and everybody on it, further instead saved them from this life-threatening crisis.
On the ship, Ran finally sat on his butt and let out a breath of relief.
"Phew I thought we were finished." Ran smiled at the thought of almost dying. He had survived this ordeal! And not just him, Bob and Ann were smiling in victory as well.
However… they were celebrating too soon.
By now, while only ten seconds had passed by, they had already crossed over a mile of ocean. Yet, even when such a distance separated them from their enemies, a loud rumble traveled at the speed of sound and resounded within everyone's skulls.
When another five seconds passed, a tiny silhouette glimmered on the ocean surface. At this moment, Ann, who was still facing the same direction, paled at the sight.
Locking her eyes at the silhouette, her arm fiddled around behind her for a moment before she found Ran and pulled him behind her.
"Y-your Tiny Holiness, no matter what, just stay behind me…"
Ran, who was just beginning to relax, was confused by Ann pulling him back up. He was even more confused when she spoke such strange words at the moment, but he knew one thing for sure. Whenever she said that title, it meant she was serious! When she used that name on him, it meant she would her utmost to do her duty!
"Hey, are you okay? What's going on…"
He was concerned by what she might do, knowing how she is. She would even sacrifice herself for him! Of course, he would do the same, but he preferred doing the sacrificing; after all, he has plenty to go around.
But while that thought crossed his mind, it instantly dissipated when he saw what was ahead of him. His face also paled and his pores began secreting sweat at an advanced rate. His soul heart started emitting light through his flesh and the rhythmic thumps changed to an eerily fast pace. It was like an animal that felt threatened and was in a corner.
Worse yet, the silhouette had closed in further and was only about a mile away from the ship.
The silhouette was none other than the Bloodthirsty piranha! Its body was a little worse for wear however. It had gashes all over and its left arm was crushed beyond recognition. The gashes were merely superficial, but the crushed arm lowered its strength considerably.
Now, with only one jagged blade in it's other arm, it continued pursuing its prey. Obviously, that interruption from earlier was defeated by him and their corpses will become food for those in the area.
Its bloody body glided forward and a wave followed behind, pushing it forward.
"Hehe, you can run, but you can't hide. Eventually, I will get what I want."
Its mouth was full of blood as it spoke; it raised it's working arm into the air and the soul sword began shining vibrantly with the color of blood.
The more juice he poured into the sword, the more powerful the strike. And though he was more than a mile away from the group, they felt as if the night sky was lit up in a bloody light.
Seeing this, their blood ran cold and indescribable fear went up their spines.
Ann felt this as well, but she could only grit her teeth. There was nowhere to hide, so she could only attack.
While the piranha was charging his attack, so was she. After all, this was what she trained for! How can she not have anything left up her sleeve?
Indeed, it was so. After summoning her sigil, a collar which looked a lot like a spiked dog collar surfaced on her neck. The collar then stretched downwards, covering her in a seemingly delicate, but vigorous armor. Like a knight in shining armor, Ann stood in front of Ran as if he was a damsel in distress.
The collar on her neck shined once before runes flooded downwards from it. Under the interaction of the milky-white runes embedding themselves into her shoulder-length gauntlets, they became riddled with holes.
She held out her right arm with her hand open, while her left hand gripped her wrist. The holes on her left gauntlet then stretched outwards until they became transparent tube-like tendrils.
The tendrils connected to the holes on her right gauntlet with clicking sounds before white liquid gushed forth through them and into it. Her right arm started shining brightly as the light, in waves, moved towards her open hand.
The light coalesced into a single ball in front of her, which began releasing tons of heat in front of her. The water under them quickly came to a boiling point as the ball kept getting crammed with more and more energy; the ball of light quickly became too saturated with energy and slowly began fluctuating and increasing in size.
However, that's where concentration comes in. After all, this rune formation came in two parts. One part, the tendrils, is to quickly transport all the energy needed to complete the move. The second part is to simply condense the energy into the move itself. But it was up to how good Ann's focus was to bring it to its highest potential.
And now, it was finally ready.
About the size of her open hand, the ball of light shined radiantly as it began cooking everything nearby. Everyone was already drenched in so much sweat that their clothes stuck to their bodies as if they went for a swim. The area around the ship was like a sauna with steam everywhere.
In the three seconds that it took to ready her move, the piranha was just about done as well.
And yet, in the end, the ball of light prevailed. With a sudden swirl, the ball of light turned into a scorching laser beam that pierced through the Bloodthirsty piranha's chest before it could fully unleash its move.
"Argh!" With a hand-sized hole in his chest, his focus was taken off his move and it prematurely fired. By that I mean a sword crescent over a hundred meters long flew off, dyeing this part of the ocean red. Fortunately, it missed by a couple meters, otherwise, their ship would be cut into several portions and they'd lose their only chance to escape.
Only, this fish wasn't dead. Though the wound was big and had melted the surroundings, it had been cauterized by the heat. Thus, it wouldn't die of blood lost.
"Hehe…" it laughed seeing this; it felt the calling of death as the heat still permeated to the rest of its body. Yet, the agony and sheer rage it had accumulated over these few chapters allowed it to overcome its updated expiration date. To be caught off guard like that was such an embarrassment to him and his people!
"Hah, even if I fall here tonight, I'm not letting you get away." He furiously raised his sword again, resuming his original intention. Only this time, around his body, bloody red scales covered it entirely, almost like a hedgehog is covered in needles. This was another skill, a defensive one at that.
And as its words rang inside of everyone's ears, they could only smile self-deprecatingly at their powerlessness.
"Ann, can you do that again?" Ran looked at her hopefully, as what she did was the only that could affect their chance of escaping. She could smile bitterly at his inquiry.
"I can do it a few more times before I run out of energy, but I don't think he's going to let me hurt him like that again." She spoke softly, but she was already preparing to use her laser beam again. She was obviously not optimistic about the situation.
Ran, as well, could only look at their enemy in defeat, but, it was at that moment he noticed something.
How did this fish catch up to them in the first place? The water was carrying it to them, of course, that's how! After all, what other purpose would the wave it's on have? It was pushing him.
If that was the case, then… could he do the same? There was only one way to find out.
Without hesitating, with his left arm held out, he activated his sigil. On his palm, the projection of his sigil depicted a circular ring about half-an-inch thick with various amorphous blobs filling the area between both borders. Outside the circular ring, a square ring, about the same width, was spinning slowly. Chains connected themselves to the square ring with rings which then connected everything to the part that covered his forearm.
But that wasn't important right now; what's more important was the obscene amounts of soul juice that came barreling from his arm!
Almost like a smoke grenade, plumes of the stuff shot off from his arm before sticking onto the ship like graffiti on the side of a building.
After three seconds, Ann shot a laser beam again.
The laser beam splashed onto the Bloodthirsty piranha's armor, dispersing into nothingness shortly after. But the next moment, the soul armor started glowing a dull red as the heat was spreading throughout, causing it to sear its skin.
With such a distraction of pain, its focus was again interrupted as it released the sword crescent. Now, another part of the ocean was dyed red.
And on the ship, Ann let out a turbid breath as the sword crescent narrowly missed. But she didn't let this small victory distract as this fish was hell-bent on killing them, so she began charging again, albeit with visible fatigue on her face.
That was, of course, until she smelt something. Like a slap to the face, the supreme overload of her olfactory sense sent her reeling for a couple hundred milliseconds. Subconsciously, her nostrils widened to absorb as much of the scent as possible.
As for what smell it was? It was sakura of course! It seemed to be getting stronger too.
"This fool, what is he doing back there…" was what Ann thought.
"Ran, you better be coming up with a solution, or else…" was what she said, however, as she glanced behind her.
But what she saw distracted her fully. The ship! The entire topside of the ship was covered in gooey pink and blue swirls! Crazier yet, it was flooding all over the place and spilling over the sides.
Seeing Ann distracted, which is endangering them all, Ran scornfully lashed out at her:
"Ann, what the hell are you doing?! Are you trying to get us all killed; you need to focus!"
There was no expression on his face, but his tone of voice had said it all. Plus, with the all-too-familiar red-pink light in his eyes, she could no longer refute. Furthermore, the light seemed stronger than before as well.
Focusing once more, Ann condensed the light ball to its intended size again before firing. Luckily, the charge time for the piranhas sword crescent was five seconds, two more than hers, thus proving the efficiency of her rune formation and allowing her to get a hold of the other's attack pattern.
The armor had already gotten rid of much of the heat from the previous laser beam, but with the addition of this one, it glowed much more red this time around.
And although he felt his throat clamp down on itself, making it even more difficult to breathe, and his blood begin to boil, he continued chasing them and charging his attack.
He had already accepted death was approaching, his speed was beginning to slow down and even the wave seemed to calm down like it felt him leaving this world, but he wouldn't die as long as they were in front of them.
And yet, while he was getting slower, they were getting faster and faster. While he was closer than before, around half a mile, that distance was beginning to widen. All of this because the water around the ship was currently rushing toward it like a whirlpool.
The ship was now riding on a quickly enlarging wave that sought to catch up to the source of its attraction - pushing the ship to even more incredible speeds.
He saw all of this happening right before his eyes, but the hollowness inside him only kept growing. Will they really get away with what they did?
"No! Of course not! I don't care who started what, nor who's to blame, now that I'm here, I won't let them get away!"
The Bloodthirsty piranha felt hopeless. All of its attacks were interfered with and failed to do anything. Now, there was only one thing left to do.
Finally, raising his arm for one last time, the jaw-like sword in his hand shined a bright red.
He was going to pour everything he had into this one last attack. The more he poured, the brighter it shined and the more his armor weakened. It quickly dissipated, revealing the melted flesh underneath - like microwaved cheese, hot and stringy.
He no longer cared if he overexerts himself; you can say he poured his life in there as well.
Once he was done, he closed his blurry eyes and exhaled heavily. Once he opened them, blood leaked out of them as he eyed the fleeing ship. His arm swung slowly in a circle.
As he motioned his arm in a circle, the sword would leave a trail that solidified into a spinning disc.
This was his final try. This move was one that he had made himself; his own, most powerful move. Unfortunately, the concentration needed to facilitate all that energy was more than he can handle now, hence the bleeding from two of his orifices.
"Uh, guys? What's that?" Ann was confused by the view in front of her. The fish was clearly slowing down, and she saw how her attack made a hole in its chest, so then how did it come up with such a move?
But before anyone could come up with an answer, the sword disc released a horrendous screech as it spun quicker and quicker until it came at them with at least twice the speed of the previous sword crescent.
"SHIT!"
Ann couldn't help but let out a profanity at this moment; she immediately felt the pressure weigh down on her, so much so, that her legs were wobbling.
This attack was something she couldn't handle currently. She felt it within her, screaming at her to run! That she was no match!
But could she run away? Well, no, but would she want to run away? No as well! How can she run away when all of the most important people in her life were all here? She wouldn't and she couldn't!
Okay, now I'm just repeating myself, but the point is she's not going anywhere. And that made her angry. So angry in fact, it seemed to come from nowhere. So, there was only one thing to do.
Dig deep. Deeper than ever before.
And so she did. She released that laser beam and continued to do so. The reason why she never released a continuous beam was for two reasons. The first one was because it isn't efficient to use that enormous amount of energy for an enemy when a fourth or even a fifth of that can finish them off. And the second was because the strain it puts on her mind to repeatedly condense and release all of that energy, at the same time, with the same level of power she had shown before. If it was a couple levels lower in power, then it wouldn't be much of a problem, but that would be too weak to fix the current situation.
Yet, here she was doing exactly that, though blood was leaking from her eyes and a furious headache was pounding the inside of her skull like a neighbor knocking on the door at nine-am for some sugar.
Even more fascinating was that her attack seemed stronger than before?
However, the sword disc did not let up. Sure, it was glowing orange by now and was turning into smoke, but it equally cut through her attack.
None of them won against the other, which means this was a game of attrition. A game that Ann won.
Heat had built up so much inside the disc that it was starting to slow down and dissipate even faster. After a bout of about five seconds, Ann had finally released the last of her energy and fell to the juice-soaked ground while the disc completely dissipated into smoke that was carried by the wind.
The Bloodthirsty piranha could no longer do anything (forever), and soon Ran finally covered the ship in his juice.
Carried by a huge wave, the ship was led out of the area and was no longer in any danger. Those that later felt the ship was deterred by the massive wave, thinking that a fellow fish was chasing a prey; something that had nothing to do with them.