Drowning is silent.
Water first enters the throat and stomach, triggering a cough. Then the coughing causes water to enter the lungs. A violent tearing and burning sensation occupies the entire lungs and chest cavity. When you open your mouth wide to gasp for air, it only allows more water in.
Then there will be a faint metallic taste of rust in your mouth—the taste of ruptured alveoli—but you have no time to taste it, as water in the ear canal makes your entire head feel as if it's about to explode.
You struggle instinctively, limbs flailing in the deep water, but all you can grasp is the liquid escaping through the gaps in your fingers. Finally, you can only hold your breath based on survival instinct.
This process lasts for two and a half minutes. You will constantly feel dizziness caused by oxygen deprivation until consciousness is lost, pupils dilate, and convulsions set in. Finally, after a few breaths triggered by nerves, breathing stops entirely, the heart ceases to beat, and death follows slowly.
Yama opened her eyes in the water, the seawater stinging her eyeballs, yet she only watched the bubbles emerging from her mouth. Among her drifting silver hair, she sank toward the bottomless sea.
Gradually, seawater filled her body, functions ceased, and cells died.
She entered into the conventional sense of... death.
Her corpse came to a halt in the depths of the ocean. Schools of fish surrounded her, looking like starlight scattered in the night sky of the deep sea.
An empty silence, like the beginning of the world, a time when nothing had yet been born.
After an unknown amount of time, the heart of this corpse began to beat again. The dilated pupils refocused.
Yama held her hands before her eyes. Her water-bloated skin returned to its smooth, fair state; her entire being had miraculously revived into its complete form.
"..."
She closed her eyes. She had long ago grown accustomed to the feeling of water entering her lungs. By now, drowning was merely a death that felt boring to her.
A giant arm rose from the depths of the sea, lifting her and raising her toward the light of the ocean surface.
Regaining the light, she lay pale on the giant arm, coughing up seawater. At the corner of her eye, she noticed a strangely shaped fish had been brought to the surface along with her. It was twisting its alien-looking body vigorously.
Yama quickly grabbed the deep-sea fish. A thin tube with a sharp tip appeared in her hand, and she pierced the fish's belly.
In the deep sea, the air in a fish's swim bladder is under great pressure. Once at the surface, the pressure decreases and the compressed air expands, causing internal organ damage and making the fish swell up, unable to sink back to its natural depth. Thus, she was releasing the air from the swim bladder.
After the air was completely released, light emanated from her hand, covering the fish's body. Then she threw it back into the sea.
In the process of sinking, the fish's body would gradually heal, avoiding infection from the puncture and ensuring the internal closed environment wasn't destroyed.
She lowered her eyes to watch the gradually calming surface, then sat on the giant arm, looking out at this lonely world.
Yama actually felt that deep-sea fish were pathetic. They spent their whole lives in the dark sea, their visual systems regressed, their appearances ugly; if they left the deep sea and saw true light, they would die.
But they lived that way, never feeling uncomfortable in their environment—living stupidly and happily.
Yama let the giant arm carry her to the shore. Her clothes had long been dried by the sea breeze. Stepping onto land, she went to the weapons she had left behind.
Her weapons were varied and mostly looked strange—for example, a pair of dual pistols in black, white, and orange; a purple-black sniper rifle; a pair of gloves embedded with reddish-black spheres; and a long sword with a white scabbard but a black blade and hilt.
Not far away, countless golden long swords of the same design were planted densely, so many that one couldn't see the end.
Yama stared blankly at these things, listening to the waves hitting the shore.
It wasn't until after another cycle of the sun rising and setting that she picked up the long sword with the black blade and white scabbard, strapped it to her waist, and walked toward the sea of swords.
One step, two steps, three steps...
Lifting her tireless feet, she slowly left that golden sea of swords and arrived at another "ocean."
An ocean made of tombstones.
More densely packed than the sea of swords, it seemed determined to plant a tombstone on every piece of ground in sight.
She continued walking.
Occasionally, there were tombstones engraved with names, some even more specific with titles. But most were just nameless graves.
Finally, she stopped before a tombstone with an epitaph.
『Fire-Moth Soldier CM-000 Lin. Died in battle against the Tenth Herrscher.』
The part below was an inscription consisting of a single sentence:
『Here lies a hero.』
Yama stared intently at the inscription she had seen countless times, which flashed through her mind day and night. Her fists gradually clenched. Countless pain and resentment turned into fire in her eyes, twisting the face of the normally cold girl.
It was as if in the next moment, she would raise her hand and use the unparalleled power of a Herrscher to smash this tombstone to pieces.
Suddenly, a heavy rain fell overhead, dousing the fire in her heart.
...
"It's raining."
The girl beside him reached out to catch the playful raindrops. Those she couldn't catch slid past her slender fingers, eventually falling into the sea.
Lin watched the common tropical storm at sea. One could see the fickle ocean weather all at once from the deck of Fire-Moth. Fire-Moth didn't bother with artificial weather control around its base; it couldn't affect the interior anyway.
However, there was joy in Elysia eyes. she maintained a sense of novelty about everything, even a heavy rain she had seen countless times.
"Lin, it's raining. Why do you look a bit unhappy?" the clumsy rain-catching girl turned back and asked with a smile.
"...Why should I be happy when it rains?"
He couldn't make any connection between the two things, unless he was selling umbrellas.
Only Elysia beaming face told him she felt happy because of it.
"Think about it. We're always in this fully enclosed base. Even after months, we don't feel any change." Elysia said seriously. "But as long as it rains, we walk out, and when the rain hits our heads, we feel that the world is still alive, still rich and colorful~"
"Ah... I see," Lin replied flatly.
"Geez... my adjutant, the Captain is happy, so you should be happy too. How can you be so perfunctory?"
"...Being a Captain isn't being an Emperor, and I'm not a eunuch."
Elysia doubled over with laughter. She leaned on Lin shoulder, her elven ears trembling lively. After she had laughed enough, she stood up straight, unable to stop smiling.
Then her expression became a bit hesitant, her eyes a bit shy. She paused for a long time before asking in a voice that was barely audible: "Um... Lin, what you said just now... what did you mean?"
"What?" Lin asked back.
"What you said at the orientation..."
"Yeah. Being by your side, I feel very happy."
Elysia turned her head away, not letting Lin see her face. Only after a long time did she stammer in a low voice: "Really?"
"Really."
Lin replied in a serious tone—
"Being by all your sides, I feel very happy."
Elysia smile suddenly froze. She asked in a strange tone:
"...All your sides?"
Lin gave Elysia a puzzled look, then listed them like a menu: "You, Kevin, MEI, Hua, Vill-V, Mobius, Prometheus..."
"..."
Elysia expression first cooled, then she gave a somewhat helpless yet happy smile and nodded. "Yeah... everyone together, it truly is happy."
She smiled and looked up at the rain.
"If only it could stay like this forever, how wonderful that would be."