Ika kept drawing in the sand, but now not with the usual her smile, but with a melancholic, distant look. It was as if her soul was taken away from her and only left behind an empty husk, who had only one desire: to write in the sand, to profane its purity and to make it her own.

And all the time, Eiko watched. Eiko always watched. She watched her for the days and nights that followed. She watched Ika collapse, once and again. She watched her as she nursed her while she was sleeping, and watched how after every collapse, she would only wake up to get back to the beach, even if her legs couldn't support her own weight, even if her hands didn't have even the strength to let her crawl back to it.
She watched how, when she had recovered enough, she would fight everyone to let her go back, even when all of them joined forces tried to stop her from doing so. She stood there, watching, with feeling unbearable guilt and pain, even if she wasn't sure why.

Until one day, after Cindy paid her usual visit to the chamber where Ika lied unconscious, she took her out of the room and asked her:

"So, is this going according to your plan?" Cindy asked.

"What plan?" Eiko asked.

"Your plan to kill Ika, of course." Cindy answered

"What? I never intended to..."

"Really, then what where you thinking when you gave her that unsolvable problem?" Cindy interrupted.

"I just..." said Eiko in the verge of tears "I just wanted her to stop.. to stop..."

"Being better than you?" Cindy asked

"No! no! well..." Eiko shouted "Maybe... but I didn't want things to turn like this. I didn't want to..."

"Yes , you did, in a way." Cindy said "You were set up to kill her spirit, to kill her will, but only now you realized that doing such a thing would kill her body first."

Eiko stood there, listening to Cindy accusations, shaking, crying.

"No... No!" she said. "No..."

"...But don't worry, she will break, she will threaten your self worth and your fragile ego no longer, just as you wanted, since she will die, and her strength and pride will go with her to the grave." Cindy said.

"NO! I didn't want to kill her! It was just a prank! A game! A..."

"You tried to crush her spirit, you were trying to destroy her confidence. Isn't that far worse than to kill a man, to kill its soul? To make her bend, to crush her expectations, to force mediocrity into her, so she wouldn't rise above you? Wasn't it just..."

"No, I never wanted that!" Eiko interrupted "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Do you know the story of how Mozart died? It is said that Salieri, a rival composer, was jealous of his genius, and pushed Mozart towards his end by forcing him to compose a Requiem while he was ill, knowing, in a way, Mozart would exhaust himself death trying to finish that piece and he wouldn't be able to save any strength to fight back the disease, so in the end he would, unconsciously, write that requiem for himself and die afterwards, so his own death hymn would be finally fitting for its author."

After hearing this, Eiko fell into her knees, her hands on her face, sobbing endlessly "Stop! Stop!" She shouted, but Cindy wasn't moved by her tears, and resumed her speech.

"When you gave her that problem, weren't you trying to do the same thing? You knew it wasn't normal for squid could live out side the ocean, and that, surely, she had to do some effort to maintain herself stable while she was here. Didn't you gave her this problem because you knew it will ask everything out of her, and would kill her in the end?

Didn't you did this because you were like Salieri? Because you were just jealous of her? Because her genius was an insult to you, a mediocre, a worthless human without passions and that wouldn't bother find one? Wasn't her talent an insult to your kind, who look down on others but have no reason to do so, and their only chance to remain happy is to hide themselves from the truth, from the beautiful, from the genius, and live in a world pretending the grapes were sour all along?" Cindy asked

"No, I'm not like that! I swear! I didn't want this!" she said while crying. "Please make her stop! please save Ika!" Eiko begged.

"I can't, no one can." Cindy responded. "Its said that obsessions define man. Once they are possessed by one, people say, they become an instrument of that obsession and of that obsession only, they become its tool, and they do nothing or think of nothing, besides that what it desires they to do or think. I guess the same is for all sentient creatures..."

"But you encouraged her! You gave her all those books!" cried Eiko.

"Yes, I did. But I only did it because I was hoping that would stop her from going on. I was hoping that she would see how much effort did it take, how many lives where lost pursuing those impossible problems, and slowed down..."

She paused for a second, as if she were about to restrain herself from crying . But if that was so, her face didn't say it. She keep talking, as nothing happened.

"And if that failed, I was hoping that when the time came, she would fully understand what Godel work really meant and realize everything might be a just hopeless effort that would accomplish nothing. But I failed. Even facing the possibility that everything would be meaningless, that every bit of what she worked for might be a lost cause, she kept going, undiscouraged. Once a obsession has you in such a tight grip, there is no longer a way to scape."

"So, are you saying there no way to save her?" Eiko cried.

"Well, maybe you can convince her to stop it and to go back to the ocean. But its unlikely that she would listen to you at all"

"I will try. I have to try!" Eiko shouted, as she ran away.

She spent the next days besides Ika, begging her to go back, and each and every time she rejected her, and once she felt strong enough, she walked again to the beach, ignoring Eiko pleads to stop.

One time she ran to were Ika was drawing, hugged her and cried, begging her to go back to the sea, but her only response was:

"Don't disturb my lines!".

That's how it was until after one of her collapses couldn't stand up again, and even after a full week of rest she still wasn't able to move. Even then, Ika kept begging to be brought to the beach, but her request was denied.

"Please return to the Ocean Ika." Eiko begged once again.

"I can't, because I wont be able to write it there". Ika answered while coughing. "The writings on the underwater sand never last, and I can't use ink to write down my thoughts there" She said while coughing once again. "What would happen if I got the answer, and then forget? No, no I need to stay here. I.. need... to write."

"Then I will write it down for you" Eiko said "But please, don't try to stand up. Please Ika"

"Ok geso~.. "cough"... I will tell you and you will write..."

"Yes, I will, so please, please stay there, and rest. I will do everything for you. So please, stay."

"Thanks Eiko" Ika said. "You have always been there for me. Thanks to you I was able to learn about this wonderful things. Thanks to you, I know math. Thanks to you, I finally understand humanity. Thanks to you, I found meaning in all of this. Thanks to you, I finally know..."

"Don't say that! Please, don't say you thank me after what I done to you! I don't deserve it, I didn't want this! I.. I .." but Eiko broke into tears before she could finish that phrase. She was unable to look at Ika, and she kept there sitting besides her, looking at the ground. She felt a hand in her cheek, moving softly, as if with her touch it where telling that everything was going to be fine, telling her to let her sorrow go and then, suffer no more. Then she felt that same hand falling into her lap; Ika had fallen sleep once again. Eiko grabbed then the hand that lied now besides her, and began to cry.

The next week, Eiko spent it sitting in front of Ika's bed, writing everything she said while she was awake and looking at her while she was asleep. Day by day, once blank pages turned into an ocean of figures of ink, just as once the empty beach became art under Ika's desire. She tried to make her stop, but realized her condition would only became worse when she refused to keep going. "she must be going about it in her head every time I refuse to keep writing" she thought, and realized the mental effort was slightly alleviated if she kept copying, so she did. But that only gave her a little more of time, and it seemed she had very few left.

She remembered about the two Mathematicians Ika talked most about when she was healthier. One of them, the young poor genius from India, Ramanujan, died in a hospital when he was 32 after a suicide attempt.

The other one, George Cantor, died poor and alone after he was sent to a psychiatric institution. They said the origin of his madness came from trying to understand something mankind wasn't ever supposed comprehend: the infinite, the eternal, the supreme.
Soon, she thought, they will have to add another name to the list of those destroyed by that knowledge, even if this one didn't belong to a human at all.

This routine when on for a few more days until in one of them, Ika finally said:

"I got it, I got answer! it looks so simple now. Everything looks so easy now..."

"Great, now you can go back and..." Eiko said while crying.

"NO!" Ika shouted "write it down first... I don't want to forget it."

"Ok, but after that you will go back to the sea, and you will recover and... you will come back here...and we will play again..." Eiko said, as she was forcing herself to smile, but with tears running through her eyes

"Yes... Ika said. I will come back, and work in the store... and see everyone again... and we will eat lots of shrimp geso~... hehe"

"Yes, yes you will! Now tell me" Eiko said. " Please tell me"

Ika started dictating slowly, and Eiko copied everything trying to contain her tears. Some times they would soak the paper and with great effort she would force herself to stop so they wont spread the ink on what she had already written. She did so, until Ika finally pronounced :

"That's it, I can rest now."

"Yes, you can rest" Eiko said. Everything will be fine, rest, rest now..."

"Thanks, and... goodbye, Eiko. I'm glad I came here, I glad I meet you. I was so happy I was..."

But she didn't finish that phrase, and she never would, for at that moment, the daughter of the sea was already dead. Only one last impulse reminded on her, the impulse to say one last goodbye and once she did, she was gone.

Eiko finally looked down to what she wrote. After all that time, it would be the first time to notice it, for while Ika was alive, her attention reminded on her, and only on her. She was surprised when she saw there were only incoherent lines, like the ones Ika gave her the first time when she asked her how could she do math like she did.

But, she was sure that this contained the answer, that that would let Ika be known as the greatest mathematician that ever lived, human... or else. But she couldn't understand it. No one could . The secret of the Golbach's Conjecture would lie with her for the eternity.

Now, Eiko grief finally turned to insanity. She cursed herself, she cursed the world.

"She killed a genius. She killed a saint. She killed a god" She thought.

"And why? because of her jealousy, because of her envy, because of her rage. She was now the protector of the mediocre, of the unworthy, of the untalented. She too, was Salieri."

"I killed you Ika! I killed you!"

She shouted.

"I killed you..."

"I killed...

...you"

...

..

.

"...And that's why you shouldn't let Ika tutor you, and make her come to my house everyday instead" Sanae said.

"That story doesn't even make sense... and isn't it just a excuse to make me look bad?" said Eiko.

"No, that's what always happens! Math kills people! I read so... in a book!" cried Sanae.

"Somehow, I find it hard to believe. Also, are you sure that's what happened to Mozart?" asked Eiko.

"That's how it was! A saw it in a movie about him yesterday... and I swear it will happen again if she keeps teaching you!" Sanae answered.

Eiko brought her palm to her forehead. " Why do I even bother to talk to you? I have work to do." She said while leaving.

"Hmpf" Sanae mumbled, as she went on to think on her next plan to get Ika for her, once and for all.

The End