Remember Abyss

Sarevok could hear an ominous clacking sound from above. Something very vague-shaped and enormous was diving toward him. As the thing approached, he noticed that it was a swarm of skulls, clacking their jawbones. The sockets were empty, but in a fleeting, transparent vision Sarevok could see faces of horrified sailors trying to fight the cold in their bones, and the skulls eating them alive. He remembered Mei's story about a skull tide gaki. It sought to pierce the hull of a ship, the clacking driving the sailors mad. When the ship capsized it then attacked the sailors, paralyzing them, and ate them alive so that they became one of the skulls.

He found that the water slowed his whirlwind of steel very little as he chopped the first outpost of the evil of the island in pieces. The water was not natural at all. It was as if an oily, poisonous substance oozing evil was submerged in it. How Sarevok wished that his mother would be here. Jelena would know what it was and fight it with spiritual force. How Sarevok had come to trust his family, their own individual skills without even realizing it... and now he was all alone.

The sense of doom intensified as he plodded along. He felt watched. Suddenly a tentacle grabbed his leg.

The giant octopi had one yellow malevolent eye in the middle of their foreheads, and tried to rip him apart. Apparently they were commanded by a group of humanoids with kraken heads. The beasts had seven tentacles and wielded tridents and swords in them, and their murderous bright red eyes shone as they commanded their underlings via a psionic link.

==Even if you pass, bushi... even if you would defeat the oni lords and their master with your sword... you are doomed. For victory takes a noble heart, it has been prophesied. And you? You don't have a noble heart, you know that. Don't you, bushi? Slayer of children, sibling-murderer. Evil, snarling beast that is slave to ambition and the everpresent violence in your blood!==

Sarevok could feel the krakentua's sending as clearly as if someone was talking inside his head. It was not only talk either - it was something physical, something that drained strength from his sword arm and stamina from his body, pride and purpose from his spirit.

Mind games! Evil creatures love to play mind games! Remember Abyss, and prevail! Do not listen to it!

- "Slave creatures, silence yourselves! I have traveled through a shifting desert, prevailed in a fight against a monstrous spawn of your master. I have found new hope and love when I thought there is none for me. Even if, for the sake of others and perhaps my own salvation, I have to let that love go, I shall not be stopped by your machinations. I shall fight, or die trying, for never again shall I let anything sway me from the course of right!"

Sarevok was amazed to notice that he was fully capable of talking underwater. It seemed as if the murky, oily water shied away from him, and he found strength again.

Finally he chopped the last twitching tentacles and panted, his head splitting from the rays of infuriated pain the dying krakentua were sending him. He rested but a bit, all the time wary. That was but the outpost... could one man, any man, survive what was to come? A creeping despair was approaching, but Sarevok decisively shoved it away. He was here for a purpose. He was the prophesied one, Yogenii Wan. If he didn't save Kozakura, who would? No, there was no call for him to pity himself for his hopeless future of torment, and the lost love, a brief gift of the gods before walking into his doom. This was meant to be. Perhaps this was why he was given a chance to live again.

Once I was sure that a prophecy was centered around me... and lo and behold, I was right after all. But this is not exactly what I had in mind, then...

Sarevok smirked and started to walk ahead to the radiating source of evil presence. Strange lights shimmered in the darkness of the underwater world.

- "I see you made it this far, bushi. Congratulations..."

The voice was deep and disembodied, and Sarevok could not see the speaker.