I bet that, now that Ganondorf had figured out how to summon yoma, she was going to be doing it. All. The. Time. Relentlessly, until she got me and Zelda in a spot where we were weakened enough that she could swipe our scrolls. How were we supposed to stop her? No idea! But I wasn't about to be wrong about her trying it.

We'd been having a pleasant kinda heat wave recently, the kinds of days where it wasn't yet summer, but people started to go to the beach already anyway. I had half a mind to go myself—wondering if I'd be able to convince Murasaki to leave her cold dark room to go with me—but something told me not to. Something like, "if you go out anywhere in a swimsuit, the universe will find a way to rip it off you and get you totally naked in front of everyone." You know. That kind of gut feeling.

The kind of thing Kat would like to see happen. So it wasn't surprising what she said while we were on break between classes.

"You know, with it being this hot out, I wanted to suggest we all go to the beach together after school. 'Cause it's good beach weather, but also 'cause I've seen all my classmates in swimsuits except for Linkle and Tris. And that's just not fair, y'know?" She smirked a little. But then, she shook her head. "Too bad they had to close it down yesterday after some weird stuff happened."

Weird stuff?! Why did this sound like it was going to be something that had to involve us? I elbowed Tris in the side, apparently almost causing her to choke on her rice ball. Oops. But she got the picture.

"Weird stuff? What kinda weird stuff?" she finally asked on my behalf.

"I dunno," Kat said. "The water's been dangerous or something. Like, it's probably just currents, but people feel like it's been dragging them around in ways it shouldn't. So they closed it, to keep anyone from drowning."

To anyone else, this might sound normal. But to me? I got another one of those "ends up staring at the wall like an idiot while having a meaningful flashback to a past life" moments.

A room containing a shining, placid pool of crystal clear water, but something felt wrong. A sharp shrill voice calling out to me, not a second too late. "Link, look out! That isn't normal water!" And then, the tendrils. The grippy, grabby, slimy tendrils.

I could see where this was going.

But no matter how this had the potential to end up, we had to go. We had to stop it. We couldn't just let the local beach water have the potential to drown anyone it wanted. Even if this was probably a trap designed specifically to lure us there.

So I was forced to elbow Tris a few more times. Speak for me, dammit.

"Okay, okay," she said. "That means you guys absolutely have to go to the beach now. Because, I mean, like, now that the Ganondorf chick is summoning yoma, it's up to Linkle to go stop them. And whatever it is in the ocean that's dragging people around and trying to drown them has got to be one of her yoma. So, uh, you and Linkle gotta go see if you can fight this thing, and then maybe, just maybe, if you get the job done, then you can have some fun at the beach?"

I nodded in agreement. Thankfully, so did Yagyuu.

"Yeah, we definitely have to go investigate this," she said. "The sooner, the better. After school today is probably the best."
"Can I come too?" Hibari asked, perking up. "I never get to do anything fun, and I want to do this."

"Of course you can come with us," Yagyuu said. "I'll just have to make sure to protect you from whatever this water yoma is."

Hibari puffed out her cheeks petulantly. "I don't need protecting. I'm not a baby. I can fight too!"

I nodded. Anyone who wanted to help would be appreciated.

"I'm coming too then," Kat said. "And you know what? I think, since this is at the beach, we should all wear swimsuits. Won't that make it more fun?"

Yeah, fun for you, I thought. Significantly less fun for the rest of us. But still, this was important. If I had to fight a monster, I'd do it in any state of dress—or undress—that I had to.

"I'll make it easier for you," came a soft voice in my head. Zelda, of course. "I know I spend a lot of time on the sidelines. Probably too much. So this time, I'll come fight with you. You'll probably still end up in a horribly awkward embarrassing situation, but this time, you won't be the only one. I'll be there with you."

I didn't know if that made it better or worse. Like, if I was going to end up undressed, which was probably going to happen... well, given that she was basically my soulmate, how many times had she seen me undressed in past timelines? Ugh.

And so, later that day, there we were. At the beach, in swimsuits. We had to climb past all the caution tape that was meant to keep us out, but we were shinobi, so it wasn't like it was hard. We'd just have to make sure to put up a shinobi barrier, so we'd remain undetected. It'd suck if, like, the police or something followed us in to tell us the beach was off limits due to the risk of drowning. Like, yeah, we know, we're here to fix it. And it's kind of my fault in the first place. But they wouldn't get that. So we just blocked them out with the barrier.

It was weirdly interesting seeing what kind of swimsuit everyone showed up in. Like, what it says about someone's personality, I guess. Hibari had a frilly bikini with pink polka dots, which was exactly what you'd expect from her, wouldn't it be? And Kat was kind of tomboyish, so it'd make sense that her bikini would be casual with blue stripes, in spite of the fact that, in typical Kat fashion, it was a string bikini that hardly covered anything. Zelda's was a soft blue with a shimmering golden trim on it, with the top being strapless and tying shut in the front. Even though hers also showed quite a bit, she still managed to look like the image of grace and poise in it, which wasn't surprising.

Yagyuu's swimsuit choice was unexpected, though. What with her eye patch and her attitude, I expected her to have something dark and edgy. But hers was almost as frilly as Hibari's, and in bright pink plaid. She and Hibari always seemed pretty close. Maybe they shared more of the same kinds of inner feelings than it seemed like they did. I mean, if swimsuits were, like, a view to the soul or something.

I guess mine made sense too then. It was pretty similar to Kat's, honestly. Simple and plain and kinda tomboyish, tied shut with basic strings. And, coincidentally, it was also striped. Except, hers was the beachy blue color, and mine was more of a foresty green. And, well. She took one look at me and a smirk spread across her face.

"Geez, Linkle. Copying my style much? I feel like one of us is gonna have to change. Or..." Her smirk got even wider. "You could just take yours off."

I frowned and tilted my head toward the water in a sharp gesture, like, I have a feeling there's something else here that's about to do that for you instead. And, with that in mind, I figured it was best if I got to work on that right away. I headed directly toward the water. Yagyuu followed close behind. Hibari made as if to follow, too, but Yagyuu shook her head no, leaving her staying behind with a pout.

"I mean, you can help fight it, but only as soon as we know what we're up against," Yagyuu said. "I'm not having you be the test subject to see how bad of a situation this is."

"Okay, fine." Hibari sighed though.

And immediately Yagyuu made herself the test subject, sticking one foot into the water cautiously. She flinched at first, but it was a normal flinch, like the kind that happens because the water's too cold and you need to get used to its temperature first. She held her foot in there for awhile, then started to ease the rest of herself in, bit by bit. And nothing happened. She poked at the water.

"Seems normal to me."

So I decided to go next, and cautiously stuck one foot into the water myself. It was chilly, yeah, because even though we were having kind of a heat wave, it wasn't exactly summer yet. But other than that it felt like normal water wait no it didn't it felt gelatinous and goopy and it was kind of solidifying and twisting around and grabbing my ankle and yanking upward and HOLY SHIT I was upside down in midair.

I was suddenly at the mercy of the massive tentacle that had hauled me off the beach, the one that was now dangling me precariously high above the ocean below. I flung myself at it, trying to grab onto it, so I wasn't just hanging like this, but it was so slippery. And sticky. Slippery and sticky at the same time. Like, my skin just kept slipping off it, but my swimsuit adhered to it like glue. Still, I kept trying to grab a hold onto it. It began flailing back and forth then, trying to shake me off, making me feel like I was on a wildly bucking horse—how exactly did I know what it felt like to be on a horse must've been one of those past life things—but instead of a horse it was a sea tentacle. I pressed myself against it, refusing to be thrown.

The only problem was that, uh, now it had formed other gooey, grippy tendrils besides just the one. And those tendrils were going for everyone else. One of them was holding Kat upside down the way it'd just held me. Another was gripping both Yagyuu and Hibari, holding them together, which, uh, was giving Yagyuu a nosebleed. And Zelda? There were like four or five of them wrapped around her, like she was the most important prize this thing could grab. Now we knew what we were facing, but it wasn't just me who was in danger.

I focused my mental energy into my scroll, using its power to materialize my sword and shield. But my hands were already covered with the slimy goo. My grip on the sword was so tight to keep from dropping it, that my knuckles were turning white. And even then it still felt like it was going to slip out of my hand. The tentacle that had me in its grasp was still shaking me, but I plunged the sword into it, both to hold me in place and to try to hurt the monster. Unfortunately, the monster didn't even seem the least bit perturbed by my stabbing it. Damn it. I started slashing away at it, but it didn't seem to have any effect then either.

Well, except for the fact that I cut the tentacle in half.

Except, uh, I cut the part that was holding me away from the part that was lifting me up. And so, I, uh, plummeted toward the ocean, landing with a frigid splash.

And because the texture of the monster had been sticky and stuck to my bikini? The bikini was still stuck to the monster. But I wasn't stuck to the monster anymore. Which meant, uh, I was naked.

Shit.

As soon as I swam up to the surface of the ocean, I clamored to cover myself, clasping my arm over my chest. It was hard to cover up my boobs, given the size of them, but I felt like I had to. I mean, the sensation of the cold water was making my nipples get all hard, and that was... super awkward. Ugh. Battle situations always made me hate having so much chest. At least the shield helped, uh, shield them...

But then I heard the screams, and realized that was really unimportant. Yeah, I might've broken free, but the four of them were still being squeezed and shaken by that... thing. And so, yeah, if I went to fight the thing, a bunch of my friends would see me completely naked, nipples and everything else. But if I didn't go to fight the thing, and just stood here covering myself as best as I could... then a bunch of my friends could be strangled to death by tentacles.

The choice was obvious. Was I really going to give a crap if I had to fight totally naked? No, I wasn't. And if I could say that about myself, I think that's pretty badass.

I swam to the shore as fast as I could, even though I was encumbered by my sword and shield and huge boobs. But I got there, and clambered up onto the sand. As I got out of the water, I noticed how much of the goop was still stuck to me. I shuddered at that—the goop, the nudity, the everything—but I beckoned the monster toward me anyway.

Like, come on, bitch. I don't care what people end up seeing. I'll fuck you up.

But how?

I'd fought this thing before. If only I could remember what I did then. I felt like, when I defeated it, it was by exploiting an obvious weak point. That there was a specific part of this whole tentacle-tastic monster that was controlling all the watery gooey tendrils. And taking down that entity would make the whole thing stop its rampage. But I had to have a specific tool to do it, didn't I? Something that'd grab the central entity and pull it out of the water and toward me, so I could kill it.

Well, that'd come later. First, I was going to save my friends.

I charged at the watery beast, running to build up momentum, then jumping at the central part of it that all the tentacles were stemming from. I pressed my body up against it, holding as tight as I could, to shimmy up its slimy tendrils toward the nearest person, so I could cut them free. That happened to be Kat. She was squirming in place, and kicking at the monster—kicking was always her mode of battle—but it wasn't doing much. She had no shoes on, and was basically kicking water, just creating piddly little splashes that didn't do anything at all.

"Unhand me, ugh, you stupid, ugh, tentacle monster! Ugh! Stop groping my friends! It's, ugh, my job to grope, ugh, my friends!"

I made eye contact with her in an attempt to warn her what was about to happen. But of course she had the worst one track mind of anyone I knew, and as soon as she looked up at me...

"Fuck yeah, you have some really nice tits!"

I ignored her, and used my sword to lop off the part of the creature that was holding her, causing her to plummet toward the ocean just like I had. But that didn't stop her from shouting up at me again the whole way she fell downward.

"Like, daaaaamn, girl!" And splash.

I shimmied myself back toward the central body again, to go for the next tendril, and my friends that it held. Hibari and Yagyuu. Hibari had used her scroll to gain her shinobi powers, and was attempting to fight the creature with her typical weapon of choice... her butt. She had managed to squirm out of the creature's grasp, and was now on top of the tentacle, slamming her butt into it repeatedly as she bounced off its gelatinous surface. Once again, it wasn't doing much. But it didn't dim her enthusiasm in the least.

"Hup! I'm gonna beat you, stupid slimy thing! I'm gonna do it! I'll save Yagyuu!"

Yagyuu, on the other hand, still had a pretty bad nosebleed, and looked pretty out of it.

I gave the both of them the same look I'd given Kat, before once again lopping off the tentacle that was holding Yagyuu. Once again, the two of them plummeted toward the sea. I watched them fall, keeping an eye on them to make sure they'd landed safely. They seemed all right, since Hibari swam back to shore, dragging Yagyuu along with her.

"Yagyuu, are you okay? You seem weird. Do you need me to get you some Mr. Bunny candy to make you feel better?"

"I'm... I'm okay..." Her nosebleed seemed to have stopped, at least.

Well, then. Last, but certainly not least, Zelda. I had slipped downward toward the base of the monster, and was now crawling up it, to the central point that led to all four of the tendrils that were gripping her, holding her immobile. Unfortunately, now that I was threatening the beast's most precious catch, it started to wise up to what I was doing. It started forming more tendrils again, and wrapped them around me as I tried to climb. One around one of my legs, one around the other leg. One of them between my legs, leaving a sticky goo in... places that were going to suck to wash sticky goo out of. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

The monster dragged me inward, closer and closer to Zelda, until she and I were both totally trapped, entwined in the same tendrils of goo. It pulled me against her, causing my still completely naked body to grind up against her, like this was the monster's idea of a sick joke. Like, if this wasn't this situation, it'd probably feel good to grind up against someone like this, but... uh, I didn't just think that. I'm not a pervert like Kat or Ryona or Haruka or... well.

That didn't change that we were kind of screwed.

I stared down toward the beach at my friends down there as they were recovering from their part in the whole ordeal. It'd be up to them to save me now. Which made me feel kind of, I don't know, stupid and useless. I was supposed to be the hero. They shouldn't have to do these things on my behalf.

But they were. Yagyuu and Hibari had both focused their powers into their scrolls now. And while Hibari was still trying to fight the monster by hitting it with her butt and not doing very much, Yagyuu had gathered up all her energy and was using her secret ninja art. Which came in the form of a squid.

Soon there were even more tentacles coming for Zelda and me, except this time they were the tentacles of justice. They fought against the gooey water monster, trying to pull us out of it. I reached forward to grab at the good tentacles, but it was still so hard to reach. There had to be a way to do this. Come on, think. How'd I kill this thing before?

"It's an amoeba," Zelda said, shouting in a way that I couldn't tell if she was reprimanding me or calling out to Yagyuu. I looked at her in confusion. "Amoebas have a nucleus. If you can grab and kill the nucleus, you can take down the whole thing!"

Oh. Well, I felt kind of dumb now. But she was right. I waved Yagyuu's squid tentacle away from me, trying to tell her to forget about me and even Zelda, and go for the nucleus. Thankfully, she seemed to get the message. Her squid tentacles receded, and dove downward into the water itself now, looking for the monster's nucleus.

In the meantime, I decided to see if I could swim inward into the monster myself. I pressed my sword forward into the goo as hard as I could, burrowing into its gelatinous flesh, trying to swim downward toward the base of the creature so I could help Yagyuu. And, before long, it worked. I saw it, deep underwater: a squishy looking red orb. Yagyuu's squid power had found it, too, and was using its tentacles of justice to hold the orb in place.

So I could stab it.

And I did.

With a vicious shout, I plunged my sword into the nucleus, and the whole thing came crashing down.

"Oof!" Hibari hit the water butt first, now that she didn't have anything else to bounce off of. "Yagyuu, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She finally was able to stop focusing her power, and let the squid dissipate. "How's Zelda?"

Zelda and I surfaced at about the same time. We stood next to each other, both gasping for breath after the whole incident. Now everyone was safe.

Yeah, everyone was safe, and I was remembering that I ought to be embarrassed over being naked again now.

"That was fun to watch," Kat said, grinning broadly.

"You poor thing." Zelda shook her head at me. "Let's get you covered up." And she darted over to the nearest beach umbrella, to rip some of the fabric right off it.

"Way to deface someone's property," Yagyuu said, shaking her head.

"I think, after fighting naked, she deserves this." And Zelda handed me the piece of umbrella fabric to wrap around myself. I did that eagerly, nodding at her in thanks. I was glad that it was so late the sun was starting to set. Ugh.

"Yeah, I guess," Yagyuu said, shrugging. "That is pretty badass, not caring what condition we see her in as long as she gets to save us."

"And what a great condition it is to see," Kat said, causing Zelda to shoot her a glare.

Beneath the umbrella fabric, I crossed my hands over my chest, trying to warm up my boobs so the chilling sensation of the evening air stopped screwing around with my body. I held my shield out in front of me, and my sword at my side. And, with the others, I slipped back out from the beach property, through the caution tape that had it blocked off.

"Looks like the water's safe again," Hibari said. "I hope they notice, so they can re-open the beach." She paused, tapping her chin. "Maybe, then, we can go again tomorrow, and actually have fun this time!"

"I had fun this time," Kat said. Always the pervert.

Of course, I shook my head no. This whole incident had made it so I'd have had enough of the beach for quite awhile. Maybe the whole summer.