Shortly after their heart-to-heart, Jaller, Kit, and Matoro found themselves at the outskirts of Mahri Nui, where they waited for their remaining four comrades. Kit couldn't help but notice that, completely abandoned now, the entire city looked like a ghost-town. Then, her eyes happened to wander onto the scorpion-like Rahi called hydruka at the fields of air. According to Defilak, the Mahri Nui Matoran had domesticated those Rahi when their efficient means of harvesting the air weed that contained the most air, which the Matoran depended on to survive here, was discovered. Now, with the Matoran gone, the hydruka seemed lonely and lost. Some kept looking around the place as if hoping to spot their herders coming back. Kit frowned, feeling sorry for them. They had no idea what was going on and that their masters weren't coming back. "I'll be right back," she told the Toa, and took off before either of them could stop her. Once she was close enough, she slowed down and approached slowly so as not to startle the animals. The hydruka took notice of her when she was still yards away. They backed away a bit in fear as she landed on solid ground. She expected the Rahi to react more drastically, but to her relief none of them attacked or fled. 'Ok, now what?' she wondered. To her surprise, a blue hydruka cautiously came closer. Girl and Rahi eyed each other for a minute, then the hydruka sniffed her. Suddenly, she noticed that the Rahi's tail was preparing to launch an air bubble. Though she knew the bubble wouldn't hurt her, she still instinctively ducked to the side. 'Ok, this is going to be fun,' she thought, then she heard something like a roar. Looking behind her, she saw a Takea shark that was faltering due to the bubble that struck it. She launched an energy ball to scare it off and the predator swam away.
After making sure the shark wasn't coming back, Kit looked back at the hydruka, who looked at her as if saying, 'You ok now?'
"Thanks," she said as she gently patted its head, and the Rahi cooed contentedly. Getting to her feet, and wishing she had a Kanohi Rau, she addressed the Rahi congregated around her. "You can go wherever you want to. You can leave now." Some of the hydruka, including the blue one, cocked their heads in uncertainty. "The Matoran are gone; they're not coming back. Soon this place is not going to be safe. You all have to find some shelter for a while, then you can stay here if you choose. You're all free." Kit waited to see what would happen. The hydruka looked at each other, as if confused and unsure. Then, they all took off; even if they weren't sure of what the strange, tall, multicolored Matoran was saying, they recognized some words: 'Matoran', 'gone', 'not', 'safe', and 'free'. Though the Rahi didn't mind their lives with the Matoran, freedom didn't sound too bad either. Meanwhile, Kit could hardly believe what she was seeing. The Rahi really understood her in some way and were doing as she said? She looked down to find the blue hydruka still next to her. It regarded her with a look of thanks and trust. "You take care of yourself now, you hear?" Kit said to the animal. The hydruka chittered and left to join its brethren.
When Kit rejoined the Toa, she found that Hahli and the others had arrived.
"Where've you been?" asked Jaller.
"Taking care of a little unfinished business," the girl replied.
"Spooky," said Nuparu, referring to Mahri Nui which was slowly being claimed by the sea as its air bubbles collapsed one by one. "Almost like a giant memorial stone for an entire people."
"The Barraki won't be far behind us," Hahli spoke up.
Kit nodded, "If we're going to do something here, we better do it now."
Jaller grabbed hold of his Cordak blaster and said, "Hewkii, you're the one with the dead aim. What part of the cord do we target?"
The Toa of Stone peered at the stone cord, using his natural skill as a rock crafter to determine its weak point. He pointed at a small spot a little above the city. "There. All seven of us firing everything we've got at that spot will shatter it. My question is—then what?"
"Axonn said Voya Nui would go back to wherever it came from," Kit answered. "Although, he didn't say how or how fast, so I highly recommend we be prepared for anything."
Jaller looked to others and asked, "Everybody ready?"
"Check," said Hahli.
"Got it," confirmed Hewkii.
"Uh huh," replied Kongu.
"Yep," Nuparu answered.
"Ok," Matoro verified.
"You bet," Kit responded. "Let's do it."
As one, the entire team aimed their weapons of choice, the Toa their blasters and Kit a double-handed sure shot, at their objective. "Hey, Hahli, try hitting the target for a change," said Hewkii.
Knowing the Stone Toa was only joking, the Toa of Water smiled. "Excuse me? Who won all those kolhii matches?"
"Yeah, Mr. Smarty Mask," Kit joined in. "I happen to recall she even beat you at your own game."
"I've not-never had an island fall-drop on my head before," Kongu said. "This should be interesting."
"New day, new experience," replied Nuparu cheerfully, which succeeded in earning himself a glare from the Toa of Air.
Suddenly, Kit's scanner came to life, warning her of danger coming from behind. "Um, guys, guess whose coming to dinner."
The Toa Mahri turned around to find Gadunka coming at them—and he didn't look very happy, either. If he was suffering from any injuries from his earlier fight with Hewkii, he didn't show it. "My old pal," the Stone Toa said sarcastically. "Too bad we don't have any of those explosive madu fruit from our old island. I could teach him how to play fetch."
Upon seeing the Rahi's massive jaws, Kongu remarked, "Your 'pal', huh? Sometimes I wonder about your taste in friends, Hewkii."
"So do I, everytime I look at you," the Toa of Stone retorted, earning himself a dead-leg from Kit.
"We don't have time for this. Every minute we waste brings Mata Nui closer to dying," said Matoro.
"Don't worry," said Hewkii. "Thirty seconds tops should take care of him."
"Assuming you don't do what you did last time," remarked Kit.
"Hey, I may be a Toa of Stone, but I can learn from my mistakes, can't I?"
"Uh oh," said Nuparu.
"What do you mean 'uh oh'?" asked Kit. The Earth Toa pointed and, when she saw what he was talking about, she gasped. It turned out that Gadunka didn't come alone. He was followed by the 300-foot long venom eel and the massive Rahi that Kongu summoned earlier. "Looks like someone really didn't like you disturbing his nap, Kongu," Kit commented.
"Better make that forty seconds," Hewkii corrected.
'This is bad, very bad,' Kit thought to herself. Barely ten minutes had passed and things for her and the Toa Mahri were already not looking good. Before he could use his mask power against the venom eel, Hewkii got stunned by a brutal attack from Gadunka, and Jaller and Matoro were knocked out from a single blow from the behemoth. Seeing Gadunka going for the Mask of Life, she intercepted him and fired a DragonBall sphere. The Rahi roared in pain and Kit moved in. However, before she could continue, Gadunka's pincer snapped around her waist and he threw her with such force to the ground, she was rendered unconscious.
"Kit!" Nuparu called, seeing what happened, and he too challenged the Rahi. Using the power of his Mask of Stealth, he phased out. Gadunka's eyes blinked in confusion and he looked around for any sign of the black being that was in front of him a minute ago. Finding none, he shrugged and again reached for the Kanohi Ignika—only to start at a rocket exploding near him. He found the source to be Nuparu before the Earth Toa phased out again. The Toa repeated this several more times; his plan was to confuse the Rahi to the point that it would chase after him. His plan worked halfway, though; Gadunka's eyes never completely left the prize he sought. Seeing this wasn't working, Nuparu threw a boulder at Gadunka, but the Rahi simply used his jaws to bite it in half. 'Ok. New plan,' thought the Earth Toa, and he used his elemental power to create a chasm right underneath Gadunka. Before the Rahi knew what was happening, he fell in. The Toa of Earth waited to see if anything would happen, but nothing did. "Glad that's over," he sighed as wiped his brow, and turned to check on Matoro, Jaller, and Kit, who were starting to wake up. Suddenly, a pincer erupted out of the sea floor, clasped around Nuparu's waist, and slammed him into the ground three times. Though severely dazed from the attack, he managed to look over his shoulder to find the owner of the appendage—Gadunka.
The Rahi was about to make the Earth Toa when he spotted the Mask of Life. He tossed aside Nuparu and grabbed it. The mask, however, reacted to being taken away from Matoro the only way it knew—by cursing that who, or which, was not destined to carry it in some form or another, and Gadunka's wasted no time in going right to work. Kit, who had finally completely regained her wits, was about to attack the Rahi when, before her astonished eyes, it began to shrink. It shrank and shrank and shrank until it was no bigger than half the size of her small finger. Gadunka looked at himself, then at the girl, and opened his mouth in what she suspected was meant to be a roar of frustration, but it was too small to be heard. For a minute, Kit was tempted to just flick the little Rahi away, but, for reasons unknown to her, she decided against it. Instead, she simply gave it a look of supremacy, placed one hand on her waist, and pointed toward the ocean at her right side. "Move it, buster," she commanded. "You've had your fun being a rampaging beast and, therefore, caused enough trouble to last a century." Recognizing the expression on the girl's face and the tone in her voice as that of dominance, Gadunka swam away. "What in the world happened?" Kit asked, scratching her head in confusion as she watched the Rahi.
"Apparently, his curse was devolving anything he touched until it returned to its original form," answered Nuparu.
"And, he, in a way I still can't see how, became his first victim," said Hahli.
Meanwhile, Matoro moved to grab the Kanohi Ignika, but Hydraxon's voice stopped him. "I wouldn't. That mask comes with me."
Jaller and Nuparu prepared to face him and Kit, fists glowing, jumped to the Ice Toa's side. "You so much as take one step toward him, and I'll be starting with your right, and don't you dare think I won't do it; you know I will," she warned, reminding him of her threat from hours before. Matoro, however, waved off his fellow Toa and placed a hand on the girl's shoulder, his eyes telling her he had a plan, and she backed off a bit.
Matoro locked eyes with Hydraxon and held out the Kanohi. "You want this? Take it. Go ahead. Then the fate of the universe can be on your head instead of mine. I never asked to be the one everything depends upon." When Hydraxon asked Matoro what he was talking about, the Toa of Ice asked him if strange sea creatures appearing out of nowhere, an entire Matoran city sitting abandoned, and the Barraki and their armies running wild was normal and mentioned things were probably worse back at Metru Nui. "The end is coming, Hydraxon, even as we speak, and everything that lives can sense it. And, now everything comes down to one mask and one Toa—me—and maybe I'm just not up to being a hero. So, you take it. You save the universe."
"Or, knowing you, destroy it. Then when everyone asks why everything's coming to a screeching halt, we can point them to you and just watch the show as they beat you to a pulp and tear you apart," Kit added.
Hydraxon looked at the mask, as if unsure of what to do, then into Matoro's eyes. He recalled how Pit prisoners plead or threatened him or insisted they were innocent, but their eyes always told the truth. And neither Matoro's nor Kit's eyes were lying. "Maybe I've seen a few strange things," Hydraxon admitted, remembering his encounter with Maxilos earlier, "but, that's a pretty powerful mask. What are you planning to do with it?"
After stealing a glance at the mask in his hand, Matoro replied, "When I find out, I'll let you know. So, Hydraxon, do we have to fight, or will you let us pass?"
A long, tense moment passed as the jailer wrestled with whatever thoughts were going through his head. He seemed to take such a long time, Kit was getting tempted to just blast him away. Finally, he reached a decision. "I have runners to catch. You can keep your toy for now, but stay out of my way in the future, understand?"
"Somehow, I don't think that'll be a problem," Matoro said, shaking his head.
"Provided you stay out of ours," Kit added.
And with that, Hydraxon took his leave. Hahli was possibly the only one who seemed to see a sadness that appeared to hang over him like a curtain. "It's like he's looking for all these escapees, but he's the one who's really lost," she noted sympathetically.
"Oh, forget him already, Hahli," said Kit. "He's a clueless jerk."
"Besides, our troubles aren't over yet. Look!" Hewkii pointed.
A dark wall was heading right for them. "That doesn't look good," Kit remarked in a quiet voice. Then, the entire group realized that what they were seeing wasn't a wall at all. It was a legion of thousands upon thousands of sea creatures, and they were all being led by the Barraki. "Definitely not good," Kit corrected with a hint of nervousness.
"I expected them sooner," Jaller commented. "Let's make their trip be for nothing."
As one, the Toa Mahri and their human friend aimed and fired their choice weapons. The six Cordak blaster rockets and double-handed sure shot streamed out and converged on the target spot of the cord. An incredible explosion shattered stone an instant later, indicating for all around that the cord had been severed—the island of Voya Nui, which had been adrift on the ocean's surface for 1,000 years, was coming home at last, and nothing could stop it. "Move! Move!" yelled Jaller. Although, there was really no reason for the Fire Toa to do so, the others were already moving as fast as they could go. As the sinking island fell, the group of heroes each reflected both on the fact that they walked on it just a day ago, and that it seemed as if it was being pulled by a string toward its destination.
However, they didn't have time to wonder about that right now. 'The Barraki are going to be more desperate than ever to get their claws on the Mask of Life,' Kit said to herself as she stole a quick glance over her shoulder. She thought back to what Matoro said to Hydraxon on how every living thing in this universe could feel that it was all about to come to an end—unless she and the Toa Mahri stopped it. She never personally thought that she could feel such a sensation, but, now that the Toa of Ice mentioned it, she did feel a strange and intimidating feeling that something with the fabric, the very foundation, of this realm wasn't right. It felt like it was starting to tear and crumble. The feeling was also accompanied by an interesting realization—for once in a long while, the fate of the Bionicle reality didn't rest on her shoulders. True, she did help out when it came to retrieving the Ignika and keeping it safe, but the fact was that it was now all up to one person and it wasn't her. In a way, it was a little comforting. Determination fueled her on, and she swam alongside her friends after the runaway island.
"I hate to be the one to say this," said Kit, "but I don't think we're going to make it."
"Just keep moving!" Matoro shouted back without looking back.
Kit pooled all of her focus into her legs to keep them kicking. Even with her fins pushing her forward, she still had to pump them in order to keep up with Voya Nui and the Toa. They were all tired from swimming pretty much non-stop ever since this whole fiasco under the sea started. The Kanohi Ignika flared brighter in Matoro's hands and, from its light, she saw a gigantic hole in the sea floor. 'Is that where the island originally came from?' she wondered, recalling that her Matoran friends on Voya Nui mentioned that their island was once a part of a large continent until the Great Cataclysm violently shot it upward to the surface. She noticed that Matoro seemed to somehow get a sudden burst of energy and swim faster. Judging from that, she took it as a sign that they must be getting close to their goal and she willed herself to keep up. Suddenly, the Ice Toa came to an abrupt stop as fast as he increased his speed. Kit almost didn't avoid crashing into Kongu. "Hey, Matoro, what's the holdup?" The Toa of Ice was kneeling on the ground, holding the Mask of Life. The girl instantly noticed how dejected the Toa's posture looked. Having a sickening feeling she wasn't going to like whatever was going on, she came in closer. "What is it?" she asked, then she saw. The mask, which was glowing like crazy a minute ago, was now as gray as slate. 'No,' she thought; there was only one thing she could think of that this meant—they were too late; the Great Spirit had died. By now, the rest of the team had caught up to them and either felt something happen, or noticed the Ice Toa and the girl's expressions. 'It can't be,' Kit said to herself in disbelief, 'this can't be how it ends; it just can't be.' But she could feel it, as well. There was no denying it; she could sense a drastic shift in the fabric of existence in this realm.
"We're too late," Matoro said in a low, defeated tone. "He's dead."
"We'll be, too, pretty soon," Hewkii pointed out, referring to the Barraki and their combined forces that were still charging toward them as if they didn't sense a thing that just happened. Kongu suggested they destroy the mask to make sure the Barraki couldn't use it at all, but Nuparu didn't see how that would help, now that the mask appeared practically useless to everyone.
Matoro, however, suddenly decided they had to try one last time, considering he was holding a Mask of Life. Kit caught on immediately what the Ice Toa had in mind. "He just might have a point. It must be called the 'Mask of Life' for a reason. What if there's some way to use it to bring Mata Nui back to life?" Anyone else would've thought what Matoro and Kit were suggesting was insane or wishful thinking. Jaller, however, knew better; he was once killed by a Rahkshi and resurrected by a being called Takutanuva. Therefore, who was to say that what the Ice Toa and girl were saying was impossible? Certainly not him.
"We have to go, now!" Matoro urged. "We have to try!"
Jaller looked between Matoro and armies of the Barraki, and said to the Toa of Ice, "No. You have to go. You have to try. We'll stay here and buy you time. Go!"
Matoro gazed at the Toa of Fire, understanding that his friends, even Kit, were ready to die if need be in order to give him the chance to do what must be done, and the two shook hands.
"Make sure to tell the new Chronicler what happened here," Hewkii told him. "I'd hate to think we went through all this and don't get a legend out of it."
"And, make sure they pick a good Chronicler," Hahli added.
"Yeah, maybe a Ko-Matoran, just for variety's sake," Kit said with a forced smile.
Matoro noticed through the girl's visor that her eyes seemed to be holding more moisture than normal. He'd never witnessed this, but he'd heard of it from the Turaga and Toa Takanuva. "Don't cry, Kit," he said quietly as he gently took hold of her chin in his hand.
"Don't worry, Matoro, I won't," she replied. "Do me a favor though; if you ever somehow get in touch with my family, tell them I love them. Or, if you ever talk to Tehreisha, ask her if she can somehow deliver the message."
Personally, the Ice Toa felt either of those situations were extremely unlikely, but he nodded nonetheless. Now, too choked with emotion to say more, he continued the chase after Voya Nui. The rest of the Toa Mahri, meanwhile, turned their attention to the oncoming onslaught, prepared and resolved to meet their fate.