Story updated on: - 02/07/2010
Chapter beta read by: akiqueen

Chapter 2 (After Effect)

Kino walked up to Hayami and tried her best not to slip on the sub's surface. "Ah… I've found you. Iga's been looking for you." She leered at the scruffy individual. "What are you doing here?"

Hayami looked at her with contempt. She had just interrupted the most important moment in his life and now Mutio was gone.

The many questions he wanted to ask Mutio could not be answered. Nerveless, how was he going to ask them anyway. The last he remembered was that Mutio didn't speak a word of Japanese, or English for that matter.

The atmosphere changed from calm seas to wild winds, but it wasn't enough to stifle the conversation.

"I was getting some fresh air," Hayami replied.

"Well, get back on the ship before you drown yourself."

Hayami bit his bottom lip as he turned away from Kino and towards the direction Mutio had jumped. Why is she out here in the middle of the ocean with us?

-o-

The crowd of half-animal hybrids surrounded their master, Verg, who sat with all his pride. He leered at his females from a distance, who were swimming around in the water pool.

His concentration was disturbed when one of his minions blabbed a message to him.

Verg grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shouted with his deep, terrifying voice, "I told you not to interrupt my thinking or you'll be my next meal!"

He lost respect for his kind after they had tried to leave him for dead at the bottom of the ocean when the ghost ship sank. Only Mutio came to save him. However, his mind was badly damaged and his line of thinking started to became distorted.

The small, frightened hybrid, which was already scared to tell him the bad news, had no choice but to inform him of the development. "Master, I… we are sorry! We have lost contact with Mutio and her sister!"

"What!" Verg shouted, throwing the semi-beaten creature to the corner of the room. He stood, his long flowing cloak hanging down behind him.

"You're supposed to tell me when they've been captured. Arrrrrrr!"

The aquatic hybrids in the water pool swam back in fear, their graceful heads bobbing up and down in the water.

"They were last seen entering a human vessel before it disappeared faster than we could follow."

Verg's razor-sharp shark teeth bellowed over the brown creature that was cowing on the floor. Drool dripped from his mouth and the smell of death hovered over him.

Verg turned. "That female has betrayed me too many times."

"I want you all to find her. Follow the humans if you have to. Get her sent back and kill anyone that gets in the way. Send Musuca Twenty-five and Twenty-six to track them down! They've killed papa and now I want my revenge!" he said as tears streamed down his face. He sat back down on his chair while his female creatures pampered him.

-o-

"Care for a drink, Iga?" asked Jake, who was sitting in his room beside a wooden desk with a small light illuminating the area.

"Not sure if I should. I'm the captain of Blue Six and it's not a good idea to drink alcohol." Iga looked at a small, empty glass, reconsidering.

"It's OK, I won't tell anyone. Besides, you are on the Deep Sea Six and we can't do anything until tomorrow!" Jake then lifted up the bottle and encouraged him, "It's scotch!"

Iga face lit up and he agreed, "Where the hell did you get this?"

"Ah, don't worry, I got a box of them down in the hold. I've been saving them for a rainy day," said Jake, looking through the porthole in his room that displayed the rainy conditions.

An hour passed and all's well in the captain's cabin.

Iga sat back on his chair and looked at the aqua tunnel. "I could never understand the reason for the aqua tunnels. You told me they were for circulation and cooling, but they look too big for that purpose!"

Jake took another drink and replied, "Well, perhaps they're for emergency access too. I used them for such a purpose before." He then paused, deep in thought, holding his glass as the image of the female hybrid flashed into his mind. He carried on, "I ran across something in there a few hours ago, some kind of female creature."

This made Iga laugh out loud at the thought. "I know you've always been single. However, I didn't know you're that desperate!"

Jake replied with a hint of annoyance at his expression "Well, I'll put that down to your English translation! Now! Why don't you have another drink?"

The conversation then changed from joking to more serious matters.

"How did you find us?" Jake asked as he leaned back on his chair and held the glass in his hand.

"We discovered one of your missiles exploding and then a Musuca franticly rushing past us." He then said in a semi-drunken state, "I don't know what you did, but I guess it's not into human relationships!" Iga said making more fun out of Jake's encounter.

-o-

Hayami sat in his quarters, going over the incident several times in his mind. He laid on his bed, looking at the steel ceiling with pipes and cables disappearing into a hole in the wall, which was filled with some kind of foam.

The stuffy smell of steel and a few dirty clothes was all that kept him from going too far into his daydreaming. But he could not hold back the inevitable; he fell asleep.

His dream became strange. All foggy, he could see himself sitting on the floor in the corner of a dark room slightly lit by the light from an open door.

Suddenly, someone with red eyes was standing in front of the door.

Her hands were placed angrily on her hips and the glare of her piercing, red eyes looked deep into his soul. She moved closer and he recognised the young woman. It's Mutio, very angry and scary. She walked tall and stepped into the room and yelled in Japanese, "You killed Zorndyke!" She then placed her bloody hands on his head and a flash of the memory came into Hayami's mind.

Standing with Zorndyke on the cliff-side with the spooky half-human tree offered no rest to his mind.

The old man stood there, and Hayami pointed his gun at him at point blank range.

"What will you do?" Zorndyke said, trying to speak with every breath he had left.

Hayami stood there with his gun. Looking into his eyes, he could see the old man was suffering. Killing him was not the answer. There'd been enough deaths and one more would not make a difference!

What's the point? he thought.

Placing the gun on the floor, he attempted to walk away.

Suddenly, the cracking of the tree caught his attention as the half-human tree tried to move. Its stiffness was like cries of pain. The thought of what Zorndyke had created went though his mind: why did he make a creature suffer like this? A tree? A person? Why?

Hayami turned and glanced at Zorndyke. Then he glanced at the hybrid tree, crying in pain. Then his memories about why he had come to Antarctica, all the people he had killed and the mess of the world came flooding back.

He couldn't resist. He walked right up to Zorndyke and placed his hands around his neck. Zorndyke tried to resist a little before he was overpowered and a tell-tale snap of his neck gave the sign that he was dead. Hayami felt an overwhelming sense of pleasure from this. 'Killing mankind's arch enemy,' he thought. No more creatures would suffer now.

Mutio moved back from Hayami. His face was covered in blood and Mutio stood tall in his foggy dream. "You killed our papa."

Her red eyes pierced into his mind, causing him to wake up. He held a packet of cigarettes, sweating. The hum of the room's air conditioning unit kept the mood steady, adding to the stormy weather outside.

Even with the lights turned off, Hayami didn't draw the curtains over the waterway windows. This made the room have an underwater feel, which was not the best after a dream like that.

Then the whole atmosphere became clear when a knock on the door bellowed through the room.

"Come in," said Hayami, trying to clean himself up.

Sitting up on the bed, he watched as Kino walked in! "Did you forget?" she angrily asked.

"Forget what?" asked Hayami in a slight trance.

"Our dinner date! You said you would come to my quarters!" Kino clearly said in the most clear way possible.

She then carried on complaining. "I spent a long time finding food and making the perfect atmosphere for us, and you stood me up. How could you? Come now, you are coming with me." She then got angry and tried to drag him out of his room.

"Will you go away!" he said, frustrated, as he finally woke up from his slumber.

Kino walked back with shock. Her feelings were hurt at the comment. She needed to know. So without thinking and with the both of them standing close together near the entrance of his room, she decided to make the first move.

The position they were facing was perfect for her surprise. Kino's heart raced and her body heated up with the actions she was about to do. She started to sweat under her clothes.

Hayami was trapped close to her and he began to notice her body odour. Then suddenly, much to his surprise, she grabbed his face and placed her lips on his, her slim, fragile body noticeably pressed against his.

She moved her mouth, which eventually caused Hayami to open his, allowing a gush of cool, sweet fluid to transfer between each other. However, he became aware of what she's doing and immediately pushed her away.

"Kino, what is wrong with you?" he exclaimed.

She looked deep into his eyes and saw no love. From the kiss, it was not special as she had hoped it would be.

She turned and wept, running away and leaving Hayami standing at the entrance to his quarters like a fool.

A sudden splash in the waterway drew his attention, which caused Hayami to run and look through the waterway window. The disturbance of water on the surface indicated that something was there. "Was it Mutio?" he prayed to himself. "Did she see us kissing?"