Into the Dark
6th July 2008
Series: The Seer
Summary: More on Watanuki's power, Shizuka puzzles more things out, more hints, implications of underwater adventure and one very pissed-off spirit.
Warnings: None so far. Hm, maybe the LONG chapter...?
Author Notes: Many thanks to curiousrobin for the beta-reading! This chapter is for GoddesOfWrath for not just being the first to review this story but reviewing every single chapter since.
Also, I counted today: Out of the 74 people who have this story in their Story Alerts, there are 50 who have NEVER REVIEWED. You know who you are and I know who you are... (shakes fist)
Shizuka stared for a long moment, the bustle around him no distraction at all as he glared at Watanuki. But despite his own temper he couldn't argue against something so personal.
This is the shipwreck in which my uncle died.
Would that mean…? He glanced over at where Jason had been standing –that slimy prankster was no where in sight; most likely had slipped away when Watanuki's baring of the truth had become apparently imminent. He growled, turning back to his Master.
He ignored the blazing of those eyes and insisted, "This is not a good idea."
"Well it's happening anyway," the noble glowered. "Now you can either help or step aside." To emphasize his words, he reached out and shoved at one of Shizuka's shoulders. The monk barely budged at the weak force and Watanuki scowled.
Shizuka stepped forward, pulling the silly lord into his arms, allowing his bloodline ability to seep by touch into his foolish master. The monk felt Watanuki lean slightly into him, instinctively, his touch obviously doing the contrary noble some good. He replied stiffly, offended, as though there had been any other option for him, "I will remain by your side, master."
From the circle of his arms, Watanuki looked up at him and as they stared at each other, the noble looked torn between embarrassment and… hurt. Embarrassment, Shizuka could understand because he'd addressed the noble as 'master' but why would he be hurt?
"Ahoy the anchor!" one of the men called. "Three hundred meters down!"
"That's the signal," Watanuki said, pale colour in his cheeks, pulling away to head for the rear of the ship. "The anchor has hit the sea floor…" He murmured, "Three hundred metres is a ways down. This will take some time."
"No one can go down that deep," Shizuka commented as he followed, more than a little puzzled.
"And the compression is something else to consider as well," the young noble said. He paused at the main deck edge, crouching by the rope ladder there. Shizuka noted some of the men eyeing the young noble nervously but when no one said anything and Watanuki crawled down the ladder, Shizuka merely followed.
There, they stood level with the cargo hold. The men had unfolded the water ramp, a flat surface attached to this secondary level of the ship and it reached down into water. Disliking the apparent risk of Watanuki slipping on the slick wood and sliding down into the clutches of the miasma, Shizuka pulled his master back and into his grip.
Watanuki squirmed and fidgeted but he was too busy watching the bustle of activity up close, surprise clearly on his face and he murmured, "I've never been able to get so close before." He stared at the writhing, seething blackness of the sea. More of the crew were giving him uncomfortable looks, enough that the Captain of Defence noticed their distraction.
"My lord," Sorata gasped, turning and seeing him.
"I'm alright, Sorata-san," Watanuki said, smiling slightly. "It appears my bodyguard is more skilled than anyone had anticipated."
Sorata remained tense, wary eyes meeting Shizuka's only briefly before turning back to the task at hand; overseeing the handling of ropes which appeared to lead down to the anchor they'd cast down to the wreck. Instead of the usual duo of ropes to the anchor, there appeared to be two more lines leading down into the water, a cord of smaller rope looped and knotted at periodic spaces along it. The crew were currently hauling this second set of ropes, extending it toward one side of the cargo hold mouth and laying out a length of it.
"We're ready, my lord," Sorata said, saluting, six of his men lining up behind him.
All were dressed in flexible but hardy thin pieces of form-fitted leather armour over slim-fitting clothing, garments obviously made for underwater movement. Strapped to them in a variety of places were weapons Shizuka would have loved to get his hands on, knives and short swords with jewelled handles and glowing runes.
"Like them, don't you," Watanuki teased, drawing Shizuka's attention. "They're some of my best artefacts."
Shizuka frowned and said, "And yet you carry the simplest of weapons, albeit pure steel."
A flush suffusing his cheeks, the lord glanced over his shoulder at the waiting six, "They need the protection more than I do."
The monk had choice words to reply to that but then one of the normal crew dashed to them. He held out a satchel of the little leather packets Watanuki had been working on this morning. Now able to get a better look at them, Shizuka could see the packets were all embossed with the design of a curling Koi fish –the water guardian.
Thanking the man, Watanuki turned and motioned the six forward and strapped and tied a packet under the breastplate of each man. Shizuka could just barely catch the scent of the herbs his Master had been mixing from them; the seams of the little packets were obviously tightly tied but some of it needed to leak out into the water anyway. To each he handed one silver peg, the pegs he had shown Shizuka earlier, and to the last he handed a final charm tied to a red cord of fabric.
"Prepare the pull-rope!" Sorata yelled, crew echoing this as they worked.
As the men laid out a portion of the rope, Watanuki crouched a little and hovered his hand over the closest knot. Shizuka tensed when his master's hand began to glow, forming a large white bubble, the rope rising off the floor, the knot the bubble's centre; a bubble of—
"Air," Shizuka breathed. "You're putting bubbles of air at each knot. That's how you send the men down."
"Yes," Watanuki replied, quickly moving along to the next and the one after, glancing over his shoulder to glare at Shizuka when the monk didn't keep up with him.
Shizuka frowned, surprised yet again.
Watanuki had admitted he didn't know how to cast spells, hadn't learned from anyone and it seemed the Grimoire was his only book, his single consult. More and more it became apparent the young noble had studied the book extensively, pushing himself to do things without the helping focus of spoken words… or learning the complexity of hand seals and sciences behind the spell-casting.
It seemed that Watanuki had self-taught himself to use his energy in its most basic form but to greater effect and purpose –the same concept behind taking something small and successful at its purpose and building it several multiples over larger to increase capacity. The flaw behind that was… it wasn't designed to be big in the first place. This particular spell, luckily, was quite simple though it required a good amount of control and energy. Most spell-casters could really only afford to create one or two, some perhaps twice that if they practiced a bit. But this… it was yet another testament to his Master's inherent abilities.
Shizuka followed along, annoyed at being kept in the dark but at least curious enough to watch and understand. He sensed the way his Master cast the spells, a force of energy to contain the air nearby into the bubble but without purification of the air. It was… passable. But not the best it could be. Watanuki had fought the same simple way, using what was there of the elements but not able to truly purify his summonings as those taught properly really could. Instinctively, Shizuka reached forward and grasped his Master's elbow.
"Must you bother me at--" the noble sour-temperedly started, ears turning red.
"Inefficient," Shizuka muttered.
"What?" Pause. A frown, "What do you mean?"
"Let me help. Do the next one slowly. As slowly as you can, just to start."
Watanuki kept his frown but nonetheless turned back toward the latest knot, Shizuka's hand closed on his elbow. As the young lord began to pull at the air to enclose it, the monk tapped into the casting, focusing his energy in filtering and separating the clearest parts of the air, letting the sifted oxygen leak back into Watanuki's summoning. When the bubble had formed, the young noble glanced up, blinking and surprised.
"That felt…" he murmured. "Clean."
"It is," Shizuka nodded. "Clean air without the stench of the ship, without the scents or anything else to bog it down."
"That was," Watanuki's ears and cheeks coloured a little again, "Pretty darn good."
He ignored the rush of pleasure at the honest compliment. They continued this way, working together, picking up the pace easily until they'd used up all the knots on deck. Watanuki gave a nod, a signal, and then—
"Heave-ho!" Sorata yelled.
"Heave! Ho!" a row of crew called, pulling in unison on one length of the knotted rope and the other, full of bubbles, slipped off the ramp and into the black water at each haul. It was then that Shizuka realised that the two ropes of knots were actually one long piece, looped down into the anchor and circled back up.
The six waiting divers jumped into the water and immediately the black water and churning miasma recoiled from them, the water blue and clear in their immediate vicinity. While the monk admired the good work his Master had done on the charms, the six pushed through the first bubble, grasping at the knot within, head and shoulders encased in air. One reached over and tied a charm and red ribbon Watanuki had given him earlier to that first knot. When the crew on board hauled the next length, they were pulled down. From then on it remained tedious work, Watanuki and Shizuka putting bubbles at the knots even as the crew hauled to send the men down.
"First hundred!" Sorata called and the men stopped. Some wandered away to take drinks.
"What's this?" Shizuka's brows furrowed. "A break?"
"The men down there need to let their bodies acclimatise to the pressure of the water so far down," the noble explained, avidly watching the way the water frothed and stirred in the circle of grey where the men had disappeared. "We'll need to do this every hundred metres, each way." He paused, "When the red ribbon loops back up, we'll know to throw down the cargo hooks." With a downcast, distant look, he said softly, "It's dangerous to send the hooks down with them, considering how strong the currents can be."
Shizuka had the feeling they'd learned this from experience. He'd curse but that would probably only deepen his Master's guilt; and this wasn't the sort of thing he'd ever seen nor heard of done before. Even had Watanuki tried to do research before attempting any of this, there would have been no information. There had been nothing to warn them.
"Those men trust you with their lives to be sent down into that," Shizuka said instead. "You run this operation well and I haven't yet seen any way of improving it." He watched his master peek hopefully up at him, "So if that is when the cargo hooks should go down then that is when they should go down."
Hearing the unspoken praise in the monk's impressed tone, Watanuki met his gaze again, searching his eyes. A moment later, the noble smiled softly, a relieved little curve of his lips.
--
When the red fabric and the charm tied to it resurfaced, the crew raised a resounding cheer.
The energy level picked up, the crew bustling to drop down the cargo hooks. A few fights broke out, but with six of Sorata's twelve not preoccupied with keeping Watanuki safe, there were six more and better-resistant crew to keep the peace. Sorata and they kept hand seals at the ready, chanting every now and then under their breaths, keeping the wispy shadows away from the crew as much as possible.
Shizuka noticed one other peculiar thing; the way Watanuki kept looking down. It wasn't at the water or at the crew closest to the ramp but straight down at his own feet as though expecting…
Curiously he wondered if that was the reason his Master stayed above deck aside from not leaving the ship. He tried to remember if water spirits could go through a ship's hull and decided they very likely could. It took wrecks and sunken cursed objects to bind formerly-living souls to one place at sea, everything else purified either by the clarity of freshwater or the salt in seawater.
Save for spirits.
Most were vengeful, annoyed at the constant trespass of humans into their territory and took every opportunity to devour a few lost souls if they ever came across them. A few, if he recalled correctly, used the water as a Gate between the worlds. Shifting water, its contrasting essence of existence, inherently unclean and yet naturally purifying, often made little pockets by which those of the Between Worlds could slip through. Thankfully though the water might provide a Gateway, it also contained these vagabond entities and kept them from leaking out onto land.
Most of the time, anyway. If anything powerful enough came through then all bets were off.
"I don't think anything is about to reach through the floor boards," Shizuka muttered when Watanuki glanced down one too many times. "Not with me standing here."
"How modest you are," the noble grumbled, looking away. But he huffed, folded his arms and seemed to relax. He didn't look down again.
"The cargo doesn't need to decompress as well does it?" Shizuka asked, feeling it was likely a pointless question but he felt it better to distract the young noble.
"No, it doesn't," Watanuki replied. "But it will still have to be pulled up slowly. Hopefully nothing tries to stop us from taking it back." He shuddered, "I don't fancy fighting today, not souls and not spirits."
So his master knew what they might be up against. He commented, "If you're as knowledgeable as I think you are, you must have made some very powerful charms to ward your men." With a small frown, Shizuka wondered, "How much energy do you have? You've spent more in these past few hours than I have ever done myself."
"Enough energy, I like to think," Watanuki replied. "I didn't have as much in the beginning but you know… practice makes perfect."
But the tone with which the young noble spoke those last words echoed with pain and tension, a phrase from which Watanuki seemed to take a mediocre solace even if it seemed he didn't really believe in the phrase itself anymore. Shizuka watched the darkness play in his Master's eyes, the loss the young noble had suffered clearly visible; the practice had likely come at a price.
He pressed his hand a little into Watanuki's back where it rested, drawing his master away from dark thoughts, "You can only do your best. And each push for your best makes you better."
Watanuki stirred, shifting on his feet, looking like he wanted to pull away from the monk's hand at his back and from Shizuka himself because the words were much too personal. It was a mark of his acceptance when he finally stilled and murmured, "Thank you."
"Cargo ahoy!" someone yelled. The crew's work pace picked up again, calling their heave-ho as they hauled the cargo up and onto the water ramp…
"An Arms chest," Shizuka recognised.
The remainder of Sorata's crew aboard were hauling the large square wooden crate into the cargo hold, spells and charms working to keep them unaffected by the curse contained within. In each corner, suppressing most of the evil, glinted the silver pegs Watanuki had given to each of the divers earlier. The chest was beautiful, actually, with designs and swirls carved from silver, the corner pieces carved with intricate patterns instead of commonly plain… except for the smoke drifting lazily from its surfaces.
He pulled Watanuki back when the young noble tried to go to it, and gave his master a bland stare when he got a glare in return.
"I need to have a closer look," Watanuki insisted, trying to twist out of Shizuka's grasp.
The monk wasn't having it. "No."
"You--!"
"No." He lowered his brows at the stubborn noble, a little amused if more irritated at the hot glare Watanuki aimed up at him. Then Watanuki froze, eyes slipping to the side past Shizuka's shoulder, widening with horror.
Shizuka turned quickly, hands grasping his master and tensing to move.
Arms. Long feelers of arms from whatever it was not strong enough to get its body out of the water and into their realm properly. As such only this part of its form had managed to breach the water's surface, several long tentacles hovering just beyond the ship's side.
Shizuka narrowed his eyes at it. Was it…?
Shit.
The moment it lunged, Shizuka realised what it'd been poised to attempt. Had he been even a half second slower…
With Watanuki in his arms, several metres to one side of where they'd been standing, he watched the single strong limb the thing had managed to form together of its several weak ones extract itself from the deck. It was then he noticed… nothing happened.
There were no charms on this section of the ship.
It made sense if the Dancing Dragon regularly hauled cursed things aboard. But it irritated the monk that his master had made such an error in judgement by coming down here where he must have known he'd be less protected. No wonder he'd kept checking his feet earlier.
"I'm sorry," Watanuki murmured, touching Shizuka's shoulder.
"Later," he growled, mollified that his master appeared to have learned his lesson.
As the creature flexed, Shizuka noticed it hadn't managed to physically manifest enough to affect the wood but he was fairly certain it was strong enough to hurt Watanuki… and maybe himself. Taking advantage of the thing's momentary preoccupation, Shizuka backed quickly away and to the other side of the ship. There was another rope ladder there leading up to the main deck –the be-spelled main deck-- and he lifted the shaking Watanuki onto it.
"Go," he ordered. "Up. Now."
Without a word, the noble obeyed. Shizuka knew their time was up, the feeler had freed itself and had paused again, tensing for another attack. He scrambled quickly up behind his Master, just pulling himself out of the way when the thing lunged again, putting itself through the wood at the base of the ladder.
Not very intelligent, this one—
Shizuka thought too soon, he realised, when the creature took advantage of the tip of its feeler being held still to thrash the rest of its arm. The monk gasped when it passed through him. And while he couldn't really feel the thing itself, he wasn't so Sensitive as that, he did feel a flood of sudden unnatural hurt and anger.
Then he heard that which he had hoped to avoid the most: Watanuki's cry of pain.
TBC