Chapter 3: Doubling Down
"So… what do you guys think?"
"...Bok…"
"Bok."
"Yeah. I thought so too."
Like Sienna had promised, a guard led me to a storehouse a few hours later on the edge of Kuo Kuana.
The building was sturdier than most in the village, a squat rectangular structure of weathered concrete and reinforced beams, its frame still bearing the faded insignia of the White Fang. Thick iron bands held the heavy double doors in place, and though salt and sea air had gnawed at the walls, the place was solid and built to last. A few crates and tarps were strewn haphazardly inside, evidence of its abandonment, but the air was dry and the roof, blessedly, didn't leak. For my purposes, it would do nicely.
I hadn't wasted any time while waiting for the handover. Ghira and Kali had welcomed me into their home (Which I discovered was the same place I recovered at.) with surprising warmth, even inviting me to supper and giving me some of Ghira's old clothes. Really old ones, I wasn't a slouch but even I couldn't hope to match the hefty man's bulk. Their hospitality was… disarming, given Adam's earlier attitude.
It was during that dinner I made another discovery:
Bok came in pairs.
I'd stepped out for fresh air after the meal when I heard the familiar clucking from behind the house. Confused—since I was sure Bok was still tucked away in that strange pocket space—I went to investigate.
Sure enough, another white, blocky chicken was pecking at the dirt, and two square eggs resting neatly beside it.
It looked exactly like Bok. Same cubic body, same beady black eyes, same occasional head tilt that somehow managed to look judgmental.
I even asked, "Bok? Are you… the Bok?"
"Bok," it replied, tilting its head.
I quit thinking about it right then and there for I was sure that path led only to madness.
Unfortunately, the confusion wasn't enough to dull the creeping weight of absolute stupidity settling in my gut as I stared at the glowing blue screen hovering in front of me that I could summon with a thought.
[Chicken]
|Common Familiar|
Minecraft - Whatever this chicken is, it does not obey any known laws of physics. It lays an egg every 6 - 12 hours in perfect condition and this egg can be thrown at the ground to have a chance of spawning a baby chicken that will grow to adulthood in 24 hours, they can also breed without eggs too in order to produce children together. The eggs are not fertilized unless thrown and taste great, so does the chicken's meat. No biology explains this, you get a pair. It still needs to eat so don't let the poor things starve.
I had committed the number one rookie mistake, the kind that gets people killed in movies, games, and apparently in other worlds too.
I hadn't bothered to read.
Because somewhere in my ego-induced haze, I'd convinced myself that my miraculous little blocky chickens could pump out enough eggs and white meat to feed an entire island of hungry Faunus in a week.
Turns out? There was a slight problem with that.
Right there, in crisp glowing letters, was the cold, hard truth.
The chickens laid eggs between six to twelve hours.
Not minutes like I initially thought. Hours.
I ran the numbers in my head, each calculation feeling like another nail in my coffin.
Best case scenario? Twelve chickens over the course of the week even when the odds are good.
Twelve.
A far cry from the mountain of food the island needed.
And apparently they needed food too.
To be fair, I had been fighting for my life when Bok first appeared, the adrenaline drowning out the fine print.
But knowing that didn't make me feel any less like an idiot.
I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead, groaning. "Oh, Sam… you magnificent dumbass."
"Dumbass implies you're a donkey faunus. I think 'barnacle brain' is more appropriate."
I turned toward the warehouse doors to find Blake leaning against the frame, arms crossed, her cat ears flicking about her head.
"Isn't that a little… racist?" I asked, because, well, Faunus were literally animal hybrids.
"I think it's valid," she said flatly, "considering I'm talking to someone who's about to disappear in seven days."
"Well, that's harsh. You don't think I can do it?" I shot back.
Her amber eyes flicked around the barren warehouse before drifting down to the two chickens at my feet. Bok and his doppelgänger pecked at the floor, completely oblivious to the crisis hanging over my head.
"It doesn't exactly inspire confidence," she admitted, "even with… whatever those are."
"Au contraire, mademoiselle," I said with a flourish, "have some goddamn faith."
Blake raised an unimpressed brow. "Excuse me?"
"Ah… just a reference I remembered." I waved it off. "Don't worry about it."
"Do you remember anything else? Preferably something more useful that might keep you from digging your own grave?"
I chuckled, leaning back against an old empty crate. "Nothing much yet," I lied smoothly. "But tell me, Blake Belladonna—are you worried about lil' ol' me?" I crossed my arms, smirking.
She scoffed. "Just annoyed that I wasted my time dragging back someone who's going to throw his life away."
Blake was the one who found me bleeding out in the jungle and carried me back to Menagerie. If nothing else, I owed her a favor for that. And maybe…just maybe…I'd developed a tiny crush on her. She was a catgirl, after all. That alone was unfair. Add the whole brooding ninja aesthetic and—well, yeah. It was a problem.
There was also one other thing to her…
"Is that what everyone thinks around here?" I asked.
Her mouth pressed into a thin line. "...Yeah."
Even so, the note of hesitation in her voice was obvious. So there were some who didn't think I was a lost cause. Interesting. If I were them I'd think I was out of my mind.
"Well, since my odds are apparently zero to one… how about another wager?"
Blake's ears twitched. "You can't be serious."
"Why not? If I'm dying anyway, I might as well double down, right?"
She rolled her eyes, but I caught the faintest glimmer of interest in her silence, so I pressed on. "Seven days from now—if I fail, if I can't solve Kuo Kuana's food shortage. I'll give you something very, very nice. A parting gift before my exile or execution."
Still nothing.
"But," I continued, "if I win…and I'm still breathing…"
"...you go on a date with me."
Blake froze for half a heartbeat… then let out a laugh. A real laugh. Eyes squeezed shut, shoulders shaking, one hand rising to stifle her amusement.
And it was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard.
I couldn't help but grin. "What? You just implied I can't do it."
"It's not that," she managed, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye as her laughter subsided into soft chuckles.
"Then what's so funny?"
"I'm already taken," she said with a small, almost teasing smile.
What.
I blinked. "Oh...I...didn't know that...Who's the guy?"
Her golden eyes narrowed, a faintly mischievous glint dancing in them. "You've already met him. It's Adam."
…
"Are you sure?" I asked, my brain scrambling to make sense of her words.
"I'm pretty sure I know who I'm dating. Yes, I'm sure," Blake replied flatly.
She was already taken. And besides, there were plenty of fish in the sea, right? I should have backed down right then and there.
But that's how losers think.
Gripping the unseen ball of the lever with my mind, I yanked it down, using the silver ticket I'd earned earlier.
Congratulations!
[Silver Trait Gacha Ticket Used.]
[Carnal Engine]
|Uncommon Trait|
You are an eternal engine when it comes to carnal activity, while performing sexual actions your stamina recovery, endurance, and resilience are massively boosted, you can go on for literal days without rest.
I inhaled sharply, choked on my own spit, and doubled over coughing so hard I thought my lungs were about to stage an escape.
"H-hey! Are you okay?" Blake asked, her teasing tone instantly replaced by genuine concern. Her hand shot out, hovering as if ready to steady me.
More than fine, really. Didn't think the Gacha was that blunt but there you go.
"I'm fine." I straightened, still wheezing, and managed a shaky grin. "...But I'm not hearing a no, though~."
A healthy blush bloomed across her cheeks, her amber eyes widening. "I—I can't believe you!" she sputtered, spinning on her heel. "Sienna wants to keep an eye on you since you're using a White Fang building. I only dropped by to tell you that but it seems you're doing just fine."
And just like that, she was gone—storming out in a flurry of dark hair and indignation.
Along with that ass of hers that looked like you could bounce a coin off it.
"Haaaa~ I hate to see her go, but I love to watch her leave…" I sighed under my breath.
It was honestly for the best that she left. Now I could finally test what this Chaos Gacha power of mine was truly capable of. I didn't need to have to explain it—I barely understood it myself—and it was better to keep a few secrets.
I turned to Bok and… Bok. "Alright, boys," I said, clapping my hands together. "Let's figure out exactly how you guys work."
Pulling two eggs from my pocket, I decided to test my luck once more. I couldn't waste any by careless experiments since every chicken counted right now.
"Hey bud, you don't mind do you?" I asked Bok who was mindlessly pecking the ground still.
He didn't even turn around.
So, without further ado, I chucked both eggs on the floor.
One shattered instantly, leaving behind… nothing except shards of an eggshell. Not even yolk.
The other…
"Bok."
The baby chicken didn't chirp; it let out a high-pitched cluck. And like the others, it looked exactly like the one in the games with the head comically larger than its tiny body that did not impede its movement at all.
I decided not to think too hard about that and nodded to myself listlessly as I moved on to the next test: the limits of summoning.
With a thought, all three chickens vanished. Another thought, and they were back, no flash of light or smoke. They even disappeared when I had my back turned and my eyes were shut.
So it seemed that all current and future chickens counted as familiars seeing that I could summon or dismiss them into that strange pocket dimension at will.
Next, I produced a piece of hardtack I swiped from dinner out of my pocket. Instantly, every chicken zeroed in on it, heads slowly turning toward the snack with unnerving synchronicity.
Well, that wasn't creepy at all.
Nevertheless, I broke it into crumbs and tossed them to the floor. They pecked away like normal chickens, even eating from my hand without anything unusual happening.
Then I tried something else—seeds from some wild plants I'd collected near the back of the Belladonna's home. I scattered them on the floor. Again, nothing odd.
But when I knelt and let them eat directly from my hand…
The two adult Boks froze, then turned to each other.
In a display that defied all laws of reason, pixelated hearts began floating above their heads as they awkwardly rubbed their cubic bodies together, like two cardboard boxes trying to fit.
A moment later, a baby chicken simply… appeared. Spawned seemed to be a better word.
"Bok."
I refused to understand it, for the sake of my sanity.
What I did try to understand was hand-feeding them seeds triggered breeding. And if the mechanics matched what I vaguely remembered, in-game chickens could breed again after about five minutes.
Given how the Gacha seemed to scale things with egg laying stretched from five to ten minutes into six to twelve hours I was willing to bet the breeding cooldown scaled the same way. Six hours… maybe.
I ran the numbers again in my head. Even with perfect timing and no wasted intervals, it still didn't come anywhere close to the amount of food I'd need to feed an entire island within a week.
And that was fine.
Because this is why you always need to have a Plan B.
I glanced over my shoulder and caught the flick of my shark tail as it swayed behind me. At first, the thing had been an awkward, unbalanced weight, dragging at my every step. Now, after keeping it out for a while, I was finally starting to get the hang of it enough that it almost felt natural.
"Hah!" I snapped a palm strike forward, then another, each hit pushing the air aside with a sharp whuff. Step, twist, strike. Step again, pivot, elbow. My movements were rough, measured, like I was sparring with an invisible opponent whose rhythm I almost recognized.
And I did.
The Fishman trait hadn't just given me the body, it came with the muscle memory, the techniques of Fishman Karate, all neatly tucked away in the back of my mind like I'd read it off a manual. I knew the forms, but "knowing" wasn't the same as mastery. My stances were unsteady, my katas stuttered, and my strikes lacked the earth-shattering power they were meant to have.
I understood enough to realize I could probably recreate the moves I'd seen Jinbei pull off, but actually perfecting them? That was going to take time—a lot of time—and more practice than I currently had hours in the day.
Which is why I eventually found myself standing in the shallows of Kuo Kuana, salty wind in my face and waves lapping at my feet. For all the city's disarray, the beach itself had a surprisingly beautiful view—endless blue stretching into the horizon, sunlight glinting off each crest like scattered shards of glass.
I'd banished Bok and… the other Bok back to the familiar storage to test a theory. Could they feel hunger while they were in there? Would time stand still for them the same way it seemed to for me? If so, it meant I could maximize their egg-laying and breeding cycles. The two baby chickens stayed outside though; I couldn't risk stunting their growth. I needed them to mature—fast.
"What do you think you're doing, son?"
The crochety voice made me turn. Standing a few paces down the beach was an older Faunus, his hunched frame silhouetted against the bright water. Two floppy St. Bernard ears twitched atop his head, fur peppered gray and white.
"Oh, nothing. Just wondering if I could take a dip," I replied casually.
The old-timer raised a shaggy eyebrow. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"
"Uh… not really. Why? Is the water too cold?"
He gave me a long, considering look, his gaze sweeping from my head to my still-damp shark tail. "Ahhh, I see now. You're that human who grew himself a tail. The one with the spotty memory."
I chuckled and offered a hand. "Yep, that's me. Sam."
He eyed my hand for a beat before finally clasping it in a surprisingly firm shake. "Nemo."
Letting go of his hand, I asked,
"So, Nemo. What are they saying about me?"
"Ahhh… just the usual nonsense gossip. Old wives' tales coming to life, some fool thinking he can feed the whole city on a bet with the White Fang. All that nonsense."
"And what do you think? Seeing me right now."
"I think you've got a death wish, son." He harrumphed, his floppy ears twitching with the motion. "Could've just begged for your life, you know? Khan's got a soft spot for White Fang members."
Ah. The White Fang. Ghira and Kali had seen fit to explain a few things over dinner—Menagerie, the Grimm, and the organization that had gone from peaceful activism to violent militancy.
How could someone like Blake even join them? I mean, I understood fighting for equality after being treated like trash by most of the world, but didn't violence just draw more man-eating monsters to both sides? Grimm were literally attracted to negativity. It didn't make much sense, and I hadn't wanted to press Blake for details—that felt way too personal.
"Well I think I'd rather die standing than live begging. Besides, I never lose a bet."
"It doesn't matter if you never lose a bet if you die swimming in these waters."
"Oh? You're a fisherman?"
"That's right. Been fishing here since I could hold a rod. I know the ins and outs of Menagerie's waters. And right now, they're more dangerous than I've ever seen them."
The weather was calm, so there could only be one reason.
"Grimm?"
"That's correct," he mumbled, spitting into the sand with a muttered curse against the monsters. "We can only gather fish that venture near the shallows. The aquatic Grimm go stir-crazy over anything that dares a boat out in deeper water. Irony's not lost on me—Kuo Kuana, a fishing city, without any fish…"
And just like that, it all made sense why the city was stretched thin and running on fumes. On one side, Grimm-infested waters; on the other, a desert crawling with the same monsters, with tropical forests that weren't much safer if they wandered about.
I sighed. "Welp. I better not waste any more time then." Stripping off my tunic, I folded it and set it carefully on the sand, left standing in just my pants.
"Oi, are you deaf, son? I just said—"
"I heard you, old man." My tone came out a little sharper than I intended. "Teeth in the water, yadda yadda."
My voice carried across the beach, drawing the attention of curious onlookers. More and more Faunus gathered, murmuring among themselves, their stares prickling at my back.
"I think I might just surprise all of you," I said, stretching my arms as a grin tugged at my lips. My ego burned bright—I'd survived a horde of Beowolves, after all.
"Bah! Don't haunt me as a ghost when they get ya," Nemo grumbled, shaking his shaggy head. "Back in my day…" His voice trailed off as he shuffled away.
I crouched, toes digging into the wet sand as I prepared to sprint. I wasn't much of a swimmer. At most, I'd mess around in hotel pools when casinos offered them but standing this close to the open sea?
It just felt right.
With a single, powerful push, I tore forward. Water exploded around me in a wide splash, drawing gasps from the crowd.
The horizon rushed up to meet me, and in the next heartbeat—
—I was underwater.
The shock of the cold hit me first, like a hundred needles pricking every inch of my skin but it was brief, gone in the span of a heartbeat. The next thing I noticed was the silence, deep and all-encompassing, broken only by the slow, muffled thrum of my own pulse in my ears.
Then I breathed.
Not a frantic gasp or a choking swallow just… a breath. Cool water filled my lungs, not suffocating me but sliding through as naturally as air. There was no burning in my chest, no instinctual panic. Each inhale was clean and refreshing like sipping chilled mountain spring water.
The act of breathing underwater was literally breath-taking but it couldn't compare to the view.
Sunlight pierced the surface above in golden shafts, scattering across the seabed in fractured patterns that shimmered and shifted with every ripple. Schools of fish flitted past, living silver streaks that wove intricate patterns through the blue.
Every movement felt effortless. My shark tail swayed instinctively, each flick propelling me forward with a grace I could never hope to match on land. The water didn't fight me; it carried me, holding me in a weightless embrace.
I exhaled, bubbles rising in twisting spirals toward the sunlit surface, and a grin broke across my face.
For the first time since arriving on this island, I wasn't out of my depth.
Yeah… this felt right.
I spotted a few abandoned nets tangled along the seabed and let out a sigh of relief. The last thing I needed was to resurface just to tell everyone I'd forgotten to bring one. Bundling them over my shoulder, I swam deeper, spotting a lone crab scavenging near a rock.
"Uh… hi?"
"…weird fish… run away…"
I froze mid-kick. That… was definitely the crab "speaking," its thoughts brushing against my mind as clearly as words. Then it scuttled off in a flurry of legs.
Honestly? I was just relieved it hadn't clucked. Hanging around Bok and his army of cubic descendants had me on edge about that.
Still, there was a snag with this whole "talk to sea life" deal—most of them didn't seem interested in talking back.
"Hey—"
"…weird fish…"
"Excuse me—"
"…run…"
"Where are the big fish?"
"…big fish…"
And they were gone, every last one darting into the blue. I was one second away from giving up and settling for a school of sardines to bring back when something streaked across the corner of my vision—a flash of silver-blue cutting through the water like lightning.
There!
Even in Remnant, I knew that shape anywhere. A bluefin tuna, massive and sleek, the kind I used to watch on late-night documentaries. Only this one was bigger, way bigger, maybe because no one fished these waters this deep.
I lunged, tail whipping behind me, and shot after it. Fast didn't even begin to describe it. Even with my new strength, it juked and weaved at the last second, dodging every swipe and punch. But eventually, I caught it with my hand clamping tight just behind its gills.
"Gotcha!" I grinned, preparing to end it quickly.
"…weird fish… run away…"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm the weird fish. Now hold still—"
Then it hit me. A prickle ran up my spine, every instinct screaming at once. From the depths below came a low, guttural growl that vibrated through the water and into my bones.
When they said "weird fish"…
…they hadn't been talking about me.
Red eyes flared in the darkness below, and before I could even register what I was looking at, a maw big enough to swallow me whole lunged upward. Instinct screamed, and I kicked off with everything I had, arms and tail propelling me backward just as the black shape surged past.
CRUNCH.
The bluefin tuna I'd been holding was gone, torn in half. Its severed head drifted slowly past me, its glassy, lifeless eye almost accusing.
Swim away.
I forced myself to look up. A jagged shaft of light from the surface struck the monstrous shape: a crocodilian Grimm, its hide pitch-black and plated like ancient armor, the bone mask stark white against the blue. Its long tail swept behind it in lazy, ominous arcs, the water warping around its bulk.
I barely brought my arms up in time as it lunged again, the jaws snapping shut a meter from my face. The shockwave shoved me backward.
'Move, dammit!' I twisted, counterstriking with a clumsy Fishman Karate palm strike. The water pressure surged forward, but my technique was garbage—the blow slid harmlessly across its armored hide, not even phasing it.
Tail! I realized a second too late.
WHAM!
The crocodile Grimm's massive tail whipped around, catching me square in the chest. Pain flared as I spun like a ragdoll, tumbling end over end. A golden shimmer flared across my body—my Aura, taking the hit. Even so, my lungs burned as though I'd been rammed by a truck.
Okay… okay… still alive.
I kicked hard, trying to right myself while wondering why [Desperation] didn't kick in yet. Unfortunately, the Grimm was already on me, its jaws snapping as I waved away the thought. I twisted aside, the teeth barely missing my leg. I countered with a sweeping kick aimed at its head. It was another failed strike with my foot bouncing off like I'd just punted a steel wall.
I needed leverage. Every strike I threw felt clumsy, my footing unsure in the water. I couldn't anchor myself—every kick, every palm strike bled force into the ocean around me instead of into the monster.
'Focus… think, dammit!'
The crocodile Grimm roared, the sound a bone-deep vibration, and came at me again with jaws wide, the currents thrashing violently as its tail coiled for another strike.
My eyes widened—an idea.
I kicked downward hard, the world around me blurring until my feet dug into the soft seabed. Silt swirled up around my ankles, and I looked up to see the crocodile Grimm twisting after me, its red eyes locked on like twin lanterns in the deep.
That's right, idiot… just a little bit closer.
I dropped into the kata I'd spent hours drilling, shoulders low, feet planted, arms coiled like springs. It wasn't perfect, my form was sloppy, and my stance uneven but it was one of two moves I'd even remotely managed to get into shape before coming here. I prayed my new strength would make up for my lack of experience.
Now!
The crocodile lunged, mouth yawning open, rows of teeth closing in to erase me.
My feet were rapidly encased not by stone, but by jagged coral blooming up from the seabed, cocooning me in colored minerals. My corralled fist shot forward in a perfect straight punch.
Gyojin Karate: Samegawara Seiken!
The impact reverberated through the water like a depth charge. My knuckles smashed into the underside of its mouth, the vibrations tearing through the Grimm's body, bypassing its armor entirely. I heard the sickening crack as the bone mask splintered, webbing fractures across its surface.
It reeled, stunned.
I didn't give it a chance to recover. Driving my coral-braced arm further into its gaping maw, I twisted my hips and unleashed another punch.
Gyojin Karate: Samegawara Seiken!
Another shockwave thundered outward, a booming whump that sent the surrounding water exploding in a pressure wave.
The crocodile Grimm convulsed violently, its massive body seizing before going slack. Then, like ink dissolving in water, its black form unraveled and dispersed, leaving only silence and the faint shimmer of my Aura still glowing across my body.
I let out a long, shaky breath. My first real victory under the sea.
"YEEEEEAAAH!"
I whooped, the sound leaving my mouth in a stream of bubbles that spiraled toward the surface. The surge of victory pumped through me like a hit of pure adrenaline, my shark tail thrashing behind me with wild, giddy abandon.
I'd done it. I actually did it!
But the elation quickly bled into exhaustion. My chest burned not from lack of air, but from sheer effort. Every muscle in my arms and shoulders felt like molten lead, the recoil of those two Samegawara Seiken strikes leaving my body trembling.
Damn… Fishman Karate isn't just throwing punches. It's like trying to swing a sledgehammer made of water… twice.
I panted in ragged bursts, the golden shimmer of my Aura still pulsing faintly around my skin. Even underwater, I felt sweat or maybe seawater trickle down my brow.
Then I froze.
From behind me, deep in the blue haze, came a chorus of guttural growls low and rumbling, like the sound of rocks grinding together. One growl became two. Two became many. Red pinpricks of light flared open in the dark, multiplying by the second.
Fuck.
I turned slowly, the victory high draining from my veins as I counted them—three, four… no, at least five pairs of glowing eyes, all fixed on me.
Looks like I just rang the dinner bell.
They came at me in a frenzy—sleek, black shapes slicing through the water, jaws gaping wide enough to swallow me whole.
I planted my feet on the seabed, coral gripping my ankles, and swung a wide, open-palmed slap.
Samehada Shotei!
The water boomed with the impact, the nearest crocodile Grimm recoiling as the reverberation cracked the mask on its snout. I twisted into a follow-up kick, driving my heel into another that lunged from my left. The force carried through the water, its skull snapping back as the beast spiraled away in a cloud of black ichor.
A set of jagged teeth clamped down on my shoulder, shaking me like a ragdoll. My golem armor snapped, protecting the worst of it, but I felt the pressure rattle my bones. Another Grimm slammed its tail into my side, the blow sending me skidding across the seabed.
Cracks spiderwebbed across my Golem Armor, chunks of it flaking away like shards of brittle stone.
I gritted my teeth, pain lancing through my torso. It's holding… but barely.
Another lunge. Another bite. My armor protected me again and again. I retaliated with a sharp upward punch. "Samegawara Seiken!" And the force blasted through the Grimm's skull, shattering its mask into drifting fragments.
Another came from above. I twisted, planting both feet and driving a rising kick into its jaw. The crunch echoed in the water as its head caved in, the creature dissolving into oily smoke.
Three down.
I barely had time to register the victory before a sickening sensation crawled through my chest—a hollow, draining emptiness. The colorful hard shell around me splintered with a crack once… and then shattered entirely, the fragments dissolving into nothingness.
Now I was exposed, standing on the soft seabed with two more crocodilian Grimm circling like sharks.
They lunged, jagged maws snapping around both my arms. My aura flared—a thin, golden film that trembled under the strain. I heard it crackle like breaking glass before yanking myself free, leaving the Grimm with nothing but scraps of dissipating light.
And just like that, my aura was gone.
I stared death in the face for the second time this week, lungs burning, muscles trembling. My heart pounded against my ribs like a frantic drum, palms slick, arms heavy as lead.
And then—I grinned.
There it was.
That feeling. No wonder it seemed so familiar and why I didn't feel so afraid.
The same thrill as the final card being turned. The breathless pause of the roulette wheel. The frozen instant as dice land.
I'd been chasing this high my whole life and, of all places, I'd finally found it again right here...staring down certain death.
I reached instinctively for my golem armor, but instead I willed my mind to click on something else.
[Desperation — Physical Stats raised to Epic.]
A surge of raw, untamed power roared through me, flooding my limbs, igniting every nerve. The Grimm must have felt it, too; they hesitated, red eyes flickering with something primal.
Unfortunately, no one was running today.
I launched forward, my body a blur as my feet kicked off the very water itself. My leg scythed through the first Grimm's head like it was paper, two halves dissolving into black mist.
I turned to the last one, grinning wide. It locked eyes with me, growled low… and then turned tail, vanishing into the deep.
…
[Desperation — Physical Stats set to default.]
The notification pulsed faintly in my vision, and all at once the strength fled my body. I slumped down to the sandy floor, momentarily forgetting I was underwater and ending up suspended in the still, dark blue.
A shaky breath escaped me, water rushing past my lips, and I turned in a slow circle, half-expecting more red eyes in the gloom. There were none. Only the severed head of the tuna drifting past like a grim trophy.
Above, streaks of orange light filtered through the waves. The sun was setting.
"Tch." I exhaled sharply, frustration curling with exhaustion. I'd hoped to return with a triumph, to wipe the smug I-told-you-so looks off their faces. Instead, I had nothing but empty hands and aching muscles.
I angled myself upward, ready to surface, when whispers brushed against my mind.
"…weird fish…"
"…gone…"
"…only small… weird fish… safe…"
Movement flickered in my periphery—a flash of blue. Then another.
I turned just in time to see the gleaming shape of a tuna slide through the water.
Then another.
And another.
I froze, wide-eyed, as the twilight gloom around me filled with motion. An entire school of massive bluefin tuna, each one the size of a small boat, circling lazily. Beyond them, other schools emerged from the shadows. Snapper, amberjack, sardines—thousands of edible fish weaving intricate patterns through the water, their silvery bodies catching the fading sunlight like a living tapestry.
The Grimm were gone and the ocean had come alive.
I hung there, stunned and breathless, a slow grin spreading across my face.
"Jackpot," I murmured, bubbles streaming past my lips.
Blake walked alongside Ilia Amitola, her closest friend, the two of them weaving through the narrow streets of Kuo Kuana in their White Fang uniforms.
"Why the long face, Blake?" Ilia asked, bumping her shoulder with an easy grin. "This is good news! You and Adam get to handle the operations at Vale. This is it. Your big break!"
"Yeah, I know. It's just that—"
Ilia didn't let her finish. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. It's unfortunate the date had to be pushed to the end of the week. I mean, come on, he's just a shark faunus. Rare, sure, but that doesn't mean we need to spare a whole squad to babysit him."
"…Yeah," Blake murmured, though her heart wasn't in it. Her emotions were a tangled mess—confused, elated, and frustrated all at once.
And the intrusive thoughts of a certain man who was supposed to die at the end of the week didn't make things any simpler.
She was just about to say goodbye to Ilia when a familiar voice cut through the crowd.
"BLAKE!"
Blake turned, ears twitching. "Mom? What's wrong?"
Kali Belladonna ran up to them, her expression pale with worry. "It's Sam. Have you seen him?"
"Last I saw, he was at the old warehouse," Blake replied, her confusion mounting.
"I just checked there. He's not." Kali then spun on her heel as she broke into a run. Blake and Ilia didn't hesitate to follow.
"Mrs. Belladonna, what's going on?!" Ilia shouted as they sprinted.
"They said someone ran into the ocean. He had a shark tail. I needed to know if it was really him," Kali called over her shoulder.
Blake's stomach dropped like a stone.
The waters around Kuo Kuana were infamous for being infested with Sobek—serpentine Grimm with crocodilian jaws and armored hides. Like Beowolves, they hunted in packs, their aggression a near-constant threat to anyone foolish enough to cross their territory.
'He wouldn't… would he?' Blake thought, her heart hammering. Sam might've been reckless, sure, but to throw his life away like that? And it didn't help that she felt she was responsible for him for blowing him off after a prank.
They burst out onto the beach to find a crowd gathered at the shoreline, whispers and worried murmurs passing through them like wildfire. In the center of the gathering, Ghira stood nose-to-nose with Old Man Nemo, the latter's weathered face twisted in frustration.
"And you didn't even try to stop him?!" Ghira's voice boomed over the crashing waves. "You just let him go?"
"I warned the crazy youngster!" Nemo shot back, throwing his hands up. "Told him the grimm would tear him apart! I turned my back for one second, and the fool was gone!"
Blake's ears flattened against her head as icy dread coiled in her stomach.
"Sam… what the hell were you thinking?"
Before Blake could even take another step toward the water, a panicked shout tore through the air.
"Look!"
Dozens of heads turned toward the horizon as the ocean suddenly erupted into violent churning, waves frothing and bubbling as though something massive was forcing its way to the surface.
A jagged, black silhouette broke through the waves, white specks glinting across its frame.
"GRIMM! Hold them back!" Ghira roared, his commanding voice rallying the crowd.
Instinct took over. Blake swallowed the knot of emotions in her throat, Gambol Shroud already in her hand, and the trained fighters of Kuo Kuana surged forward to meet the threat. White Fang operatives and armed civilians alike raised their weapons, forming a loose line across the sand.
The shape broke free of the sea in an explosion of water, crashing onto the beach with a thunderous whump.
The gathered fighters tensed, weapons aimed, only to freeze in collective confusion.
The Grimm, a massive Sobek, lay unmoving. Its scaled belly was exposed to the sky, its jaws slack and lifeless. In eerie silence, the telltale black smoke of a Grimm's death began to pour from its corpse, carried away by the wind.
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
"...It's dead?"
Before anyone could process it, the sea began to boil once again, foaming violently as another shape rose from the depths.
"There's another one!" someone shouted, weapons snapping back into position.
But this time, no bone-white mask broke the surface. Instead, a figure emerged—towering, humanoid, encased entirely in rough, living coral. A statue carved by the sea itself. Water cascaded down its mineral-plated body in heavy sheets, glinting orange in the setting sun.
Slung across its broad back was a massive bundle of nets, bulging and thrashing with an impossible bounty of fish. The catch dwarfed the figure carrying it, the weight seemingly nothing in its grasp. In either hand, two taut ropes dragged behind it, each one lined with colossal bluefin tunas tied at the tail, their massive bodies twisting weakly in protest.
The figure waded through the shallows with deliberate, unhurried steps, leaving deep impressions in the wet sand. When it finally reached the beach, the nets gave a sharp snap—and burst open.
"Oh crap!" the coral statue said in a distinctly familiar voice as hundreds of silvery fish spilled out across the sand in a flurry of fins and tails.
The crowd collectively recoiled, many jumping back as a tide of flapping fish surged toward their feet, spraying sand and seawater into the air.
The figure dropped the dragging ropes, tunas thudding onto the sand with heavy, meaty whumps.
"Wow… didn't expect this much of you when I came back," the figure remarked, voice tinged with exhausted amusement. Cracks spiderwebbed across the coral armor, and then, with a resonant shrrkkk, the plating shattered. Shards dissolved into glimmering motes, whisked away by the breeze.
And there he was—soaked to the bone, shirtless, and grinning like a madman.
Samuel Gatsby.
Blake's breath hitched as the realization settled over the stunned crowd.
"And in times of hunger, He brought with Him the bounty of and from the shallow sea…"
Blake turned, startled, to see Old Man Nemo muttering breathlessly under his beard, reciting lines from some half-forgotten legend. She remembered hearing that tale when she was a child—a story about a stranger who brought prosperity from the ocean's depths after the Faunus founded Menagerie.
And there Sam was, walking with the slow, uneven gait of exhaustion, seawater streaming from his shark-like tail as he hefted an enormous bluefin tuna across his shoulders like it weighed nothing at all.
"Ms. Kali, Mr. Ghira," he called out with a crooked grin, "this one's for you and Blake. Thanks for the dinner."
"WOAH—!"
Ghira, her mountain of a father, actually staggered under the weight when Sam passed it to him. Wide-eyed, he adjusted his stance before getting a proper hold on the fish.
Sam simply gave him a lopsided nod before turning away, lifting a hand in an easy wave. "You can do whatever you want with the rest. I'm beat and I'm gonna go pass out somewhere," he said, tone as casual as if he hadn't just walked out of the killing fields of the sea with enough food to feed the entire town.
Blake watched his retreating form, her amber eyes tracing the broad lines of his bare, water-slicked back until he disappeared into the throng. Around her, the once-hushed crowd erupted into cheers and shouts, her father barking out rapid-fire orders to scale and store the catch and to prepare for a feast that would be remembered for years.
She didn't even notice her mother step up beside her until Kali spoke, her voice low and teasing, "...I like him more than Adam, by the way."
A rush of heat flooded Blake's face. "M—Mom!" she stammered.
Kali's smile was infuriatingly serene. "What? I'm just saying… that one's a good…catch. …And a good back."
Blake groaned, half-tempted to melt into the sand. Yet she couldn't quite tear her gaze away from where Sam had disappeared, her thoughts a tangled mess of confusion and frustration once more.