The sea stretched to infinity—black, heavy, and indifferent. The storm that had once tried to swallow Lacolone now smoldered somewhere beyond the horizon, distant lightning flickering like dying gods. He stood at the wheel of his small boat, steering through a night so empty it could have been the afterlife. His hands were stiff, his eyes hollow but awake, every drop of rain sliding down his face like another unanswered prayer.
For hours—or days, maybe—he moved forward. The engine coughed and sputtered like an old drunk, and then the world simply... bent.
The sky flipped.
The sea flipped.
Suddenly, he was falling upward. The black ocean poured over him like an inverted waterfall, and the stars sank beneath his feet. Fish rained from above, their silver bodies glinting as they fell through air that felt like water. His boat twisted in slow motion, spinning into an impossible sky. Pages from his torn passport drifted around him like confessions set free.
Lacolone's fingers clutched the boat's edge, muscles trembling. His heart thudded against gravity that no longer made sense. His reflection was nowhere—only an endless mirror where up and down had lost their meaning.
And then he saw him.
The water below—or above, or all around—flattened. A man stood on it. Perfectly still, balanced on the ocean's skin as if gravity answered to him. He was enormous, tall enough that even the sky seemed to pull away in respect. His coat rippled without wind, and in his hand hung a sword larger than any reason—a massive katana with a cross-shaped guard, edges whispering faint light.
On the man's chest, written in gothic script, a single name glowed faintly: Americano.
"Hi, Lacolone," the stranger said, voice rolling like distant thunder. "I've been waiting the whole time to meet a guy like you."
Lacolone froze, still clinging to the spinning boat. "Why… why does nothing make sense?" His voice cracked between disbelief and exhaustion. "This must be a dream. It has to be."
Americano smiled—a small, deliberate curve of the lips that didn't reach his eyes. He lifted the sword, moved it lazily through the air. The edge grazed Lacolone's cheek, just enough to draw a single bead of blood. It floated between them, weightless.
Dreams didn't bleed.
"If you're real," Lacolone murmured, touching the wound, "then the mermaids are real too…"
"Of course they are," Americano said, tilting his head so that rainlight glinted off his blade. "But I didn't create them. That was the Grand Master."
The name lingered in the air like smoke.
The sea began to swirl again—this time upside down, clouds spinning where the ocean should be. Americano stood amidst the chaos like a prophet untouched by storm. His coat flared around him, defying every law of motion.
"I need you to stop the end of the world," he said.
Lacolone stared up at him, the absurdity of it barely finding space to exist. "Why me? I'm weak. I barely killed a few sharks—with a gun."
Americano's eyes glowed faintly red, twin embers behind the rain. "I'll train you. Give you a new power. Make you capable of becoming a monster… after I've seen what you can do."
Lightning cracked between them, bleaching the sea in silver. For a second, Lacolone's despair melted into something sharper. His pulse began to sync with the storm.
"Revenge," Americano said, pointing his sword toward the dark horizon. "You haven't forgotten, have you?"
Lacolone's hands tightened on the wheel. "Against who?"
"The ones who executed your people," Americano said quietly. "The ones who made a massacre into entertainment."
Lacolone's breath hitched. "Who… is he?"
Americano straightened, silhouette filling the world. "The King of the World," he said. "The shadow behind every throne. He moves leaders like chess pieces. He writes history, erases nations, and feeds on despair."
The sea shuddered as Americano's eyes narrowed. They were no longer human—pupil slits wrapped in swirling darkness. "He's a demonic being," he continued. "Not of this world."
Rain stung Lacolone's face. His voice was a whisper. "What's his name?"
Americano stepped closer, boots rippling water without sinking. His hand came to rest on Lacolone's shoulder—a gesture both intimate and unbearable. He leaned in, and whatever name he whispered burned straight through Lacolone's chest.
The world flashed.
The sea screamed.
And in that heartbeat, rage replaced blood.
Memories tore through him—the girl and her mother, the gunfire, the sharks, the chaos. Every scream fused into one sound that lived inside his skull.
"I'll kill him," he said softly, the words tasting like rust and lightning.
Americano's smile widened. He held out his massive sword, its surface humming with invisible storms. "Then take it," he said. "Make the world remember you."
Waves spiraled around his feet in sacred geometry, forming patterns that defied logic. Lacolone reached forward. His fingers brushed the hilt.
The sea erupted.
Water rose upward, folding into itself, the sky tearing open as if heaven had been waiting for this exact sin. Fish scattered like sparks. Light exploded between their hands, the world turning inside out once more.
"Welcome to the rebellion," Americano said, grin sharp enough to wound.
Then everything was quiet again.
Lacolone blinked. The storm was gone. The world was normal.
He was alone on his boat, breath ragged, a heavy sword now strapped to his back.
The sea was calm—too calm. He bent toward the water and saw his reflection staring back. For a brief moment, his eyes glowed faintly red, the same color that burned in Americano's.
Far on the horizon, the European coast loomed like a mirage. Above it, clouds gathered in the shape of a crown—crooked, vast, and unmistakably demonic.
Lacolone stood at the helm, sword resting against his shoulder, wind carving shadows into his face.
Somewhere deep inside, the storm began again.