Archimedes.
This mathematician had meant nothing to the billions who had probably lived and died above this basin, but to Haki, he, or at the very least his works, had been a quiet companion through many lifetimes; through proofs he had scribbled on old earth paper, simulations at Planck scales, spirals of galaxies, spirals in seashells, spirals in drains…
[r = a + bθ.]
'Dummies wouldn't understand.' He thought.
'Of course' Instinct added.
'Hmm, Archimedes…' he mused.
'Fine, old friend,' he thought. 'You can have my abdomen.' He cringed a bit, of course.
'The Archimedean spiral' he thought once more, grounding his thoughts towards that direction.
After some time contemplating, he didn't think further and just got straight to the path.
***
He restarted the imaginative procedure once more. The faint strand of 'mana' from the hole in the stone travelled up a path up till his nostrils, he let it ascend up his nose and descend into his lungs.
This time around though, just before it could descend towards the area of his navel line, he applied the principle he had been contemplating in his mind;
The mana suddenly curved as if ready to turn into a spiral pathway.
The spiral would have four turns before coming to a stop at the center. As the mana moved, Haki watched as it passed through the first and widest loop, almost reaching his skin just beneath his diaphragm.
Then it passed through the second loop, broader still but smaller than the first loop. It grazed the underside of his ribs as it continued on the path towards the third loop until it reached the last loop, which would eventually come to a stop as it had reached its innermost part. Its center.
'My Anchor.' He said inwardly, as he locked the thought in, with his focus still on the center.
At that point;
SHINGG—
'Continue.'
Instinct suddenly flared up. The center, Haki's anchor, which had just been a single point mana 'touched', begun to change.
Firstly, it started with the mana itself. It continued its movement… moving even further, towards the center. But, thing is, it was already at the center, so technically, the mana didn't have anywhere to go.
So, Instinct decided, 'The mana will go to itself. Continue. Condense. Compress…'
"You wouldn't. You fucking madman." Although there was reprimand in his words, there was an ear splitting grin plastered across his face which seemed to say; why didn't we think of this sooner?
'They' watched as the mana continued pouring from the hole in the stone, feeding the Anchor inside of him, slowly, then…
CRACK
His mind couldn't take it anymore. It had already been giving warning signs through the pain he was subconsciously suppressing and the blood, flowing like red ink from his eyes and ears.
His imagination was suddenly cut off; then his eyes and sockets exploded into a shower of mangled flesh and blood, drifting through the flowing water and leaving two large holes in place of his eye sockets. The ear splitting grin remained on his face throughout the process, leaving a horrifying sight to behold.
A nine to ten year old looking kid, sitting cross-legged underwater with a bit over shoulder length hair flowing wildly about, and his eyes completely gone, replaced with two large bloody holes.
What was his business smiling?
***
He lay, fully healed, on his back under the water and looked at the rays coming through.
'An Archimedean spiral with four rotations before reaching center,' he defined. ''Mana' follows this path when I envision it.'
'Forget not, going further will condense it.' Instinct added from the side.
Haki almost gave him a look. 'Forget not, he said. Like I can forget something that easily, not to mention the magnitude of my spirit.'
'Speaking of spirit, it being 100 definitely helped a lot in keeping this mental construct stable.'
'Yes.' Instinct nodded.
'What were you trying to achieve, compressing the 'mana' all of a sudden. I was about to end the iteration already…' Haki continued, but it wasn't like he couldn't guess the reason already.
'You guessed it right. It was already at the back of your mind and you would have done it eventually, I just accelerated the process.' Instinct said.
'Besides, I know how much you love black holes.' He ended mysteriously, but Haki fully understood what he meant.
A wide grin spread on Haki's face as he said out loud; "You're one crazy bastard."
'No. We're one crazy bastard.'
SHINGGG—
[Spirit: 101]
At that moment, his mind seemed to have crossed some sort of threshold. Less 'stats-wise' but more 'ability-wise.' The increase in stat came naturally as a result of this new iteration he had undergone, but what he felt this time was different.
If before, he had been a child wielding a hammer, now, although still a child, but one week older. This was his silent confirmation, the new iteration was the correct way to refine control over his large spirit.
He breathed in, very slowly through his nose.
Yes, he breathed in and water actually flowed into his lungs, but he remained calm and simply watched as cold slid up his nostrils, down his nasal cavity and into his throat.
His body's reflex, though used to water, jolted in horror and every nerve along his airway tried to fire all at once.
'You're dying, what are you doing?' Instinct asked from the sidelines.
'Don't think you're the only crazy one around here, watch me.' Haki replied, with a calm face.
'But I already know what you're about to-'
'Just watch.' Haki interrupted Instinct mid-sentence, still maintaining a calm face.
His throat did not close and his mouth didn't snap open in a panic gulp. He simply let the water descend.
It looked like he was taking in water; 'drinking' it, but through his nose, and that was exactly what he was doing...
The water flowed downward continuously with that one single, continuous inhale. It was definitely not what the human body was designed to do, but strangely, his body didn't react violently, or at least it was easy for him to suppress it.
He had learnt to control those parts of him after countless drowning sessions.
The water kept flowing, into his stomach, filling it up till the brim and just continued, packing itself into every available space it could find.
His abdomen began to swell as a slow and heavy pressure pushed outward against his skin from the inside. He could feel the weight of it dragging him down. The distension pressed upward against his diaphragm, stealing what little space his lungs had left to move.
His chest, which had already been burning from the earlier intrusion of water grew even tighter and the little air that had been trapped in the highest part of his lungs was squeezed thinner and thinner… until it emptied.
The tissues inside his lungs tried to fight bac-
'Bro, just drown already' Instinct interrupted, but Haki had no reply at this time. He was already keeping his focus sharp not to ruin this drowning iteration.
He felt a faint, creeping numbness in the tips of his toes as his ears filled with a low, growling hiss, drowning out even the distant roar of the waterfall. Then his vision began narrowing at the edges.
'Good,' he noted coldly, even as his body screamed quietly. 'We're almost at the line.' He could already smell that familiar scent. The scent of death, all too familiar to him now.
Now was not the time to pay a visit though.
[HEAL]
'Took you long enough.' Instinct quipped. 'Have you gotten familiar with it now?'
'You already know.' Haki replied.
'Right, old man. I should have asked 'Are you finally prepared'' Instinct teased.
'Dude.'
The idea came even before he began forming iterations in his imaginative 'world'. It begun when a memory rose from the depths of his integrated past.
'Whales,' he thought.