[DanMachi/Percy Jackson] Prytaneum

Chapter 70: Drowned Part 2

The moment the wave struck and the island began to fall, everything seemed to happen at once, but the moment the water spilt over me, I was calm. Strength filled me as it touched my skin and my senses seemed to open, sharpen, widen. I felt Aiz escape the reach of the water by the disturbances her winds made upon its surface, and I simply let her go, caring about only one thing. The red-haired woman had leapt away the moment the island had begun to break, a single, mighty leap meant to carry her out of my range.

Pointless, I thought, reaching out with my one good hand—and where the water had come forth from the broken stone, now it reached out with me. Arms, as many as Briareos' and then some, reached out from the waters and grabbed at her, ready to seize her and pull her back. Her reaction was quick, but as meaningless as her attempt to escape; her blade danced through the air gracefully, severing a dozen hands with every slice and scattering water like blood with every stroke, but it didn't matter.

You couldn't cut water with a knife—not and have it mean anything. Her blade had about as much effect on the water as it would have in stopping a river; cut from the wrist, the watery hands continued to reach for her regardless, grasping her and then reshaping, flowing into a second layer of skin that pulled wherever her muscles could not resist. In the air, none of her struggles meant anything, and a simple tug of my gut reversed her motion and momentum, dragging her back into the waves. She plunged into the water like a stone, caught up immediately in the whirlpool I was forming as she was dragged under, down beneath the water and the waves.

And then I had her.

I had no illusions regarding how long I'd last against someone who could beat Aiz so one-sidedly in a fair fight, and even if I had, the absentminded shattering of about half my body would have dispelled it. She was stronger than me, faster than me, and just all around too powerful for me to resist or even react to. Even if I was at my best, I'd be doing very well not to just die instantly, and any kind of long-term fight would be nothing more than a death sentence.

On land, that is. But in the water, things were different.

There were a lot of reasons why for that, a lot of them boiling down to simple, home field advantages. In the water, drag worked against most people, the water pulling back at them harder and harder the faster they tried to move. There was the matter of having uncertain footing, if there was any footing to be found at all; of trying to fight while constantly struggling to remain afloat, balanced, and aimed in the right direction. Simple visibility was an issue, too, as light passing through water became a lot less useful the further it had to travel, to the point that things just seemed to fade away if they traveled far enough from you, to say nothing of everything that could fog or distort it. None of those things mattered to me much at all, so from the very start, I had a pretty overwhelming advantage against anyone who thought it was a good idea to fight the son of Poseidon underwater. But if there was one natural advantage that I thought took the cake, it was probably the simplest one.

Good...bad...I was the guy who could breathe underwater. But had she even gotten a good breath before the water itself had dragged her under?

...Who the hell cared?

I looked at her, eyes already adapting to being underwater—to seeing the currents, the different shades of darkness, the heat rising from her skin into the cold water. She saw me, too, I was sure, because the moment she got her baring, far too slow and far too late though it might have been, her arms struck the water, aiming to propel herself towards me. But even seeing that coming, I remained where I was.

And so did she. Instead of pushing against the water with monstrous force, her arms shifted like she was waving them through the air, the water parting easily around her limbs in the most unhelpful way possible. She struggled but made no progress, because it parted like air where she needed to push against it and hardened like stone where she needed it to flow. The motion of her limbs moved the water, but not in any useful way, swirling it around her like she was a hamster in a wheel. She floated, shifted, and stirred exactly where she was, making no progress in any direction, because I wouldn't let her.

That was the other reason fighting a son of Poseidon underwater was a bad idea, of course—the part where I had complete control of the entire battlefield. I didn't just have the home field advantage; the field itself was on my side, because I could control the water, shape it, and decide how it behaved. Which meant that right now, she was trying to fight me in a world that would do everything it could to undermine her, and everything it could to support me.

It wasn't going well for her and I didn't plan for it to get much better.

Still reaching out with my hand, I flicked two fingers sharply down—and she fell like a meteor towards the bottom of the lake. Mud exploded outwards from where she impacted, the loose material blasted away by the sheer force of her descent to reveal bare, Dungeon stone that itself began to crack. The waters of the lake gathered, stirred, and then came down upon her as I focused, a mountain of water perched by my will on her shoulders. I focused what seemed like the entire lake on her, remembering how it had felt to once hold up the sky and doing my best to will that image to life, to make her feel the weight of the world and keep her pinned.

I felt her try to rise against it anyway. She struggled to stand, even as the whole lake worked to keep her on her hands and knees, and her eyes turned to stare up at me even as I looked down on her. I floated before and above her in the water, far enough out of her reach to feel safe, but still close enough to tower over her as she knelt—and when I had her attention, I spoke, the water carrying my will into her thoughts.

"What did you do to Riptide?" I asked her, staring hard even as the bones of my utterly shattered right arm slid slowly back into place. "What was that gem? How do I fix it?"

Small air bubbles escaped the woman's lips as she bowed further and further under the force, arms bending as she sank lower and then down into the floor with a crack.

I felt her struggle.

I kept her still.

"Why did you kill Hashana for that thing?" I asked. "What are you planning? Where did you come from? Who are you working for and with?"

Even with her face being forced into the stone, she tried to fight back. She shoulders shook, muscles trembling as she tried to lift herself up while the lake was forcing her down. Perhaps she was trying to shift the weight of it, to slide out from under it, but it didn't matter where she moved or what she tried, it merely shifted with her. When she managed to lift her head, however, I saw her face flush, her throat tremble, and I could imagine the way her lungs must be burning.

But that just made me think of Hashana and his broken neck and take a deep, deliberate breath of me own. I paused for a moment, enjoying it, before looking back down at her dispassionately.

"If you need to breath, all you have to do is beg," I offered. She looked up past me and it wasn't hard to guess what she was looking for, but I shot it down before she could get her hopes up. "But if not, I can wait. For a few more minutes, at least."

She trembled again, a desperate need to survive filling her with strength—and the lack of what she needed to do so striping it just as easily away. I could feel her wavering and waning by the moment, falling victim to the most basic of weaknesses faced by even the mightiest of adventurers. She was stronger than me, faster than me, powerful enough to crush me with a single hand...but she still needed to breath. After a few minutes underwater, it didn't matter which of us was stronger or smarter or more skilled, only which of us was able to keep breathing. I was her grimace. I saw her try to fight against that fact. And I watched as she steadily failed—

But then the Dungeon began to shake.

And it wasn't my fault, either.

I looked around, abruptly uncertain as I was reminded of my last trip into the Dungeon. I heard something crack, the sound distant and muffled, and though I couldn't see the source, I felt the water around me tremble. Almost at once, the demeanor of the red-haired woman shifted, a sudden light burning in her eyes as she lifted an arm, fighting against the pressure with a strength that surprised even me—and struck the ground.

All at once, the floor around us shattered with the sound of something weakened finally giving way. Cracks spread outwards from the woman, the ground shattering like a pane of glass under a combination of her power and mine, and with that opening came a way to relieve the weight and pressure that had built up above it—and so she shot through the opening like a bullet from a gun, down into the floor below.

I blinked once, eyes widening in surprise as I realized what had happened—that my own trick had been used against me, somehow, that something had weakened the floor from the other side to let her break free—and then narrowed furiously a moment later.

"You're sure as fuck not getting away," I thought, not even caring if she was still able to hear, and swept my arm down. A moment later, what had started continued as the cracks she'd opened in the floor multiplied and widened with each passing moment as the lake itself pushed down and tore at the floor. Already, I could feel water escaping through the holes that already existed, dropping down into open air—and I could still feel her, too, in the water clinging to her skin, soaked into her clothes. The feeling was vague, but I knew what she was doing, aiming to limit the amount of water I had access too if I followed her and escape into more familiar territory. Level the playing field, as it were.

Fuck that. She'd used this opening to punch a hole in the bottom of the bucket—and I responded by tearing it clean off.

The floor broke beneath the lake bed and all the water in it came pouring down as a sudden flood into the halls of the nineteenth floor. I willed myself down faster than the rest of the tide, landing on my feet as the rest of the lake continue to rain down around me, and stood untouched by its weight, momentarily apart from it until I let myself be swept away. As the floor broke, the lake came down into the living maze beneath and parts of my awareness dulled as the waters were separated by walls and rooms, only to snap back into focus as the reconnected. Even without my will to shape it, the water spread out as much as possible, seeking to fill the empty space and marking out more and more of it to my senses as it went.

And in the touch of the rain, I saw her. She'd started running the moment she was free, no doubt sure that I was be following after, but even she couldn't have expected this—I saw that much in the sheer shock of her gaze as she looked back at me, and without a second thought I was after her. Water crashed down around me and snatched me up, a wave that flooded the hall behind here, sweeping up one wall, across the ceiling, and curling back down a moment later to snap at her heels. She ran, knowing better this time than to try and hack at the wave that pursued her, I followed, trailing the massive gasps for breath that gave away her location as she sucked in precious breath after breath.

I frowned at the sound, angered by it and happy to tell her why.

"I liked you better when you were drowning, bitch!" I shouted after her, and brought my hands together as the waves tore down the walls around us, adding to the chasing flood, hastening it. The woman ran with the speed of a Level 6, every step shattering the ground beneath her, and I knew I'd have been far too slow to follow on foot—even riding a river, pushed along with more speed than my legs could hope to match, I was falling behind.

But there was more to a hunt than speed.

I reached out and yet more cracks spread through the ceiling, the walls, opening paths for the water around us to flow and race, the dozens of holes that already existed growing wider and wider to let more water through. Whenever she saw that, whether in walls breaking down or more of the ceiling giving way, she'd change directions, leading me further into the labyrinth. Even as she was being hunted, she sought to use her superior knowledge of the Dungeon to her advantage, leading me down twisted paths and corridors until I had no idea where I was anymore—but I didn't need to know where I was. I didn't even need to know where she was, not really. All I needed to know was where she was going.

And every floor of the Dungeon only had one entrance and one exit.

Even as she was running me around in circles, more and more water was gathering in the center of the floor, pulled naturally towards its lowest point—the entrance of the twentieth floor and the only way out. Where else she ran didn't matter, because I was waiting at the exit, and sure enough, we slowly looped nearer and nearer to the trap at the center.

And yet, it still came as a surprise to me when she finally spoke.

"So..." She said, sounding way too fucking calm for someone who'd nearly been drowned, the bitch. "You must be Perseus."

The words made me pause for a moment, the flood around me briefly freezing with me—and then flooding forward all the faster, as furious as I felt.

"Where did you hear that name!?" I shouted after her, the walls breaking down faster at the sound of my voice, but who the hell cared—I'd happy demolish the next five floors of this godforsaken place just to catch her. Watery hands tore at the stone corridor, just to find more things to throw at this bitch.

"She said to find you," the woman replied with nothing but an expressionless glance back that only slightly widened as she sidestepped half a wall, a small hail of stones, and a small tree. "But I didn't expect to meet you here. Still...can you really afford to waste so much time on me?"

"This won't take long," I swore, a map beginning to form in my head, somewhat literally. It was nothing compared to what I could do at sea, but I had a rough idea of the floors layout and we were coming up on one of the main paths towards the center. I mentally willed the water in the path to withdraw, opening a way inwards for her, as other paths began to flood. "It'll only take about five minutes after I catch you."

"She's probably on at least the twenty-fourth by now," the woman said, ignoring my words to instead prattle on. "She's being called to the bottom, after all. I wonder how long it'll take to find her again, if you let her go now."

And with that said, she defied my expectations again by avoiding the path I'd laid out for her towards the center to instead run further away from it, out towards the narrow, broken paths that marked the edges of a floor. I'd seen paths like that before, a bunch of times—the routes that led out to the Pantries. But there was no way of escaping that way—not that I knew of, at least, which I supposed meant nothing. Even so, she was cornering herself, even if it wasn't in the way I intended, so it made no difference where she went.

Did it?

Feeling a small flash of concern, I couldn't help but glance down the path I'd emptied out for her, justifying it to myself by pulling back the water I'd drawn way. But as I glanced towards the path into the largest room on the nineteenth floor...I stopped. Right where I was, in the middle of a flood, letting countless thousands of gallons of water flood past me as I simply decided to be stationary and looked into the heart of the floor, where thick plants grew to cover the Dungeon's floors and walls and rose into a forest of trees that cloistered monsters deep within them.

At least, they should have. But the floor had destroyed. Like a hurricane had passed through, tearing up the trees by their roots, crushing the stones, scoring entire rooms clean or burning them black. From the outskirts of the floor to its center, the twentieth floor had been devastated.

Had I done this? I wondered for just a moment, realizing perhaps a touch belatedly that I was running wild again, like I hadn't since—well, since before. But no, it couldn't have been me, not all of it; I was destructive, but also distinctive, and this bore more than just my touch. And...something was different. Something was missing.

Forcing myself to stop—even when I knew she was getting further away, even if only into a dead-end—I waited and listened. Ten seconds passed, then twenty, as I slowly scanned my surroundings, waiting for the inevitable, what was supposed to be inevitable.

But nothing came. But not a single monster attacked, even with me standing around in the open—they didn't even make any noise. And when I realized that and looked, I realized I couldn't feel them, either, couldn't find their touch in the water and the waves.

Because there were no monsters left on the nineteenth floor.

"Riptide," I said, a shiver going down my spine.

I wonder how long it'll take to find her again, if you let her go now.

I hesitated, uncertain and torn—before I swore and made the only choice I could. Spitefully, I struck a wall and the earth shook again, tremors tearing through the Dungeon, fissures undercutting foundations. In the distance, I heard something collapsed and a part of me that had always been overly optimistic hoped something had fallen on that bitch.

But then I changed the direction of my river and took off, following the path of destruction down towards the twentieth floor.