บท 18: Eyes on The Abyss
Not wanting to surrender the fairy she had just caught, she dashed away from the prince.
The prince instantly gave chase.
"Hey!"
Junko wasn't sprinting as the crowd was large but she was running at a surprising pace.
Equally surprising for little runaway Junko was the speed of the prince who was weaving through the crowd, catching up to her.
Most adventurers and mages laughed along and cheered for either the prince or for Junko, as to them, this simply seemed like a small game of tag that Junko had suddenly started.
Junko however wasn't laughing or giggling while running around, which some adventurers noticed as they tried to stop her. This fairy that Junko 'kidnapped', after all, was the personal companion of the Prince of the Empire and if that companion were to get hurt the punishment would also loosely affect the surrounding adventurers and mages who didn't help.
An attempt was made by an adventurer who moved in front of Junko and crouched with open arms, ready to catch her.
Some still cheered for Junko to dodge and keep running as they still viewed this as a game she was playing.
The adventurer, as Junko ran up to him, attempted to grab onto Junko and lift her up but only caught air as Junko flipped upwards and used his head as a stepping stool, jumping over a good portion of the crowd and garnering all the attention there.
The stepping stool adventurer, due to the force of Junko's step, found his head going through the floor, breaking the wooden floor of the ship and not getting back up.
Silence yet again spread through the large quarters as a mage yelled out to heal the guy while another adventurer attempted to stop Junko who was falling down towards her.
With open arms, ready to catch the runaway, she was only greeted with three of her fingers being broken and smushed as Junko used one of her hands as another stepping stone, keeping herself afloat.
There was no longer any cheering.
The prince yelled out: "Somebody Catch Her Already!" while he dashed through the crowd towards Junko, jumping over groups that were too large to weave through while constantly hearing the fearful cries of her fairy companion echo through his head.
Everyone close by made their move as the prince had ordered.
Junko who landed on the floor kept booking it, attempting to find a place with no one else so she could study the creature she was hugging as she wanted.
A knight from the side reached out to catch her by the shoulder but was avoided and nearly fell to the ground. Another knight from in front of Junko attempted to grab her arm but their attempt was kicked away, their armour dented and the bones in their arm cracked.
An adventurer attempted to grab her from behind into a bear hug but was treated with a foot to the face as he simply became another stepping stool.
Flying through the air, Junko was greeted by a ball of water cast by a mage who was about to catch her inside of it.
Yet the moment Junko made contact with the ball of water, it shook and shattered away as if the magic was never cast in the first place.
"The Hell? Does she have Maxed out Water Magic Resistance?!"
An observing mage yelled in question before having their head be used as a stepping stool.
Dodging the combined efforts of a few more adventurers and knights along with a single Ice Magic spell she avoided, little runaway Junko reached the door to the quarters which she opened and ran through.
Down the corridor with adventurers and knights giving chase and the prince in the lead, Junko kept running in random paths that her instincts told her to go down
Jumping up onto the main deck of the ship with the prince only a few metres behind followed by a few of the faster adventurers, Junko felt a pull coming from the creature in her arms.
Or more accurately, a pull coming from the 'star' inside of the creature in her arms.
To the side, to the sea.
Without much thought, she turned and ran towards the ocean.
She could feel the creature in her arms struggling more than before as she neared the water but runaway Junko ignored it.
Stepping onto the wooden railing, she looked down at the ocean and its waves.
The prince who had reached the main deck first out of the other pursuers looked in shock and fear as Junko took a step off the railing and fell into the icy cold salt water of the ocean.
*SPLASH*
The water was cold. Thicker than air. She could feel the surrounding difference in the temperature, in the pressure and in the texture.
She took a breath but immediately pushed the water back out as her face distorted slightly.
She could feel something in her hands grow.
Looking at the creature, at the fairy, in her hand just as it looked back at her with both fear and astonishment, Junko could feel the slight connection she felt spread through the surroundings.
A change in temperature, in pressure, in texture, in taste. The water felt different.
Holding the fairy with one hand, she poked at her chest with her finger.
A minor vibration travelled through the sea, the 'star' she could see in the fairy shook and shivered.
Again a change in the surroundings. Warmer. Hotter. Darker.
They were slowly sinking, the sunlight was having more difficulty reaching them.
The fairy felt a strange sensation she hadn't felt before yet her fear of the young girl holding her stayed.
Again, Junko poked at the fairy.
This time she felt like she somewhat knew what she could see and what she could do.
She reached out two fingers to the fairy and without touching her, she pinched her fingers together in front of the fairy's chest.
The 'star' that Junko could see changed and morphed slightly. More Blue. More Aquamarine. Brighter.
The fairy was feeling dizzy as she shuddered.
The water in the surroundings moved towards her as if being absorbed.
A few moments later, there were noticeable strands of glowing blue in the fairy's hair.
Junko no longer felt like she could do anything to what she could see without putting out the 'star' itself and that isn't what she wanted to do.
It was darker now. It was colder now.
Junko didn't want to drink the surroundings as the taste was terrible and she couldn't breathe it either since it felt like her stomach and chest were being forcefully filled.
As she was about to let go of the fairy and move back upwards, she was stopped by a strong vibration that spread through the ocean.
A low roar. A rumbling from below.
Most likely spurred by what happened in relation to the fairy and Junko.
Looking below her, eyes piercing through the veil of darkness, she could see an extremely large being moving.
Slithering near the bottom of the ocean, multiple kilometres down, surrounded by both similar and distinctly different creatures.
The large slithering creature was slowly moving upwards towards the sinking duo while countless other smaller creatures swam with many times more vigour, speed and might trying to reach their location.
Junko simply looked at the creatures. Although they were most definitely interesting and fascinating to her, she didn't like them as they lived in such a place where the surroundings tasted as terrible as they did.
Glaring into the abyss below, all movement stopped.
...
Looking up and out of the abyss, the creatures saw the void.
...
With her heightened understanding of the 'star' that she saw and poked, Junko reached out her hand towards the abyss below.
The fairy glanced at her but didn't take her eyes away from the abyss. Unlike Junko, she couldn't see what lay below but she could feel it if she focused. And what the fairy felt was frightening.
Junko barely reacted to the eyes of the abyss staring at her.
Focusing mana on her palm, she muttered the phrase instinctively.
Yet as she was submerhed in water, it fell on deaf ears as no one heard it. Still, the desired effect came to be.
A flicker of flame, a pinky-sized piece plucked from the sun, aquamarine in colour.
Barely emitting any light, it fell down into the abyss.
The one remarkable thing about the flicker of blue was the noticeable heat it emitted.
The moment it was summoned, all the water in a large radius around the flame started boiling.
Junko could only feel the heat yet it did no damage to her body. Possibly because of her heat resistance, possibly because it was her own magic, possibly some other reason.
The fairy stuck in her hand however clearly felt the heat as her vision was blocked by the wall of bubbles traveling past her towards the surface.
The heat was painful indeed, thankfully she negated a large amount of the damage she would have taken with some magic she cast on instinct.
As she watched the flicker of blue fall deeper down and all the creatures below scatter away, Junko suddenly felt mana coming from her hand as she turned her piercing gaze at the fairy.
Before she couldn't, or rather in Junko's head she didn't, use any magic so she just assumed that she couldn't.
Glaring back at the abyss below, she no longer saw anything approaching.
Feeling more magic being formed from her hand, she curled up and warmly hugged the small fairy that was still stuck in her grasp before letting it go a few moments later.
The water around Junko's body toughened as it no longer moved much at all. The water around Junko's head was pushed away as a pocket of air was created.
With a few long-awaited breaths of air that didn't taste terrible, Junko looked at the fairy floating in the water next to her.
Making eye contact with the small lady, she simply smiled at her as the fairy had no choice but to narrowly smile in response.
The two started moving back to the surface, Junko was being dragged along as it wasn't like she knew how to swim.
Above the veil of water, on the surface, a thunderstorm was raging.
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