"What's so interesting?"
Crackle!
A streak of Blue Lightning shot from the cabin at the stern, crossed the sky, and hovered to Kuta's left. A cool voice, tinged with curiosity, came from within it.
As the voice rang out, a figure slowly emerged from the Lightning like a god of thunder. She wore a long pink robe patterned with white cherry blossoms and cloth shoes. Her dark blue hair was tied in a low ponytail, and a long sword in a white scabbard hung at her waist.
"Hm?"
The moment Kuina appeared, before Kuta could answer, she noticed something was wrong.
She followed Kuta's gaze downward. A red gleam flashed in her eyes, and an arc of electricity flickered before her.
"Something's coming."
As she spoke, Kuina's hand settled on her sword hilt.
By her senses, the deep sea beneath the churning surface should have been calm, as it was in any ordinary stretch of ocean.
But now she could feel the water far below surging even more violently than the sea above.
"Now that's a sight
you don't see every day."
As if he had spotted something fascinating, Kuta smiled. He turned to A-Luo on the foredeck. "Don't worry. Two big ones are fighting down there. Looks like they're battling for territory—or maybe the throne."
"Right." A-Luo nodded and looked toward the water ahead.
By then, he could feel it without Kuta telling him: two immense presences were rising steadily from the depths.
Before long, the sea ahead began to bulge upward as everyone watched.
Boom!
A colossal wave rose with it and swept outward in every direction, threatening to overwhelm everything in its path.
There were no other ships in these waters, so the Freedom took the full brunt of it.
The wave bearing down on them was