The wind eased after his answer and the tension in the air shifted from securing their immediate survival, to the looming inevitability of investigating what happened to those missing Mermaids.
Mera let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Elektra studied him a moment longer, as if gauging whether his agreement was casual confidence or calculated resolve.
It was both.
Albedo stepped back from the edge of the fractured rock shelf and holstered Havoc and Ruin fully. The pistols dissolved into faint violet motes before stabilizing at his hips, their hum quieting into dormancy.
"First," he said calmly, "you're healing."
Elektra scoffed lightly, "We're not fragile."
"You're both still bleeding." Albedo immediately responded.
She glanced down at her ribs. The wound had clotted, but abyssal residue still faintly crawled at its edges like black frost trying to reclaim ground.
"…Fair."
Mera shifted in the shallow tidal basin. The water around her shimmered faintly as she drew on it. Silver threads of mana began to flow from the ocean into her palms, then into her injury. The cut along her side slowly began to knit together.
Albedo watched closely.
Mermaid healing would use water. The closer they were to water, they were experience a harmonic resonance that allowed them to increase their rate of regeneration.
However, Albedo could tell that tonight, the ocean was very uneasy. He could sense various subtle disruptions in the rhythm of the waves.
Like something deeper was pulling at the tides in reverse.
Elektra sat down heavily on a relatively stable slab of black rock. She inhaled once, deeply. The air around her grew heavier. Faint golden veins ignited beneath her skin, tribal markings along her shoulders glowing dimly as Titan physiology activated.
Her bones adjusted with quiet cracks. Muscle fibers thickened and restructured. The wound along her ribs began sealing from the inside outward.
Albedo remained standing for a few moments longer before finally lowering himself onto a stone outcropping facing the sea.
The moon reflected across the dark water. Silence settled between them, not awkward, but contemplative as each of them were deep in their own thoughts.
He allowed his mana to circulate slowly through his core, regenerating all the mana that he had used, as he wanted to be completely 100% topped up for when they began their investigation.
His breathing slowed. Amethyst mana flowed through his veins in disciplined loops, filtering residual abyssal corruption absorbed earlier during Mana-Drain conversion. Perfect Adaptation continued its quiet adjustments, refining his tolerance thresholds.
The ocean pulsed again and this time Mera's eyes flicked toward the horizon.
"You feel it too," she murmured.
"Yes."
Elektra didn't open her eyes. "It's not moving randomly."
"No," Albedo agreed. "It's pacing."
That earned a slight shift from the Titan.
"…Pacing?"
"It tested the surface," he continued evenly. "Sent scouts. Observed outcome. Now it's recalibrating."
Mera's tail tightened faintly against the rock.
"So it's intelligent."
"Yes, very intelligent," Albedo responded, his gaze remained fixed on the horizon, but his thoughts drifted elsewhere, back towards the original timeline.
In that version, Mera had disappeared towards the later stages in the Novel, but it was never explained exactly why.
Her disappearance was quite the story, and when her body had been recovered, it had been devoid of visible trauma. There were no wounds or corrosion, yet she was dead.
As if something had hollowed her from the inside. The official explanation had been "unknown abyssal anomaly."
Unofficially, no-one knew what happened. At the same time, Elektra had survived, but just barely.
She had been found unconscious along the trench wall, body intact but mind unreachable. Her Titan physiology had preserved her life, but her consciousness never resurfaced. She had been comatose from that point on all the way to the end of the Novel, and was one of the Novel's big mysteries.
The alliance between Mermaids and Titans had nearly fractured after that. Blame had circled, and the Abyss had grown stronger in the silence that followed.
Albedo's jaw tightened faintly. He didn't know for sure, but he felt whatever was going on here was connected to their disappearance, so he would make sure that outcome would not repeat itself.
Mera shifted slightly in the water basin. Her glow brightened as her wound finished sealing, though she remained visibly fatigued.
"You're thinking hard," she said softly.
He glanced at her.
"Just mapping variables."
She smiled faintly.
"You speak like a strategist."
"I prefer not dying to unknown entities."
Elektra let out a short huff, "Reasonable."
Mera studied him more carefully now. There was something different about him compared to other humans she had encountered. A very calm confidence combined with strategic thinking.
"You've faced the Abyss before," she said quietly.
"Yes."
"Many times? I haven't really had much run ins with them before this incident," Mera said.
"I've faced them enough times to know it's a pain in the ass," Albedo muttered.
"So what's the plan, strategist?"
Albedo leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on his knees.
"We don't dive blindly," he said, "We need to observe current shifts and any distortions to find entry points into the trench that minimize our exposure,"
"And if it comes up?" Elektra asked bluntly.
"Then we force it to commit. We can't let it tunnel and hide back down there," Albedo said.
Mera studied him carefully. "You're not afraid."
He didn't answer immediately, "Being too scared will make you weak, be confident in your skills,"
The honesty lingered in the air. Elektra gave him a more measured look now. Respect, subtle but present.
Minutes passed by and then nearly an hour, the moon climbing higher and higher into the sky as the ocean gradually stabilized, though the deep pulses coming from the trench never fully ceased.
Mera eventually pulled herself completely from the basin and settled onto the rock beside Elektra. Her tail shimmered faintly before splitting into legs in a fluid shift of magic. Scales dissolved into pale skin as water evaporated into mana vapor around her.
Even exhausted, she carried herself with quiet nobility.
Elektra's wound had sealed fully now, though a faint ache remained in her aura.
Albedo rose smoothly.
"Status?"
"Eighty percent," Elektra replied.
"Seventy-five," Mera added.
"Good enough."
He stepped closer to the edge again.
The horizon was darker now.
Deeper.
Clouds had begun to gather subtly above the trench region, though no storm was forecast by natural currents.
Abyssal pressure did not respect weather systems.
Mera stood beside him.
"If what you're implying is true," she said quietly, "then the disappearances weren't random attacks."
"No."
"They were selected."
"Yes."
Elektra folded her arms.
"Why mermaids specifically?"
Albedo's eyes narrowed slightly.
"How would I know, we need to find out together,"
