Yujo’s entire plan was nearly scuppered before she had even started when Rosemary kept her behind after morning service.

It was to talk about her singing.

Singing for Yujo was a task rather than something she could enjoy for its own sake. She could sing fine for a few lines. Rosemary had even commented that she had a wonderful singing voice. That held very little in the way of solace when she started to think about those two selk singing to each other about her fate.

At its most mild, Yujo’s panic took the form her singing off key and out of sync. When she was thinking about the events of that day or of the selk, something she was doing with the plan in mind, it became even worse.

It had taken Yujo a whole hour to convince Rosemary (and herself) that she was fine and to put her plan into action.

It was now half past three as Yujo stood on the baking sand of the beach.

There was no time for preparations. By Yujo’s own estimation she had four hours before Rosemary would suspect that something was wrong. Dinner started at seven o’ clock at the dot and as optimistic as she was, Yujo knew that Rosemary wouldn’t fall for the old 'stuff two pillows under the bed and hope that everyone assumes the person is sleeping' trick. That all meant that she had to be back by eight to get back to her room, get into her night clothes and pretend to be sleeping.

This was, all in all, not the most throughly thought out caper in republic history.

She quickly pulled her diving gear on, readied a couple of cans worth of air on her diving harness and made her way to the pier where she saw only one boat hand ready.

It was Rahem and he was busy cleaning his boat.

Yujo uttered a curse word that was unbecoming of her as member of the cloth. If it was any other boat hand she would have used them. She knew that he would rat her out the moment John Smith sent them to the press.

Yujo looked at the sea and thought about how long it could be before another boat hand would come to the pier. If they were all out then it could be hours. With no other options, she took a deep breath. The decided course of action she decided to take was one that she would have never do so under any other circumstance. In fact, she knew that it as both very stupid and downright dangerous.

Diving without a boat hand was extremely dangerous for a multitude of reasons. Escaping a selk who wanted to catch her would be impossible due to their speed. That she escaped the selk boy's wrath yesterday was pure dumb luck and mostly the boat hand's work.

There were also the flora and fauna to consider. The tiger dolphin, for example, was a docile creature but it provoked it could become a vicious beast. Then there was the sea plants that could suck their prey into their leafy underbellies and melt them down in gastric acid in a frightening instant.

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Finally, on top of all that, there was always the timeless classic of running out of air and suffocating to death.

Yujo was under no illusion that what she was doing was both dangerous and very much illegal. She knew would never hear the end of it if Rosemary ever found out.

She had to do it though. The alternative was unbearable.

Yujo walked past the pier, being careful not to sneak by the boat hand, and made her way to the shore.

She looked at the skyline one more time before she sighed and continued to walk into the sea. As the water rose up her body her walking speed became slower and slower until she stopped completely. Everything up to her waist was now covered in green sea water. Clenching her teeth, Yujo jumped into kicked off the sea floor. Her flippers making an audible slap as she disappeared under the water.

Rahem turned around to see the ripples that made by Yujo’s dive and shook his head.

“Damn clears.”

A half hour of full effort swimming lead Yujo back to the hook that she had left in the panic of the previous day's events. With a sigh she fished out her harness’ tether and clamped it down on the hook. With that she kicked off and made her way down to where she had taken the photographs of the fish. There, she sat flat on her stomach, waiting for the fish to gather.

If the Goddess was benevolent, Yujo thought, maybe have a selk pod flow into the area to finish off a hunt like yesterday. If...when they did she would take the high paying photos and and rush home like a woman possessed.

The hour dragged on. It was starting to dawn on Yujo that the only thing she was succeeding in doing was wasting a can of air on an unsuccessful dive. She started to feel self conscious at how stupid she had been for making it as dangerous as she had. That feeling wasn't helped by the fact that all she had gotten to show for herself was a painful stomach cramp from sitting on her stomach for so long.

She was about ready to turn around when she heard a song flutter into her mask’s headphones.

Recognising the sound Yujo flopped around as she fumbled with her Terminal. After a minute of frantic set up and searching she found the source of the song.

It was the same selk pod of teenagers that had chased her off yesterday, sharpening their spears. She couldn’t contain her excitement. She could save St. Aldrin’s for the month and get one up on that jerk selk who had attacked her yesterday.

‘Well that tears it,’ Yujo thought aloud to herself, ‘This is payback for yesterday, you jerk!’

Taking a perverse sense of satisfaction in her vengeful voyeurism, Yujo started to take photo after photo of the pod. With a final set of photos taken, Yujo smiled, thanked her Selk ‘friends’ for the memories and began to make her leave.

Then she heard one of them bellow out something to her.

And then her world came to a crashing halt.

A creature, larger than any number of tiger dolphins, larger than anything she had ever seen before in her life, larger than anything she could ever imagine even existing in Mem’s oceans, passed by her like a cannon ball.

Within the instant she saw the gigantic, leathery exterior of the beast, weathered with a thousand cuts and a million stars and its gigantic red eye that glistened like a jewel worth a million zenni. She could feel the eye focusing in on her, staring into her very soul.

Then, as suddenly as the creature had appeared, it rushed past her and in its wake unleashed a devastating jet-stream. Yujo could do nothing as the jet-stream began to pull her into a deadly water current. All that was saving her from an enviable death was the carabiner flapping wildly in the storm but still holding onto the hook planted into the floor.

Bargaining a lifetime of obedience to the goddess, she prayed for her to keep the carabiner locked into the hook and save her from her fate.

Then, the goddess gave her an answer.

The entire hook pulled itself free from the floor.

Her life began to flash before her eyes and all Yujo could do is scream. Her body was tossed around in the jet-stream it and thrown around as if it was a crumpled up piece of rubbish. The forces pulling her overcame her and dragged her off into the unknown.