What is the meaning of this?
I stare in a daze at the entity towering above me, not quite believing my own eyes.
How can it be? Why is the Mistress of the deep, the Lady of the sea, the sovereign Genie of water, Mami Wata in this state? How—why did she turn into this?
A multitude of voices like rolling thunder reverberates through the cavernous depths, shaking me to my very core.
"How darest thou? How darest thou!? Treacherous knave, betrayer, base liar!"
"W-what?"
"Thou hast betrayed our trust, thou hast woven lies upon our fellowship, thou hast forsaken us in our hour of need. And yet thou dost return, showing thy visage after so many years!? Fie upon thee!"
I stare in bewilderment.
"Did… did that junju just speak?" Someone asks.
Kayin holds my shoulder, muttering, "Vyswe'eyaga, what is it saying?"
"—I… I don't understand." I call out in the Tongue. If she is willing to talk, then maybe we can resolve this civilly. "O. Spirit of water, w-we have never met before, how could I have possibly offended you?"
Her form convulses, the surface of her body roiling as though it were boiling from within. Her gaze burns with fury, and she swells—her body growing to the size of a mountain.
The air thickens under her presence, crushing and impossible to endure. I can feel her unbearable will to destroy me in my deepest bones. I can't stop my body from shaking. Below, her daughters answer the surge with a chorus of hisses, their fangs bared, ready for violence.
What crime have I committed to draw such merciless hatred?
"Thou dost lie yet again? Though thy grievous deeds stand unveiled before all?" I gasp, taking several steps down as the water gets more agitated, and heavy waves are crashing in our direction. "Thou shalt answer for thy treachery. No weeping nor pleading shall alter thy doom. Here and now, thy life is forfeit!"
She roars and giant waves come crashing on us, except that I trigger the wards I had placed at our feet and the waves collide harmlessly on the barrier surrounding us.
"What?! B-but I did no such thing!"
"Die!"
The waters rise into floating spheres, but when they are thrown at us, it is not as aimless waves with no force and direction. It is with the might and intensity of a highly precise jet of water .
I am falling before I even understand what has happened. I think Ewa catches me before I hit the ground, but I barely feel her hands around me. Then I feel too much all of a sudden. My left leg burst with pain, the type of pain that pulses all through my body and gains in intensity by the second.
I want to scream, I want to shout, but my voice seems lost, and it hurts too much for the tears to spill. I clutch my thigh. Frantically trying to stop the pain by any means necessary, but it's no use. I think it is getting worse.
I look down at my leg, and I suddenly find the strength to moan in pain at the sight of the butchered flesh and bones. It went right through my flesh, mutilated everything in its path. A pool of blood gathers below my leg. So much blood. My blood. It hurts. It hurts so bad.
"Vy! Look at me!" Ewa lifts my head to her face, but I can't look away from my mauled leg. It hurts so much—it hurts so, so much.
Hands clamp around my leg, pressing hard against the wound. Pain detonates—sharp, electric, unbearable. I writhe, but Ewa leans close, her voice urgent but steady, trying to keep me still. "Hold on, just breathe."
Gamba works quickly, layering bandages over the puncture, pressing them down firm, each touch is agony, the cloth soaking red almost instantly. He adds more, tightening the wrap to stem the flow.
Oh… O God!
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts…
The world around me roars and thunders. Bellowing into pillars of hot smoke and the stone exploding into dust. My barrier… I think it collapsed.
Then we are now completely open to the mad Genie's onslaughts. To think that she pierced through my defences so easily. What was I expecting—she is a Genie, a higher Spiritual being. I was incredibly lucky the barrier could deflect the jet just enough that it did not hit my heart directly.
But great heavens, is it painful!
"It hurts! It's too tight!" I choke out through gritted teeth.
"It must be tight unless you want to bleed out." Gamba counters, his words are almost drowned out by the sound of a blast.
"What—what is going on?"
"You should focus on yourself." I hear Ewa's voice rumble against her chest.
I look past her, and my breath snags in my throat.
This place has turned into a battlefield, raging and thrashing. After Mami Wata had struck me, I was so out of myself that the barrier completely shattered.. and somehow the rest still hold the line while Gamba and Ewa were tending to me.
Her assault continues, raining down jets of high-pressured water on us—No, at me. Each one is aimed at me. But none have reached me yet. Ike deflects them with flicks of his spear, impossibly precise, while N'jobu summons towering walls of fire that hiss and vanish under the relentless torrents. Most of the jets punch straight through.
Kayin had summoned a wall of winds, shielding Ewa, Gamba, and me from stray blasts, even as he battles the crashing waves and the rising flood that threatens to consume us all.
"It is done," Gamba calls. The trouser leg has been cut away from the thigh down, the wound bound in tight layers of bandage. A whimper slips from me—not from the pain, but from the sight of my ruined limb.
I barely recognise my own leg. It is swollen, having grown to twice its normal size even beneath the layers of bandages. The ache lingers, muted but insistent.
"Can you try to wiggle your toes?" he asks, his fingers resting on my bare foot. I do as he asked, and my heart sinks when my leg fails to follow my command.
"I-I… I can't."
Gamba's face hardens. Ewa holds me tighter, as if I might break into pieces. "Her leg…"
"It is just as I feared…" he mutters, dragging a hand across his face, "Your thigh bone has been shattered to pieces. The rest of your leg is held together only by scraps of flesh and torn ligaments. You can't heal the way we do. The bandaging I applied will slow the bleeding, but it won't stop infection from setting in. I'm afraid… the only option is to amputate the leg."
~~~~~~~~~~~
I am panting, but I don't seem to get enough air into my lungs.
Amputation…
He is talking about amputating my leg, isn't he?
Am I… Am I going to lose my leg? Just like that?
"Vyvy calm down. You can use your sorcery—use it to heal yourself."
"—I can't! I-I… Minor cuts maybe, but not… Not this type of injury! I-I can't…"
"Calm down, Vyvy," she presses the palm of her hand above my eyes, covering my view. "We will find a solution. Just Breathe."
For a while, the only sounds I perceive are her voice and the incredibly slow rhythm of her heartbeat. I take deep gulps of air.
Right… Don't panic Vyswe'eyaga.
"M-my staff… Where is my staff?"
"You can't possibly be thinking of fighting in such a state," she says, but still gives it to me.
"I'm not…" I scan the scene. Kayin is barely holding the frenzied waters off while Azikiwe and Sazayi are protecting him as Mami Wata quickly realized that he became an obstacle and decided to target him too—She temporarily changed the focus of her fury to him. But Ike does not let do as she pleases. He is a blur, deflecting all her attacks that coming close to anyone with a precision and skill that is hard to fathom for a normal human. He has not made a move to directly attack her—off I have seen.
We have struck a fragile balance for now. But it will not last.
"I will get us out of here," I rasp.
I extend my staff before me, focusing on the flow of my essence, the ward array at our feet, and I begin chanting.
The ground quakes, and Ewa gasps when the platform rises—lifting high above the rising waters that have already half‑submerged the cave. I press on, and more platforms rise in sequence, forming a straight road that stretches toward an opening on the far side.
I don't know where it leads, but anywhere else is better than staying here. For a fleeting moment, the chaos subsides. Kayin's barrier of winds collapses, and he turns to me, chest heaving, breath ragged.
"Vyswe'eyaga?"
He is cut off when a column of water rises, and Mami Wata manifests in it, the multitude of voices roaring imperiously. "Thou shalt not escape my grasp, vermin!"
I am swept off the ground and find myself in Ewa's arms. "We're moving!"
No one needs to be told a second time—everyone is already running for the exit.
Behind us, Mami Wata rages, and the water surges higher. I am already erecting a barrier against it and wince the next second when I feel my essence being drained.
"Vyvy?"
"Keep on," I clench.
Ewa's steps falter as the platform tremors, cracks appearing along its surface. Suddenly the light dims, I look up and the mermaids have swarmed around the barrier. I clench my jaw as they start ramming against it, some bare-handed while others use sharp stone-like javelins.
I hear Ewa curse under her breath and pick up pace. Ike, Gamba, and Azikiwe are now carrying Kayin, N'jobu and Sazayi over their shoulders. I strain as more fractures appear on the platforms, some even starting to fall apart from Mami Wata's might.
I almost lose my focus several times from the pain. Ewa is trying not to, but my thigh burns as her arm strains against me, especially when she starts skipping from one slab of stone to the nest when the platforms are collapsing.
Thankfully, I do not have to bear it for too long. We make it to the other side—another cave similar to the previous one—I collapse the barrier and platforms while simultaneously raising a wall to block this entrance.
"This won't keep them out for long."
"I don't spot any exits," someone—Azikiwe—declares.
I look over and my stomach sinks.
The cavern stretches wide but offers nothing—no tunnels, no cracks, no promise of escape. The walls glisten with dampness, slick stone that reflects the lantern's glow in fractured shards. Stalactites hang above like jagged spears, dripping steadily, each drop echoing against the silence.
But no exit. No way out.
Just moss and wet stones.
N-no, It's alright. If there is no exit, then I will make one.
I am already chanting, glyphs blazing as they spiral around me, the ground carries us up. I raise my staff at the ceiling, and a hole burrows itself at my command.
We came from above, if I carve deep enough, we should get back to the tunnels. Are the tunnels safer? We might just be more trapped there, but where else can we go?
I shake my head to clear my thoughts. No time for doubts now.
There is an explosion, and when I glance down, water is surging in like a torrent. Mami Wata emerges like a storm, her head snapping upward, eyes locking onto mine. They blaze with a furious, storm-dark blue which makes me shiver.
Her roar rattles my eardrums. Suddenly our ascension stops—we are falling. But then we are not anymore. The slab of stone we stand on is uncontrollably propelled—Kayin! He is using the wind to push us forward. I focus back on our exit.
Then something slams into us, Ewa topples over, and we are falling. No, sinking.
My eyes flicker open, and the world is a blur. Through the haze I barely discern Ewa's form drifting closer, only to be engulfed by a brood of mermaids. She tries to shake them off, but their numbers overwhelm her. Between blinks, I glimpse my barrier flickering around her as she works to shake them off, then her struggle ends abruptly as a javelin pierces her abdomen. The shock frozen on her face stands in stark contrast to the malevolent glee twisting the mermaids' features, as her blood unfurls in crimson ribbons through the water.
I want to scream her name, but quickly reacall there is no air for that. I can't swim to her—any movement I make sends a blinding pain through my thigh. I aim my staff and shoot a beam of spiritual essence. It hits one of them in the shoulder. But when I aim for my next fire, a mermaid crashes into me, her face twisted into a hateful snarl as she clutches my staff in her hands. She wretches my staff away, and another pair of them drag me away.
When I regain my bearings, I am alone. The water lies still, dimly lit, its calmness unsettling. The sudden change is jarring—it was complete mayhem seconds ago, but now it is so peaceful I almost doubt the earlier events.
And despite my desire to bask in the peace for a while longer, I am quickly reminded of my primal need to breathe, I am also reminded of my wounded leg at my attempts to swim to the surface, and I have no idea in which direction to go.
A sudden current tears me away, and I am thrust into the humongous presence that is Mami Wata, the revered genie of water.
She had been nothing but a myth before this. But she had always been described as wise, benevolent, and just, as well as a vision of otherworldly beauty. But as I stare at her now, she has turned into the very opposite of everything she was described as.
Strangely enough, her maddened glare does not faze me anymore. Is it because I am on the verge of drowning to my death?
"T'is time… thou shalt confront thy reckoning," she says with finality. I watch as she opens her mouth, a swirling black hole blossoming before my eyes. I am swallowed whole.
I close my eyes, surrendering myself to the chilling darkness. Yet I stir as a wisp of sombre energy brushes against me. I open my eyes and stare up at an amalgamation of swirling hunger and debilitating madness—the same kind of ravenous essence I have felt in every junju, a force that seeks to drain the very life from the world.
It coils above me, throbbing like a bizarre imitation of a heartbeat. Slowly, its tendrils unfurl, winding around me, siphoning the strength from my body. I gasp, but more water fills my lungs. My vision gets blurrier, and my body does not obey me anymore.
As my vision fogs, a sudden burst of warmth spreads across my chest. I instinctively reach for my pendant, and as my consciousness scatters, a memory flickers in the back of my mind.
I think of Teacher, and Sabar, and Zaylany, and Auntie. We are at home, playing a board game after having dinner. Sabar and I are arguing over the table while Zaylany is trying to play mediator—with little success—Teacher and auntie are just laughing helplessly.
I wonder… what were we… arguing about?