Gareth stood on the fourth ship, surrounded by the bodies of the fallen. His chest rose and fell with steady, rhythmic breaths. His heart beat with a calm, measured rhythm. His body despite the carnage he had just unleashed showed no signs of fatigue. No trembling muscles. No labored breathing. No exhaustion.
Finally, his face was filled with great relief.
He looked at the blood-soaked spear in his hand, at the bodies that lay around him, at the navy fleet that still surrounded him like a wall of wood and steel. He spoke.
"Hey, god." His voice was calm, almost conversational. "Why should I go after that woman? Why should I steal that woman from him?"
Darlington's voice echoed in his mind, smooth and calculating.
"We are both cut from the same cloth." A pause. "So this going back and forth isn't really going to help us."
He paused again.
"Though at this point, you have infinite stamina, I am all-seeing." His voice hardened. "I can see every inch of this battlefield. And I can say that if you don't listen to me..."
His voice dropped.
"...you will die."
Gareth laughed.
"Hey, god." His voice was light, almost playful. "Should I tell you something?"
He paused.
"It's not everything that you're capable of seeing."
His smile widened.
"If not, you would know what Lancelot told me about you."
He tilted his head.
"Do you know the things he said?" He paused. "It's quite pitiful, really that you had that kind of past."
He began to laugh a short, sharp, mocking sound.
"HAHAHA!"
He fought the navy men on the fourth ship as he spoke. His body moved with a grace that was almost supernatural dodging blades, countering strikes, killing without even thinking. It was more than just child's play for him. His body was calm, his reactions were instantaneous, his movements were effortless.
Darlington remained silent.
His mind raced, his thoughts churning like a storm-tossed sea.
My past, he repeated to himself, his inner voice sharp, confused, angry. My past. My past. What do you know about my past?
He looked at Gareth at the devil who fought and laughed and mocked him.
What could a fool like you or that pawn Lancelot know about my past?
His voice, when it came, was cold.
"I reject it."
He was filled with rage a hot, burning fury that threatened to consume him. But then, slowly, a smile spread across his face.
"How pitiful of me." His voice was soft, almost gentle. "My friend Hyacinth... you were one that always believed in expressing your emotions through your fist."
He laughed a short, bitter, broken sound.
"I wish I could punch the hell out of that bastard Gareth."
It was then that Darlington had realized something.
What Gareth planned had worked.
He had wanted to rile him up. To anger him. To distract him. And it had worked.
Darlington saw himself in this situation as a god.
And so Darlington laughed.
"HAHAHAHA!"
The sound echoed through the void sharp, genuine, amused.
Gareth jumped off the ship.
His body launched from the deck soaring through the air, cutting through the rain, descending toward the dark water below. He wanted to land into the sea and then use the water to build propulsion to jump out of it, to launch himself forward to the man who held Davina Jones.
As he landed in the water, Darlington's voice echoed in his mind.
"Your pride of being invincible has gotten into your head." A pause. "It's in this water that you may meet your demise."
As Gareth heard his voice, a great tentacle grabbed him.
It emerged from the depths thick, muscular, alive and wrapped around his body, squeezing him with terrible force. It pulled him down at such great speed that all the air in Gareth's lungs was pushed out with great force in a short amount of time.
His chest burned. His vision swam. His mind screamed.
The tentacle crushed his ribs.
CRACK.
Darlington spoke, his voice calm, almost clinical.
"There's no point in using killing intent on this beast. Because you trying to do that will be a waste of time." A pause. "Your lungs are filled with water."
His voice dropped.
"And soon, your mind won't be able to even process a single thought."
He paused.
"But let me show you a sign." His voice hardened. "A miracle."
He paused again.
"That can be done by a man of my calibre." His voice was almost smug. "Or don't you think a god is capable of doing miracles?"
Gareth could not answer him.
He could not even process a single thought. His body was failing. His mind was fading. The darkness of the sea was closing around him like a tomb.
But he needed to survive.
That stupid pride that had been created in him that arrogance, that certainty went out of his head. And finally, a Gareth who wanted to survive was born back.
The need to live made him give an answer.
He said to Darlington without even being able to talk, his inner voice a scream that never reached his lips.
Yes. Yes. YES.
As Gareth looked up, he was surrounded by the infinite darkness of the sea.
The water was cold. The pressure was immense. The silence was absolute.
Darlington smiled.
"Well then..." His voice was warm, almost affectionate. "...welcome back."
A pause.
"The beast that you once sent away."
Gareth, losing consciousness, saw a familiar beast.
It was much larger than it had been before its body swollen, its scales darkened, its power multiplied. It was the beast that he had used killing intent to subdue before. The beast he had named Dameon.
The beast surged toward him its massive jaws opening, its great fins propelling it through the water, its presence filling the darkness.
Gareth saw it.
And he lost consciousness.
On the surface, the navy general that held Davina Jones by her neck was beheaded.
The blade came from nowhere a flash of steel, a spray of blood, a thud as the head hit the deck. The body stood for a moment longer, then crumpled.
Davina Jones's right-hand man stood behind him.
He had ambushed the general, hiding his presence so thoroughly that nobody had been able to notice him. He moved like a shadow, like a ghost, like a memory.
But this was the last thing that he could do for her.
His body was broken. He had a hole in his stomach, gaping and wet. He was missing one arm severed at the elbow, the stump wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth. And in both eyes, he was blind his pupils white, his gaze empty, his sight gone.
Yet he carried his captain in one hand, as if he could still do battle.
He laughed.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
It was the last laugh of a pirate.
Gareth sank into the darkness.
Davina's right-hand man laughed.
And the sea roared.