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"description": "As the strange aquatic creature named Sushi leads Marcus through the deep, they come to understand each other a little better - though their journey, as well as their conversation, leads into some unexpected directions.\n(Also on [url=https://archiveofourown.org/works/66118801/chapters/175537941]AO3[/url])\n\n",
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(Also on AO3)
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"writing": " “Sushi, how do you know what a Toa is?” Marcus ducking beneath a low overhang as they traversed through the dark and narrow underwater passage.\n “I metted one once, I think,” the orange fish-like creature replied, her glowing fins flickering softly as she twisted through the narrow rock passage ahead. “Was not as friendlies as this one, though.”\n “You [i]think[/i] you met one?” Marcus said, chipping at the wall beside him to widen the gap. “So you’re not sure?”\n “I was…” Sushi paused, her voice quieter now, more focused as she searched for the right words. “Blurry, back then. Like a bad dreamings. I didn’t knew myself. Was very uncomfortables. But I did remembered… watching a green thing, like you maybe, with two small ones nearby. They were calling him ‘Toa,’ so I call you Toa too! That is okaying, yesses?”\n Marcus smiled faintly. “Heh, that’s [i]more[/i] than okay with me.”\n Still, the title stirred something uncertain in him. He wanted to feel proud, but a doubt flickered quietly beneath the surface. If he was truly something else, something [i]“human”…[/i] could he ever really call himself a true Toa? What if Tahu was right? What if he really was just some impostor who never belonged here to begin with? Could he ever be like Takanuva?\n Like… Matoro?\n He cleared his throat. “You don’t happen to remember that Toa’s name, do you?”\n Sushi let out a musical hum as she floated ahead, a focused expression on her face. “So many years ago now… I do not remind. Littlenick? Lickalick? My brain gets all wibbly-jumbly when I think too hard. Very sorries am I.”\n “No worries, it’s not that important,” Marcus said. “You said he wasn’t friendly though? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”\n “Oh noes!” she said quickly. “None hurtings of me.”\n “That’s good,” Marcus sighed.\n “He did tried to attacked me, though!” Sushi went on, “not knowings why. Very rude, I think. And I was so hungries…”\n Her head lowered somberly, her paw loosely kicking up a bit of sand.\n “WHAT?!” Marcus blurted in offense. “Why would anyone ever want to attack you? You’re so cu— well, nice to be around.”\n “Sushi think he shell too hard, did wanted only be alone, like grumpy old… [i]clam! Bubbela-BAH!”[/i]\n Marcus let out a short chuckle. “A clam, huh? Like how I’m like a crab?”\n “N-no, not the sames!” Sushi wiggled her whole body in thought, fins pulsing with little flickers of light. “All metal things are crab-like to Sushi. A little soft-flesh, with many shell bits. Green Toa was a clam-crab. But you are…”\n She turned back to inspect him closely, the water glowing faintly between them.\n “...Like [i]jellyfish!”[/i]\n Marcus blinked. “Why a jellyfish, may I ask?”\n “Oh, so many things,” Sushi chirped as she did a little twirl in the water. Her tone fluttered with energy, and though Marcus couldn’t see it in the dim light, her scales shifted to a faint pink. “You shell glowies like a jelly, and, ehe, you are very… [i]soft[/i] like a jelly…”\n It wasn’t hard for Marcus to pick up on that she was referring again to that “kiss” she’d given him while he’d been unconscious. But personally, he’d preferred not to count that as his first.\n “Oh! And you have [i]tentacle[/i] like jelly!” Sushi giggled suddenly.\n “What? I don’t have a—”\n Marcus’s brow lowered. He stopped in place abruptly as the implication hit him.\n “…Sushi. What [i]else[/i] did you do while I was unconscious?”\n “OH! N-nothings! Trulies nothings!” Sushi flailed in place, her fins pulsing in alarm. “I promise all honesties! I give explains!”\n Marcus crossed his arms, drifting just slightly in the water as he narrowed his eyes. \n “Go on.”\n “Er, when I give touchy contact to life things, like uh… [i]pah,”[/i] she began, imitating a kiss with a pop of her lips. “I learn many about things! Is why I do speak in you language! And I learn about inside friend Marcus body, like how I know about tentacle! Learning quick is because for how to do healings on many hurt things! I not even have to eyes looking! It just happens. Instincts tells me. I didn’t look at your tentacle! I just… did knew it!”\n Her explanation came out in a flurry of clumsy grammar, but Marcus caught the gist. It was enough to cool the rising heat in his face, if only slightly.\n “All right, all right, I believe you,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve been through a lot lately, and the idea of being unconscious while someone’s poking around with my body is a little unsettling.”\n “I think I understand?” Sushi replied softly. “I did not mean to upset. If tentacle makes friend Marcus embarrassed, I should pretends it not exist?”\n “What? N-no!” Marcus flushed even hotter. “You don’t have to do that. And I’m not embarrassed! I mean… I haven’t even seen it myself yet, not since I woke up in this body…”\n They swam in silence for a while, the pressure of the deep sea around them. Then, Sushi spoke again, far too innocently.\n “And tentacle is for… make of eh… bebeh?”\n Marcus nearly choked on the air bubble in his chest still keeping him alive.\n \"You know what?!\" Marcus snapped. \"I'd [i]love[/i] if we stopped talking about my tentacle! Can we just talk about literally anything else, please?!\"\n Before he could say another word, Sushi gasped and darted ahead into the shadows of the tunnel without explanation.\n Marcus’s heart dropped. \n [i]‘Oh, great job, fuckin’ genius,’[/i] he thought scoldingly to himself as he went after her. [i]‘Scared off the only one who can get you out of this place, and probably the only one who won’t try to kill you down here.’[/i]\n “Sushi, wait! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”\n But he caught up to her much sooner than expected. The tight passage opened into a vast cavern, which was bathed in breathtaking color.\n As he looked up, a circular current spiraled above them like the calm eye of a storm, and within it, a massive shoal of bioluminescent squid drifted in synchronized patterns. Their bodies shimmered in shifting hues of pinks, teals, violets, and golds, flashing and pulsing in hypnotic rhythm. Some gently bumped together, some paired off, and others swirled in slow, glowing tangles. It was as though the whole cavern was a living kaleidoscope.\n Sushi floated still, staring with her wide aqua-blue eyes into the rainbow glow. \n “These cave is [i]huge![/i] Echo! [i]Echo![/i] Heheh.”\n Marcus stifled an amused laugh in his chest at how carefree and silly she was, despite their current situation. \n “Beautyful…” she whispered quietly.\n Marcus agreed. For a brief moment, he almost completely forgot about his journey back to the surface, the pain and fear and everything he was fighting to return to. It was almost hypnotizing, this simple yet unforgettable phenomenon of nature.\n “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It really is.”\n His armored hand drifted idly to Sushi’s back, gently stroking the smooth ridges of her scales. She didn’t flinch or move away, instead gently leaning her side into his leg as the colorful creatures danced above.\n “Theses squids,” Sushi said softly, her voice quickly shifting to become more serious. “They are in ritual for making the egg-bebehs. We not disturbing thems. None fightings, not for eatings. Okey?”\n “Right,” Marcus replied, lifting his hand and giving her a small nod. But even so, his stomach grumbled a bit at the mention of eating them, only now realizing he still hadn’t eaten anything since he’d come to this world. However, he pushed his hunger aside for the moment and stayed close beside her as she began to float upward, gliding toward the soft glow high above.\n “Very importance, these,” Sushi murmured, her tail swaying in slow, gentle arcs as she propelled herself upward. She was careful not to disturb the luminous mating dance unfolding around them. “Squids only do the mating once in all their lifetimes forevers. After eggs laid… they die.”\n Marcus looked around at the squid circling them, blinking slowly like Christmas lights. \n “...Damn, tough break.”\n “Maybe seem sads to we,” Sushi replied, her voice softer as they neared the top of the glowing dome, “but squids don’t feel sads. They feel completes. Fulfilled. They make lifes, they fulfills purpose. It is their normalings. Born, live, breed, then all done with life. All creatures do this someday. Squids just happy they survive long enough to do this.”\n “I guess so,” Marcus said, giving a small shrug. “Still, I can’t imagine living that way. The best moment of your life, but then it’s lights out forever?”\n “Yuh, eheh…” Sushi let out a fluttery little hum as her swimming quickly grew more out of tempo. “I tell you something now, friend Marcus. You know, for my species… we evolve very long ago to make bebeh with a many, [i]many[/i] kinds of life things. Not just one. Because we no have tentacle, nones of us! All female, we from long before most stars did hatched. Very old, we.”\n Marcus raised a brow as they slipped through an opening into a wide, hollow corridor. It was smoother than the last, more natural, and for once there was space to swim side by side. \n “You’re saying your species can… interbreed?”\n “Oh yessings,” Sushi said brightly, her fins flickering with excitement. “Has to. We have many hatchlings from many worlds. Is how we adapt. Is our purpose, like thoses squids! But I, none having yet. So I was thinking—[i]only thinking![/i]—we go to surface, help you friends, save world and all that, and maybe…” She inched a little closer, her voice dipping to a musical whisper. “Friend Marcus can be… [i]mate[/i] Marcus? For Sushi spawn?”\n Marcus nearly choked on his air bubble. \n “W-whoa, hold on!” he chuckled nervously, unconsciously drifting a few inches farther away from waving his hands back and forth in front of him. “That’s a bit forward, don’t you think?!”\nSushi tilted her head, humming again with a playful tone. \n “Am only offering. You tentacle does makes bebes, Sushi has egg. We friendly togethers… what is problem?”\nMarcus ran a hand down the front of his Kanohi. “Well, for starters, we’ve known each other for like, what, half an hour?”\n Sushi spun slowly, her tone still light, but sincere. “Yesses, I like friend Marcus fast. You are soft, and glowing. Not light glowing, but heart glowing.” She pressed her slick black paw to his glowing green heartlight. “Very good insides, I know this. So… why not breed?”\n Marcus shook his head, but he couldn’t lie to himself that he wasn’t at least intrigued by the hypothetical. But still, he had to ask.\n “Why would you want that from me, Sushi? There must be a million fish in the sea… literally,” he said as he gestured around them.\n Sushi turned slightly, her fins pulsing gently as she swam beside him. “Was lonelies a long, longest time,” she said quietly. “No friends for talkings down here, only small-brain things like them squidses. A few old metal ones sometimes, like Toa and others. But they don’t breed. No tentacles! No fun!”\n Marcus grimaced slightly at the crude direction this conversation had taken, having never considered the internal anatomy of the biomechanical beings he’d met so far. “Uh… right.”\n “But then, I find friend Marcus in water, needs help,” she continued cheerily, her voice lightening again. “And Marcus [i]has[/i] tentacle! So maybe put in, make eggs. Good feelings, yesses? Very [i]easy[/i] to do!”\n Marcus felt like the mask on his face could shift hues from orange to red at any moment. \n “W-whoa, okay. Listen, Sushi, I’m… extremely flattered. Really. But uh, one of my friends up on the surface… well, I don’t know exactly how she feels about me yet, but… let’s just say I care about her. A lot. So I can’t just… do that with you.”\n Sushi’s legs gave a relaxed little flitter in something that resembled a shrug. “Nooo worries,” she giggled suggestively. “Sushi only did offered if friend Marcus wantings. Mine feelings no hurting. If you desire mate with lost friend, am understandings. But, offer still good!”\n Marcus let out a breath of relief, laughing faintly under it. \n “…Thanks for the offer, Sushi,” he said sheepishly. “I’ll… keep that in mind.”\n “Sushi is understandings,” she replied with a proud little flip. “Friend Marcus also understandings. And maybe curious?” Her voice teased ever so slightly as she turned away with an extra little wiggle of her haunches as they continued on. However, after some debate, Marcus admittedly gave in for a moment and snuck a glance under her fishy tail. Just a curious peek, purely out of… scientific interest. \n He readjusted himself quickly though as Sushi turned her head back, her features dim in the fading glow from the squid cavern behind them.\n “Sushi did wanted to saying, when saw friend Marcus face under mask shell…” she said softly, “thinkings friend Marcus am quite… cute.” \n There was a short pause between them; a warm, awkward sort of quiet, until Sushi broke the silence again. \n “...E-even if friend Marcus do haves those nasty [i]slug[/i] thingies insides! [i]Grossest of always!”[/i]\n She giggled at her own joke at his expense, but the sincerity in her comment just before had still caught him off guard. \n “Oh, uh... thanks. For what it’s worth,” Marcus said, “I think you’re really cute too, Sushi. Adorable, even. Whatever you are.”\n Another pause, longer this time.\n Finally, Marcus broke it again with a thoughtful glance her way.\n “So, I’m kinda curious… what exactly [i]are[/i] you, anyway?”\n Marcus’s question lingered in the quiet for a moment, drifting between them like the silt in the current. Sushi’s tail slowed. The faint glow from her fins dimmed slightly, and her body stiffened as if she were holding her breath.\n “Am… Sushi,” she replied slowly, with a half-hearted wiggle of her fins. “Suushilopibi Zuubawawibiquix Floonmaratox. That is me.”\n Marcus tilted his head, skeptical of her vague answer. “That’s not really a—”\n “L-look! We almost out!” she blurted as her blue eyes lit up quite literally, her voice suddenly cheerful again. “Tunnel ending soon! Water clearer upwards, see bluenesses?”\n Marcus squinted. Far ahead, he could just make out a faint blueish-silver shimmer bleeding into the tunnel from above: a sign of open water. Real light. He’d nearly forgotten what that looked like.\n Meanwhile, Sushi gave a sheepish little chirp, twirling once in the current like she was still trying to physically shake off the question.\n As they finally entered the open ocean, Marcus glanced around but saw nothing unusual. Still, his instincts tingled. His suit’s faint inner glow cast long green reflections across his armor, and every movement sent faint ripples through the still water.\n But below, near the dark ridge of the seafloor, something stirred.\n Massive, silent, and watching, a large, lizard-like Rahi known as the Tarakava-Nui waited as two glowing red sensors blinked to life inside the shadows.\n Its armored body stretched longer than a submarine, with overlapping scales of green and blue metal. Instead of legs, it rolled silently along tank-like treads embedded in its undercarriage, allowing it to glide across the seafloor with ghostly precision. Its arms were built for pure, devastating force; spring-loaded, piston-driven limbs ending in massive ball-like fists that resembled the claws of a mantis shrimp, designed to strike faster than sound underwater.\n It didn’t move yet.\n It only tracked.\n From behind a jagged outcrop, its mechanical irises narrowed, calculating distance and pressure. It had been dormant since the chaos that reshaped the oceans… but now, something foreign had entered its territory.\n [i]Two[/i] somethings.\n It retracted slightly into the crevice, unseen. Watching. Waiting.\n Up above, Marcus and Sushi continued their slow ascent, unaware.\n That was, until Sushi abruptly stopped swimming, her eyes locked ahead.\n “What is it?” Marcus asked with concern as he turned to her.\n The clarity of the sea disappeared within the thick gray haze that curled through the water in front of them, spiraling slowly like ink in still water.\n “Sushi?” Marcus asked again, softly this time.\n Her body quivered slightly, her black legs folding fearfully under her orange body. “N-no, none touchings of that. Please, friend Marcus, not go closer…”\n “I think it’s just sediment,” he said dismissively. “Something probably just kicked it up.”\n But she was already backing away in fear, tail swaying rapidly. “Is not just that, not belongs here. Is poison for me, I smell it. In memories. In feelings.”\n Marcus tilted his head. “You’re sure?”\n “I think,” she whispered. “Long ago, before now… it did made me sick. It did made me different. I did swam in it for long, longest time in the deepestest trench. Then… I did forgot who is Suushilopibi.”\n Marcus’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”\n Sushi didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed fixed on the slowly drifting cloud, her glow dimming. She seemed smaller and more fragile in that moment, her usual bubbly attitude had vanished.\n “I was near big world-shell,” she finally said, trying to recall as best as she could, though it was clearly painful. “Metal world, it leak into ocean. Bright silver blood mixed into waters. Theses smell like that memory.”\n “Big world-shell…” Marcus repeated curiously. “Do you mean… the Great Spirit robot?”\n “Maybes?” Sushi twitched, uncertain. “Not know what is that. I only remember silvery water, like blood…”\n As Sushi closed her eyes with a whimper, Marcus floated closer and gently laid a hand on her head. \n “Hey. You’re alright now. Whatever happened to you before, that’s not you anymore.”\n She looked up at him with her wide aqua eyes. “Not anymore… yesses. Friend Marcus, if I ever… [i]change…[/i] if I stop being Sushi. Will you… stop me?”\n Marcus analyzed her, concerned. He never would’ve expected such a somber side of this quirky little fish.\n “Why would you say something like that?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”\n “...No reasonings. Only worryings,” Sushi replied meekly, looking away. “Please, friend Marcus… just promise you will save Sushi from—”\n Just then, the water subtly rippled in the distance.\n Marcus barely had a second to react before something immense surged from below. A blur of green metal and motion streaked up from the darkness, and in an instant, a piston-driven fist the size of a boulder smashed into the center of his forehead dead-on.\n The impact cracked through him like thunder. His neck jerked back violently, and his Kanohi mask snapped free from his face, spinning off into the depths as everything went white.\n Marcus tumbled backward through the water in a stunned daze, barely aware of his own body. A sharp pain exploded inside his skull, and a cold numbness spread through his limbs. His vision flickered and pulsed, the ringing in his ears was nothing short of deafening, and he couldn’t tell up from down.\n [i]“Friend Marcus!”[/i] he barely heard Sushi cry out through the high-pitched noise in his head. He suddenly began to feel drowsy as red blood leaked from his nose and dissipated into the water, quickly falling into a deep sleep.\n * * *\n The low hum of voices echoed against smooth white walls as lights buzzed faintly overhead. Marcus blinked until he could just barely make out rows of seats, a raised platform, and some kind of large projection screen at the front. He sat slouched in one of many cushioned chairs, elbow on a narrow desk, surrounded by quiet murmurs and the rustle of books.\n He couldn’t see the person standing at the front clearly. The figure at the podium was little more than a shadow behind a fogged pane of glass, but their voice broke through the blur, slightly muffled and tinny like an old recording.\n [i]“…Dr. Masato Emoru's theory, widely dismissed by the scientific community… and yet, recurring patterns in molecular formation suggest otherwise…”[/i]\n The voice gained clarity for a moment. It was that of a middle-aged male, calm and methodical.\n [i]“…Water [/i][i]as conscious[/i][i] matter, sensitive to intention, and receptive to information. Emotional states, frequencies, tonality… even music.”[/i]\n Marcus stared forward in confusion, trying to process anything. He felt like he should remember this, but every detail was just beyond reach.\n [i]“…This led to Emoru’s most controversial proposal, that water has a memory of its own. That it may encode trauma. Feel emotion. Remember its history. Not just metaphorically, but literally alive… thinking… and learning.”[/i]\n There were chuckles from a few students. A female voice whispered behind Marcus, [i]“Guy’s fuckin’ nuts, right? Sounds like science fiction.”[/i]\n [i]“Is it really so impossible, Miss Kennel?”[/i] The person at the front asked, addressing the comment. [i]“After all, our bodies [/i][i]are almost 70%[/i][i] water, and the same amount just happens to cover our planet’s surface. We know more about the stars above us than our ocean’s floors or our own brains.”[/i]\n The woman behind Marcus remained silent, though he could hear a hint of an irritated huff. The lecturer continued his lesson, unfazed.\n [i]“…Perhaps even intention itself leaves an imprint in the molecular makeup. Not detectable with traditional instruments, but undeniably visible… under the right conditions.”[/i]\n A diagram blinked onto the blurry screen. Something about crystalline formations, symmetrical under feelings of love and concern, but chaotic under hateful words and thoughts. Marcus squinted. The lights overhead flickered. The professor kept speaking, the sound stretching and slowing like a tape unraveling.\n [i]“—Tectonic shifts, underwater volcanoes… So what do you think would happen if the entire ocean were to change… in an [/i][b][i]instant?”[/i][/b]\n Marcus flinched at the loud snap of the man’s fingers and the scene around him started to immediately unravel. The seats broke apart into streaks of color, the floor fell away. Water rushed back in, flooding the room in silence.\n He reached for the desk, but it dissolved. The speaker’s voice deepened through the rising tide.\n [i]“…Memory is not bound by time. Or flesh…”[/i]\n Suddenly, the silhouette at the front turned toward him. The face was still a smear of shadow and light, but Marcus could feel their gaze.\n [i][b]“…You remember more than you know, Marcus.”[/b][/i]\n * * *\n The Tarakava-Nui came faster than any machine its size had the right to be, the roar of compressed hydraulics shaking the water around it. Sushi narrowly dodged the next strike. The pressure from the punch alone tore a chunk of stone from the cavern wall.\n [i]“You stop that now, mean lizard—crab—thing!”[/i]\n Sushi turned, teeth bared, and unleashed a burst of light from her fins. Vibrational energy pulsed from her in all directions, bending the water like a shockwave. It slammed into the beast’s armored snout, slightly cracking one of its sensor lenses, but it barely staggered.\n The Tarakava lunged again, and this time, its second punch hit squarely in her side.\n She yelped, spinning out across the open space as she spiraled through the water in pain. A few orange glowing scales trailed behind her like falling sparks as she struggled to regain control of her motion. Another punch hit her left haunch, sending her crashing into a rocky cliffside.\n She gritted her teeth as she recovered; her body trembled from the impact, but she forced herself upright and eyed the cloud of pollution in the water. She was stronger than anyone could know. She [i]had[/i] to protect friend Marcus.\n She swam as fast as she could towards it, but the Tarakava-Nui was already rearing up again, readying for a final blow.\n Marcus floated helplessly behind her, face pale and eyes fluttering. Blood swirled from his nose in thin red threads, and his chest barely moved with shallow, ragged breaths. His forehead was bruised, but the glowing green cracks along his armor had begun to pulse faintly again as his fast-healing power had already been working to save him from a fatal concussion.\n Then, with his injury quickly healed, he finally regained consciousness to a whistling sound cutting through the deep.\n [i]THMP![/i]\n A red projectile, long and sleek like a torpedo, sliced through the water and struck the Tarakava-Nui squarely in the flank. A burst of impact and explosive bubbles followed.\n Sushi stopped in her tracks as another struck her foe’s shoulder joint. Then another. Each impact staggered the beast, its treads grinding as it twisted away from the assault.\n From the shadows, a lone figure emerged. Lean, battle-worn, and wreathed in light green armor with jagged silver trim, the newcomer raised his arm-mounted Cordak Blaster and aimed again.\n With a hesitant pause, the Tarakava-Nui let out a rumbling sound like a machine growling, but it didn’t strike. With one final hiss of steam and churn of treads, the large mechanical lizard retreated into the darkness below, vanishing into the deep just as quickly as it had come. \n Sushi returned to Marcus and clutched him tightly, watching the creature go. She then turned to the stranger, who was now slowly approaching with a familiar orange mask in his hand.\n The Toa stopped a few paces away, weapons lowered but eyes focused.\n Sushi blinked twice.\n “You…” she whispered. “You is the one from before!”\n Marcus stirred dizzily, letting out a pained breath as he looked up at the lime-green figure.\n “Who… are you?” he managed weakly.\n The figure straightened as he adjusted his arm, his voice gravelly like a tired old veteran who had seen too much.\n “I am known… as Lesovikk,” he sighed bitterly.\n\n [i]“...The [/i][b][i]worst[/i][/b][i] Toa in the universe.”[/i]",
"writing_bbcode_parsed": " “Sushi, how do you know what a Toa is?” Marcus ducking beneath a low overhang as they traversed through the dark and narrow underwater passage.
“I metted one once, I think,” the orange fish-like creature replied, her glowing fins flickering softly as she twisted through the narrow rock passage ahead. “Was not as friendlies as this one, though.”
“You think you met one?” Marcus said, chipping at the wall beside him to widen the gap. “So you’re not sure?”
“I was…” Sushi paused, her voice quieter now, more focused as she searched for the right words. “Blurry, back then. Like a bad dreamings. I didn’t knew myself. Was very uncomfortables. But I did remembered… watching a green thing, like you maybe, with two small ones nearby. They were calling him ‘Toa,’ so I call you Toa too! That is okaying, yesses?”
Marcus smiled faintly. “Heh, that’s more than okay with me.”
Still, the title stirred something uncertain in him. He wanted to feel proud, but a doubt flickered quietly beneath the surface. If he was truly something else, something “human”… could he ever really call himself a true Toa? What if Tahu was right? What if he really was just some impostor who never belonged here to begin with? Could he ever be like Takanuva?
Like… Matoro?
He cleared his throat. “You don’t happen to remember that Toa’s name, do you?”
Sushi let out a musical hum as she floated ahead, a focused expression on her face. “So many years ago now… I do not remind. Littlenick? Lickalick? My brain gets all wibbly-jumbly when I think too hard. Very sorries am I.”
“No worries, it’s not that important,” Marcus said. “You said he wasn’t friendly though? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“Oh noes!” she said quickly. “None hurtings of me.”
“That’s good,” Marcus sighed.
“He did tried to attacked me, though!” Sushi went on, “not knowings why. Very rude, I think. And I was so hungries…”
Her head lowered somberly, her paw loosely kicking up a bit of sand.
“WHAT?!” Marcus blurted in offense. “Why would anyone ever want to attack you? You’re so cu— well, nice to be around.”
“Sushi think he shell too hard, did wanted only be alone, like grumpy old… clam! Bubbela-BAH!”
Marcus let out a short chuckle. “A clam, huh? Like how I’m like a crab?”
“N-no, not the sames!” Sushi wiggled her whole body in thought, fins pulsing with little flickers of light. “All metal things are crab-like to Sushi. A little soft-flesh, with many shell bits. Green Toa was a clam-crab. But you are…”
She turned back to inspect him closely, the water glowing faintly between them.
“...Like jellyfish!”
Marcus blinked. “Why a jellyfish, may I ask?”
“Oh, so many things,” Sushi chirped as she did a little twirl in the water. Her tone fluttered with energy, and though Marcus couldn’t see it in the dim light, her scales shifted to a faint pink. “You shell glowies like a jelly, and, ehe, you are very… soft like a jelly…”
It wasn’t hard for Marcus to pick up on that she was referring again to that “kiss” she’d given him while he’d been unconscious. But personally, he’d preferred not to count that as his first.
“Oh! And you have tentacle like jelly!” Sushi giggled suddenly.
“What? I don’t have a—”
Marcus’s brow lowered. He stopped in place abruptly as the implication hit him.
“…Sushi. What else did you do while I was unconscious?”
“OH! N-nothings! Trulies nothings!” Sushi flailed in place, her fins pulsing in alarm. “I promise all honesties! I give explains!”
Marcus crossed his arms, drifting just slightly in the water as he narrowed his eyes.
“Go on.”
“Er, when I give touchy contact to life things, like uh… pah,” she began, imitating a kiss with a pop of her lips. “I learn many about things! Is why I do speak in you language! And I learn about inside friend Marcus body, like how I know about tentacle! Learning quick is because for how to do healings on many hurt things! I not even have to eyes looking! It just happens. Instincts tells me. I didn’t look at your tentacle! I just… did knew it!”
Her explanation came out in a flurry of clumsy grammar, but Marcus caught the gist. It was enough to cool the rising heat in his face, if only slightly.
“All right, all right, I believe you,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve been through a lot lately, and the idea of being unconscious while someone’s poking around with my body is a little unsettling.”
“I think I understand?” Sushi replied softly. “I did not mean to upset. If tentacle makes friend Marcus embarrassed, I should pretends it not exist?”
“What? N-no!” Marcus flushed even hotter. “You don’t have to do that. And I’m not embarrassed! I mean… I haven’t even seen it myself yet, not since I woke up in this body…”
They swam in silence for a while, the pressure of the deep sea around them. Then, Sushi spoke again, far too innocently.
“And tentacle is for… make of eh… bebeh?”
Marcus nearly choked on the air bubble in his chest still keeping him alive.
"You know what?!" Marcus snapped. "I'd love if we stopped talking about my tentacle! Can we just talk about literally anything else, please?!"
Before he could say another word, Sushi gasped and darted ahead into the shadows of the tunnel without explanation.
Marcus’s heart dropped.
‘Oh, great job, fuckin’ genius,’ he thought scoldingly to himself as he went after her. ‘Scared off the only one who can get you out of this place, and probably the only one who won’t try to kill you down here.’
“Sushi, wait! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”
But he caught up to her much sooner than expected. The tight passage opened into a vast cavern, which was bathed in breathtaking color.
As he looked up, a circular current spiraled above them like the calm eye of a storm, and within it, a massive shoal of bioluminescent squid drifted in synchronized patterns. Their bodies shimmered in shifting hues of pinks, teals, violets, and golds, flashing and pulsing in hypnotic rhythm. Some gently bumped together, some paired off, and others swirled in slow, glowing tangles. It was as though the whole cavern was a living kaleidoscope.
Sushi floated still, staring with her wide aqua-blue eyes into the rainbow glow.
“These cave is huge! Echo! Echo! Heheh.”
Marcus stifled an amused laugh in his chest at how carefree and silly she was, despite their current situation.
“Beautyful…” she whispered quietly.
Marcus agreed. For a brief moment, he almost completely forgot about his journey back to the surface, the pain and fear and everything he was fighting to return to. It was almost hypnotizing, this simple yet unforgettable phenomenon of nature.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “It really is.”
His armored hand drifted idly to Sushi’s back, gently stroking the smooth ridges of her scales. She didn’t flinch or move away, instead gently leaning her side into his leg as the colorful creatures danced above.
“Theses squids,” Sushi said softly, her voice quickly shifting to become more serious. “They are in ritual for making the egg-bebehs. We not disturbing thems. None fightings, not for eatings. Okey?”
“Right,” Marcus replied, lifting his hand and giving her a small nod. But even so, his stomach grumbled a bit at the mention of eating them, only now realizing he still hadn’t eaten anything since he’d come to this world. However, he pushed his hunger aside for the moment and stayed close beside her as she began to float upward, gliding toward the soft glow high above.
“Very importance, these,” Sushi murmured, her tail swaying in slow, gentle arcs as she propelled herself upward. She was careful not to disturb the luminous mating dance unfolding around them. “Squids only do the mating once in all their lifetimes forevers. After eggs laid… they die.”
Marcus looked around at the squid circling them, blinking slowly like Christmas lights.
“...Damn, tough break.”
“Maybe seem sads to we,” Sushi replied, her voice softer as they neared the top of the glowing dome, “but squids don’t feel sads. They feel completes. Fulfilled. They make lifes, they fulfills purpose. It is their normalings. Born, live, breed, then all done with life. All creatures do this someday. Squids just happy they survive long enough to do this.”
“I guess so,” Marcus said, giving a small shrug. “Still, I can’t imagine living that way. The best moment of your life, but then it’s lights out forever?”
“Yuh, eheh…” Sushi let out a fluttery little hum as her swimming quickly grew more out of tempo. “I tell you something now, friend Marcus. You know, for my species… we evolve very long ago to make bebeh with a many, many kinds of life things. Not just one. Because we no have tentacle, nones of us! All female, we from long before most stars did hatched. Very old, we.”
Marcus raised a brow as they slipped through an opening into a wide, hollow corridor. It was smoother than the last, more natural, and for once there was space to swim side by side.
“You’re saying your species can… interbreed?”
“Oh yessings,” Sushi said brightly, her fins flickering with excitement. “Has to. We have many hatchlings from many worlds. Is how we adapt. Is our purpose, like thoses squids! But I, none having yet. So I was thinking—only thinking!—we go to surface, help you friends, save world and all that, and maybe…” She inched a little closer, her voice dipping to a musical whisper. “Friend Marcus can be… mate Marcus? For Sushi spawn?”
Marcus nearly choked on his air bubble.
“W-whoa, hold on!” he chuckled nervously, unconsciously drifting a few inches farther away from waving his hands back and forth in front of him. “That’s a bit forward, don’t you think?!”
Sushi tilted her head, humming again with a playful tone.
“Am only offering. You tentacle does makes bebes, Sushi has egg. We friendly togethers… what is problem?”
Marcus ran a hand down the front of his Kanohi. “Well, for starters, we’ve known each other for like, what, half an hour?”
Sushi spun slowly, her tone still light, but sincere. “Yesses, I like friend Marcus fast. You are soft, and glowing. Not light glowing, but heart glowing.” She pressed her slick black paw to his glowing green heartlight. “Very good insides, I know this. So… why not breed?”
Marcus shook his head, but he couldn’t lie to himself that he wasn’t at least intrigued by the hypothetical. But still, he had to ask.
“Why would you want that from me, Sushi? There must be a million fish in the sea… literally,” he said as he gestured around them.
Sushi turned slightly, her fins pulsing gently as she swam beside him. “Was lonelies a long, longest time,” she said quietly. “No friends for talkings down here, only small-brain things like them squidses. A few old metal ones sometimes, like Toa and others. But they don’t breed. No tentacles! No fun!”
Marcus grimaced slightly at the crude direction this conversation had taken, having never considered the internal anatomy of the biomechanical beings he’d met so far. “Uh… right.”
“But then, I find friend Marcus in water, needs help,” she continued cheerily, her voice lightening again. “And Marcus has tentacle! So maybe put in, make eggs. Good feelings, yesses? Very easy to do!”
Marcus felt like the mask on his face could shift hues from orange to red at any moment.
“W-whoa, okay. Listen, Sushi, I’m… extremely flattered. Really. But uh, one of my friends up on the surface… well, I don’t know exactly how she feels about me yet, but… let’s just say I care about her. A lot. So I can’t just… do that with you.”
Sushi’s legs gave a relaxed little flitter in something that resembled a shrug. “Nooo worries,” she giggled suggestively. “Sushi only did offered if friend Marcus wantings. Mine feelings no hurting. If you desire mate with lost friend, am understandings. But, offer still good!”
Marcus let out a breath of relief, laughing faintly under it.
“…Thanks for the offer, Sushi,” he said sheepishly. “I’ll… keep that in mind.”
“Sushi is understandings,” she replied with a proud little flip. “Friend Marcus also understandings. And maybe curious?” Her voice teased ever so slightly as she turned away with an extra little wiggle of her haunches as they continued on. However, after some debate, Marcus admittedly gave in for a moment and snuck a glance under her fishy tail. Just a curious peek, purely out of… scientific interest.
He readjusted himself quickly though as Sushi turned her head back, her features dim in the fading glow from the squid cavern behind them.
“Sushi did wanted to saying, when saw friend Marcus face under mask shell…” she said softly, “thinkings friend Marcus am quite… cute.”
There was a short pause between them; a warm, awkward sort of quiet, until Sushi broke the silence again.
“...E-even if friend Marcus do haves those nasty slug thingies insides! Grossest of always!”
She giggled at her own joke at his expense, but the sincerity in her comment just before had still caught him off guard.
“Oh, uh... thanks. For what it’s worth,” Marcus said, “I think you’re really cute too, Sushi. Adorable, even. Whatever you are.”
Another pause, longer this time.
Finally, Marcus broke it again with a thoughtful glance her way.
“So, I’m kinda curious… what exactly are you, anyway?”
Marcus’s question lingered in the quiet for a moment, drifting between them like the silt in the current. Sushi’s tail slowed. The faint glow from her fins dimmed slightly, and her body stiffened as if she were holding her breath.
“Am… Sushi,” she replied slowly, with a half-hearted wiggle of her fins. “Suushilopibi Zuubawawibiquix Floonmaratox. That is me.”
Marcus tilted his head, skeptical of her vague answer. “That’s not really a—”
“L-look! We almost out!” she blurted as her blue eyes lit up quite literally, her voice suddenly cheerful again. “Tunnel ending soon! Water clearer upwards, see bluenesses?”
Marcus squinted. Far ahead, he could just make out a faint blueish-silver shimmer bleeding into the tunnel from above: a sign of open water. Real light. He’d nearly forgotten what that looked like.
Meanwhile, Sushi gave a sheepish little chirp, twirling once in the current like she was still trying to physically shake off the question.
As they finally entered the open ocean, Marcus glanced around but saw nothing unusual. Still, his instincts tingled. His suit’s faint inner glow cast long green reflections across his armor, and every movement sent faint ripples through the still water.
But below, near the dark ridge of the seafloor, something stirred.
Massive, silent, and watching, a large, lizard-like Rahi known as the Tarakava-Nui waited as two glowing red sensors blinked to life inside the shadows.
Its armored body stretched longer than a submarine, with overlapping scales of green and blue metal. Instead of legs, it rolled silently along tank-like treads embedded in its undercarriage, allowing it to glide across the seafloor with ghostly precision. Its arms were built for pure, devastating force; spring-loaded, piston-driven limbs ending in massive ball-like fists that resembled the claws of a mantis shrimp, designed to strike faster than sound underwater.
It didn’t move yet.
It only tracked.
From behind a jagged outcrop, its mechanical irises narrowed, calculating distance and pressure. It had been dormant since the chaos that reshaped the oceans… but now, something foreign had entered its territory.
Two somethings.
It retracted slightly into the crevice, unseen. Watching. Waiting.
Up above, Marcus and Sushi continued their slow ascent, unaware.
That was, until Sushi abruptly stopped swimming, her eyes locked ahead.
“What is it?” Marcus asked with concern as he turned to her.
The clarity of the sea disappeared within the thick gray haze that curled through the water in front of them, spiraling slowly like ink in still water.
“Sushi?” Marcus asked again, softly this time.
Her body quivered slightly, her black legs folding fearfully under her orange body. “N-no, none touchings of that. Please, friend Marcus, not go closer…”
“I think it’s just sediment,” he said dismissively. “Something probably just kicked it up.”
But she was already backing away in fear, tail swaying rapidly. “Is not just that, not belongs here. Is poison for me, I smell it. In memories. In feelings.”
Marcus tilted his head. “You’re sure?”
“I think,” she whispered. “Long ago, before now… it did made me sick. It did made me different. I did swam in it for long, longest time in the deepestest trench. Then… I did forgot who is Suushilopibi.”
Marcus’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Sushi didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed fixed on the slowly drifting cloud, her glow dimming. She seemed smaller and more fragile in that moment, her usual bubbly attitude had vanished.
“I was near big world-shell,” she finally said, trying to recall as best as she could, though it was clearly painful. “Metal world, it leak into ocean. Bright silver blood mixed into waters. Theses smell like that memory.”
“Big world-shell…” Marcus repeated curiously. “Do you mean… the Great Spirit robot?”
“Maybes?” Sushi twitched, uncertain. “Not know what is that. I only remember silvery water, like blood…”
As Sushi closed her eyes with a whimper, Marcus floated closer and gently laid a hand on her head.
“Hey. You’re alright now. Whatever happened to you before, that’s not you anymore.”
She looked up at him with her wide aqua eyes. “Not anymore… yesses. Friend Marcus, if I ever… change… if I stop being Sushi. Will you… stop me?”
Marcus analyzed her, concerned. He never would’ve expected such a somber side of this quirky little fish.
“Why would you say something like that?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“...No reasonings. Only worryings,” Sushi replied meekly, looking away. “Please, friend Marcus… just promise you will save Sushi from—”
Just then, the water subtly rippled in the distance.
Marcus barely had a second to react before something immense surged from below. A blur of green metal and motion streaked up from the darkness, and in an instant, a piston-driven fist the size of a boulder smashed into the center of his forehead dead-on.
The impact cracked through him like thunder. His neck jerked back violently, and his Kanohi mask snapped free from his face, spinning off into the depths as everything went white.
Marcus tumbled backward through the water in a stunned daze, barely aware of his own body. A sharp pain exploded inside his skull, and a cold numbness spread through his limbs. His vision flickered and pulsed, the ringing in his ears was nothing short of deafening, and he couldn’t tell up from down.
“Friend Marcus!” he barely heard Sushi cry out through the high-pitched noise in his head. He suddenly began to feel drowsy as red blood leaked from his nose and dissipated into the water, quickly falling into a deep sleep.
* * *
The low hum of voices echoed against smooth white walls as lights buzzed faintly overhead. Marcus blinked until he could just barely make out rows of seats, a raised platform, and some kind of large projection screen at the front. He sat slouched in one of many cushioned chairs, elbow on a narrow desk, surrounded by quiet murmurs and the rustle of books.
He couldn’t see the person standing at the front clearly. The figure at the podium was little more than a shadow behind a fogged pane of glass, but their voice broke through the blur, slightly muffled and tinny like an old recording.
“…Dr. Masato Emoru's theory, widely dismissed by the scientific community… and yet, recurring patterns in molecular formation suggest otherwise…”
The voice gained clarity for a moment. It was that of a middle-aged male, calm and methodical.
“…Water as conscious matter, sensitive to intention, and receptive to information. Emotional states, frequencies, tonality… even music.”
Marcus stared forward in confusion, trying to process anything. He felt like he should remember this, but every detail was just beyond reach.
“…This led to Emoru’s most controversial proposal, that water has a memory of its own. That it may encode trauma. Feel emotion. Remember its history. Not just metaphorically, but literally alive… thinking… and learning.”
There were chuckles from a few students. A female voice whispered behind Marcus, “Guy’s fuckin’ nuts, right? Sounds like science fiction.”
“Is it really so impossible, Miss Kennel?” The person at the front asked, addressing the comment. “After all, our bodies are almost 70% water, and the same amount just happens to cover our planet’s surface. We know more about the stars above us than our ocean’s floors or our own brains.”
The woman behind Marcus remained silent, though he could hear a hint of an irritated huff. The lecturer continued his lesson, unfazed.
“…Perhaps even intention itself leaves an imprint in the molecular makeup. Not detectable with traditional instruments, but undeniably visible… under the right conditions.”
A diagram blinked onto the blurry screen. Something about crystalline formations, symmetrical under feelings of love and concern, but chaotic under hateful words and thoughts. Marcus squinted. The lights overhead flickered. The professor kept speaking, the sound stretching and slowing like a tape unraveling.
“—Tectonic shifts, underwater volcanoes… So what do you think would happen if the entire ocean were to change… in an instant?”
Marcus flinched at the loud snap of the man’s fingers and the scene around him started to immediately unravel. The seats broke apart into streaks of color, the floor fell away. Water rushed back in, flooding the room in silence.
He reached for the desk, but it dissolved. The speaker’s voice deepened through the rising tide.
“…Memory is not bound by time. Or flesh…”
Suddenly, the silhouette at the front turned toward him. The face was still a smear of shadow and light, but Marcus could feel their gaze.
“…You remember more than you know, Marcus.”
* * *
The Tarakava-Nui came faster than any machine its size had the right to be, the roar of compressed hydraulics shaking the water around it. Sushi narrowly dodged the next strike. The pressure from the punch alone tore a chunk of stone from the cavern wall.
“You stop that now, mean lizard—crab—thing!”
Sushi turned, teeth bared, and unleashed a burst of light from her fins. Vibrational energy pulsed from her in all directions, bending the water like a shockwave. It slammed into the beast’s armored snout, slightly cracking one of its sensor lenses, but it barely staggered.
The Tarakava lunged again, and this time, its second punch hit squarely in her side.
She yelped, spinning out across the open space as she spiraled through the water in pain. A few orange glowing scales trailed behind her like falling sparks as she struggled to regain control of her motion. Another punch hit her left haunch, sending her crashing into a rocky cliffside.
She gritted her teeth as she recovered; her body trembled from the impact, but she forced herself upright and eyed the cloud of pollution in the water. She was stronger than anyone could know. She had to protect friend Marcus.
She swam as fast as she could towards it, but the Tarakava-Nui was already rearing up again, readying for a final blow.
Marcus floated helplessly behind her, face pale and eyes fluttering. Blood swirled from his nose in thin red threads, and his chest barely moved with shallow, ragged breaths. His forehead was bruised, but the glowing green cracks along his armor had begun to pulse faintly again as his fast-healing power had already been working to save him from a fatal concussion.
Then, with his injury quickly healed, he finally regained consciousness to a whistling sound cutting through the deep.
THMP!
A red projectile, long and sleek like a torpedo, sliced through the water and struck the Tarakava-Nui squarely in the flank. A burst of impact and explosive bubbles followed.
Sushi stopped in her tracks as another struck her foe’s shoulder joint. Then another. Each impact staggered the beast, its treads grinding as it twisted away from the assault.
From the shadows, a lone figure emerged. Lean, battle-worn, and wreathed in light green armor with jagged silver trim, the newcomer raised his arm-mounted Cordak Blaster and aimed again.
With a hesitant pause, the Tarakava-Nui let out a rumbling sound like a machine growling, but it didn’t strike. With one final hiss of steam and churn of treads, the large mechanical lizard retreated into the darkness below, vanishing into the deep just as quickly as it had come.
Sushi returned to Marcus and clutched him tightly, watching the creature go. She then turned to the stranger, who was now slowly approaching with a familiar orange mask in his hand.
The Toa stopped a few paces away, weapons lowered but eyes focused.
Sushi blinked twice.
“You…” she whispered. “You is the one from before!”
Marcus stirred dizzily, letting out a pained breath as he looked up at the lime-green figure.
“Who… are you?” he managed weakly.
The figure straightened as he adjusted his arm, his voice gravelly like a tired old veteran who had seen too much.
“I am known… as Lesovikk,” he sighed bitterly.
“...The worst Toa in the universe.”",
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"title": "(FANFIC) Destiny Delta - Road 2: The Memory of Water - Chapter 3 - Life's Ritual",
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