Sink or Swim: Drawn To The Venom

Chapter 09

Recap: Matsumi has agreed to help Akihito take down the boss using his water manipulation despite his traumatizing past being the trigger for the ability. Meanwhile NEX has declared war on the kidnapping racket, with the boss' subordinates Keri & Rei fighting off against Rio & Gai.

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Keri and Rei thought that they were going to destroy the mossforms who were sent to deal with the boss, however this turns out to be way tougher than they thought. Rei tries running from the laser beams being fired from the sunflowers in Gai's floral territorial, but unfortunately gets stuck by one of them.
Gai: "Well well! I'm so glad I chose to battle you, cause here I absolutely don't have to hold back."
Rei gets up, toughening himself and trying to stand straight.
Gai: "Hmph! You can still stand?"
Rei: *panting* "You don't know anything do you? We don't back out on anyone who tries so much as to take a jab on our boss."
A sunflower again fires a laser beam at Rei, however despite being hit earlier he's able to dodge the beam.
Gai: "Are you seriously trying to toughen it out? Stop playing those stupid games with me!"
Rei: "Whoa! Close one!"
Gai: "Also, does your skin feel a little you know....tingly?"
Rei notices that his skin is tingling and suffering the creeps.
Rei: "What? What is thi....."
Suddenly sunflowers pop out of his stomach, rupturing it completely spilling blood everywhere in a gory mess. Rei falls on his knees, screaming in pain.
Gai: "Aww that must be real uncomfortable! But again, you're in my floral territorial so what can you possibly even do?"
Rei gets up, bleeding profusely and wincing in agony.
Gai: "Geez dude slow down! The more you resist, the more those sunflowers are gonna grow inside you."
The sunflowers keep multiplying in numbers, taking over his stomach as if it were an open field. He tries to cut them and uproot them, but it pains him more and the stems are strong.
Rei: "You....you're something huh?"
Gai: "So how do you plan on defending your boss now?"
On the other end, Keri isn't doing well against Rio either.
Rio: "You ain't got stamina no more, girl."
Keri: "Shut up!"
She runs around with a horribly injured leg while explosive coconuts thrown by Rio chase her.
Rio: "Hahaha! It's so entertaining, I don't even have to do anything and you're simply running like a weasel."
Keri: *thinks* "The sea water is made to deceive me, taking away my biggest advantage. What should I do? I can't simply keep running from his goddamn coconuts the whole time."
Both Rei and Keri despite acting tough earlier are now in a tight spot.
Rei: *thinks* "What do I do? The sunflower stems are hard to cut, they won't stop growing and I'm already losing blood. Not to mention the beams that those sunflowers fire."
Suddenly something clicks Keri.
Keri: *thinks* "I get it, this guy is an island floral territorial isn't he? I could just simply......"
Rei: *thinks* "What is the only way to kill sunflowers?"
Gai: "So what are you gonna do after all, fearsome boss' right hand man?"
Rei suddenly spawns more piranhas.
Gai: "I've already seen that trick, and I'm good at handling them you know."
The piranhas however start munching on the sunflower stalks manifested by Gai.
Rei: *thinks* "That's it! Keep going, I only have seconds left to do this."
Gai fires more beams at Rei, and Rei with his leftover strength keeps dodging as much as he can. However, the piranhas successfully cut off the sunflower stems and fade away.
Gai: "Hah! So you cut off the current batch of sunflowers. Big deal, that's not gonna help you."
Rei: "If you want me to put you out of your misery, I'll do it."
Gai: "Such attitude huh? You'll regret much more of this than just the sunflowers."
Rei runs around and between the sunflowers, causing them to fire at each other. The sunflowers are damaging each other.
Gai: "No way! He's fast after being this horribly injured, but how? My sunflowers rarely give anyone time to...."
Rei then runs towards Gai.
Gai: "W-What? Stay away from me!"
Rei's piranhas latch onto Gai's foot tightly, chewing on his flesh and stopping him from running.
Gai: *thinks* "This is bad! I've gotta get away."
Rei then clings to Gai, a burst of sunflower laser fires at both of them causing a sacrificial victory for him. To Gai's horror, the floral territorial spawned by him cracks around and disappears. More piranhas stick to Gai, and keep biting him. Similarly, Keri tricks Rio and climbs upto him, clinging to him so that exploding coconuts hit them both. Rio's floral territorial is destroyed as well, and all 4 of them are heavily wounded.
Gai: *panting* "What? I can't believe they were that fast! They figured it out."
Rio: *panting* "No time for that! Let's just....."
Suddenly Keri and Rei hold hands in front of them.
Rio: "Seriously! You wanna get romantic now of all times?"
Keri and Rei: (together) "INFESTED WATERS!!!!!"
Rei and Keri use a bottle of water they had hidden earlier, and throw the water at the two mossforms. However due to their projection abilities, the water flows towards them with piranhas rapidly swimming in it. The piranhas are in a large swarm and they rain sideways towards the two, slicing them like a hail of razorblades. Rio and Gai fall on the ground, as a lifeless and gory mess. However Rei and Keri are not in the best condition either, as they're both past their limits.
Rei: "We-uh-we....did it....."
He spouts a large amount of blood, falling over.
Keri: "Boss.....I hope he's watching sponge....."
She too falls down, as a bloody mess.
The boss, in his mansion keeps watching Spongeborg. There is nearly nobody except for him and an assistant lady.
Assistant: "Boss! The two assailants sent by the kidnapping racket have fallen."
The boss ignores her, watching his show.
Assistant: "But unfortunately we lost both mistress Keri and master Rei in this battle."
The boss keeps watching his show, showing no emotion whatsoever.
Assistant: "Would you like me to retrieve the bodies?"
The Spongeborg episode ends, the boss turns it off and looks at her.
Boss: "What about the kid? Any news on him?"
Assistant: "N-No boss! I thought that our ties with the kidnapping racket are over. So I didn't ask...."
The boss spawns a tentacle, places it a few centimeters before her throat.
Assistant: "Boss?"
The boss finally reveals himself - a young, slender man with helmet-cut cobalt blue hair wearing a white suit and purple glasses.
Boss: "Listen up! After I'm done with killing the kidnapper queen, all I'm going to do is find the kid and give him to the guardian angel myself. I can't risk losing everything just for one kid who was set free at the wrong time and ran away."
Assistant: *shrugs* "But....the bodies?"
Boss: "4 bags! Get 4 bags, zip them in and move on - that's all I've hired you for."
Assistant: "Okay boss!"
The boss looks around, feeling suspicious but calming down realizing he didn't exactly have anything to fear. However what the boss didn't realize was that someone was spying on him from his bathtub. It was none other than Akihito, who using his floral territorial was able to sneak in and got all the information from the boss. He then goes back to the trio, sharing the shocker of a news with Naomi however being missing.
Dan: "No way! He....he's run away? Who freed him?"
Matsumi: "Isn't that supposed to be a good thing?"
Dan: "No it's not! We need to stop the kid before the guardian angel gets her hands on him through another one of her cronies."
Matsumi: "Dang it! Does this guardian angel have cronies everywhere?"
Akihito: "They can wipe out entire syndicates, and in some cases they don't even need to engage directly. Like in this case, they got NEX to fight off the kidnapping racket and kill all the henchmen."
Dan: "This just gets tedious by the hour."
Akihito: "Nah actually, we can delay our objective and focus on taking down the boss."
Matsumi: "And what's the point of that if the kid is missing? Let's focus on saving the kid first, the boss comes later."
Akihito: "Dan! I might know what you're looking for."
Dan: "Wait what? What are you...."
Akihito whispers something in Dan's ear.
Dan: "WHAT! DID YOU REALLY SEE THAT? NO WAY!"
Matsumi is startled by the sudden change in Dan's tone.
Akihito: "You need to prioritise! What comes first? The kid or that thing?"
Dan hesitates for a moment, goes into a trance and later returns to normal.
Dan: "Fine then! We'll take down the boss, since their ties have been broken and majority of NEX cronies are dead we should be a big threat at this point."
Akihito: "You certainly know your priorities, don't you?"
Matsumi: "But since Akihito is restricted, I don't think we'll get to know about the boss' abilities."
Naomi returns with a shopping bag in hand.
Akihito: "So you've brought the important stuff?"
The seaweed mossform checks the bag.
Akihito: "Should be fine!"
Matsumi: "I seriously cannot believe we're doing this."
Akihito: "It's the only way!"
In his slightly ruined mansion, the boss sits on the table eating toast with jam. He acts as though he's oblivious, however he knows someone's in front of him.
Boss: "So then, Queen! How do you suppose we're gonna settle our differences?"
Standing right in front of him to confront him is the kidnapping racket queen.
Queen: "You can't just kill my nabbing partners and expect me not to show up."
Boss: "Partners? Hahahaha! See that's why you get under so much shit, because you're too soft. One of your so-called 'nabbing partners' ran away, didn't he?"
Queen: "That's for another day. I'm just here to settle things with you right here and now. Our subordinates are dead, so it's just the two of us. What do you say, my ex nabbing partner - SHINJI MIZUKIRA?"
The boss smirks as if he had been reminded of something.
Shinji: "It's been a long while since anyone's called me by that name. Are you still in love with me, Queeny? I'm 13 years younger, so you clearly want the mansion don't ya?"
Queen: *snarls* "I simply hate everything you say at this point."
Shinji: "I'm done here, just get started will ya?"
The Queen advances towards Shinji, only for him to glow in a bright pink aura. A huge blast occurs in the mansion, making cracks in the concrete visible from the outside. Back to the trio and their temporary ally, they have gone outside to a park with a small fountain.
Akihito: "So! Try out this once more."
Matsumi channels his past anger into another water sphere and spawns it, however it goes out of control.
Matsumi: "Rats! How do I get it to hit the boss directly?"
Akihito: "How do we get him to control it?"
Matsumi: *he thinks* "I wanna see this boss guy on his knees. Taking him down means that I can destroy the world."
Akihito: "Aim for that tree!"
Matsumi tries to aim for the tree but misses it. This continues for some time.
Dan: *thinks* "We have barely any days to carry out our operation. Otherwise that boss is gonna get more powerful and maybe gather more subordinates."
Naomi makes hand signs.
Dan: "Naomi! You can't really mean..."
She makes more hand signs.
Dan: "So you wanna remind him even more of any trauma he could possibly have? I didn't know you had a sadistic side, Naomi."
Naomi looks away.
Dan: "Okay okay! Let's try that, but if it doesn't work we aren't giving up on it."
Dan and Akihito go towards Matsumi, encouraging him further only to get the same result of him failing to properly control the water sphere he spawned.
Dan: "Matsumi! Do you really think your mother was a bad person?"
Matsumi: "Huh?"
Dan: "Maybe you just loved her, and you miss her now that she's dead."
Matsumi: "Not a chance! You don't know about me!"
Dan: "JUST ADMIT IT! YOU LOVED YOUR MOTHER, THAT'S WHY YOU STILL FEEL THE JITTERS WHEN YOU TRY TO ATTACK DON'T YOU?"
Matsumi: "What's with the bullshit? Are you trying to....make fun of my suffering? What an asshole! I thought you were someone I could cooperate with and trust, but you're just not fit for that shit."
Akihito: "HE'S RIGHT! YOU WERE THE ABOMINATION IN HER EYES, WEREN'T YOU? MAYBE SHE HAD YOU AT THE WRONG TIME AND WRONG PLACE."
Matsumi: *thinks, looks down* "Hah! So that's how it is huh?"
He spawns the water sphere, not to mention his eyes are red and teary.
Matsumi: *shaking with anger* "If this is a joke, you really need to stop you contradictory hypocritical duality freaks."
He fires the water sphere at the tree, and the tree gets chopped down. Dan, Naomi and Akihito should've been happy, but they look at him with pity.
Dan: "You're not the only one who has trauma, Matsumi! Stop denying your past by repressing it, and if you're going to take down the boss - grow a backbone."
Matsumi walks away like an angry, frustrated, sulking child. At night while he sleeps, Dan and Naomi secretly enter his room half-dressed. Naomi caresses his hair while he tosses and turns during his sleep due to the nightmares he was having for the umpteenth time.
Dan: *thinks* "I didn't want to do all this today, but this is what he agreed to and this is our only way to attain that thing from the boss. Once we get a breather, we'll definitely help you with your shortcomings."
Dan tries to control his tears, wiping them off the instant his eyes get moist. Naomi looks the other way, with her eyes in a daze. She goes into a state of trance wherein she remembers a burning village, massacred corpses of residents including a couple and the eerie sound of a little girl crying loudly. She falls on her knees panicking, tries to get herself together and wipes off her tears.
Dan: *whispers* "Naomi! Now what's with you?"
Naomi hugs Dan gently despite being barely clothed and rests her sad moist face on his shoulder. She makes hand signs for him trying to tell him she's okay and he doesn't need to worry.
Dan: "You're right! We need to see to see to him first, after all he can save us can't he?"
He hugs Naomi while she cries softly.

TO BE CONTINUED