Blankly, she watched Yuzu, who was getting ready to dive into the sea, and Ms. Tsukiyomi Fuya, who was reminding Akiyama Yo that Yuzu was afraid of the dark.
Soga Yura was utterly at a loss—her cute little hands had just lifted only to want to lower them again, her mouth parting slightly yet only producing choked, sobbing sounds, unable to get out a single word.
[Why does Ms. Tsukiyomi even know that Yuzu is afraid of the dark!?]
Then she thought of how Yuzu hadn't come home all last night, and of the rich, cloyingly sweet floral fragrance clinging to Yuzu when she returned this morning.
The answer seemed already all too obvious.
Soga Yura's mouth crumpled, and she very nearly burst into wailing tears.
Sakura Mai, who had already gotten herself ready to dive, gently patted Soga Yura's shoulder, and Soga Yura, all aggrieved, threw her arms around Sakura Mai.
Then let go again with obvious distaste.
Sakura Mai had just poured water over herself, so Soga Yura's skirt promptly got quite wet along with her.
The soaked skirt aside... Sakura Mai, in her tight amphibious combat suit, felt very stiff to hug—not nearly as nice as her own Yuzu.
Sakura Mai wore a helpless look as well.
This girl complained that her body's lines were too stiff, while she herself complained that this girl was a washboard.
Even though the two of them had pretty much the same looks.
The feel of her was nowhere near as good as the cute Sister Yuzu.
As you'd expect from best friends—at moments like this, the thoughts in their hearts were unexpectedly in perfect sync.
After soothing Soga Yura a little, Sakura Mai looked over at Yuzu, whose gaze had already turned this way, and smiled at the girl to signal that everything was fine.
She fastened her diving mask.
[Beep beep beep beep—]
Su Yuzu, who had likewise fastened her mask, heard the notification tone coming from her combat equipment.
Su Yuzu made her adjustments according to Akiyama Yo's instructions.
Then... under Soga Yura's rather worried gaze, Su Yuzu and Sakura Mai followed Akiyama Yo and tipped backward into the sea.
Soga Yura looked at the pitch-black, tranquil surface of the water, and some not-so-pleasant memories stirred in her mind.
"Yu... Sister Yura—" With a solemn face, Soga Yura had let her psychic network unfold, spreading unrestrained across this stretch of sea, when... she heard a very soft voice right beside her.
"Miss Saotome?" Soga Yura turned to look at the little rabbit beside her.
The little rabbit gingerly reached out, and under Soga Yura's watchful gaze, wrung the moisture from Soga Yura's damp gauze skirt; the water the little rabbit drew out gathered into a ball on the girl's hand.
"Sister Yura's body is very frail."
"Don't catch a chill."
"If you catch a cold..." Saotome Yukina looked at Soga Yura.
"Yuzu-senpai would worry."
....
Unlike the diving equipment Su Yuzu had seen before.
The diving equipment of this world all seemed to carry a bit of dark tech—that is, the so-called Technology Division power.
The equipment Imperial Capital University had prepared for them was naturally the same.
There were no huge air tanks.
Only a single light-blue... tube-light-or-battery-like device connected to the back of the diving gear, behind the head.
Professor Akiyama Yo—or rather, Ms. Akiyama—had the girls review a few commonly used diving hand signals.
Although they could also talk through the equipment underwater, there were still a few common hand signals they had to learn.
"For every ten meters you descend, the pressure rises by one atmosphere." She drifted along beside Su Yuzu, carefully watching the girl before her.
"Today is only the first day of practice."
"We won't dive too deep."
"And there'll be no need to decompress."
"At this level of water pressure, the combat suit can withstand it completely."
"The deepest point of the shallow bay Professor Tsukiyomi chose for training is no more than forty meters. As long as you stay a little careful and follow my instructions, there won't be any danger."
Su Yuzu and Sakura Mai nodded.
Akiyama Yo looked earnestly at Su Yuzu. "Student Soga... are you feeling any discomfort right now?"
She'd heard that people afraid of the dark sometimes also feared the ocean.
Especially when their field of vision was completely flooded with blue-black seawater.
They would feel as if the ocean were a terrifying Abyss—as if they had plunged into this Abyss with no way to escape, and at the bottom of the Abyss lay countless unknown existences.
And from that, become excessively anxious.
That anxiety was dangerous.
And Akiyama Yo had to avoid danger.
Su Yuzu gently shook her head.
Her own fear of the dark was completely different from the fear of the dark that Akiyama Yo imagined.
What she dreaded... was that utterly dark, deathly stillness and solitude.
As if she were the only person left in the whole world.
And at her side, only monsters lurking.
But this condition eased enormously whenever there was someone beside her—after gripping, embracing, or even clinging to Soga Yura, or... Tsukiyomi Fuya.
Even in darkness like that, Su Yuzu could sleep peacefully.
And right now—
Sakura Mai was right there at Su Yuzu's side.
What's more, the seawater here wasn't all that dark yet.
Sunlight refracted down from the surface, tinting the color of the water like flowing blue gemstones.
Before they had even dived very deep, Su Yuzu and Sakura Mai had already witnessed a scene the girls would probably find hard to forget for the rest of their lives.
Schools of hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of fish roamed through the water.
The multicolored schools were dazzlingly gorgeous, tracing spiral-like ascending arcs. The fish wheeled about nimbly, and after Su Yuzu and the others stepped into this forbidden domain, they suddenly bent away like lightning, scattering just before they would have collided with the girls, then gathering together again up ahead.
"So many..." Su Yuzu murmured without thinking.
"This is exactly why those fishermen risk their lives to put out to sea and fish." Akiyama Yo explained to the girls.
"It's much like the places on land after they've been blanketed by Catastrophe aura."
"The population numbers of the fish schools in the ocean recover even more."
"Just by drawing a little away from the bay, you can easily haul in a huge catch."
"Because of the ocean's dangers, these catches also fetch quite good market prices."
"Sometimes just a few trips out to sea earns them enough money to send their children to an Esper academy to try developing their abilities."
"So that their children can escape the same fate as their own... the fate of ordinary people."
"Although—"
"There's nothing so bad about being ordinary, either."
Listening to Akiyama Yo's words, Su Yuzu suddenly thought of Mihou Sakai.
The ever-so-hardworking Mihou Sakai—she probably just didn't want to be a burden on her family.
"But going out to sea to fish is dangerous, too." Akiyama Yo gazed at the school of fish ahead. Through a gap that suddenly tore open in the school, Su Yuzu saw an enormous fleshy fin cleave through the water, and a thunderous sound abruptly boomed up from the seabed.
A powerful psychic surge burst outward.
"It's much the same as the situation on land—"
"Even more dangerous, in fact."
"Among these wildly, unruly growing animals, some aberrations may also be born."
"They don't yet count as Catastrophe Beasts, but to those fishermen... they're every bit as dangerous."
"Damn it..."
"How could there be an electric ray in a place like this?"
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