Zanya did not mean to swim toward Mako.
The current did it for her.
Not fast. Not forcefully. Just a subtle redirection that kept nudging her off course no matter how she adjusted. By the time she realized what was happening, the island was already closer than she'd intended.
She hovered at the surface, treading water, staring at the dark silhouette of rock and jungle.
"No," she said quietly. "Not today."
Her chest tightened anyway.
The pressure wasn't directional this time. It didn't pull her forward.
It pressed inward.
Her heartbeat slipped out of sync, each thud echoing too loudly in her ears. The water around her felt denser, resistant, as if the ocean itself were holding its breath.
Then—
A tremor.
Not an earthquake. A harmonic shift.
Zanya gasped, swallowing salt, and dove instinctively to steady herself. The moment her hands broke the surface tension, the sensation spiked.
Not pain.
Feedback.
Her vision fractured—not into images, but into sensation. Weight. Tension. A pressure that felt older than language.
Chains did not appear.
They pulled.
Her muscles locked as if something deep below had noticed her alignment and adjusted—carefully, cautiously—against it.
Zanya kicked backward hard, breaking away from the invisible threshold. The pressure lessened immediately, leaving her dizzy and shaking.
"Oh gods," she breathed as she broke the surface of the water, "That was a line. I crossed a line."
The System flickered weakly in the corner of her vision.
[WARNING: PROXIMITY TO HIGH-RESONANCE ZONE]
[Containment Field Stability: STRAINED]
She stared at the text.
"Containment of what?" she whispered.
The answer came—not as words, not even as a voice—but as an emotional imprint that rolled through her chest like a distant tide.
Endurance.
Isolation.
Waiting.
And underneath it—
Recognition.
Not triumph.
Relief.
Her throat closed.
"You know I'm here," she said, trembling. "That's all I did. I didn't mean to—"
The pressure eased.
Not gone.
Accepted.
Zanya stayed where she was, floating on the edge of the underwater entrance she now instinctively knew she must not cross. The cave mouth yawned below—dark, ancient, thrumming faintly like a sleeping heart.
She didn't need the Labyrinth orb.
She didn't need vision.
She felt it now.
Mako wasn't calling her to enter.
Mako was reacting to her existence.
Slowly, carefully, she swam backward until the pressure faded completely. The water returned to normal. The ocean exhaled.
Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
The System chimed once more as she turned away from the island.
[Answer the Deep — Part 2: CONDITION MET]
[Status Update: Resonance Anchor Established]
No reward.
No ability.
Just a quiet, irrevocable change.
That night, there was no dream.
No moonlight.
No voice.
But somewhere beneath Mako, something immense adjusted its awareness—not toward freedom, but toward her absence.
And it waited.