Chapter 981

A spray of white water blossomed on the sea surface, only to be swallowed instantly by the deep black water. Two figures, under the moonlight, looked like two pebbles dropped into a deep well, sinking rapidly.

"Sakura!" Uesugi Muneyuki said without any hesitation.

He rushed toward the railing, turned his body, and leapt into the sea.

"Plop!" Uesugi Muneyuki also jumped down.

The seawater at night was bone-chillingly cold.

The moment he entered the water, he opened his eyes and quickly searched in the dark water; soon Uesugi Muneyuki saw the old gentleman grabbing Sakura and dragging her down into the deep sea at great speed.

That speed did not resemble free fall; it seemed as if something in the depths of the current was pulling them—perhaps the power of a spell, or the tug of some old god.

The ritual, still continuing?!

Sakura was struggling desperately, her limbs flailing, but held fast in a vise; every tendency to surface was violently hauled back down by the old gentleman.

Uesugi Muneyuki's lungs felt no pressure; the Dharma Image of the Great Virtue Wisdom King glowed faintly on his body's surface, and to him the seawater was like air; he kicked hard with his feet, and his body shot downward like a torpedo.

Sakura! Hold on!

The instant Uesugi Muneyuki turned and leapt into the sea surface, Shirakawa Mai's gaze did not follow his falling silhouette.

She only needed half a second to confirm he had entered the water, then she flipped her wrist, the arrow on the bowstring shifted aim, targeting the three remaining black-clothed figures on the deck. "Your leader jumped into the sea." Mai Xuejie's voice was steady, like a weather report: "Do you intend to surrender, or shall I send you down to join him?"

Fujido Chengyi clutched his wrist as he crawled up from the ground, his face pale but his eyes still stubborn.

The tall thin man was pinned to the spot by an arrow, unable to move, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

And that young woman—the one who had held the lantern, the first to spot Sakura, wearing the black horn hat—she did not retreat.

She drew a short blade from the wide sleeve of her hunting robe; the blade bore a dark coating that did not reflect in the moonlight.

"You idiots," the young woman's voice was sharp and angry, "you don't understand the value of the old gods. You don't understand the meaning of return. You are merely—" she lunged at Mai Xuejie.

Her speed was great, extremely fast; the short blade traced an arc in the air, its tip aimed at Mai Xuejie's throat.

She had clearly received close-combat training; her steps were agile, her posture low, like a dark-feeding Ehrynna pouncing for food.

Because Mai Xuejie held a bow, and a bow is a disadvantageous weapon in close combat, she only needed to enter arm's reach, and before Mai Xuejie could react, press the blade's edge to her neck.

Shrine maidens are generally not good at close combat, right?

I knew it all along!

However, she was wrong.

When the distance between them was only two steps, Mai Xuejie released the bow. The Hakurei Bow slipped from her hand and fell, but she did not lose her balance. Her body turned at an almost impossible angle to the left, taking half a step; her short hair brushed past the blade's edge, and then her right hand, somehow already raised, came to rest on the young woman's occiput, palm down, like swatting a mosquito, and struck precisely at the junction of the occipital and temporal bones.

A hand chop.

"Smack!"

This blow carried the inertia of the person's whole-body rotation and all the force stored in the waist and abdomen; its speed was such that in the moonlight only a blurred afterimage remained. The moment the palm's edge struck the skull, it emitted a dull, heavy sound, like a hard object striking lacquerware—a "blast."

In everyone's sight, this woman's skull burst open like a watermelon.

The young woman's body stiffened.

The short blade in her hand slipped from her fingers and bounced twice on the deck.

In her final instant, her gaze flickered with a trace of bewilderment, as if she did not understand why she had missed, nor why her world was rapidly fading.

A corpse fell backward, its body striking the railing, then sliding along the ship's side to the deck, where it lay motionless.

Mai Xuejie withdrew her hand; she was splattered with yellow, white, and red, even a glob of yellow-white liquid landing near her mouth; she even stuck out her tongue to lick it, and said expressionlessly: "Salty."

……" Fujido and that tall thin man saw this scene, and both men's faces turned deathly pale at the same time.

Fujido stepped back two paces, his spine hitting the railing.

The tall thin man had been about to reach for another gun at his ankle, but seeing the silent body collapse to the deck, he froze mid-motion like a statue; Mai Xuejie bent down to pick up the fallen Hakurei Bow, re-slung it over her shoulder, walked toward the metal platform, her leather boots stepping evenly and calmly on the deck: "Who else needs a craniotomy service? I'll use your skulls as bowls, just as Nobunaga did with the heads of Asai Nagamasa and Asakura Yoshikage."

The remaining two black-clothed men said nothing; they finally dropped their weapons under Mai Xuejie's gaze, indicating surrender.

Mai Xuejie shifted her attention; she saw Eto Miyabi still lying on the metal platform, her wrists and ankles bound by straps, unable to move.

This NHK anchor had witnessed that hand chop in full.

She opened her mouth, then closed it, then, with an anchor's instinct, stored that moment in her memory—one day later, if not absolutely necessary, she would definitely not provoke Mai Xuejie.

I actually went head-to-head with Mai Xuejie; I'm simply crazy!

Mai Xuejie lowered her head to look at her for two seconds, then bent down and used the tip of her boot to pry at the strap's buckle; the buckle sprang open with a sound.

She tore the remaining straps apart with her bare hands, this action as swift as unpacking an express delivery: "Can you stand up?"

Eto Miyabi staggered a step, steadied herself by holding Mai Xuejie's arm, the pain in her occiput still throbbing faintly, but sensation in her limbs slowly returning: "I... can."

"You really aren't afraid of dying, huh! Eto!" Mai Xuejie stared at her, suppressing a surge of genuine annoyance, laced with sarcasm: "You went alone to ransack their rooms, you don't even know how many opponents there are, you don't even know if they have weapons, and you dare to go?" "I'm an anchor." Eto Miyabi panted, but her eyes still shone: "If I'm to live out my life in mediocrity, I'd rather be dead! A person's life must be lived this way, so that when they look back on the past, they regret neither wasting their years nor being useless..." "Then why the hell don't you go assassinate a National Diet member?!" Mai Xuejie interrupted: "You almost died. If it weren't for Sakura sneaking in to find you, and if it weren't for Muneyuki holding them off on the deck, you'd now be lying on the altar waiting for a bunch of lunatics to use you as a detonator to blow up the ship. You—you died—so what? Who will publish your news? Who will finish your investigation? Your life is gone—just gone—no 'ifs'!"

Eto Miyabi fell silent for two seconds; her lips moved, as if she wanted to retort, but in the end she only whispered: "Sorry, but I'd rather make a mistake than do nothing at all! I already made a backup! I have evidence that can prove this group is engaging in heretical cult activities! When the Japan Coast Guard arrives, you'll also find it easier to explain..."

Mai Xuejie glanced at her, really too lazy to continue talking.

This crazy woman!

The two women turned and quick-stepped toward the ship's side.

Uesugi and Sakura went down!

When they reached the railing, the sea surface was already completely calm, the splash had dissipated, the ripples had spread to the edge and been smoothed by the current, leaving only the searchlight on the ship's side casting a dim yellow conical beam, illuminating about two meters below the water surface.

No bubbles at all.

Mai Xuejie leaned over, gripped the railing, and stared at that water surface for a full five seconds; Eto Miyabi also leaned in to look; at first she didn't realize the problem, then she reacted sharply.

"How can there be no bubbles? He jumped in nearly three minutes ago..."

Mai Xuejie said nothing. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the railing.

She knew Uesugi Muneyuki did not need to breathe underwater.

But her reason for gripping the railing tightly was that there was no second set of bubbles on the water surface.

Sakura!

At the same time, Uesugi Muneyuki was descending.

The seawater flowed over his body, but it did not press upon him, did not entangle him, did not take away his breath; the Dharma Image of the Great Virtue Wisdom King rotated steadily in the depths of his consciousness, allowing him to move as freely in water nearly a hundred meters deep as if he stood in air.

But the other descended even faster!

The old gentleman seized Miyawaki Sakura and, at a speed defying common sense, plunged straight downward, plunging directly toward the seabed!

Uesugi kicked his legs hard, accelerating the pursuit.

The seawater's color shifted from ink-blue to utter black; the moonlight above was compressed into a blurred patch of light, the surrounding temperature plummeted sharply, the currents grew turbulent and chaotic, and Uesugi Muneyuki knew this was due to the complex seafloor terrain of the Kuroshio Current, where intersecting undercurrents ran in disorder. At approximately eighty meters depth, his fingers finally caught the edge of the old gentleman's collar.

With a violent pull, Uesugi Muneyuki drew himself into contact range, flipped his body in the water, and struck the old gentleman's shoulder with his right fist, which bore a glowing sphere of spirit power.

At the moment the light sphere struck its target and exploded in the water, it generated a powerful shockwave that caused the surrounding seawater to burst with a ring of white bubbles.

Spirit Sphere!

The old gentleman was struck, his movement visibly stalled, but he did not release his grip.

His withered hands remained locked like iron vices around Sakura's waist, refusing to let go.

Uesugi unleashed a second, then a third Spirit Sphere in succession.

The two Spirit Spheres detonated on the old gentleman's back and shoulders; the light in his eyes dimmed further, like an oil lamp driven to its limit by the wind, dark blood foam welled from his mouth, yet he still did not release his hold.

His body twisted at an angle, curling inward to completely envelop Sakura within his torso and arms, like a dying man clutching the last thing he refuses to release.

He opened his mouth, his lip shape clearly forming.

"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

Uesugi Muneyuki's fourth Spirit Sphere pierced his chest cavity.

The old gentleman's struggle finally ceased.

His head tilted back, the black horn hat slipped from his crown and drifted into deeper darkness, his limbs lost strength, his body began to naturally relax, yet his hands remained locked in a death grip around Sakura's waist.

Even in death, muscular spasms kept those hands locked in their final contracted state, like a pair of human handcuffs.

Absurdity!

Uesugi Muneyuki finally drew near, strained to pry open the old gentleman's fingers and arms, and pulled Sakura from the embrace of the deceased Watchman. The Watchman's body began to sink slowly and silently into deeper water.

Uesugi Muneyuki did not look at him; he simply embraced Sakura's body and turned her face toward himself.

By then, more than three minutes had passed since they fell into the sea; at this moment, Sakura had ceased all struggle in the water, her limbs hung limp, her hair floated like seaweed in the current.

He lifted her chin, letting her tilt her head slightly back, then pressed his own lips to hers and breathed into her mouth: "Sakura! Sakura! Wake up!"

…" Her lips were icy, with no response whatsoever.

The seawater flowed around them; Uesugi Muneyuki needed no oxygen, he could breathe in seawater.

Yet Sakura's ears and nose produced no bubbles; she had utterly ceased any respiratory response, the girl's face showed no color in the darkness beyond the searchlight's reach, but her lips had taken on an abnormal, purplish pallor.

Her body was light, soft, like a kite whose string had snapped.

At this moment, they were over 110 meters below the sea surface; for every ten meters descended, atmospheric pressure increased by one, so Sakura's body bore eleven atmospheres of pressure, already on the verge of collapse from processing.

"Sakura!!!" Uesugi Muneyuki continued shouting, his pupils trembling wildly: "You cannot die here! You have not yet become first in the General Election! You still dream of topping the Japanese Idol rankings! You have not yet returned home in brocade to Kagoshima! You have not yet become the true Sakura of Tokyo Metropolis! You have not yet truly lived a good life! How can you just die like this! Sakura!!!"

"Was it not agreed that you would be a lifelong Placard Girl of the Hand of God?"

"Hold on, good days are still ahead! You have not yet defeated Matsui Jurina; if you fall here, 48 that…" "Sakura!!!"

The current flowed past them, emitting a low, sustained hum, as if this abyss itself were breathing.

Uesugi Muneyuki continued to support her, continued to seal her lips with his own, continued to strive to pump air into her lungs again and again. But she gave no response whatsoever.