Kai paused signalling others, as he peeked into the city while hiding inside the kelp forest. Either way, they were in danger, irrespective of whether the war broke out or not.

"I don't think anything has happened." Zaren whispered to Sheila. As if to disprove him, a carcass of a severed arm floated aimlessly in front of them. Zaren was the first one to gasp as it approached nearer, "Shi*!"

"It means..." Kai paused, lost in a thoughtful moment. "Where are the military outposts Zar?"

"One each in every direction of the city and the base camp near the temple tower." Zaren remembered the facts that were taught to him during his military lessons.

"Civilians must be taking shelter in the temple tower, right?"

"Yes." Zaren nodded, both rage and fear laced in his tone.

"We head towards the temple tower. We find Gabby, Sal and Kids first. Then do the next best thing. Alright?"

Zaren nodded his head briskly, but Sheila's face had already lost the charm. "What's wrong?" Kai held her shoulder and gave a gentle press.

"It's all over, isn't it? We are the war breakers, we angered the witch." A gush of tears brimmed her eyes as she choked while speaking.

"Look at me." Zaren swam over to face her, he held her by arms and jolted her out of the emotional turmoil. "There's nothing to blame, okay? We did our best and there's still some hope left. If only we could figure out the meaning of 'sinew of a star'." Saying that Zaren bumped his both hands in frustration, "I mean, a star doesn't have a bone or a sinew."

"What was that song again?" Kai asked, waving his index as the realisation struck his cords.

"What song?" Sheila exclaimed, trying not to sob anymore.

"The anthem...song of the sea." Kai struggled to remember squeezing his eyes, "they sing something about the twin stars."

"The sea witch and the sea goddess were twins," Sheila frowned trying to understand the gist. A moment later, her knotted eyebrows released. "What if they were the same person? Or the same star, perhaps?"

"Exactly." Kai jumped, his face unable to contain the amusement any more.

"Now, I don't think I want to believe it. But, you have been right all along Kai, so I do agree." Zaren held his clenched hand out, welcoming a gesture of fist bump.

"Thanks Captain." Kai exchanged the gesture before leaving the place.

"So, does that mean, we need to kill the witch for a sinew?" Zaren asked Sheila, as they swam through the ghostly silent market towards the temple tower.

"That's what I think." Sheila said, "that's what it boils down to."

A group of soldiers were fighting the enemy eels by wielding spears against them. Zaren balled his fist and tightened his grip on the spear.
"Duty calls," informing that, he left towards the fight, "slay that witch for me, will ya?"

"But..." Sheila stretched her hand out, but he was already spearing the enemies, ripping their bodies apart and skewing them like shish kebabs.

Kai held Sheila's hand and motioned her towards the temple tower. She obliged, her worrisome eyes still lingering on to her twin brother's silhouette.

************************************

The sea witch was walking the streets of the city. People ran amok the lanes, screams and chaos echoing the abyss; her feet moving and hovering just above the seabed, as if she was walking in the mid water. Her raven wings spread across her back, wide open and waterproof, not even touched by a single drop of water to soak it's feathers.

As she gracefully walked, each of her step crossed the other in a catwalk; her fingers were raised to summon the elemental powers. The calm water of the abyss was disturbed with her chanting of hymn, she snapped her neck behind and intensified the sea storm, disrupting the peace.

"We certainly don't stand a chance, do we?" Kai gave up, sinking into the coral garden of the temple tower. A thunderbolt struck the sprite of the tower, sending the survivors inside the tower to scream and gasp.

"We need to go get the kids, so get your lazy fin up and..." Sheila said, emerging slowly from the hiding and shooting towards the neighbouring wall. "...just follow me."

A rippling storm of some kind dragged them, back and forth from the temple door. They kept trying to reach it, fruitlessly repeating the whole process several times.

Kai used his claws to stick himself to the wall and Sheila held his hands, while her body was being pulled apart from the swirling storm. "Hang on!"

Crawling up the wall, Kai broke a window using his pointy pincers. He immediately​ scrambled to get inside, dragging Sheila along his way. Gasps and screams coming from the survivors inside, made him pause. Amongst all the screaming, a familiar voice soothed his ears.

"Kai." Chuchip emerged out of the crowd and began towards him. Her every movement was a thousand times slower to his eyes; it lighted a flame of fresh hope in his heart as she jumped to hug him tightly. "I knew you'd come back."

He squeezed her tight. He then let Sheila walk her away. "Take care of them, let me finish what I started."

Sheila nodded as she took chip away with her. She guided the crowd towards a safer part of the temple, joining her hands to help other priestesses.

"Here." Sheila gave him the sea shell which had the spittle of seagull and the scale of the scarlet serpent.

He leapt outside, unknotting his frown with determination. The witch was already proceeding towards the orb of life. She stepped on the elevation and touched the honeycomb petals. They wilted to turn lifeless, crumbling down into black cinder.

She laughed, evil intent laced and engraved in her voice. She touched the orb to suck it's power. She shivered and rolled her eyes upwards and the bright light channelled through her body, marbling her veins and lighting her skin.

Kai clicked his pincer, diverting her attention towards himself. Her long fingers left a tainted black mark on the orb as she turned around to face him. "Oh you poor thing," she mocked, stepping down the aisle. "Did your stupid prophecy say that you can undo me, you wretch? Because, it doesn't."

Kai mangled his face in rage and disgust, his claws taking the position of defense. "Bring it on," he said with an undeterred voice and a newfound attitude.

Sea witch's first step was graceful, the next one was brisk. With a third step she lunged forward with a pair of wide open wings. She flew across the water which sintered the sunlight into the deep blue sea, as if she was flying in the sky. After all she was a witch who had mastered every other elemental power. "You, ugly critter. A creature like you shall not dare stand against me."

Kai lashed out, his pincer claws wide open to rip her wings apart. Both of them engaged in a fight of their life time. He punched her, ripped feathers off of her wings as if she was a chicken who was being prepped for a feast.

Fed up of his simple, unintelligible war tactics, with a snap of her fingers the witch created a small but strong vortex around themselves. Kai was sucked into the mini-tornado and was being churned alive. Sea witch watched him fail with content eyes, she blew the tornado away with her breath and retreated back towards the Orb. The tornado wobbled and rotated like a top and slowly drifted away.

She kept both of her hands on the orb and chanted a hymn to suck in all the spirit. Kai watched her, helpless pain throbbing in every tendon of his body. He screamed at the top of his lungs as he tried to break himself free from the cage of tornado.

The brightness of the orb faded to a feeble yellowish glow as the witch continued absorbing the life source. Moss covering the stone pavement around the orb, the red kelp forest around them wilted, crumbling down into ashes, so much so, that the area around the temple tower appeared as a burnt down farmland.

'Fairytales make you weak, vulnerable like a child. Were they true?' He remembered what his folks had told him. 'Am I that weak?' These questions tormented his mind, just like the tornado tormented his body.

'All these years, I dreamt of this adventure. Now that I have one, why shouldn't I live one?'  His hand first broke out of the swirling water, then his entire arm.

"Hang on, my friend!" A broken voice, distant but distinct.

A blue whale, approaching the tornado. Just above its humongous body, a black and white figure riding the giant, like a horse with a pair of rope ends.

"Zaren!" Kai stuck his head out, but tornado forced and rotated it to the opposite side.

Zaren guided the giant towards the twister, the blue whale opened its jaws to gobble him up. "Zaren. What are you do---?"

Before his voice made it through to Zaren's ears, he was inside the whale's mouth. A very rough tongue and a funny humid stench, a fleshy uvula hanging from above. Just before he could grab it to avoid getting swallowed, he was spat out with a gush of burbling bubbles.

"You're welcome!" Zaren grinned and took off. Kai swallowed, his eyes searching the beacon of life. There it was, now, a faint yellow ball of light.

Kai attacked her from behind, he jumped and climbed over her head while she was indulged in a ritual. Kai used his claws to rip her wings, his other set of legs tickled her body to interrupt her concentration. Sea witch continued chanting the hymn and sucking the spirit through her veins.

With a few failed clenches, Kai seperated a part of her wing and pinched out a sinew from it's attachment. The wing instantaneously healed itself, each tendril binding into another and new baby feathers emerged on the healing gash.

"A sinew... of a witch." Kai mumbled, opening the sea shell which had the spittle and the scale inside a bubble of clove oil. As it blobbed out of the shell, he stuck her sinew inside the bubble and watched it dent in. The blob of oil danced with iridescent surface and floated infront of him.

He undulated his hand guiding the bubble towards her. He carefully made it rest on his fingers, cautiousness etched all over his face to not burst the clove oil bubble. He slowly sneaked behind the witch and guided the blob towards her chanting mouth. He pushed it down her throat, with wise calculations of timing.

He jumped away from her, "a spittle to fight the hatred with love. A scale of gold to quench the thirst for power. A sinew of your own body, to show that you're stronger than you are." Mumbling that, he retreated backwards. He waited and waited, minutes passed by, but nothing happened to her.

The light of life, from the orb started to faint as it flickered as a dying star. Kai prayed to no one in particular, "please, please, please," his hands and claws fidgeting expectantly as a gloomy silence fell across the abyss, each ray of hope dying out slowly.

Kai stole a glance at the temple tower, every other person's face was tempered with a drop of hope. A drop after drop to channel all their hope towards him.

Sheila smiled at him and mouthed, "I love you." Zaren came into light and thumped his chest with his fist and raised it, rage and revenge filling his eyes.

"All hail sea goddess!" A chorus of unity echoed across the ocean.

"It burns," the sea witch coughed, "it hurts." She stopped chanting, her ritual banished halfway. The light of life she had absorbed till now, started to drain away from her veins into the bioluminescent strings of algae wrapping her feet and legs, as she lay there, writhing in pain.

She choked, she coughed until all her beauty tainted. Her life was drawn out of her immortal shell of body. The black taint that diseased her soul, wafted as a black smoke with her last breath, her body still. The bioluminescent moss encroached all around her body, draining the last drop of her life.

Her black breath burbled across the sea bed and drifted off into the air. And a commotion of victory broke out. Sheila and Zaren rushed towards Kai. They all wrapped their arms around each other in a celebration of victory.

They watched as the witch's body shone brightly, light emanating from every crease on her skin until the blue light tore her from inside out and bursted as a fire cracker, sprinkling a million dandelions of light across the abyss.

Sheila shielded her eyes, unable to look at the blinding light emanating out of the orb of life. "Guys, we did it!"

A triumph of success, a song of good against evil ricocheted at every corner of the city. Kai slowly waded across the aisle and touched the orb of life. Sheila, Zaren and the high priestess followed him towards the orb.

Crumbled ashes of cinder littering all over the sea bed, became the nourishment for a new set of saplings of red kelp, peeking out of the sand, as if they were yawning and waking up after a deep slumber.

Kai's irises turned slate grey in color again, his voice monotonous in trance. "She mourns no more. She thanks us, she is free..." Mumbling that Kai collapsed into Sheila's lap and drifted off into a deep and undisturbed sleep.
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Wc-2300