The water was ash.

Broken vents coughed heat that barely reached my skin. Basalt had shattered into glass, sharp enough to cut the light. The current carried flakes of silt and soot, turning the trench into a slow, drifting storm. Every breath rasped through my gills, salt, smoke, and the memory of fire.

I circled what had been Harbour.

No warmth. No hum. Only the skeletons of small things that had hidden here and died. The vent mouth gaped open, a black wound that no longer bled heat. The worms were gone. The crabs that once scraped the walls had vanished too. Even the plankton that used to glow faintly along the edges of the rocks had fled.

The place felt hollow. Stripped clean.

The sea took everything, I thought, and left the wanting.

The wanting was worse than hunger. Hunger faded when you ate; this stayed. It lived under the ribs, a weight that reminded me I was still here, still meant to keep moving even when there was nowhere left to go.

I sank lower until my belly brushed the glassed floor. The surface was cracked and bubbled from the heat, smooth in some places, jagged in others. It reflected faint shapes back at me, warped and uncertain. My reflection looked like something else entirely, longer, broader, darker than I remembered.

I pressed a fin to the stone. The old hum was gone. A slower vibration replaced it, deep beneath the crust. It pulsed through the rock in long intervals, too slow to count, as if something new was already growing inside the ruins.

The sea didn’t stop to mourn. It just kept making.

Movement in the haze.

Not stone. Not silt. Flesh.

At first I thought it was memory taking shape again, one more trick of the ash. But the shape solidified, dragging through the water with a weight that made the current shift.

He came crawling out of the grey, dragging himself with uneven, jerking strokes.

The rival.

Half-cooked from the collapse.

One eye fused shut, the other gleaming like old metal through the soot. The scar that once ran along his side had split wide open. Steam bled from it in thin ribbons. His plates had darkened, cracked where the heat had bitten. The smell of burned flesh followed him through the current.

He saw me and slowed.

We circled each other, moving through clouds of ash that blurred our edges. Too tired to bluff. Too angry to leave.

The current rolled between us, heavy with the taste of blood and salt.

He opened his mouth and let a thread of steam leak out.

I waited for a sound, a twitch, anything that said attack or yield.

Nothing came.

The trench had shrunk to one room, and that room had one law left.

I moved first.

Teeth hit plates. The impact was dull, like rock striking rock.

The water burst into motion.

He twisted, slammed me against the wall. The shock travelled through both our bodies. I raked my tail along his side, felt the crack of weakened armour. He struck back, jaws finding the edge of my gills. Pain flared white, hot enough to drown thought.

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We crashed together again. The water buckled around us. Pressure waves rolled through the broken vents, turning steam into clouds. Each blow made the trench groan.

The ground gave way beneath us. We fell through a pocket of softened rock. The collapse released a burst of gas that filled the world with heat and hiss.

I hit first, then him.

The impact split the floor. The vent below howled once, a dying sound, then went silent.

He lunged, mouth wide, eyes blank with exhaustion. I turned my head, caught his flank, and drove him back against the wall. The rock cracked.

He broke free with a burst of speed that should’ve been impossible for a creature half-dead. His tail whipped across my face, cutting a shallow groove down my snout. The taste of blood filled my mouth.

We both paused, breathing hard.

Steam rose around us. The light from the vents flickered like fire.

He growled, low, broken. I answered with the same sound.

Then we collided again.

The trench echoed with impact after impact. Fins tore. Scales split. Blood swirled in thin ribbons that twisted like ink.

The sea had wanted a fight. Now it had one.

Every strike cracked another piece of stone. Every breath burned.

He lunged again, aiming for my throat. I dropped low and surged forward, locking my jaws under his neck. My teeth scraped armour first, then found the soft line beneath.

His plates held for half a heartbeat before they gave.

The sound was small, almost gentle, a muffled crack lost under the hiss of steam.

Blood spread fast, turning the water red. The heat boiled it into mist before it could reach the surface.

He tried to twist away, but his strength failed. His movements slowed, more reflex than fight.

I held until he stopped moving.

Then the trench went still.

Only the faint hiss of cooling vents broke the silence.

Hunger came back like breath.

I didn’t think. I fed.

The first bite was hot and bitter. His flesh was already cooked through by the collapse. It tore easily, soft under the teeth.

I swallowed. The meat burned going down. Heat spread through my chest, settling heavy and alive.

The next bite came easier. Then another.

The water filled with warmth and taste, iron, salt, smoke.

I forgot the pain. I forgot the noise. There was only work.

Then came the flashes.

Not memories. Reflex.

Hunts replayed in broken rhythm, the way he moved through currents, the way our wakes had crossed, the brief truce when the quake had nearly killed us both.

For a moment I saw through his eye.

I saw myself.

Jaws open. Teeth red.

The image shattered, and I bit down again to chase it away.

Then it was gone. Only meat and steam.

I worked until there was nothing left that resembled him. The chimney sagged, its base cracking under our weight. The water cooled. The heat that had once boiled the sea was now just a faint shimmer.

I floated there, full but hollow.

Something crawled behind my eyes.

Not pain. Thought.

A wrong kind of thought.

A second breath that didn’t belong to me. The sense of another mind pressing close, trying to move when I moved, trying to think when I thought.

It whispered, not in words, but in rhythm.

Then the System spoke.

[Rival Biomass Assimilated]

[Intelligence Pattern Detected: Partial Integration]

[Cognitive Merge: 0.6%]

[Dominance Confirmed]

The words echoed through my skull.

Two rhythms. Two minds trying to share one beat.

For a moment, I could hear him again.

My own sound doubled, slightly out of time.

A copy of breath that wouldn’t fade.

I clenched my jaw and swallowed until the echo thinned.

The trench stayed silent. The water didn’t move.

I looked at the drifting scraps that used to be him, bits of scale, fragments of bone. The eye that had watched me for so long floated past, pale as a coin.

I watched it until the current took it.

“So even thought can be eaten,” I said.

My voice came out rough, a sound I barely recognised.

The words felt wrong. Maybe the sea was answering. Maybe the other voice was trying out my mouth.

The pit below glowed faintly red, the last ember of Harbour.

I let myself drift above it. The warmth licked my belly, faint but steady.

It was memory more than heat.

I thought about what the place had been, a shelter, a rhythm, a reason to stop. A small piece of quiet in a world that only knew hunger.

Now it was a grave.

The wanting rose again, sharp and clear.

It didn’t feel like hunger anymore.

It felt like purpose pretending to be peace.

“If the sea takes,” I whispered, “I’ll take more.”

The System answered like it had been waiting.

[Predator Instinct Reinforced]

[Threshold Approaching: Apex Entity Detected]

The words glowed once, then faded back into the dark.

I stayed a little longer, watching the heat fade. Then I turned.

The glass cracked under my fins as I moved, splitting into thin, ringing notes.

The water ahead was clearer, colder. Each draw through my gills burned, but it was still air. Still life.

Behind me, the pit cooled to black. The sea began its quiet work of forgetting.

The trench would bury its dead.

I didn’t look back.

The sea had taken.

And I had taken in return.

That would have to be enough.

For now.