60 Fish Sashimi

"What the hell is happening back there?!" Nyx yelled from the front of the boat.

"A giant fish thing just came out of nowhere!" Shizu cried out, her voice almost being drowned out by the sound of the waters around them churning violently. "I-What are we gonna do?!"

Black and shiny water splashed all across their small boat as Riku did his best to balance himself on the rocking boat. In front, Nyx was still as dry as ever as a faint sphere of chaos protected her from the splash. Meanwhile, him and Shizu were thoroughly drenched, their clothes wet and sparkling with space water as they braced themselves against the deck of their ship.

"Nyx!" Riku called out, his knife already at the ready even as he struggled to get his footing. "Get us out of here!"

Standing up, his knees buckled even as he did his best to brace himself against their boat. His feet spread out, he was barely managing to keep upright as he bared his weapon against this new enemy. Looking at it, it looked like a giant fish if one was made of dark matter and had a constellations for a skeleton. It shimmered against the twinkling stars above them, its fins flapping as it beached itself onto their small boat. Surprisingly, their ship was managing to support its weight, but then again, it was currently being powered by a literal goddess.

But sadly, that didn't mean translate to being unsinkable as they began taking on water at an alarming rate.

"Anytime now, Nyx!" he yelled once more as he held onto the sides of the boat. "We're taking on a lot of water!"

"I can't! This is as fast as we can go!" his goddess replied back. "That thing is holding us back!"

Clicking his tongue, Riku took another look at the giant fish trying its best to drown them. Beneath it right where it was trying to board the boat, there were fins that were literally digging into the sides of their ship, almost puncturing the entire thing as if doing its best to literally sink them.

"It's trying to pull us in!" Shizu yelled out in panic. "We have to get it off the boat!"

"I can see that!"

Gritting his teeth, the former assassin put his body low on the ground, ignoring the amount of sparkling water splashing against his face as he did his best to remain balanced. Making his way to the fins keep the fish anchored, he raised his knife and hacked at the offending appendages, black ooze immediately spurting out as the fish writhed and splashed about, making the boat rock even harder.

"W-Woah! We're going to sink at this rate!" Nyx awkwardly laughed. "Make that thing disappear already!"

Focusing on the task at hand, Riku continued hacking away at the fish making their boat ride miserable. With each stab, the former assassin used the damn thing as support as he slowly stood back up. Eventually, he made his way up, his expertise on fish making him reach for the gills as he aimed his knife and stabbed right into the gap.

"You can do it, Riku!"

Shizu's shouts of encouragement did little to help him as his own skills did the work for him. Stabbing repeatedly, he climbed even further up until he was finally able to reach the top of the giant fish. Then, aiming his knife on the side of the gills, he stabbed deeply into it before letting go and letting his weight carry him down. As a great chef would usually do, he let his knife do the work for him as he gutted the fish in style, black ooze showering the entire boat as he finally landed on his feet.

[CHAOTIC TEMPERING: +0.5 DEFENSE]

With the prompt for his ability quickly fizzling out, the former assassin let out a faint scoff as he looked at his kill. For a few brief moments, the fish seized and flopped around. But eventually, it finally laid still, half its body still on board as it finally died. All in all, it was largest kill Riku had ever done. Granted, it was a fish, but it still felt satisfying butchering something of this size.

"Finally..." Nyx sighed from the front. "I almost thought you won't be able to make that thing stop moving."

"It's just a big fish," Riku scoffed as he flicked his knife clean before sheathing it once more, ignoring the fact that he was currently covered in fish guts and space water. "Nothing too fancy."

"It's... you just killed a giant fish..."

Just as he was about to start attempting to clean himself, Shizu finally managed to stand up with the fish having finally gone still. She too was covered in fish goop, and her shirt was absolutely clinging onto her body as she hunched over with both disgust and awe at her current situation.

"On one hand, eww.... But on the other, that was... that was pretty cool," she admitted, her tone halfway amazed and horrified as she quickly tried to get the goop out of her hair. "But again, eww..."

"It'll come off with a bit of the sea water," he quickly told her. "And since the water tastes salty, I'll just assume that it's just like sea water anyway."

Immediately after he said those words, Shizu quickly bent over the side of the ship and scooped water over her gooped up hair, the slime slowly washed away by the sparkling water while he himself did the exact same thing. At the same time, Nyx's chaos tendrils quickly went to work repairing the ship. It wasn't a pretty sight, but by the time they were all relatively clean again, it almost looked like nothing had happened between then and now.

Well, except for the fact that there was still a giant corpse of a fish still half hanging off the edge of their boat.

"Nyx?"

"Yes, my Champion?"

"Why is the fish still here?"

For the first time since their journey began, Nyx actually turned around to face them, her eyes glinting with hunger as she beamed, "Why? For fish sashimi, of course!~"