The Sazanami Conspiracy

[Dual]

"As ordered– a gimlet, half gin half lime, stirred to perfection in a chilled, salt-rimmed glass, and lovingly garnished with a twist of mint.” For the finishing touch, the beautiful waiter let a tiny paper umbrella float down into the beverage. “Enjoy, Lady Hanna.”
She took the offered drink by the stem, thanking him with a smile that she’d yet to decide was flirtatious or not. This is the best job ever.

A girl on assignment ought to be more cautious, but it was rare that her line of work brought her to an island lost in the open water between Whirlpool Country and Kirigakure Province. Hanna had arrived at Sazanami Resort during the sweet spot of the shoulder season. Her beach parasol was surrounded by rows and columns of empty lounge chairs, and two cliffs on either side added to its privacy. Most days she could pretend it was her own private island! The young lady looked down the long golden beach, and sipped slowly like the lazy tide lapping at the shore. The dry, sharp flavor reminded her, she’d yet to take a dip. Ahh, but just the sight of the crystal clear sea made her feel oh so expensive.

She didn’t know why Bando was acting so nice all of a sudden. Ever since departing Cold Country he’d been acting funny. She’d earned this break, he said so himself, but something about his brusque send off left her wondering… Hanna chose to see it as a sign of faith that he trusted her to handle this on her own.

Following orders, she’d made best efforts to lay low. Though in between the jungle tours and lava walks, Hanna felt a tug of loneliness. A feeling subtle and chilling like the shadows under her umbrella.

It was her third day here and she was still waiting for her rendezvous with a ‘Captain Avantika’. Bando had arranged the whole thing through a series of proxies. Only providing information he deemed necessary. Discretion was important and the woman apparently had a reputation for drawing attention, ‘You’ll know her when you see her’, was all the hint he gave Hanna. This will barely be a bump on your vacation’, and against her own intuition, she believed him. Donning a pair of shades, she let the weight slip off her shoulders, and sank deeper into luxury. It was best not to think. Bando always had a plan, and those plans had a way of working out if she played her part.

[AFungalNetwork]

The waves lapped gently at the shore, the sound lazy and hypnotic, like the beach itself was nodding off in the heat. Sunlight glazed the sea in sheets of glassy gold, and the breeze shifted, not stronger, but different—cooler, touched by something deeper than mere ocean spray.

Far out past the sandbar, where the color of the water darkened from aquamarine to deep blue, a shape moved. Subtle at first: a glimmer, then a disturbance—a slow ripple curling out in concentric rings. Something was approaching, not slicing through the water like a vessel, but gliding just beneath it, as though the sea itself were shouldering the burden of its passage.

A fin, long and mottled like barnacled copper, broke the surface and vanished. Then again, nearer. Not a dorsal, not natural. It sliced the water without a splash. Just beneath it, long strands the color of ginger drifted like seaweed pulled by a rising tide. Then, silence. The ocean held its breath.

A shape emerged from the surf, walking not out of it, but as though it had always been part of it. Water drained from the figure’s shoulders and pooled at her feet as if reluctant to let go. Her silhouette wavered in the heat haze: tall, stately, and wrong in the way the uncanny is wrong. A faded brown tricorne crowned her head like a relic lifted from a shipwreck. One hand ended in a massive, ridged claw, chitinous and lacquered in rust-red. Her opposite leg looked like a crab’s, each step sinking with a soft, wet crunch into the sand. No fanfare. Only the gentle swish of her coat, and the hush of the sea behind her—closing quietly, as if to erase the evidence she’d ever emerged at all.

I'm looking for someone named Hanna. Would you happen to know where I might find her? Ava asked as she approached the woman who had been relaxing.

319 words

[Dual]

Hanna sipped, the ice clinking as she drained her glass. The alcohol found its way to her head and she floated off. Waves washed ashore, tropical birds warbled overhead, and a gentle breeze stirred the salt-heavy air. This was living. But it was the sudden absence of all this that caused Hanna to tense. She opened her eyes. There was something in the water and like the sun rising in the morning– the world had taken notice.

Her first thought at the sight of the fin was that she would have to cancel her surfing lesson, but then Hanna’s shades slipped down her nose as a woman stepped onto the fine shimmery sand. The young medic had memorized entire anatomy textbooks and still never come across anything like this. Such a wicked corruption of a person should have made her skin crawl, instead, Hanna ogled her, eyes sparkling with equal parts admiration and fascination. She popped her mouth shut, a bit peeved at Bando's subtle precision. He'd been right again. Without a word exchanged, Hanna knew who this was. Captain Avantika.

Hanna waved because, well, what else was she supposed to do? Besides pretend she had not been staring. “I’m her!”

”It’s nice to finally meet Captain Avantika, I’ve heard lots about you. How was your… swim in?” she said, as she stood to tie a wrap around her waist.
She was a teensy bit flustered. A lot hinged on a good first impression, she’d seen good deals turn bad over sour wine. But so far nothing smelled fishy. Avantika had come alone and unarmed, but Hanna had already used up half of the small talk she had prepared.
“Oh, apologies, I’ve already gotten us started..." said Hanna, hastily clearing a dish and her drink aside. “Would you care for a drink?” she asked, then noticing the waitstaff looking warily from the cabana thought better of it. “Or shall we jump straight to business?”

[AFungalNetwork]

And a lovely thing you are. Ava said with a playful wink, flashing a grin that could sell sin to a priest, though her eyes hinted at the price. Business is well and good but only a fool gets into bed without knowing who they’re lying next to. With that, she reached into the folds of her coat — seawater dripping onto the polished cabana floor — and produced a bottle. It was soaked, cold, and somehow looked like it belonged more in a tomb than a cellar. No label. No markings, save for a crescent moon etched so faintly into the glass it might have been a trick of the light. Inside sloshed a dense, amber-gold liquid that shimmered. Ava set it on the table gently, reverently.

Shimokawa Dust, she said, brushing a wet curl from her brow. Bottled a hundred and nine years ago, from vines that only grew in the cracks of the north — before the desert claimed it. Before Soul Country forgot what it had once been.

She tapped the side of the bottle with one lacquered nail.

No one makes it anymore. No one could, even if they wanted to. The grape’s extinct, the soil is dust, and the city it came from is buried so deep the monks won’t even map it. Her gaze lingered on Hanna now — appraising, like a jeweler studying a rare stone. I’ve carried this for over a hundred years. Never opened it. Never trusted anyone enough to share it.

A pause, long enough to let the weight of her words settle.

But you asked so nicely.
Her smile, wicked and slow, returned — but this time there was something warm beneath it. Dangerous, yes. But warmer than the bottle in her hands. And then — without flourish or warning she raised her clawed arm. She pressed it to the neck of the bottle like a lover’s kiss and twisted. The cork gave a reluctant sigh, as though it, too, remembered the world it had sealed away. A faint shimmer of something ancient curled from the mouth of the bottle and vanished into the warm sea air. Ava smiled without showing teeth.
There, she said, voice low, a hundred years of silence, broken for you.
She poured. The wine came out thick and amber-dark, like honey scraped from an old comb, catching the sunlight in hues that didn’t have names anymore.

403 words

[Dual]

“Me? No, no, no,” Hanna deflected the compliment, fighting a giggle. She raised a curious brow as Avantika produced a bottle. The amber liquid glittered inside. ‘Shimokawa Dust,' she repeated, watching with wonder as the Soul Country woman took the neck of the bottle in her claw and uncorked it with a squeeze.

A hundred years? How does she know if it's any good? The pirate must be teasing again. With her velvet tones and easy smile, everything felt like a trap. Though, the pirate’s words dragged, weighty with memory. A sort of mysterious quality only time created. Hanna wet her lips, eyes darting between the amber gold and the woman pouring it. There was reverence in the gesture as if something spiritual was being shared. No more hesitating in front of the client if you want to earn her trust.

She raised her glass, hoping the gesture honored the offering. “To a century of change,” Hanna said, repeating something she’d heard from Bando, then drank. She finished in three, slow gulps. It slid down like molasses, but stung like rubbing alcohol. Hanna kept her face from twisting as it hit the liquor in her stomach, mixing together like oil and fire. She clenched her jaw, breathing shallowly. Steady… “Mm. S’good. Thanks.” She lied.

“You said you've carried it for a hundred years,” Hanna said, clearing her throat, wiping away tears at the corner of her eyes. “That's not a line, is it? Either you're lying, or you've aged better than the wine." The last part slipped out on her loosened tongue, but she atleast had the grace to blush after.

[AFungalNetwork]

Avantika took a long sip of the wine she had held onto for so long now. Her features twisted in disgust as she listened to Hanna, as she spoke she caught the line about having aged better than the wine. She let out a hardy laugh and inspected the bottle before saying, I'm glad those grapes are extinct and those monks are dead. Only wish I had killed them myself. I've had my own tongue cut out and the blood from that tasted better than this swill. she laughed as she tossed the bottle off to the side, not caring as it shattered into a hundred pieces. Wine people have no taste. she then pulled out a bottle of Red Kraken Rum from her coat and took a long swig and swished it around her mouth as if she were trying to wash the taste of the wine away. She then haphazardly tossed the bottle to Hanna, unconcerned about whether the woman would catch it or not.

She then pulled up a chair and collapsed into it. No lines here, lass. Sea spirit curse. Keeps me alive but not without a price. she gestured to her crustacean appendages. Tis a small price to sail the seas for several lifetimes. So, there you have it. I've married my demons, literally. Now tell me about yours. Pretty faces like yours always come with some baggage. She smiled, slow and knowing, like a woman who’d heard every confession twice — once as a threat, once as a gift. It was the kind of smile that made secrets feel like currency and most people were more than happy to spend.

276 words

[Dual]

Captain Avantika answered quickly and without shame which made it a bit easier to believe her. Hanna followed along with every word; smiling, laughing, even shrieking in delight when the aged wine glass shattered. But she managed to saved the rum, if just barely, from the same fate as the Shimokawa Dust.

The sight of her spirit-twisted flesh, however, left Hanna undisturbed. ‘Alive but not without a price’. The statement carried an admirable ruthlessness she likened to Fukada’s theories on ‘creative destruction’. Some things would need to be sacrificed for humanity to evolve. Her own partner was living proof! In that sense, the girl had already accepted the Captain’s unique appearance as less a ‘curse’ and more of a blessing.

Clutching it to her chest, Hanna throttled the bottle’s neck. If she understood the nature of this negotiation properly, then it was a sort of test. A deal before the deal. It was her turn to match the bet. “Oh, I’m no one special, really.” she said, brushing hair across her face, cheeks coloring a pretty pink as the wine sank in. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to open up. It was that she had never had the invitation. But Avantika pulled her in with those dark depthless eyes, both knowing and curious at the same time. “Just a refugee who made it out of the camps. My guardians used to say ‘Hanna, girls like you are a dime a dozen in Steam Country.’ I’d always think, then why wouldn’t you buy the whole set? Heh, they were such jokers.”

[AFungalNetwork]

Ava listened to Hanna and once she finished speaking, she slowly nodded; seemingly satisfied with the answer. She wouldn't pry much more, such pressure always soured deals and she'd like to keep those she worked with happy.“A dime a dozen, eh? Never seen someone worth half of what I'd pay for you. Not that I’m in the business of buying folks, mind you.” The bravado cracked ever so slightly in her tone, the first thread of awkwardness unraveling from her previously unshakable confidence. “But… I believe we’ve other matters now. I’ve taken far too much of your time already.”

From somewhere beneath the folds of her coat, Ava produced a scroll. She unfurled it with unexpected elegance, her clawed fingers dancing over the parchment like a practiced performer. Says here that there is some... "cargo" that needs to be "redistributed". but then she paused and looked around suspiciously. She rolled the scroll up and with a delicate elegance offered Hanna her non clawed hand,“I’d rather discuss this somewhere more private, miss. Prying eyes and all. I think you’ll find we’re freer to talk particulars on my ship.”

But there was no ship. Not until the world changed. Without warning, the sea beneath heaved with the solemn, slow breath of something long dead being returned. Mist coiled up from the dark water in ghostly tendrils as Ava wove her hand seals with fluid, near-theatrical grace. Then—it rose. The Squalleater. It didn’t emerge so much as unfold from the sea, like a forgotten memory forcing its way into the present. A ghostly warship of immense size, slid up from beneath the waves in utter silence. No creaking timbers, no crashing surf. Just a cold hush, as though the ocean itself dared not resist its ascent.

Its tri-masted frame loomed against the sky, impossibly intact and yet clearly centuries dead. Wreathed in a permanent fog tinged with moonlight and sorrow, the ship seemed to drink the warmth from the air around it. Rotten sails hung slack but billowed with a spectral breeze that shouldn’t exist, and the timbers—waterlogged and warped—were reinforced by veins of spectral energy that shimmered like oil on water.

Along the gun deck, rows of spectral cannons jutted out—no barrels of iron, but carved runes glowing faintly as they churned with spiritual fire. The air around them shimmered with the heatless residue of souls long spent. Figures moved along the deck—translucent sailors frozen in their endless tasks. Some climbed phantom rigging, others tended to lines that weren’t there. Their faces were blurred, dreamlike, forever on the edge of recognition. They weren’t alive. But they worked. The captain’s quarters, dimly visible through warped glass windows, flickered with a cursed lantern-light—the kind that didn’t illuminate but warned.

Near the stern, a crumbling balcony jutted out like the beak of a carrion bird. From it, one could imagine a captain—real or spectral—watching over the seas they no longer ruled, their gaze stretching to horizons they could no longer reach. The Squalleater didn’t float on water. It glided over it, untouched by tide or current. A vessel not made for the living, but for those who sailed the space between death and duty. It waited now, motionless, as though expecting someone. Or perhaps... remembering them.

Isn't she beautiful... Ava half-muttered, loud enough for Hanna to hear but almost like she was talking to herself.

The silence that followed was absolute. Not the peaceful hush of a lazy afternoon, but the kind that strangled breath and clutched at the gut. The mist thickened by the second, sliding up the beach like cold hands creeping over bare skin. Hanna could feel it—everyone could feel it. That drop in pressure. That primal certainty in the back of the mind: something unnatural had arrived. Around them, the illusion of paradise fractured.

The waiter who had delivered her drink only moments ago stood frozen, tray still balanced in his hands. His lips parted slightly, not in fear—but reverence. As if he were seeing something that no one should see and trying not to blink in case it vanished… or noticed him. The tiny paper umbrella toppled from its perch in Hanna’s glass with a soft plink, drowned out by the long, low groan of the Squalleater cresting into full view.

A woman behind the outdoor bar dropped a glass, and the delicate crystal shattered on the bamboo slats like a gunshot. That broke the spell. Without a word, the staff moved. No screams. No chaos. They’d been trained for this. Not for a ship like the Squalleater specifically—there was no training for that—but for incursions. Protocols meant for dealing with anomalies, high-threat individuals, or the rare but deadly yokai surfacing from the deep. They didn’t panic. They vanished. Towels were left folded. Bottles left open. Incense left to smolder.

The hostess at the poolside podium slipped behind a stone wall and pulled a panel closed without so much as a sound. Two attendants peeled away from the beachfront cabanas, leaving behind trays of untouched seafood and fruit arrangements. A bellboy walking down from the main lodge turned on his heel and disappeared up the steps, whispering a warning in an island dialect older than the resort itself. In less than thirty seconds, the staff of Sazanami Resort had ceased to exist.

Guests who noticed too late found themselves alone—drinks half-poured, conversations abandoned. One couple on a balcony above peered down with fascination, unaware of what they were seeing. Another, a pale shinobi clearly trying not to stand out, slipped a scroll out of his satchel and quietly began unsealing something… just in case. Still, the ghost ship did not advance. It loomed. Massive and mournful, the Squalleater stood sentinel just off the shore, its reflection broken and stretched across the unnaturally still water like a wound in the ocean. The very tide seemed to halt for it. Ava didn’t so much as flinch.

Her eyes remained on the ship, glowing faintly with the same spectral sheen that danced through its hull. Her smile, faint but certain, returned to her face as she gently released Hanna’s hand and stepped forward, the mist parting respectfully around her. When she finally spoke, it was with the voice of someone reunited with an old friend:

She never likes to be called. But she always comes. Behind them, the last of the staff quietly closed a side door. The island belonged to Ava now. She smiled at Hanna, a wide and devious smile; the type of smile where the person knows they've just done something that no other person would in that situation. I have a flare for the dramatic.Ava quipped, her voice syrup-sweet with amusement as she turned toward the ship, her coat flaring behind her like wings caught on a phantom breeze. Whether Hanna took her hand or not, she proceeded to board the Squalleater. The moment her foot touched the gangplank, the Squalleater seemed to exhale, a deep, silent pull of mist toward its hull, drawing her in like an old companion welcoming its master home. And awaiting her at the top, standing where rope and wood gave way to ghostlight and gloom, was Ogham.

Ogham stood just beyond the threshold of the Squalleater’s deck, motionless as a statue. His face; drawn, ashen, and far too still, resembled the final moments of a once-proud man etched into a corpse. High cheekbones and a skeletal jaw gave him the cruel profile of an old war idol left to weather centuries of salt and rot. His lips were cracked and dry, pulled tight over teeth too sharp, too perfect, to be human.

His eyes burned like dull coals in empty sockets. White hair, wet with ocean air and time, was pulled into a fraying warrior’s knot, bound by a strip of faded cloth, once red, now sun-bleached and brittle. A token of something long past. His head tilted slightly as Ava approached. His emaciated limbs shifting with an insectoid precision, as if his joints had forgotten how human ones were meant to move. His black kimono, tattered beyond repair, clung to him like the skin of a drowned man, soaked and dragged up from the ocean’s darkest trench. The frayed rope at his waist held it shut. But it was not Ogham alone who greeted Ava. He brought the shadow with him.

It bled from his feet, coiled through the boards like ink in water. The darkness was not passive—it watched. Shapes rippled through it like things half-born: wolfish muzzles with too many eyes, hands ending in hooks, serpents with mouths that whispered but never opened. One emerged briefly, something vaguely feline, all ears and blade-like teeth, before slinking back into his silhouette. The tail came next, uncoiling behind him like a thing with its own will. Smooth, oily, and eel-like, it hovered just above the ship's surface, twitching like a striking whip every time Hanna blinked.

His hands, when they emerged from his sleeves, were almost skeletal. Long, knotted fingers ending in blackened claws that wept a viscous ink—each drop sizzling as it hit the ship’s salt-washed planks, vanishing in a wisp of vapor and ash. And when he spoke, if it could be called that, it came as though through leagues of water and years of silence.

Mistress

He turned without waiting, gliding toward the helm with a gait that left no sound, no trace, only the faintest afterimage, as if the world forgot he had ever stood there to begin with. The shadows followed him, eager, hungry, reverent. Ava stepped aboard with casual familiarity. Home sweet home. Hanna my dear, please, make yourself comfortable. she said, knowing damn well how ridiculous of a request that was.

1,616 words