Unfortunately, since Marisol’s massive wave shattered half of the marauders’ ship as well, it took one whole month before the children finished helping her repair it to full.

  All in all, there’d been thirty-one tattooed children locked up in the slave galley. Kuku was included amongst them, of course. They were all haggard and bony and listless when she’d kicked their cages open, but with a steady supply of crabs, sunlight, and the feel of seawater washing between their toes, they gradually returned to being as children should: cheerful and carefree. They thanked her with teary hugs, flower garlands, necklaces made of corals, seashells, and—most importantly—extra hands to help repair the marauders’ ship with.

  It may have taken the marauders an entire year to repair their ship, but the Archive was an aggregate of plentiful human knowledge. It knew how to direct the children, the children knew the lay of the land. With the Archive's guidance, knowing where to gather the right resources for every broken part of the warship was no problem for them.

  As for the twenty-two marauders themselves, she’d tied all of them up and left their fates for the children to decide. She hadn’t killed any of them, and it wasn’t her choice to make. The pillaged must stand for themselves, so whatever the children wanted to do, she’d decided she would support them whole-heartedly.

  To that end, the children had decided to maroon the marauders on a tiny reed raft and kick them off the island without their weapons or their clothes. They had one small bucket of crabs to share between them, but otherwise they were utterly empty-handed as they’d drifted in the direction of a distant storm—they’d departed two weeks ago, so Marisol assumed. Without any paddles, they would be in the thick of it right now. Death was almost certain in the storm; it’d shatter their tiny raft and drown them in the great blue.

  She was just glad the children hadn’t decided to kill them on the island. The earth was already soaked with too much blood. Adding the blood of monsters in the mix would only remind the children of their losses.

  So, tonight was a party to celebrate what they’d regained.

  It was midnight, Marisol’s thirty-third night on the island—one month had passed since she’d washed ashore, and while she spent the past month mostly puking her guts out on a thatch bed because of food poisoning, the children had rebuilt a small village on the iron sand beach where the marauders’ outpost once stood.

  Braziers crackled around them as the children savoured fresh crab legs and vegetables from a giant stewing pot in the centre, enjoying cups of fresh coral forest water and cashing in on the joy they’d saved up over the past month. They were all good at dancing like crabs, and they all moved as ridiculously as Kuku did. Only the Great Makers knew how many times Marisol broke out into laughter seeing them skitter from side to side in sync. Maybe that was the only dance move they really knew, but she wasn’t complaining. Her routines were about just as simplistic and silly when she was their age.

  She was getting dizzy from all the eating, the dancing, and the singing. The children refused to let her take a break. They’d put into the giant stewing pot of crab legs that made her feel just a tad bit tipsy, and… it kinda sucked. She couldn’t bring herself to tell them that, though. They were all so smiley and cheery as they shoved bowls upon bowls of crab legs in her face. Being at the center of attention meant there was no running away—she’d just have to tough it out until they knocked themselves out.

  The children ‘knocking themselves out’ didn’t happen for another two hours, but eventually, the braziers gradually died down. The stewing pot stopped bubbling, and the cheering and dancing quieted. The children were all asleep on giant reed mats, and she found herself sitting on a small stool with a little girl’s head in her lap, rubbing her stomach slowly.

  she thought, sighing softly to herself as she picked the little girl up and lay her down next to her friends.

  She glanced at the little water strider on her shoulder, smiling wryly.

  The Archive looked up at her pointedly.

  She shrugged lightly in response.

  In the dead of night, she tiptoed across the village and made sure all of the children were properly tucked in on their mats—blankets over their bodies, crab shell pillows under their heads—but then she quickly realized there was one child missing.

  Kuku.

  Come to think of it, she seemed to recall him retreating from the party the moment it started.

  She chuckled quietly.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Once she was sure none of the children would roll off their mats, she began skating inland, moonlight falling through the massive gaps in the canopy to light her way. At this point, she could probably navigate the gargantuan forest blindfolded—not that she wanted to of course, but she probably could. She followed the familiar roots, leapt across the old chasms, and eventually reached the wooden floodgates they’d all rebuilt to keep the basin contained.

  There, Kuku was sitting on the edge with his legs kicking in the water, back turned towards her.

  She didn’t need to see his face to tell he was probably still sullen about his crab helmet having been split in half, but today, she came bearing a gift.

  Leaping and landing next to him in one powerful stride, she plopped herself down at the edge of the floodgates and plucked both halves of his helmet off his lap. She made sure not to look at his face—as she’d done her best not to the entire past month—and immediately began doing as the Archive instructed.

  Under the Archive’s instructions, she’d spent her free time the past few days running around the island, collecting resources and grinding up all of her fairy shrimp chitin to mix together a bluish-pink goo in a small stone bowl. She lined the sticky goo around the edges of the helmet as ordered to, and once she used up all of the goo, she pressed both halves of the helmet together and blew on them slowly.

  Surprisingly—or —the helmet didn’t fall apart when she let go of both halves.

  “... Here you go!” she chirped, slamming the helmet back onto Kuku’s head, and now she could look him in the face again as she sent him a cheeky grin. “Sorry it took so long, but it wasn’t until a few days ago that the voice in my head started being able to identify some of the plants on this island. If I knew I could make this sticky goo with the forest’s natural resources, I would’ve made it sooner!”

  Sitting hunched and quiet with his shoulders slumped, Kuku’s hands shot up to stabilize the helmet over his head, bending both ends to see if it’d snap in half again. She really, hoped it wouldn’t, but the Archive’s information wasn't wrong. The sticky goo mixed with fairy shrimp chitin powder was as powerful as the palm sap the builders used in her desert town.

  Once Kuku was certain his helmet was repaired tougher than it used to be, he shot to his feet and immediately hopped off the floodgates, racing off into the shadows of the forest. He didn’t even spare her a glance as she reached a hand out, trying to tell him to stay, but… she didn’t manage to call out to him before he disappeared, after all.

  She smiled wistfully as she lowered her hand, tucking her chin in.

  Her thoughts trailed off as Kuku came rushing back half a minute later, covered in leaves and branches as he held up a scarf in his hands. He jumped three meters straight up onto the floodgate—his physicality making her blink for a moment—and then landed next to her, hands trying to wrap the scarf around her neck.

  For her part, she didn’t resist much; she let him play with her curly hair and figure out how best to put the scarf on until he felt he got it ‘right’.

  He crossed his arms and puffed his chest out proudly as she held the end of her scarf before her, frowning down at its unusual, glimmering pinkish-blue hues.

  Her status screen popped up next to her head.

  [Name: Marisol Vellamira]

  [Grade: E-Rank Giant-Class]

  [Class: Water Strider]

  [Swarmblood Art: ???]

  [Aura: 444]

  [Points: 1]

  [Strength: 4, Speed: 4, Toughness: 3, Dexterity: 2, Perception: 3]

  [// MUTATION TREE]

  [T1 Mutation | Striding Glaives Lvl. 2

  [T2 Mutations | Basic Gills | Basic Hydrospines Lvl: 2

  [// EQUIPPED SYMBIOSTEEL]

  [Ghost Crab Scarf (Grade: F-Rank)(Tou: +0/1)(Aura: -200]

  Her status screen popped up next to her head, and the Archive appeared crawling over the two new boxes at the bottom.

  it said plainly.

  Marisol blinked at the numbers.

  the Archive said.

  , she thought, sighing quietly.

  the Archive countered.

  … The Archive was right again.

  She’d gotten a hand-made gift from Kuku that’d eventually give her an additional level of toughness. It was the best gift she could’ve gotten from him, and she didn’t even come to this island initially to help the crab children out, so as she opened her arms with a cheery smile, Kuku immediately threw himself into her—the edges of his crab helmet slammed into her chest once again and made her wince, but only a little.

  She’d gotten tougher, she’d gotten stronger, and she’d become ‘fearless’ on this island of crabs.

  Come tomorrow morning, she’d set sail alone on the marauders’ ship to continue towards the Whirlpool City, and the children of the island would do their best to rebuild. Who knew when she’d get to see Kuku again, if ever at all?

  She wasn’t his older sister, and she could never be.

  That was why she wanted to spend her last night on the island with the first boy she’d met, and even if he’d grow to forget her name eventually, she wanted him to remember the Sand-Dancer who’d danced her way to victory under the twilight sky.

  She pulled Kuku into a deeper hug as she closed her eyes, merely enjoying the night as it was. There was no need to bother the Archive about the human-shaped ‘ghost’ she’d seen during her jump through the void.

  That wasn’t her mama’s ghost.

  For all she knew, it was just a hallucination born of fear. Only the Great Makers knew what a girl scared out of wits would see while spinning at the speed of sound.

  [Objective #7: Man the warship alone and sail towards the Whirlpool City]

  [Time Limit: Undefined]

  [Reward: Arrival at the Whirlpool City]

  [Failure: Death]

  ‘Chromatophores’ are cells that produce colour in a lot of crustaceans and cephalopods. While cephalopods such as octopuses can rapidly change the colour of their chromatophores to camouflage themselves in a process called metachrosis, crustaceans like the ghost crab are only capable of morphological colour changes, which means it takes a longer time for them to change colours!