There was blood in the water. 

There was so much blood that no matter the tide and the depths of the ocean it did not disperse but floated in the cove like a vale turning the water opaque with red – worse than the blood was the pain and fear and death that rippled out from the coastal waters of Japan. 

The Sea, herself, felt it all and could do nothing to stop it. 

She had tried. Oh, she had tried. 

At first, she had thought stopping the humans would be simple, they were but mere children, and she had taught the young before. The humans were simply confused. Fish were meant to be eaten. That was their purpose. There was no shortage of fish. She made them abundant in number and type. She made them different in flavors and textures. There was no lack of prey in her waters. But humans, she had learned, were greedy things not satisfied with what they were freely given. They were slaughtering her predators and eating their flesh. So she poisoned the meat. It was meant to be a clear reprimand of their behavior. 

She started at the base, as all things were started. She started at the first element of the food chain. It was a simple change in design. She sifted what microalgae were able to absorb, making them capable of sucking up the mercury that resided in the sediment at the sea floor, a simple change that rippled up the food chain. It took years – decades to take effect, but time was meaningless to one as ancient as her. She watched in satisfaction as the poison spread through the chain, seeping into the meat of her dolphins. She could see the effect in them. Their behavior shifted, their immune system weakened, and their children were born not as healthy or strong as they once were. But slow sickness was better than mass slaughter, she told herself. And it was something in her control that she could fix once the humans learned. 

They did not learn. 

She could see the poison affect them just as it affected her dolphins, but they did not see the reprimand behind her actions. They did not stop their hunting, only developed it, until it became something monstrous. 

The Sea had been wrong. Humans were not children that could be taught a lesson. They were defective creatures. Unable to access genetic memories – incapable of something as basic as instincts and too stupid to learn on their own. 

They were her aborted fetus that twisted into something demonic, that slithered out of her depths millions of years ago, a wretched creature that learned to crawl when it should have died/ They were a blight on nature. 

She batted at their ships. Made her waters unfavorable. Made it clear that she did not want them. That they were unwelcomed. 

Blind and deaf they made boats. They made nets. They developed techniques that herded her creatures, trapped them, and slaughtered them by the thousand.

They killed. And they killed. And they killed.

And she could not stop them. 

The Sea was on the verge of madness when he returned to her waters. Unlike the creatures on the earth and the ones that swam in her waters that had all originated from her depth, he did not. His origin was unknown. He just appeared to her senses one day, floating on her waters at a leisurely pace. She was weary of him. But he did not harm her so she did not harm him. He seemed to have no control over where he floated. He was like seafoam, floating among the waves, drifting with the tide. He would leave for lengths of time, taking on the skin of a human and masquerading on land, then returning to her to float on her waves until he tried on a new skin. He was like a hermit crab switching shells. 

It was as he returned to her from an extended absence that the idea came to her. 

She was bound by nature, but was this creature? 

She pushed and pulled at the waves he floated on, drawing him thousands upon thousands of miles until he rested in Taiji Cove on the day of the hunt. 

She batted at the ships that rested in the cove until a human fell into her waters. 

The human, Sato Aio, died the moment he hit the water. He was uninjured when he fell, the drop was short, and the water deep. He was not meant to die. But humans were fragile and it was so simple for the Sea to take the man's life. She pushed water past his lips and flowed into his lungs, drowning the man in seconds. 

When the Sea seeped away Sato Aio’s life and his soul fled his dying body, a door was left ajar and a being older than any living creature known to man stepped through. A different Sato Aio came alive in the blood-red waters of Taiji Cove where thousands of cetaceans were being slaughtered. He came alive with the fury of the sea rushing through his veins and deep-seated anger towards these humans all his own.