The room was once again filled with smoke as Sephra entered. She couldn’t breath without coughing.

“I can’t go back. You know I can’t. I’m sorry, but it’s not possible. I’ll take you anywhere else, but this…”

Sephra started to cough from the smoke again and then saw where her friend was. She sat down next to him.

“I know how much you’re worried, but we’ll be there with you. At least four of us will ensure your safety.”

“You don’t understand. I’m not worried about myself. I almost killed Serion and Solar today. I was so lucky that I came to my senses before… What do you think the ship would be like if I transformed?”

“Stop this!”

“Imagine it! All of you would be dead, torn to pieces.”

“I said that’s enough!”

“It would be a ghost ship. Maybe after a while, I wouldn’t even come to my senses. Perhaps I would start to eat you. I wonder what it would be like once you’re gone? Would I survive?”

“Angron!”

“Maybe I would. Can I starve to death? We haven’t tried that yet. Maybe someone would come after a while and try to get through. It wouldn’t be good. How do you think I’d look if I didn’t change back for a long time? How ugly would I get? It’s even possible that…”

A slap cut him off. Angron turned in astonishment towards the woman and was even more taken aback when he saw her face. Sephra glared at him in anger.

“I said stop it! This must not happen, understand?”

Angron felt ashamed. The woman was doing her best to help him, and he was behaving like this.

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me! I was just desperate. I have avoided Shouta so much that even the mere thought of it upsets me. I thought I’d never have to go back. Maybe you could go down and look for that thing, and I’ll stay on the ship…”

“No. Hyraus was an extremely clever man. I don’t believe he’d put it in a place where we could easily find it. We’ll need you down there. Perhaps he hid it somewhere in the ocean, and only you can go down there, along with other Shoutans. But you can’t seriously think that we can entrust such a secret to anyone. You know them.”

“True, but I have no idea how I’ll behave after all that happened there.”

“We’ll just go there, find it, and leave. We’ll get over it quickly. I’ll be with you all the way in the city if you want. You can do it! I believe in you.”

“Can we at least go somewhere else first? Let Shouta be the second stop. Maybe by then I can pull myself together. Please.”

“No. You have to get over it. The longer you put it off, the harder it will be. I promise, I won’t ask you for something like this ever again.”

Angron fell silent. No matter how much he tried to avoid the task, he realized that the woman was right. He had no choice. True, he could have run away, but Sephra, as the Grand Admiral, could have taken his license, and he would never have flown again.

“Okay… Let’s go…”

Sephra smiled, then got up.

“I’ll go inform the others.”

Angron lowered his head. If someone had told him yesterday that he would return to Shouta, he would have hit them. But there was someone for whom he would do anything. And behind that someone, the door just closed.

Angron was having panic attacks every five minutes. He had just managed to calm down when Solar entered the cockpit and sat in the co-pilot’s seat.

The girl offered him a piece of chocolate.

“How’s your arm?” she asked.

“It’s healed,” the man replied, taking the treat.

Solar looked at him in astonishment. “What?… But you broke it!”

“Yes. Now it’s no longer broken.”

“It’s been just a few hours!”

In response, Angron took a bite of the chocolate. Solar then grabbed the man’s arm and examined it. There was indeed nothing wrong with it.

“This is incredible… How do you do it?”

“I have no idea. Why aren’t you bothering your friend right now?”

“He locked himself in his room. I think he’s tired of the way I’ve been looking at him.”

“That’s not surprising… Do you know that perhaps this is the first time we’re alone together? What happened? Aren’t you afraid of me anymore?”

“No. I mean, yes, I’m still afraid of you, very much so. The first time you transformed, I was sure I was going to die. Now, since I found Daron… I’m not going to die until I’ve dealt with him.”

“Are you sure this is the right thing? I mean, Daron seemed confused enough. I think he has no idea what you want from him. Isn’t it possible that someone else just looks similar? He could have changed over the years.”

“No. It’s him. If he’s forgotten what he’s done, I’ll remind him. I’ll tolerate his existence for a bit longer, but after that…”

“Okay, and if you kill him, then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s next? This is your goal, isn’t it? Once you’ve killed him, what will you do?”

Angron saw Solar’s smile fading. Perhaps she hadn’t thought about this before, but the question was valid. The girl had spent her whole life dreaming of killing the murderer.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’ll have time to think about it when I’m done with him. I’m sure I’ll find a male and start a family. Do you have any plans like that?”

“Sometimes I think about it… Not that anyone would want someone like me.”

“Maybe you’ll find yourself a nice girl on Shouta now! I mean a female. Because they do exist, right?”

Solar became uncertain when she remembered the rumor that only males lived on Shouta.

In response, Angron gave her a flat look.

“Of course, females exist! It’s true that there are few of them, but they are there. You asked me before to tell you something about Shouta. Now it doesn’t matter if it upsets you or not, right? A few years ago, a terrible virus appeared among us. We still don’t know where it came from, but it only affected women. By the time we found a cure, it had caused significant damage. It wiped out more than half of the women. My mother and sister were among them. My father didn’t take it well.”

“I’m sorry. My mother is somewhere back home. Not long after my father’s death, she just disappeared, and I never saw her again. I don’t know what happened to her. Now that I can finally go home, I hope to find her. If nothing else, her grave.”

They sat in silence for a minute or two until Angron spoke again.

“Mirella is our goddess, as I mentioned last time. We also call her the Moon Princess. I don’t know why ‘Moon’… I’ve never asked because I wasn’t interested. I think we have the most beautiful traditions in her honor. But I’ve traveled to too many other planets to believe in her, and I’ve experienced too much. If Mirella existed, it would be her job to prevent terrible things like that epidemic, or… or what happened to me. That’s why I decided it’s much easier for me to accept that there’s no goddess looking out for me since she hasn’t done so before. She has many statues, so you’ll see them.”

“I’m curious. We don’t have gods. We have a few tribal customs, but we don’t worship any higher power. I think we somehow try to attract luck with spirits… I don’t remember much because I had to leave there quickly. Darella was completely different. In that regard, it’s pretty dull, and… Oh!”

“What’s wrong?” Angron asked, then turned his head. He almost tried to jump back, along with his chair.

Shouta appeared in front of them. It was evident how much more massive it was than the nearby planets. It shone brighter than any star, as the ocean reflected the light of its sun.

Angron felt another panic attack looming. He bent forward and tried to suppress the overwhelming nausea. He could hear the girl speaking to him, saying there was nothing wrong, but he didn’t think so. He didn’t want to go there. He was almost sure that if he opened his eyes, everything would be covered in blood.

Solar pressed something into his hand and spoke urgently to him. He tossed it aside and looked up. The bloody girl immediately jumped up from beside him and started backing away. She was shouting something, but Angron wasn’t paying attention. He tried to climb out of his seat, but it took time to realize he had the seat belt on. While he was focused on that, it was enough time for two other figures to emerge. The man. That arrogant, obnoxious man who had occasionally annoyingly stared at the woman running beside him. He loathed him for it. The latter, however, seemed oddly familiar, which momentarily baffled him. He knew her name. He recognized her, and it sent chills down his spine.

The woman raised something that looked like a weapon.

“He passed out,” Solar leaned down to examine the man after Sephra had shot the pilot.

“Is it just from seeing Shouta?” Serion asked.

“Yes. Before that, there was nothing wrong with him, except for his worries. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“No,” Sephra replied.

Solar could tell she was tormented by convincing Angron to do this.

“But it had to be done. Sooner or later, he would have had to come back. It’s not possible that he wouldn’t have drifted this way at some point.”

Serion and Daron lifted the man and gently placed him back in the pilot’s seat, at least for him to sit comfortably until he recovered. While they didn’t feel like leaving, Solar reassured them that she’d watch over him and notify them if anything went wrong.

She returned to the copilot’s seat and silently observed Angron, who appeared more peaceful than anyone had ever seen him. Unconscious, he couldn’t pose any threat.

Solar turned her attention back to the Ocean Planet. It was beautiful, yet something felt amiss. There was something beneath the perfectly sparkling blue surface that had shattered Angron’s life. The beauty concealed a hidden horror that beckoned them, and Solar felt as if they were heading willingly into the mouth of a colossal monster.

They had to get through this. She glanced at the controls on the console. She tried hitting a few buttons until the ship started moving slowly. Not long after, Shouta’s image covered everything. She quickly tried pressing the buttons again until the engines stopped, just before entering the atmosphere; this was no longer in her hands. She informed the others that they had arrived, and now all three of them clustered behind the girl. The tension was palpable, especially when they remembered that Angron hadn’t regained his senses yet, and the first thing he’d see upon waking up would be a close-up of Shouta.

Angron immediately panicked. They had to talk him out of turning the ship around and flying to the other side of the Galaxy.

“I can’t do it,” he buried his face in his hands.

“There will be no problem,” Serion consoled him, which didn’t quite fit his normally cool, distant personality. “You’ve come this far, so taking those few steps won’t be that hard.”

“Exactly,” Daron added. “You can’t give up now, so close to your goal.”

Solar talked next.

“Listen, we’re here with you, four in total. We won’t let anything go wrong,” she reassured Angron.

In the end, Angron gave in, but he still couldn’t bring himself to look up.

“Okay… Can someone give me a cigarette?”

Four of them reached for cigarettes simultaneously, each handing one to him. Angron took all of them and lit them all at once.

“Isn’t that a bit excessive?” Daron whispered, but everyone hushed him.

Angron pushed the throttle forward, and they watched as they headed towards Shouta through the streaks of smoke. As they entered the atmosphere, the communication system activated. Someone from the planet was trying to reach them.

Solar, being closest, pressed a button without hesitation to open the channel. The voice that came through the system sounded as if someone had something stuck in their throat and was on the verge of choking. Serion always regretted not taking the time to learn one of the most interesting languages, the Shoutan language. He didn’t understand a word. However, Sephra, having lived on the planet for years, knew exactly what was being said. She anxiously squeezed the back of Solar’s seat.

The voice fell silent, awaiting a response. But none came.

About a minute later, the message was repeated, this time with a more threatening tone. Angron took one last drag from the four cigarettes, then, guided by the urgent glances of the others, he pressed a button and responded in the same choking style. He spoke for a relatively long time, although it was extremely difficult to determine where one word began and another ended. Eventually, he leaned back in his seat and waited.

“Now what?” Solar asked after they had been waiting for over two minutes without receiving a response.

“They probably just can’t believe I’m alive, and furthermore, that I’ve returned,” Angron replied.

“Shouldn’t you speak to them again?” Serion asked impatiently.

“No. Calm down. For once, I know what I’m doing.”

More minutes passed with anticipation, until a new voice finally spoke. The speaker spoke more slowly, more formally, and sounded much more cautious than the previous one.

Sephra’s mouth twitched, and Angron pressed the button and responded with a one-word answer. After half a minute, the same voice spoke again, this time in the common language, and the tone was filled with astonishment and caution.

“White spacecraft B10, permission granted for entry. Come closer, and we will send the elevator… Angron, is it really you?!”

“Yes, Chancellor, it’s me,” the man replied coldly. “Greetings. It’s been a while.”

“That’s an understatement.”

The tone in the speaker’s voice clearly suggested that they could have expected more waiting.

Angron maneuvered the spacecraft to the surface of the ocean and impatiently circled above it. Shortly after, a massive runway emerged from beneath the water, large enough to accommodate their ship four times over. Angron gently landed their craft on it and powered down the engines.

When a glass dome covered the runway, the voice spoke again.

“Now, you’re in for a longer journey down. Get comfortable and enjoy the view, at least for as long as you can! Soon, you’ll only see darkness, but there’s no need to worry. By the time you reach the bottom, I’ll be there with the escort.”

“Thanks,” Angron muttered. “My delight knows no bounds.”

“Same here,” the Chancellor replied coldly. “Well, I have to cut the transmission now to make my way. On behalf of myself and my people, welcome home, Prince!”