****

I could feel his fish mind being slightly confused. I tried my best, to “feel” pathos of the situation, and being moved, and nostalgia, at the same time filtering other emotions out.

“When, as barely a small fry, I was already called the most handsome among my hundred siblings. My father often told me that my egg was the prettiest he has ever seen, he immediately knew I would grow to be his pride..” 

Damn, I had no time for this…

“I see, I see, and when did you start studying the Neptunial arts?

“Ah yes, I suppose that would be more interesting to most listeners, together with other promising young fish recruits, studied under the tutelage of the old master Pletshe, my mothers brother ”

This is not going to work… narcissistic bastard.. (“I mean we are in his dreams?”)(“well, it’s his dreams that are In us, but yeah...”)(“a man should be allowed to be a little selFish in his dreams”)

“! Was there another eel next to you a moment ago?”

“No no! The story of your life was so rapturing, I wriggled in excitement so fast you saw afterimages!”

“Understandable, my life truly was magnificent after all”

The details of the dream were getting fuzier. Now only the two of us were here, him lying in an unreasonably large pool of blood, yet still energetic enough to talk.

“It’s truly the mightiest duel I’ve seen, it must even beat the great fight between the master of the drunken snout, and a powerful beast, The sticky lizard dragon. I had the honor of observing before”

“Oh?”

“Indeed, it was the most magnificent fight to the death. I was especially impressed with the soul attack that the geck… dragon used at the end, trying to take the proud martial artist with it to the land of the dead. Alas, I could not make a great song of it”

“And why is it?”
“I had trouble explaining the climax! I’ve been told the monster used it’s soul to attack, but what exactly does it mean?”

Guerorp looked at me seriously

“Using one's soul is a forbidden art. That’s why, in duels among masters, they are only seen as the final attack, when the practitioner knows they will also die, and as such, repent for breaking this great taboo”

I could see a flicker of memory.. An unpleasant one.. But damn it I need to know.

“And your school, Reflective Fin, never taught such skills?”

“Obviously! We are too proud for that!”

***

Except, Guerorop knew it was a lie. A memory he tried his best to forget resurfaced. 

“The damned anglerfish, they have crossed the border and are pushing towards the Royal Reef” “What about the royal guards?” “There might not be enough” - my senior pupils were discussing the situation, while we were waiting for master. Me and Blopliob were here, as well as all the other pupils that learned mana manipulation, nearly 100 students in total. 

“Silence!” bloobed one of the instructors, coming from the transmission cave, together with the rest of the sect's teachers. Due to the war effort, only 3 of them remained here, together with the old geezer. It was the first time in hundred years such mobilisation was necessary, a result of an unexpected alliance from the dark side.

“Master! Are we going to be deployed?” One of the youngest student asked. At the time I thought him a fool, what a stupid question! What could we even do against trained warriors of the enemy?

“Yes” I froze. Bloopliob next to me spat out a great bubble in surprise.

“But master” I objected, at that point still respectful of the fart “What could we do against the seasoned warriors of the deep?”

“Silence!” chastised one of the old teachers

“You shall be taught a secret art of reflective fin. A forbidden art” - even under the pressure of the teachers, quier bloobs could be heard around. 

“What you hear here, is to be never talked about. No one is to know that such skills exist inside our school… Even it’s an open secret among masters that all old schools have soul techniques.”

If the previous statement led to quiet blobs, this one caused the water to literally shake in a sudden wave of questions and objections “But Master!” “Soul arts?!” “Forbidden magic..”

“Honorable grandmaster” , asked the usually quiet Blopliob, questioning his teacher for the first time since he joined, an event surprising enough to usually be the talk among the pupils for a week - “Aren’t soul arts forbidden because they cause harm upon the users and the target's soul? Isn’t the punishment for using them, even in self defence, death, anywhere on Selun?”

“You don’t need to worry about that young Blopliob” - answered the ancient fish. And before anyone could ask why continued “because the end result of the art, is most likely, death of the user”

Reisinling

Yeah I know I promised this would be the last fish chapter, but the faster explanations just didn’t work that well for me. The next chapter should be up in ~6h, and this time it will really be the final one. 

The word “martial” in “martial arts” comes from Mars, god of war, so here- Neptunial arts