The moment the loudspeaker cut out, the entire cruise ship was thrown into panic.
The Trainers and passengers had barely had time to process that their Pokémon had been stolen before they were forced to face a genuine threat to their lives.
One hour. No, judging by the countdown, only forty minutes remained.
The ship was going to blow.
The crowd frantically untied each other's ropes and ran across the deck with no clear direction, driven by pure panic.
Captain Cliff, sweat pouring down his forehead, quickly ordered his crew to organize an evacuation to the lifeboats. He personally made his way to the broadcast room.
"Passengers, this is Captain Cliff of the cruise ship. Please, do not panic. Follow the crew's instructions and make your way to the lower deck to board the lifeboats."
"I repeat, passengers, please do not panic..."
Within a short time, nearly a thousand passengers had been evacuated.
On the deck, Cliff looked out at the sea of lifeboats scattered across the surrounding water and asked, "Are you certain every passenger has been evacuated?"
"Not certain!" a crew member answered urgently. "Captain, only five minutes left!"
The ship was too large. Their manpower was inadequate. They had not been able to search the entire vessel.
"Damn it!" Cliff clenched his teeth, drew a deep breath. "Retreat."
There was no time. If they stayed any longer, they would die here with the ship.
"Yes, sir!"
The last lifeboat quickly pulled away from the ship, joining the crowd of survivors bobbing on the vast open ocean, watching the enormous cruise vessel stand silent in the distance.
Quiet crying rose from the panicked crowd. Some were mourning their stolen Pokémon. Others were worried about whether they would be rescued at all.
The five-minute countdown ended quickly.
BOOM.
A chain of continuous explosions ripped through the ship, flames erupting into the night sky.
The lower hull was torn open, and enormous volumes of seawater began flooding inside.
Under the watching eyes of the survivors, the entire cruise ship began to slowly sink.
Inside the flames, Naoki jolted awake from the violence of the explosions.
Thick smoke was billowing everywhere around him.
He coughed hard.
His head throbbed. He must have hit something when he fell. Naoki clutched his head and pushed himself upright, and before he could figure out what was happening the entire ship lurched sharply.
He was thrown to the floor.
His eyes went wide.
The only thing he could be certain of was this. The ship was in trouble, and it was going to sink very soon.
He gripped the three Poké Balls in his hand, saw that all of them were still there, and let out a breath.
Focus. Focus.
This was the third-deck banquet hall. The distance to the outer deck was not far. If he could just get there, he could make it back to the ocean surface.
He tucked the Poké Balls back into his inner pocket, braced himself against the wall to steady his footing, and pushed open the banquet hall door to head out.
But the entire ship was tilting so severely that moving normally through it was impossible.
At that moment, three sharp releases sounded, and Zorua, Pawmi, and Magikarp appeared beside him.
At the same time, a massive volume of seawater surged into the banquet hall.
Naoki quickly climbed onto a table to keep himself above the rising water.
"Get back inside!" He pulled out the Poké Balls and moved to recall them.
"Wuu!"
"Pawmi!"
Every one of them looked worried.
Watching the seawater flooding in outside, Naoki knew there was no time to waste.
He looked at his Pokémon and spoke fast.
"Listen to me. I'm going to escape by swimming out. You can't swim. Get back in the Poké Balls right now."
Zorua and Pawmi resisted strongly, but Naoki gave them no room to argue and pulled them back inside.
The seawater completely overtook the room. Naoki took a deep breath and dove under.
Only Magikarp remained beside him, riding the current with him.
Human strength meant almost nothing in the face of a disaster like this.
Naoki tried to use the flow of the seawater to swim out of the banquet hall, but the current was too violent. He could not maintain his position or direction inside the room.
At that moment, Magikarp swam up behind him. It pressed its head against Naoki's back and pushed with everything it had, driving him forward.
Naoki was briefly startled, then understood immediately.
He worked with Magikarp without hesitation, and together they finally made it out of the banquet hall.
But the corridor outside was equally flooded with violent currents. Naoki took advantage of a brief moment when his head broke the surface to gulp down a breath of air, gripping Magikarp carefully as he gasped:
"Magikarp, if I can't make it out of here, Zorua and Pawmi are yours. No matter what, get them back to the surface. Please."
No matter what, he had to prepare for the worst.
Naoki took the two shrunken Poké Balls in his hand and placed them into Magikarp's mouth.
Magikarp stared at him with the same blank eyes as always, whatever it was thinking impossible to read.
Before Naoki could say anything more, another violent surge of seawater poured in.
He and Magikarp were separated in an instant.
Magikarp froze for a moment, then swam back with every bit of strength it had, cutting straight through the current toward Naoki, its Trainer, until it was in front of him again.
Naoki grabbed hold of Magikarp's body, and Magikarp burst forward with a startling amount of force in that moment. Its small, physically weak body pulled a hundred and forty pounds of human weight through violently churning water, driving forward against the flow.
The cruise ship, in the end, sank into the deep.
Through the windows, Naoki could see the dark blue expanse of ocean outside, a beautiful world completely unlike anything on the surface.
The entire ship was riddled with breaches like a punctured leather ball, water flooding in from every direction. Naoki himself had no strength left.
If it had just been Magikarp on its own, things would have been fine. Carrying him, Magikarp could not hold itself steady.
But something firm settled into those blank eyes.
By now the corridor was completely filled with water.
Naoki held his breath. One minute. Two. Three.
The suffocation was closing in.
Ignoring the growing signals from his own body, Naoki suddenly let go of Magikarp.
Magikarp turned back in confusion.
Magikarp. Leave this place. Take Zorua and Pawmi and go. Naoki said it with his eyes.
Then, unable to fight it any longer, he lost consciousness from the lack of air.
Magikarp stared, stunned. Twenty days of living together had left it completely unable to abandon this human.
Images surfaced one after another in its mind.
Naoki walking with it along the shore, evening light spilling over all of them, Zorua and Pawmi chattering happily beside them about what Naoki was going to bring them for dinner.
In the inn, Naoki holding them and telling them stories. Because Magikarp could not spend long stretches out of water, Naoki had specifically laid blankets out on the bathroom floor and sat beside the tub with Zorua and Pawmi to tell it stories.
It could not just watch its Trainer die.
Magikarp went silent for a moment. Then its blank eyes filled with a resolve harder and clearer than anything before.
It swam quickly behind Naoki, gathered every ounce of strength it had left, pressed its head against his back, and began pushing him upward.
But even with its unusual physical gifts, even with a body forged stronger than any ordinary Magikarp, compared to other Pokémon its raw strength was still too limited.
Magikarp pushed Naoki upward, but the enormous water pressure kept dragging them both back down.
It clenched its teeth.
Strength. Not enough strength.
If only its power could be greater. If only it could tear through this hateful ocean and carry Naoki back to the surface.
No. It refused to accept this.
An image flashed through Magikarp's mind of its life before Naoki, alone among the churning currents and jagged reefs where it had grown up.
Back then, it had refused to accept its own weak body. No matter how hard it was, it had thrown itself into the roaring tides again and again out of pure stubbornness.
It wanted to become strong. It wanted to stand tall like any other Pokémon.
So Naoki could not die.
You promised you would help me get stronger.
At that moment, an enormous power erupted from within Magikarp's body.
A dazzling milk-white light began pouring from every inch of it.