Work Text:
Trying to get inspiration for her next big hit light novel that’s no doubt going to be turned into an anime as well, self styled Best Selling Light Novel Author Yamada Elf scoured the internet for rumors and informations of something she could use to jumpstart her idea for her newly titled light novel project: Sonata of the Deep: Indigo Undine -tentative-. While she has already written up the basic idea of the main character and heroines, and the rough beginning of a plot, she couldn’t quite get ready to sit down and write the whole thing in one sitting as was her wont, at least not without inspiration.
Hence why she was here far up north from Tokyo on a dinghy she had rented by herself in the middle of a secluded bay on the coast of Tohoku. She could almost barely contain her own excitement at the prospect of finding and reaching the inspirational experience she needed to seriously get herself in gear to write once more. She had just about enough having her editors bugging her to no end to get a new manuscript ready: if there was one place she was sure she could find it then this was the place.
For several years ago the bay she was on did not exist at all. As the sun was reaching its full arc in the sky, the clear, calm water surface was shimmering, and one can see the outline of many a buildings and roads of a city forgotten under the waves. A catastrophic tsunami had hit the city of Minamikaze, with high waves that rendered the old harbor walls supposed to protect it from tsunami useless to stop the oncoming torrent of seawater that flooded the entire city, leaving not even the highest building visible on the surface and essentially wiping it off the map. Because of the severity of the destruction done on it, the city was written off as a loss with no efforts to recover it.
Despite the obvious hazard of a lost city under the waves, the government didn’t restrict access to the area. Not that they needed to as not a lot would dare come here to disturb the probably restless spirit of those lost in the tsunami. Only a handful dared to brave the taboo and a picture taken by one of those brave urban explorers was what had taken Elf’s breath away and brought her here in the first place: a grand piano sitting undisturbed on a stage underwater.
Elf couldn’t quite understand what drew her to it in the first place, but the idea of wanting to just sit and play that piano combined with what the entire area it was located in stands for was exhilarating to say the least. Perhaps it was thrillseeker in her that goaded her, daring her to do something crazy and unimaginable. But perhaps in an attempt to rationalize her thoughts, she keeps telling herself it would be an experience she needed to capture to write her new light novel with: it was all for her writing.
Yes, I need to feel how the Indigo Undine feel as she plays her musical instrument underwater when she was found by the main character that jumpstarts the plot, she convinced to herself probably for the umpteenth time as she surveyed the water below. She had came prepared with a scuba gear she had rented from the nearby fishing village where she had also rented the dinghy from, and is fully intending to dive down and find that piano for the sake of her new light novel.
Somewhere below her in the deeper part of the bay, she could make out the outline of a large white painted building that was the city’s music hall, the place where the piano was reportedly located. She looked around and saw once more that there was no other boats or people as far as her eyes could see. She was wearing her striped bikini for the trip under her clothes but the absence of anyone else in the area excited her further and after much deliberation, she quickly took off her shirt and shorts and dropped them on the bottom of the dinghy, before surreptitiously undoing the strings of her bikini top and bottom which which followed soon after. The only thread she has on her now were just the ribbon in her hair she which she still stubbornly wore.
Now that she was stark naked, she didn’t waste time to deftly shoulder the scuba gear on her back and strapping it close to her after giving it one last check to see that it was working perfectly. After she adjusts the dive mask over her face and putting the regulator into her mouth, she finally pushed herself backwards off the boat and into the water with a resounding splash, diving into the world beneath the surface.
As soon as she re-orients herself and adjusted her body to the water, Elf turns and swims down to the submerged building several meters down below. She circled around as she did so to make sense of the layout and makes her way towards what she surmised as the main entrance of building itself. Though it was deep, the light from the sun managed to seep through the murkiness of the bottom of the bay and illuminate the building enough to make out the rest of its details like the corroding white concrete walls, the broken windows and the scattered debris around it, particularly around the main entrance.
Inspecting it closer, she found that she can slip her way in through a space amongst piled up car wreckages, barely large enough for her to go through with the scuba gear on her back. Not thinking about the possible danger of trusting such a difficult way in as her only path, Elf navigated with some difficulty around and over it until she found herself in the ruined foyer of the music hall. The debris was just as thick inside as it was inside, caked with layer of sediment over the years. It made navigating inside difficult as any recognizable feature or signs leading to places in the building were lost, but Elf was not one to give up easily after she had come this far. Using her skills of perception, she could guess the likely corridor that she needed to find and take to get where she needed to. Only problem was that there were several open doors and corridors themselves from where she can see, so she chose to swim towards the nearest one first. With the help of a flashlight she had brought with her, she found the corridor ahead was blocked up ahead with debris so she turned to another doorway instead. And anothe, and another...
Finally she found the right one much to her delight. On the side of the anteroom she found herself in deep inside the building, she could make out the plaque on the wall that pointed the main hall was up ahead around the corner. Trembling slightly with excitement or perhaps from the cold water, Elf kicked her fins hurriedly as she rounded around the corner and swam through the half closed door.
She found herself in a large open room, several meters high and wide. Rows and rows of theater seats still intact in their place were neatly arranged ahead of her with a single walkway space between them that led straight up to the main stage ahead. There, illuminated by a beam of the sun’s ray that managed to shine through a hole in the ceiling, was the grand piano in the photograph that drew her here in the first place.
Elf exhaled deeply with a sigh when she saw it, glad that the piano was still standing where it was since the day of the tsunami seemingly undisturbed. Even the lid was still propped up, as if the piano refused to look any less grand with its lid down even when it can no longer be played anymore. Almost up close and personal, Elf was even more mesmerized by it than being just a photograph that she only stood there at the back of the hall and eyeing the piano from afar and seemingly at a loss as to what to do now that she was before its magnificence.
And then it slowly clicked in her head like a dam finally opening its floodgates. The light novel she was going to work on was slowly taking life of its own in her mind’s eyes. The words she could use, the scene she could picture and the plot exploding into a saga: it will be amazing! Unsure and not caring of how long was she down there already, Elf swims forward slowly at first even though she wanted to go up there immediately, somehow feeling the piano calling to her for the full experience of its mysterious splendour to actually get her light novel written. But the scuba gear on her back feels like a ton and weighing her down, the straps on her shoulders feels restrictive and tight, and the diving mask she was wearing was obstructing her view from fully taking in the vista before her: she needs to get rid of them for her new light novel’s sake!
Taking a deep long breath from her regulator, she then removes it from her mouth while she takes off the scuba gear off her back and leaving it to drop down onto the floor with a thud, air bubbles flowing out of the regulator unimpeded to the surface, followed as well by removing her dive mask and just tossing it aside to fall amongst the seats. Freed at last of the cumbersome scuba gear, she kicks forward with her legs and fins, faster and harder up towards and onto the ruined stage, and with a hand placed on the edge of the piano, she makes her way around it.
The piano itself somehow still feels sturdy under her touch, and surprisingly looks clean of anything growing on it during its entire time immersed in seawater after all these years unlike the stage it was on, what's with some of the slightly peeled back rotten wooden flooring with grass and seaweeds growing between them here and there. The stool behind it wasn’t much better either as it was covered slightly in silt and mud: what miracle kept the piano clean did not extend to the stool.
She reluctantly swam over the stool and pushed herself down with her arms to sit down on it, kicking up some sediments and feeling the smooth grime covered wood on the skin of her butt but thought nothing of it. To keep herself down, she bends her knees slightly around the edge of the seat, avoiding the patch of seaweeds growing beneath and around it, thus effectively anchoring herself down to the seat. Combined with the surprising heavy weight of the stool she was sitting on, she was able to keep herself from floating away but that was beside the point.
Now sitting before the piano with its inviting ivory keys, Elf could now imagine the Indigo Undine sitting on a rock under the sea with her hands outstretched playing a merpeople instrument quite unlike a piano itself. She reached and pressed a key, but save for the vibration of the strings being struck, no sound came forth. But Elf didn’t care whether it could physically make any sound anymore or not as she could hear the piano ringing in the back of her head. So, with her eyes closed, she continued to play a tune she just thought of that she could suggest to the anime production company handling her new light novel on it in her mind’s eye from memory, and for memory too.
She was imagining herself as the Indigo Undine, the mermaid musician whose passion in music drew the hero to her one day, kickstarting his adventure. With the light shining through the gloom on to her and her performance, catching her pale skin and golden blonde hair, she looked indeed like a mermaid playing before a phantom audience in the empty seats below.
So immersed she was about being in character that she barely register her bodily growing need to breathe, her chest convulsing slightly with growing urgency. Her face though calm was starting to show hints of discomfort as she was reaching her physical limit just as the music reaches its crescendo, but still her fingers travelled across the keys, not daring to stop for fear of ruining the image before she could complete it.
Ah, she thought, she could sing too, with a melodious voice that could penetrate the water and heard by all. And as the imaginary music reaches the last high notes, Elf raises her head up high and opened her mouth to let off a bubbly sigh as if she was singing as well, just like her character. The bubbles billowed upwards in a bloosh, the sound of it somehow reminiscent to an audience applauding to an amazing performance.
And with the end of the imaginary concert, reality descends.
Elf did well to not inhale right away after having blown most of her air out in her moment of rapt reverie to get in character, but the urge to breathe was exponentially more urgent since she exhaled and it was only by sheer force of will and closing her mouth and nose with her hands that she didn’t inhale water right then and there. Her scuba gear was still left there in the middle of the walkway between the seats with a trail of air bubbles still billowing out of the regulator. Her dive mask might not be easier to find but it was least indispensable to her in this situation compared to the scuba gear with its life giving air if it still has any left by the time she gets back to it.
Feeling stupid of herself for letting herself sink deep into this foolish peril of her own devise, Elf stood up from the stool and tries to kick off the the floor to swim up and over the piano itself as it was probably the most fastest way possible to get back to her scuba gear. But she was jerked back down almost instantly as in her haste to get air, her ankles had unknowingly tangled tightly into the patch of seaweeds that she was so careful earlier not to disturb.
Elf grunted in alarm as she tried kicking again and pulling herself upward with one hand, unaware what was happening. Though some of the strand of seaweeds went up with her, she could not go any further as the rest were deeply rooted and tethered to the stage floor which kept her in place. In her oxygen deprived daze, she thought some kind of supernatural force was keeping her down. Is it the spirits of those lost in the tsunami keeping her here to join them in their watery grave she had so brazenly entered on a selfish whim?
Elf was panicking now as she tried kicking off again and again to no avail, overexerting and tiring herself out even more. Her eyes widened in self induced horror. She almost doubled over as her chest heaved painfully in protest, her lungs aching and demanding for fresh air. She can’t stay here any longer. She needs to get back up, up to surface where she can breathe, and where she can get started to writing on her next big hit light novel. It dawned on her that if it wasn’t for it she wouldn’t be down here in the first place, and for the first time in her life she cursed at her choice of profession.
Unable to hold her breath any longer, a strong convulsion hit Elf and she gurgled as the intoxicating air deprivation forced her mouth open, and a flurry of bubbles of stale air escapes from her parted lips, followed by her reflexively gulping in water to breathe. She blinked in surprise at what she had done, coughing and gurgling to expel the seawater that continues to viciously flood her lungs while her body spasms and convulses. Her arms flailed in all directions while her legs tried to kick herself free, but the tangled seaweeds only ensured she could only bounce up and down in place unable to swim away for all its worth. She felt absolutely violated and terrified, and in her drowning throes, she thought she saw numerous shadows sitting in the seats below, seemingly watching her drown in agony as an encore to her performance. Her scuba gear with air still trailing out of the regulator out of her reach seems to mock her last moment.
With one last final shudder that sent a trickle of air out of her partially agape mouth, Elf finally went limp, and her eyes which were wide in abject horror soften as its glazes over. Her last thoughts was regretting she will never write again and the world will never know the genius of the greatest light novel author Yamada Elf.
For a while, her lifeless body floated where she was, until slowly her body sinks so that she ends up sitting down in the stool she had sat in earlier while her body bends over the piano keys as if in deep contemplation. Her scuba gear meanwhile finally ran out of air after her body had finally settled in its final resting place.
It would take some time for anyone to realize she was missing but piecing together her whereabouts and last moment would be easier still, and after her body was found by then, everyone who knew her would agree that Elf Yamada lived and died doing what she loved: to put her all, her everything, even her life, into her passion to write.