We decided to bury the mermaid here, beneath the clear waters surrounding the island where we had found her.
Although mermaids were known for having incredibly long lifespans compared to humans and many other races, they still eventually reached the end of their lives, and when that happened, their bodies were traditionally buried on the seabed where they could finally return to the place they belonged.
So I swam down together with Serune, who had transformed her legs back into a mermaid's tail for the burial, and together we carried the mermaid toward a quiet part of the seabed where we could properly lay her to rest.
It wasn't exactly the kind of funeral I was accustomed to seeing, but considering that we were dealing with a mermaid, there really wasn't much reason to expect anything ordinary.
At least she was finally back where she belonged.
Underwater.
After we finished the burial, Serune and I swam back toward the surface, leaving the mermaid behind in the quiet depths of the sea.
Once we reached the ship, Serune drank the potion that would transform her mermaid tail back into human legs, and she stood beside me while the ship slowly began moving toward our new destination.
The water stretched endlessly around us as the ship moved farther away from the island, and for a while, neither of us said anything.
"It's going to be okay," I told her quietly.
"I know," she replied.
Her voice remained calm, but there was still a noticeable sadness underneath it.
"It's just... sad to think that she died alone."
Dying alone certainly sounded sad.
If I were going to die alone, I probably would have felt pretty miserable about it too, although I couldn't really say that with complete confidence since I had already experienced death once before.
Well, technically, I had died alone in my previous world when I sacrificed myself to save Akane.
Thinking back on it now, though, I wasn't sure whether I had actually felt sad when it happened.
More than anything else, I remembered feeling relieved.
I had managed to push Akane out of the truck's path before it hit her, and knowing that she had survived was enough to make me feel like my death had been worth something.
That was probably the strangest part.
I had died, yet the last emotion I could remember feeling wasn't fear or sadness.
It was relief.
To be honest, I still had no idea what exactly I had been feeling toward Akane back then.
I cared about her enough to risk my life for her, obviously, but whether those feelings had been something deeper than that was something I had never really figured out.
Seeing the mermaid die after living such a short and painful life made those old thoughts about Akane come back again, and strangely enough, it was difficult for me to understand how Akane had managed to keep living for as long as she did when her life had been filled with suffering almost from the very beginning.
Well, the amount of time she had lived wasn't really the problem.
What mattered was that so much of that time had been spent suffering, and a life filled with suffering could probably feel much longer than one that was actually peaceful.
Akane had grown up in a household where she never really seemed to see eye to eye with the people around her, and considering everything she had experienced, I couldn't help wondering whether thoughts of committing suicide had crossed her mind at some point.
I didn't know if she had ever seriously considered it.
I didn't even know whether she had ever told anyone about those thoughts.
Still, knowing what little I did about her life, it wouldn't have surprised me if the thought had crossed her mind more than once.
Come to think of it, she really must have had an incredible amount of determination to keep going through all of that.
Maybe I had simply never understood how strong she had been back then.
I left Serune alone for a while so that she could grieve properly without having me hovering around her like some awkward emotional-support statue.
Grieving alone wasn't necessarily a good thing, but sometimes people simply needed a little space to sort through their feelings and calm themselves down.
I didn't think forcing her to talk before she was ready would accomplish anything useful, so I decided to give her some time and let her process what had happened on her own.
Eventually, I made my way toward the upper deck.
Shredica was already there.
She looked toward me for a moment before turning her attention back toward the horizon, where the endless blue sea stretched beneath the fading light of the evening.
At this point, there was practically nothing else around us.
Madeline and her group of pirates were still back on the island we had just left, and they had told us that they would remain there for a little while before eventually heading toward the Mermaid Kingdom.
I had been planning to travel in the opposite direction, but before I could leave, Shredica suddenly called out to me.
"Leon," she said. "I want to talk to you for a moment. Can we?"
She sounded serious.
Then again, Shredica almost always sounded serious when she spoke, so that alone wasn't particularly unusual.
Still, something about her tone felt different this time.
She genuinely meant business.
"Sure," I replied.
I walked over and stood beside her, looking out toward the horizon as the sun slowly approached the edge of the world.
The sky was beginning to change colors, with the last light of the day reflecting across the surface of the ocean and making the waves shimmer beneath us.
For a while, we simply stood there without saying anything.
"I'll get straight to the point," Shredica finally said. "I know you've already noticed that I wanted to ask you about something."
I glanced toward her.
I had already suspected that she was going to bring something up, but I still wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to discuss.
Whatever question she had been keeping to herself, I had a feeling it was going to catch me off guard.
Then she finally asked.
"Do you know the name Tsubasa?"
For a moment, I almost failed to hide my shock.
I had already suspected that Shredica and Akane were somehow the same person, or at least that there was some kind of connection between them, so hearing the name Tsubasa from her wasn't completely unexpected.
Still, I hadn't expected her to suddenly bring it up so directly.
I quickly composed myself before she could notice my reaction.
"Can I ask you the same question, then?" I asked. "Do you know the name Akane?"
The moment I said it, her expression remained almost exactly the same.
She didn't widen her eyes.
She didn't suddenly look away.
She simply continued staring toward me with the same calm expression she had been wearing before.
Even so, I could sense the slightest change in her reaction.
It was subtle, almost impossible to notice unless I had already been watching her carefully, but I could tell that the name had affected her somehow.
That small reaction was enough to make me think that my assumption had probably been correct.
She knew the name.