Getting out of the water was difficult, not just because he was drained from losing Suga, but also because it was hard as Tartarus to climb without more of the sugar remnants escaping.  He wasn’t sure why he was so determined to keep what he had, but he climbed doggedly, using three limbs instead of four.  And when he finally got the top, the fact they got the monster under control didn’t even register so much as the knowledge it was gone, replaced by someone else instead.

            His arrival garnered attention immediately and he saw Sunggyu and Dongwoo rushing over to him first, looking around with searching faces.  “Rap Monster,” Sunggyu called skidding to a stop with a worried look.

            “Where’s Suga?” Dongwoo asked, inhaling slightly when he saw the white residue in Rap Monster’s fist.

            “I tried,” he whispered, finally reverting to his human guise, shrinking in size and presence.  Immediately, Rap Monster fell to his knees on the floor, cradling the handful of sugar against his chest.  “I tried!” he stated again, fighting tears that burned in his eyes, the knowledge of his helplessness a burning coal in his chest.

            “Oh gods, no,” Sunggyu murmured in horror, hand over his mouth.  Fatalities were not common but they weren’t unheard of.  Most of the time, it took a great deal to kill one of them, and the majority of deaths occurred by accident in the matches.  This was something else entirely.

            “What happened?” Rap Monster croaked, fingers crooking into the floor, bending his nails with the force.

            “It was an accident,” Dongwoo started, waving his hand in a placating gesture.

            “Sungyeol and Myungsoo were trying to prank each other again, but they spiked the same source with different things and when Krystal took a drink, it reacted badly with her,” Sunggyu explained evenly, kneeling beside the distraught male.

            “Badly?” Dongwoo frowned.  “She went off the deep end,” he couldn’t help but add, shrugging in helplessness at the fate of the Scylla descendant.

            “Gyu!  She’s coming around,” Hoya jogged over to announce, catching sight of Rap Monster.  A frown appeared on his face before he looked around and put the pieces together.  “Scylla’s Teeth,” he exhaled, wiping a hand down his face.  “I’ll go tell the troublemakers.”

            “I’ll come with you,” Dongwoo joined in, hurrying to pair himself with Hoya.

            Sunggyu stayed for a moment longer.  “Should I send someone over?” he asked, placing a hand tentatively on Rap Monster’s shoulder.  The other male didn’t react at all so he just backed away slowly

            When Sunggyu left, he had just enough sense to see Sungyeol and Myungsoo react to the news, looking his direction with pained expressions, guilt obvious demons over their heads.  News spread quickly and whispers were easy to hear, though no one else approached him initially; not while they were still trying to make sure things were calm.  There wasn’t anything they could do to help him regardless.

            It was hard to fathom he was gone.  Rap Monster placed his fingertips on the powder, as if he could get a sense of Suga in them, but nothing changed and he deflated further.  Just this morning, they’d been fine and having a rematch.  They’d… they’d confessed to being more than just friends.  And now he was gone.

            “Rap Monster?” Youngbae asked, coming over to stand beside him, helping the younger male get to his feet.  “Why don’t you go sit down over here,” he gestured, arm scored by teeth marks that had yet to be healed.

            “You’re hurt,” Rap Monster murmured in a flat tone, dead eyes taking in the bloodied flesh.

            “I’ll be fine,” the shorter male flashed him a bright smile and guided him to a locker room so he could sit on a bench instead.  “Just sit tight.  I’ll send for your friends, alright?” he asked, squeezing Rap Monster’s shoulder in what was supposed to be a reassuring gesture.  It only succeeded in making him feel worse when he thought about the guys.

            Outside, he heard people coming and going frequently: Sunny was talking at one point and then he heard Yixing making the rounds, soft voice saying something as he treated the wounded and took care of the funky water.  Heechul’s voice rose to criticize Sungyeol and Myungsoo while Jungsu gathered a report of some kind.  He came in briefly to talk to Rap Monster but answering his questions was difficult.  His head had yet to catch up to the reality of the situation.

            And then his friends arrived…

            Slap!

            “You were supposed to keep him safe!” Jin raged as he stood before Rap Monster, livid.

            The slap hurt but it was nothing compared to the ache in his chest.  “I tried,” he whispered, looking up under long lashes.

            “Why didn’t you help him?!”

            “How come you weren’t able to catch him?!”

            “What made you think getting into the fight was a good idea?!”

            He was berated on all sides by angry voices, mostly V and Jin rising above the fray, but the tears of the others were difficult to ignore.  Jungkook and Jimin knelt at his knees, crying over Suga’s loss, and J-Hope clutched his box in both hands so tight, his knuckles were white.  V and Jin kept up their solid tirade until Jungkook finally snapped, “Stop yelling at him!”  At the unexpected outburst, they did.  “Suga wouldn’t want you to be mad at Rapmon,” he sniffed, wiping at his eyes and failing miserably to collect himself.

            “You did try, right?” Jimin asked, fingers squeezing Rap Monster’s thigh tight.

            “Of course,” Rap Monster exhaled, picking up the powder and staring at it.  “I had him.  In my arms.  And he just…  He was gone,” he swallowed, struggling for words and breath.

            V yelled out loud, a wordless voicing of unformed emotions.  “So stupid,” he exhaled, sniffing wetly as he wiped at his face.

            Jin stepped close enough to fall on his knees, reaching for Suga’s remains.  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” he murmured, no tears falling but they were thick in his voice.

            “I’m sorry,” Rap Monster sniffed, at a loss for words.

            “Me too,” he whispered, all the fight gone from him.

            “Come on, Jin,” J-Hope finally spoke up, the box hidden behind his shirt while he urged the elder male to his feet.  “We should go see what they have to say out front.  Come on,” he prompted, waving at the others to follow his lead.

            V walked along listlessly while Jimin and Jungkook held onto Rap Monster’s legs for a moment longer, trembling with the loss.  Soon, even they left, leaving Rap Monster to his solitude and his despair.  Eventually, his slow mind finally kicked into a semblance of motion and he remembered what Suga had told him just the other day: ‘It wouldn’t kill me, you know.’

            “Suga?” he asked again, now that the powder had dried out and was no longer damp.  The granules remained inert but the echo of words gave him a glimmer of hope.

            “Rapmon?” J-Hope called tentatively from the entrance, standing uncertainly at the opening as if he wasn’t sure he was welcome.

            Rap Monster looked up and held his breath for a second.  “Yeah?” he asked when J-Hope didn’t continue on his own.

            “You care about him, right?” he asked, taking a couple steps closer, hand clutching the box under his shirt.

            “More than you know,” he admitted in a thin whisper.

            Another couple steps brought him closer.  “And if there was a chance you could do something to help save him, would you?”

            That got his attention.  Rap Monster stood up to close the distance between them, gripping J-Hope’s shoulder with his free hand.  “Tell me,” he pleaded with intense eyes.

            “I can’t do much,” he smiled weakly, gesturing for the sugar.  “But I can give you hope - a chance to make it right.”

            “Careful,” Rap Monster breathed as he tipped the remains into J-Hope’s waiting hand, watching like a hawk as the other male opened the box around his neck with his other one, trembling all the while.

            When Rap Monster reached to steady it, he smiled gratefully.  “Thanks.”  J-Hope poured the rest of Suga into the box, granules disappearing into the interior when it should have overflowed.  He then closed the box, held it between his hands, and shut his eyes tight.

            “J-Hope?” Rap Monster prompted after a moment.

            The other male took a quick breath and opened his eyes, blinking slowly while he swayed where he was.  “It’s only a chance,” he whispered, opening the box to reveal the sugar that was now glowing with a soft white light.  “Can you see it?” he breathed, grabbing Rap Monster’s arm with his hand tightly.

            “I can,” Rap Monster nodded in agreement, reaching for the box uncertainly.

            “Good, because I can’t,” he laughed breathlessly.

            “What-”

            “Find him,” J-Hope urged, grabbing onto both arms.  “Collect him.  Bring him back to us,” he pleaded, fingers digging into Rap Monster’s flesh.

            “I will,” Rap Monster promised with an emphatic nod.  There would be no trying.  It was all or nothing.

            “Here,” the other male swallowed, taking the box off to give it to Rap Monster instead.  “You will know when you’ve found every piece.”

            “How?”

            “Just trust me,” J-Hope laughed once, face breaking into a forced smile.  “Start in the moat.  Though you may have to go further out.  The channel underground leads to the sea.”

            “But that’s im-”

            “Believe!” J-Hope urged fiercely, clutching the taller male’s shoulders with his hands.  “And listen,” he nodded, placing his hand on the box first and then over Rap Monster’s heart.

            Rap Monster grabbed J-Hope’s hand and nodded solemnly.  “I will.  Thank you.”

            “Now go!” he rushed, giving him a shove to get moving.

            Without another delay, Rap Monster hurried from the locker room, hand clasped hard around the box that held all that was left of Suga.  He didn’t see J-Hope collapse as soon as he left.  He didn’t hear Jin or V shouting after him when he ran for the crevasse again.  He didn’t acknowledge anything other than getting to the water and doing exactly what he said he would do.

            At will, he transformed into his monstrous guise and hit the surface, peering around with sharp eyes and a lungful of air.  He was immediately alerted to the fact that he could see a lot of sparkly figments dispersed in the water.  Trusting in J-Hope’s words, Rap Monster held the closed box towards the first ones he saw and watched in amazed wonder as they drifted towards and into the container, joining the other fragments.  He grinned at the realization which stirred the first genuine threads of hope in his chest and resumed his search.

            After the first day, he was cautiously hopeful about his potential success and wanted to tell J-Hope the news but he wasn’t ready to find the young man bedridden with V taking care of him.  “This is your fault too,” the disgruntled flyer muttered, quieting immediately when J-Hope put a hand on his arm.

            “What happened?” Rap Monster gasped, falling beside J-Hope’s bed to grab his hand.

            “You have my box,” he explained as if it answered all the questions.

            “It’s part of who he is,” V filled in, giving Rap Monster a sidelong look.  “It’s his hope which makes him our hope.”

            “It’s alright.  You’ve got time,” J-Hope promised, squeezing Rap Monster’s hand.

            “Not much,” V interjected.

            “Just find Suga.  You can do it,” he nodded, ignoring the other male who was hugging him from behind, cradling him against his chest.

            “How long?” Rap Monster asked, feeling weight press heavier on his shoulders.

            J-Hope smiled and shrugged.  “A few weeks.  Couple months?  I don’t know.”

            Rap Monster looked at V with an apologetic expression.  “Don’t even.  Just do what you’re supposed to,” he grumbled, pointing a finger at the kneeling man.

            “I will,” Rap Monster promised, hugging both of them tight before he went home to rest up so he could start again in the morning.

            By the time a week had gone by, Rap Monster was exhausted and fairly certain he’d scoured the entirety of the moat, with help from the kraken kin – who was actually a good sort of fellow – and some mermaids and sirens, but the box was still telling him he wasn’t finished, which largely meant one thing: he would still have to go through the underwater channel.  And he couldn’t do it on a lungful of air so he would have to enlist help.  In his monstrous form, he could stay submerged for upwards of an hour, if he was careful and not overexerting himself.  There was no chance it would carry him underground to the sea.

            It took him a couple days, but with Jimin and Jungkook’s help, he was able to track down a mermaid that agreed to ferry him along in his human guise, providing air when he needed it.  The situation was hardly ideal but he was not about to argue.  He was just glad they could move at her speed instead of his because he was pretty sure he’d be dead before he could find food, fresh water, and air himself.  She took his hand and guided him to the tunnel to begin their search, moving in a slow but steady pace so he could keep searching the area.

            Glimmers were easy to miss, even in the darkness, because they were so small, but the box gently nudged him this way and that, offering a guiding hand when he would have missed one for sure.  She couldn’t see what he was gathering, but he could and each granule retrieved from the water, the wall, the ground, was one closer to finishing his nigh on impossible task.  And that wasn’t even considering the nuisances that bothered him along the way.  Small, underwater denizens were curious about his presence, brushing against his body with inquisitive fins and nibbling on his clothes, hair, and appendages.

            He brushed them off and tried not to freak out when plant life tangled against his legs.  In the dark, he was blind, mostly helpless, and at the mercy of a mermaid he didn’t fully know.  Gods help him if they ran into trouble.  Even with her help, it still took them two whole days to clear the channel of fragments and make it to the open sea.  During his endeavor, he was unable to sleep and Rap Monster was just grateful she seemed able to keep up with him as well.  Silently, he thanked whatever bribery Jimin and Jungkook had managed to curry such favor.

            When she finally guided him to the surface, she waved him off and immediately disappeared under the water, gone in seconds.  That was alright though.  Rap Monster could see a small village nearby, even in the dim light of the evening.  Houses shone like beacons, beckoning him to their settlement.  Stumbling from the sea, he was sleep deprived, pruny, hungry, and more than a little thirsty by the time he wobbled to the small seashore town to recover; his legs felt like they didn’t belong to him and he kept experiencing sensations of floating, even though he was on solid ground.

            The locals didn’t know who he was or what he was doing, but they were kindly enough, especially after seeing his condition.  He explained his situation as best he could, promising to repay them when he had the funds and they made no comment as they gave him water and food in return.  The tavern owner made sure he cleaned the salt off his person before he was ushered to a bed that had never felt so good before.  Exhaustion claimed him for a day while he slept his fatigue off, after which he demolished lunch – since he missed breakfast entirely – and regrouped his mindset to get started again.

            The box told him he had more to collect and so he would.  He thanked the villagers profusely, again promising payment, but they waved him off with much luck and concern.  Rap Monster knew he would need it.  Traveling through the channel had been bad enough, but in the open sea, he would have to face denizens who were often not as friendly and an endless expanse of water that contained Suga.

            “I will find you,” Rap Monster whispered while staring at the box in his hand.

            No matter how many fragments he collected, it never seemed to overflow and simply kept storing them with ease.  He owed Suga that much.  After everything they’d done for each other, he could do this too.  And it wasn’t as if any of their close friends could take on the task either.

            Jin might have done better than most, since his ancestor was born of the sea, but Jungkook wouldn’t have been able to do much in general without a mermaid’s help.  Same as Jimin and Hoseok in particular.  V would have been next to useless because his wings were worthless underwater.  At least Rap Monster could get a semblance of use out of his.  Which didn’t mean much when he was up against actual water dwellers, but they didn’t stand a chance against his determination.  Mostly.

            His first forays granted success and combat in small measures.  Fragments were easier to see in his monstrous form and the local denizens avoided him for his sheer size.  He only had to worry when there was a pod or pack of them, and that from what he could only guess were sharks, or at least they resembled the ones in the pictures he’d seen in his text books at school.  Wild, actual merpeople and water nymphs watched him from afar, wary but willing to leave him be in the meantime.

            Further out, larger creatures awaited, some benign and curious – others hungry or territorial.  Massive whales came in both varieties and there was more than one run in with kraken type creatures of various sizes.  None of his encounters left him unscathed, but most provided him with some sort of food.  Going back to land every day was inefficient and he found that, while raw food was not particularly appealing, in his monstrous form, it was more than doable. 

            Little by little, days turned into weeks as Rap Monster scoured the sea with no contact from his friends.  He wasn’t even sure if they knew how to find him, or why they would look anyway.  Surely, they still blamed him for Suga’s current state…

            When he could, he slept on rock formations or the odd structure that provided enough security to rest above the water, relying on his size and blending in with the surroundings to keep from being harassed or attacked.  Sometimes in the deep waters, he fended off feral swarms of mermaids and mermen, but they were easily dissuaded if fighting actually broke out.

            Every wound was a scar to add to his collection and each day led him closer to finding the rest of Suga.  He felt tired all the time and stretched thin, constantly achy from all the swimming and his hide burned from the salt sinking into open cuts.  The gods were cruel in granting him this quest for surely, it was some sort of punishment for his younger years.

            Rap Monster lost weight from a lack of good food and overexertion, leading to protruding ribs and wiry limbs, but his determination was ironclad.  It was all he had after all.  That and J-Hope’s hope.  And all the while, he had not only Suga’s well being in the back of his mind, but J-Hope’s as well, wondering just how long the young man would hold out in the end.  Long enough?  He could only pray that was the case.

            And then, when he was nearing the dregs of his reserves, scouring the ocean floor again as he continued to listen to the box’s guidance, he ran afoul of a leviathan.  Just in front of him, he saw a small cluster of fragments, swaying in the depths as if caught in a small eddy.  Rap Monster briefly considering them a delirious vision, brought on by lack of sleep and food, but then reached to retrieve them, feeling the granules join with the rest, the happening of which granted him a strange sense of accomplishment.  He smiled broadly and settled down on the ocean floor, ready to jump to the surface, but then the ground stirred and Rap Monster stumbled back, doing a strange flip in the water to peer at the creature rising to meet him.

            ‘Oh .  Leave it to me to wake a sleeping leviathan,’ he thought to himself as the body shed mounds of sand and the head s back, looming over him with horrifying ferocity.  The leviathan roared at him, vibrating the water and shoving Rap Monster back with its sonic strength.  He bared his teeth back and glared at the creature, silent in his defiance.

            If he was right, he had managed to gather the last of the missing fragments, or enough to bring Suga back.  He would be damned if some overgrown water snake was going to stop him now after everything else he’d managed to do.

            The leviathan blinked at him and struck, creating a wall of force that pushed him out of the way as the jaws snapped shut where he had been.  He felt the impact of the jaws closing in his bones and reached out his free hand to claw into the body, engaging himself to the ride and whatever was going to happen next.

(a/n: Yes!  One more update and I should be able to wrap this up.  Huzzah!  I hope you've enjoyed this latest one all the same and I'll do my best to wrap it up by the 20th.  So close!  Thank you for reading!)