Kai strongly believed that people often took after the names given to them. For instance, his name meant 'sea' in Hawaiian. It fit him perfectly; Kai loved nothing more than to swim for hours at a time in the sea. It was where he felt most at peace. Kai also meant 'warrior' in some European languages and regions. The one sport other than swimming that he liked was swordplay. Luckily, his privileged upbringing as the son of an Ambassador afforded him both. As his mother and only parent liked to constantly remind him, she'd taken months and gone through dozes of name books while she was pregnant to decide the perfect name for him. Why? In her own words, it was "so that you may embody the perfect characteristics and traits of mankind. So that if ever the need arises, you'd do us all proud in the face of those who need but a single mistake to condemn us."

No fucking pressure.

And whenever his mother, beautiful and unusually wise for her relatively-young age, delivered that bit of speech in a solemn face, he nervously laughed her words off and kissed her on the cheek in an effort to lighten the mood.

As he walked out of the kitchen and away from just such a speech, he felt a strange tightening in his chest. He couldn't even begin to decipher the meaning behind her words. Condemned by who? And for what? As always, it didn't make any sense to him, and as always, he ended up pushing her words to the back of his head.

When he exited the house and Hakan, who was waiting for him outside, called out to him, he welcomed the distraction.

"What's the hold up, Kai? Scared you're going to get your ass beat?" Hakan smirked and waived his sword, a Turkish kilij.

"Why should I be scared of the impossible?" Kai taunted with a smirk that mirrored his best friend's, reaching for his own kilij resting against the side of the house. He felt the weight of the sword in his hand, equal parts dangers and comforting.

From the day he was old enough to hold things without dropping them, he'd practiced the art of swordplay incessantly, almost daily. His mother had brought him countless fencing tutors, each a master of their own swordplay art, in order to mould him into an unbeatable sword-fighting machine. Therefore, at twenty-seven, he was quite confident in his fencing abilities.

Strangely enough, his mother never let him participate in any competitions or tournaments no matter how much he insisted that he was good enough, or even when his tutors vouched vehemently for him. As a matter of fact, she never let him do anything that would make him stand out. Whenever he mentioned it to her, she alleged her job as an Ambassador the sole reason for wanting to keep her family hassle-free and out of the spotlight.

It made sense until he remembered that she, as an Ambassador, always appeared in the spotlight...

So his only opportunity to show his abilities and talent were on top of a large cliff overlooking the Black Sea with his childhood friend.

"Come at me, bruh." Kai beckoned his friend with his hand, his blood starting to simmer. A shiver of excitement skittered down his spine, bringing his every nerve ending to attention.

As always, their first meeting was a loud clash of swords that reverberated in both their skulls. He stared defiantly, excitedly into Hakan's brown eyes as he pushed his sword against his friend's in a show of strength, then they came apart like two like-pole magnets. What ensued after was series of fast jabs and blocks as each attempted to one-up the other.

Panting, Hakan said some time later, "Are you going to keep tickling me or are you going to come at me seriously?"

Kai grinned and wiped the sheen of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Rotating his sword with a casual flip of his wrist, he said, "I don't think you can handle me at my best, but as you wish, princess." He engaged with a series of thrusts, maintaining a fighting form that did not have any exploitable openings. Just like Hakan wanted, Kai went all out, delivering punishing after punishing blow, driving him backward until they were very nearly at the edge of the cliff.

Sensing this, Hakan allowed fear to creep into his heart and he made the big mistake of hesitating. Never one to not take advantage of an opportunity, Kai swung outward and steel met steel in a burst of ember. Hakan lost balance and fell flat on the ground, and the fight was won.

Once they'd both caught their breaths, Kai reached out a hand for Hakan to take. When his friend was back on his feet, he said, "Want to go for a swim with me?"

"Nah, man, I'm brave, not suicidal. See you later."

Kai watched Hakan's retreating form. He climbed into his pickup truck parked by the house and drove away, leaving behind a rising cloud of dust. Kai turned around and pierced the ground with his sword. He went to stand at the edge of the cliff as he had done countless times, peering down at the Black Sea's dark waters. The waters looked inviting, as if they were calling out to him.

He began to undress down to his swimming shorts. It was his customary ritual that once he'd won a sword fight, he'd reward himself with a swim in the sea for one or two hours. And Kai always won a sword fight.

The rocky cliff was a good thirty meters tall, one of the tallest in the region. The waves weren't particularly large as it was a clear, sunny day, but they still crashed against the base of the cliff with bone-breaking power. One wrong move and he was done for. But he'd jumped from this cliff ten thousand, if not a hundred thousand times; after all he'd lived here all his life. He knew that there weren't any invisible rocks at the bottom to worry about.

He took a deep breath and dove.

Wind whistled past his ears and hair as he quickly descended like a missile. A sensational rush shot down his spine and through his limbs. This was the rush he craved, the rush he lived for. It was this moment before he hit the water that he loved above all else. His heart didn't even miss a beat when the water was nearly upon him.

He pierced through the cold water like a bullet and dove down nearly to the bottom of the sea. Overgrown seaweed - giant kelp- tickled his bare legs. He'd been meaning to cut them for a while now; seaweed could be dangerous for swimmers. He just hadn't gotten around to it and the damn algae grew faster than bamboo.

He waited for the bubbles to settle, then pumped his legs upward, meaning to break the surface and swallow some air. He only rose a bit before something halted his rise. Alarmed, he looked down at his feet that were entangled in the seaweed.

Fuck.

He tried to dislodge the seaweed with a forceful tug of his leg, but the weed had wrapped around his foot into an unbreakable knot. How did it even become so entangled? Hastily, he reached down to try and untangle himself. No such luck. The kelp was pretty knotted.

Don't panic. Steady your heartbeat.

He still had some air left in his lungs; panicking would increase his heart rate and deplete the oxygen much, much faster. He tried to rip the kelp from his feet, but that damned algae proved stronger than it looked. His only remaining alternative was to try and work the knot. But the more he tried to untangle it, the more tangled it became!

And he was running out of oxygen!

A few bubbles carrying precious air escaped his mouth. He clamped his mouth shut, but his lungs began burning in protest. His lungs spasmed.

Oh, god, he was going to die.

His heart started hammering against his ribcage with the force of sledgehammer. Instinctively, he rose to the limits of his watery leash and reached out a hand for the surface. He finally exhaled the breath he had been struggling with all his strength to hold. To replace it, he swallowed water into his lungs. They immediately burned so badly that he thought that they would explode.

Dark spots appeared in his vision. The surface began to blur. He blinked once, and when his vision didn't clear, he blinked again.

And saw a man.