After months spent locked away in the cave, taming his fickle powers, Aquarion felt a heavy weight pressing on his heart. The isolation was wearing him down, and despite his fear, he decided to return to Néréline. He wanted to see his mother again — a cold, distant woman who, since the death of his father, had abandoned him body and soul.

The memory of his wounded childhood haunted him: his father lost at sea, taken by a storm, and his mother who, instead of protecting him, had handed him over to the village chief. That man, a fierce guardian of tradition, saw Aquarion as a threat — a different being, a source of shadows and fear.

When Aquarion returned, he found a village transformed by fear and rage. Rumors had spread, twisting his powers into a curse hanging over Néréline. His mother, swept up in the storm of hatred, had joined those who wanted to silence him — to hunt him down, even into his cave.

Soon, a mob of furious villagers came after him, armed with torches and pitchforks, ready to destroy what they saw as a monster. Caught between the pain of abandonment and the instinct to survive, Aquarion was forced to defend his life.

In a terrible, silent battle — where the magic of raging waters clashed with desperate screams — Aquarion did what he never thought he could: he killed, one by one, all those who wanted him dead. And then, only three remained.

His mother. The chief. And the other.

He locked them in the chief’s house — the very one he’d once been sold in. He entered without a word. His eyes glowed with a spectral blue light.

“Do you remember me?” he asked at last, calmly.

His mother fell to her knees.

“Please… I didn’t know…”

“You knew. You sold me. You left me to die.”

She wept. He didn’t touch her — not yet.

The village chief tried to escape. A blade of water sliced through both his legs. He screamed on the floor like a slaughtered pig.

As for the second-in-command — the Master — he didn’t scream. He just stared at Aquarion, smirking, as if he couldn’t believe the boy had grown.

Aquarion approached slowly and lifted him by the throat, making him levitate. He stared at him for a long time.

“You took my body. Now I take yours.”

His body exploded in a geyser of black water. Only scraps remained.

Then, Aquarion turned to his mother. She was whispering prayers. He made her levitate too, suspended her above the sea… then dropped her into a burning tidal wave. The last thing she saw was the gaze of her son — now a god.

The chief was last. Aquarion made him implode from the inside. Slowly. Every bone breaking one by one. Every scream savored.

When it was over, the village no longer existed. Just a flooded crater. A sacred silence.

When the quiet returned to the cave, Aquarion remained there, trembling, haunted by what he had done. That day, he understood that his solitude was no longer a choice — but a necessity. He had become both guardian and outcast, master of the sea… and prisoner of his own broken heart.