The next day rolls around, and Yvie arrives at the Dive HQ.

“She tore me a new one yesterday… Mentioning the coma only made it worse… El, that bastard set me up.” Yvie muttered under her breath.

As she walked in through the double doors, she walked up to the main desk. The desk had a long line of divers that had still in their suits. The dive chamber in the main hall had a specialized type of dryer that would blow the water off of their bodies after surfacing. To prevent slipping-related injuries. She walked past the line, looking around for someone, when a sandy-haired girl beckoned to her from the employee hallway just beside the receptionist's desk. Yvie looked around, then pointed to herself.

“Yes, you with the bedhead!” 

She carried around a clipboard and had a tidy-looking appearance wearing the receptionist uniform. 

“I’ve been waiting for you to arrive. The name’s Chiyo. I’ve been assigned to you while you complete your rites of passage.”

Yvie tilts her head to the side. 

“Rites of passage? I think I read about that before but fell asleep. What’s that about?”

“Well, for both of us to move up to official dive employees, I’ll be offering you my support in the field, while you accomplish the task.” 

“Sounds good to me. What’s the task?” 

“It’s to procure your own Venefish. They can be a pain to catch, due to their speed. Once you bring it back, the next step is to have someone turn it into an OPS for you. Once you have the suit, you’re an official diver.” 

“I never knew there was a process for that!” 

Yvie tries to dash off to the dive chamber, but Chiyo grabs her by the collar, causing her body to jerk forward.

“Hey, before you go running off, we should plan a method of attack for you.” 

“Whaddya mean? The plan is ATTACK.”

“Augh… you can’t afford to get careless here. There are quite a few divers who pass the exam but end up at the bottom rung forever because they couldn’t make it through the rites of passage.” 

“Hehe! Don’t worry, I was just joking. Trust me, I know how fast they can be.” 

Yvie dashes off to the changing room. Chiyo sighs and heads to the operations room. She enters the computer-filled room and slumps in her chair. Several other receptionists were in there as well, at the back watching the cameras.

“Fifty loons my diver gets their fish before yours.” One man says to another male receptionist.

“Heh, you’re on.” He replies.

Having been assigned to monitor 13, she peers down each of the monitors until she spots Yvie swimming out into the ocean. She floated about the coral beds doing a small search of the area. Yvie swam underneath the filtered sunlight; the light shone on the knife strapped to her leg in a worn sheath. Following the exam, it was given back to her since it saved her life as a lucky charm; there weren’t any protests, as divers are allowed to wield weapons. Yvie swam about looking around for creatures; the creature in question was a fish that had the head of a bird. Bunches of feathers were clustered around its scales as if growing out abnormally. It had a pair of organs that stretched out from its pectoral fins.

 They were a pair of chicken-like legs, and further behind those was a hole where a strange membrane stretched out. The membrane was large and shaped like several spheres, yet appeared hollow. Yvie crept closer to the creature, slipping behind it without alerting it to her presence. She wrapped her hands around this membrane. Much like mucus, it was smooth to the touch and slippery. Applying slight pressure caused her fingers to gently sink into the membrane.

“I’ve got to be careful here. I have to be fast enough to tear it away before the creature can notice; otherwise, it’ll just pop the membrane. Not only that, but using too much force will also pop the membrane, so it’s a pretty delicate operation.”

With the grace of a baboon, Yvie ripped her arms back, tearing the membrane away from the fish and simultaneously popping the bubble. Yvie’s mouth hung open as the fish turned to her. The creature scratched at her with its claws and pecked at her. Bubbles escaped Yvie's mouth as she swam around trying to avoid it. The operators laughed at the screen, one of them even slapped his thigh in excitement.

“Is that your diver? Ho-ly, they’re pretty bad.” He stated, turning to face Chiyo.

 Chiyo palms her face, sighing. 

Following her embarrassing defeat at the hands of the skelva fish, Yvie swam away. While rubbing her butt, she thought,  Damned thing pecked me in the butt… That's gonna bruise for sure. 

A little spy fish floats over to Yvie.

“You good? I don’t even think I got spanked that hard as a kid.” Chiyo states from the spyfish. 

Yvie looks at the camera and shrugs.

“Just what were you up to with that?” Chiyo asks.

As Yvie was about to gesture, a shadow flew by her, followed by two other divers. Upon closer inspection, the shadow was a venefish that hit its top speed. The two divers were swimming with all they had and were unable to keep up with it in any capacity.

“That’s your diver, Carlos?” Chiyo questions. “Wow, chasing a venefish? The fastest fish in these seas? Quite interesting.”

Carlos sighs and flips his mic down.

“Just let it go, now that it’s spotted you, you won’t catch up. You’d need a motorboat to keep up, and even then it’s still dicey.” He says through the spy fish.

The diver stops and slows his pace gradually as the fish swims away before fading in the distance. Slumped over, he shakes his head to the other diver before swimming in separate directions. After witnessing the pair’s failed attempts at hunting a fish, Yvie went exploring a bit. She came to the edge where she was chased before and looked down at the ravine separating this section of the ocean. However, Yvie’s heart skipped a beat when she noticed something slightly hidden by the seaweeds. She starts rubbing her hands together and kicking her legs in excitement. Chiyo’s spyfish comes swimming over, and she eyes it too; even her own jaw drops. Across the deep ravine in deeper, more dangerous waters was a venefish hiding, sidling the stalks of seaweed. While normally a more usual sight, this one was orange from head to fin.

“Holy hell, that's a rare variant!” Chiyo exclaims. She looks over to Yvie, who looked ready to dive in. The spyfish swam in front of Yvie’s face, bumping into her nose.

“I know it’s enticing, but you gotta let it go. Across that ravine is the second zone—Entasi. Even if you’ve dealt with a bladed bearfish, there are much more dangerous things over there.” Chiyo said.

Yvie grabbed the fish, directing its camera to her widened eyes. She directed it over to the venefish before gesturing frantically toward it with both her hands.

“I get it. That's probably a pretty rare color over there, but I refuse to be the one explaining why you came home in a body bag. If you proceed against my wishes, I will make sure you don’t become a diver, even if it means I don’t rank up. So, make your choice.” 

Yvie slumps down, taking one look at the venefish before turning her back to it. 

“Good. It sucks, but it’s life,” Chiyo says. “What’s your plan now?” 

Yvie turns to the spyfish and points behind her. She swims near the rock wall and gathers multiple stalks of seaweed. 

“Seaweed? You do realize this isn’t a gathering mission, right?” 

Yvie gives her a thumbs up and a wide grin.

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Chiyo murmurs. 

As Yvie swam away with the seaweed, she saw a shadow pass overhead. Looking up, she noticed a familiar figure. Yvie swam up, bumping her in the stomach with her head. The surprised girl let out some air as she flipped over, coming face to face with Yvie.

“Oh, this was your friend from the exam,” Chiyo states.

Grace smiles when she sees Yvie and gives her a brief hug. She points up, and Yvie nods as they both swim up and their heads break the surface of the water.

“You don’t know how worried I was when I saw you during the test!” Grace exclaims.

“Things did get a little dicey there,” Yvie mutters while rubbing the back of her head.

“That's an understatement! Still, I’m glad to see you. I wasn’t sure if you were gonna wake up.” Grace states.

“Well, I’m here now! And I passed. I heard you did too!” 

She extends her fist out to her and Grace obliges with a fist bump.

“I wouldn’t have made it if not for you. So let's both do our best and become full-fledged divers.” Grace smiled. “If you ever need anything, gimme a ring. My number is 222-27339.”

“Hell yeah!” 

Yvie waved as Grace dove back down. Yvie herself went down after taking a large breath, then she swam over the colorful coral reef. She was peeking between the cracks, looking diligently.

“I have no idea what her plan is,” Chiyo mutters to herself. 

She reaches her hand in and pulls out a small patch of moss. She continued collecting the moss until she could barely carry it all. Coming across five stalks of seaweed, she sets the moss down and begins using the others she gathered to weave between each of the stalks, tying it at the ends. She repeats the process several more times, leaving a lattice formation in the kelp. Next, Yvie grabbed the moss she found and began placing it against the seaweed until it covered up almost the entirety of it. Next, she went up for air and came back down, covering her body with seaweed and settling up near the moss-covered weave. She lay there under bundles of seaweed with her bright yellow eyes staring into the trap. 

“A trap made from mossmen?” Chiyo says. 

She reaches for the book on the desk next to her and begins rifling through the pages. She lets out a smirk as she comes across the page. “This could take hours. You don’t have the lungs for that.”

Yvie, using her other hand, gives Chiyo a thumbs up. As she lay there motionless, knife in hand, her heart rate began slowing abnormally. With each passing second, the beat of her heart drew slower and slower. The agonizing slowness of her heart caused her to feel a pain in her chest, but she quietly endured. The pain was like daggers tearing through her skin, as she felt her limbs shake from the pain. She remained lifeless in that position for five minutes, with nothing touching the trap. Soon, thirty minutes went by and still nothing. 

“Yvie…?” Chiyo mutters.

Yvie gives her another thumbs up, but Chiyo couldn’t help but feel her sense of discomfort rising, seeing Yvie’s lifeless body. An hour and yet, still nothing. Yvie could feel seconds pass by like minutes as the feeling of her skin being peeled back attempted to dominate her senses. However, she held out against the screaming temptation for air. Despite only being a watcher in this situation, Chiyo felt herself becoming more and more perturbed. Despite not knowing her for long, the stark contrast between her lively interactions and what she saw now was almost like night and day. 

“If Yvie hadn’t been giving me the signal every so often, I’d have believed she drowned. I don’t understand how she’s managing this. I did a lot of research on her ahead of time, so I know she can only hold her breath for eighteen minutes, so then, what is this…?” Chiyo thinks. 

She tightly shut her eyes as if attempting to endure for longer. Almost two whole hours passed before something began swimming in the direction of the trap. Chiyo couldn’t believe her eyes. 

It was cautious, slowly surveilling the area before closing in on the wall of moss before it. It began grazing on the moss, its head getting stuck to it. It used its strangely elongated tongue to try peeling the moss from its mouth and head. Yvie burst from the seaweed pile, surprising it and causing it to swim forward. 

This made its body slam into the rest of the moss as it tried to swim away. While the fish was struggling to get free, Yvie took her knife and stabbed between its head and body. The fish panics more and more after receiving the hit and gradually slows down before going limp in the water. Yvie peels the fish from the trap and goes swimming back up to the surface. She starts coughing and taking heavy breaths. Her vision is dancing left and right as she tries to gather more oxygen into her body. Colors and lights swayed in her vision as she dizzily floats above the water.

“Ugh… I overdid it.”  Yvie says. “This is the worst.”

“Yvie! Are you okay?! You were down there for far too long!” Chiyo exclaims. “Don’t worry about the fish; I already marked it as yours.”

“Thanks… Augh…. I didn’t think it’d be this bad. I feel like I’m gonna hurl. My head hurts so much…”

“Of course it does! You had no oxygen for two hours!” 

“I… had a little. I was able to make it last a lot longer by not moving much…” Yvie states.

“Not moving…” Chiyo ponders her words for a moment. “Are you insane! That was a diving technique from who knows how long ago! Fishermen on these isles would do that as a primary method to catch fish! They stopped using it because it was so dangerous! You seem very eager to die, you know that?!”

“I’m not trying to… But I’ll do whatever it takes… To be a diver.” 

“Where is all this desperation coming from?!”.

“Because… There’s someone I have to pay back without a doubt.” 

Chiyo exhales. Ugh… I think I’m getting a headache now.” 

“Seems like we match now,” Yvie says with a weak grin as she floats atop the water.

A vein appears in Chiyo’s forehead.

“I’ll come down there and drown you myself!”

Multiple of her coworkers hold her back as she prepares to storm down to the beach. After Yvie recovered, she dove back down and retrieved the fish and brought it back to the dive chamber. She lugged it across the room, and Chiyo walked in, causing her to freeze in her tracks. 

“Did you know that you’re a frustrating person? It’s like your brain revolves around danger.” 

“I mean it is more exciting…” Yvie mutters.

Chiyo begins tapping her foot on the ground.

“Well… Regardless of the methods, you accomplished your objective. You’re one step closer to becoming a diver. Now all that’s left is for you to make an OPS of your own. This step can be done at your own discretion, but the quality has to meet HQ standards. If it can’t, you gotta get another fish. If it does meet standards, then you’ll be a full-fledged diver.”

“Awesome! I know just the place to take it!” 

“Will it involve you risking your life yet again?” 

“Not really…” Yvie says as she carries the fish over her back from the cut in its body.

Chiyo simply watches as Yvie leaves the room. Yvie turns around and smiles.

“Thanks for the support! I couldn’t have done it without you!” 

Chiyo smirks.

“You’re damn right!” 

When she turns around, she leans up against the wall, sinking to the ground to hide the embarrassed look on her face. 

“I did almost nothing….”