Three days had passed since Mumei's triumphant return, and the Hololive EN building had become a hub of frantic activity that somehow made the previous week's mech battle look organized by comparison.
Kaela Kovalskia and Moona Hoshinova stood in what used to be a perfectly normal basement level three, their faces displaying matching expressions of professional resignation mixed with deep, existential confusion. Both of them held blueprints that detailed the specifications for what they'd just been asked to build.
"So," Kaela said in her characteristic monotone, not looking up from the blueprints. "They want a freezer. In the basement. That's twenty meters tall and fifty acres wide."
"Yes," Moona replied, equally flat.
"To store sea monsters."
"Extinct and mythological sea monsters, yes."
"That Mumei caught by hand."
"While also raising the Titanic from the ocean floor."
"Right." Kaela lowered the blueprints and looked at Moona. "Are we enabling them?"
"Absolutely," Moona replied without hesitation. "But they pay well and we've already rebuilt this place twice this month."
"Fair point." Kaela looked at the empty basement space, then back at the blueprints. "Three days?"
"Two and a half. I want to finish early so I can stream."
"Deal."
What followed was a construction project that would have taken normal contractors six months and a budget that would make most companies weep. Kaela and Moona did it in two and a half days, working with the efficiency of machines and the creative problem-solving of people who had long since stopped questioning the insanity of their colleagues.
The final result was magnificent in its absurdity. The new storage room was a cavernous space that seemed to violate several laws of physics regarding how much space could exist within a building. The walls were reinforced steel with magical cooling runes etched into every surface—Moona's contribution. The ceiling soared twenty meters high, supported by pillars that Kaela had somehow made both structurally sound and aesthetically pleasing. And the entire space was large enough to comfortably store multiple megalodons with room to spare.
The cooling system was the crown jewel. Industrial-grade refrigeration units lined the walls, supplemented by Moona's magic to maintain a steady negative fifty degrees Celsius. The entire room hummed with power, frost already forming on the walls in delicate crystalline patterns.
When Fauna came down to inspect the work, her jaw dropped. "This is... this is incredible. How did you—"
"Efficiency," Kaela interrupted.
"And magic," Moona added.
"But how did you make it so big? The building isn't—"
"Don't question it," both of them said in unison, and Fauna decided that was probably wise advice.
They handed over the keys—literal keys, because Kaela believed in old-fashioned security—and left to finally get some sleep. As they walked out, they passed Mumei in the hallway.
"Thank you for the freezer!" Mumei called cheerfully.
Kaela paused, turned to look at her, and said in her deadpan voice: "Please don't go fishing again."
"No promises!" Mumei replied with a smile.
Kaela's eye twitched, but she said nothing, simply continuing to walk away with Moona beside her. Behind them, they could hear Moona mutter: "We're going to have to build something even crazier next time, aren't we?"
"Probably a dimensional portal or a time machine," Kaela replied.
"I'll start on the blueprints."
While construction had been underway, another project was taking place on and around the Titanic.
Shiori Novella and Ninomae Ina'nis stood on the ship's deck, surrounded by ghostly figures that ranged from confused to distressed to outright angry. The spirits of the Titanic's passengers and crew had been disturbed from their century-long rest, and they had opinions about it.
"I DEMAND TO SPEAK TO A MANAGER!" one ghost in a captain's uniform bellowed, his spectral form flickering with indignation.
"Sir, we've been over this," Shiori said patiently, her book floating beside her as she made notes with her enchanted quill. "The year is 2025. Your company doesn't exist anymore. Most of the people you'd want to complain to are also dead."
"UNACCEPTABLE!"
"I know, sir. I know." Shiori looked at Ina, who was drawing complex sigils in the air with her tentacles. "How many more?"
"About four hundred," Ina replied, her concentration never wavering. "Give or take. Some of them have been here so long they've kind of merged with the ship itself. This is going to be a mass exorcism."
"I've never done a mass exorcism before," Shiori admitted. "Is it different from a regular exorcism?"
"It's like a regular exorcism, but you have to do it really, really fast and hope you don't accidentally banish something important." Ina's eyes glowed with eldritch power. "Ready?"
"Ready."
"WAIT!" a ghostly woman called out, floating toward them. "Before you send us on, can someone tell us what happened? Why are we on the surface? Why is there a girl covered in blood saying she 'borrowed' the ship?"
Shiori and Ina exchanged glances.
"That's... complicated," Shiori began.
"The short version is: one of our friends went fishing and needed a boat to bring her catch home," Ina explained.
"So she raised the Titanic from the bottom of the ocean."
"And rowed it manually for four days."
"While it was full of sea monster corpses."
The ghosts stared at them in collective silence.
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," the ghostly woman finally said. "And I died on the Titanic. I thought I'd heard everything."
"Welcome to Hololive," Shiori said with a sympathetic smile. "Where the impossible is just Tuesday."
"Now," Ina raised her hands, her tentacles spreading wide, and her voice took on that otherworldly resonance that made reality sit up and pay attention. "Let us give you all the rest you've been denied for over a century. Shiori?"
Shiori opened her book to a page marked with a black ribbon. She began to read, her voice harmonizing with Ina's as they wove their respective powers together—eldritch magic and literary enchantment combining into something that was probably going to give both of them a headache later.
The air shimmered. The ghosts began to glow with a soft, peaceful light. One by one, they started to fade, their expressions shifting from confusion and anger to relief and gratitude.
"Thank you," the captain's ghost said, his bluster gone, replaced with a tired dignity. "For letting us move on."
"You're welcome," Ina replied gently. "Rest well."
"And sorry about the whole 'raising your ship' thing," Shiori added. "That probably should have involved asking permission."
The captain's ghost laughed, a sound like wind through distant corridors. "In a century of haunting, that was certainly the most interesting thing to happen. I'll forgive you."
Then he, too, faded into the light.
The mass exorcism took three hours. When it was done, both Shiori and Ina collapsed on the deck, exhausted but satisfied.
"That was intense," Shiori panted.
"WAH," Ina agreed, which was her way of saying she was completely drained.
"At least the ship isn't haunted anymore."
"Small victories."
They lay there for a few more minutes, staring up at the sky, before dragging themselves back to the building to report that the Titanic was now ghost-free and ready for whatever insane purpose Mumei had planned for it.
The actual moving of the sea monster corpses was an operation that required the strongest members of Hololive EN, which was both a blessing and a deeply concerning statement about their organization.
Mumei stood at the entrance to the new storage room, directing traffic like a tiny, blood-stained air traffic controller. "Okay, megalodons go in the back left corner! Krakens in the back right! Leviathans down the middle! Piranhas can go anywhere, they're small!"
"SMALL?!" Calli wheezed, carrying a container that held approximately one hundred piranhas. "There's a hundred fish in here! This weighs like three hundred pounds!"
"That's nothing!" Bijou called from beside her, carrying an identical container with apparent ease. The gem girl's superhuman strength made the task look effortless, though her face still showed the strain. "Come on, Calli, you're the reaper of death! Where's your legendary strength?"
"I'm a rapper, not a bodybuilder!" Calli shot back. "There's a difference!"
"Less talking, more moving!" Mumei chirped. "We're on a schedule!"
Kronii floated past them, not carrying anything in her hands because she'd simply stopped time around one of the megalodons and was using her temporal powers to make it weightless. She guided it through the air with casual waves of her hand, looking supremely bored despite performing what should have been an impossible feat.
"This is beneath me," she muttered. "I'm the Warden of Time. I should be doing important temporal maintenance, not playing forklift for Mumei's fishing trip."
"And yet here you are," Bae called cheerfully, rolling her dice. The d20 came up with a natural 20, and suddenly she was surrounded by a golden aura of temporary super-strength. She reached down, grabbed an entire kraken—all eight tentacles and approximately two tons of dead sea monster—and lifted it over her head with a triumphant shout. "HA! NAT TWENTY, BABY!"
"Show off," Kronii muttered, but there was a hint of a smile on her face.
The real showstopper was Sana. The cosmic being had expanded herself to approximately fifty feet tall, making her large enough to simply pick up multiple corpses at once. She carried two leviathans and three krakens like they were grocery bags, walking carefully to avoid stepping on any of her smaller colleagues.
"Sorry! Excuse me! Coming through!" Sana's voice boomed, but she was trying to be gentle. "Sorry, Ame! Didn't see you there!"
"THAT'S BECAUSE I'M NORMAL-SIZED!" Ame shrieked, diving out of the way of a leviathan tail that swung past her head. "Why am I even helping with this? I don't have super-strength!"
"Moral support!" Mumei called.
"MORAL SUPPORT DOESN'T REQUIRE ME TO BE IN THE DANGER ZONE!"
Despite the chaos, the operation proceeded with surprising efficiency. It took about four hours to move everything from the Titanic to the storage room, but eventually, all four megalodons, eight krakens, three leviathans, and four hundred piranhas were safely stored in the new freezer.
The group stood at the entrance, staring at their handiwork. The massive corpses were arranged neatly—or as neatly as sea monsters could be arranged—and already frost was forming on their scales and flesh.
"Well," Kronii said, hands on her hips, "that's done. I'm never doing manual labor again."
"You used time powers, that's not manual labor," Bijou pointed out.
"It required effort. That counts."
"I need a shower," Calli groaned. "I smell like dead fish and regret."
"You and me both, sister," Bae agreed, her super-strength buff having worn off, leaving her feeling the full exhaustion of the past four hours.
Mumei beamed at all of them. "Thank you so much, everyone! Now we can move on to the best part!"
"Please tell me the best part is sleeping," Sana said, shrinking back down to her normal size.
"Nope! Cooking!"
Everyone groaned in unison.
The Hololive EN kitchen had never seen anything like this.
Takanashi Kiara stood at the center island, her orange sword manifested and gleaming in the overhead lights. The blade, normally used for more dramatic purposes, was currently being employed as the world's most overpowered kitchen knife. She brought it down on a chunk of megalodon meat, and the blade cut through the flesh like it was butter, creating perfect steaks.
"THIS IS AMAZING!" Kiara shouted, her phoenix energy making her movements almost too fast to follow. "I'VE NEVER CUT ANYTHING SO CLEAN! LOOK AT THESE EDGES!"
Nerissa Ravencroft stood at the next station, her black lance manifested in one hand and a frying pan in the other. She'd discovered that her demon magic could create precise cooking flames, and she was using her lance to flip ingredients mid-air before catching them in the pan. It was unnecessarily flashy and completely impractical, but it looked cool, which was apparently the most important factor.
"If we're going to cook mythical sea creatures," Nerissa declared, her voice taking on a dramatic flair, "we're going to do it with STYLE!"
Raora Panthera had unleashed her pink claws, using them to precisely slice kraken tentacles into perfect medallions. The artistic precision she normally reserved for her drawings was now being applied to food preparation, and the results were genuinely impressive. Each piece was identical in size and thickness, arranged in aesthetically pleasing patterns.
"In Italy," Raora said, her accent thickening with concentration, "we have a saying: 'Mangia bene, ridi spesso, ama molto.' Eat well, laugh often, love much. Today, we eat very, VERY well!"
The three of them moved through the kitchen like a whirlwind, shouting suggestions and ideas, testing different preparation methods, arguing about proper cooking temperatures for meat that had never been cooked before in human history.
"How do you even cook megalodon?" Kiara wondered aloud, holding up a steak. "Is it like shark? Is it more like tuna? Should we grill it? Sear it?"
"Let's try everything!" Nerissa suggested. "Science!"
"That's not how science works!" Raora protested, but she was already preparing another batch for testing.
They attempted dozens of different preparations. Megalodon steaks were grilled, seared, baked, broiled, and even tried raw as sashimi. Kraken tentacles were fried, boiled, grilled, and turned into a sort of calamari. Leviathan meat—which none of them had any reference for—was treated like a cross between beef and fish, with varying degrees of success. The piranhas were the easiest; they were just fish, albeit murderous ones, and were prepared in traditional ways.
Bae sat on a counter in the corner, a fresh bowl of popcorn in her lap, watching the chaos unfold. She'd appointed herself as the official taste-tester, which meant she got to eat without doing any work.
"How's the kraken?" Nerissa called over, holding up a plate of fried tentacle medallions.
Bae popped one in her mouth, chewed thoughtfully, and gave a thumbs up. "Tastes like really, really good calamari! But chewier. And somehow it tastes... older?"
"Older?" Kiara repeated.
"Like it has more flavor depth. Like it's been aging. But in a good way!"
"That's probably because krakens live for centuries," Raora mused. "The meat has had time to develop complex flavors."
"Can meat do that when the creature is still alive?" Nerissa asked.
"Who knows! We're in uncharted territory!"
The experimentation continued. At one point, Kiara accidentally set off the fire alarm by getting overzealous with her phoenix flames, and they had to evacuate the kitchen until the smoke cleared. Nerissa discovered that leviathan fat made an incredible cooking oil, but it required temperatures hot enough to be concerning. Raora created what she called "Calamari alla Kraken," which was essentially kraken tentacle in a white wine sauce, and it was divine.
Four hours into the cooking marathon, they were all exhausted, covered in various juices and oils, and surrounded by dozens of different preparations of extinct sea creature.
"I think," Kiara said, leaning against the counter and surveying their work, "we've created something special here."
"We've created something insane," Nerissa corrected. "But yes, also special."
"Wait until everyone tastes this," Raora said with a tired smile. "They're going to lose their minds."
"Bold of you to assume they haven't already," Bae commented, eating another piece of kraken. "But yeah, this is really good. Like, genuinely restaurant-quality good."
"Because we're professionals!" Kiara declared, pumping her fist in the air despite looking ready to collapse.
"We're professional idols who just spent four hours learning to cook creatures that shouldn't exist," Nerissa pointed out.
"Professional enough!"
Ten minutes after the cooking was declared finished—after plating, garnishing, and making everything look presentable—the call went out to all members of Hololive EN.
The dining hall, rarely used for its actual purpose, had been transformed. Long tables were set up, covered in white tablecloths that someone had found in storage. The lighting was dimmed to create ambiance. And at the center of it all, spread across multiple serving stations, was the feast.
Grilled megalodon steaks, perfectly seared with a pink center. Fried kraken rings that looked like oversized calamari. Leviathan roast, carved into thin slices and arranged artfully. Piranha fillets, pan-fried with herbs. There were side dishes too—vegetables, rice, salads—but everyone knew what the real attraction was.
The members filed in, some excited, some nervous, some still processing the trauma of the past few days.
Gura approached the megalodon steaks with a mixture of reverence and horror. "I'm about to eat my ancient ancestor."
"Technically, megalodons aren't direct ancestors of modern sharks," Ame pointed out, but she sounded uncertain. "But yeah, it's weird."
"I'm trying it," Gura decided, taking a plate and loading it with a steak. "For science. And because it smells really good."
Ina examined the kraken rings with professional interest. "The preparation is excellent. The suckers are cleaned perfectly, the meat is the right consistency..." She took a piece and bit into it. Her eyes widened. "Oh. Oh wow."
"Good?" Shiori asked nervously, hovering nearby with her own plate.
"Really good. Like, this might be the best calamari I've ever had."
That was all the endorsement anyone needed. Suddenly, everyone was loading their plates, trying different preparations, mixing and matching to find their favorite combinations.
Fauna, who had been the most vocally opposed to this entire plan, hesitantly tried a piece of grilled megalodon. She chewed slowly, her expression carefully neutral. Then she took another piece. And another.
"Fauna?" Kronii asked, smirking. "Something you want to say?"
"...it's delicious," Fauna admitted grudgingly. "I hate that it's delicious, but it is."
"VINDICATION!" Mumei shouted from across the room, throwing her hands in the air.
Calli was working her way through the leviathan roast, piling slice after slice onto her plate. "Okay, I'm officially a believer. This is incredible. What does leviathan even taste like?"
"Like if beef and swordfish had a baby," Bijou supplied, her own plate stacked high. "And that baby was raised by angels."
"That's the most accurate description I've ever heard," IRyS agreed, joining them at the table.
Sana, back to her normal size, was methodically trying one piece of everything, taking notes in a small notebook. "This is fascinating. Each species has a completely unique flavor profile. The megalodon has a firmness similar to shark but with a sweetness I can't place. The kraken is definitely cephalopod, but there's an almost nutty undertone. And the leviathan..." She trailed off, taking another bite. "The leviathan is just divine. There's no other word for it."
"Because they're biblical monsters," Ina suggested. "Maybe there's literal divine essence in the meat."
"Please don't make me think about the theological implications of eating my dinner," Shiori pleaded.
The feast continued for hours. People went back for seconds, thirds, some for fourths. Stories were shared, laughter rang out, and slowly, the trauma of the past week began to fade, replaced by the simple joy of sharing a meal together.
Mumei sat at the head of one table, surrounded by her friends, watching them enjoy the fruits of her insane fishing trip. She was tired, still a bit sore, and already planning her next expedition.
"Thank you for going fishing, Mumei," Fauna said quietly, having moved to sit next to her. "I complained a lot, and I stand by those complaints, but... this is nice. Having everyone together like this."
"You're welcome!" Mumei smiled. "That's why I did it. Well, that and I really like fishing."
"Please give us more warning next time."
"No promises!"
Fauna sighed but smiled despite herself.
Outside, in the parking lot where the pool of seawater still somehow existed, the Titanic floated peacefully. Kaela had been true to her word—over the past three days, she'd not only repaired the legendary ship but had somehow modified it with technology that allowed it to shrink down to a portable size.
Mumei had watched in awe as Kaela demonstrated the device, pushing a button on a small remote control that made the massive ship fold in on itself, reality bending in ways that made even Kronii uncomfortable, until it was small enough to fit in a carrying case.
"How?" Mumei had asked.
"Efficiency and spite," Kaela had replied. "Also, I got annoyed that it was taking up the whole parking lot."
"Can I keep it?"
"Please keep it. I don't want to see it again."
Now the carrying case sat in Mumei's room, holding the shrunken Titanic, ready to be deployed whenever she decided to go fishing again.
Which, given that everyone had universally agreed the food was delicious, might be sooner rather than later.
The feast wound down and members began to drift away, some to stream, some to sleep, some to just recover from the sensory overload of eating mythological creatures.
It was insane.
It was ridiculous.
It was home.