As the canoe hit the water, the two of us slipped inside without too much trouble. We'd gotten a running start, so it wasn't too tough, we just had to be sure to land on the canoe before the water swept it away. Once we did, we slid into it and each took up one of the paddles, slamming them into the water quickly to prevent capsizing as we were swept up into the rapids and yanked out into the riot of water.

My eyes widened a bit as the canoe was jerked around and we barely managed to stabilize, having to adjust on the fly as the angles and pressure changed. It took a minute to get the hang of it, but luckily my mask kept me from gettin splashed in the face. Callie had covered her own face with a veil of shadows to prevent water from getting in her mouth and eyes, and despite how confusing the helter skelter water way was, we managed to finally get the hang of it after a bit.

I realized quickly that rowing wasn't exactly the right move here, but rather, I needed to use my oar to sort of angle the water in a way that pushed the canoe in the right direction. Callie was doing the same, and we definitely needed our combat trance to properly adjust the oars as the water changed constantly, with each of our attempts altering the course of the canoe.

Still, once I got the hang of it I couldn't help but grin in delight. This was wild and crazy, but it was also fun. Aside from the crush of water making it kind of hard to see, being thrown around was actually a lot of fun. I was so caught up in it that I barely noticed the dark shape forming in the water in time to plant my oar and jerk us out of the way, barely missing a HUGE G-ranked rock rising out of the rapids and concealed by the spray. Swinging a hard left had taken us down a fork in the rapids, but I didn't have time to pay attention to that aside from noting the others had followed us as the river changed.

Callie shouted something that I couldn't really hear, but it turned out to be a warning as we suddenly dropped and began plummeting straight at yet another huge rock. The rapids had started descending, and we had to steer with all our might as we were essentially thrown into freefall, being hurled back and forth with barely enough time touching the water to steer properly. I considered using Leaf on the Wind on the canoe, but I was genuinely worried we would be flung off the river entirely by the water pressure.

As we were hurled around I could see the other canoes being thrown into the same part of the rapids, and we had to adjust to those too. Our friends were having just as tough a time, but also seemed to be enjoying themselves just as much. As we came within a foot of Sloane, we could hear her howling with joy, and couldn't help but laugh at how crazy all of this was.

Of course, that was far too tame for a training session Abel had come up with. While this was all fun and difficult, it wasn't enough to really push us. The rocks were stationary even if the water wasn't and I was suspicious that we'd figured out the real purpose of this test. Or at least, had noticed its real form. Sure Mel told us what to do, but Abel loved nasty surprises. I couldn't imagine what exactly he would come up with though. Rapids were all the same. Just crazy waterslides with dangerous rocks and...waterfalls...at the bottom.

My eyes snapped up, focusing through the spray as hard as I could, and sure enough, when I looked hard anough I could see a cloud of more diffuse spray down the river about a mile or two from us. I nudged Callie, who turned around in confusion, barely able to react to a rock in time because of the distraction. I leaned in and bellowed. "WATERFALL!" Right into her ear.

Even our Perception wasn't suited for picking sounds out of this kind of tumult, and it took me a few tries to get it through, taking a couple seconds and a few hundred feet. Finally she looked where I pointed and screamed. "Oh fuck! Waterfall!" I'd probably have laughed if we weren't about to plummet over a cliff on a death stream.

Focusing hard I got even closer, my mask pressed almost to her ear. "What do we do?" I bellowed. No idea how to avoid this. It wasn't like we could just make a turn. We were pretty fucking stuck on this path. I doubted Abel would give us a test that would definitely kill us, but I was pretty sure it would come close if we didn't figure out how to deal with it. Based on the speed and force of the river and how fucking big it was, this drop would be a doozy too. The spray down there was being flung up pretty high into the air, if not for the steep downward drop along the way it would have been way more noticeable.

Unfortunately there wasn't really time for a plan. We'd have to just take it as we went, making sure not to get dashed on the rocks. Hell we were still trying to control our forward momentum to avoid the ones in the rapids themselves. But there were several along the top edge of the waterfall we would need to slip between to get out without being dashed on the rocks. I planted my oar in the rover, curving the water as best I could to force it to push the back of the canoe.

As I made sure my end was in line, Callie was desperately doing the same on her side, making sure we had force acting in the opposite direction to keep us straight, not to mention adjusting that force to account for all the rapid changes in pressure. It was like walking on the edge of a knife blade.

Shockingly, I noticed Lament's canoe slide up next to us, scything through the water with seeming ease. As she got within reach she looked over casually. "Hey." She shouted. "You guys know there's a watefall coming up? This place is great!" For probably the first time I saw her looking genuinely excited outside battle. I wasn't surprised, she and Abel were similar in a lot of ways, and apparently this was easy for her so she was probably treating this like a vacation.

I was confused as to HOW she was doing that, until I took a closer look at her oar. Or rather, the oar she should have been using. Which turned out not to be an oar at all. She was steering with a fucking spear. That...how did that even work? The oars were large and float, easily able to shape the water, but that spear wasn't a giant ass blade like Wren's was. Lament's spear was much slimmer and more deadly, but she was managing to somehow cut the water currents in a way the altered her trajectory.

Lestri, who was on the boat with her, wasn't even doing anything, just sitting back and enjoying the ride. I could only assume that this was more Spear Mastery bullshit. It seemed like having a high level martial art or weapons skill really could offer a lot of utility. I suspected she might have been using her ability in conjunction with it like Abel did, but still, this was just blatant cheating. I really needed to start grinding up my Balam Skill. I was betting it could do some amazing things in conjunction with my DS Mastery.

Shaking off my jealousy, I shouted back. "We noticed! Have you seen the others?" I couldn't see Sydney or Megan anywhere, and Sloane had vanished after we almost ran into her earlier. The only reason we could even have this conversation was because of Lament's craziness. Since the others would still be pinballing around it would be dangerous as hell for them if they didn't see the waterfall coming.

Luckily Lament nodded. "Yeah! They all know. I think they're aiming for the gaps closer to the banks though!. The splashback from the edges of the river neutralize some of the force! Not much, but a little. Anyway I'm heading through, catch you on the other side!" She turned back to the waterfall and struck out with her spear at the front of the canoe, apparently cutting through the water and somehow speeding up her advancement.

I hoped I didn't have to fight her in the tournament. She would fucking destroy me. My only real shot was if Abel ran into her first or we took her out in the team matches. I didn't have time to dwell on that though, because we were drawing closer and closer to the waterfall, and it was taking all our skill to try to thread the needle between those huge rocks before we went over.

Seeing the rocks flash past my eyes as we went over, I paled slightly. I'd come within inches of being smashed flat. While the water itself wasn't enough to hurt any of us with our current Impact, Abel had been right to warn about the rocks. They were G-ranked too, and hitting stone with the same Impact as we had at whatever absurd speeds this mealtrom was flinging us about would absolutely have done extreme damage. We might not have died, but getting knocked out as mentioned was a strong possibility.

As we went over, I let out an involuntary scream as we were grabbed by the mightily descending torrent of blue glowing liquid and shoved downward easily three times faster than the most extreme speed on the rapids. I lashed out with my oar as I shifted my weight, trying to angle the canoe sideways to break some of the momentum and create drag. I saw the shapes of other canoes as dark blots across the waterfall, each at different altitudes. Sharp rocks poked out of the water along the length of the several hundred foot drop.

Unlike before when my worry was being thrown clear, this was a place where being lighter would actually help. I used Leaf on the Wind, straining to cover the whole boat, and our descent slowed noticeably. It was still a rapid drop, but were were managing to resist the push of the water somewhat. The resistance gave both of us the chance to put our oars to work and steer ourselves as best we could to avoid getting dashed on protruding rocks on the way down. Not that we could see the situation at the bottom.

The spray from the water smashing into whatever was at the base of this cliff (we really should have done a complete lap around the Bay before agreeing to any of Abel's ideas) was obscuring whatever was down there. I was PRETTY sure it had to be a lake or something. No way Mel would have let Abel hurl us at flat ground and get crushed to death. Not that I thought he would. Even my teacher wasn't quite that much of a dick.

As we wove our way past several protruding rocks, we got close enough that I could see the water WAS collecting in a basin. There were more rocks, but maneuvering along this waterway was easier than doing the rapids in some ways, and we skidded along the length of the waterfall and I had to strain my skill hard to resist the pressure as we smashed into the water.

Luckily, since it was the bottom of a waterfall the constant disruption of the new water hitting constantly broke the plane of the surface of the pool. We smashed through it, the canoe below us taking all the damage and basically dissolving into scrap as we were submerged. We swam up quickly to get out of the way as another canoe made contact and crawled out onto the shore. As I slumped over onto my side, shaken and gasping, I looked up to see something interesting. A cave. Huh, those were usually fun.