Dammit.

Emil crashes into the ocean at the kind of speed that would traditionally make such an impact extravagantly lethal. His energy shield splinters, as it's meant to in such a circumstance, and he attempts to tread water in the turbulent wake of a kaiju.

He's not actually that good at swimming.

And so the kaiju vanishes into the distance.

The waves calm down once it's off the scene. Emil has swallowed and inhaled an upsetting amount of seawater by that time, but it's not going to kill him any time soon.

He starts swimming towards the ship.

The ship has resumed moving under its own power, and its destination is in fact the direction Sin was going in, so Emil will reach it soon enough. At that point it's starting to get dark, though, so he might want to call their attention somehow lest they fail to see him.

Fire. Lots of bright, teal fire.

(Not the kind that'd burn the ship. Or boil the water, for that matter. It only burns him, and that much only enough to hurt, not do any real harm.)

Yeah that's enough. They divert course the tiny amount they'd need to be able to stop close to him and throw him a line.

He clambers up onto the deck, then, once situated, retches a significant amount of seawater over the side.

"I'm sorry," he says.

His sword flickers with turquoise flame and says "He apologizes. For not being able to kill the apocalypse monster."

The little group from earlier is all present, minus the flying creature that had shown up midfight. "He is completely forgiven!" one of them chirps with cheer so fake it circles back to being genuine. "Happens to the best of us."

"Are you guys... okay?"

"Is the sword talkin'?"

"Yes."

The sword translates quietly as they speak, then responds: "He's fine, physically. Emotionally, he's no worse than he always is."

"Excuse me!"

"No."

They don't seem to know what exactly to make of all of this and again it seems like talking falls to the one guy. "Are you hungry? We have food downstairs in the cabin, and then we could talk? You guys are the weirdest thing that's happened recently—uh, positively so, just, unexpected—and I don't know if you know more about how or why you're here than we do? Oh, I'm Zei, by the way, and these are Lulu," belt dress lady, "Wakka," redhead, "Azym," black-haired guy, "and Kimahri," lion dude.

"I am Oni-Goroshi, Demon-Slayer, and this is my wielder, Emilianus. You may call him Emil."

"I'd take some food," Emil says. (He doesn't feel hungry, but he rarely does, these days, and that doesn't mean he can just not eat.)

"Oh, titles, goodness. I suppose I'm Lord Summoner Zei? ...I don't like using the title. And these are my guardians. Except for Azym, he's just some guy." He starts to lead the way down to the cabin.

"Excuse you, I'm—"

Pause. "Just some guy, yeah."

Lulu squints at him.

"Let's not even get into titles."

"They haven't even gotten around to working out what yours should be yet."

"I didn't care for any of the candidates. I'm with Azym, in the 'some guy' corner."