Finally got to this:

* * *

    "I will kill you now."

Well, that will certainly grab one's attention.

    Makoto realized that he had to move, or he would die.  So he
moved.  Not, he hoped, quite as the Demon-God would expect him
to.  It had stepped off its perch on the figurehead now, and
stood only a few steps

You used 'stepped' earlier in the sentence. You might want to go with
'paces' here instead to keep out the redundancy.

    Calmly, almost coldly, Makoto stepped forward and brought
the Power-Key Staff up in a sweeping motion, so that the
connecting prongs at the base came into contact with the tines of
the trident.

Heh. This could end up with a big payoff, or it might end up hurting like
hell.

    He destroyed a Tirian fleet in a single day, disabling and
sinking the ships, killing the soldiers as they desperately tried
to keep themselves afloat.  The visages of all he ever killed
were kept and savoured, collected like other men collect stamps.

Nononono. Make it topical. Say 'like other men collected Pokemon cards'.
^_^

Seriously though, the two 'collects' are pretty close together there.
Might want to change one of them to something else, though nothing that
fits real well comes to mind. Perhaps 'accumulated' in place of the first
one or somesuch.

    Makoto's sense of self wavered, nearly fell.  The soul of
Lethiaphan was like a black hole, pulling him down within.  He
saw the heart of the Demon-God, the ocean king, and he screamed
in terror.  Mardruk and Ifurita had possessed feelings, emotions,
regrets--stunted, albeit, but they had been there, like seeds
buried beneath frozen earth, waiting to bloom, to flower into the
fully glory...  Lethiaphan had _nothing_, its

I'd use a semicolon instead of a comma there.

    Air...

Oops! Forgot to breathe, did he?

    "Makoto!  Kid, you okay?

Hmm. don't know as he could call Makoto 'Kid' in this instance. Might be
better off to drop it and go with 'You okay?' Minor nit in either case.

    Nanami looked down at him; there were strong, rough hands
cradling the back of his head--Fujisawa-sensei's.  "Makoto, you
were screaming as if you were going to die as soon as you made
contact with it.  What happened?"

Makoto: I connected with the Demon God. Have you ever felt as though your
soul was going to be drawn down into a seething vortex of despair,
consumed in the eternal depths of night, never to know the light of day
again?

Fujisawa: Yes. The day Miz proposed to me.


Makoto: Well, it wasn't quite as bad as that, but it was still really
unpleasant.

    Afura strode over, a pale-green aura of air swirling about
her.  "Whatever happened, that one blast won't have taken care
of it,

Afura proved once again that her gift of prophacy was as shitty as usual,
as
the blow had ripped open an already stressed piece of metal in the armored
casing that housed Lethiaphan's central processing unit. Water poured in,
short-circuiting the higher functions of the Demon-God, effectively
lobotomizing him and sending him to the bottom of the ocean, and bringing
a decidely anti-climactic end to this fic.


BTW: Alan, I would hunt you down and taunt you and your Canadianess, if
you actually did this. ^_^

    "Where's Shayla and Miz?" Makoto whispered.

    "Miz is trying to help the men in the water who are still
alive," Fujisawa answered.  "Shayla's here."

    "Hey, Makoto."  Shayla stepped into view.  "Did you set that
one free to?"

too

    Makoto struggled to his feet, supporting himself with the
Power-Key Staff.  Nanami and Shayla each grabbed an arm to
steady him.  For some reason, a glare passed between them as they
did.

Hmm, unless this is supposed to be from Makoto's POV, we the readers know
why there's a glare between them. I'd drop the 'For some reason'
otherwise.

    The crew of the Godswind were bustling all around the ship
now, manning weapons or making other preparation.

preparatons.

With Nanami

and Shayla's help, Makoto walked to the edge and stared off in
the direction Afura's blast had flung Lethiaphan.

    "He hasn't surfaced yet," Afura said worriedly, crossing her
arms.

    "He will," Makoto assured her in a raspy, fearful voice.

Five hundred leagues away, a head broke the surface of the water. Scanning
the horizon, Lethiaphan realized he had lost his targets and shouted,
"AHHHH! This always happens to me! Why the hell did they allow a Hibiki to
program my directional guidance systems?!"

    Her words ended as the Demon-God rose grim and silent from
the sea, and walked upon it as if it were the land.  The crew of
the cutters fired immediately.  Right before the shells hit, Miz
saw the Demon-God gesture with its trident, and the ocean leapt
up in protective walls

'forming protective walls' sounds better to me.

 all around it.  The shells exploded

harmlessly against the swirling barrier of water.

    "Neat trick," Miz called.  "But I can do it too."

    She leapt from the boat as it turned to present its
broadside to the Demon-God, and landed upon the water.

And promptly sank like a rock.

Walking
on water was one of the first things she'd been taught to do as a
priestess, and she was so used to it that the strange feeling of
rolling solidity no longer bothered her.

    The faceless war machine stood unmoving upon the surface of
the waves for a moment, and then began to walk towards her.  It
raised the spike of its hand, and the blades began to whirl.

    "Ha!"

 "Neat trick," Miz called.  "But I can do it too." A set of spikes shot
out of her hand, and began to whirl as well.

    With a gesture of her hands, the sea rose on both sides, and
a knife-edged wave of water swept forth.  It built as it crossed
the distance between them, growing stronger and faster with each
passing second.  As it was about to hit the Demon-God, it
wavered, and dissolved into a spray of fine mist.  The whirling
blades upon its arm sucked the spray into themselves, and
concentrated the great mass of water into a single fist-sized ball
whose density she could not begin to guess at.  The ball hung
motionless a few inches beyond the circling blades, forks of
electricity running through.

    "Simple manipulation of water molecules," it said
tonelessly.  "Now I shall show you complex manipulation."

Right now would be a good time for someone to shoot him in the back while
he's showing off.

    Masamichi hit the Demon-God in mid-leap, his foot extended.
The crash as his kick hit it in the head was thunderous.  Both of
them were driven to the side by the impact.  The trident missed
her.  Miz let out the breath she'd been holding.

    He was going to sink.  The Demon-God might be able to walk
upon the water, but Masamachi certainly wasn't.

Not unless he dug up on old style D+D Ring of Water Walking there isn't.

yelling battle cries at the top of his lungs.  A cloudy haze of
power began to become visible around him, as the Demon-God's head
snapped back and forth as though spring-loaded.  Amazingly, he
seemed to be almost holding his own.

Why amazingly? Fujisawa's damn powerful, especially when not loaded up on
smokes and liquor.

    Dear God, she thought with a curious mix of elation and
fear, he's going to rip its head off.

    Abrubtly, the two of them dropped beneath the surface.  The
Demon-God had ceased to let the water buoy its feet.  For a few
seconds, Miz was certain that her heart stopped beating.

I thought she could travel through water. That was how they entered the
Bugrom fortress, wasn't it? she could just go down and check them out.

    Miz looked up.  Her fellow priestess came flying down,
stopping a few feet above the water, which depressed and swirled
like a tiny whirlpool in reaction to her wind-aura.  "Where's
Lethiaphan?"

At your local video rental store. Wait. That's 'Leviathan' I was thinking
of. Nevermind

    "Lethiaphan?"

    "The Demon-God."

    "Masamichi..."

Miz: No. The Demon-God's name is Lethiaphan. Not Masamichi.

    The sea exploded.  A towering flume of water rose.  And
rose.  Two struggling figures could be vaguely seen within the
mist and spray, but she

Might want to say 'Miz' here, since Afrua is also on the scene, although
most readers should be able to figure out who you mean.

could not tell which was which.  Dread

filling her, she brought her arms up.  The water around her
depressed like a crater, as an almost identical flume lifted her
up to into the sky.  Afura rose beside her in a shroud of air.

    As she reached the same level as the other flume, she saw
Lephiathan ram its spiked hand into Masamichi's side.  Time
seemed to slow down.  A scream began, rose, and died in her
throat in less than second.

    The blades opened.  The most awful sound Miz had ever heard,
a wet, grating, steel-on-bone scream, filled the air.  Blood, so
much blood it seemed impossible, sprayed through the air and fell
to the ocean in a crimson rain.

    Masamichi fell the long fall towards the sea, and dropped
below the waves in utter stillness.

Ohhh, that's not good.

* * *
    Rising higher into the sky, Afura brought her arms down to
the sides.  A funnel-shaped column of wind swept down from the
sky high above her, and what was for all purposes a miniature
tornado engulfed Lethiaphan.

That's it. Sever his connection with the ocean and he becomes considerably
less dangerous.

Afura gritted her teeth; this was
dangerous, both to her and to anyone around.  If she lost
control...

    Vaguely, she realized that Fujisawa was probably dead.  It
just didn't seem to have registered yet.  In training, she'd
always had to endure the jokes that she'd be better off as an ice
priestess.  In a battle like this, she had to be cold, sharp as a
blade, or she was dead.  Nearly had been dead after she'd
underestimated Ifurita.  Mere whim had been all that prevented
the Demon-God from killing her then, and Miz and Shayla along
with her.

Well, mere whim and the fact that Ifurita was about a hundred times more
powerful than her.

    Round and round Lethiaphan spun, trapped within the
hurricane.

Sounds more like a tornado than a hurricane.

    Her eyes widened.  "No..."

    The waterspout exploded.  Dozens, hundreds

'Dozens, hundreds' sounds awkward. It could be just from the numerical
difference between the two, but I'd drop 'Dozens' and go with just
hundreds.

of balls of

high-density water flew from it, battering against her like
massive hailstones.  They battered

You just used a form of 'batter' in the sentence before. Perhaps,
'slammed' or 'impacted' or something similar for the second here.

painfully against her

shoulders, her stomach, her exposed face.  Afura tried
desperately to stay in the air and protect herself at the same
time, but it was futile; the balls just kept on coming,
hammering her like rocks,

Now, are these flying out from the waterspout in all directions, or just
hers? I was under the impression he was still spinning around, and doubt
he would he able to successfully target only her is he's still spinning
that fast.

    Gasping, barely able to move her arms and legs because of
the pain of so many bruises, she kicked her way to the surface
seconds later and swallowed desperate gulps of air.  The
Demon-God was a distant shape, speeding across the ocean towards
the ships.

A persistant bugger, isn't he?

* * *

    "Crap!  Here it comes again!"

    Makoto touched Shayla's elbow.  "What happened to Afura and
Miz?  Fujisawa-sensei?"

Rather than attack it all at once, they naturally went after it one at a
time and got picked off one by one, which is what usually what happens
when heroes confront a new, powerful foe.

    "They're all in the water," Nanami said distantly.  "They're
all alive."

    Shayla turned on her.  "What?  How do you know?"

    Nanami blinked.  "I saw.  It's not that far."

Hmm. Developing hawklike vision, eh?

    Makoto grimaced as if he were feeling ill.  "It's coming for
me again.  It can sense Ifurita's Key."  The ships fired again;
the speeding form of the Demon-God was barely visible on the
waves, darting between the explosions.  "I think it thinks I'm...
like it."

    "Well," Shayla snarled, "it goes through me first."

With the way the other's faired, probably.

    The two closest cutters were suddenly engulfed by spinning
columns of water.  When the columns fell, the decks were swept
clean of crew.  The boats began to sink, dozens of tiny holes
punched in their hulls.

Hmm. Lethiaphan appears unaffected by all the combat from before. I don't
see how they have any hope of defeating it if it could survive all it just
went through without being damaged.

    Lethiaphan stood only a few feet away from them, sea-slick
and filled with terrible purpose.  It strode forward, and even as
Shayla cried out and charged for its back,

Why charge instead of trying to fry him?

    Ten feet from Lethiaphan, raising her hand to throw fire,
Shayla slipped in a puddle and landed on her back.

Heh. I kind of like that. Unexpected things happen on a battlefield.

    "Rather brave," Deva commented.  "But apparently quite
stupid."

    "Bring the ship in closer!  Bugrom, prepare to board!"

    Deve

Deva

frowned.  "They appear to be aiming their cannons at
us."

Heh.

    Lethiaphan turned around.  "Master?"

    Makoto stared past the Demon-God at Jinnai with wide eyes.
"Katsuhiko,

Hmm. I thought he usually used 'Jinnai' rather than Katsuhiko , although I
can't be sure if I remember that correctly.

    The Demon-God cleared the distance between them in one leap,
and landed to face the crew and Shayla.  It raised its spike; the
blades opened, spun a few thousand rotations in a second to
concentrate moisture from the air, and bolts of water flew across
the deck of the ship, knocking down

It didn't try to kill them instead, or couldn't it fire the water fast
enough to gain killing impacts with them?

    Lethiaphan gestured with his trident.  A ripple cut through
the sea, a tiny disturbance that grew exponentially until it
became a towering, razor-thin edge of water--bearing no small
resemblance to a gigantic shark fin--that ripped the boat in half
down the middle.

Nice effect.

    Snow... continuities, cherry blossoms falling in the spring,
a summer rainshower, leaves dropping in autumn...

Hmm. Interesting progression that helps to increase the tension that he
might very well die. Even if he doesn't, it is still nicely done.

    His side, where Lethiaphan had torn him up, still felt numb.
Hesitantly, he touched it.  His shirt was torn to shreds, but his
skin was whole.  Smooth, even, and hairless as a child's.

Hmm. Heals fast now too?

    My God, he thought, his mind reeling with shock, what's
happening to me?  And then: when was the last time I took a

drink?

breath?

Ah. I was close. ^_^

    Awkwardly, he patted her on the back.  Her shoulders
trembled under his palm.  "I'm okay, Miz."

Well, he's not dead, but I'm not so sure he's okay, in light of the
continuning changes he seems to be undergoing.

    "Impossible..." she said softly.  "I saw you... the
blood..."

    "Don't forget," he replied.  "I'm not a normal man."

"I have a ten inch <noun>"

It's ad lib time. Fill in the above statement with the noun of your
choice.

    Somehow, Miz found a way to tighten her embrace.  "My God, I
though I'd lost you.  I really did.  And then I saw you standing
up... this is a sign, you know.  I'm a priestess.  I'm trained to
interpret signs."

    "It's a sign I've got to be more damn careful when taking on
Demon-Gods, at least," Fujisawa muttered.

Miz: Yes. That was what I was going to say.

    Miz, head on his shoulder, didn't seem to hear him.  "God is
watching over us, Masamichi.  We're meant to be together."

However, since there is a Demon God on the loose, it might be a good idea
to stop him before he kills your friends and ruins the mood.

* * *

    Makoto slumped heavily in the chair, the Power-Key Staff

Have you been capitalizing 'Staff' too? Can't remember.

    "Why do we keep on using 'it'," Shayla broke in.  "It's
clearly male."

It also lacks a face. Body type is one thing, but it's hard to personlize
something when it lacks a major characteristic like that.

    Makoto shook his head.  "That's what I was getting to.  It
isn't.  It doesn't even have a developed sense of identify

identity.

stunted, and I think I..."  Helpessly, he gestured with his free
hand, unable to express the concept in words as clearly as he
understood it in his heart.  "I made it grow, somehow."

Oops. That might be a mistake.

    "This isn't another Ifurita," Fujisawa said.  "It's tough."
Almost unconciously, he touched his side.  "But I don't think
it's unbeatable.  If we come at it with a plan, we might just be
able to take it down.

About time someone considered that. You think they would have learned
after their first fight with the Bugrom and Jinnai.

    Though he tried to twist so that he entered feetfirst,
Deva's toss made him hit the water in an awkward, painful
bellyflop that knocked all the air from his body.  Instinctively
he gasped for air, and a wave washed over him, pouring water down
his throat and into his lungs.  He choked and his head dipped
below the water.  Frantic kicks of his legs barely managed to
drive him back above the surface, where he attempted to tread the
water around him, and expel the water inside him, at the same
time.

A hard thing to do. I know, I've tried.

    Despite that, when he saw the long, serpentine body rippling
through the ocean towards him, he was strangely relieved that he
would not have to toil any longer.

Hmm. We'll see if that is the end for delightful Nahato or not. Too bad we
gotta wait until next chapter. Wah!

Overall a very good fight. Fujisawa's healing factor caught me off-guard.
The good guys were particularly ineffective in even delaying Lethiaphan,
but its almost obligatory at this point in this type of story. In spite of
that, you kept the tension level quite high and the possibilty of death
for any of the main characters was there for me, so a very nice job. Your
prose was excellent, as always. Everything was fast paced and flowed very
well, the scenes shifting from one to another effortlessly. Overall,
another excellent piece.

D.B. Sommer