With a wave of his hand the man that Sora was listening to transported them from the place where they were to a large desert expanse with an innumerable number of warring forces around them. While no words were exchanged, it was as though by watching the scene play out before him that Sora could feel just as this man felt, and sense what he sensed. Like a far off memory, Sora could almost distinctly remember being there, but just as quickly as the memory was beholden to him then it was gone as the scene once again changed from that of a battlefield to that of the underwater world that he had caught glimpse of before. "We are an ancient race of being, Ancients as the humans refer to it, and you, I, we are, or rather where...a part of that called the Water Court. There, I was fiercely loyal to the cause, willing to do whatever it took to secure our home and our dominion but it wasn't enough. Indeed, for as ancient as we are and as powerful as we believe ourselves to be, even we aren't above such mortal emotions as love."
As the watery world seemed to wash away from the throne room that Sora was used to seeing to that of an equally regal looking room but one that seemed more above the water depths below, Sora saw a woman that he instantly felt an attraction to, but for a reason that he couldn't quite figure out. "She was human, and yet I still fell for her. Back in those days, such a love was especially forbidden for such a union could only create an abomination, and yet I loved all the same." Speaking as if recounting a tale older than time itself, Sora watched as the woman was swept off her feet by a man whom he could only assume was the former form of this other version of himself. As the couple seemed to dance under the light of many candles around them, it was when the woman was twirled around that he caught sight of the tell-tale signs of pregnancy. "Like many who had such a forbidden love, I had to hide her away for I could never love her under the light of day. In fact, I couldn't love her here, and so..."
As the man continued to speak, Sora's view panned out to show that the room that they were looking at wasn't just one among many fanciful places in what he assumed to be the Wind Country, in fact, as the two of them began to move further and further away from the palace, Sora legitimately began to question if they were even on the same planet. For one, the palace seemed to float on clouds that were a little too blue, and even further away from that, the winds seemed to whip about with a fury that he'd never even heard the old Sungakurians speak about. Even more telling was that when at last Sora thought that he'd figured out just where they might be, the man spoke again. "I took her to a place where only I could travel. That was my first and final mistake in ever loving her." Everything went black, and suddenly there was only Sora and the alien looking man before him.
This time Sora spoke up. "I...I have to be honest, I don't have any idea what you're talking about. I thought that I was going crazy all of this time when I was having nightmares about being underwater and now I'm being told by what appears to be a figment of my imagination that I'm a Water Court Ancient? I passed the basic primary years of schooling and I know that the Ancient Courts are just that, ancient. I'd know if I was one. Heck, I barely know who my actual parents are. For all I know, I'm just unconscious in an alley and severely dehydrated, thus, I'm imagining you."
Turning his head inquisitively, the man nodded and agreed with Sora surprisingly. "It's true, that could be the case, but ask yourself this. How do you explain the mysterious nature of your ability to bend light? Usually the likes of that skill is for the Nara and yet you aren't that. As far as your real parents, Suijin is as much your mother and father as she is your sister and brother. We Water Court Ancients are a bit different than the rest. Think of it like how an ocean when meeting the shore can create a push far enough on the banks to create a river which leads to the creation of a lake. You wouldn't not consider it to be a body of water all the same."
Eyes growing large with utter confusion, Sora wanted to agree but he still found the whole of the story a bit far fetched. "Say I believe you, why now? If we're so ancient then how have I gone my entire life without having one ancient memory until now?" Nodding his head in agreement, the man agreed. "You aren't wrong, I agree, but I think that it had something to do with you reading the Annals of the Conqueror. After all these years it must have unlocked my memories like an ancient key." "That doesn't make a lot of sense." "So let me explain." Suddenly, Sora and the man were back in the throne room, but this time, it was during what appeared to be the trial that he always seemed to see. There, surrounded by those faceless ancient figures the only sensation that he could feel was that of being small, weak and powerless.
"While it is true that Ancients cannot die in the way that one typically considers death, it is also true that there are fates far worse. For me, my punishment was a forced regenesis, a process that in no uncertain terms would soon cause me to part with my beloved." As as the scene played out before him, Sora watched as the seemingly proud man that stood just before him was shackled at the wrist before a long snaking coil of some sort of watery substance wormed its way through the air towards him. Sensing the fear in the man, even Sora winced and began to back away much as the man did but found that equally like the man, that shadowy arms seemed to push and hold him forward as the watery tendril morphed from a liquid form, to a lecherous tentacle to at last an outstretched finger that only touched the forehead of the man. If there was an effort in the move then Sora didn't see it but no sooner had the finger made contact and then pulled back, than the man began to convulse and glow with an inward radiating light before falling to the ground.
Whereas before the man seemed in the prime of his life, his skin and features began to shift and grow younger with age. In mere seconds, it seemed as though decades were taken from him, and as if he no longer was a threat, the handcuffs around his wrist were loosed as they dropped to the ground and the man looked up with eyes and hair growing more youthful and his clothes dragging him down with their weight as his body became no more a threat than a young prepubescent child. Looking at those that had judged him, he mouthing words that Sora couldn't hear and pointed a finger in the direction of where the watery appendage that had damned him had come from before climbing to one knee and then disappearing. Once again the man picked back up his words. "Time and space are a magnificent thing. It is through these constructs that we can hide what matters most to us, but it is also true that they obey no master. For me, here, my trial and judgement lasted mere days. For my beloved and our unborn child in our hidden home, time passed in far more an abundance."
Watching the scene, Sora was instantly back in the palace surrounded by a blue that was too blue but instead of finding that the regal place was well maintained, what he instead found was a disheveled reminder of what had only been. "I can only hope that she was happy in the end. Without me there to maintain the realm...they stood no chance. All because I dared to..." As the man let the words trail off, for the first time during the encounter, Sora felt in tune with the man in a way that he couldn't described. It was as if he could just ever so faintly peer into the thoughts of the man, like they were one in the same being. In the words, Sora could feel the mans pain, but he could also sense a dark secret that the man wasn't telling him. Unable to figure out how or why, Sora focused on what he truly wanted to know, how all of this mattered to him. "I won't pretend to know how that felt but I don't know how I can help you or rather, myself right now. I'm just a kid."
Like a record scratch, the world around him went back to a blackened state of nothingness with only he and the man standing and facing each other. "When they placed my punishment on me, I was de-aged and then transformed into you. The technicalities of how aren't important but in that brief moment where you and I were both equally one and the same, I lost my memories and my control while you came into being. Eventually you would have figured out that something was wrong when you apparently stopped aging while your peers grew old and died but the ancient language must have activated my memories through the Ancient genetic code. I can't fully explain it myself but despite us being the same being, our Ancient physiology must have allowed for my memories to be stored away while yours were left to grow. A peculiar phenomena and one that I'd like to exam in more detail but for now...I need your help with something else more pressing."
As he spoke, Sora was again hit with the feeling that there was something that the man was withholding from him. Something that would explain his motives, but just as soon as the feeling washed over him, his thoughts were interrupted. "I'd love to help but I don't even know what your, my...what are we referring to ourselves as, name is." "...It's Suigetsu and I don't know what we are, only that together, we will be far stronger than we are apart." Suigetsu, the name felt natural to Sora but he still felt that he didn't quite know the full weight of what the name truly meant. "So I just help you on your revenge tour and then what?" For the first time, Sora recognized that he'd drawn Suigetsu's ire. "Who said anything about revenge?" Shrugging, Sora rolled his eyes. "I mean, it seems natural considering that they...what happened to your family." "Our family, it was our family." Upon saying those words, the man seemed to melt away from his alien looking form into that of a the prime of his life version that had been punished. "The irony is that Sora was what we were going to name our child, after the blue skies of our new world."
Feeling a tinge of sadness, Sora noted how ironic it all seemed but once again Suigetsu spoke up. "In fact, we've been here the entire time." Snapping his fingers, the expanse of darkness around them revealed itself to be a series of ruins around them while above a beautifully terrifying all too blue storm whipped about in a fury. "In your genetic memory are the keys to make a world of your choosing. I think that it's best that we start here, I'll teach you what I can before I return you back to Sunagakure. As you are now, you're not strong enough for what I need for you to do." While happy to have an instructor, Sora was glad that Suigetsu didn't seem to pick up on his disbelief of the Ancients gift bearing ways. "You still haven't explained just what I need to do..." Laughing, Suigetsu shook his head. "You will get your explanation in due time, but for now, we train. The rest will come when it comes."
OOC: Topic Left
