10th of January, 10:00 pm, Streets of Tokyo
Aqua snuck from house to house. Tera might've given him new clothes, but he wasn't dumb. He knew the police were searching for him all throughout the city by now, so he needed to keep his guard up. In his right hand, he tightly clutched the page he searched for all along; he had probably read it enough times to memorize it by heart by now. "12 sticks of incense, perfectly placed around the name of the person that should be brought back, written with the blood of the lamb…" he quietly recited over and over again, "That's the easy part, but where exactly do I get the memento connecting me to Ai from? I threw it all away…"
He suddenly halted, standing right in the middle of a random family's front yard. He had realized shortly after he had fled the scene that the dark front yards some families had were far more efficient at concealing him than the dimly lit sidewalks. "The tape…" he whispered to himself, his frame cloaked in darkness. "I need to get the tape mom left me, that's the only thing I kept…"
…
Aqua was finally back at his temporary hideout. It was a run-down abandoned house he found by sheer luck. He entered a dusty hallway after he had cracked the door open and stepped inside; all the furniture was already gone, but that didn't matter — it was sufficient for his needs… Just a little longer. A spacious, yet completely empty room greeted him as he entered the door at the very back end of the hallway; completely empty apart from Tera, who hadn't left Aqua ever since he attacked Ruby. "Good, you're back," he said as Aqua placed the incense he had just stolen from a nearby family-owned business down on the floor.
"Now I only need to get my hands on the tape again, and I am all set," Aqua said, finally facing Tera. His expression was emotionless, a stark contrast to the fear that he felt when he first met Tera. It was so paralyzing that he couldn't move; now, Tera almost seemed like an old friend in some weird way.
"Then go out and ge-" Suddenly, Tera was somewhere completely else. The empty living room he stood in a moment ago disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Tera found himself in the middle of a shiny and bright lake. The water was not clear, though; on the contrary, he couldn't even remotely see what hid below the surface; he could only see his own reflection staring back at him. It was also reflecting the vast sky, void of any stars or depth. He turned a bit lightheaded, as he not only realized that the sky was bright without any sign of the sun present, but also that the concept of the horizon had been eradicated from existence and that he would seemingly look into the vast infiniteness of this place.
Tera's movements were slow and calculated as he began to survey his new surroundings. The initial confusion of what exactly happened was gone just as fast as it had appeared. He needed to keep a cool head to find out who brought him here and what they wanted from him. The ground shook, yet the water remained still, as Tera saw a massive bloodmoon rise seemingly out of the water beneath his feet. But the moon is too close, it was impossible. A hostile presence that made a cold shiver run down where Tera's spine would be if he had one appeared to come off it.
Panic grew inside Tera again as he tried to use his techniques, but nothing worked. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't leave this godforsaken place. Then, a voice, coming seemingly from everywhere and all at once.
"Tera… or should I say Amaterasu?… I am impressed, I thought it would take far longer than 500 years for you to get to this point again."
Tera stood unshaken as he gazed up at the moon. He still didn't know where the voice came from, but looking at the moon was far better than randomly looking at anything else. "What is this place?" he asks. "And more importantly, who are you and how do you know my name?"
Tera searched as the voice spoke. "This place is the lake of memories, my very own creation, it's only for invited guests. But it is pointless, no matter how hard he tries, the voice seems to be coming from everywhere at once. "And me… I am Susanoo."
Outside of time and space, Lake of Memories
Tera froze mid-search, his eyes lost focus, and he began to shiver ever so slightly. Then he snapped around, facing the crimson moon once more. "That's… unexpected… to say the least." Of course, he had thought about the possibility of Susanoo's existence; it was written within his divine book, after all; however, now that he had the confirmation, it still knocked the wind out of him. He had looked for hundreds of years, turned every rock twice to find out who this being was, but never once did he hear more than nothing that would prove their existence. Therefore, he had eventually just abandoned the idea to focus solely on Tsukuyomi.
If he could, Tera would've blushed like an anime tsundere. Nothing made him lose his temper like that ever since that time he had encountered a human that just wouldn't cooperate, no matter what he tried, that guy just kept swinging his big sword instead. "Okay, Susanoo. Then tell me," Tera said, his voice filled with poison. "Why did you bring me here? I have things to do, I can't just stay forever."
"Oh, don't worry, time isn't moving in here…" No matter what he tried, even though the omnipresent voice didn't sound hostile, Tera couldn't help but get startled by it every time it spoke. It was probably exactly how people felt when they spoke to him for the first time. "But you're right, I wouldn't want to artificially prolong this… I have brought you here to tell you that I won't be able to let you go through with your plan… I understand why you're doing this… I really do, but I can't let it happen regardless."
Tera flinched slightly. Then he stomped the water beneath him with his feet. The image of himself beneath contorted from it; it looked surreal, unlike anything it should look. "Why not?" he shouted, for the first time in decades, probably, "You are supposed to be the true neutral power… I've read the book. Why are you biased against me? Are my wishes really that wrong to you?"
The moon suddenly began to shift; small pieces of it seemed to start falling into the water, making it splash before they disappeared beneath the impossible surface. "That's correct, I am the true neutral, but I am not neutral in a sense where I don't interfere. I am here to keep the forces of this world in balance… Your plan would lead to great injustice; therefore, I need to stop it."
More pieces of the world around Tera crashed down around him. It wasn't even just the moon anymore; it was now also the sky as well as the ground that was slowly falling away. A smug expression formed on his face as he looked up at the moon once more. "You are no match for me; there is nothing you can do. You can't even keep this world up, much less interfere with the real world."
The world around Tera was by now almost completely gone; around him, he could already see the living room of the abandoned house coming back into his vision, hidden just beyond the other dimension. Then the voice spoke one last time. "You're right, I am no more than a voice in the wind, but a bit of wind is all that's needed to extinguish a flame. You've always been far too prideful…"
Tera blinked once and found himself back in the living room. Aqua was still talking like Tera was never even gone to begin with. But Tera's ears were filled with a subtle ringing, just loud enough for Tera to be unable to register anything except for it.
Susanoo probably thinks that they have already won…
And then they are the one who calls me too prideful…
Pathetic…
But they have overlooked something.
In all this time, they were always watching and studying, never interfering.
Susanoo… You don't understand how humans work…
And that will be your downfall.