10th of January, 10:00 pm, Streets of Tokyo
Aqua is sneaking from house to house. Tera might've given him new clothes, but he isn't dumb. He knows the police are looking for him, so he needs to keep his guard up. In his right hand, he tightly clutches the page he was looking for all along. By now, he had read through it dozens of times.
"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 recites 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 halts, standing right in the middle of a random family's front yard. He had quickly realized that the dark front yards some families have are far better at concealing him than the dimly lit sidewalks.
"The tape…" he whispers to himself, his frame cloaked in darkness. "I need to get the tape mom left me, that's the only thing I kept…"
…
Aqua is finally back at his temporary hideout. It's a run-down abandoned house he found by sheer luck. He cracks the front door open and steps inside. He is standing in a dusty hallway; all the furniture is already gone, but that doesn't matter —it's sufficient for his needs… Just a little longer.
He enters the door at the end of the long hallway. It is a spacious room, yet completely empty. Completely empty apart from Tera, who hasn't left Aqua ever since he attacked Ruby. "Good, you're back," he says as Aqua places the incense he stole from a nearby family-owned business on the floor.
"Now I only need to get my hands on the tape again, and I am all set," Aqua says, finally facing towards Tera. His expression is emotionless, a stark contrast to the fear he felt when he first met Tera. It was so paralyzing that he couldn't move. Now, Tera almost seems like an old friend in some weird sense.
"Then go out and ge-" Suddenly, Tera is somewhere completely else. The empty living room he was standing in a moment ago disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Outside of time and space, Lake of Memories
Tera finds himself in the middle of a shiny and bright lake. The water is not clear, though; on the contrary, he can't see what's below the surface; he can only see his own reflection staring back at him. It is also reflecting the vast sky, void of any stars or depth. The lake reaches as far as he can see, never changing even once.
Tera looks around; his movements are slow and calculated. The initial confusion of what exactly happened was gone just as fast as it had appeared. He needs to keep a cool head to find out who brought him here and what they want from him.
Then, Tera sees how the blood moon rises on the horizon. But the moon is too close, it's impossible. An ominous presence that makes a cold shiver run down where Tera's spine would be if he had one appears to come off it.
Panic grows inside Tera again as he tries to use his techniques, but nothing works. No matter how hard he tries, he can't leave this godforsaken place. Then, a voice, coming seemingly from everywhere.
"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 stands unshaken as he gazes up at the moon. He still doesn't know where the voice is coming from, but looking at the moon is 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 begins to search again as the voice speaks. "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."
Tera freezes mid-search, his eyes lose focus, and he begins to shiver ever so slightly. Then he snaps around, facing the crimson moon once more. "That's… unexpected… to say the least."
Tera tries his hardest to remain upright. He had sometimes played with the possibility of Susanoo actually existing. But even during the years in which he was actually searching, he could never find more than nothing to prove his actual existence. Therefore, he had eventually dismissed it entirely.
Eventually, Tera catches himself again. 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 says, 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…" A cold shiver runs down where Tera's spine would be if he had one. The voice keeps startling him, no matter what he tries. "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 flinches slightly. Then he suddenly stomps the water beneath him with his foot. The image of himself beneath him contorts; it looks surreal. "Why not?" he shouts, 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 begins to change; small pieces of it seem to start falling into the water, making it splash before they disappear beneath the 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 crash down around him. It's not even just the moon anymore; it's now also the sky as well as the ground that's slowly falling away. A smug expression forms on his face as he looks 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 is by now almost completely gone; around him, he can already see the living room of the abandoned house coming back. Then the voice speaks 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 blinks once and finds himself back in the living room. Aqua is still talking like Tera was never gone to begin with. But Tera's ears are 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.