[Prologue] Week 233: The One that Never Was

[Rob]

~Prologue~
The One that Never Was
1245 Words

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All the lights had been turned off in the Amaterasu manor save one. Although, technically speaking, Nana’s room didn’t exactly have any real lights. What she had was something different, something else entirely.

As she put down her pencil for a bit, stretching her arms out behind her, she gazed into the sphere just on the right-end of her table. It was a transparent sphere, but that wasn’t exactly the most interesting about it. What was so interesting about it was that it was a sphere the that could hold the reiatsu of he, or she who owned the ball.

In this case it was Nana, and because of the nature of her reiatsu the sphere was filled with a blue flame, lighting up the room just enough that the vice-captain of the Third could still easily make out everything in her room... but just dimmed down enough for it to not be a pain on the eyes.

It was all about regulating the flame, and keeping her reiatsu at a bare minimum. In a sense the sphere had become something of an exercise of sorts for the Amaterasu noble. Sighing softly she leaned back in her chair and cranked the flame up ever so slightly.

There was no sense in finishing today’s paperwork as it was already way past two in the morning. Because of that she simply contented herself to looking around her room for a bit. Her zanpakutou lay softly on the weapon rack in her room, Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi hanging below it.

Smiling at the two blades she closed her eyes for a second and felt a connection with her past self starting up.

It didn’t take long before the connection was actually established, and when it had Nana slowly opened her eyes again. Everything she knew, everything she held dear had changed, shifted from her perspective... her perception. Nothing was what it seemed to be, and yet everything was.

However, this was no longer the world she inhabited, but an entire world altogether. A different dimension you could even say. The land of the dead, and then not the living dead, but the absolute spirits. The dead as they should be.

Limbo.

It was here that Amaterasu Nana would attempt to unearth the secrets behind her pasts, the secret behind the true meaning of her name, why she was... who she was.

The scenery shifted as Nana’s consciousness became more and more one with the surrounding premise, and soon the Amaterasu noble had left the real world altogether... her body nowhere to be found.

Suddenly her vision went black for a split second as a massive jolt of pain struck through her body and she found herself grabbing her stomach and bending over slightly. When the pain subsided she found her eyes slowly getting used to her surroundings again.

She wasn’t exactly in her room anymore, though. Her surroundings had taken on an eerily tranquil image. The ground was a translucent blue, almost as if she were standing on water, and the air around her was a bleak white.

In quite clear contrast, though, the sky overhead was brimming with thunder strikes left and right, having all the qualities for a true, proper storm.

As her eyes caught a glimpse of her reflected self in the water, Nana wasn’t quite sure what she had expected, and as a result wasn’t that surprised when she realized a few things had changed about her. After all, this change in appearance could very well be yet another significant plot point in her already colourful life, or perhaps it was just this world’s simulation of her.

Most of the colour that had been lost on her skin over the course of a few months had mostly returned to her face and extensions. It was as if she was alive again, and no longer the shell of a former self.

Kneeling down on the ground she touched her face for a few seconds, trying to figure out if this was truly her, and then smiled softly at her counterpart doing the exact same motion. Now that she was this close to the surface of the translucent ground she spotted a few other changes.

Her scar was gone, and it looked to be as if it had never existed in the first place. What was more was that the tattoos that had graced her visage so were now also gone. Just who was she staring at?

This wasn’t her, right? This couldn’t be her. She never wore her hair in a ponytail, neither did she ever let at least a dozen of ‘tails’ dangle behind the ponytail either, and didn’t her hair have more of a... particularity to it? Like, more of a rainbow-esque feel to it, instead a bland, dark-purple?

She had to admit, though, for once in her life she didn’t feel like she had been involved in some accident of sorts. For once in her entire life she looked... normal. That was to say, she still wasn’t sure what was going on with her shihakusho since that looked everything but normal.

Well, it wasn’t actually that different from the standard set one would get when they graduated from the academy, but for some reason her hakama had turned into an incredible white. And if she wasn’t mistaken if seemed as if her kosode had also gained some sort of white, universe pattern to it.

Unfortunately for her, she couldn’t stay and look at her ‘new’ self for a whole lot longer as a light, tapping sound of footsteps could be heard somewhere off in the distance. Looking up she saw a petite figure walking calmly towards her, a face on her smile and her arms in out in an almost motherly fashion.

“...Ammy?” Nana questioned in slight disbelief, hadn’t she fused with her past self?

“Hello, Nana,” Amaterasu replied warmly, “it is good to finally see you as you should.”

“What do you...?”

“What I mean, my dear, is that before you were borrowing my powers. Yes, we were one and the same, but there is a difference between being one and the same and being one. Now, though, finally, it seems that you have found your true self.

“The one that never was.”

By now Amaterasu had crossed the gap between the two of them and, although she was smaller than her, she held her in her arms anyway.

“The one that never...? I don’t understand, what do you mean?”

“Come now, Nana,” the crimson-eyed Matriarch replied with a warm smile. “Ever since you were born you have been waiting for this very moment, haven’t you? The moment where you could truly call yourself ‘Amaterasu Nana’, and be done with it.

“You are free from those who were bound to you, which includes me.”

“But I don’t want to lose you!”

“You won’t, my dear. We are still one, I am still you. You are still me. The only difference is that outside of this realm... we are one. Not one and the same. Just one.

“Come, draw your blade, there’s someone waiting for you.”

With that the image of her past self disappeared into the mist that had begun to obscure her vision. Slowly her eyes widened in mild shock as another image took Amaterasu’s place.

“You,” she hissed under her breath as she drew her blade.“Hey, you,” Lex replied with a hollow laugh. “You look good, mistress.

“Did ya miss me?”​