(A/N: It's my newest story, coming to you from the great Miyazaki. Ponyo was a really adorable moving, but I saw the potential for a sequel, and a backstory that I could work with. Didn't anyone wonder why Ponyo was so much bigger than her sisters? How about how Fujimoto came to live under the sea? And what about Ponyo and Sosuke's future? Oh, so many things to work with. Lets begin.)

"…talking…"

'…thinking…'

Disclaimer: I own nothing

"PONYO IN THE SKY"

Chapter 1: The Sea Wizard and the Sky Goddess

Fujimoto was a nervous wreck. He knew this day was coming, had known it for several years now. Perhaps it was his eternal lifespan that had allowed him to ignore it. When you lived forever, time seemed to stop having meaning. Days, weeks, months, years, these were mere words used in the timeframe of forever. But now the day was actually here, the one agreed upon by him and her centuries ago.

"Must hurry, must hurry," he kept repeating to himself as he ran around his magic underwater ship.

In a large bubble of water, his daughters watched their father scurry about with concerned looks on their faces. They weren't the type of offspring one would expect from a human. They appeared to be strange red fish with human faces. That was because they were technically demigods; the children of Fujimoto and a sea goddess.

But one was missing, and had been missing for several years now. It was for this reason that Fujimoto was such a nervous wreck. His eldest daughter was supposed to be here with him for this, but due to certain… unexpected occurrences, she was not.

Fujimoto had gone over the upcoming conversation in his head countless times, and while it sounded good in rehearsal, the real thing was putting him on edge. He hurried over to his elixirs and began drinking different potions. If things went bad, and there was a good chance they would, he would need plenty of magic at his disposal, which he gained from his elixirs.

He suddenly sensed it, an overwhelming magical presence coming his way. Panicking, he gulped down the rest of the potion, just as the magic air bubble that surrounded his ship was penetrated. Up from the surface, a powerful gust of wind filled the bubble, the hole that had been made to allow it to enter immediately closing right afterwards.

Dropping the empty vials, Fujimoto rushed into the next room where he sensed the powerful presence. He came to a halt as he stared at a beautiful woman looking at his daughters. Though the woman was mostly human in appearance, she was entirely otherworldly. She was dressed in a sky blue gown that dissolved into a mist down by her feet, giving her a ghostly look. Hair of the purest white, looking as if it came from a cloud, flowed down her back, moving around gently as if caught in a light breeze. And growing out of the sides of her head were a pair of large angel wings, pale gold in color, that nearly touched the floor.

Upon his entrance, the woman turned to Fujimoto. Her face was divine perfection. In the middle of her forehead was a silver charm that seemed to be attached to her incredibly pale skin. She had very large eyes, and instead of an actual eye color, the clear blue sky with a few white clouds surrounded pupils that reflected the starry night sky.

She gave him a friendly smile, but it still sent a chill down his spin. She may be ok now, but he knew that this woman's mood could change just as quickly and as fiercely as the weather she controlled.

"Fujimoto," she said in an angelic voice, "it's been a while."

The sea wizard gulped as he struggled to find his voice. "K-Kazehime, it's been a while."

He immediately cursed himself when he realized that he simply repeated what she had just said, but the woman just chuckled.

"It seems you're a little nervous," she replied kindly. "There's no reason to be so anxious; we're all friends here."

'Maybe for now,' Fujimoto thought worriedly. "Um, can I get you anything?"

Kazehime shook her head. "No, thank you. I won't be staying long. Water is not my element. Just as water falls to escape the sky, air rises to escape the water."

Fujimoto was glad to hear that her visit would be brief. The same way Granmammare was a sea goddess, Kazehime was a sky goddess. Though there was no ill will between them, neither enjoyed being in the other's territory. Usually, sea and sky didn't mix, though there had been a few exceptions over time. Kazehime was currently here in hopes of bringing forth one of those exceptions.

"I'm just here to fulfill our bargain," Kazehime continued. "The date we agreed upon has come, so here I am." She looked back at Fujimoto's daughters. "You have quite a few children. They must be a handful. Then again, most beings of the sea do reproduce in large numbers at a time, quite unlike those of the sky. Yet among all your little ones, I do not see your eldest among them. Tell me, where is Brunhilda? I expected her to be here to meet me."

Fujimoto gulped. "She's… um, not here."

The clouds in Kazehime's eyes blew around for a moment as if the wind had picked up, then calmed as she chuckled. "Of course, you had her grow at a mortal's rate. She would be too big for this bubble now. Silly me. So where is she?"

Nervously, Fujimoto tapped his index fingers together. "She's… not… here…"

The clouds in the goddess' eyes began swirling around again, and her hair began to blow around more wildly as well. "She's not? Well, that is very rude. I would have expected better manners from her. She should be here to greet her future mother-in-law. Where could she possibly be that's more important?"

She was already getting moody; that was not a good sign. "Well, first of all, her name is not Brunhilda anymore, it's Ponyo."

Kazehime raised an eyebrow. "Really? She's taken on another name so soon? We divine have had many names throughout eternity. I myself have had more than I can remember. But only 16 and she's already received another name? Seems like she's gaining quite a reputation. Sounds like she'll have many worshippers." She crossed her arms. "So, Ponyo, is it? It sounds so… squishy." She snickered. "Well, where is she?"

It was the moment of truth. "In… in order to explain that, I need to tell you the full story."

Taking a deep breath, he began to explain. He started with how, in her curiosity, Ponyo had snuck out one day and was found/rescued/captured by a human boy, and that it was from him that she received the name Ponyo.

Kazehime interrupted him. "That was very careless of you, Fujimoto. What if she had been harmed?" She thought for a moment. "This boy, Sosuke, he gave her the name Ponyo. I should have known; humans are always coming up with such unusual names for us. The Romans even renamed the Greek gods after the planets." She waved it off. "No matter, I'm sure she'll have many more much better names. Proceed with your story. I assume that you went after her once she snuck out."

Of course he had gone after her. He had feared for his daughter's life, especially when she was in the hands of a human. Unexpectedly, however, both Ponyo and Sosuke had grown to deeply care for each other during their short time together. Even worse, before Fujimoto had managed to rescue her, she had tasted human blood from a cut on the boy's hand, which later enabled her to transform into a human and run away from him again after he retrieved her.

Kazehime sighed at this part of the story. "Can you not even control your own daughter?"

Fujimoto winced, feeling like he himself was a child being scolded by a parent.

"Then again," the sky goddess continued, "she is a demigod, and you are merely a human sea wizard. Her power far outstrips your own."

While that may have been true, the way she said it left Fujimoto feeling rather insulted. "I'm afraid I was rather distracted at the time. Her escape accidentally caused a certain… project I had been working on to go wrong, and it caused a massive typhoon."

"Ah," Kazehime replied. "I assume you're talking about that one from 11 years ago. Yes, I felt magic in that storm, and it clouded my view of the land."

Which explained why she didn't know what had become of Ponyo. She would not have been happy once she found out. Nor will she be when she finds out in a little bit.

Fujimoto returned to his story. He told how Ponyo had found her way back to the boy and how he had summoned Granmammare to help undo the damage their daughter had caused. But instead, Granmammare had decided to give Ponyo the opportunity to become human permanently by testing Sosuke's love for her.

At this, Kazehime's hair began blowing around wildly and the blue sky in her eyes grew darker. "She actually decided to do this? If the boy's love was not genuine and pure, your daughter would have turned into cloud vapor."

Fujimoto cleared his throat. "Actually, she was of the sea, so she would have turned to sea foam instead." Just as she would have turned to stone if she had been of the earth instead, but it was best not to get too technical right now.

Kazehime merely waved this off. "Death is death, regardless of what method or form it comes in. I'm just astounded that Granmammare would be willing to risk her daughter's life on the feelings of as mere human."

Insults against him he could deal with, but Fujimoto wouldn't stand to hear Granmammare insulted, and he immediately rose to the sea goddess' defense. "It's what our daughter wanted, and Granmammare wouldn't play with her life so carelessly. She read my mind and saw how the boy really felt. That's why she trusted him enough to put his love to the test."

The sky goddess glared at him. "Then let me see what she saw."

She held up her hand and a strong wind suction pulled Fujimoto over to her. He felt her enter his mind, and he was powerless to stop it. He had been fine with it when Granmammare had done it, she was his wife, and he trusted her completely, but Kazehime had no right to do this; it was a massive invasion of his privacy.

When she had obtained the knowledge she wanted, she released him. "So you actually went through with it. Your daughter is now human and living with the boy."

Fujimoto could feel it, the calm before the storm, literally. "Yes, she's been human for 11 years now."

The dark blue of the goddess' eyes was now nearly black, and the clouds had turned a dark gray, swirling around violently as her hair blew about as if caught in a heavy wind. "And what of my son? He is now without a bride. Your daughter was to wed him after her 16th birthday."

He could feel the angry vibrations of her magic radiating through the entire ship. "Yes, but she chose Sosuke. The boy's mother and Granmammare decided on it. The two of them are to wed. They've been unofficially engaged since Sosuke passed the test of love."

"And she was officially engaged to my son long before she was even born." Kazehime replied. "It seems you're puny human mind has forgotten our arrangement. Against my better judgment, I came to you when you were nothing more than an ordinary human pinning away for the goddess that saved your life at sea. I taught you magic and allowed you to meet with your goddess once again. If it weren't for me, you would have remained a heartbroken fool for the rest of your miserable life. In return, your first born daughter was to marry my son to form a union of the sky and the sea."

She was wrong; Fujimoto hadn't forgotten anything. Back when he had been just another human, he had been the last sole survivor on a ship that had begun sinking after it had been attacked by pirates. Granmammare had appeared to him and saved his life by bringing him to shore before disappearing again. After that, Fujimoto had become completely enamored by the sea goddess. For the next several years, he had searched for her unsuccessfully, though his feelings never wavered.

As a sky goddess, Kazehime witnessed everything that went on beneath the sky. She decided to give Fujimoto a chance after seeing his determination over the years. So she appeared to him, taught him some magic, gave him great knowledge, and even provided him a way to see his sea goddess once more. This was how he had gained his position as a sea wizard, and his job of taking care of the ocean.

Over the years, Fujimoto learned much and became quite powerful, even learning how to brew a potion that would prevent him from aging. This gave him plenty of time to woe Granmammare, and he was eventually able to win her heart.

Of course, he owed it all to Kazehime, leaving him in her debt. If it hadn't been for her, he never would have been reunited with his beloved sea goddess. And as payment for his debt, Kazehime asked to have Fujimoto and Granmammare's first born daughter to marry her son in order to create a union between the sea and the sky.

That had been centuries ago. Things had been different back then in regards to women, not to mention that such arranged marriages were quite common. Besides, at the time the bargain was struck, Fujimoto didn't even know if he and Granmammare would even have children, or if any of them would even be girls if and when they did. And when the time finally came and they did have children, how was he to know that Granmammare would give birth to so many at once, or that, thanks to his agreement with Kazehime, they would have all girls.

Ponyo had been the first to hatch, so it would be her that would wed Kazehime's son. To reach maturity faster, she aged as a mortal would, making her grow much faster than her sisters. So Fujimoto had begun training her how to use magic at a much earlier age than what was recommended, and everyone knew how that turned out.

"So," Kazehime continued angrily, "what makes you think you can just go back on our agreement?"

"It wasn't intentional!" Fujimoto told her defensively. "How was I supposed to know that she would fall for a human?"

"Bah!" the sky goddess scoffed. "Fall for, you say. How utterly ridiculous! She would have been five years old in human years at the time. What does one so young know about falling in love? It simply does not happen."

"Indeed," Fujimoto agreed, "it's not the mature kind of love that adults feel for each other, but a deep, innocent, and pure love that will eventually become the mature romantic kind as they grow. That was when they were young, but they have grown up, and now they share the proper kind of love."

Lightning flashed across the sky in the goddess' eyes. "If it were with another god or a spirit, I would understand, but not with a miserable human. Humans are such fickle creatures. They're naive, greedy, corruptible, and destructive. And as for the so-called love that humans feel for each other…" she shook her head. "I can't tell you how many times I've seen the love two humans share for each other fade away."

"That's not true!" Fujimoto objected, wondering why he was defending the humans when he too hated them so much. "Yes, I'll admit that there are times when love fades away, but there are also many times when it does. Having watched over them from up above, you must have known this."

The sky goddess gave no indication that she even heard him. "Human hearts change too much. Love does not always last with them. And you would actually entrust your daughter to one of them? The magic and the human race don't belong together."

Fujimoto saw an opportunity. "How can you say that?" Just a few years ago, you attended the wedding of the spirit of the Kohaku River and a human girl. And what of the wolf god, Moro, adopting a human child as her own. And does not Totoro always appear to human children?"

Kazehime simply waved this off. "You speak of unique cases. And, more importantly, none of them involved my son. But this, this is an outrageous insult. You've broken an agreement we've had for hundreds of years and have given my son betroth to another man based on a five year old's whim. And to add to the insult,, it was a human that you saw more fit for your daughter than my own beloved son."

Her hair and clothes whipped around her in a frenzy as her anger escalated. "I will not accept this! We had a bargain, and you shall honor it, whether your daughter agrees to it or not. I should have known better than to trust a human to keep their word, even if you are a sea wizard. Now I have to fix your mistake. Just stay out of my way, Fujimoto. You've messed up quite enough."

A tornado appeared around her body, the heavy wind blowing around the contents in the room. Then she was gone, and a powerful gust of wind flew through the ship and into the water, creating a large bubble that shot towards the surface.

Fujimoto was left in the room buried under the mess the sky goddess had left behind. Things had gone bad; he'd known they would. Not as bad as they could have gone, but still bad enough. It was just as he feared; Kazehime was not going to let this go. She was going after his daughter. And Granmammare was currently in the Spirit World where he couldn't get word to her about whatever the sky goddess was planning.

"This is not good," he muttered. "Not good as all."

(A/N: That's the end of the first chapter. It looks like trouble is blowing Ponyo's way, literally. And a bunch of you are probably a little ticked off at Fujimoto for making that deal. Kazehime is probably an unlikeable character too. But don't worry, there's a lot you don't know yet. So who likes it so far?)