A/N: Hey hey, chilluns. This is my first ToS fanfiction, but not my first fanfiction, so you could say I'm spreading out. And you'd be right. So, yeah. I rock. Anyway, it seems to me that this is the sort of place I should be outlining couplings within the story. There may well be Sheena/Lloyd, but so far the only definite coupling is Zelos/ Roughly Six Feet of Topsoil and a Wooden Box. Guess which ending this takes place in. Cackles

Reviews are always appreciated, as is advice, critique, etc, and don't feel you have to hold back if there are bits you don't like. There'll be more than one chapter – something of a novelty for me – But given that it's nearly Chrimbo, please bear with me.

Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia, Namco, or any of the stuff contained therein, although I have it on reliable information that somewhere in a bin in Namco headquarters is a crudely drawn poster in crayon claiming that 'mE loves you allls!' signed 'DC'

Chapter one: Cultural Attatche from the Dingy Hole

There was a niggling voice at the back of her mind, almost like a doubt givena voice. She could practically feel it brooding over her shoulder. If she turned around, she could swear she'd be able to see it. This would be fine if she didn't know that she probably would, because this was not a doubt of hers, and it was no inner feeling of discontent or subtle wrongness. It was Shadow. She could feel the strangely fractured Summon Spirit looking through her eyes at the world around her, to the extent that she could feel its physical appearance behind her.

They had found the Summon of Darkness in pieces, and even though it had melded back into one whole again, sometimes Sheena Fujibayashi got the impression that the Summon Spirit still wasn't quite right, in the same way that a broken mirror reflects imperfectly.

Someone coughed discreetly in front of her, and Sheena snapped back to reality. Orochi looked at her politely, kneeled on the floor opposite her. She dragged herself back to the matters at hand. The Tea Ceremony. She didn't particularly like Tea, and lacked the patience for the ceremony, but there were customs that had to be observed.

'CEREMONY…CUSTOMS….' came Shadow's hoarse whisper in the back of her brain. Doing her best to ignore it, she lifted the cup carefully, her poise cultured and elegant. There was perhaps an element of tension, though. On her journeys across both worlds with Lloyd and the rest of the team, she had been able to be a lot more relaxed, and a lot more comfortable. Her usual grip would have been deemed inappropriate for the ceremony, where everything had to be just so. Besides, her usual grip would have more than likely broken the delicate china. She suppressed a smile at that thought.

'TENSION…CEREMONY…BREAKING…'

Across from her, Orochi raised his cup coolly, with far more style than she felt she had managed. Between them, a small pot was kept warm on a small, controlled flame. The tea leaves were scare here, and so the Ceremony was reserved for special occasions such as this. Orochi was being assigned as the Information Networks new contact in the recently rebuilt Luin, and it was Sheena's duty to perform the necessary rites to make his position binding and official.

'CEREMONY….BINDING…'

She struggled to keep her face calm and neutral as that voice from the crypt echoed through her body and mind. Shadow had the sort of voice that could make anything sound like a dire warning.

'Go, Orochi, whose name means 'Snake who waits in the grasses, and uphold both the honour and the people of Mizuho.'

'I will go, Sheena, whose name means 'Foundling from the forest', and uphold both the honour and the people of the village of Mizuho.'

Sheena glanced sideways at Chief Igaguri, who nodded faintly and smiled. She breathed a sigh of relief. She must have been doing alright after all.

'You handled yourself well, Sheena. You will make a fine chief.' Igaguri said later, after Orochi had departed and the ceremony was complete. Sheena smiled, and pushed her hand through her coarse black hair.

'Thanks, grandpa.'

'However, you seemed, how should I say this, distracted?' He looked at her shrewdly, a look that she remembered well, full of intelligence and what appeared to be a scarcely suppressed mirth. He sighed.

'Ah, but perhaps it is just me. You have changed so much in my lost twelve years. He glanced down with a vaguely amused look. 'As have I, for that matter. Thank you for bringing me back.'

Sheena looked at him awkwardly, her face slightly flushed.

'It's good to have you back, grandpa. I really missed you. I almost thought you'd never come back to me.' She confessed. Igaguri gave her an affectionate look.

'You've become a fine young lady, Sheena. A chief the people of this village will be able to look up to when I am gone.'

'Grandpa, don't talk like that.' she chided. 'You'll be around for a long time.'

'Will I? Well, I suppose we will see. Go, Sheena. There are things to be done, I'm sure.'

'Yes, Grandpa.'

After she had risen and left, Igaguri stayed silent for a short while, and then he smiled.

'You can come out now, Tiga.'

'There's no fooling you, as ever. Not that I'd expect anything less from the chief.' Tiga said wryly as he removed himself from his place of concealment.

'It's only a wonder Sheena didn't see you there.' remarked the chief. 'She has sharp eyes.'

'I, too, suspect her mind was dwelling on other things. You noticed the way she kept trying to look over her shoulder without moving her head?'

'Of course.'

'Heh.'

'I wonder sometimes if we knew what we were doing.'

'Pardon, chief?'

Igaguri shook his head wearily.

'Sending a seven year old child to pact with Volt. Madness. And yet, I wonder…'

Tiga stayed silent. It was best to let the chief work his way through these thoughts himself.

'I wonder…Would we have done it had she been born a child of Mizuho, instead of a foundling?'

'She is a child of Mizuho.' Tiga said simply.

'I suppose. She wasn't even walking when we found her, was she?' Igaguri mused. 'Still, I can't help but wonder…'

'Who knows? There hasn't been a recorded summoner since the Great War. Not successful ones, anyway.'

'Well, how could there be? Mithos held all the pacts, and even if the vows had been broken, the summon spirits themselves are hardly weak.'

'I suppose not.' Said Tiga, subconsciously fingering the back of his neck, tracing the scar and puckered flesh that was his most constant reminder of the failed pact so long ago. 'And yet she has pacted with them all. I wonder how it feels…' he mused.

Igaguri nodded, and moved the implements of the Tea Ceremony back into their drawer.

'She has been family to me in everything but blood for almost her entire life, Tiga, and I suspect that even I will never know that.'

In the meantime, Sheena had walked swiftly back to her newly built house on the outskirts of the village. It was traditional for the Successor to live with the current chief, to learn and absorb all facets of running the village, but ever since the tragedy with Volt, she had been gently shifted over to the outskirts of the Village. They couldn't, or perhaps wouldn't, banish her, but she had effectively been made an outsider in her own home. Still, she reflected, had that not happened, where would she be today? She wouldn't have dedicated herself to the cards, and she wouldn't have made her way back to the Imperial Research Academy at the tender age of nine, terrified and alone, but with a newfound determination as hard as diamond to master her summoning arts so it would never happen again. She wouldn't have met Corrine. She smiled faintly as she thought of the diminutive man-made summon spirit. Not so diminutive any more, or so man made.

Nor, she reminded herself, would she have been chosen to assassinate Colette, and who knew what would have happened otherwise?

She opened the door to her house, and closed it firmly behind her. Moving rapidly, she changed out of her ceremonial outfit, the garb of the successor, and into her more familiar, more comfortable travelling outfit. The ends of the ribbon pooled on the floor as she sat down gracefully in the middle of the room. She closed her eyes, and concentrated. She knew better than anyone alive that the words were a formality, a mark of respect for the pact, but if Shadow was going to ignore the formalities, so was she. There was a disruption in the air, and the room grew imperceptibly darker as the envoy from the dark abyss heeded her call. She opened her eyes.

'Alright.' She said firmly. 'What is it?' The intimidating figure looked down at her impassively, and she felt herself grow frustrated. 'What is it, Shadow? You've been looking over my shoulder all morning, and-'

'PACTMAKER…' the summon spirit whispered; his voice the dry rustle of a dying man's last breath. Sheena remained quiet.

'IMBALANCE…' It said, cryptically. No pun intended, Sheena though wryly. She remained silent for almost a minute, but there didn't seem to be any more coming.

'You're going to have to be more specific, Shadow. Imbalance in what?'

'UNDERWORLD…'

That got her attention. She sat rigid, her mind cart wheeling back through the past. The collection of the Devil's Arms, those cursed weapons, Abyssion's betrayal, the Necronomicon and the rebirth of the Dark Lord Nebilim. The book they had destroyed in the Sybak library. This would not be good.

'Show me.' she commanded. Shadow raised one hand, palm upwards, and the light in the room deepened to an even darker purple as the Envoy focused Mana around itself. By degrees of darkness, a picture appeared in the air above the spirit's palm, and the young Summoner looked on.

(A/N: Successfully prepared first chapter! My thanks to Thunder "So, Pietro, Diamonds"Strike, who's review helped me make the corrections I missed the first time around)