"There was a priest back in the dark ages that would whipe out all magicians." Sutokeru told everyone in the room, "My predecessor at the time had done everything within his power to defeat that priest, prevend it from causing any more damage then it had allready done. And he succeeded! The priest was defeated, and went down the Abyss, like anyone else who died."
"Why only prevent him from damaging any more, and not rebuild?" Makito asked.
"There had to be more than one magician to pull off that job." was Sutokeru's cynical reply, "Anyhow, as I've said before, going down that Abyss drives people nuts. The priest was no different, except that his lust for power, for control was what drove him beyond madness. The magic that went with him merged with that madness... rage... evil if you like. Becoming a life of it's own, completely detached from it's original source!"
"That's why he isn't related to Infershia!" Tsubasa figured.
"Exactly." Sutokeru continued, "Once that evil had grown big, it suddenly started it's way back up the surface. It escaped the Abyss. Other than that he made it to the surface a few hundred years later, there was another disappointment. It couldn't do as it pleased."
Everyone said something different, but basicly what they all wanted to know was: "Why not?"
"Magic can't exist on it's own." Sutokeru answered, "It has to be carried... used... it needs a medium to manifest itself. It therefor blended itself with a, at the time, unborn child."
"And that child..." Sutokeru heard someone start, but didn't bother to look at whom spoke, and continued himself as if never interrupted: "The child was born healthy, and sane. At least in comparison with what I encountered back at the orphanage. That child grew up to be my best friend, Garth."
"You've been friends with evil?" Kai asked him surprised.
"The evil was inside him, but it had no control over him whatsoever!" Sutokeru corrected him, "He was a good guy. Not exactly the brighest or the most courageous I've ever met, but still nice to have him around. He was a better person to hang out with as opposed to the so-called 'cooler' kids."
"So what happened to him?" there was a hint of concern when Houka asked this.
"He went to visit his grandparents once." Sutokeru answerd, "But the car he was in had some trouble. And he... he died in the crash!"
"No way!" Tsubasa sounded as if he pitied him.
"The night of his funeral, I went to visit his grave." Sutokeru continued.
"You didn't try to bring him back, did you?" Isamu interrupted.
"No." Sutokeru answered, though there was an air to it as if he really wanted to say 'What are you taking me for?". Nevertheless, he continued: "I just wanted to have one last chat with him, and properly say goodbye. But..."
Especially Isamu could tell from the way he was talking, what he was about to say: "Something went wrong?"
"I hadn't done a thing!" Sutokeru replied, "Even if I did, it was nothing I've never done before, so nothing could have gone wrong. But once I arrived, the ground started to shake! Lightnings appeared, from the skies as well as the ground! Smoke errupted from Garth's grave, which smelled like burned flesh!"
Sutokeru could tell from the looks on everyone's faces that they didn't like what they were hearing. Yet, he had to finish telling them this: "It didn't take long before a hand came out of the grave. By the looks of it, it was the source of the burned flesh. The hand was followed by another, then an entire body surfaced. Though much of the skin was torched away, and because of the accident much of his brains were exposed, I recognised it as Garth. However... something told me otherwise! It was Garth's body, but it wasn't Garth himself! This thing didn't recognise me at all, so it couldn't have been Garth! It was then that it used all of it's magic to knock me unconsious. Or so I thought..."
Nobody in the room understood what he meant by that, so he explained: "When I woke up, there was nothing but darkness. Like I told you before, darkness above, beneath, before, behind, left, and right... darkness all around me! I didn't faint or anything! That thing killed me!"
"And you're sure you didn't do anything?" Hikaru asked, "Because last time I checked it, you can do things without saying..."
"Yes! I'm sure!" Sutokeru didn't let him finish the question, and continued as soon as he found his cool again, "Anyway, I must have been falling for hours... days... weeks... perhaps even months. I didn't know! But it drove me nuts! Until I relised but one thing: that I'm going down, while up there was... some thing, capable of who-knows-what! A creature risen from the dead, that uses magic... and the only that can stop it is going down the Abyss!"
"Now you're overdoing it a little!" Kai laughed, "We're here too!"
Sutokeru didn't see what it is about what he was telling that was so funny to Kai, so with a hint of sarcasme he spoke: "Well for your information, I didn't know that there were other five magicians at that time. So, no I'm not over doing it one bit. Though admittedly, even if I did know you guys were out there..."
He paused, which was one pause the family didn't particulary liked. He continued eitherway: "In any case, relising this I knew I can't just stay down there, losing my mind every second that I stayed there. And quite suddenly I knew I must find a way out, I knew I could find a way out!"
"But dead people don't just come back to life all on their own!" Urara interrupted, "Even Tou-san and..."
"Well, Blue Girl!" Sutokeru interrupted her back, not caring about how everyone reacted when he refered to her as 'Blue Girl', "But where there's a way in, there's a way out! Even people who fall into a pit can easily climb out with a bit of effort, and keeping their minds clear!"
"And what made you think there even is a way out of that Abyss?" Kai asked.
"Well, believe it or not, but everything has a counterpart!" Sutokeru answered, "Like you have yes and no! Heaven and Hell, or in your case Magitopia and Infershia! Up and down! Fire and water! One side of a coin and another! One way in and one way out! One thing cannot exist without the other! In other words, where there's a way in, there must also be a way out! For as far as anyone knows nobody ever found it, but if you don't start looking you won't find anything either! I had convinced myself that I can find a way out, and when I do, I will find that thing that killed me, and stop him from killing OR hurting anyone else! Then suddenly, I don't know where it came from, but I saw a light! And I fell into it! That's when I woke up, inside a coffin, holding this!"
Sutokeru held up his magiphone to show to everyone what he was holding in the coffin. He then continued: "Along with it came a spell called 'Maagi Magi Magiro'. It was a spell that gave me a special body-armour. With that armour, I escaped out of the coffin, out of my grave, and decided to use it against that thing I saw!"
"Which you did?" Isamu asked.
"Dozens of times!" Sutokeru answered, "The first time I saw him after my ressurection, he had changed his looks. I take it I don't need to go into detail with that, since y'all seen him. He had started calling himself Lord Zedd, for whatever reason, always having had some kind of scheme with which he hoped to rule over all the people of Australia, and then the world. Cliché as it may have sounded, that was how he worked, usually with the excuse of punishing the sinners. It was during one of his schemes that I had met Ginny. She told me all that there is to know about him, about herself, about my predecessor, who had confided his life story to her, as well as that of the ones that came before him."
"That's how you know all this!" Makito suddenly said.
"Aside of all the things that Lunagel had told me when I was a child, yes." Sutokeru answered.
"How about your foster parents?" Miyuki asked him.
Sutokeru didn't answer immediately, but answered none the less: "...They don't know I'm alive, if that's what you mean."
The entire family dropped their jaws in such a fashion, it wouldn't surprise Sutokeru if they'd hit the ground. Additionally, they had opened their eyes very wide, too wide even, and all that just to look surprised?
"Does this family have any normal habbits?" Sutokeru asked Rin.
"Then... where do you live?" Houka asked, overly concerned.
"Back in Australia, I lived in some old bunker, of which only Garth and I knew it existed." Sutokeru answered, "But since Zedd wanted to be sure I wouldn't twart him anymore, and therefor fled to Japan,... I kinda had a mobile HQ ever since!"
"So... you live nowhere?" Houka kept asking.
"Nope!" Sutokeru answered flatly.
The family became quiet after that. Then Houka had an idea: "Why won't he sleep in Urara-chan's bedroom? It's not like you sleep there anymore!"
"You want him to live in our house?" Kai was obviously not pleased with the idea alone.
"Oh... why not? He's after all a magician! One of us, even!" Houka replied.
"And you make such an irresponcible decission without even talking to Tou-san or Kaa-san?" Makito couldn't be brought to think otherwise.
This little fight, that got worse when the other siblings started to share their own thoughts about it, it allowed the parents to quickly talk it over with each other. When they were finished, Miyuki recited a spell, that drove the five apart.
"I think Houka is right about wanting him to stay." she started, "But ultimately, it's Sutokeru's decission. Do you want to stay, or not?"
Sutokeru took his time to think about it, then he said: "Well... it's not like I have much else of a choice!"
Only Houka jumped up at him saying this, after which she immediately ran to him, grabbed his arm and started dragging him: "Come on! I'll show you where the room is!"