Everything was coated with madness. His brain supplying millenniums worth of memories. It was coming in bits and pieces. He could feel each shard shattering and re-constructing. Some pieces separating again and again until it found its rightful place. It was like the darkened space of his memories filled to the brim until blinding white-hot light stabbed his eyelids to explode out into a thousand sparkles.
He could vaguely picture his older brother, body half mangled into the slates, white hair framing bright blue eyes. One of his oldest, most horrifying memories. He remembered now. Who and what he was. He wasn't just Zero Kiryu. He was more. So much more.
And like that, his memories flashed before his eyes. Some he had long forgotten re-surfacing. One of the fresher memories being pieced together brought so much hurt. His sister. His beautiful, beautiful sister. She was dead now. He could still feel the ripple her death caused fraying at his psychic and numinous nerves.
At last, he sucked in a breath on the physical realm. Water instead of air rushed his lungs but he had no reason to worry. He was what could be called arcane. A being not belonging to any universe but alas trapped in this one.
His eyes opened. He could see millions of atoms colliding together, the vision almost overwhelming to him. His vision unmagnified and he realized he was submerged in water. Dark, cold water. He pushed his senses outward and it rebounded against the bottom of what he supposed was a large indoor pool.
He moved his legs and swam through the water towards the surface. He broke the surface of the water and allowed his sense of gravity and of the world itself to adjust. Observing his surroundings, he found that he was indeed in an indoor pool. Flowery vines crawled up the pillars holding the structure and the sun shone through but the water remained dark. It confused him for a moment until he realized it was due to his blood.
Stygian blood was darkness itself. It was empty yet encompassing. It suffocated and absorbed everything. It was no surprise that mere sunlight couldn't break through or reflect. Even the physical laws biding this world had to bend to royal blood.
When going back to his antecedent state, his body would shed out the ersatz blood running through his veins. His heart stopping and brain ceasing function for several hours, if not days. His skin would pull taut and snap back to place. The shade of it changing to the most miniscule of details. His bones would melt and re-shape, the material of it mutating to become crystalline in nature. His teeth and nails would be pushed out to be replaced by stronger ones. His hair would grow to allow the strands made of not keratin but an amalgam of matter to take its place. His insides would twist until they reached the optimal state for this body.
He lifted himself out of the pool with ease despite the weight of the water dragging him back. He sat for while just enjoying the feel of the cool breeze until his brain could finally work on its own. He had no idea of how he ended up in the pool or how he got awakened. He was still on the Kiryu Property, that's for sure.
He shook out the left-over water from his now waist-length hair and started exploring his surroundings physically. He was surrounded by a vast expanse of green which would've been puzzling because he was in one of the colder regions, if couldn't feel the energy buzzing on the air. It tasted deceptively similar to that of his eldest brother. Perhaps the senile old man had been part of all of this.
He camouflaged himself by shifting his cells to the spaces between this world and that binding it to the greater eldritch currents lying just beyond reach. Although he couldn't escape its hold, he could mold himself to the eldritch currents. It was a skill all farae learnt at a very young age. "Become what you were made from to defeat the bindings of the Royals." He could hear his brother saying it so vividly that it could be mistaken for words spoken in the present.
This allowed him to observe his surroundings in complete ease. Or at least it was supposed to because all the otherworldly creatures around him started to scurry away. This confirmed that they were indeed Demons. Brought here by another farae to cater to all and any Fari that might end up here, whether by choice or not.
He started for the mansion as all Fari were, they enjoyed luxury and he could use a warm bath.