"It had happen a couple of nights ago, on a rare clear day. I had been scouting the cliffs of Ezofuji for blacksmith materials. It had been terribly misty but I thought nothing of it and I soon found myself lost on that wicked mountain." He took a time to pause and sip his broth while the wind subsided outside the snug hut. "I had been hearing things following me, naturally I thought them to be demons and took out my sword. Oh, how I wish it would've been mischievous demons than what I saw before me!"
"They were great owls made out of steel like a sword with whirring contraptions. I have never seen something look so dead and alive at the same time, if only you saw you would have understand me. I challenged them. Foolish, yes, but I would let no demons like that allow themselves into Wep'keer. I fought them as well as a warrior could, and they were no match for my steel but then something terrible happened when I was about to land my final blow on the fiends. They used some sort of black magic, I do not know what it was, but it was as if I was frozen on the ground I stood. Then, instead of taking my life, it punished me. For my foolishness it took my blade and thrusted it on the peak of Ezofuji to curse the land with a horrible blizzard and to curse the blacksmith itself. If I were to ever make another blade, the land would be cursed further until it was a wasteland devoid of all life." There was a silence after Wawku's tale, even the wind stopped it's howling for a moment as if intrigued by the blacksmith's struggle.
"Then getting to the ark without a fight will be out of the question, qui?" Waka said, his accented voice piercing the thick air of melancholy in the hut. Wawku nodded and turned to peer out the door of the hut to the cold outside world. The wind had died, leaving only the soft twirling of snowflakes in the dark night. It betrayed a sense of peace that nobody felt.
"Do not underestimate your enemy, Tao Master. I barely got away with my life and had my wife not gotten to me in time, bless her, I would not even have that. You have a dangerous habit of being too confident in your celestial blade, which I doubt would pierce that foul creature's skin." Waka took his friend's words in consideration and was deep in contemplation for a plan to rescue his companion from the prison of stars which she was now bound to.
"Hold on." Sora said as he was hurriedly digging through his pack. He grasped the object he was looking for stowed messily under a collection of Ansem's reports. "Only a blade that you can make can slice the owls, right?"
"Yes, I believe so." Wawku answered, his mask hiding the quizzical expression he wore. Sora shouted triumphantly as he was able to pry the object, unbelievably, from the black hole that was his traveling pack. He held the dagger of the imp that had tried to kill him; it glinted red like it was forever in twilight. After Ishaku had thoroughly searched the blade for value and ,when he considered it junk, gave it to Sora as a keepsake. Not much of a keepsake, it was a dagger that was suppoused to kill him, but he was glad that Ishaku considered him enough of a friend to give him the dagger.
"This dagger is demon-made but someone of your ability could reforge it to make a blade." Sora stated and held out the blade to the astonished warrior. He examined it, exceedingly tedious to an anxious group, and nodded.
"I think it could work." The blacksmith said as he walked to the fireplace ready to forge. "It will take a few hours, until dawn. I recommend trying to rest because we have a long day ahead of us, my friends." The weary group agreed and followed Wawku's wife, who had been watching from her steaming stew. She led them to a back room concealed in a corner that was reserved fpr the occasional traveler that passed by. Woven mats with blankets and pillows were lined on the floor and their was luckily enough for them all, not counting the tiny Ishaku. Wooden chairs were placed by a smaller, makeshift fireplace and a small dining table was placed between them. The guest's room's walls were lined with maps and exotic skins that were generously given to Wawku by grateful travelers. When Sora entered, he immediately felt the need for sleep overcome him.
"I shall bring supper for you all." The wife said softly, bowing, and turned to face Sora. "Thank you, kind warrior, for giving back my husband's will to create swords. It is his gift." Sora scratched the back of his head bashfully. She disappeared behind the curtain parting for the door and went off to happily cook for her full house. Sora dragged his tired body to a mat and marveled at how soft and warm they really were. His friends had already fallen asleep before their heads had even hit their pillows. He watched as the restless Ishaku worked on his guide of Nippon and as he layed out all the scrolls to marvel at his accomplishment. Sora, curiosity piqued, sat up to glance at the scrolls. He soon was absorbed at the beauty of Nippon depicted on the scrolls and, especially, at the brilliant white wolf that graced many of Ishaku's finest paintings. She was no beast when Ishaku painted her; she was as graceful as the wind and as bright as the red sun. He skimmed some more of Ishaku's scrolls and the little artist had even let him keep a spare map of Nippon.
One scroll grabbed his attention: Waka of the Moon Tribe. It was a much smaller scroll bound in red yarn. Sora was about to reach for it when Waka's agile hands snatched it.
"Hey, prophet, it took me six jugs of Nami's finest brew to get that information out of you and you're not going to let anyone see it?" Ishaku protested. Waka stowed the scroll in his travel pack, and was careful to lock it from curious lookers. "Fine. Be that way. If you keep beating yourself up about those things then you're never going to win your goddess's heart." Sora did not get Ishaku's hints but a surely annoyed Waka did, and almost squished the poncle under his stiletto high sandals.
Ishaku, satisfied with thouroughly angering the prophet, cleaned up his scrolls and curled himself on Sora's mat with the slumbering keyblade master. He fell fast asleep as an alert Waka peered out the frost tinted wind, his mind racing too fast for him even to think of sleep.
Ishaku's hints had brought him back to a three years ago when he was a public official instead of the outlaw he was now, to when he was lounging at Nami's bar. She had opened early for him out of respect for his position and was eagerly thanking him for ridding the village of the 'white beast'. The said beast was peering down from her home on the cliifs of the waterfall, keeping a protective eye on her lunar friend and playing with the woodland animals. Waka had to supress a smile when Amaterasu was ganged up on by a pack of young rabbits.
"Hey, Nami. You're number one customer is here!" A tiny voice rang from the ground below. Nami looked all around her until the little orange ball of light hopped itself onto her bar. She was so surprised that she dropped the ingredient's she hurriedly stowing in her cupboard.
"Oh, Ishaku, how lovely." A flustered Nami greeted as she tried to get her bearings straight. She pulled a couple of sake bottles and almost threw them to the bar at her patrons. Waka's reflexes saved the bottles from shattering on the ground below them.
"What's the rush?" Ishaku asked Nami as he inspected the bottles Waka held up for him. Nami had, unknowingly, given the two her strongest sake in store but the prophet, who did not drink, didn't know it. But Ishaku did and a small plan was formulating in his head.
"The festival is coming and I think I finally have a recipe that shall be so strong it will vanquish Orochi himself! I have heard rumours of a holy lake in Agata forest and if I hurry I can get enough for a large batch before midnight." She said triumphantly and nearly tripped over her vast stores of brewery. Nami hurried out the door, almost forgetting her bar. "Master Waka you can just close up when you are done." She called to the stunned Tao Master as she ran off to the village gates.
"Good luck!" Ishaku yelled, and looked at Waka who was sliding of his seat. "She's crazy. Thinking that sake can honestly defeat Orochi..."
"If you want, my little friend, you can have my share. I don't want Amaterasu to get too lonely." Waka said suddenly as he turned to waterfall that was shining in the midday sun.
"Hey, why don't you wait a moment. Amaterasu is having a good time feeding those animals so why don't we relax and have some sake? It's free." Ishaku persuasion worked and he sat back down. He looked back up to the white wolf who was playfully snapping at sparrows. She would be all right, he thought. He poured himself a healthy portion of Nami's sparkling brew and took a swig.
Not only was the sake strong but Waka could easily get drunk, which was all in Ishaku's favor. After two bottles, the tipsy prophet was spilling all his secrets: from his exile from the moon tribe to how Amaterasu was cursed. Ishaku was very intrested about the moon tribe and wrote the information down, but stopped when he heard him change the subject to Amaterasu.
"I-hic-only saw her once-hic-as a human, when Orochi attacked the celestial-hic-plain." He drunkenly slurred between swigs of Nami's quickly depleting jug of sake. He went on to say, nearly passing out several times, that he fought Orochi to protect the people that took him in when he left the moon tribe for good. He was very sure that he would not win agaisnt the hellish beast as big as a mountain; he was only giving the Celestials more time to flee with the lesser gods to the stars where they would be safe. Orochi, sure that that Waka's strength was gone, offered him a proposition. He did not want to take the life of someone with so much potential for the Dark Lord.
"Dearest Moon Warrior, we are from the same land of the beautiful, desolate Moon. Should we not be fighting together? With your sword and ability to foresee, the ones banished to the moon shall take their vengeance on the worshipers of the wicked Sun." Orochi boomed from the blood red sky; it's voice almost did not carry over the roar of destruction eating the land around Waka and his foe.
"I'm a messenger of the gods, part of a lunar tribe that does not obey demons." Waka said defiantly, standing his ground agaisnt the raging Orochi and felt the rage of his fire singe his skin. Orochi's rage soon turned to that of sure confidence that was even worse than it's bellows of rage and blood lust.
"You are part of a lunar lribe that does not exist. The Dark Lord has wiped them from existence!" The eight-headed serpent shook with laughter as he saw Waka's crestfallen face, the face of someone with no home to go back to. "Warrior of the great Moon and dishonarable traitor, I shall heal your pain. You will be the first to die in my new tyranny. Let it be a comfort to you that you shall have an honorable death, worthy of a demon." Waka stood in white-face shock, numb and his body screaming with pain. Would this be how it would end for him? Far from a home that didn't exist anymore?
It was Waka's turn to laugh now, right in the face of oblivion. His laughter shook his body so hard that he had to kneel, nearly rolling on the ground in hysterics, half-sobbing and laughing. The lightning head of Orochi stared stupidly at the hysterical prophet, completly dumbfounded that it was laughing instead of pleading for mercy like most sane people. Waka composed himself, and his dignified French air was apparent despite his ripped clothing caked with blood.
"Excuse moi, but I have no intentions of dying. That is the great thing about foretelling the future, you just know when it ends. But, alas, you ugly brute, my path does not end with you." Waka wiped his face and continued facing the now distraught Orochi. Consumed by anger at being laughed and mocked by an inferior being, the enormous demon snapped blindly at the prophet but always just missed the pink clad warrior. It was Poison, getting a rare stroke of brillance, that was Waka's downfall. While the prophet was busy taunting and throwing French curses at Fire, it was busy throwing poison in the ember filled wind. Waka was too fast for the snapping heads but he was not quick enough to avoid the northward wind and was soon engulfed in the deadly poison.
Waka staggered back as his vision blurred and the poison took hold of his body. He fell to the charred ground, stiff and in the early stages of death. Yet, his French cursing did not stop. He was determined to keep talking, foretelling Orochi's doom, until he was at heaven's gate. He looked up with the last of strength to the sky where the red sun glew behind Orochi that ignored Waka and continued on it's way to destroy the heavens. But, wait, was not the sun behind him? Then what was that incredible light that lit the plain with a heavenly light?
Amaterasu looked down on her beloved Celestial Plain in anguish. They land which she had created herself, the people that she protected like a mother, and the plants that she had painted herself were gone. She came to her ground in a streak of divine light, in front of the creature that dared trespass on her holy land. The brightness and beauty of the goddesses caused Orochi, for a moment, to seize it's terrible campaign.
Waka looked up from the ground to the white beauty that stood between him and the silent Orochi. There was no hint of the wolf she would become on her body; she had heavenly floor length silver-white hair given to her by winter and pearly skin that looked as of it was dipped in starlight draped in a lacy kimono that was made from the white frothy clouds of summer. She turned her head to gaze at the near-death prophet with her red eyes that were the drops of the sun. Everything about her was constructed naturally from the world that laid below the celestial realm. She kneeled to him and cocked her head, as if she were curious about the being before her, and waited for him to get up. He wasn't. She was a bit upset that he was sleeping at a time like this. The nerve!
Amaterasu jumped on his stomach to get his attention. He grunted in pain as Amaterasu kicked at his face with her bear feet which were, unfortunately, not blessed by any flowers. To be dying of suffocation under an oblivious to danger goddess, Waka now wished he had let Orochi eat him and be done with this ordeal.
"I...can't...move." He hissed to the ethreal being pouncing on and off his stomach. She cocked her head again as if to say, 'Why didn't you say so?' She jumped off the prophet and sat cross-legged before Orochi. She did some quick and intricate hand-signs to the shocked into silence serpent.
"Leave your land and heal the warrior? You are not in the position to bargain, Amaterasu." Orochi growled to the mute goddess. She sighed threw the limp prophet over her shoulder, a primitive joy of fighting curling her lips.
For the first time in his eternal life, Waka prayed