Happy Birthday, Lost Hero
A little intro story going more into how Reiji came into this world. | Thumbnail Art by Razzbexxa: https://twitter.com/razzbexxa
Hero of Our Legacy, Awaken Once More
The Wheel of Fate Turns Again, And Demands Your Attention
Reborn Once More, Into the Temples of Your Ancestries
Lead Your People To Salvation, Rid of All Evil
Let the Beat of The World Be Your Guide, and Your Gauntlet
Hero of Legacy, Awaken…
A man drifts down in the ocean, slowly falling towards the ocean floor like cloth drifting towards the ground. His eyes closed shut, locked in a deep sleep with the sunlight from above barely registering to him. He does not snore, but he does still breathe the water akin to us breathing air. He faintly hears that voice, the voice of a wise man drilling this idea into his head of the “Hero of Legacy,” but they lack the ability to stay with him like mumbles in a crowd. A silver object soon follows him down, descending more like crumpled up paper compared to the cloth drifting the man was doing. The object begins getting closer, as the wise man begins shouting “Awaken” louder and louder, while his arm begins reaching for the object like a puppet on a string. As soon as his hand grasps the object, the voice booms as loud as a god among men “AWAKEN!” as his eyes were forced open like an alarm awakening a slumbering soldier.
From the sudden awakening his golden eyes had a large haze upon them, slowly adjusting to this odd world. The first thing he noticed was that of the object his mind and body felt tempted to grasp with his life: It was this odd looking weapon, 5 different colored gems buried and forged within it but gave off a different colored shine from the sunlight, the edge guards were more curved and metallic blue, the handle made for one hand and covered in black leathery material but felt naturally light to him despite the weight of what he was seeing as a sword, the hilt having a blue gem-like orb with a gold design making the orb stuck to the end of the handle. His eyes scanning it over and over as it began looking more familiar than alien. But the same could not be said for where he was placed, as he was in the middle of a deep ocean canyon, the light able to touch the bottom but he looked around in panic, twisting his body and making it float in this rather odd space. “The… temple?” his first words in this place but one of great confusion, he could faintly hear the words “temple of” but his mind was still trying to grasp for something, anything this world could tell him. With his freed hand, he ended up rubbing against the top of his head, feeling his own hair once he realized he was touching his head. He pulled to get a better look only to be in momentary pain, his hand letting go but then grabbing the closest stands and ends up moving them to his face to get a better look. Several strands seemed locked to a spike of sorts, with all the strands having an almost maroon or dark red color to them.
He let go of his hair and looked around once more, soon spotting a ship that had sunk to the bottom of the canyon. His instincts at first tell him to kick towards it, his body only twisted awkwardly. He looked down and saw what would have been legs on a human body like his but instead it was a fishtail, a dolphin tail to be more accurate. He began feeling his pastel blue tail from the waist to as far down as he could go, even slightly bending it backwards and forwards just to see if this really was his. He sighs only slightly in relief as he looks down at the ship again, now the whole body looking straight at it like an arrow with all the movements he was doing. He began making little pushes with his tail, slowly as he continued his body and mind treated this movement like he was a natural, a merman of the oceans.
He slowly moved his way inside the ship through one of the broken holes. His tail rubbing close to the broken wood but luckily not enough to cut it. As he began descending into the broken voyage, the light began to go away. He felt a need to press forward but he began growing a rational fear of the dark. Pointing his weapon against the darkness and pressing forward, his hands began shaking, longing for some warmth or way to foresee what may be coming. At that moment, the red gem on his weapon glowed and emerged fire from the tip of his weapon, pushing away the water to allow it to breathe in the sea. With the light return and his eyes glued to his gem and sword in hopefulness, he felt a piece of himself returning from a place he didn’t even realize he lost. Fear gave way into confidence as he continued forward, soon noticing tattoos on his arms of trails of fish, glowing the same red as the gem was for fire.
He soon stopped and saw a mirror inside a sunlit room, fabrics drifting about as he turned off the flame with the glow from the gem and his tattoos subsiding. He slowly swam up to the mirror in curiousness after seeing what almost looked like a portal, only to be startled at the being inside it. He tilted his head, baffled that something like this could be in what he thought as a temple, as he slowly went up to it expecting to encounter the man on the other side. As soon as he touched it though, it felt… odd, cold, and metallic even though he felt his flesh finger pressing against it was none of that. He swam a few feet back and simply studied the image in the mirror. He began making these static movements like a clockwork robot, the mirror mimicked it. He waved his tail back and forth, the mirror mimicked. He waved his weapon slowly, the mirror mimicked. Realizing more and more what that was meaning, he looked at the mirror’s image of a man’s muscular chest with a tattoo of a spear shaped wave of fish, he lifted his hand up and slowly guided it towards it.
His fingers slowly pressed down against HIS chest, and he looked at the mirror feeling baffled, joyful, and overwhelmed. “This… this is me,” he said in bewilderment, as he began gasping in relief from a revelation. He then had this knowledge, pieces filling his mind like pieces of a shell filling him in. The knowledge of his magic, parts of this strange world, his name “I’m…. I am Reiji,” he said with a smile. But he then looked a bit horrified, the pieces suddenly stopped. He knew now that he was in an ocean, inside a shipwreck and not a temple but that was it. He still didn’t understand what that fading voice ment as he sat on his tail on the floorboard of the broken ship, feeling like massive holes within him were left unfilled.
“Who…. who really am I?” Reiji asked himself, looking at the reflection in his weapon. “What am I doing here?” as he looked up at the ceiling. “And… why was I even brought here?” as he then looks down at the ground as heartbreak and loneliness falls upon him, the revelations that entered his mind only compounding this feeling. To some, they will see Reiji as an 18 year old merman wondering the ocean plains. To others, they would see him as a master of magic and sorcery beyond many others' potential. But right here, as he sits in a forgotten ship with only questions to riddle his mind, it was a man’s first day born into a world he knows truly nothing about.