"Are you good now?"
He heard Marina asking him gently while still holding on to him. Noctis, still dumbfounded, just nodded his head and kept staring at the head priest walking towards the pool of water beyond the opening towards the garden.
The younger priests left one by one from the hall and Marina also made her way towards the pool.
"Noctis." said Marina, finally they settled around the pool in the shade of a giant tree in the garden.
"Yes. Ms. Marina"
"Now please proceed in the pool. Do not worry. No harm will come towards you. Take a deep breath and repeat the words that his holiness Suigard says to you."
"In?"
"Yes. You don't need to be afraid. I'll be here."
Noctis might have had some worry of child endangerment but after the recent incident he felt they might just be able to handle anything. I mean what is the limit of magic if he could evade death, am I right?
Anyhow Noctis nodded his head a little and proceeded to enter the pool.
At this the old man, or 'his holiness Suigard', took his head in his head while he heard Marina's voice saying "Don't panic".
And in goes Noctis's head at the behest of the head priest.
Noctis hurriedly opened his eyes, inadvisably, inevitably, at the sudden motion, but he soon discovered that this wasn't how a pool of water was supposed to behave.
He could open his eyes as if he were in open air as well as breathe like he had turned into a fish.
'Fish?'
Noctis immediately inspected his body, lest he really had been turned into a fish for this silly little ritual.
He wasn't. Fortunately.
"Can you hear us?"
He heard Marina's voice from nowhere in particular. He tried to search for her throughout his field of vision but all he could see was deep blue water. Up and down. Left and right.
"You can then. Alright then proceed to utter the words that his holiness says upon you."
It seemed yet another trickery of unknown wonders. Noctis relaxed and just tried to play along with whatever was going on.
"Kāmuy ne itāku ārasa né makiri ruwe yēn" came the old man's voice.
Another bizzare spell. Sigh.
"Kāmuye ne.. itaku arāsā né.. makiri ruyān?" he tried to replicate.
"Kāmuy ne itāku ārasa né makiri ruwe yēn" came the voice again.
"Alright alright. I got it. Kāmuy ne itāku ārasa né makiri ruwe yēn. Yeah."
As soon as he said those words. The flow of the pool changed dramatically. He felt like he had been transported from the few metres pond to an ocean spanning through infinity. He got swept in the waves and started flowing through it towards God knows where.
He moved and moved, against his will towards the infinity through the dark waters, and had started to feel a little creeped out when finally he stopped. That is, the waves ceased to rile and gained some calm.
Noctis waited for anything to happen again. But neither the water reacted nor did he hear any more instructions.
As he was idling about he saw a ray of light in some distance from where he was suspended. Considering he had not been told anything against moving about, he started swimming towards the ray of light.
The swimming was surprisingly easy for the apparent depth he was at but he chalked it up to yet another magical wonder because what had made sense up until now anyway.
Indeed thinking about it, he felt silly that he would be so surprised at mere relaxation of some pain when he had literally been dead in one world and reincarnated in another. Truly the depth of this matter was beyond even his wildest imaginations.
In the meantime he reached the source of the light, and lo and behold in a true fantasy fashion he found a sword suspended in the water that was emitting the soft soothing light.
'So unoriginal.'
He moved his fingers towards the hilt of sword and started tracing it without actually grasping it. It had a long handle of deep red colour with a handle guard in the deepest blue he had ever seen. He would have chalked it up as black if it weren't for the concentrated light on the sword.
He moved down towards the edge of the blade. It was a dual handed blade that was common in fantasy tropes. He moved towards the bottom of the blade tracing the bridge of it when suddenly the blade vibrates intensely.
"Aahk-"
He jerked his hand back at a sudden pain only to see he still got a cut across the back of his hand. It wasn't deep but the blood was trickling little by little.
'I wonder if this will result in an infection.'
As he was processing this, he suddenly experienced another motion akin to what he felt after he had uttered the mantra.
Once again the feeling of vertigo came back as he was dragged through the ocean and back at where he started.
That is he was out of the pool just laying over the surface half submerged with the head priest's hand on his forehead.
The head priest's eyes were as calm as ever as he inspected him all over. He also felt as if he showed a little disappointed but it went as quickly as it came, leaving him wondering if he was mistaken.
His expression definitely changed however as he noticed something about him,
"What is that in your hand?"
"Oh yeah this." Noctis brought his right hand up and showed them the cut he got and without pausing promptly conveyed all he had seen during this brief escapade.
Marina had a bewildered expression on her face as she alternated her gaze form Noctis to Suigard, and vice versa.
She asked head priest in a voice that proclaimed bewilderment, "does this mean your holiness that young master Noctis could perhaps be-?"
"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Replied Suigard regaining his aloof calmess.
"But why would it be like this? This hasn't happened before has it?"
At this the head priest nodded somewhat, and brooded somewhat and took Noctis's hand to inspect his injury.
After a few glances he just tapped his hand, casually healing the cut, and said to Marina,
"You should leave for now. The child must be hungry. I'll talk to Jofré and see what is to be done next. It might have something to do with his pedigreed."
'Good call old man.'
"Yes, your holiness." She bowed towards Suigard and helped Noctis out of the pool.
"Noctis. Thank his holiness for his time to start your procession towards the grand Sumeru."
"Thank you so much." Noctis bowed towards the old man, ignoring whatever she said about the procession or something.
Old man for once actually showed an amiable smile on his face befitting his title of probably a religious figure.
"May you reach the divine Sumeru, my child. Let me help you with that, for now."
He snapped his fingers as he said thus. Drying all the clothes of Noctis that had been stuck to his body after waterboarding through hell.
Noctis bowed once again, in real appreciation this time and made his way out of the garden, into the hall and out of the building.