Sewer Rat

After Ultima had vanished away from the fight with Sky due to her Eternia Palm, her right arm was seared with black strands as she gripped it tightly, falling back and colliding with the damp brick wall of the sewers of an unknown location. Her red hair was stained with murky past as she slid down.

"What the hell... this is not where I thought I ended up. Dammit," Ultima cursed, looking upward to see a bustling street through the small grooves of a sewer grate. She burst it open with her staff, climbing up to the top to witness a group of people standing around her, watching her in awe.

"You guys have never seen a woman rise out of the sewer? Grow up," Ultima cockily said, moving southward on the street to find a map of her location.

The streets were full of people, all with some sort of purpose in mind and destination to walk to. They walked in such a uniquely organized way that they didn't bump into each other on any occasion, no matter how strangely close they got.

Their clothing was neat, almost too neat to be in an average city. It was a place of great wealth and even greater design, with some people even complimenting others as the streets continued. Ultima had no clue of her location until she came across a large building surrounded by water flowing in the sky in a ring pattern.

The water was exposed to open air, occasionally letting out small bubbles that popped after floating away into a bout of rain, pouring down on the city to water the flowers. It was an extravagant system that cycled everything, no matter where it ended up.

"No... I am exactly where I wanted to be. This is Oceania? I thought this was a shithole," Ultima commented, looking around at pathways of water that people could swim into their location. The number of people around her scared her, and she refused to interact with anybody, refusing all. Ultima walked to the nearest staircase that would lead to the floating ring of water in the sky, surrounding another simple house as the two floated together.

"You're late," A familiar voice behind her shot up the stairs, causing her to turn around with a weapon drawn. Her damp hair took a second to turn to her back because of the weight, but once it settled, she could obviously see that Netsu was standing at the bottom of the stairs with his arms crossed, tapping his foot up and down.

"Do you think I just instantly travel to wherever I want? I'm not Avie Asterio, plebian. How the hell did you amp up the city this much? You lived in a watery dump not even two years ago," Ultima commented to Netsu. He smiled, shrugging his shoulders while pinching his index finger against his thumb and rubbing them together.

"Money," He suggested.

"Sure thing. It's to my understanding that Genesis had a lot to do with your progression... and a specific person I'm interested in meeting," Ultima asked Netsu. He smiled, guiding her up the steps from behind with a hand on her lower back.

"I do believe that he did! That man had a lot planned... but he even told me that this was the extent of what he planned. He had a lot of connections to that one girl... Cynthia, what was her name? The girl with the Dimensional Perceiving Eyes. She had made the rest of it up, all to stop that man. To think, I could've just ended his timeline during that fight... why did she want us to preserve him?" Netsu asked Ultima. She had been out of the loop and therefore didn't have an answer to what he wanted.

"No clue, but I assume it's more important than we think. I don't care what that bitch wants anyway, I'm looking to take down Sky in a... unique way," Ultima confessed to Netsu. He knew that she had a strange plan for getting rid of him, but never knew what it entailed.

"Yeah? How's that? You see how strong he is. I doubt I could've killed him, even if I wanted to," Netsu begrudgingly added. He made it to the top of the stairs right after Ultima did, and looked at her while she smiled.

"You don't kill Sky Asterio in a fight, you kill him over time. You take what he loves from him, and then you strike. That's what I believe Orion tried but never succeeded with. I won't fail. Although, I don't think even I could take that girl..." Ultima playfully teased, pointing at the furthest building in the Oceanic Kingdom.

"That blonde one? The one we thought to be his wife?" Netsu asked.

"No, his daughter, Faith... we take her from him. Cynthia even predicted that she would go AWOL after Illya's death. I have to say, that girl is impressive for an Asterio," Ultima commented. She lowered her hand after pointing toward the building in the distance.

"There. That's where Genesis and I kept him. Shall we go pay my trump card a visit, Netsu?" Ultima asked him.

"Right after we walked up all of these stairs? We can go tomorrow, I'm not doing stairs again," He said. He ignored Ultima, walking forward into the house to rest for the rest of his long day.