Awakening Moment/Turducken

## Flame of Immortality

File:Sprite-Awakening Moment Turducken.png

"Scram! You pestering rat!"

In the gloomy cave, Minestrone's red bullet barreled ruthlessly toward Turducken, hitting her black wings.

Turducken frozen up for a moment. She realized that her body had somehow changed.

That feeling for all these years of being constrained suddenly disappeared. Both her body and the energy within became incredibly relaxed and powerful... Just like... just like.. this was the way shw was always meant to be.

But what exactly was it that had happened?

As she burned up that bullet with the greatest of ease, she simultaneously replayed the events of the day at turbo speed.

Morning: attended a client's funeral at the cemetery with Pan de Muerto.

Afternoon: accepted a job from Sachertorte to repair the remains of a returned spirit unable to find its family.

That repair job was a little complicated, causing her to once again miss a dinner that Pan de Muerto had cooked. When she got back to her room, she chased off the little fox Cookie had sent to harass her at her door, then she went in and slept.

Everything was perfectly normal. Just an ordinary day if there ever was one.

She couldn't figure out what unusual thing happened to suddenly give her this form in her dream and suddenly appear in this cave she'd never been to.

Moreover, the person currently flying into a rage at her was that stubborn and obnoxious creature from so long ago -- Minestrone.

As she was thinking this, Minestrone rushed at her again, firing quite a few bullets.

Turducken was forced to temporarily pull her thoughts away from those riddles so she could properly deal with the situation at hand.

Minestrone held up the gun and looked guardedly at her. Behind him there was a panicked-looking white-haired Food Soul.

Turducken watched the actions of the person Minestrone was shielding, finding it a little amusing.

After not having seen him for so long, had this violent loner-child who loved stirring up trouble actually learned to protect others?

Although the situation didn't seem to be that simple.

She'd already realized that Minestrone had some abnormal spiritual aura about him.

What is that? She couldn't be sure.

But she instinctively felt a repulsion toward that black shadow. She knew it was a being that must be eradicated.

Turducken summoned a Nirvana Flame.

"I will eliminate the scum of your soul."

Then, Minestrone's expression suddenly changed. It was as if he'd been stabbed in an Achilles' heel he'd been trying to keep secret.

Turducken's heart leapt -- It seems, he knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Well then, now I really can't let him get away.

She assumed an attacking stance, and the flame more powerful than ever before morphed into a ghost phoenix, sweeping toward Minestrone...

"Oh... the proportions of this face are really just right..."

Turducken heard a familiar voice and opened her eyes.

Cookie grinned from ear to ear, politely backing up from the head of her bed a step. "Eh? You're back?"

Turducken chose to ignore the ruler Cookie was hiding behind her back. She sat up in bed and tentatively raised her hand.

My body... it's so heavy...

No, it's not that my body's become heavier, it's just that in the dream I was so light. Only upon awakening do I realize the pain of my soul in fetters...

Turducken moved her wrist awkwardly,

"...Cookie, I don't remember inviting you here tonight."

Cookie shrugged and sat down on the sofa, playing it cool all the while.

"I sensed that you had suddenly gone missing, and so I decided to come check in on you."

Turducken froze and looked in confusion at her own hand.

Cookie tapped her chin lightly with her finger.

"Looks like a guessed right. And, you still remember it, don't you? Just now your soul went somewhere else, and all that was left here was a body... I was almost scared to bits.:

Turducken lowered her eyes, fell silent for a moment, then slowly started to speak.

"I went to a strange place. The power there was... incredibly pure."

"Power?"

Cookie was curled up on the sofa, all sleepy-eyed.

"I don't care for power, but if it's a place you find interesting, then you can tell me. I'll carve one out and give it to you as a souvenir... You just need to agree to be my model."

Turducken ignored her.

"Oh yeah... just now when you woke up, your eyes were golden... just like your soul... so beautiful..."

After hazily getting out this last sentence-- and after running across over half Midgar in the middle of the night to get here-- Cookie finally fell asleep on Turducken's bedroom sofa.

Turducken leaned on the bed's headboard, gazing out the window.

The moon hung clear and bright over the cemetery, as a multitude of white ghosts wandered around in their easy and simple world.

As she watched them, a chord in her heart that had been dormant these thousand years was finally, discreetly plucked.

After staying so long in this world, one could almost forget what it was one started out looking for.

"If there really is a place like this where I no longer have to be confined to this corporeal shell, then I have to find it... even if... it's only as fleeting as a dream."

She lifted a hand and lightly toosed a blanket over Cookie, then turned away and laid down.

Before the morning broke, she still had time to slip back into a dream and find the village of souls.