"...how does that engage with literally anything I said."

Rather than replying, Auron uses a series of increasingly tall pieces of destruction to jump up to a broken elevated highway. Or at least it used to be elevated, now it's basically a ramp.

Azym is fit enough to easily follow him.

No, that's a lie, he's fit enough to be able to follow Auron at all, but it's not easy, and by the time they reach the top of the highway-ramp as it connects to a more intact part of itself he's panting heavily. Auron, the bastard, seems completely unaffected by the exertion.

Auron offers no help, but the weakened gravity should be enough for Azym to be able to get up onto the actual highway on his own.

If not, well, Auron was wrong about the boy, and it's better to find out sooner rather than later.

He does in fact succeed, but when he gets there he leans forward onto his knees to breathe and says, "You bastard, how the hell are you even—"

He pauses.

Something... changed.

Something's different.

It's quiet. The sounds of destruction and screaming and sirens have stopped.

Everything's stopped. Everyone, the people running in the distance, frozen in mid-air as they flee.

Auron himself is frozen, his coat paralysed in between the seconds.

And between him and Auron is... a small boy. Can't be older than twelve, by his height, wearing a sleeveless hooded robe of some kind that goes from a purple hood covering his head and obscuring most of his face down to a black frayed skirt that doesn't quite reach his bare feet.

"It begins," he says.

Azym sloooowly raises a very sceptical eyebrow. "Very ominous. Am I the protagonist?"

The apparition doesn't smile. He merely shakes his head, then says, "Don't be scared."

And then he's gone, and time is passing again.

He staggers in place at the sudden reassertion of normality and Auron is still walking, so he rushes ahead to follow.

Auron stops in the middle of the highway and looks in the direction of the kaiju. The place they find themselves at has an especially clear view of it, no buildings blocking the sight, but it still looks like just a giant bubble of water with some ill-defined black-grey silhouette in it.

"Sin," he says, once Azym catches up. "We called it Sin."

"Who's 'we'? Wait, you were already familiar with the—" It's suddenly hitting Azym that he met Auron when he was very small and never once thought to question where Auron came from. No one else knew him, but Azym kind of just... assumed... he was from the other side of the island or some such.

(And the confusion at not having thought about this earlier reemerges. Why... didn't he...?)

The creature starts slowly moving—and it's very definitely towards them.

"It's almost time."

"...wait, are we actually—is it actually—coming here—dude, have you considered dropping the mysterious mentor style?"

"You'll understand someday why I did this. Why I came here." He turns around and looks directly at Azym, for the first time tonight. "Why I'm here."

The water sphere is now fully visible, haloing Auron from behind.

"Why—do you mean—"

Something clicks in Azym's head. "Are—Auron, are you the giant monster, somehow—?"

The glasses and the high neck of his coat make it hard to see the small satisfied smile, but Azym has been around Auron for long enough to recognise those small tells. "You'll do fine. Hold onto that sword. You'll figure it out eventually."

Okay uh. Actually. Maybe. It was a terrible idea following Auron all the way here? Maybe Azym should, uh. Run?

But he can't. He can't, because now the monster is close enough that he can directly feel himself dragged by its gravity and worse of all he can feel it getting stronger.

He won't, actually, be able to run.

So he stands there, frozen, sword in hand, watching as the whatever-it-is—as Sin approaches, feeling his weight slowly get reduced to zero.