"Dare I ask what in Yevon's name that means?"

He waves a dismissive hand. "I'm being silly."

"Zei mentally adds 'silly' to his mental model of the boy who has not yet introduced himself."

"Are you saying I'm not the talk of the village? Would've thought someone would've told you my name by now."

"Bit full of yourself, huh? I became a summoner today! I'm clearly much more interesting news. And besides, even if someone had told me your name, it would be rude to just start out by knowing it."

"Call me rude, then, because I know yours."

"And there we go, yet more proof that I'm the more interesting news."

He splashes Zei some more, for all the good that does.

"I think that's two-naught."

"Beg pardon?"

"Twice that I won the banter game versus your zero."

"You did not win anything!"

"If I say something to you and your best response is trying to splash me with water I'm pretty sure an impartial judge would say I won that round."

"...damn it."

"So. Two-naught."

"I don't like this game. Let's play a different game."

"Sure! Should we go light and fluffy like asking you what your favourite colour is or try to get deeper and heavier like why don't you actually tell me what you really remember rather than pretending you're amnesiac?"

Azym lifts both eyebrows in surprise. "Ouch."

"I'm serious! We can go with the light and fluffy thing. But I just figured, if you wanted to actually talk about it..."

"Honestly I'm most curious about what gave me away."

"That's just not how Sin's toxin works. When it does amnesia, which is rare in itself, it does only short-term amnesia and definitely doesn't affect things like remembering where you're from. And the less rare symptoms are aphasia, persistent terrifying hallucinations, loss of motor coordination, face blindness, and difficulty forming—but not inability to form—short-term memories. All of those temporary.

"Now, of course, maybe Sin just got a new ability recently and you're the first one to present such comprehensive absence of all of the common symptoms plus very thorough amnesia but one does wonder."

...holy shit that was kinda hot?

"And other people didn't know this because..."

"Most people are not as—thorough—as I am, in studying my enemy. Even the priests. I also notice you didn't contradict me."

"It's very difficult to know what lies I gotta tell to fool someone who knows a lot more than me about what the truth really is!"

"That it is. But I can pretend, if it'd make you more comfortable. I realise this is a bit much for our first conversation right after I won twice."