Disclaimer: More Fate/Apocrypha stuff because at this point I'm entertaining my sister with this and she kind of likes Shirou Amakusa so that's pretty much the entire reason he's in this story. (In other words, this chapter is dedicated to her.)
And We Will
With a smile, Jack turned to greet Castiel as the angel and archangel made it to Gwen's throne. They would be leaving soon, and Jack had every intention of fulfilling his promise to Gwen. Once they were gone, she would have no need to worry about Lucifer disrupting her universe's fate. She would be left to bring paradise to her world by her own means.
As impossible a dream it might have been in their reality, for others it was entirely a possibility. After all, paradise – like time – was relative. To the humans of this world, a life free from fear and demons was a world well worth calling a paradise. However long it took, Jack knew that Gwen could (and eventually would) make their dream real.
Call it naïve. Call it a corrupt fantasy. Call it whatever you like.
That perfect world will become reality. And with it, the salvation of all mankind. Paradise will come.
"Lucifer, you are being released and allowed to join Jack and Castiel as they make leave to your universe," Gwen announced to the two, continuing with narrowed eyes. "You had best stay put in your world once you return. I'd recommend simply settling down."
Lucifer gave her a brief and cringed false smile. "Right. Duly noted."
Castiel rolled his eyes, letting go of Lucifer's arm and leaving the archangel to sway slightly on his feet. "We're all good, then?" he asked of the two nephilim.
After sharing a look with Jack, Gwen nodded her head once in answer. All that needed to be done between the two parties had been accomplished: a treaty had been made, an alliance formed, and friendship established. And now they had to go.
Gracefully standing, Gwen held out her hand for Jack to take, which he did once he climbed a few of the steps to be able to comfortably reach far enough. Still managing to look regal as ever, Gwen moved her staff in front of them, a bright light building in the orb. Jack, instinctively knowing what to do, let the power from the orb (the grace from Guinevere's father and uncles, a gift left to her after their deaths) flow and mingle with his own, seeping into his core and filling him with exactly what he needed to open a portal that would take them where they needed to go.
Closing his eyes, Jack focused that power into his hand, just as he had the last two times he dared to tear into the fabric of the universe. And but unlike last time and more like the time before, Jack opened the rift with controlled ease. Opening his eyes, Jack saw the golden crackling portal that would send them to the next world.
"Until we meet again, cousin."
Jack turned to look at Gwen at the words. Seeing her smile, he returned it along with a nod. He had already said his goodbye, and there was no need to pull at certain emotions by doing so again. Still, Jack squeezed her hand once before letting go, turning his gaze back to Castiel and Lucifer. Giving a subtle signal to Castiel, Jack watched as the angel not-so-subtly shoved Lucifer towards the glowing portal.
Lucifer glared at it with a stare that, if looks could kill, would have been able to commit mass genocide or perhaps scorch the entire face of the Earth in a wrathful fire. Behind the archangel, Castiel rolled his eyes and gave Lucifer yet another shove. The archangel passed through with an annoyed yet startled expression.
Castiel looked at Jack before following Lucifer, moving on to the other universe and filling the room with a second flash of light. Jack dared not look back as he descended the steps from Gwen's throne. He would see her again when the time came. Then, and only then, would she be the girl he knew from his visions.
Jack almost tripped over something the moment he stepped through the portal, which winked out of existence as soon as he was on the other side. The only reason Jack hadn't tripped was because Castiel had caught his arm and pulled him back towards him, keeping Jack from stumbling over their other traveling companion.
Lucifer, who had landed on his injured side, let out a groan and rolled onto his back. "Did we make it?" he grumbled after a minute or two, glancing upwards.
Castiel was already looking around, a frown on his face. "It's no longer Guinevere's world, that's for sure."
"Ah, there you are. I've been expecting you for quite a while now," a serene voice greeted them.
Jack's eyes snapped over to the voice's owner – a tanned, white haired man dressed in black and red. What stuck out the most to Jack was the small golden cross that hung from the man's neck. That or the long, sharp knives (keys, his mind supplied) that he had held loosely in his left hand at his side.
"Great, a priest," Lucifer drawled, having lifted his head to take one look at the man before rolling his eyes and dropping his head back down on he ground (holding back a hiss of pain at the impacting smack when his head hit the hard stone).
But Jack was already stepping out of Castiel's grip and moving towards the stranger, smiling at the man – not just a man. "You're Shirou. Gwen told me about you."
The priest – Shirou – returned Jack's smile. "She'll be quite the ruler one day," he mused. "I would give it another thousand years before she has control over all of her universe. Then again it didn't take me that long after killing Lucifer."
Lucifer made a choked noise, his head snapping back up to take another look at the so-called priest. Castiel also to a moment to give this Shirou a second glance. The angel and archangel both blinked owlishly when they realized what the priest was.
"Not another one," Lucifer groaned, (gently this time) putting his head back down, as Castiel turned his blue gaze to Jack. "Why did no one mention that we were making a pit stop in yet another nephilim's place?"
"There's no need to work yourself up. I have the uncanny feeling that this won't take long at all," Shirou informed the archangel, his smile taking on a sharp edge.
Meeting the challenging stare head on, Lucifer didn't bother masking the tension that filled his grace and outlined his body. Castiel frowned at them, but when he looked back over to Jack, the young nephilim didn't look worried in the slightest. Instead he was gazing out at what looked like some kind of stone railing in the distance.
That was when Castiel realized whatever it was they were standing on (or laying on, in Lucifer's case), it was floating high up in the sky. Walking over to the balustrade, Castiel peered over the side to see the ground miles below them. Just then, the floating fortress – because what else could it have been? – passed through several clouds, obscuring the green, rolling hills from view.
"It's called the Hanging Gardens of Babylon."
Castiel's eyes snapped over to the old (and yet eternally youthful) nephilim, who had joined him at the balustrade. There was something about Shirou that left Castiel with a distinct uneasy feeling. Castiel didn't need anyone to tell him that this nephilim's sire had been Lucifer. He could tell just by the glint of something in Shirou's eyes: it reminded him of a snake in the grass. It twisted the rest of his benign and priestly act into a devious façade.
However, that didn't mean that Shirou wasn't on their side. At the very least, even if Castiel didn't trust Shirou, the angel trusted Jack, and Jack didn't seem all that bothered by the other nephilim. Which made Castiel wonder if all of their nephilim encounters would go as smoothly as they had so far. (By the rules of probability, eventually, there would be one encounter that would go absolutely wrong.)
"This is the one place in my entire universe that is not free of sin," Shirou continued, breaking into Castiel's thoughts.
Castiel stared at him when his mind finally registered the meaning of the words. "Your world has achieved paradise?" he asked, shocked.
"In a way, yes," the nephilim replied easily with a nod. "I understand your confusion and concern, but I refused to watch my world burn into nothing because of the maniacal and ill-destined fates of my father and uncles. Out of the few paths that were set before me, I chose the one that would give my people their salvation.
"I do not expect you to accept or even understand my decision, but I would ask you to not judge me or the humans of this universe simply because of the beliefs in yours. I'd like to think that as Jack's chosen father, you are aware of the many possibilities that come with his powers. His are like mine, though I've had far more time to master them."
Pausing, Shirou let out a tired sigh and leaned onto the railing as the flying fortress finally passed through the clouds and revealed the green world below them. His red holy shroud billowed gracefully behind him with the wind blowing past. The odd thought that this is what Jack could turn out like much, much later in the future occurred to Castiel, and he found that he didn't like it.
A little smirk pulled a the corners of Shirou's mouth, as if he'd heard the thought (who knows, maybe he had), and the nephilim turned his head slightly to shoot the angel a look. "I wouldn't worry about that impossibility. None of us – the Nephilim, those born from archangels – are alike. Those of use with the same sire have similar abilities, but each and every single one of us is different, most often because of how we were raised.
"You will not meet another Shirou Amakusa, nor another Guinevere Michaelis or a Jack Kline. I had found it strange when I first realized that during my travels across the Nexus, but then it made perfect sense. There simply couldn't be another just like us because of our powers. The universes themselves don't want to risk having two of me or Guinevere or Jack all in one universe. It would create a catastrophe, whether we intended it or not. But this, of course, makes us Nephilim all the more rare and hard to find…"
Castiel forced himself to look away from the reminiscent expression that came over the nephilim's face. "How many have you met?" he asked, trying to stay on the topic while also moving away from the sensitive parts.
A thoughtful look passed through those strange burnished gold eyes that shone of a nephilim's grace-soul. It was a darker gold than Jack's, but at the same time, Castiel couldn't imagine such a gold color belonging to any but a nephilim. That Shirou's eye color seemed to be in this permanent state of darkened gold, Castiel could only take to mean that Shirou was constantly using his powers. (Maybe it had something to do with how the Hanging Gardens were floating?)
"Of those I've met personally, the number would be thirty-one, as of now, not including myself," Shirou finally answered after a long silence.
Considering how vast the multiverse – the Nexus – was… thirty-two known nephilim was not a lot. It took a moment for the fact to register in Castiel's mind, but as soon as it did, the angel felt a twist of emotions – the most prominent being a strange sadness.
Castiel could feel it in his grace how much Jack was overjoyed to meet another of his 'cousins'. It was an excitement that Castiel never wanted the boy to lose. However, if Jack had already met two of the other known thirty-one nephilim, it would only be a matter of time before Jack had met them all, even if more were found in that time period. While thirty was a rather large number, considering the familiar connotations in human terms, at the same time, the number was so small.
"Come," Shirou prompted suddenly, pulling Castiel out of his thoughts. "Jack and I have much to discuss before I send you three to your next destination. I'm sure you'd all enjoy a short tour of my home."
—o–O–o—
The Hanging Gardens, which had been left to Shirou after the passing of a 'dear friend' was massive, and the so-called short tour had lasted almost an hour – and Castiel was sure that they hadn't been shown even an eighth of the whole fortress. Lucifer kept a mildly unimpressed look on his face the great majority of the time. It only slipped for a few seconds whenever Shirou stopped to show them something truly amazing: the Greater Holy Grail.
As corrupt as it technically was, with Shirou's wish fulfilled, there was no more use for the thing, and so it sat as a trophy in the Hanging Gardens. Upon Shirou's explanation of the Grail, his earlier comment about the Gardens being the only place in this universe that was "not free of sin" made much more sense to Castiel. Seeing the sad look Jack was giving Shirou, Castiel quickly realized that this also meant Shirou was the only one in his universe that couldn't achieve paradise. It was, perhaps, this universe's ultimate flaw.
Shirou didn't talk about the war that had resulted in this world's paradise. Nor did he talk about the losses that came with it (the price that had to have been paid to make his perfect world). He kept those secrets to himself and only spoke of the world's triumphs. With the deaths of the archangels, the angels fell under his command, and Shirou had sent them all to Earth to mind the human souls – not that they needed minding, it seemed. There weren't any demons to speak of, and the only true evil left was the Greater Grail.
(The three outsiders didn't dare to mention how there was one other 'evil' besides the Grail; for one could not possibly still be fully faithful to the light after making such a deal in darkness. It would be much later that Jack would confide to Castiel that Shirou's world had not truly achieved paradise. This was because the wish that the Greater Grail had granted what Shirou wanted but also took away something important, leaving humans to live a sort of half-life. Shirou admitted to knowing this but couldn't do anything about it and simply kept any visitors from leaving the Hanging Gardens, which were protected from the Grail's affects.)
By the end of the tour, Shirou had taken them back to the gardens atop of the fortress. Castiel watched from a fair distance as the two nephilim shared yet another – albeit shorter – conversation between themselves while he was left to keep an eye on Lucifer, who was lounging on one of the stone benches, picking at one of the shackles that still encased his wrists.
Castiel stared at the archangel for a moment. He had thought that since they'd crossed into a different universe that the markings and enchantments on the shackles wouldn't have an effect on Lucifer anymore, and yet (now that he thought about it) Lucifer hadn't used his grace once during the tour, and there were still traces of bruises and scratches barely hidden by the archangel's clothes. The angel held no sympathy for Lucifer, but that didn't mean that a sliver of concern couldn't be pulled from him.
Moving over, Castiel got a closer look at the shackles, which could have passed for bracelets to the unknowing eye. "Having trouble getting them to come off?" he asked, attempting to be at least somewhat polite.
"Go watch the bees, Castiel," Lucifer growled, obviously frustrated.
"You could ask one of them to help," he pointed out, gesturing to the nephilim, who were still in deep conversation with one another. "If you're nice enough about it, they might actually consider it."
"You know what—"
Castiel held up a hand, interrupting the archangel. "If you ever want to try being the good father Jack hopes you'll be, you have to start somewhere." And then Castiel turned and left Lucifer to brood.
Almost a half an hour later, Castiel watched Lucifer walked up to Shirou and Jack. He watched Shirou take the shackles off and then show Jack how to put them back on before handing them over to the younger nephilim. Lucifer appeared to be dismissed, and the archangel huffed and joined Castiel by the balustrade.
An hour after that, Shirou called them back over, opening a portal as soon as they were all ready.
"Remember, Jack, we Nephilim live long lives. Spend as long as you can with your family and keep those memories with you. You'll need them."
A/N: Another one that's kind of short, but to be fair, I wrote this after writing the next chapter (which was a really bad idea on my part). Still, you'll have the next chapter soon enough. And then it'll only be one chapter left. (Go get the tissues if you need them.)
Latest Edit: [6/23/19]
