(AN: Now is part of the big reveal on my personal idea on how Ivy cheated death. Personally, the game's idea is just all over the place, so I decided to do something that proves the strength of Ivy's soul as well as something that feels consistent or at least more logical than what the game suggested. Yes, I know that sometimes in writing these Soul Calibur fics I have to just step back and say "okay, there's what the game said happened and then there's history...or in this case, and then there's everything I believe about spirits and souls. They don't make sense but something's got to give". And if you know me, you know that lore is a big deal for me [cue some butt-hurt reader of The Dragonborn and the Lioness writing a review here about how many egregious lore-sins I've committed in that story], so it's not something I do all the time.)
(But seriously, it really sucks when your flash-drives get stolen, especially the one that has all the story docs, and then weeks later, the laptop with the back-ups of the story docs gets a burned hard-drive and dies. So yeah, I'm gonna have to look at all of my other stories, rewrite the updates and try to get some new stories together from scratch. Ugh!)
Beyond Death
Doubtless any of you who have read thus far think me mad. Such is the way of the intellectually enlightened in this day, to disbelieve in anything that goes against the established belief of the time. I will not say that you think me hysterical because of my sex, for I tro that, were I a man, you would think me mad as well. I care not what you think of me, for I did not write this account that I may ask for your sympathy or your understanding. I would that the truth be known in its entirety, and those who read this may make what they will about my story: nevertheless, by whatever powers there may be, every word of what I have written is true.
How I managed to escape beyond death, to venture to the darkened shores of that undiscovered country and return therefrom to walk under the sun once again, is a tale even more fantastical than I could imagine. It is what has guided me for the rest of my life until this point. It would be a disservice to humanity and the world if one should come back from beyond the grave and not leave an account of their deeds or how it came to pass. Therefore pay special heed as I give my testimony of my survival beyond death. What you may see here would doubtless make you believe that I am mad. I myself cannot fully understand what I saw after my life ebbed out of my body through my father's swords. Perhaps I am indeed mad. Perhaps what I have seen goes beyond merely what the eyes and the senses can discern and what I write now are my pathetic attempts to put into the words of those who know only perception of the senses things that are high and above them.
As my senses began to fade, I found myself come upon a void. I say void for there was no sun nor moon, nor were their stars, north, east, south or west. It was a void and yet it was not wholly empty. Waves of bright pale colors seemed to float and dance in the distance, moving of their own volition it seemed, for I could feel neither wind nor waves that might push them. It was then that I realized that I could feel nothing at all, nor could I see myself. I could perceive things in my mind and now write down in memory what I once experienced first-hand, but I feel that, were one to look upon me, they would not see a pair of floating, disembodied eyes gazing with wonder at all around them. I had no eyes and no sense to speak of: I was wholly existent and yet nonexistent as well.
I moved of my own will, faster than ever my body could move, and looked around (I say 'look' because that is the only way you, reader, could possibly perceive the motion of thought in the void, for I had no form that could move and 'look'). Behind me I saw, steadily drifting away like a mirage in the desert or the land that the ship departs never to see again, a bright spot in this dark world. Gazing upon it as I durst, I perceived that it was so bright, the center ceased to be of light and became like a dark hole in the void, if it could be that void could be any darker or have a 'hole' therein. I turned my thought around again and saw the waves moving about and, while I heard nothing nor had I a body that could feel the touch of anything, I could feel their movements. Their chaotic screams echoed across my bodiless form like violent waves upon the ocean: and in those waves I perceived that the waves of light which I had thought were mesmerizingly beautiful were in fact the light from countless souls trapped in this place. They were screaming, crying out for release.
In a moment that lasted what seemed like an infinity, I turned my will to them and perceived their thought. Oh, dear reader, though you believe me not, if you were to experience this and come back to tell the tale, you would marvel as I did then and as I do now as I write down these words. Ages upon ages of knowledge these souls bore, for they were the countless and nameless ones slaughtered through the ages by the Cursed Sword Soul Edge. To the intellectual mind, you would mock me that, if my story were indeed true, then I should be able to produce intimate knowledge of these people that would baffle the greatest scientific minds of our time. But the quest for knowledge was not my goal, merely to know my present state and if there were to be an escape. Even in that moment which lasted forever, there was not enough time to know all that these lost ones had to say. Yea, if one were to give themselves over to the Blade, I tro that they could spend the rest of their lives, from the moment they take up the Blade to the very hour of the Second Coming, merely soaking in the knowledge of those thousands whose souls feed the Cursed Sword and never be fully satisfied. I ramble, yea, for who could not ramble after witnessing less than a taste of the wonders of the Beyond?
But of that which pertains to my story, I asked the souls - or inquired with the will of my thought - of why the souls were lights and waves in this place. They told me that souls have no form or substance which can be discerned by the thought of man, but in this place they take on the appearance of shades of light, the brightness of which is determined by the strength of their souls. They furthermore revealed to my mind that, of those who were in this place, they were all slowly fading. Merely to exist in this place was to be slowly devoured by the endless hunger of the Cursed Sword, feeding its power with your very soul. Yet in that darkness they also illuminated to me my one and only hope, knowledge worth more to me than the entirety of the accumulated knowledge of the Earth: knowledge, true, valid and intimate knowledge of Soul Edge.
They spoke to me of a man who had broken free from the influence of the Cursed Sword but a few months ago. His soul had been so powerful that he liberated himself and, with the Holy Sword, the Spirit Sword Soul Calibur, the polar opposite which I had sought for so long, had sealed the power of Soul Edge. For it came also into my mind that Soul Edge had been, for a time, as two blades of equal power, wielded by my father in years long gone. But one of those blades had been broken and the second, I knew where it was - or at least thought I knew. Now it seemed that my father, weak man that he was, could not live without the Sword and so sought out the pieces, eager to build his own Soul Edge in mockery of that which he had once yielded. It was that mockery into which my own soul had been ripped from its body and, as they informed me, would be trapped therein if no help came.
But there would be no help, not for me. What they spoke of this man who had broken the power of Soul Edge and freed himself stirred within me the desire to do likewise. Furthermore, I was in a copy, a fool's mockery of the Cursed Sword: had I not the power that had kept me safe along my many journeys? Could I not defeat this mockery of power, this farce, and pull myself out of its grasp as this strange man had done? I willed myself around so that before me lay the bright point of light with its black hole. Then I exerted all of my will to go into that hole. No one could possibly comprehend the vastness of the distance between myself and that hole, for there was no possible way to discern distance in this place and yet, as fast as my will moved unfettered by mortality in this place, it could not move fast enough to pass beyond the void.
But I would not surrender. I had come far too far to merely give up, nor was it in me to give up, not until I had reached the uttermost end of all possibility and there was indeed no hope left. I exerted all of my will, and saw with horror that the hole was falling away instead of growing closer. But I refused to give up, I refused to surrender. I willed myself again, feeling another will, strong and forceful, holding me back. It would not do at all. I willed on, forcing myself to go forward, to pass the gates of night and return to the place of living men. Then, just as it had been in ages past when my Sword was given life, so again was I given life from the most unexpected of sources. A voice spoke out in the darkness: not a wave in the un-world of thought which had been my only life at this moment, but an actual voice, one all too familiar to my ears.
Blood...darkness...come unto me!
For a moment the lights flickered and I felt the will upon me break. For a moment I found my will propelling me forward, like the shot from a cannon. I was flying through this world, swiftly leaving it behind. Only then did I realize everything that I was about to lose by leaving this world. But I remembered that they had said regarding the leech-like place into which I had fallen. To remain here for even a moment longer was too long for my liking. I willed forward, my thought turning to numbness as I passed the lights and entered once again into the void, or perhaps I was exiting the void. I knew no more afterwards.
(AN: I realized something that was left out of this story just now. For those of you still reading this story [lol, it's funny because I actually assumed that people still read this story], you may have expected a rendezvous between Ivy and Siegfried [the strange man who had freed himself from Soul Edge's grasp]. Obviously I'm working backwards, since the souls inside Cervantes' Soul Edge copy remember very little of the outside world - they probably can sense the Sword being buried in the Soul Embrace, as they are part of Soul Edge and are aware of that - but we're obviously not that early on in the story. Siegfried and Ivy have already met at this point, as we've passed the chapter "Forsaken" from Siegfried: a Tale of Redemption without marking it in this story. On her way back from the Fygul Cestemus temple, in the chapter "Tragedy" of this fic, she went from there to Rome, passing north by way of the Caucasus, which is where she met Siegfried again. She barely recognized him, of course, since he was not Nightmare, but that is kind of still canon [see? i do strive for internal consistency].)
(Now here is my big beef with the game's lore for this part of Ivy's story. It says that Ivy was going to use an "artificial soul" to power her homunculus to destroy Soul Edge. But then when Cervantes kills her and takes her soul, she is somehow able to use said "artificial soul" to save herself and power her body in order to be in Soul Calibur IV and Soul Calibur V. But, knowing what I know about spirits, an "artificial soul" would be like a spark, a fake spirit, a jump-started being like Frankenstein's creation [or, in the case of this story, like Astaroth]. Also, to insinuate that this "artificial soul" could be used to keep Ivy alive seems even more far-fetched since, if we're going on the belief that a soul is the essence/identity/being of the person [the part that gets switched in "out-of-body experiences" like in Star Trek's "The Turnabout Intruder"], then Ivy with an "artificial soul" is not really Isabella Valentine in verity. It is just another essence in her body, another essence that is not tied to Ivy's memories or thoughts or beliefs, etc. Therefore I adjusted some of the perimeters of her story in order to make more sense out of it. She intended to summon a spirit to inhabit her homunculus, as in the lore, but then Cervantes' attack forced her to do something else, something which has lasting side effects. Just read on and you shall soon see.)