Cato

The rumbling was a subtle thing at first, a small quake, a shiver through the ground that one might well miss. As it grew, strange swirling lights appeared from nothing. Ddraig's soul. Cato had a faraway look in his eyes as he looked at everything unfold. By rights, it was an emergency. Ddraig was resurrecting before the cavalry showed up, which meant its weakest phase, the immediate moments after its resurrection, was left to Cato alone. But there was no panic to be found in Cato. There were no curses of his bad luck as the worst case scenario was happening before his eyes.

Cato looked at the swirling soul in the same way that an engineer might look at his greatest work when he finally sees it in full operation. Despite never truly allowing it to surface, the resurrection itself was the one thing Cato truly doubted. It was why he had been so quick to initially accept Kokabiel's deceit. It was why, even now, it was complex emotions that filled him. Lifetimes of struggle had come to this. The Elder Scrolls foretold the coming age of the dragons in this world. Cato had seen the forms of Ddraig and Albion clash in the very city he now stood in. But it was a vision that would never come to pass. The fated battle between the two celestial dragons, an event of apocalyptic magnitude, would never happen. This day, Ddraig would die, and Cato would rewrite the fate of this world.

Now, with Ddraig's soul slowly took the form of a dragon in front of him, the fear of defeat no longer lingered in Cato's mind. Ddraig could not escape. When Cato hunted a dragon, the dragon died. He would weather its might with his own strength, match and overpower its thu'um, and when inevitably the dragon sought to escape, dragonrend would sever any shred of hope and crash it into the ground. So what if the devils were not there for the opening act?

Cato stood up slowly and drew his sword, Harpe, as he waited patiently for Ddraig's soul to properly bind itself to the bones that acted as a catalyst for the resurrection. Harpe was something of a mysterious sword. It had an enchantment which broke all rules that Cato knew. The enchantment in his spear was incredible, specifically designed to fight dragons, but still, it was the sword he drew. When Cato first understood the power of the sword, he felt that he had been unambitious throughout all those years of working on his enchantments.

The dragon bones in front of him shook once, then twice, then rustled and left the ground. The sound of clattering was soon replaced by the crunching of the bones as they broke down only to reform tenfold in size. A crackling red aura seeped from the ground and took shape around the skeleton. Cato readied his sword. The very instant Ddraig's spirit became corporeal, a new earthquake erupted in ice and lightning as all the runes placed underneath the beast activated at once. If Ddraig screamed, the runes deafened the sound. Cato charged in with a roar. Everything he had was focused on doing as much damage as possible while Ddraig was weakest. He sliced at the scales of the dragon while they were still forming, he crippled its wings, bled its belly.

Wounds that would not heal.

Perseus had landed a hit on Cato back then, and it had taken a whole month for him to recover. Despite being something of an expert in self-healing, none of his magic had any effect. Nor did any potion he used. Even his natural recovery was slowed. Ddraig might be able to heal the wounds caused by the rune trap, but Harpe's strikes would remain. In this battle of attrition, Harpe's power was the key to victory. The sword connected with bone, flesh, and sometimes even ice where the frost runes had done their part. Every cut, even the tiniest graze from this blade mattered.

But Ddraig did not let him continue for long. Once the explosions of the runes died down and Ddraig gained its proper form, it roared with such power that the ground cracked beneath it, sending rocks and dirt flying up around it as the third earthquake of the morning hit Kuoh. Cato was flung back by the force of it, landing with grace that belied his frame. Now, the question of how much damage he had done remained. The dust and debris disrupted visibility. Cato took a stance with his shield, ready to weather whatever Ddraig would throw at him.

Instead of an attack, though, Ddraig laughed, entirely unphased by Cato's onslaught.

"Free!" With a single beating of its wings, Ddraig cleared the dust from the air, revealing his awesome frame. He let out another roar.

Cato stood dead still, shocked at the creature that had replaced the skeleton on the ground. During his reckless attacks, he had not grasped the scale of it. Even the visions from the Elder Scrolls had failed to impart on him the sheer enormity of Ddraig. It was massive. The head of Ddraig alone was the size of a large building. Its neck connected to a torso as large as Kuoh Academy, and its tail seemed to have no end at all. Its body was covered in red scales that looked small on its frame, but each of them was almost the size of Cato himself. Six sets of wings of different sizes adorned it. The largest of which could easily cover the entirety of the academy grounds when fully extended.

Cato's eyes trailed the dragon's length, looking for signs of damage. Ddraig's dismissal of his assault had left a seed of worry in his mind, but he crushed it. Under Ddraig, thick drops of blood sizzled and smoked as they mixed with the ground. There were entire areas where Ddraig's scales looked broken, and even more where they took on a dark crimson hue from the blood that covered them. The first blood was spilled, but even so, Ddraig made no indication that it even noticed the damage. When Ddraig's roar ended, it slowly lowered its head to look Cato dead in the eyes.

"Tremble, little man," Ddraig said in its booming voice. This was a creature whose entire existence was looking down on others. Others might find it majestic and frightening, this ultimate force of nature, but for Cato, it only ignited the embers of his hatred for dragonkind which he had nursed for ages.

As though in compliance with Ddraig's words, Cato was indeed trembling. It was through great force of will that he restrained his rage enough to let the dragon speak, knowing that for now, he needed time for Sirzechs to arrive with reinforcements. Ddraig sent another wordless shout his way, apparently enjoying its regained ability to speak.

"It is custom upon the first meeting of dragons for the younger to greet the older, is it not?" Cato spoke slowly, giving his best impression of Paarthurnax, the conversational dragon. Ddraig stared at him for a moment, its green eyes twinkling in the light of the rising sun.

"Indeed. Yet I see none of my brothers here to greet me. All I see before me is a pitiful mortal rushing to his grave," Ddraig responded. Despite it not being unheard of for dragons to take human form in this world, Ddraig had somehow discerned that Cato was human. Or perhaps it just didn't care either way.

In truth, Cato didn't particularly care what Ddraig's thoughts were. He knew well that a battle against a dragon wasn't a battle of wits. It was a battle of words, yes, but only in so far as those words were words of power. It wasn't for approval that Cato would bring up tradition either. What use had the killer for his victim's respect? It was simply because Cato felt that this was how it should be done. Fighting a dragon involved no intrigue – although, of course, the resurrection had been full of it – it was simply a clash of power, as primal as it could get, and the strongest would survive.

So, Cato shouted.

It was nothing like the shout he had used to disarm the renegade priest so long ago. Nor was it anything like the shouts he had used against Sirzechs. Fights between people were much more fast-paced than fights between dragons, so it was rare for Cato to have the chance fully power a shout. The power of a shout wasn't only determined by the words used – if so, why did some dragons submit to others?

The power of the thu'um was the power of one's focus and understanding of that which the thu'um encompassed. A human being could never have the same understanding of the primordial forces that made up the elements, but Cato was dragonborn. The knowledge and understanding of an entire world's worth of dragons burned within his soul. The thief does not need to understand the process of labor to be rich.

"Yol Toor Shul."

Fire, inferno, sun.

Indeed, the fire that burst forth from Cato's being made the light of the sun seem like a torchbug caught in a wildfire. It did not dissipate upon reaching Ddraig, instead swirling around the dragon erratically before it slowly faded. Ddraig stared impassively at Cato throughout the whole thing, showing no surprise or pain or fear. Cato smiled, feeling the worst of his anger at seeing a dragon in the flesh fade in the cathartic aftermath of his shout. Traces of fire still burnt like embers trapped between Ddraig's scales when the dragon responded. Cato was ready.

"YOL TOOR SHUL!"

Cato made no effort to escape the torrent of fire. In the back of his mind he knew that it was reckless to forgo even a ward to tank the blast, but he didn't care. Cato was confident; he was prepared. The rings on his fingers were not just for show. Crouching behind his shield, he weathered Ddraig's greeting easily, and when he stood and the smoke faded, not even a hair on his head was singed. Only the scorched earth confirmed that the fire was no illusion.

"So, you were the one who freed me," Ddraig said. Its tone was conversational, though still dismissive. "It is rare for anyone to speak the ancient tongue, even amongst my kin."

For a moment, Cato thought the dragon would simply attack him, and perhaps it intended to, but it stopped itself.

"Your kind is mentioned in the ancient dragon mythos," Ddraig said at last. "Dovahkiin you may be, but you are still just joor, a mortal. Do not forget your place in this world. Because of your service of freeing me, I shall allow you to serve me if you prostrate yourself and beg to be my slave."

Cato smiled, though there was a mad glint in his eyes. "You will sooner find me kneeling before a maggot than a dragon."

Ddraig shook its head in a surprisingly human gesture. "The madness that pervades your words is ever present in your kind. Hubris. I humor you only to warm up my voice after eons of disuse, nothing more. You should feel honored. Surely even you can tell that the difference between us is the difference between heaven and earth."

There was an overbearing power in Ddraig's voice even without it speaking the dragon language. Throughout all his time in this world, Cato had restrained himself. He had used trickery and cunning words to compel those around him, never choosing to rely on the power that Ddraig now flaunted freely. So, Cato decided to match it.

"The difference between us," Cato said. The air crackled in response to his voice, "is the difference between the hunter and his prey."

"So that's how it is." Ddraig's eyes twinkled as though a fire passed through them at his words. "You fancy yourself a match for me because you know the ancient tongue. But you are just a wingless little butterfly. A monkey who by chance learned to speak. My fated enemy is Albion, and even when faced with him, I am superior. I am God. You are nothing."

Fate has changed, Cato thought. He did not bother speaking up. Though reluctant to rise to Ddraig's provocation, the look of a living dragon in front of him alone was enough to send him over the edge and abandon caution. Only the need to buy time for reinforcements had allowed him to hold back as much as he did.

"You die today," Cato said quietly, uncaring whether Ddraig heard or not. "Krii Lun Aus!"

Unlike the devastation left by Cato and Ddraig's fire breath, this shout left no trail as it tore through the air. As it connected with Ddraig, however, it crawled over Ddraig's scales, clinging like a heavy smoke. It seeped into every wound left by Harpe. Ddraig narrowed its eyes and hissed. Soon, the entirety of Ddraig's body was covered with small slivers of purple that emitted a cruel-looking smoke.

Ddraig was marked for death.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Azazel

Cato had been kneeling motionless for over an hour as Azazel watched from a safe distance. The location was the only clue he got that Cato hadn't just collapsed from low blood sugar or something equally foolish. After Cato left his house, Azazel had lost track of the man for some time, but when he found him again, Cato was just there in the middle of nowhere doing absolutely nothing. The only possible reason Azazel could think of that Cato would be there, kneeling in the ruins of the Kuoh Academy grounds was because he'd caught on to Azazel following him and was waiting for him to come out. Azazel smiled wryly. Before meeting Cato, he would've dismissed such thoughts as paranoid. Even his tailing of Cato had been tinged with uncharacteristic caution. Azazel wasn't far enough away now that Cato wouldn't be able to spot him, but even so, Cato made no move against him while he sat there watching.

So, Azazel just stood there, a safe distance away, with certainty in his heart that something was bound to happen sooner or later. It wasn't Azazel's instinct which told him so, it was his experience with the kneeling man. Time dragged on though, and nothing did happen. Azazel began to suspect that Cato was simply there to pay his respects at the site of battle. It was a striking picture. The lone man kneeling solemnly on a ruined field framed by the first light of day. No birds were singing here - if so much as an earthworm had survived the battle of Kuoh Academy, Azazel would've been surprised. Indeed, even a fallen angel had to admit that there was a transcendent quality to the moment.

When something did happen, Azazel didn't immediately realize that it was what he had been waiting for. The ground rumbled. The dirt shivered and lifted from the ground in defiance of gravity, letting him know that this wasn't an earthquake. Azazel looked around, trying to find out what was going on while the rumbling steadily grew more and more powerful. Strange lights began swirling with a strange, unsteady intensity.

Azazel looked about, uncertain at the phenomenon, ready to escape at any moment. It was only when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye that he understood that this was what Cato had been waiting for. Cato stood up, unhurried, seeming completely at ease with the situation. Despite the distance between them, Azazel could tell that the expression on Cato's face was different from anything he had ever seen on the man. It was a mixture of calm and imposing, lacking any of the curiosity or gentleness that normally graced the man's face. Cato drew his sword, and as he did so, his lips quirked in a twisted smile.

The rumbling intensified to such a degree that Azazel had to focus not to lose balance, and just as it reached its apex, it stopped for a short moment before the entire area in front of Cato exploded in ice and lightning, as if some powerful spirit elemental had saved up years of anger for this very moment. Dirt and blinding lightning obscured all vision of the area even as smaller explosions kept ringing out.

When Azazel looked back at Cato, the man was nowhere to be seen. Azazel gaped. He had no idea what was happening. One moment, Cato had been kneeling there with his eyes closed, and the next, the peace was violently broken.

Azazel inadvertently took a step back when Cato reemerged from the dust. The man's eyes were filled with bloodlust and killing intent that struck fear in Azazel's heart despite it not even being directed his way. Thick red blood dripped from Cato's sword as the man stood with his eyes locked at something within the dust. Another explosion of lightning ran out, and this time, it made every fiber in Azazel's body tense up.

There, in the dust, silhouetted by the flash from the lightning was the enormous shape of a dragon. Azazel's breath caught in his throat. It wasn't even the whole dragon. But Azazel didn't need to see the whole thing to know its size, he didn't need to see its gleaming red scales or its cold green eyes to know what it was he was looking at. How could this be? He stumbled backwards a few steps as his eyes widened in fear. His eyes flickered to Cato before locking on the dragon's silhouette.

"Why…?" he whispered. The cold from the ice explosions gave color to his breath despite it being a midsummer day.

The dust cloud receded slowly. Cato was speaking, but Azazel's own pounding heart prevented him from understanding the words. A cold premonition settled in Azazel's stomach as his eyes flickered to Cato, then back to Ddraig. The answer to his question was slowly becoming clear in his mind, but he refused to accept it.

He wouldn't…

When the dragon's head finally came into view, it was exactly as Azazel remembered it from so long ago. Ageless. Cold. Filled with contempt. While the might of the celestial dragons might have been matched by the combined forces of the factions, their arrogance was truly peerless. Azazel reeled as he looked upon this incomprehensible scene. Cato, a man who stood a head taller than even the tallest men Azazel had ever seen and with the bulk to match, stood, surrounded by the dust that was slowly dispersing. He was facing a beast so massive that the entire city seemed a tiny battleground to fight it. And yet, it was easy to see that it was a battle of Cato's own choosing.

Azazel shuddered.

Ddraig hadn't attacked the city. Ddraig had been imprisoned in the sacred gear of one of the weakest boys to ever be reincarnated as a devil. Ddraig was not truly a threat and wouldn't be for at least some years. That Ddraig was here now, prepared to tear down the city of Kuoh, perhaps the world with it, was entirely a circumstance of Cato's making.

Looking upon Cato's face and feeling the trembling of the ground as he shouted an inferno into existence made it all too clear what madness drove the man to this point. The cold from earlier was gone, replaced by an oppressive heat.

"Revenge? All of this… for what?" Azazel said, as if asking the world itself to give him an answer different than the one he came to himself. "Just for revenge?"

Azazel felt tears form in his eyes as the picture of Cato weathering the dragon's fire melded with the visions from the Elder Scrolls in his mind. Was one world not enough for you? Even still, it was hard for Azazel to accept it. He refused. Though Azazel himself was not one to hold grudges, he knew many who were. Ageless beings who nursed their enmity for centuries, even millennia, but even compared to those spiteful beings, annihilating an entire species and then traveling to other worlds to do the same was just too much. Even madness had to have a limit.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Cato

Ddraig turned out to be difficult to wound now that the resurrection was complete. Despite its incredible enchantment, Harpe simply wasn't a good enough weapon to break through the dragon's scales. As Cato buzzed around, trying to add just a few more valuable wounds, Ddraig responded intermittently with a lash from its tail, a beating of its wing, or a swipe from its claws. Cato knew that Ddraig was not taking him seriously. Even as Cato held back for the sake of not overextending himself into a situation that offered no retreat, he was still doing his best to do damage to the beast. In contrast, Ddraig was playing with him, using him as a warm up to once more relish the freedom of being able to move its limbs again.

It grated on his nerves.

His frustration grew as Harpe failed to do any meaningful damage to the dragon. Something had to change. So, when Ddraig coiled its serpentine neck and lunged to bite him, Cato disengaged entirely, once more standing some distance away, facing the dragon. Ddraig retracted its head, but there was a new glint in its eye. Annoyance. Every successful hit from Cato was like a mosquito bite, his dashing and dodging like an annoying fly buzzing by the dragon's ear, and it seemed Cato wasn't the only one growing impatient.

Cato sheathed his sword.

Though his primary objective was buying time, Cato too was getting fed up with how little damage he was doing. He truly felt the defensive capabilities of a beast that cowed the greatest powers even its sealed state. Ddraig was still weakened by its resurrection, of course. It would probably be decades before it reached the apex of its power. That would never happen. Ddraig was marked for death, and it wouldn't be long before reinforcements arrived. No one in the city would have missed the violent earthquakes that had surrounded the battle. Without a doubt, their shouts were heard even tens of miles outside the city. The inevitable cover up would force the devils to do more than just wipe the memories of the few citizens who weren't fated to die this day.

So, Cato thought, let's make it a spectacle when they arrive.

Cato began drawing the ambient magicka into his body, and within moments, small lightning bolts were crackling across his armor. Ddraig made no move to stop him, only looking at him curiously, its earlier annoyance replaced with interest in his novel magic. If he hadn't been used to the arrogance of dragondkind, Cato would have lost it.

In truth, this was a spell that he had often ridiculed in the past. To think the 'great' mages of Tamriel would call such a wasteful use of magic a master spell. It was true that only a master of magic could use it, but Cato always said that a master of magic should know better than to use their magicka in such a diffuse way. However, in this strange world where magicka was as abundant as air, being frugal in one's use of resources was, if not meaningless, at least unnecessary. And, inelegance aside, one should never be too quick to dismiss the power of lightning.

A storm was brewing inside of Cato, waiting to be released. The gathered power was so great that it lifted him, leaving him hovering a few inches above the ground as the crackling around him intensified. And then, just when he released that immense power, the faintest splintering of a crystal could be heard from within the dirt. All signs of the shock magic instantly disappeared, and Cato was sent tumbling to the ground, clutching his head and screaming in agony.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Azazel

Azazel had been there during the subjugation of the two heavenly dragons, Ddraig and Albion. He had been there during the first attempt at subjugation, where the angels had killed the mortal body of Ddraig, only to have him return in full power before their forces had recovered. He had felt that despair. Now, looking at the beast in front of him, that despair took over.

Rationally, Azazel should have conjectured that Cato's ability to kill dragons in his own world would extend to this one, that the nightmare of the eternally reincarnating dragon was not real. He should have joined in the fighting. Even if Azazel was unable to damage Ddraig, he would still allow Cato a chance to do more damage by joining in. Barring that, he could have gone and called for help from the devils or Baraqiel.

But he didn't.

Azazel did nothing.

He just stared out from where he now sat in the dirt, watching catatonically as Cato slowly bled the dragon.

The shaking ground or the constantly changing temperature did nothing to rouse him. The characteristic ripping sound as shouts tore through the air rocked him, but he did not outwardly react. Could I have done anything to stop this? He came to the conclusion that he couldn't, no matter what he had done. All of his preparations to keep the peace were meaningless.

His eyes idly followed the action as Cato leapt backwards an impressive distance, barely avoiding becoming Ddraig's first meal in millennia. The hair on his arms stood on end as Cato channeled some otherworldly lightning magic. Even from a distance, he could feel the way the air surged and changed as Cato began to glow.

Then, in defiance of natural law, a small clear sound reverberated over the battlefield.

Up until that point, explosions and shouts and screams had made Azazel's ears almost numb. But this sound, out of place in its beautiful brightness and simplicity, rung clearly in his ears. The clinking sound of a crystal shattering. The lightning tempest that had surrounded Cato disappeared, and for that brief moment, everything was completely silent.

Then, that silence was broken by a bloodcurdling scream. The sound of that pain was what finally roused Azazel. He saw Cato writhing on the ground, clutching his head. He saw Ddraig's surprise slowly turn into contemptuous laughter, and before Ddraig was even able to attack the incapacitated man, Azazel was sprinting into action. Twelve black wings unfurled as he charged and called forth thousands of spears of light.

They connected with Ddraig, lighting up the entirety of his body in blinding yellow that exploded outward. Even so, anyone who had seen the initial burst of fire and lightning would not be impressed. Azazel had fought Ddraig in ages past, so it was not ignorance which led him to attack Ddraig with such a lack of firepower.

Flying forward, Azazel summoned more and more spears of light to his side and let them fly in an endless torrent. He sensed more than saw Ddraig finally turning his head to him, and then a wordless roar hit him. A powerful force flung him backwards and into the dirt. Even before the dust from his landing had properly dispersed, Azazel was already flying back in again, this time with his sacred gear fully exposed.

When Ddraig caught sight of it, he laughed.

Azazel had fashioned his gear in imitation of the great celestial dragon gears. It was a powerful weapon - when using it, he had even overwhelmed one of the leaders of the Old Satan faction during the battle at the peace conference. But against the unleashed power of the object it tried to imitate, Ddraig, it was like bringing a squirt gun to a war zone. Azazel's Downfall Dragon Spear was, on the best of days, not a match for the boosted gear in which Ddraig had been imprisoned, let alone a freed Ddraig. Even so…

"GRO ZAAM UL!"

Ddraig shouted in words that Azazel could not understand, and chains erupted from the air and the ground, bursting forward at blinding speed and binding him. Ddraig turned, giving Azazel his full attention, not because the fallen demanded it, but because Ddraig had no reason not to. Cato still lay agonized on the ground, and even if he didn't, Ddraig's arrogance would certainly discount him as a threat entirely.

"Feel the chains that once bound me," Ddraig said, a burning hatred clear in his eyes.

Azazel hung, limbs extended and fully bound in the strange ethereal chains. He summoned spears of light to sever the chains, but the spears passed right through, doing no damage. As he continued to struggle in vain, Ddraig reared his head to unleash yet another breath attack, but Azazel saw it coming and launched a hundred spears of light into Ddraig's gaping maw. Rather than scream in pain, the dragon just hissed, deciding to swipe at Azazel with a claw instead of rearing for another shout.

Azazel saw the claws of Ddraig coming, but he could do nothing to evade them. Instead, he just summoned spears of light and blasted them at Ddraig's face, hoping that they might distract him and soften the blow. When the claws connected, blood and gore spew out from Azazel as he was flung backwards once again, the chains gone. He rolled through the dirt a few times before collapsing. Ddraig didn't move in for another strike as Azazel slowly got up again, blood trailing from his mouth.

As he did his best to ignore his own weakness, Azazel's eyes came to rest on Cato. The man looked to be close to recovering, but was still helpless as Ddraig once more turned his way. Just a little more. I can do this much at least. Azazel clenched his jaw. He was not a man who stood up for others. He never had been. Those around him, even those he deigned to call friends, all knew him as a selfish and pretentious individual. He had always taken such criticism in stride, smiling, allowing everyone to think of him as selfish and greedy, but in his heart, he thought of himself as the selfless hero in the shadows. Someone who was outwardly the delinquent, but when push came to shove, he would step out of the shadows and save the day.

Azazel sighed as Ddraig readied himself to attack Cato. He understood now. He was always selfish. Stepping out of the shadows would only confirm everyone's opinions of him. He deserved Kokabiel's scorn that day.

For years Azazel had worked to find a way to maintain the peace, only to find that no one cared for his peace. When Cato had asked him to try to understand that others did not view his ideal as real, he had written Cato off as someone who just didn't understand. Now, Azazel understood. The peace he had worked so hard to keep turned out to be nothing more than his own ambition. What selflessness was there in that? What sacrifice?

In the wake of the won battle, his house was empty and the foundations of his worldview shaken. There was no brother to lift a bowl of sake with, and had he died, no one would have drunk in his honor.

An odd melancholy settled deep inside Azazel as he lifted his sacred gear. It was a melancholy felt by an old man who looked back and saw that he had wasted his life, that everything he had ever ascribed meaning was nothing more than ashes. The realization also filled him with a clarity that he had lacked in his earlier panic.

Cato would kill Ddraig.

Cato hadn't come all the way to this world to kill a dragon only to fail in doing so, that was the conclusion Azazel reached. But even though he came to that conclusion, he struggled with truly believing it. Perhaps Cato would've been fine even without Azazel's interference. Azazel had seen the Cato's arsenal. Who could possibly know how many lifesaving treasures that man had on his person?

Azazel clenched his fist. There was an attack even stronger than the balance breaker. For a normal sacred gear wielder, using it meant certain death because of the soul link between the wielder and the gear. The color of his sacred gear began to change. A dark mist started emanating from it, and soon, no more gold could be seen.

"I broke your chains," he said. His voice was raspy, and despite only speaking a few words, he coughed painfully.

A powerful glare settled upon him. He almost reeled back at the intensity of it. But his resolve was made, and no intimidation from Ddraig would make him back down.

Cato, you ripe old bastard. If there is room for anything other than vengeance in your heart, have a drink in my honor. Remember this life you saved.

Remember your friend.

Ddraig took a few steps towards Azazel, once more ignoring Cato, who now seemed to be regaining lucidity. The blackness around his gear was so deep that it seemed to suck out the light from around it.

"Soul burst," he said quietly, following in the age old tradition of speaking the name of his attack before using it. He surged forward, aiming straight for Ddraig's heart. Somehow, with a beating of his wings, he managed to dodge Ddraig's bite attack as he continued forward. Cato would call this fate, he mused, as the dragon's body rapidly closed in. With all his might, he jabbed his conical sacred gear into Ddraig's belly.

He did not even manage to penetrate the softer scales of the dragon's underside, but the nature of his attack did not require it. The moment the black mist connected with Ddraig, it exploded outward, covering the entirety of the dragon's body. When the whole body was covered in the mist, it suddenly froze in place before slamming into Ddraig's body, seeping in between the scales and intensifying the purple glow that was left from Cato's earlier shout.

This time, Ddraig screamed in agony.

Ddraig flailed about, dancing like a possessed ragdoll, shaking the ground every time it made contact. A stray swipe from its tail struck Azazel and flung him backwards with blood arcing in his trail. When he made painful contact with the ground, he struggled up into a sitting position only to find Ddraig's eyes locked onto him, earlier madness gone.

Ah. Fuck.

Ddraig's head snapped towards him like a snake, but just as his life flashed before his eyes, a figure crushed Ddraig's momentum. Cato had rejoined the fight, and his first move was to punch the dragon's neck, of all things. The sound of the blow made Azazel wince.

When Ddraig tried to correct itself and snap up Azazel, Cato jumped into the air and, with the elegance of an athlete, flipped and kicked Ddraig's neck into the ground, leaving a massive shockwave in its wake.

Despite his painful predicament, Azazel couldn't help himself from laughing at the absurdity of it.

He's a goddamned martial artist after all.

-o-o-o-o-o-

A couple of notes here.

Shouts that are not explained in-text will be put in the AN at the bottom marked with *.

Concerning Ddraig and Albion. Despite being based on European mythology (very broad term, historians please don't judge), they are still called 'heavenly' or 'celestial dragons' (I use the term interchangeably – coincidentally the only serious parenthesis in this AN). As such, the design for Ddraig ended up being more in line with Chinese dragons, but I doubt any of you are invested enough in Welsh mythology to be upset.

This is the first chapter of the fight with Ddraig. Now, I've never written any major battle scene before, so I spent a lot of the time since last chapter trying to read as many epic battle scenes as I could, and I've come to an understanding with myself. Either everyone sucks at writing them, or I just really, really don't like extended action scenes. I hate them. I always sit there thinking 'yes, yes, but what happens after this annoying fight? (another fight) Do any of the side characters matter? (they don't) Will Azazel finally kiss Cato? (he won't)'.

With that said, I think the worst part of this battle is actually this particular chapter. Now, I haven't written any other part of the fight, but from what I have planned, I think the rest will be quite good. Especially next chapter should be good. I will hype it up now. It will be the best chapter of the story so far (0 words written).

Anyway, thanks for reading and apologies for my snail's pace writing. I don't understand how I was able to write so fast last year (maybe because the quality was shit). At any rate, after reading many webnovels over the summer, I've gotten fed up with bloated writing for the sake of getting stuff posted – despite somehow bloating this chapter a bit – so I'm committed to keeping up a solid pace going forward. This is only a promise to myself, though.

*Gro Zaam Ul = Bound Slave Eternity. A made up shout that Ddraig created while imprisoned (actually a made up shout that I made during quarantine). It binds its target in chains that can't be broken, but, contrary to expectations, lasts for a very short time because the chains are not truly Ddraig's to use. Jokes on Azazel for thinking he broke them.

P.S. just broke 100k words. \o/