Chapter Seventeen
Will-Crushing Force
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Arcs of lightning shot through Izuku even as lasers etched through his skin. The Whispering Flame did not care for his pain or his screams. To her they were background irrelevancies. The lightning was purely to remove motor control from Izuku, placing his muscles firmly under her command. The lasers allowed her to cut into his flesh with painstaking precision, even as she probed through his mind.
Drool collected on Izuku's mouth, messily coating the lower half of his face and trailing down his neck. Izuku was overcome by his own near-metallic stench. Dried blood caked onto his skin. His eyes stung with a mixture of tears and blood. His throat was raw from screaming. That was over now, though. He no longer controlled his own voice, immobilized by the electrified power that coursed through him.
Izuku was stripped of the means. He could no longer express himself or vent his pain.
She did nothing to anesthetize these sensations. The Great Sphere cared nothing for his discomfort, though she did not derive enjoyment from it either. However, she needed his mind to be completely awake for her questions. She rifled through his memories like they were pages in a book, a book that she was ripping to pieces as she sought out the one passage needed for her research.
Bitterly, he wanted to laugh as he heard the cascade of whispers. Voiceless and powerless, his vitriol festered within his gut. He was forced to listen as a thousand whispers coalesced together, flooding his thoughts, uttering the results of their search.
They rattled off the names of the various Charms he had collected, names he had yet to learn. Essence Overwhelming, one was called. Another was Essence Triumphant. Transcendent Desert Creature. None of these epithets explained the function or purpose of anything to him. They were just fancy titles. Occasionally the Whispering Flame would remark if a Charm was uncommon among the other Princes.
Freedom Lets Go.
He had heard this one before. Adorjan had whispered those words to him before he cut away at… which memory was it? He had sliced the chain cleanly away but could no longer recall why or what was attached on the other end of it. If not the physical threat to his own life, he might pause with existential dread over what he had done to himself.
Apparently, an entire cascade of Charms descended from that one, from Freedom Lets Go. It was an avenue of spiritual pursuit that few among the Princes dared to tread. "Uncommon Charm. Source: Adorjan, the Silent Wind. Low Estimated Utility." was repeated by the Great Sphere several times as she examined the Charms that Adorjan had thrust upon him.
"Heart Cutting Edge. Uncommon Charm. Source: Adorjan. Low Estimated Utility." So that's what it was called, he thought. He just thought of it as his knife. Unfortunately, her statement was punctuated by another shock of electric energy, followed by intense heat and cold in quick succession. The good news was that She Who Lives in Her Name was repairing the damage as quickly as she was inflicting it, but Izuku could hardly count anything as good news after his entire body had been destroyed several times over.
He was assaulted with the memory of cutting thoughts and feelings away as he was carried up by Adorjan. He could feel a thousand eyes explore the memory with him, poring over every detail, every gut-wrenching decision as he weighed one facet of himself or another against his own instinct to survive. He felt sick to his stomach, either from pain or from the invasion into his mind. He could feel her probing his emotions, from his connection to his mother to his longheld desire to become a hero. Unlike Cecelyne, who tried to manipulate him, or Adorjan who tested him with her deadly test-prompts… the Whispering Flame merely catalogued him with the cold indifference of an inventory manifest.
Did she even need to physically tear him apart while perusing his memories? Probably not, he thought bitterly.
Still, he was awake in her grasp, laying on the force-field operating table of her burning willpower. He forced his spiritual third eye open wide, studying her as best he could as he bore through the pain of her ministrations. As she searched through him for answers, he examined her to satisfy needs of his own. Izuku did not remember the conversation that lead him to do this, but it was somehow expected that the Whispering Flame would find him, and that he would need to be at her mercy for this plan to work… to have even an ice cube's chance in hell, he had to bear through this.
He opened doors within his mind, inviting her in deeper and deeper, giving her unrestricted access to the inner world he had made for himself. He distracted her with his hopes and dreams as he reached forward, picking the pockets of the surgeon even as the obsessive doctor did her work. A palm trick of the mind, he recalled someone had called it that… who he could not say, and why he was doing this was a fog not worth sifting through. All he knew was that he desperately needed her power.
Not just any power that the Whispering Flame had, as there were many Charms he could pick from. He needed something specific. If he grabbed more than was needed, things would be ok… but if he missed… then everyone and everything that he loved would… would what?
The pain was severe enough to cause delusions. He swore he could hear another voice, one just like his own, whispering to him. "Don't worry about why… don't let yourself feel the pain… just reach in and feel for the tools of the mind. Think of them as coins… no… keys to a lock. There are five specific ones that you need. Reach for them, one at a time…"
Was he talking to himself now? Could the Great Sphere hear him? No matter, he just had to reach…
Izuku could feel her probing beyond his mind into his soul. It was the most uncomfortable sensation he had ever experienced, though not the most painful. He felt like he was being stabbed while numb. The knowledge of what was happening felt worse than the sensation itself. "Anomalous Charm Identified. Divided Chakra Shintai. Indexed as a God-Body Subclassification. Heresy. The Charm is not of Primordial Origin." The numerous whispers intoned.
He hoped that she was distracted by her own victory as he grasped onto the first key. Four more… he needed four more to break the lock. He decided not to think about what the lock was, instead focusing on the task and tuning out what the Whispering Flame was doing to him. He wrestled with her for control over his voice, or perhaps she offered him enough slack, "You already searched my mind and I even told you what it does. How is this new information?" he spat blood as he spoke to her.
Would asking her for an explanation slow her down? Would that give him the time he needed?
Her restraint on his movements tightened, as though chains wrapped clingingly to his torso and limbs. "Your own perspective is that of an individual. You lack objective knowledge. More perspective is required. Now that the information has been isolated, our scan of you will be far more precise."
All that Izuku heard when she said "precise" was "painful" as though the two were one and the same. Still, even as he felt laser find needles stabbing into him, he prided himself on palming another key from the surgeon's pocket. Three more, he told himself. He tried not to think about the vivisection, about the fact that he was thieving from someone… something… while so vulnerable. He might as well be splayed open on an operating table with a knife pressed against his heart.
Speaking of his physician, the Whispering Flame altered her methods of vivisection. She did not require any implements. There was no scalpel, no tray of tools or fancy equipment. If a thing could be done crudely with an object, then she could do it better with her obsessive will and intent. When trying to find where her answers lay, she examined Izuku's body with heat and cold, immobilizing him with electric currents even as she cut sections away with lasers so that they could be more easily dissected. She treated the answers she sought with the care of an archaeologist, while Izuku himself was just the dirt wrapped around her precious puzzle. Fittingly, her newest psychic tool made Izuku think of a modified drill, albeit one made from light and sound.
The drill wasn't for Izuku's body. It was for his mind and soul. Even as she eased up on damaging his physical form, the Great Sphere bore down onto Izuku's willpower, torturing his mind with repeated torments. He flailed helpless, lost in visions. His mother, dead. His school, burned. His heroes turned villainous. She treated every single hope, dream, and ambition that he had as another entry point, a way to drill down into his core nature and lay it bare for her examinations. He knew that the visions were false, even as he felt the pavement from his suicidal leap hit him not once but many times over.
It's not real, he reminded himself. Reach past it. Get another one. She's not looking. The surgeon is staring past your hands and looking inside your brain. She's past surface thoughts. She's drilling to our core… the thought was maddening, yet he almost cried with twisted joy as he felt another key fall into his grasp.
Just two more, he thought, even as his eyes cried tears of blood. Gritting his teeth, he realized that he was salivating blood as well.
Bracing himself for more, he was caught off guard when the pain stopped.
Horror gripped his heart when he reached backward into his mind, grasping to see what she was staring at. And there it was. The fragmented explanation of his new Charm… the haphazard desire to save his birth world… the imperative to obey the Yozis and find a way to save his world from their grasp at the same time. Everything, what little he still remembered of it, was visible to her.
"The Charm has been documented. The means by which you were instructed remains unclear. However, it is now apparent that the memory has been excised from you. Based on your existing panoply of Charms, you are the most likely suspect to have cut the memory from your own mind. I therefore posit the question to you: did you cut the memory from your mind?" She probed at him, not with tools or lighting but with sharp mental focus.
Defeat. He knew it was not possible to tell a lie to the Whispering Flame. "I did." He admitted his crime to her.
"Interesting. Tell us why you removed this memory." The Great Sphere asked, her voices were calm. Sedate. Was she trying to lull him? After torturing him?
The connection between their minds was still there. He could feel it, could see she was still poring over the memory in his core. He brought his own attention to the surface, to stare at her openly even as he felt around with his outstretched mind… searching the pockets for another key, he reminded himself.
"The memory… something about it frightened me. I was afraid that the Primordials would see it and… and that I wouldn't be able to prove my loyalty to them… to show my gratitude for the power I've been given." He knew that he had to speak only true statements. Technically, these qualified. Could he sneak past her on such technicalities?
He felt the key in his grasp and took it, hoping that she would not notice. He told himself that there was just one more…
"You are attempting to deceive your masters. You are attempting to deceive the Primordial Host. You are attempting to deceive us, the Whispering Flame." She was not asking but stating the charge. Her grip on his body and mind became less clinical, the pain less precise.
Damn it. He was so close.
One slip, one wrong word, and Izuku would die right here in this moment. He recoiled within himself, drawing the power of his mind away from hers for fear of being caught rummaging through her power. "Deceit is not my goal. I'm not rebelling. I will fulfill my mission and advance the cause of the Great Reclamation."
Her voice rang out clearly like a crystal bell in his ears. "True. False. True." By her will his body floated closer and closer to the Great Sphere as smaller ones orbited around him. "Curious. Your goal is not to deceive, yet you intend to rebel. Paradoxically, you have every intention of following our command to advance the Great Reclamation. Resolve this dissonance."
Caught. Trapped. How would he explain himself to her satisfaction? "I will never have the power to defy the Primordials. Rebellion is out of the question… but…"
"But?" she asked with needle-like focus. The opal fires burned brighter within her crystal spheres.
"I want to petition for the Primordials… for the great King, Malfeas… to change his mind. My birth-world is one among many countless worlds. I wish to see it spared." There it was. The technical core of his plan. The remainder of it rested in a cut away memory out of his grasp.
"You are on a fool's quest. The King will not be swayed. All worlds will bow to the will of Malfeas. There will be no exceptions. Nonetheless, you have cut away a vital memory. You are attempting to deceive us and our King…" she held him, locked in her fiery gaze. "We will now move on from vivisection to execution, followed by forensic dissection."
Her laser drill spun threateningly as it approached his face. Everything so far had been for nothing. All the cunning of Cecelyne at his disposal, and this was still the end result.
The drill stopped to a shuddering halt a mere centimeter from his face, it's light blinding his eyes. He could feel it's heat wash over his skin. Something had given pause to the Whispering Flame.
The sky above him darkened. Night. Somehow, in this mad desert-world of eternal sunlight, the Whispering Flame was awash in darkness. Cool crisp air flooded around Izuku's bronze-burned skin as warmth retreated from the world around him. The drill that about to kill him dissipated into fractal light patterns before withdrawing into the surrounding spheres…
And then Izuku saw it… saw him.
Eight kilometers long, the Ebon Dragon cast a terrible shadow, blotting out the light of the Green Sun. Graceful and languid, his black serpentine body seemed to slither through the air. No wings held him aloft. The Shadow of All Things interjected himself into the orbital patterns of the Whispering Flame, playfully casting aside several larger spheres as he descended to observe Izuku with void black eyes.
"You are being wasteful, dear sister. This is our newest asset. He is chosen by Ligier, the heart of our King… let us not gainsay the will of His Majesty." His words flowed out slowly, smoothly. His voice was deep, rich, and venomous. It rang out from his inhuman throat even as the words bubbled up from within Izuku's heart, a whisper reverberating through his bones. He was both alien yet familiar.
"He is attempting to deceive us, Shadow." The whispering cacophony of crystal voices clipped back.
"Please. Say it properly. I am the Shadow of All Things. It is in your nature to respect your elders, is it not?" he politely yet condescendingly prodded her even as he interjected himself between the Great Sphere and Izuku. At his speed it would take an hour to approach where his head was currently passing.
The Great Sphere rose higher as though to look over the Dragon's head. "Irrelevant. Regardless of how or who Ligier chose, this human is defective. It is utilizing its free will in order to deceive the Primordials."
A low baritone chuckle preluded the Dragon's reply. "Ah. You still blame me for that invention? Regardless, free will is needed now in order to solve our… little problem." He kept an eye on Izuku as he spoke, yet still directed all his words towards the Whispering Flame.
"I do however see your… concern." The Shadow of All Things condescended. "Rather than be so… inefficient and wasteful… why not let me pry open the cage of his mind? I have a talent for these things… deceptions… lies…"
"You mean false statements." She Who Lives in Her Name stated flatly.
The Dragon ignored the remark and turned his attention fully onto Izuku's helpless position. His gaze was predatory. Izuku, though relieved that he was still breathing, did not see the Dragon's arrival as good news. Somehow, he knew that this creature was the most dangerous in all Malfeas to Izuku's goals.
Where the Whispering Flame could examine Izuku for answers, the Ebon Dragon could rifle through his memories and completely overwrite them. Everything that made Izuku who he was, everything that he had saved of himself from Adorjan… all of it was now in danger. Death at the hands of the Great Sphere seemed preferable to becoming a monster of the Dragon's dark designs.
The Dragon chuckled, either at the Whispering Flame's naivety or Izuku's obvious discomfort. "Yes, sister. False statements… who better to root out such deception than the Father of Lies?"
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Iida Tenya both anticipated and dreaded their destination. Kamui Woods was leading all of them directly to Tensei's body. Was Tenya ready for this? Knowing that his brother was gone hurt worse than anything Tenya had ever felt. How would he feel once he personally saw his brother's remains?
They were less than a block's journey away. At last they saw the pair of apartment buildings where it all started, where All Might and the other heroes had battled Sondok. Where another demon had captured the Support Corps and held them hostage.
Where Ingenium had died. Been killed. Murdered. By Sondok.
Everything was quiet. Abandoned. The battle here had ended hours ago. Hero and hostage alike were long gone. The sorcerous bridge constructed by the demons remained after only being used once, as though cast off after fulfilling its purpose. The fact that Tensei's body was still there spoke volumes about the psychological dread that permeated the hero and support community. Everyone was afraid of walking into a trap.
Kamui Woods had warned them all that this mission was dangerous. He had given them all the option of staying behind. None of them had volunteered, not even Miss Utsushima or the child in her arms. It was safer to remain together. Even if they were heading towards the enemy, they wouldn't do it alone.
The pro-hero focused hard, creating a long wooden bridge that the rest of them used to cross over onto the rooftop. Yoarishi had taken point, while Kirishima had acted as a rearguard for the group. Utsushima and the child in her arms were the guarded core of their group along with Tenya, the only teenager present that had not been deputized. Kamui Woods followed, propelling himself onto the roof alongside them by retracting the bridge back into himself while maintaining his grip of the other building.
For most of them, arriving here was an anticlimax. The crown was gone, defeating the purpose of their arrival. Presumably it had been taken away by the enemy. There was little left to do but to pay respects to Ingenium and then depart quickly.
Hours past his death, Ingenium's body had inevitably relaxed. His various cells, many living long past his own functional death, had finally given up on his remaining dignity. Inevitably, as many corpses before him had done, he had soiled himself. He reeked of blood and feces. His face, long exposed to the night air, had a haunting green pallor cast across it from the aurora above.
His rational mind warned Tenya to hold back to the rear of the group, but he could not. Compelled by his own sense of loss, Tenya surged forward on possessed limbs to place himself near his brother's remains. He cried quietly, failing to take note of his own tears even as they made a mess of his glasses.
Kirishima stirred, noticing something amiss. Concerned, he couldn't help but speak up. "Hey… bro… are you… You look a lot like him. You wouldn't be… Are you related to Ingenium?"
Before Tenya could think up a convincing story, he found himself face to face with Kamui Woods. The pro-hero did not appear pleased. "Ingenium… Iida Tensei… has a younger brother. Are you him… are you Iida Tenya?"
Tenya was too ashamed to speak. His silence was reply enough in their eyes.
"Why did you lie to us? You gave a fake name back there… but you left your given name, Tenya in the mix." He folded his arms, waiting impatiently for an answer.
"I…" Tenya wished he could have a moment with his brother, a last goodbye, rather than this conversation. "I don't know… I just… I was afraid."
"Dude… bro…" Kirishima obviously felt bad for the guy. His brother's corpse was a few meters away and here he was being confronted…
"You were afraid that if we knew who you were that we'd take your safety into consideration and make sure you were escorted out of the city… is that it?" Kamui Woods accused him, sharply… accurately.
It was like a slap to the face, and worse, one that Tenya felt he deserved. "Yes sir… I… wanted to see my brother…"
The older hero sighed, taking in the sight of the broken young man and the nearby remains of his brother. "I get it, I really do. However, you can't just go off on personal missions of grief. When your emotions take over and cloud your judgment it compromises the safety of the entire team. A hero needs to think beyond just himself and objectively assess the emergency, prioritizing lives over all other considerations…"
"Excuse me, sir… uh… Kamui Woods, sir…" the spiky haired teen Kirishima interjected himself, holding his hands up placatingly. "I get it. Him lying to us all was wrong… but the thing is… he's not a hero. His brother was… an awesome hero. But it's a tall order to expect a high schooler… you're a high schooler like me, right?"
After receiving a curt nod from Tenya, Kirishima continued. "Expecting a high schooler to behave completely like a professional hero when the situation is so personal to them… I'm not saying that what he did was right, but he does deserve a bit of slack. It's not like he agreed to be a deputy under you. He was just at the right place and the right time and was trying to rescue that kid when we found him. That has to count for something… is all."
"Are you done interrupting and rambling?" the taller teen, Yoarishi, spoke up. "Because look, whether he lied or told the truth, we'd all still end up here. The safety of one or two civilians in addition to the deputies didn't weigh enough against the possible value of this reconnaissance. One of those civilians being a VIP wouldn't have changed that result either, because no life outweighs that of a child. He could have, if not for the rush of activity, been asked to continue with us as another deputy under Kamui Woods. None of us will ever know if he would have corrected his fake name or continued as a deputy with such a pretense. It's useless to even ask. Setting aside that he's out here endangering himself, lying about his identity was uncalled for…"
"I know it was wrong!" Tenya spat out the words, forcing his body stiffly downward into a sharply angled bow. Tears welled up from his eyes and fell like rain, spotting and marring his glasses. "It was wrong of me to run past the checkpoints! It was wrong of me to come to Musutafu! It was wrong to lie to all of you! But… I didn't know what else to do! I had to come and see my brother! I must take him to the hospital morgue… and to tell his wife… I have to be the one to tell her that she's a widow because if I don't go there in person then she'll see it on the news once she'd done with her surgeries!"
He still held back. His thirst for revenge. His feelings of helplessness to quench that thirst. He even kept a lid on how the name he had given them was the maiden name of his brother's widow, denying to himself any reason for choosing it save for a lack of imagination. "Please… if I could just have a moment to say goodbye…" he asked, pleaded, eyes cast downward with his face and torso in a bow far deeper than anyone else thought was called for.
Iida's heartfelt confession, incomplete as he felt it was, was well received. There was no time for a reply though, not with the sudden interruption of a blood curdling scream.
Shocked, the four men stood alert and turned to see that Utsushima Camie in grave danger. The child had twisted in her arms into an oil slicked abomination, a faceless, pliant shadow creature. It moved with alarming speed and precision. The thing ravaged its way from her grasp, injuring her with deep gashes from its knife-like talons. Climbing rapidly over her shoulder, the monster sliced into her flesh as it moved onto her back. Descending rapidly, the thing lashed out at her ankles, precisely cutting at them to extract her shadow away from her body.
Rows of tiny black teeth extended from an oily, featureless face. Aptly named, the Shadow Eater bit hard onto Camie's shadow, claiming it as an ephemeral meal as it scurried away with its prize. The gloom extended from its makeshift maw, appearing as shade on the rooftop.
"Utsushima!" Kamui Woods called out, reaching out to grab her and the offending monster with treelike limbs. The pro hero caught the young woman as gently as possible before she could fall to the ground, but the creature absconding away wriggled through branch after branch like an oil slick across running water.
Roaring in frustration and anger, Yoarishi unleashed a torrent of violent air at the creature, buffeting it off balance. The thing clung down hard onto the rooftop, partially sinking in. It barely slowed down as it made way for the sorcerous bridge. Tenebrous shades flickered off the creature's body as the lights from the bridge-sigils lit its dark features from below.
Without thinking, Iida Tenya and Kirishima Eijiro rushed forward. The redhead surged towards his fallen companion, taking her into his arms from the branches of Kamui Woods. Immediately he settled her onto the rooftop so that he could raise her legs up and apply pressure to her ankles, stemming a tide of blood that threatened to leave her body. Already he was standing in a small pool of her lifeblood.
Tenya had no time to take in Kirishima's triage of Utsushima, to listen to the words he used to help her calm down. He did not know how severe her injuries were. His focus was entirely on the creature making its escape, a monster that he did not understand. He did not know how vital a shadow is to a human's mind and soul, only that this thing had somehow stolen one before his eyes and was running away with it.
His feet beat a clamorous and confident path on that bridge of light and stone, but he didn't pay heed to the distance below. Tenya focused on the creature retreating from him. It moved much faster than his companions could keep up with… but not faster than Iida Tenya. He called on his Quirk, stoking the fires in his engines as he built up speed from deep within his legs.
This little fucker was not getting away, not with Iida Tenya chasing it down.
The abandoned apartment was strewn with equipment in various stages of disrepair. Garish green light from the aurora created eerie umbral figures that danced across the walls. The monster sought refuge in one such shadow as it chewed on its stolen meal, as though hoping to force its prey down its gullet before it was caught and attacked. How extreme could its gnawing hunger be that it cared more about fulfillment than safety?
It never got past the first few solid bites.
Enraged, Tenya flew at the creature. With a single hard kick, he injured his own foot, yet that was a small price to pay as he watched the monsters head burst like and over pressured oil-drum. The creature fell over, its neck spilling out a black inky substance across the already ruined floor. The claws went limp, dropping its meal down where it looked like a stain on the floor, a permanent shadow with no object interceding against the light.
Tenya knelt, first confirming his kill as he wiped a smudge of splattered ink-blood from his glasses, then reaching to grab up Utsushima's shadow from the floor.
His fingers could not grasp it. Alarmed, he clawed ruthlessly at the floor, threatening to wear down his fingernails as he tried to pry the intangible umbral-stain from the floor. Unfortunately, humans have no means to pick up shadows.
He hadn't noticed Kamui Woods or young Yoarishi enter the room, not until the younger man pushed Tenya away from the tenebrous floor-stain. Yoarishi continued with frantic attempts. Yet even those aided by the power of the wind proved fruitless. Roaring in frustration, his efforts remained futile. His anxiety, shared with Kamui Woods, revealed that Tenya's instincts were at least correct: getting this shadow back to Utsushima was important, he just didn't understand yet how bad this peculiar form of injury could be.
Kamui Woods attempted to grow a tree limb into the floor itself, as though to force the shadow to be cast onto the outstretched branch. The umbral shape simply slipped off as though water on a windshield. Again, he made the attempt, having already made more progress than the two younger men. With each outgrowth he destroyed more of the floor, until the thing slipped not only from his wooden reach but through a hole down into the apartment below.
The older hero bore through this stoically even as Yoarishi grunted his frustration, as though to vocalize what all three of them were feeling. Tenya, exhausted from how intense his emotions had been running him, leaned back from where the young deputy had shoved him.
His hand brushed against something solid and heavy. Turning, he saw a small white statue lay on the floor next to his hand. Curiosity compelled him to pick it up. As he turned it over, the white surface revealed a vaguely feminine figure made of salt. A long trail of dried blood coated the surface as though the thing had cried a single tear of ultimate anguish.
"What in the world?" he asked aloud.
Turning at the unexpected question, Kamui Woods tensed when he saw what Tenya was holding. "Iida, calmly and carefully hand that over to me."
Yoarishi froze, watching as Kamui Woods slowly extended his hand out to where Tenya was nearly prone on the floor. Tenya, for his part, did not fully comprehend the gravity of the situation.
"What is it?" Tenya asked, slowly tensing his abdomen so that he could sit up, carefully handling the object as though it were a bomb.
"An idol… the one Midoriya Inko used… to pray to the enemy god. If that thing is powerful enough to force a ceasefire, then it had to have been left here as a trap… so please… hand that over to me carefully." Kamui implored the younger man.
Tenya thought quickly yet analytically. The enemy had a god. The god of these monsters. The murderer that killed his brother. The creature that ripped Utsushima's shadow from her body. The same god that ruled these alien horrors had enforced a ceasefire… what else might it do?
Ignoring the shouts around him to the contrary, Iida Tenya drew the idol closer to his chest, closed his eyes… and prayed.
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Iida Tenya was severely mistaken.
Cecelyne, whose name he did not know, was far more than a god. Gods are spiritual beings that the Primordials made in the image of their deva servants. To the likes of Cecelyne gods are difficult to tell apart from mortals, and both are as small as mere grains of sand. Every now and then, a singular prayer shines with potential, absorbing enough of her attention that she grants the miniscule supplicant her full attention. Her terrible attention.
Tenya found himself standing amid wrecked pillars of salt and stone, a circular structure that had long since fallen to ruin as it gave way to the eroding desert around it. The merciless fury-heat of the Green Sun beat down upon him, judging him as a worthless piece of human chattel. Far on the horizon was a storm of crystals and black lighting wrapped around a glowing emerald heart. A far more immediate concern though was the desert all around him, a dry desolation that stretched farther than his own imagination could comprehend.
"Are you here?!" he shouted, creating echoes among the dunes. "Are you the god of… the devas?" he struggled for the words, trying to remember snippets from the news earlier yesterday.
He turned this way and that, looking for any sign of life, intelligent or otherwise. Could anything live out here for long?
"I am here." She stated proudly. Her meaning was double edged, but Tenya was not aware enough to understand that. He did not comprehend that a being could be both person and place. That kind of thought would be dismissed by his human rationality.
Turning again, he saw her. She was an imperiously tall woman. Her skin was black like charcoal. Her eyes though were pale, almost silver in color. She was adorned with jewelry from head to toe, a priest-queen of the desert. Fine linen was wrapped about her, providing bare modesty in balance against the heat that radiated through this bone-dry place. He could not tell too many details though as she stood with the sun to her back, granting her an aura of dreadful and radiant authority. Her expression was shadowed. She could be glaring at him or smiling for all he knew.
Between them was a long stone altar. To the woman's right lay Tenya's brother. Tenya knew better than to ask how his brother's body came to rest here, considering that he himself wasn't clear on how he got to here… or where here is. On her left a large basalt chalice rested on the altar. It was filled with an oily black substance that appeared to be both liquid and ephemeral smoke.
Tenya ponders what to ask. "My name is Iida Tenya. You have my brother on your altar. May I ask your name?"
The woman's gaze does not waver. The answer he expects does not come from her. "I am Cecelyne. I am the Endless Desert. I am the Arbiter of Prayer." He turns to the source of the sound and finds another altar is behind him. This one is stained with the blood of countless sacrifices. A gigantic idol of salt lay just beyond the altar depicting a woman with three eyes. There was no one there to explain where the voice had come from.
Still he latched onto her words. "If prayer is what you desire, I'll give it. I have much I'd ask you for…"
"I know the many desires of your heart, human child." The voice rang out, once again from behind. He turned to face the woman and his brother. She held out her hands, gesturing to both the corpse and the chalice. "I am generous, you will find. That bounty is not limitless, though. Unlike the one who came to me earlier… you are not as resolved on which favor to ask for. Know this, though: I have deemed you worthy to ask me for one… and only one." The voice once again came from behind him, and he resolved not to turn.
Tenya swallowed hard; his throat was parched just from standing in this heat. If he understood correctly then he was being offered an impossible choice. He could get his brother back or he could restore the shadow to that woman, Utsushima. Normally this would be an easy choice. He'd choose his brother of course. However, Tenya felt responsible for Utsushima's injuries. He was the one that passed that shadow eating monster into her arms.
"Is there no way I can convince you to offer up both to me?" Tenya pleaded.
"I do not find you worthy of both. You can only afford one." Cecelyne stated flatly.
Afford. This would not be free. "What is your price for these favors?" He had to know. Perhaps this decision would be made when he heard what each would cost him.
Cecelyne's arms came together as though to embrace him from across the altar and the sands interceding between them. "I ask for nothing. I ask for everything. And when I ask, you will provide and perform, returning favor for favor." The riddle-answer did not satisfy him, but it was enough to deduce that she would not charge for this immediately but keep an owed favor as outstanding debt. He had assumed that the price for bringing back the dead would be significantly higher than restoring someone's health, but that apparently was not the case.
Now that he knew otherwise, he knew what his decision would be. He hated himself for it.
His fists clenched with anger as he bowed low, not knowing any other way to make such an outlandish entreaty. "Then if you are offering, Lady Cecelyne… then please give me back my brother! I need him in my life! The world needs Ingenium back!"
Before he knew what was happening, he felt her hand weigh down on the back of his head. It was cool, yet not comforting. "Accept then my generosity, human, with a prayer to my name in your heart and on your lips."
His eyes were to dry to cry with the wellspring of emotion that flooded up within him. He loathed that he was abandoning someone for his own selfishness, but he had to continue… for his brother! "I accept your generosity, Lady Cecelyne. Please give my brother back to me! Please restore my brother to life!"
The woman moved with sudden and shocking violence. Tenya found himself slammed onto his back, knocking all the air from his lungs. Panicking, he cast his gaze about. He was laying back on the altar that was behind himself.
The one coated in dried blood.
"What is this? What are you doing?" Tenya struggled. He found it impossible to rise from his position. Somehow when she pinned him down, she had stung him with something. He felt a welt forming on his forehead where he guessed a needle had pricked into his skin. Horrified by his immobility, he was grateful that he could still move his head though it seemed impossibly heavy.
"I am granting your request, human." She spoke dismissively.
From this vantage he could barely see. Was this what she meant by nothing and everything? Was she going to take his life in trade for his brother? He found an odd sort of peace with that trade… turning his head, he watched with lead in his gut as the chalice with oil and smoke disappeared into a mist of fine sand. The choice had been made. He'd have to live or die by it now.
Then the woman, Cecelyne, turned and with a flick of her wrist, sent a torrent of sands to scour flesh and bone alike off the corpse of Iida Tensei. "What?! No! What are you doing?! Why are you doing this?! I thought we had a deal!" Tenya screamed.
She turned to face him and for the first time he saw that her face was anything but human. Her eyes were silver and salt. Her mouth was filled with molten glass. When she spoke, it was like listening to chimes on the wind. All pretenses of being a relatable deity were now over. "We are fulfilling your request… your first request… we are placing your brother in your life…"
"No…" he shook his head. He tried recalling the words that he had used. How could this be the interpretation of his wish? "I wanted my brother back… I wanted him alive… Please… bring him back to life!"
The dread deity frowned at him, her mouth aglow with molten disappointment. "No," she replied. "The bargain is struck. Learn to appreciate the opportunity you have been given. Few mortals receive so much attention from the Endless Desert."
Before he could object further, Tenya found himself screaming in agony. Cecelyne's silver sands moved rapidly, eroding away the flesh of his arms. In short order his nerves stopped sending signals of pain, yet that only increased his sense of dread. His arms were completely gone, shredded apart at the shoulders. His blood spilled out to join that of so many others on the altar beneath him as the Green Sun beat down on his face.
"Everything that your brother possessed… I gift to you." With that statement, Cecelyne sent the cloud of sand that had eroded Iida Tensei's body onto his younger brother, Tenya. The sands coalesced at his shoulders, and Tenya watched in morbid fascination as his arms were rebuilt before his eyes. The process was quick and extremely painful, but miraculous to behold.
Almost immediately though Tenya could feel a significant difference. A slight bend of the elbows confirmed it. He felt the jet like exhaust-extrusion of his brother's engines in his elbow joint. His triceps were accordingly larger, thicker, pushing his arms to a greater sense of mass than he was used to.
Cecelyne had given him his brother's Quirk.
Tenya's eyes filled with tears, regretting his own foolishness, wondering if he could have worded his prayer better to avoid this outcome. "I wanted… my brother… to live…" he spoke between gritted teeth.
The silver eyed deity looked down at him with something between pity and disgust. She plucked his glasses from his face and cast them aside into the desert, never to be seen again. "You never had anything worth trading for a favor that difficult. We doubt that any human does."
Just when Tenya was about to lament further, he screamed instead while Cecelyne scoured his eyes out from his head. After all, she had agreed to give him everything.
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