NOTE:

"Doryaaaaaaaaaa!": normal talking

"Charge!": special case

'Darn!': thoughts

GWA HA HA HA! : Giant creature speech

DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING!

Please… read and review

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Flashback…

A little while earlier, after the latest bout between Kira and Lacus which involve Lacus accidentally scratched Kira's cheek… it ended with the Clyne Sisters being grounded in their tents.

"I swear you two really can't get along can you, haro?" Lily closed the tent door right after Kira declared his and her mistress' relationship is still that of pure hatred. They're officially mortal archenemies.

Lacus ignored the question and looked at the droplets of Kira's blood on her fingernail. "Hmmm…Levi."

Levi, a light blue haro transformed into another Lacus, she wore a privateer clothes, just like one normally used by ship captains, it even came complete with the captain's hat and all the decorum and ranks on the shoulders of her coat, including a cutlass and a pistol-that doesn't seem to work. Her pink hair is tied up in a pony, and its tail is very long that it reached all the way to her feet. Near the end it distinctively split in two, like a fish fin. Her eyes were icy light blue. Almost white in color. "Yes, Lacus-sama?" Her tone is cold and flat, but respectful to her mistress.

"Microscope if you please."

"Right away." Levi transformed into a microscope and settled herself on small table.

"Thank you." Lacus carefully squeezed Kira's blood from her nail into a glass pallet and then put it on the Microscope. She looked at the blood through the microscope. "Magnify." And Levi magnified the image. "Again, again…" And Levi, as per Lacus' instructions, continued to magnify the image of Kira's blood until Lacus is viewing Kira's blood cells. The blood is pulsing. Very active. "…too active…" In truth, Lacus felt Kira… was very weird. Gino claimed he's Paramecia. He has an eye type bloodline limit. Okay. That's obvious. But… his off the chart regeneration capability… his… his everything… is OFF the norm. Lacus would know. She spent hours operating him… and… in all her experience performing surgery… she had never found a body as cooperative as Kira's. Whenever one perform a surgery, it is imperative for a doctor to administer various substances to keep the patient's vitals stable. But with Kira… it was as if his own body knew exactly what he needs to survive. She need his heart rate to stabilize, they stabilize. She need the blood to remain loose, they loosen without her administrating any drug… A very intelligent regenerative system… almost as if it had… Lacus blinked. "…a regenerative system… that had a mind of its own?"

Her first thought is to the internal caretaker inside Kira. But… if that's true… she should feel his existence in this small blood. She scanned the blood, feeling it for any sort of presence… and she felt nothing. It's just blood. Which means it's all Kira. The man is just giving him a push along the way…

And then something hammered down into her mind. An intelligent… regenerative… system… and… and… Lacus' was so tense that her lips parted and her eyes widened upon realization of the possibility. And before she knew it, she pricked herself, drawing blood. Her blood is strangely pale colored… almost pink… or rather like… white.

"Lacus? What are you doing, haro?" Lily asked in concern.

But Lacus was too tense to answer her question. She dropped her blood on top of Kira's and then eagerly, hopefully, pressed her eyes into the microscope. And then… she saw it. Her blood, loaded with eerie white virus cells merged with Kira's. The white virus cells began invading Kira's red blood cells… and then, Kira's white blood cells, its defense mechanism, sprang into action and collided with the white celled virus, trying to consume it. Lacus' held her breath. This is it… the moment of truth. Most people's white blood cell was unable to cope with her miasma's adaptability and reproduction capacity… if Kira's immune system is as good as she thinks…

And then she saw how Kira's white blood cell began to contain and attempt to banish the virus away from the system. The virus didn't even have the chance to inoculate itself on Kira's blood. And the white blood cells joined together as a fighting mechanism and pushed back the white virus. In response, the white miasma began to adapt, attempting to overcome the defensive mechanism. Surprisingly, the white blood cell also did the same and began resisting. For a moment, Lacus smiled widely, thinking that this is it? But then… something really strange happened. The White Blood cells transformed. As did the remaining red blood cells. The virus, which initially attempt to overcome the white blood cells suddenly stopped… a while later… Lacus suddenly found herself at lost as which is Kira's blood and which is hers. And finally, the white virus just… died on its own. Nothing happened. And then, Kira's blood reverted back to its original state and Lacus can differentiate his and her blood again.

Lacus gasped and receded to her seat in disappointment.

"I'm sorry, Lacus. For a moment there… I thought…" Lily shared Lacus' disappointment.

"That makes the two of us…" Lacus closed he eyes. For a moment there… she thought she can be free again. "But… it also explains why Kira was able to resist my Miasma. His off the norm regenerative capability is very… intelligent. It didn't try to overcome the Miasma it simply… adapted." Lacus rubbed her chin in deep thought. "Everyone's blood is unique… it's like fingerprints. My miasma used my blood as an id. The moment it entered a system dissimilar with mine, it reacted. But Kira's blood readjusted itself into an environment similar with the condition of my blood… the one state where the virus is inert. And after that it simply… waited it out until the virus died on itself."

"Then maybe if we can just isolate the compound or…"

"That's no help for me." Lacus maybe a good doctor. But she had her limits. "His intelligent immunity system is something that his body inherently possesses. He was born with it. That's not something my current medical knowledge can replicate. Plus, his body did not produce anything that resist or repel the virus as I have been lead to believe… It's intelligent. Yes. But its intelligent solution to my virus… is simply to wait until the virus killed itself. Not curing it outright. Just like how one would wait for a disaster or a pandemic to die down. That also means that his body couldn't come up with a cure. Simply… adapt and endure."

Lily frowned in sorrow.

Awkwardly enough Lacus doesn't look as down as Lily. Rather… more like… she looked happier than usual. "That's good actually." Her eyes curved as she smiled happily.

"Eh?"

"I would be VERY disappointed if things were that easy. I mean… Even if we can synthesize a cure from his blood… the very thought of begging for his one drop of blood after everything he did to me…!" Veins of anger popping out of Lacus' still smiling face. "Oh… I will be DEAD before I kneel before him for mercy!"

"Uwah. You really hate him that much, haro?"

"OF COURSE!" Lacus crossed her arms in deviance as she stood atop her chair like the queen of the mountain and shrieked her deviant declaration. "In fact, I won't be satisfied until I pay him back a THOUSAND TIMES for all the misery he caused me! Yes ma'am! I'll make him pay so much; he'll kneel before me, and offer his blood to appease my wrath! MWAHAHAHAHA!" And she laughed like a maniac. Naturally, all her haros freaked out and sweatdropped.

"Lacus… you're scaring me, haro…"

"If he wants me to have second opinion about him, I fully expect him to come up here and kne-" Before Lacus can finish her comment, the door to her tent suddenly opened and along came Kira, much to Lacus' surprise.

"L-Lord Shadow… what…"

And before Lily can finish her question, Kira dropped down to his knees and kneel before Lacus. "Lacus-san… no… Lacus-sama… I had a favor to ask of you. Please take my blood."

Lacus don't know what to do. Laugh her ass off, or pinch her cheek till it bleeds to confirm she's not dreaming.

Flashback ends.

Chapter 32:

THIS IS A BRAWL! (Director's Cut)

I was 16 years old when I met her.

She was unlike any other noble woman I've seen. She has no outstanding beauty or anything. But her vigor and graceful sophistication gave her a beauty of a different kind that would leave a great impression upon even complete stranger. When normal noblewoman would prefer face powder, mirrors, dresses, makeups… she would spend her time in library, trudging through histories and art of war. And yet, day to day, she would carry on like any woman of her age. She would only indulge her in simple pleasures of the high class society only when she absolutely had to. And after that, it's back to her studies and books. But, she's not above of sullying her hand to pick up a weapon and fight on her own.

One time, a noblewoman made fun of her, and she challenged her in the name of her honor. Woman don't fight woman, so usually, the woman's attendant, that is, her retainers, must fight on her behalf. Imagine my surprise when instead of some renowned knight, which I know she can easily recruit, she personally went to the dueling ground, armed with a spear, riding a horse, fighting for herself. The squire, too surprised to fight, were steamrolled in an instant.

The day she helped me up after she grounded me to dust was the day I first met the woman known as Lennore. And she was 4 years younger than me too. After that, I met with her from time to time. Sharing an interest in unorthodox thinking, we would often debated and chat around our favorite topic: art of war. Usually over a chess match or a sparring training with her favorite weapon, spear. It was obvious to me at this point that she's a fighter. With incredible out of the box strategic mind and incredible fighting skills, I fully expected that she would become a renowned Knight. Perhaps one day I had to salute her. It was also during that time I found my skills of… mastering different forms of skills and put them together. Based on that and on our various debates, the two of us began developing a detailed revision of George of Glenn's famous codex.

It's a lengthy process. And problematic too. Many of our ideas are rather radical and very controversial. I would even say that some of her ideas were too brave and way ahead of her time. But, she pressed on, and she became even more vocal during our studies in the Military academy, of how the Codex is very outdated and that matter is costing the Zaft Empire lives for adhering too strongly to a tradition rather than apparent practicality. As if it weren't bad enough that the lecturers were being questioned by a girl barely half their age in their own classes, worse for them was the fact that they can't give an eligible intelligent response. That's because in their hearts, they knew she was right. But curse their male pride, gender stereotypical behavior is at work. She's a woman. Woman, at least to their narrow-mindedness, is supposed to care for only embroideries and dolls. Not warfare. She never gave up, but they decided to get rid of her anyway.

"W… WHAT?" a young Yuki roared angrily.

"That's how it is. I failed my test. When I asked the principle why, he simply said I didn't qualify." Lennore chuckled.

"THAT'S BULL and you know it! Lennore, you're like… smarter than all the teachers around here! Heck, half the students in our class probably passed their test because of your teachings!"

"They say I wasn't suited as a knight. They say I'm more suited as a priest." Lennore rubbed her chin. "My parents also said the same thing."

Yuki was further grated by the fact that Lennore looked as if she was seriously considering that option. "B… B… but I thought you said you always wanted to be a lady Knight… a Hakutenkun, even!"

Upon hearing that, Lennore blinked. It was as if she was reminded of that notion for the first time.

Yuki frowned. "You're not going to hold your spear again?"

"Don't be silly Yuki." Lennore smiled calmly. "Why can't I become a priest while staying as a warrior at the same time?"

"I know! You can probably become an Exorcist… and then a Fire Knight…"

"It doesn't matter!" Lennore declared. "I always lived as I see fit! If I can't become a knight, then I'll serve this country in one way or the other!" She turned to Yuki. "Though… I really think you should stay the way you are, Yuki."

"Eh?"

"You have a talent as a warrior. Wood, Water, Earth, Steel… and based from what I hear, you're near close to mastering Fire too? That's unprecedented by anyone in history. I think you should continue on as you were." Lennore plucked out her pinky and shove it to Yuki. "Let's make a promise. We'll defend this country together, no matter what becomes of us. Deal?"

"…deal." Halfheartedly, Yuki hooked his pinky to Lennore's. "Yosh. Contract complete. The one who break their promise must swallow a thousand needles." Yuki added the last detail he 'forgot' to mention regarding this Japanese pinky promise.

"Eh?" Lennore sweat-dropped, imagining how to swallow a thousand needles. "Wait the sec… I never heard that before?"

Finally, after that day, our paths split. She trained to become a priestess, and I continued on my path of knighthood. But after that day… I can feel something just went missing. A big piece of my life. Suddenly I lose sight of my goal. I don't know anymore how I lived my life, day to day. I trained and trained and trained… I mastered everything out of a whim. They called me the Knightmaster… but I don't care. I stop caring about anything. But then…

In the midst of his rigorous training, the now 20 year old Yuki was training to use his new weapon for the first time. A conceptualized weapon he invented that integrated the techniques of sword, spear, and archery in one weapon. The whole training field was filled with afterimages of his weapon flying around at unbelievable speed. But Yuki wasn't aiming at anything. His mind was too frustrated and too chaotic that day. He had just finished mastering the way of the Ruby Exorcists when he heard that Lennore was making unprecedented progress as a Priestess. So much so that she was considered among the greatest priestess ever. Everyone was happy of the said news but Yuki.

Being a powerful Priestess means she will be stayed from the flagellant training of the Exorcists. Even if she wanted to, they'll never allow her to join the ranks of those Zealots. She's too powerful and too valuable to become a field warrior. Now she's confined to studies of theological priesthood and all that. She's not even allowed to get out of the tower until her studies was complete. That'll be years. Worse, she even heard that a certain nobleman from the Zala family had expressed interest on asking her hand in marriage. That person was one of his close friends in the military academy, Patrick Zala.

"Are you fucking kidding me? Marriage? Theological studies?" Yuki angrily growled to himself. "You fucktards at the church and academy had NO idea of her true worth." In his anger, Yuki wildly swing his Quaddra whip for hours until finally, one brief moment of carelessness due to exhaustion, a few whips backlashed and hit his exhausted body. Yuki couldn't careless and let the pain comes. He fell on his back with his bleeding chest exposed. But Yuki was too full of rage that the pain of his chest being carved out was numbed out.

I chastised myself for my inability to accept and fully respect her choices. I trained and trained, pushing my body to the limit to the point I almost joined the dead. And then…

"…errh… Lord Ray Yuki?"

Yuki twitched and looked up. His squire was looking nervously at his wound. "What?" Yuki barked harshly.

"There's some emissary from the academy at the front door he insist-"

"Tell him to bugger off. I don't need any more medals or titles… if he came only to hand me another certificate just tell him to hand it to you! And if he insisted that he must be allowed to hand it personally to me, tell him to eat shit!"

"Eh… yes… I already done said that… and… and…"

"And… And, and, and, and… And WHAT? SPIT IT OUT!"

The Squire whimpered, realizing his master is in a very terrible mood. "There's a… package… sir… for you."

"I thought I said I don't want any more congratulatory gift or whatever…"

"It's… a rather dirty package… sender was from one Ms. Lennore."

And to that name, Yuki instantly reacted and directed his full attention. "Bring it to my study."

A moment later, in Yuki's study, the Knightmaster opened the dirty package while his squire bowed in permission to leave after he had finished bandaging his wounds. Yuki found a book inside the package. The book was obviously handmade. Some of the pages were thicker than the others and uneven. He opened it and gasped at its content. The book… each of its pages was filled with notes and glued papers filled with footnotes of his debate with Lennore regarding the revisions of the Codex. Every debate they have, every decision and conclusion that they've made, they kept record in small footnotes, and all of them had been painstakingly catalogued and assembled in form of this book. There's a small letter at the cover. Yuki opened it and there's a short letter. It's a very short letter, but the writings were unmistakably hers.

Well… they said I had to purge my worldly belongings. By that I mean I had to burn many of my personal items in front of the Head priests. My childhood toys, my favorite spear, my armor, etc2… Sadly my personal journal is considered worldly belongings, so I had to 'purge' that too. Can't exactly burn this thing, seeing it's not entirely my belonging. Half of it belongs to you too. So I had to make a little trick and send them to you. I hope it'll be useful.

We're gonna change the world Yuki.

Lennore (soon to be) Zala

P.S.: Congratulations on your new title. Knightmaster suits you!

It was like a hammer of realization just hit my head. What the hell have I been doing all this time? We both promised to change the world… and I've been doing nothing but sulking and wasting away at myself. While she pressed forward in her own way; to hell with the pressures of the society and all that crap! I was embarrassed. I forgot now that I'm not just carrying my own dream. I'm carrying hers too. I had to continue on, not just for me… but for her sake too.

I was a changed man that day. Ever since then, I climb and climb to the top, until I finally became a Hakutenkun. What she had worked herself for, now I'll live it for her. All her radical ideas and controversial revisions… and they aren't willing to listen to her before, now I'll pound it into them as a Hakutenkun and as a man. And if they still don't want to listen, I'll pound it to my students. They get rid of her because she was alone, and I was the only one who supported her… then I'll just teach a hundred more people to be at least one tenth as good as her. They wanna call it heresy, fine. I'll just shove them the list of successful missions I've completed using the revised Codex. Dare they to question me now? A Hakutenkun?

Years went by… for roughly 10 years I toiled… I hardly had the chance to see her. The one time I saw her again, that was when she finally tied the knot with Patrick. At that time we barely exchanged a word and I came to that icy cold wedding out of sheer formality. We move on and I kept to my job and… nothing else. I tried marriage… but it didn't really work out. I'm married to my job than my woman. Not so surprisingly we secretly divorced soon after. No son, no wife, no family. Eventually I finally succeeded our goal. The codex was finally revised. A new, more flexible military procedure that is not limited by traditions and all that had been composed. They called me the Father of Zaft Modern Warfare and bestowed the title: Grand Knightmaster. One time I get the chance, I visited Lennore and Patrick, but as a close friend of a family, nothing more, and I'm content. Then, the second time I visited her when Lennore gave birth to a son, Athrun Zala. I find it rather awkward that it was I who shed a few tears of happiness for her successful birth rather than her absent husband.

That was also the day I decided to partially retire from my field duty and took to the job of a teacher, instructing new young knights. As it turns out, Athrun was an unprecedented genius, just like her mother. It wasn't long when Lennore's son landed in my class, which was filled with many other students, vastly older. Athrun proved every bit of being his mother's son. Teaching him felt like I'm facing a miniature Lennore… every bit as inquisitive as her mother, but far more reserved and less willing to rock the boat, a trait he acquired from his politician father, no doubt. Except the fact that Athrun was an inventor genius that blew up my class with his inventions at least once every week. And then… came the day she came to that decision.

"Are you mental?" That was the first sentence that came out of a frustrated Yuki as he barged into Lennore's tea time.

"Why, I'm very sane, thank you very much." Lennore blinked awkwardly. "Hey, did you hear? I'm going to Junius next year."

"I know. You already filed the request, and I have it right here in my hand. Are you crazy? What were you thinking?"

"Heey. I'm thinking you're angry… about something?"

"WHAT the HELL is this? You're only bringing 300 knights into that HELL?" Yuki roared exasperatedly. She's daring, he'll give her that. But 300 vs god knows what they'll encounter down there… "Lennore, they once tried to send over a 100,000 exorcists into that place, no one returned."

"We both agreed that so called Pilgrim Expedition was a mass suicide in the making when it was first conceived right? Pity we weren't born that day so that we can't prevent that disaster from happening."

"But… Lennore…" Yuki groaned.

"I heard what you did." Lennore calmly smiled. "You've changed Zaft for the better. Do you know how many lives were saved because of your great reformation of the Codex?"

Yuki gaped and sighed. "…and… now?"

"Now… it's my turn. We promised that we will change Zaft… right? You've changed it… and now… I will change it again. My way."

"But… 300… against… no matter how I look at it, it looks more like suicide… not courage."

"Oh, it's not suicide." Lennore quickly corrected Yuki. "It's suicide if I have no plan on how to make it back. But I fully intend to return."

"Lennore? You realize no one has ever-"

"I know. That's why I have to be the first. To make an example. To catch their attention."

"Catch their attention… and… once you have their attention, you're going to… what? Deliver a statement?"

"A promise." Lennore noted confidently.

Finally, I only approved of that insane suicidal quest when she agreed that I should come with her. And I did. For a year, we brutally trained those 300 knights until they puke blood and break their backs. It's worth it, as in that Hell, we faced horrors the likes of which the world has ever seen, and their training paid off. With only 300 knights, we managed to penetrate Junius all the way to the fifth sanctuary. We faced hundreds of Genma Rush, blew off so many Hulks, even fighting against the remnants of the Exorcists who got here before us, the Inferno Knights… somehow… we managed to survive. After the fifth Sanctuary was purified however…

Lennore walked out of the Sanctuary. Her face was as pale as death. It has nothing to do with the exhaustion caused by her purification though.

"Lennore? Are you alright?"

Lennore's eyes widened and she was sweating buckets. She looked… shocked and delirious. "I… I can't go on."

"What?" Yuki blinked.

"I can't go on anymore… I… the thing I just… heard… back there… in the sanctuary… that's… impossible…" Lennore frowned and narrowed her eyes in suspicion. One can also see desperation and near madness. "I can't go on any further… we have to go back."

But our journey back was even worse than our journey to get here. There are over 10 times more Genma barring our way out than in. It makes me wonder where the hell these guys came from. And didn't we just purify thousands… nay… tens of thousands of them? Suddenly, our suspicion was aroused. These guys want us to go in, but don't want us to get out? Lennore, who has been conserving her strength for the sake of purifying the sanctuary took the active role and fought personally. Even with her power wasted on purifying the sanctuary, she still had enough power to banish a thousand of them, even overpower that Purgatory Priest Hao. But… in the end… even with all our skills… we couldn't save everyone. With tears on her eyes, we had to abandon the last remaining already wounded few who decided to sacrifice themselves as to let us escape.

You can just about imagine how shocked the watchguards of the Junius Deathwatch in Australia were when they saw how Lennore and I survived. The first ever pilgrims who managed to return safely from Hell… alive and well. Maybe not so much on the well part in that the two of us were the only survivors… but… we survived.

A great celebration awaits us when we come home. Lennore was granted the title Grand Priestess. And in a very rare occasion, Patrick actually insisted to be there when the Crimson Emperor himself granted Lennore the title. But… I knew better that she prefer to be away from all that hullabaloo.

I managed to declare a post traumatic stress and filed an injunction. I asked that Lennore be given a leave of absence… bring her back to her hometown of Germany, in Europe. An Orb territory. I wasn't entirely lying about that stress thing… but it's true. Ever since she returned from her trip to Junius, Lennore was a changed woman. In public she still lively and all… but I cannot help to think that a part of her died back in Junius. I don't blame her… after the nightmarish hell we went through in that place… I'm more surprised that we can remain sane after all that…

In Germany I personally arranged for a small parade through the streets. Minimal shows, nothing fancy… just… a walk in the park. And then something happened. Some kid shoot some guys' heads with stones, dropped a couple of banana peels that sent a merchant carrying a box full of rotten eggs, sending some of that load flying and sent the whole parade to a halting stop because of some of the eggs fell into some hot headed knights at the front, resulting in a brawl… and then he let loose a bunch of horses and think it was funny when he laced their butts with chillies. The horse went crazy and a couple of guys got kicked into a cartload of manure. But the worse of it: some of them actually trashed LENNORE'S CART! The poor lady nearly got stomped to death!

Joke or no joke… THAT'S taking it TOO FAR! Within minutes, I caught the culprit… and I couldn't believe my eyes. It's a brat. A little kid of the same age with Athrun! An Oriental… a Japanese… just like me… he told me something about a guy wanting to kidnap the Lady. I said to him, no one in this realm, in their right mind, would dare to try to do that to Lennore when I personally supervise the security. But the boy didn't seem to know me and continue to struggle even when I threatened him that I will court-martial him under the threat of death, regardless of his age if he didn't stop joking and tell me the truth. But he was adamantly convinced of his story and refused to alter it in anyway.

And then Lennore asked for the boy, and so I brought the boy before her. Lennore interrogated the boy more softly, asking several questions. The boy was once part of the local pickpocketing syndicate, headhonchoed by a local gangster. According to the boy, the said head honcho wanted to move up in the world, trying to go to kidnapping. The same guy that got sent to a cartload of manure when the boy set the horses nuts. As to the fact that it smashed Lennore's cart to pieces… the boy profusely apologize and admit that was not in his 'calculation'. Lennore asked for his name, and his answer:

"Kira. Kira Yamato."

"Kira Yamato…" Lennore rubbed his chin. "Where are your parents?"

"Parents?" Kira childishly asked.

Lennore and Yuki blinked. But then, they understood. "You're an orphan?"

"I guess so."

"Then I think we should send you back to the orphanage. Your caretaker would be very worried."

Kira chuckled. "Oh hardly. I sent him flying to that Manure Cart, see."

Yuki jaw dropped. "What? But… you said he was the ringleader of…"

"They've been using state owned orphanage as a cover for their staging ground. Posing as caretakers of orphans, they taught us how to steal. If we don't steal, we don't get any food." Kira explained.

Lennore nodded with a smile as an idea suddenly brewed in her head. "Yuki, didn't you say you've been trying to track this pickpocketing syndicate for months? Maybe this child can help you."

"But he's a kid, Lennore… he's barely… 6 year old… no different than Athrun here. How much can he remember…"

"Here." Kira handed something to Yuki.

"…errh… what's this?" Yuki looked at it. It's a map. And Kira had doodled with it.

"Map of the area." Kira smiled as a bird giddily landed on his shoulder. "Torii and I made it."

"You and the bird?" Yuki groaned at the ridiculousness of that statement. "We've checked every houses…"

"Have you checked the sewers when you do it?"

"YES! We checked every drop of water in that sewer as well!"

"I mean to say is: check the sewers, and the houses… SIMULTANEOUSLY."

"YE-" Yuki was cut mid word. "…why does it matter?"

"It's their tunnel network. See, they've been trained that if they see knights numbering more than 10 approaching their way, they'll quickly move all incriminating evidences to other safehouses connected to the dungeons of the Orphanage. If they check houses, they'll move things to the sewers, if you guys checked the sewers, they'll move it to the houses. That is also where they keep other orphan children. Lots of children in one place will cause lots of moaning noise, so they separated us into small clusters, hidden in interconnected dungeons of different houses in the surrounding area. These are the houses I know about. But there are also other tunnels, other places which I never been to. But I've marked several houses that may serve as a viable safehouses. There are also several spots with very good vantage point, so you might wanna watch out when you come in force, because once they spotted you, they're gone. You better do it quick. Their boss knew I'm here, so he'll start moving again, that means they're gonna start destroying evidences. That means a lot of fire because they'll incinerate stuff. That means a lot of smoke. Look for that. When you want to hit them, I think it's best if you hit them all simultaneously."

Yuki and Lennore stare dumbfoundedly at the young Kira. Was that really the ramblings of a 6 year old?

That was the first time I lay eyes on one Kira Yamato. Needless to say he has done more than just leaving a very deep impression on me and Lennore. With his intel and incredible insight, I managed to break down a pickpocketing syndicate that had eluded local security forces for months… and that steadily mothballing file on my table was finally gone for good. The guys were amateurs. Lennore's half baked abduction attempt was enough proof. Given time I'd be able to break it down… but thanks to Kira, I can deal it far earlier and more thoroughly… and we saved a LOT of children. A lot more than we could have had we acted any later. Those guys were getting ready to SELL them when we get there. God knows who were the buyer were, I hope they're pissed. Now that I think about it… that may be my first joint operation with Kira. And he was only 6 year old at the time.

Time flies since then.

Now, I'm an Undead Lifeless Lord, Kira is, as the memories from the Doppelganger told me and I still can't believe it, Zaft's most wanted, and the most infamous mass murderer in the Empire's history, responsible for orchestrating the massacre of over 100,000 lives…

Now, I'm massing my Inferno Knights for an offense against a small group of the living which will be happening in a few more hours… and then he suddenly showed up right in front of my entire army, all alone, without any escort. And so, as I looked at Kira's hooded figure right in front of me, I wonder what he had in mind now, when he should've concentrated on helping his pilgrims in preparation for their battle. "What do you want, Kira?"

"My friends are now setting up bombs on the tunnel network underneath our battleground. For all they know, I'm going on a Genma hunt in a different part of the area. So I don't have much time." Kira smirked like the devil under that hood. "I had an offer in mind."

00000000000000000

At the present, Lacus and Lamia looked at the battlefield. Now that the fight between armies are over, the commanders of the two army are duking in out in a microscopic war. Lacus, in particular, looked rather nervous as she bite her fingernail.

Hilda, who was held back in the sanctuary, saw her lady's concern. "Lacus-sama? Something ails you?"

Lacus broke out of her anxiety. She had a bad feeling of something really terrible is about to happen, but she can't quite put her finger on it. "Nothing." She replied. "I'm fine. In fact… Hilda, rather than concern yourself with me, look after the others. All of the able bodied warriors are down there. There's only the injured ones here that can't do battle. You must protect them, in case the enemy had any funny ideas."

"Yes my lady." Hilda nodded vigilantly. After that experience with Hao, everyone now realized that Sanctuary Light is not as foolproof of a defense as they initially thought. They must be on alert.

Lacus looked back at the camp, filled with the injured. "…sister."

Lamia looked at her elder sister meaningfully, understanding what she's thinking. "We may not get out of this without dirtying my hands… right?" She readied her weapons, preparing to fight at a moment's notice.

Lacus nervously rubbed her fingers. "…and mine too."

00000000000000000

Now, back to the battle…

Yuki couldn't remember the last time he was hit that hard in the face. There was that cannonball back the other day… bah… forget it. Right now he's facing someone way WORSE than a cannon.

"Yuki, remember all the sparring we used to have?" Andy cracked his knuckles as he jumped down from Meteor.

Yuki shook his head several times and rose up to his feet. "Yes. I never could beat your brute strength."

"Yeah well, this ain't one of those sparring." Andy roared as he launched another punch straight towards Yuki.

But Yuki caught the punch… with one hand. "But now… I'm a Genma… 10 times the strength of when I was alive… I'd say…" The demonic head on Yuki's gauntlet roared and engulfed his fist in flames. And then, it's Yuki's turn to punch his former sparring partner. And Andy was sent flying this time, only to stop upon hitting the Meteor. "…we're about equal." Yuki finished.

Waltfeldt spit. That's about the second time he was forced to spit his blood. "So… this is all amounts to. All the planning and scheming by you and that boy… it all come back to good old fashioned brawl."

Yuki pulled out a sword with his right and held a spear on his left as he approached Andy.

00000000000000000

Hao's S.O.F. opened the battle with a gigantic flaming punch straight towards the pilgrims. Kira, Lowe, and Gino managed to jump away, but some pilgrims who were unable to dodge in time were crushed and burned to dust in an instant. Others quickly back away. Meanwhile, as Kira and Lowe were still floating midair, Ace came upon them; both of his fists were on black fire. Nay, they are composed of black fire!

The two gasped. "Logia… elemental type… fire?"

"Double… HIKEN BAZOOKA! (Fire Fist Bazooka)" Ace sent both of fists forward in a double straight punch, launching a pair of gigantic fists of fire straight towards Kira and Lowe, who were unable to dodge the attack, seeing they're both in the air.

"If we can't dodge…" Lowe gritted his teeth and grind his Gerbera to his sheath, from top to bottom, igniting all the microscopic explosive tags in every fang on his blade. "HIKEN! KAGUTSUCHI! (secret Sword, Kagutsuchi)." Lowe unleashed a pillar of spiraling white firestorm from his sword and swing it in a roundhouse arc.

Black fireblast collided with white fire wave.

The two opposing nature collided and reacted explosively. Negating each other in a brilliant conflagration in the sky.

The massive conflagration momentarily obscured everything from view. But then, from the explosion, a large number of fireballs suddenly sprayed out and positioned themselves all over the place.

"What… the…?"

Sabo is holding a single fireball with an image of a skull on it in his hand. He put the fireball in front of him and then bent down as he placed his stick… his cue-stick over a hole made by his two fingers in the left hand, while the right hand is holding the stick by the grip at the rear. Just like how people used billiard cue stick. His gripping arm take a few back and forth motions, and then with a yank, he thrust it forward and the stick propelled the fireball forward with the force of a cannonball. The Cue fireball hit another fireball, sending it to a different direction while the cue fireball bounced to another fireball…

In a carefully calculated trajectory, the cue fireball hit one fireball after another stationed allover the place and it was bouncing from one fireballs to another, sending each fireball to bounce around the place whereas the cue fireball went straight towards Lowe in a zigzagging pace. The balls hit by cue ball also zoom around, hitting other balls. Soon, the airspace was filled with blurs of fireballs crisscrossing and zooming around at blinding speed. Regrettably, the target didn't realize a fireball is heading his way because, thanks to the fireball flying and zooming all over the place, he had no idea which is which anymore, until he noticed the cue skull fireball is coming straight to his head.

"Whoa!" Lowe managed to dodge the fireball at the last moment by paper thin margin, but then, he could see the skull laughing. "Huh?"

And with a brilliant flash, the skull cue ball exploded violently, seemingly engulfing Lowe's head.

"LOWE!" Kira gasped. But then, Kira heard a squawk and looked up. An eagle that is Gino had snatched the shocked Lowe at the last second. Kira sighed in relief. But then…

"Slaughter all Creation…"

Every pilgrim who remembered the meaning of that abominable phrase can feel their heart stop beating for one second and their hair stand on end in sheer terror.

"Ankoku Shiki!" An onslaught of razor sharp chains burst out of the glimmers of explosions. In shock, Gino fly as fast as he could, dodging the incoming barrage of razor sharp chains. But the chains furiously followed them wherever they went.

Kira saw this situation and looked at the source: Brera. He quickly charged his shiki. "Tetsu-" But then, he stopped mid sentence. Something's off. He couldn't put his finger to it, but it was something… different. Kira shook his head. There's no time to ponder it.

"Holy shit, holyshit holyshit wAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Gino and Lowe screamed when the chain barrage was just centimeters away from their face.

"TETSUGA TENSHOU!" A flock of smoke from the explosion was knocked away when Brera was hit by a barrage white winged razor sharp shockwaves coming from beneath him. The series of shockwave come rapidly one after another, leaving a trail of white feathers, smashing Brera one after another. At the same time, all the black chains coming from him break apart, specifically the ones that nearly eviscerate Gino and Lowe just now.

Gino and Lowe looked down below and saw Kira on the ground, glaring at the enemy he just shot. Kira angrily pointed the original Shiki in his hand towards the cloud of smoke that is Brera.

As the smoke cleared out, Brera can be seen floating midair, his body now clad in Kira's Ankoku Shiki armor. The only difference with Kira's armor is that instead of a cape of chains, the chains and armor now formed the feathers of Brera's black wings, creating wings of steel. Plus, the helmet is an open faced one, revealing Brera's emotionless face. The blood runs cold in every survivors of Kira's rampage who knew just how terrifying that form is.

Kira simply glared at Brera. He had no grudge on Brera, but he has some personal business with the doppelganger he's using right now. "I know my weapons better than anyone. Shoot the source… and the chain breaks." Gino and Lowe sighed in relief upon seeing the wielder of the original Shiki ready to fight.

Brera merely shrugged. "Then you know Ankoku Shiki is more powerful than all the previous three forms combined? It's the most powerful form that Shiki possess."

Kira smirked. "The most powerful…" Kira placed Shiki upside down. "…Is not the same with the best!" He can't quite put a finger to it, but somehow… he felt something different. Transforming into Ankoku Shiki seems to have changed… something… not physically, but inside Shiki… her spirit. Kira then remembered Shiki's adult new form, he realized everything has changed. 'Let's see if this form is affected as well.' And he gently dropped the katana down. "Soar in your throne between Heaven and Hell…"

Shiki fell gently like a drop of dew on a lake…

"Kurenai Shiki!" And the katana disperse into countless red feathers that quickly engulfed Kira. An image of Shiki appeared briefly amidst the storm of red feathers. Soon, the red feathers dispersed, and now Kira was clad in a familiar red sleeveless red long coat, with four extensions extending from the coat's tail, looked as if they were made of red wings sown together. His arms are covered by detached sleeves. Kira's face is now masked by straps of belts all the way up over his nose, and his body is surrounded by an aura of fluttering red feathers. Kira observed this form. Funnily enough, he felt no change at all, unlike what he initially suspected. 'Maybe it's just my feeling.'

Kira flicked his arm, and a katana made of pure red energy extended out of his hand. In response, a pair bastard sword blade extended out of Brera's gauntlet. Everyone was mesmerized upon seeing the majestic form. They've seen it before, but since they were being chased by a gigantic larger than life serpent and all, they don't have the time to marvel on its beauty. It truly stood in stark contrast with the monstrous Ankoku Shiki.

Kira glared at Brera as his feet gently left the ground. And then, with a burst of speed, Kira charged straight towards the black demon knight. The two clashed midair.

The S.O.F. roared and swung another burning punch towards the pilgrims. Lowe and Gino looked at each other and agreed on a plan. Gino descend at incredible speed and headed straight towards the S.O.F. "BOMB'S AWAY!" The bomb being Lowe who began spinning around with his blade stretched, turning himself into a flaming chainsaw. The Chainsaw instantly went through S.O.F.'s magma arm and sliced it off. The Shikigami of fire roared loudly, apparently in pain while bleeding lava from its stump. Hao simply frowned and began feeding his shikigami with more spiritual energy. The S.O.F. quickly regrew his arm.

Seeing this, Lowe can only utter a single "Crap." Before he had to dodge another firefist from Ace and run for his dear life.

In the sky, the battle is equally fierce with Kira and Brera engaging in a dogfight. A dancing ray of red light can be clearly seen crisscrossing in the dark background. The opposition on the other hand, is not easily seen. Time and again, Kira had to furiously dance allover the place as Brera repeatedly unleashed a barrage of hundreds of chains, snaking around in the sky, homing in on Kira wherever he went. Using his beam blade, Kira tore apart several chains who managed to get close while avoiding the rest with a sharp crisscrossing turns. These homing chains will only stop when Kira managed to get up close and personal and forced Brera to focus on surviving his attacks rather than directing his chains.

In terms of power and overall performance, Ankoku Shiki clearly is far more powerful in every way than Kurenai Shiki just as Kira had admitted himself. But, Brera's own inexperience with the weapon and the fact that Kira indeed knew more about his weapon than him contributed to the fact that Kira was able to dodge every attack Brera launched at him and even able to attack back. And there's another reason. A reason that only now did Brera realized it as well.

Kira was able to maneuver at blinding speed, twisting, turning, avoiding his attacks by paper thin margin. Thanks to the full body form of Kurenai Shiki, Kira was able to control every movement of his body at will. On the other hand, whenever Kira's attack is still centimeters away, when Brera tried to dodge, he always earns a scratch, if not on the armor then on himself. That's when Brera came to realize the weakness of Ankoku Shiki: decreased reaction time. He's faster, stronger, and more durable than other forms, thanks to the armor type form. He felt no pain from attacks but he's already an undead. It's a built in feature, with or without Ankoku Shiki. That is an advantage… and a major weakness. Without pain, one's reflexes, unsullied by exhaustion or fear of pain when attacking is increased, but precisely because of that, one's sense of danger decreased, and as the result, their response time to avoid danger also increases. They don't feel tired or muscle pain in that they have strong reflex to move around… but their awareness to avoid attacks, and thus their reaction time was dulled. A weakness that Kira understood all too well and now he's using it to his benefit.

Brera grunted when Kira suddenly emerged unharmed from another onslaught of chain barrage, having avoided them all, and landed a kick to his head that rattled him and sent him spiraling down straight towards S.O.F.'s head, who had just finished regenerating his arm. The fire shikigami merely growled questioningly when Brera crashed into his head and stuck inside his spiritual flesh. Brera quickly reassert himself when he noticed a little present from Kira's foot: an alight Explosive tag strapped to his face. "…oh."

This time, the S.O.F.'s head exploded. The giant headless fire demon collapsed to the ground. Hao grunted in discomfort within the bowels of S.O.F. But he merely let it slide and before long, the S.O.F. get back on his feet with his head regenerated. At the same time Sabo sent another cue fireball, bouncing around in a zigzag going straight at Kira. It seems Sabo and Ace was there to support the S.O.F., the giant creature being their true edge of spear.

"Gurren…" a mass of red feathers gather around Kira's arm.

Sabo was greatly alarmed.

"SHAHADOU!" A burst of crimson soundless wave exploded from Kira's swing. It's smaller than Tetsuga Tenshou, and less numerous in that there's only one of them, but it's sharper and denser. Almost instantly, it split everything in its way to two and headed straight towards Sabo. A wall of fire rose up, courtesy of Ace, but it didn't do much good. The flame was instantly pierced and Sabo barely escaped the attack with his life as Ace pulled him down. But his top hat was ripped apart in recompense. Worse, the red wave keep going and going, piercing and cutting everything in its way, showing no sign of stopping, such was the density and strength packed into it. It penetrated the newly rejuvenated head of the S.O.F., pierced through its spiritual flesh and went straight at Hao at the center. Hao's eyes widened and he quickly 'swim' away inside S.O.F. to safe area. The razor sharp shockwave cleaved the S.O.F. in two. A single extension from Kira's coat vanished into burst of feathers, and he silently materialized another sword.

Ace flatly whistled. "Phew… nice… very nice. If you get hit by that, there's no saving ya."

"Ace… split up…" Sabo pulled out another fireball. "Cover for Hao."

"Don't you need some cover too?"

"It won't do much good if his attacks can pierce any kind of defense." Sabo placed the fireball. "It's been a while… but I think it's time I remind myself why I was known as the Explosion Regent." Just as he said this, a runic inscription appeared on the ball of fire.

Gino, who was flying overhead heard this remark and frowned in concern.

Like before, Sabo placed the cue ball before him and fired another shot. The cueball bounced allover the place and once again, they headed straight towards Kira. Kira has no intention on wasting his precious Gurren Shahadou to counter the same attack over and over again. So he merely followed the zooming cueball wherever it went and once it's on a direct collision course with his head, he merely tilted his head to the side to dodge the ball by paper thin margin-

"NO! LORD SHADOW! MOVE FAR AWAY FROM THAT BALL! IT'S A-" Gino screeched.

Tick… tock… Kira turned his head towards the bomb and realized the runic inscription is a timer that just went from 01 to 00, and the skull laughed. "…time bomb?"

An explosion engulfed Kira's head the next instance. A red figure were shot out of the explosive cloud, a side of his head was smoking. "Sonnova…" Kira gasped. Thank goodness for the full body covering of the Kurenai Shiki, it protected its head from being removed to a new address in the afterlife. He also managed to make a little distance from ground zero in the milliseconds it took for the bomb to ignite. Gino quickly fly close towards Kira, who managed to regain his composure. "What in the blazes was that?"

"Sabo the Explosion Regent." Gino explained. "Those fireballs are timed. Even if you dodge them, they'll explode anyway. He timed his bombs with his shot so that they'll explode right when they reached their target."

"Wha… since when you exorcists can do something like that… or was that his special ability?" Kira couldn't fathom the intricately accurate calculation that went on in Sabo's head that he was able to perfectly timed his explosive with his shot. Not to mention the fact said shot were bouncing allover the place at blazing speed!

"No. Every Exorcists has been trained in the discipline of fire, hence our ability to lob fireballs or ignite ourselves in flames… Sabo… altered his fireballs a wee bit to suit his style. He had a whole variety arsenal of bombs up his sleeve. A master of incendiary bombs. That's why we call him the Explosion Regent." Gino then remembered another important point about Sabo. "And his bloodline limit is… is…"

"Yes?"

Gino looked at Sabo in a strange way. "Lord Shadow… will you let me deal with Lord Sabo, personally?"

"You're sure you can do it?"

Gino frowned at Sabo and nodded in assurance. Apparently more to himself than to Kira. "I'm sure."

"But no promises that I won't get in the way." Kira frowned. "We need to finish this quick and help Waltfeldt-san. If I feel I have the tactical advantage I'll open fire at him, first chance I get, chivalry be damned. Do you understand?"

"Yes, my lord. Of course I understand." Gino also understand why they need to hurry up. Waltfeldt can't hold Yuki at bay forever. Hakutenkun or not.

00000000000000000

Yuki launched a spear trust towards Andy, and the desert tiger caught and trapped it beneath his armpit. Regrettably he was unable to break that demon reinforced weapon, so he lifted it up and performed a German surplex that slammed Yuki head first to the ground. But that did not stop the undead lord, and he merely got back up and charged straight on with a sword. Andy moved to the side to dodge the sword thrust, but with blinding speed, Yuki changed the direction of his sword midthrust into a slash. In a slight panic, Andy caught the sword and held it tightly with trembling fingers with both hands. Reflexively, Yuki thrust the spear on his other hand towards Andy's head. Andy bent his entire upper body backward and dodged the thrust and slammed his forehead to the said spear, knocking it off course. Growling angrily, Andy yanked the sword on his hand, pulling the Lifeless Lord towards him and gave him a good knee on his chest. The shock from the knee made the Lifeless Lord slightly loosen his grip, and Andy was able to safely let go of the sword and gave Yuki another proper beating or two to the chest that send the undead flying off the ground.

Upon landing, Yuki once again merely shrugged it off as if getting punched 20 feet off the ground is no big deal. "This is rather disadvantageous for you, isn't it, Andy?"

"…" Andy frowned at the comment.

"If this was a normal battle… you would've stopped my blade with the strength of your muscles, albeit you'll earn some minor scratches, and would've stopped my spear by biting on it hard, leaving both your hands free and then give me a pounding of a lifetime." Yuki nodded as he calmly analyze that short bout he just had. "But you know better than to try that against me in this state. Your outlandish way of fighting had often bamboozled lesser men to think you're a barbarous muscle bound idiot, when in fact there's a sharp wit inside."

Andy merely chuckled nervously at the praise. True. Under normal circumstances, that's exactly what he would've done. But… that black ooze constantly dripping from the envenomed blades of Yuki's weapons, coupled with his amplified brute strength… if even one drop of that substance entered his system… the pilgrims will be facing TWO undead Hakutenkun! "Genmas and their damned infectious bile…"

"A fact which is quite a hindrance beyond compare to me. If I have my way, I'll fight you with normal human weapons… but such is my corruption, any weapon I wield will be corrupted and turned into a weapon of infection." The Lifeless Lord lamented his undead state.

"Nice to know there's still the old Yuki I knew in there." For a moment, Andy stern fierce gaze mellowed with kindness upon recognizing his old friend beneath that cold steely helmet. "Well… that's it for hors d'oeuvre. Let's get to the main event." With that, Andy cracked his knuckles.

Yuki merely nodded in silence.

"TIGRA…" veins popping out of Andy's muscular arm. "ESPADA!" Where Andy's arm landed, there's a new cliff literally appeared out of nowhere in an instant. Yuki had barely managed to dodge the attack. If he tried to block it, he'll be cut in half. Before he can regain his footing, Andy's forearm welcomed his neck in a bone crushing lariat at blazing speed. The Lifeless Lord's body was dragged across the ground as Andy furiously yanked him to a distance, until he momentarily stopped, releasing Yuki's neck, and then catch his head. "NUORAAAAAAAAAAARGHH!" With his inhuman strength, Andy stomped the ground, creating a small crater and then jumped up, carrying Yuki before he slammed him back to the ground, full force, creating a small mushroom cloud explosion of dust when he crashed Yuki's body to the ground, head first, shattering the earth around it creating an even bigger crater than the first one. Andy paused for a moment, but then Yuki's hand rose up and pointed a sword to his head.

"Hyomonken, TSURARA MAI!" Large icicles made of jet black crystal ichor burst out of the ground and Waltfeldt barely dodged the razor sharp attacks by a skintight margin.

'Bladebane's famous hyomaen…'

First black ice, and then, black purple fire engulfed the said blade, blowing away all the icicle, leaving Yuki in the clear, with his sword in flames. Chanting and incantations were uttered from Yuki's lips beneath his helmet. Multiple rune encrusted skulls, charred ash black as they were on fire were floating around his blade, with minute innumerable glowing blazing lizardlike creature made of sparks of fire and generating the flames enveloping the skulls can be seen crawling around the skulls. "EXORCISMUS EXPLODIA!" One swipe from the blazing sword, and the flaming skulls burst forth, and the ground was ravaged by a series of explosions, trailing behind them as they headed straight toward Andy.

'Exorcists' fire attack. Added with some juice from Fire knights spell arsenal.' Andy grunted as he too began chanting his own incantations. Runic figures appeared on his arm, a little something he learned from the Earth knight. "TERRESTRIAL RAGE!" Andy smashed the ground with his fist and partly due to his own monstrous strength, the earth capsized and gigantic fangs made of earth split out of the ground. The earthly fangs managed to block and even overpower the skulls, crushing them, but then…

"FOREST TEMPEST!" This time, Yuki smite the ground with the butt of his spear, and just like that, a large mass of innumerable thorny roots burst forth from the crumbling earth and collided with the incoming earth fangs. The wooden branches and roots instantly formed a cobweb of entangled branches and thorny roots that was planted deep into the earth and stop the raging earthen avalanche on track. And, as the wooden roots sucked the nutrients out of the earth, the earthen fangs began to wither and crumble. The withering earthen wall of fangs began to shake violently and then, with a loud crash, a giant mass of thorny roots smashed through the crumbling and bundled up into a giant mass of sharp tendrils spearing straight to Andy.

'And now we have the wood knight.' The Desert Tiger roared in deviance and a magic circle emerged around him. A tiger head made of earth emerged from the ground right beneath his feet and swallowed the Desert Tiger whole. Not to do him harm, but more like to protect him from incoming harm. And protect him it did. At least for a while. Soon, the earthen tiger head began to crumble with its fortitude being sucked in, and the roots crashed in… only to be cut to pieces a second later. From the midst of chopped roots and crumbling earth, Andy emerged with his arm enclosed in a metal gauntlet, made of jumbled mass of weapons and metallic items clustered around deep beneath the earth, creating a pair of metallic arm with razor sharp fingers. "You're not the only person who can control multiple elements Yuki!"

"I concur." Yuki's voice came, much to Andy's surprise, from behind him. "But if memory serves, you can only bend earth and metal, and the minerals that came with it. I'm the first one, and by the looks of it, still the only one, who can control ALL FIVE."

Andy turned around and lo and behold, using his sword and spear as a polearm, Yuki had done the same with him, using metal element magnetism to gather metallic objects from the surrounding area, and form a giant hammer of steel, riddled with spikes. Worse, with fire element he had melted and fused the jumbled mass of steel into one solid, red hot mass. "GRAAAAAAAARGGHH!" Andy roared and sent both his metallic fists forward.

In response, Yuki brought down his hammer towards Andy. "THOR'S HAMMER!" It was all Andy could do to bring up his metal gauntlet and shielded himself. The hammer fall was insanely powerful, it tore apart Andy's metal gauntlet, breaking apart all the pieces that composed it, shooting up its splinters away with the force of a cannonball to every direction, obliterating the surrounding area as they riddled everything full of holes. The already devastated area was further damaged at a massive scale with craters and series of explosions. But the biggest damage was inflicted, not so surprisingly, upon the two fighters on ground zero, with contrasting response.

Yuki's hammer was shattered to splinters, a sizeable piece actually lodged itself on his abdomen, including many other metallic shards, big and small, marring his body. And yet, being undead, Yuki paid them no heed and merely removed the ones that really get in the way.

Andy on the other hand, was severely wounded. He was reminded once again when Kira turned him into pincushion for over 30 blades. If it weren't for his powerful disposition, the shrapnels would've filled his vital organs full of holes. His muscles managed to prevent deep penetration, but his injuries were anything but light. Blood dripping out of the innumerable numbers of scars allover his body.

"You should know better than to trade spells with me, Andy." Yuki mourned. "In battles of might and magic, you sir… best stick with might."

"It's not over yet." Andy choked.

"It is over." Yuki declared as he lowered his weapons. "You have been injured multiple times with shrapnel of weapons that has been infected by Genma. Even your act of creating that metal gauntlet with your metal disposition had already begun to corrode you and now this. Soon, you'll become one of us. Strengthen your will, and you may be able to keep some semblance of your humanity."

Andy chuckled as he pulled out something from his stash. A large syringe with a foot long needle, containing a red dark liquid. "…one." And with that, Andy fearlessly stabbed the syringe straight to his chest, right to his heart. The dark red liquid was injected into it. Andy's eyes widened as he gritted his teeth at the pain of having pierced his own heart, and then injected that muck into his own system. But then…

Every wound that Andy had suffered from the Genma weapons suddenly burst into white flames. Andy groaned as every wound he suffered was cauterized, and his muscle had found the strength needed and pushed the splinters out of his wound, allowing the white fire to cauterize and sterilize the infection. It made the pain of stabbing his own heart laughable. Normal people would screamed their brains out when every vein they have is on fire. But Andy, with sheer fortitude of will, manage to reduce it to grunts. Once the fire died down, Andy yanked the now empty syringe and tossed it away. And then he got back on his feet, alive and well.

"You… that liquid… was that…"

Flashback, continuing from the above…

"You… want me to make some kind of antidote to Genma infection from your blood? Right?" Lacus murmured.

"That's about it, yeah." Kira sat in a chair as Ghienny, the blue haro turned into another copy of Lacus, with long straight pink hair. Her eyes are blue, like Lacus. She wear a nun dress, the church habit, complete with the pastoral hat and the veil, colored in white and mostly blue. The only significant difference between Lacus and Ghienny, in terms of facial features and overall form, being that Ghienny wore a pair of glasses, with swirly lenses. And… this is a little something that Kira found somewhat distracting… at least if one relatively compared it to the original form of her master… Ghienny was very well endowed.

A fact that, if Lacus mind, she didn't let out a peep. Apparently she was too preoccupied about something else. It probably had something to do with why she tied and gagged Lily and Levi. A little earlier, the former seems trying to tell him something about Lacus may had second thoughts about him before Lacus stopped her with a flying kick. Whatever the case, Kira has no time to ponder it.

"T-t-t-t-this m-m-might prick a bit…" Stuttering, and yet with steady hands, Ghienny pierced Kira's arm with a syringe and start draining out Kira's blood, putting it in a ball like container the shape of Haro. Ghienny gave a ball as a sample to Lacus.

Lacus took it, draw out a drop of blood and then run some tests on it. "Well… we're in luck. You're an O-type blood. That's a universal blood donor. Your blood won't clump or agglutinate with other people's blood when it entered their bloodstream."

"Uhh… am I supposed to understand all that?" Kira blinked in confusion.

Silence for a few seconds. "Basically it means your blood won't kill people even when they entered their bloodstream, unlike mine." Lacus sum it all up in one short sentence. "But with my current equipment I can't isolate the compounds that make your blood immune to Genma infection. I need more samples and more thorough experiments. The chemical reaction with certain proteins and the rh condition of human blood, the implication to hemoglobin and leukocyte resistance, the antibodies and…"

"I'm BEGGING you, please speak English!" A smoking Kira cut Lacus' prattle short. "Can you make a cure or can you?"

"No. Not with this limited equipment. No." Lacus mournfully shook her head. "But… if I just condensed your blood… taking into account of your intelligent regeneration capability… I may be able to do something…"

"What do you mean with intelligent?"

But Lacus was too enraptured with her work she ignored the question. Kira, now curious, approached her from the back, wanting to have a peek-

"DON'T PEEK!" Lacus suddenly shrieked, near hysterically, much to Kira's shock.

"…why? …You know… I'm just curious but… you've been showing me your back since I came in just now." Truthfully is, ever since he came here to make up with Lacus so that they can at least work together against the coming enemy, Kira has been talking to a head covered with pink hair. Lacus continuously showed only her back to him, not once turning around to face him head on. "I get it if you're pissed at me… but don't you think that's rather rude?"

Lacus perked up. "Well… yeah. I know. But… But that's just about how pissed I am at you. I'll help you, and I'll do my best at it… but that doesn't change the fact that you're still my enemy no.1!"

"…well even between enemies, not showing one's face when talking is still rather rude." Kira frowned in suspicion. She said that… but there's something with her tone… she sound… happy… about it?

"I'm sorry… I just… I just had a lot going on in my head right now… so I… I…"

Kira frowned in suspicion. Well… geniuses live in their own world… they are sometimes allowed their own antics and eccentrics. Kira would know. Plus, he's wearing a mask, he also didn't show his face per se. "Well if I disturb you… I'll just get out of your way." Kira made a motion of leaving the room.

"Do come back."

"Eh?" Kira stopped midway.

"Say… half an hour later… I should have something to show you by then." So says the pink haired princess. "And bring everyone while you're at it."

"Oh… okay." And so Kira left.

And Lacus was now back to her primary point of concern… of desperately trying to fix this mysteriously blissful but moronic grin that became permanently plastered on her face after seeing the lengths Kira went through to make peace with her, inadvertently living up her expectations. Not to mention the overwhelming blushing that reached all the way to her ears, making her face redder than her hair. 'I'll be dead before I let him saw me like this… what's WRONG with me?'

Thankfully, half an hour later, her stupid smile was gone for good and then…

"There! It's done!" Lacus showcased several syringes filled with thick black red liquid inside to the overseeing Kira, Lowe, Lamia, and Waltfeldt. "I've condensed Kage-san's blood and added some anticoagulant and some rh adapter, and I also added some…" Smoke began to arise from the listeners head. "…if you get scratched, or infected in anyway… inoculate-I mean-inject this into your body." Smoke abated. Lacus showed them all the syringes… each with a foot long needle.

Lowe gulped upon seeing the length of the needles. "That's a long needle…"

"It has to be long. We need to stab your heart with it."

"WHAAAAT?" Lowe shrieked. "You want me to stick this-" He pointed at the terrifying needles. "-into my heart? Are you nuts? It's gonna stick right through my heart!"

Lacus laughed cheekily. "Don't be silly, of course it won't!" and in a quick whisper. 'I think…'

"In battle you guys would undoubtedly get scratched. And with Genma, one scratch will kill you." Kira explained. "When you were injured in anyway, first sign of transformation and you plunged that into your heart. It's not a cure. But… I think, and Lacus assured me, it will fight off the symptoms. Fighting off the infection, keeping you guys counted among the living, destroying the infection during its early stages."

"And it's going to be very painful." Lacus added. "This is Kage-san's thankfully O-type blood. But it's still another person's blood… and when it purged all infection from your body well…" Lacus looked at the source of the cure for personal experience. "How does it feel when your body burned the infection out?"

"It's like every drop of your blood is being flashboiled, your veins was being cauterized inside out." Kira explained short and needless to say everyone winced in pain, imagining just how painful that was.

"The good thing about it is this: when Kage-san's blood flows in your veins… it took some time for your body's immunity system to break it down and assimilate the blood into your system. And during that time, Kage-san's blood will reinforce your immune system… for a while. I'd say about… 3-5 minutes. During that time, you will all enjoy a limited immunity to all forms of genma infection… after that, the effect will wear off… and you will be vulnerable again." All the while explaining this, Lacus fidgeted nervously as she crossed all her fingers behind her back. It was obvious to everyone that even Lacus herself weren't sure of her wonder drug.

"It's going to be okay Lacus." Lamia tried to assure her sister, to no avail.

"I wish I can say that. This is bleeding edge at best. I'm certain of nothing. There's still so much that I don't know!"

"Whatever the case, the point is this: we have limited amount of it, so we will give this to our top fighters. That means Waltfeldt, Lamia, Lowe, you too, no buts! I don't need it, so give the rest to someone else! And remember… this drug is your last resort! As impossible as it may sound… try not to get hit."

Flashback ends…

"Regrettably, it did not impart me with the ability to kill Genma easily, just like Shadow could." Andy cracked his knuckles as he rose up, battered, but as good as new. "I got 2-3 minutes to beat the crap out of you six ways to Sunday however I want."

"…I see…" Yuki looked at the direction to the sky, where a red blur that is Kira is zooming across the sky. God knows what he was thinking. A blood that can resist Genma, and even the ability to kill Genma… it was as if Kira's existence was solely to be bane of Genma.

"That boy of yours… You two were close right?" Andy grinned. "I think you'll be proud to know that he had a wonderful gift from the Gods flowing in his veins."

"A gift…?" Yuki shook his head, remembering when he saw the shit Kira had gone through. And the thing he's done in revenge of it. "He's not a gift, Andy. At least, not a gift to your people."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll understand later. Now, come. You said you can fight freely if only for a few minutes… and we're wasting precious seconds talking."

"Right. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHH!" And with that, Andy tore off a huge chunk of an entire plateau, lifted it up, and then slam it again, causing the ground to tilt and snap, followed by a wave of destructive seismic quake that ripple across the ground and went straight towards Yuki, turning everything atop it to ruin. The Lifeless Lord jumped high to the air, avoiding the attack, althewhile, he crossed his spear and sword together, preparing for another attack.

A ball of earth formed in between the two blades of spear and sword. It rapidly expanded as it flayed the earth, tearing up giant chunks of the earth and pulled them up, merging it, condensing into one gigantic sphere of earth, many times Andy's size. One spark of fire from the clashing of Yuki's weapons, and the gigantic ball of earth suddenly became a gigantic ball of magma. "My turn, METEOR RAIN!" Yuki brought down both of his sword and spear together, and the ball of magma break apart into giant pieces of meteorite, each the size of a small house, flying with a speed several times faster than a cannonball.

In response, Andy, without fear of infection, unleashed the full display of his brutal power. He slammed the ground, and every metal and metallic minerals on the ground burst out. "FERRUS ESPADA ORAGE!" With an incredible powerful swing with his magic infused one arm, Waltfeldt launched every piece of earth and metal in his surrounding towards the incoming meteor shower. The earth and metal mixed together and formed steel fanged jaws of a raging tiger, twice of Andy's size and they're flying at the speed above the speed of sound, creating a sonic boom as they accelerate.

The two storms collide one another midair… with catastrophic result. Each meteor that collided with the steel jaw produced a massive shockwave that shattered the ground near it. The shrapnels that was produced from the collision of these two powers were shot to every direction with the force of a cannonball. The meteors that did get through the hail of steel and earth impact the ground and shattered everything in multiple gigantic explosions. The hail of steel fangs that get through the meteor rain barraged the ground like a rain of cannonshells, they tore through everything that gets in the way upon impact, the pieces were obliterated by other incoming steel hail, not even a pebble remained, all was pulverized to dust.

And while the attack is still going, Yuki cut through one of the biggest meteor that got in his way towards his opponent, and likewise, Waltfeldt outrun his own hail of earth and steel so that he can face his enemy head on. Andy brought down his fist and Yuki thrust both of his sword and spear. The collision between the two opposing force produce a shockwave so powerful, it even destroyed and blow away the previous two attacks, and even rattled the sky!

Within seconds after the two Hakutenkun unleashed their full power, their battlefield landscape turned into sceneries of localized Armageddon.

00000000000000000

Meanwhile, the pilgrims didn't have time to marvel at the sight of two Hakutenkuns fighting one another in an apocalyptic deathmatch of the titans at the other end of the giant chasm as a little piece of apocalypse had descended upon them as well.

Fed up with his Shikigami becoming a constant victim to stray shots, Hao had the S.O.F. slammed his magma claws to the ground. The claws take root, and then the two arms transformed into a pair of formation of active volcanoes. "KAZAN SHIGURE! (Volcano Rain)" The volcanoes erupted and sent a pillar of lava and fire to the sky. Moments later, it's a literal rain of lava dripping masses of explosive magma allover the battlefield. Worse, the rooted Volcano also send forth gushing pool of lava, rapidly expanding to cover the battlefield, diminishing the area to stand.

"HOTHOTHOTHOTHOT!" Lowe squealed as the land on his feet is also growing too hot for his taste.

In the sky, the condition was no better. Kira had to fly around zigzagging allover the place to dodge the rain of magma. And if that weren't enough trouble, Sabo, standing atop a tall mound, was at him again, sending another cue-fireball at him. Just before the fireball hit him, Gino fly in close and countered the fireball with his own, destroying the cue ball before it get any further. Without stopping Gino flew straight at Sabo and crashed at him before he can fire another shot.

Unfortunately to Gino, it felt like he just flew into a wall. Sabo's demonic corruption had made his body as solid as a steel plank. Stopped upon impact, Gino was snagged so hard, he reverted back to his original form. Sabo was not amused of this failed attempt to yank him. With his red hot fingers, the Inferno Knight grabbed Gino by the throat, and then slammed the knight to the ground. All the while, he sent another bomb to Gino. Gino gritted his teeth and transformed into an eagle and flew away as quickly as possible at the last second. But the bomb does more than just explode: it unleash a mass of gas. Mustard gas. Gino who just caught his breath felt his lungs burst into flames and blisters forming on his skin. "Hogekh! Haargh!" Worse, the other pilgrims were also engulfed by mustard gas and they screamed and wailed as their eyes and lungs hurts like hell, and terrible blisters forming on their bodies.

And while everyone is still coughing and screaming due to the mustard gas, Sabo prepared another shot, and new fresh fireballs emerged from the cloud of gas. With teary eyes, Gino looked in horror at the source of the fireballs: Ace, who unleashed countless fireballs from every inch of his skin. The same fireballs are now being used by Sabo to shoot another time bomb. The Explosion Regent shoot another cue fireball and it bounced from one fireball to another. Gino calmed himself and followed the trajectory of the cueball. His hand glowed red and generated a fireball as he waited for the right time. Just when the fire cue ball was about to hit a fireball, Gino fired his fireball and destroyed the said fireball before the cueball can bounce into it. The cue fireball bounced into another fireball, but this time it bounced wildly all over the place, with Sabo's carefully calculated timed trajectory was ruined. As the result, the cueball exploded and misfired, either by accident or providence, on Sabo. Just so it happened, the ball is also another one of his special type, unleashing a spray of crescent fiery blades that cut everything to ribbons.

Unfortunately Sabo was unharmed by his own black purple fire. But it was enough to obscure his view and just then, he saw Gino, in his half beast form, his claw is ablaze like a claw shaped volcano engulfed in a firestorm, charging towards him at blazing speed. And now it's WHITE flame. "KREee-AAAAAAAAARGH!" Gino screeched. Sabo lifted his staff to block the attack, but it was powerful enough to knock him off the mound. It also cause some damage to Sabo's powerful defense, courtesy of the white fire. The two knights rolled down the mound and Gino quickly jumped away to make some distance.

And just before Gino can reengage his target, the ground rumbled.

Everyone can feel the tremor. "What now?"

All the sudden, the earth was once again torn apart, inside out. Gigantic chunks of earth were lifted off the ground. Even the ground the pilgrims standing on were lifted up. Before long, the battleground was altered once again. Now gigantic rocks were floating up around the airspace. The gigantic chasm that was filled with water suddenly disappeared as the earth around them was torn asunder and they were lifted up to the sky. Kira, who was zooming across the sky, watched all this in shock. The whole plain was suddenly lifted up, mountains flying in the sky over a gigantic chasm of darkness. The only place that remained untouched was the Sanctuary. The Pilgrims fell on their knees as the very ground beneath their feet was flayed and lifted to the sky. 'Wait a second… this… scenery…'

Kira instantly remembered the time when he was being chased by the gigantic Babylon. The formation of gravity defying mountains flying in the sky…

And now, he's gazing upon an exact same landscape: gigantic mountains and earth floating in the sky, defying gravity, hanging above the great chasm of darkness down below. Even the Sanctuary Water was gone, swallowed by the darkness.

And then, from the vast abyssal darkness of the enlarged chasm, Kira can feel something is writhing down there.

And then, one by one, they emerged from the darkness.

"Uso… daro…?" Lowe felt like he's about to pee his pants.

No less than 7; not 1, or 2, but SEVEN Babylon Dragons emerged out of the chasm. They slowly rose up from the darkness, the earth crumbled and flayed to the sky as the gargantuan monstrosities rose up, growling and roaring. The earth trembled so badly that it shattered the surroundings. And then the Babylon finally revealed its true form: the 7 Babylon Dragons were connected to a single partially mechanical, partially demonic halo like structure. Like a Mandala. And then, another gigantic figure rose up from the center of the Mandala. A woman. A completely naked woman with albino skin, bearing a long pale white hair. She's… incredibly beautiful, though her eyes are constantly closed. If it weren't for the Babylon Dragons swishing around the demonic halo encircling her chest and her ridiculously gargantuan size, one can mistake her for a normal human woman. Her size was only somewhat smaller than the Babylon dragons encircling her. The Mandala of the Seven Babylons floated just slightly below her naked shoulder. Her pale white skin grew steadily darker as it approached her arms, until it turned completely black. The same can be said, presumably, to her legs as well. They can only see her up to her waist. The rest are shrouded in darkness. She was just THAT huge. Her blackened limbs are glistened with a dark oozing material constantly dripping from her hands. Large horns sprouting out of her spinal cord and two enormous horns protruding out of her back, pointing upward behind her head.

Kira looked at the one responsible for this altered world. "So she's the one who flayed that mountain range off the crust…"

"Oh… my…" Lacus' eyes twitched. Her body trembled in fear again. So much so that she fell on her knees, shaking as she clenched her trembling shoulders, remembering her horrifying death defying experience with that monster. Looks like she'll never live this one down.

Even the apocalyptic battle between Andy and Yuki went to a full stop. "Yuki… how DARE you keep a monster like that hidden? Is this what you call a fair fight?"

"Not my fault if the Mother is pissed." Yuki commented flatly. "That, is the Hive Mother. She's literally and figuratively, the mother of all genma."

The Hive Mother stood immobile for a moment. And then everyone noticed something: one of the Babylons… which happens to be missing a head. "Wait the sec. That one looked… familiar…" Gino sweat dropped.

Okay, let's make that 6 out of 7 Babylon… then…

Every pilgrim twitched nervously. "Oi, oi… are you… telling us… that monstrous snake dragon is actually… the one that…"

"And… You guys killed one of her children." Yuki pointed out.

"Which means…" Every living soul looked at the white Hive Mother.

"…isn't that the guy whose head I disintegrated?" Kira commented flatly. "…or is it a girl?"

The Hive Mother's eyes blared open in an instant, revealing a multitude of yellow slit demonic pupils forming the entirety of the said eye. All of them are glaring at Kira. The murderer of one of her children. The slaughterer of her Inferno Knights.

"She's pissed as Hell." Ace concluded.

"She's pissed as hell." Sabo concluded.

"She's pissed as Hell." Hao concluded.

"The Hive Mother is furious." And Brera surmised.

The Hive Mother glared at Kira with pure bloodlust in her eyes and swished her hand. The black matter dripping endlessly from her arms sprayed allover the place. Where the black liquid landed, black demonic Genma emerged. The zombies, the hunters… the whole lot.

The Genma Demon screeched one more time before all the sudden, a batch of demon was instantly incinerated to ashes when Kira fired a Gokyaku no Jutsu at them. The Hive Mother became angrier and glared at Kira. "So you're pissed because thanks to me, we managed to truly massacre your children? In literal sense?" Kira glared back. "How many of the living have your children eaten, o ye Harlot of Babylon?"

The Hive Mother didn't care and screamed in rage. And Kira… Kira's eyes ruthlessly gleaming with bloodlust. One is the ultimate mother of all Undead, the damned queen who had spawned the demons. The other one is a true, ultimate counter force. One who had forged the means of which mortals can now stand a chance against the damned.

A high pitched shriek from the Hive Mother served as the starting gong of the second round. She screamed and raised her black dripping arms, and all the sudden, all the mountains she flayed off floated up and began to move, including the ones that the pilgrims are currently standing on. All of the floating earth began circling around her in a menacing manner. The pilgrims were slightly caught off balance but quickly get back on their feet as they ey3ed the enraged Hive Mother at the center of the swirling earth. The six out of seven babylons with heads extended out and grabbed 6 biggest earth pieces in the sky, practically gigantic mountains. And just like that, she tossed them like a shuriken haphazardly.

"Here we go." Kira quickly zoomed away, followed closely by Brera.

Needless to say, when 6 mountains, each weighing several thousand metric tons were tossed like a softball, it causes massive and catastrophic destruction, putting the apocalyptic destruction caused by the clash of two hakutenkun to shame. It pulverized everything that got in their way to dust. Most of them are heading, not so surprisingly, to Kira. Kira had to dodge the mountains being thrown at him at the speed of several times the speed of sound. The shockwave caused by the gust of the gigantic projectile pulled everything before blowing them away like a typhoon. Several pilgrims were kicked off the ground was thrown down screaming into the chasm. The 6 mountains carved a path of destruction across the island to multiple directions before they lodged themselves on some distant plain, several kilometers away from the battleground, but visible for everyone to see just how much destruction that has been caused by that one attack.

Everyone paled at the sight of such destruction. The Hive Mother shrieked and the Babylons around her began to wildly swing around. Smashing, grabbing and trashing everything around her. Suddenly the battlefield became chaos as gigantic rocks the size of mountain peaks were thrown around haphazardly. Several Babylons that did not throw rocks around trashed the surroundings, slithering across the floating mountains, smashing through them.

"Oh. My. God." And the pilgrims thought the sky raining fire is already bad enough.

Gino jawdropped when a Babylon took a bit of an entire earth platform and throw them straight towards him and Sabo. "WHOAAAAAAAAAAA!" Gino transformed into his eagle form and flew away just as the said platform smashed through the rock that he was standing on until a few seconds ago.

Lowe and Ace stopped their clash when the earth split beneath them when a Babylon smashed through it, parting the two fighters by a considerable distance. A piece of earth came crashing straight towards Lowe and he had to jump away for safety.

The Mother's Babylon dragons also slither around in rampage around the platforms where the Pilgrims are currently standing; the Babylon dragons violently rocked the floating earth from their very foundations, shaking the floating earth up and down, jerking left and right. Naturally, the occupants of the said earthen platform have great difficulty of standing firmly on their feet.

Even worse for the pilgrims is the fact that Hao was undisturbed by the slightest, even with this much chaos happening. The Spirit of Fire is still firmly rooted to the ground, raining destruction upon them.

Kira think of finishing things quickly with Brera, but then…

"Soar in your throne between Heaven and Hell…"

Kira jerked and looked at Brera. He already pulled out the Shiki sword from his chest and gently dropped it like a dew on a lake.

"KURENAI SHIKI!" Black feathers enclosed Brera, and a moment later, he's wearing an exact replica of Kira's Kurenai Shiki. But its color was reversed: if Kira's a combination of red feathery coat and black belts, Brera's color is black feathery coat and red belts. "Ankoku Shiki has extreme power but poor maneuverability. Okay. Point taken."

Kira smiled nervously.

And if that's not bad enough…

The Hive mother furiously trashing about, swinging her hands trying to swat Kira. Kira managed to fly away at the last second, and the Mother merely smashed the rock Kira was standing on to pieces. But as she did so, the black liquid dripping from her hand sprayed allover the place. Where they fell, Genma Knights suddenly rose up from the black mass. Some of the droplets landed on the platform which the remaining pilgrims are standing on.

"Oh… shit…" One of the Exorcist moaned.

And the newly spawned demons number in the hundreds and charged straight towards the pilgrim. The living humans began to falter at the sight of the fresh undead army, but then…

"DON'T FRET!" One of the Exorcist yelled, brandishing the Shadowforged weapon over his head. "Lord Shadow, Lord Waltfeldt… and everyone is also fighting up there!"

"That's right! Chief Lowe is also doing his best!" One of the Junk Guild pointed at Lowe… who's running for his life on all fours, literally, while holding his Gerbera with his mouth (an impressive show of jaw strength, really - -; ) with a flaming Ace on his back.

"OUCHOUCHOUCH! MY ASS ON FIRE! AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Everyone sweatdropped at such unsightly scenery.

"A… Anyway… We have to do our best too. Remember guys, we're Exorcists! From the very beginning…" Everyone looked at the incoming Genma demon horde, with Hao in his SOF looming in the background, and one by one, the pilgrims finally get back on their feet. "Fighting demons is what we were trained for!"

"CHAAARGEE!" And with that final roar, the Pilgrims charged forward straight towards the Undead horde as they were showered by a rain of fire from the SOF. When the two forces finally collide, it was marked by a rising cloud of ash and dust and the sound of clashing weapons.

In the sky, Gino whistled in awe as he saw his comrades' fight. Now he can concentrate on the enemy at hand, Sabo, who's currently standing on top of a small piece of floating rock.

Sabo observed this new landscape. With so many objects in the sky, moving around in an unpredictable manner thanks to the Hive Mother's rampage, trying to hit that masked boy, flying around allover the place while being chased by Brera. Between that and the rain of fire from Hao, his pinpoint combination bomb shot is no longer an option. "Alright. Let's change the game." This time, he generated his own fireballs, and they float around over his head. "Ever seen combo shots?"

Gino twitched. He had a bad feeling about this. "I don't play pool. No."

Sabo placed one cue ball and shoot it towards the fireball above him. But there's something different. When the cue ball hit one ball, the fireball bounced towards Gino, and then the cueball hit another, and another, and another… in a carefully calculated combo, all ball hit by the cueball were shot towards Gino one after another in a very rapid rate. "Ninety nine ball Gatling!"

"Are you kidding me!?" Panicked, Gino quickly fly away to avoid the barrage. But Sabo can do more than just one salvo. He merely generated more fireballs and positioned them in such a way so that when the still bouncing around Cueball hit them, they were shot with supernatural accuracy towards Gino, creating a continuous barrage. Soon the Exorcist found himself being rained down by a shower of fireball, in addition to the rain of fire from Hao and the zooming rocks swirling around the airspace. Even worse, like the cueball, they were all set to explode at preset time. So even if Gino can avoid being hit by the ball, the ball will explode anyhow. Not all of them just explode. One explosion unleashed a rippling shockwave that rattles the air, another release a wall of fire that mow forward, nearly swallowing Gino whole.

And just before he can find a way to deal with these myriads of fireballs, the barrage forced him to fly straight in front of Ace, who, seeing the golden opportunity his friend had given him, suddenly switched his target. He appeared next to Gino, his flaming hand is holding a giant fireball about 100 times his own size, and it's shining brightly like a dark sun. "Let's take out this one first. Dark Flame Emperor, Pluto!"

"Oh Shi-"

At the same time Kira and Brera was brawling in the sky at blinding speed, creating a zigzagging streams of red light and black smoke swirling around each other, smashing and bouncing violently on several rocks along the way. The two were so focused on beating each other, they're practically flying blind, trusting the defensive properties of their full body weapon. Kira was able to land several bone shattering punches to his opponent's head, but Brera's zoan strength prevailed and he yanked Kira by the neck and threw him spiraling out of control. Brera quickly charged his left arm, creating a swirling sphere of chains before shoving it forward, sending a stream of chains straight to Kira.

Ace threw the black sun straight towards Gino. Moments away before the black sun hit him, Kira get in the way, nay, he was accidentally shoved in the way as he just blocked a mass of razor sharp black chain coming from Brera with his Dark Kurenai Shiki. Kira had just managed to stop the chains from penetrating his heart when the black sun is coming towards him. Seeing the large mass of fire, Kira quickly had an idea and made a series of handseals. "Katon… KARYUU HEKI! (Fire dragon Wall)" As its namesake, Kira breathe out a firewall from his lips.

"The black fire will consume everything!"

Just like Ace said, the black sun quickly engulfed and consumed the firewall, quickly overtaking Kira. For a moment, it looked as if Kira was completely incinerated by the black fire, but then, the black sun began to writhe and changed shape… as well as color. From spherical sun, to writhing serpentine creature. From black… to white… and then… volcanic red hot yellow! "KATON…"

Much to the surprise of everyone, Kira's voice can be heard booming from the heart of the infernal sun.

"GOURYUU REKKA (Great Dragon Raging Fire)!" And the volcanic dragon sprang out and circles around the conjurer. This one was about slightly larger than the one Kira used to destroy the Tyrant. Roaring, Kira spin around the dragon several times, destroying the rain of fireballs from Sabo, forcing the Regent to jump away, destroying the black chains from Brera, nearly burning the black clad demon knight, even Ace, the fire logia, actually panicked when he saw the magma dripping from the volcanic dragon.

"That's MY flame!" Ace roared.

"Yeah. Thanks." Kira has only one target: the gigantic S.O.F. that's causing all this rain of volcanic rocks.

Hao sensed Kira's murderous intent is now directed to him. "You actually intend to use fire on ME? On my Spirit of FIRE?"

"It depends on how I use it!" Kira jerked his hand forward and the volcanic Dragon lunged towards the rooted S.O.F.. But instead of hitting it directly, Kira used every ounce of his mental strength to make the volcanic dragon spin around the S.O.F., but not hitting it outright. Soon, the Shikigami of Fire was encircled by a swirling storm of fire as the dragon spin faster and faster around the S.O.F.. The temperature of the air at the center of the storm is so hot, it can even melt metal. But that was not Kira's intent. Hao quickly caught on as he saw his S.O.F. began to wane and flicker. Even the rain of fire finally stopped.

"The Oxygen… he's sucking the oxygen from my S.O.F.! Smart boy… as expected from Yuki's boy." With the rising temperature, the fading S.O.F. was rapidly getting sucked into the volcano storm. "Rin, Pyo, Toh, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen…" Hao began chanting.

Ace, Sabo and Brera noticed Hao's in trouble, and they focus their attack on Kira. But before Sabo can get far, Gino came at him again and kicked/clawed him by the face with a flaming talon. A grenade was thrown into Ace's face, causing him to back down. Brera was rained with fire and various projectiles from below. "DON'T LET HIM ATTACK SHADOW! OPEN FIRE!" The other Exorcists and Knights, while still battling the endlessly spawning Genma, still managed to provide Kira with some measure of suppressive fire, enough to prevent Brera from interfering.

Kira continue to spin the volcanic dragon unabated. But then, all the sudden, a pair of Babylons came charging at him in a pincer attack from both sides. Kira hold his jutsu until the last moment and then slip away by a skintight margin. The two dragons smashed each other's heads, hitting nothing but each other (causing few teeth flew), but they get what they're after: the volcanic dragon storm finally vanished. When the volcano storm died down, there's nothing but thin hot air and giant red hot floating rock where Hao was earlier. Kira was still wondering where he went when the Mother took hold of the said red hot rock and toss it towards him.

Kira easily dodged the projectile and the said rock smashed against another rock behind Kira and lodged itself there. Kira had just redirected his attention to the Mother when all the sudden, a razor sharp icicle suddenly went through his shoulder from the back. "GYAAAAARGHH!" Kira was caught off guard by the sudden pain and turned around to see the culprit.

And then, seeping out of the earth that the Mother threw just now… was S.O.F.… and its entire body was made of… water? It still retained the exact same demonic shape, but its elemental composition changed. His muscular body is now composed of blue water, and the part of his body that was magma or volcano are now steaming cold freezing icicle. The icicle that stabbed Kira came from a mass of icicle forming the tip of the demon's tail, like a flail.

Kira grunted as he had to fight back the numbing pain that bite into his shoulder. Grabbing the blood stained icicle with trembling hand, Kira struggled to get the damn ice spike out.

"How the hell… that's the Spirit of Fire right? So how come…?" Gino gaped in shock.

"Elemental Transmogrification…" Kira grunted. "You can change the element to any element of your choosing… Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, Metal… nothing is off limits. Such is the power of Seimei-class Onmyouji."

"I can see now why Yuki held you in such a high esteem. I think your soul will make a fine addition to my S.O.F.." Hao learned not to underestimate the boy anymore and prepared to deal the finishing blow. The Water S.O.F. lifted its icy fingers and prepared to stab through the still nailed Kira.

Until suddenly, something red and hot just hit the S.O.F. by the chest and send his floating gigantic body flying until it smashed through another floating platform. The icy spike was forcibly yanked out of Kira and the ninja fell to the ground with his shoulder spurting blood. The Watery S.O.F. clawed the ground to stop itself from flying any further before finally regained his foothold and then Hao looked at the thing that just hit him: a flaming Red Haro. "I got hit… by a toy?" Hao looked at the direction where the Haro came from. Standing on the edge of the Sanctuary, was Lacus. Her baby blue eyes were shining with unexplainable cold fury.

Hao frowned and then looked at the red Haro. "You're not seriously considering of fighting me with this toy-like Shikigami are you?"

"That…" Lacus' voice, laced with cold anger, boomed from the Haro. "…is NOT a toy." Lacus uttered a name. "Megi."

Like the other Haro, Megi the Red Haro transformed into another copy of Lacus. She had her noticeably short pink hair were bundled up into two buns on her hair, with braid loops decorating them. She's wearing a red cheongsam, with flaming golden Chinese lion design on it. Upon seeing this transformation, Hao's eyes narrowed in thought, trying to remember some lore… and then it hit him. "Wait a damn minute…"

Red runic spell circle with fiery pattern appeared on the ground where Lacus was standing. "Rift of Fire, rift of blaze, rift of inferno… Rift of the Salamander, bring forth the conqueror of infernal wheel of hell… fire be thy flesh, magma be thy bones… I pray thee come forth… Megido Carrier of the Wheel of Hell!" Lacus finished her chant and uttered Megi's TRUE name.

Even though the master chanted it from miles away, her voice echoed at top volume in everyone's heads. Megi suddenly turn rigid and her yellow eyes suddenly turned into a wheel… a wheel of fire. "I… am the hell's wheels." Her voice became horrid and reverberating with the sound of growls. "By mine covenant with this little one, I shalt reduce all to naught but cinders and ash. I am the scion of burning inferno and harbinger of smoldering ash…wielder of a name that spureth the flames of hell and layeth ruin on this field. I am Megido, Carrier of the Wheel of Hell." Within seconds, Megi's petite cute form turned feral and grizzly as she screamed, no, roared. Her body began to burn and unravel inside out. Her pink hair flared out and became a charred ash black metallic mane made of swords, the blade generate enormous flames. The Cheongsam were torn apart as swords made of magma burst out from beneath it, forming a mass of mishmashing swords. Petite fingers turned to vicious claws, pink flesh turn to red muscles, lips turned to metallic maw lined with fangs, and skin turned to molten steel. Her size also grew to match Hao's S.O.F. as flaming swords burst out of her spinal cord. Her human face transformed into a demonic lion-like face when liquid iron engulfed her face completely, creating a faceless layered facemask, with only a few holes on it. The holes are constantly bursting with fire.

Everyone gaped in shock and awe. Upon transformation into its true form, Megido showed her true colors. There's not a trace left of this creature being Lacus Clyne's spiritual doppelganger. Her face was completely covered in a knightlike full face blank helmet, framed by a metallic mane made of interconnected swords, and a crown on the helmet's forehead. The swords are constantly emitting large masses of fire that formed a rich and long flaming mane that swirled wildly around the back of its head, extending all the way down to its back. Her upper body and shoulders are slim and lean, rather slender and almost human like in appearance, but it was composed of Magma, with parts of it glowing red hot. Her lower abdomen was formed of a cagelike bronze and black armor, charred ash black by the flames constantly bursting out of its upper body. Its forearms were made of a pair of oversized mechanical gauntlets with multiple magmalike decoration, creating a pair of oversized mechanical hands, each is about thrice the size of Megido's body, with four blunt fingers. But from the tip of the said fingers, claws made of melting lava emerged. Megido legs, awkwardly enough, were made of interconnected metallic gears and cogs, ending with flaming red hot steel wheels, with spiky steel tires. Once the transformation was complete, Megido roared angrily as she slammed its oversized flaming claws into the ground, pulling out a demonic wheel with giant flaming swords lining up its edges, befitting its title. Megido shouldered the weapon, the same way one would shoulder a sword.

"Megido?" Kira was more shocked than anyone. The fiery Daemon stood menacingly on top of a small floating rock, eying the S.O.F. menacingly. The thing is, for the first time throughout the battle, the Hive Mother was also distracted from her single minded focus to kill Kira, and after a quick glance to Megido, she eyed the top of the Sanctuary Tower suspiciously.

Lamia nervously looked at her sister, whose mood seems to be anything but happy at the moment. "…onee…sama…?"

"Lamia… let's do that." Lacus growled.

"…h… Yes! Okay!" Lamia stood ready.

Lacus' hands moved again, and the runic circle of spells moved from Lacus to Lamia. Lamia closed her eyes and blazing runic encryption appeared on her cheek, arms and legs. When Lamia opened her eyes, her eyes were blazing with fire, just like Megido's eyes. Fact is, she's currently seeing things through Megido's eyes. Lamia flexed her fingers, and Megido flexed her flaming ones. She lifted the Wheel Sword and got a feel of its heft and weight. With Megido's strength, the enormous Wheel Sword felt featherweight.

Hao who saw this merely shrugged. "You're… a WITCH? And you dare to undertake the duties of a PRIEST? What were you thinking Girl?"

His words were directed to Lacus not Lamia. Lacus merely replied with a flat tone. "I'm thinking you're annoying." She spat back the word as she mysteriously rummaged her hair wildly as if trying to calm her raging fury down. "I don't understand it myself… but you really annoy me… everything else… is none of your business."

"So she says." Megido and Lamia replied in unison. Megido stomped her wheel feet to the ground, and it spin rapidly, grinding the floor, generating spurts of flames, and the next instance, the blazing lion jumped forward at blurring speed pointing his wheel blade straight at the Watery S.O.F.. "RAAAAAAAAH!" Instead of stabbing the S.O.F., Megido slammed the S.O.F. with her flaming shoulder, knocking it off balance, smashing the Water SOF through the platform. The two rolled around in the sky, completely disoriented by the chaotic gravitation condition of the distorted battleground and Megido managed to cut one of S.O.F. arms and brutally slashed its cheek. The S.O.F. retaliated and swung his icy claw to Megido's head. The lion bent down and at the same time the wheels on its legs spin again and Megido swing his spinning wheel leg towards SOF's head in a roundhouse spinning kick. The wheel grinded through S.O.F.'s hunched back, missing Hao's shoulder by the inches. Their midair brawl caused the two to zoom allover the place, smashing through several large rocks that just can't handle their weight. But then, the two finally crash landed on an earthen platform large enough to support their mass. But given the brutality of the two giant's fight, the said platform was quickly flayed apart. Megido pressed her leg on SOF' head until it was slammed to the ground, grinding the SOF with her wheel leg. She roared and as an added attack, Megido slammed her wheel blade and nailed the SOF as her flames flared up even more, and the water that currently composed the S.O.F. began to boil furiously.

Megido intends to vaporize the watery S.O.F. inside out. Hao groaned because his Shikigami was rendered immobile. Once again, he made a series of handseals. "Rin, Pyo, To,…" The Watery S.O.F. continues to boil and boil… and then his body turn brown. The malleable water suddenly became solid earth, his icy claws turned into rocky knuckles. Hao transmogrify his S.O.F. again… into Earth. Megido blinked in surprise when his wheel sword was stuck on a solid muddy substance. "What's this?" Megido struggled to get her sword out.

"Hmph. So small." S.O.F. took that chance and changed its left rock arm into a stone cannon and the other arm into a sword. While Megido is still stuck on his new earthen body, S.O.F. placed his cannon barrel straight at Megido's head.

"Oh shoo-" KA-THOOOM! With a loud roar, the cannon fired a solid rock cannonball straight at Megido's face. Megido skated backwards, holding her face. A crack can be seen on her faceplate. In rage, Megido planted her wheel sword in front of her and pointed her fingers forward. "Small am I? Well…" The volcanic fingers disappeared for a moment, revealing muzzles of a series of large caliber, glowing red hot cannon barrels, one cannon for each finger. "TRY THIS ONE FOR SIZE!" And with that, the finger cannons fired one burning shell after another in a rapid succession. The earth S.O.F. was rapidly getting flayed apart one piece at a time.

The S.O.F. was forced to defend, but over time he began to resist the attack. Seeing her attacks are decreasing in effectiveness, Megido grabbed her Wheelsword with one arm while maintaining a suppressing fire with the other. He quickly stabbed the S.O.F. by the gut. But the Earth SOF merely break down. On second observation, Megido quickly noticed that the earth fire monster had just merged with the platform they're standing on. And so, planting both of her fingers into the platform, Megido gave out a might roar, and literally brought the entire platform over her head and then cast the giant of a platform to another, crash landing right on top the caught off guard Ace, who was just preparing to launch an onslaught infernal lances upon the rallying pilgrims to break them apart again and also nearly landed on Lowe, who was just preparing to get a jump on his prey. The said earthen projectile barely missed him by the inches. Getting hit by several metric tons of earth and rock clearly would hurt anyone, undead or not. Ace got back up with his head and various other limbs bent the wrong way.

"I thought I'm supposed to be covering for you?" With a loud crack, Ace revert his neck back to the correct position. His other limbs quickly followed.

"My apologies. It was a bit unexpected." Hao's voice echoed from the earth itself and then the ground rumbled again. The ground cracked again and the earthen S.O.F. recollected its pieces and reformed itself. "Worry not, I shan't allow myself to be knocked down again. Though… being done so by this creature is not exactly surprising."

"The hell is that monster?" Ace pointed. "It felt a lot more like us than your S.O.F.."

'A lot more like…them?' Kira was greatly alarmed at this.

"Naturally." Hao commented coolly. "That thing… is one of the Greater Daemon of the Zodiac… the scion of the Leo constellation… Megido the carrier of Hell's Wheel."

"Greater Daemon?" The demon inside Ace winced. To put it simply, it's a level (or several) higher than normal lesser demons that inhabit their bodies.

"A summoner type witch…" The Earthen S.O.F. rose up ready to fight. At the core of the S.O.F., Hao eyed Lacus at the top of the sanctuary sinisterly. "Unexpected for a witch of her age. Not to mention the rarity. But not unprecedented. It only means she's simply far more than a normal witch. Nothing I can't handle."

Kira gulped in sheer nervousness. He remembered Megi. During his surgery, the red Haro was responsible for illumination. '…but… if those haros are diminutive form of these monsters then…' He shuddered at the thought of the demons lying inside those tiny cute balls.

Before Kira can finish his thoughts, Brera went after him again, zooming across the rock formation at blinding speed. Like its original counterpart, Brera can also generate beam swords, except that, unlike the Original, the Dark kurenai Shiki doesn't seem to be limited in number, and if Kira's beam blade vaguely resembles Katana, Brera's black ones are more akin to Bastard Swords. Kira had no time to dodge the attack and put up his guard just in time. But Brera is a zoan. And the brute force of a zoan is regrettably something beyond his power to handle. Even worse when they are coming from an undead one. Dark Kurenai Shiki's maneuverability combined with Zoan brutal force made a potent combination. Brera smashed Kira away like a ragdoll. Even the protection granted by Kurenai Shiki was no help. "Gyargh!" Kira crash landed on a platform. A large scratch can be seen on his arms. Fortunately he's immune from infection. He looked up and saw the Raven Zoan descend and went towards him again, swords ready to slash.

'…Kurenai Shiki's defense isn't tough enough to handle that much power… one that can handle close combat with decent protection…' "Slice the Heaven… Aoiro Shiki!" The crimson vest of the Kurenai Shiki unraveled and merged on his left arm. Moments later, red turned to blue, and blue spiky armor covered Kira's left shoulder and arm, with an oversized katana handle on his back.

Brera continued his charge, but upon seeing the giant blade, took a different approach. He's too late to change direction so he clasped his two swords together: "Slice the Heaven, Aoiro Shiki!" The Dark Kurenai Shiki dispersed into countless black feathers and congregated on his RIGHT arm, forming a dark blue purplish, demonic version of Kira's Aoiro Shiki. Like the original, it too produced a larger than life immaterial blade. But unlike Kira's nodachi shape, Brera's aoiro Shiki is shaped like a forked giant bastard Sword.

And unlike Kira, who cannot fly in this form, Brera's avian zoan ensure he maintain aerial superiority.

Kira gritted his teeth and spin the great sword several times. "HARGH!" With a roar, he slammed the gigantic sword before him, generated its immaterial blade, forming a makeshift wall. Brera's forked sword collided with the surface of the Aoiro Shiki with incredible force, causing a surging shockwave across the platform. Kira gritted his teeth under the pressure and stomped his feet the ground, but they are steadily getting pushed back. Kira had to push his blade forward with both of his hands. But that doesn't seem to be helping.

After a moment of struggle, Brera bat his wings one more time and accelerate even further. Kira gasped as the pressure on his sword suddenly more than doubled, the immaterial blade of Aoiro Shiki suddenly cracked. The next instance, it finally broke, and Brera attacked unabated and fly through Kira.

Kira stood still and gaze angrily at the broken, but steadily mending, Aoiro Shiki. Blood flow freely from his torn cheek before the wound burst into white flames soon after.

"Infected, purified, cauterized, and then regenerated." Brera listed the process of which Kira's body healed itself from Genma Infection. "Each of the wounds we inflicted upon you is tantamount to a killing blow, yet you survive them every time." Brera frowned as he turned around, showing that Kira had also left a memento on his face: a large clawed mark across his face which, given Kira's anti Genma attribute, won't be disappearing anytime soon. "I wonder which one of us is really the undead here…"

Kira merely snarled at the comment. Before they can continue, they heard another screech, but this time it didn't come from Brera… but from TWO human birds. One of them was the familiar Gino. The other one… 'Wasn't that…'

Gino didn't expect it'll come out this early. Wrestling with his opponent in that form. It was a rather terribly bad idea.

5 minutes ago, when Megi first transformed into Megido and start brawling with SOF…

"You're escorting her…?" Sabo looked at the spectacle of destruction caused by the brawling monsters. "Are you sure she needs it?"

"It's my job." Gino replied coolly.

"You are lying."

"Quite so." Gino didn't try to hide it anymore and momentarily dropped his pickaxes. "Probably the same reason why you came here."

"Hoo?" Sabo turned his attention away from Megido and looked back at Gino.

"You know… I was half hoping I would see you. Maybe saw your corpse and do something about it and pay my respects." Gino reverted back to his human form while he's at it. He then showed something to Sabo. An insignia of his family crest. Sabo looked at it, and his eyes widened by the slightest bit.

"That crest… where…"

"I have it… from father to son. Not my choice really." Gino's eyes darkened under the bangs of his hair. "After all, he also gets it from his dad, who also gets it… from you. Right? Great grandfather of mine… Sabo Weinberg?"

Sabo looked at his great grandson. If he still had one shred of emotion left, his eyes would've widened the size of a teacup. "I see… I should've known… that transformation of yours… I'm surprised someone would still know that name… I expect it even less from my own flesh and blood."

"In her youth, my Grandmother, your son's wife, personally dashed your name from family registry and record in an attempt to keep family name clean from any dark mark. It took me a lot of effort to find out about your existence. I found out the name, some pieces of information… and then when I joined the Exorcists, the Church's Library military records explained the rest." Gino was reminded of the long hours he spent in the Church dusty library, trudging through his Great Grandfather's personal memoir and records. It's quite possible that it's the only record anyone would have of his great grandfather. The last proof that he existed. Fortunately his family wasn't influential enough as to be able to destroy that record without risking the Church's wrath. "You were… my inspiration."

"Inspiration? You too?" Sabo sighed. "I guess that family still hasn't got any better even when I'm gone… hm?"

"Well, if anything, they got more…uh… subtle." Gino remembered when he read about the great arson of a nearby slum town. Later it was found out that the reason because some inspector is coming to perform some sanitary inspection. To make a good impression they decided to clean out the 'trash' which include several homeless orphans and the poor. Sabo risked his life and get into the center of the inferno, saving as many people as he can. Regrettably, he couldn't save them all. His family used up their reputation to make it as if the arson never happened. As protest, Sabo committed several – what his family considered – terrorist bombings targeting at many sites of family asset. That's where he got the nickname, 'Explosion Regent'. The final insult was the fact that his family can't prove it's him, and even worse, even if they could, they can't touch him! He had garnered a reputation as a heroic man of cloth on the battlefield, and so he was protected by the church. That's but a little consolation for him though and he finally left the family, joined the pilgrimage, and now ended up like this.

"I heard you nearly lost your friend there."

"Thank goodness for Ace's logia. Not that it finally did him any good here." Sabo sighed. "An inferno knight with a magma logia burn right through his heart. You see that giant scar on the chest right?"

Gino looked at Ace, wrestling with Lowe. Now that Sabo mentioned it, there's a sizable chunk on Ace's chest that was replaced with magma.

"I died by having my own explosives shoved right into me. You see how my body looked like they were stapled together, right?"

He showed his arm that looked like pieces of magma rock, stapled together into a human shape with red hot iron plates. He looked like a walking volcano! Gino gulped. "…that must've been awful."

"You guys will never be able to stop us, Gino." Sabo stated. "The boy in the mask realized it too. To go muscle to muscle against Inferno Knights in open combat is madness. Strength, stamina… this whole battle was stacked against you from the get go. Plus, we're dead. You can't kill something that's already dead."

"Ehhh… but we've been killing Genmas like there's no tomorrow."

"Don't lump us together with other lesser Genma you've defeated… we're built rather similarly with the Lifeless Lord. Even get stabbed in the heart won't kill us… see…" Sabo clawed his chest and pried it open, revealing an empty chest cavity. "Inferno Knights don't have a heart for you to pierce."

Gino eyes widened in realization. 'If there's no heart to pierce… how the devil should we…' Gino's train of thoughts was stopped when Sabo… began to transform.

"If you really of my blood… I suppose you should be expecting this." Fingers turned to talons, wings sprouted out of his back, lips turned to beak, legs turned into a second set of talons.

Gino in response quickly transformed into his half beast form as well. When a zoan transformed into a half beast state, it is sometimes noted with a massive increase in muscle mass, in proportion to the bearer's preference. In Gino's case, his slender figure became more muscular as his body became taller and larger and his wings are large and strong, denoting its massive increase in strength and speed. It was a stark contrast with Brera's noticeably slender and agile form for maneuverability and speed. And as for Sabo… it shows just how corrupted he was in undeath.

Sabo turned into an even larger human falcon than Gino. Awkwardly it was a brilliant green and blue in coloration, coupled with several volcanic rocks stapled together at the center, creating a muscular chest, glowing dark purple, referring to the black purplish fire that all Inferno Knights wield. His arms elongated abnormally, from muscular to somewhat skeletal. Its claws, also made of magma, releasing a black purple smoke from every chink. His mighty wings atrophied, and tentacles bursting out of them in place of feathers, shaping into the shape of wings. Spinal black crystal bones bursting out of the seams here and there, showing that the bones inside were also enlarged. But the worst change came on the head: the falcon's neck elongated disproportionately as new feathers bursting out of the skin to cover the neck extension. But then, the falcon head literally bisected itself in half from the tip of its beak all the way to the base of the elongated neck. Gino gasped in horror at this most drastic change. For a moment, he can see the insides on each half of the split Eagle's head in a cross section, but then tentacles bursting out and covered the exposed cross section, forming the half of the split eagle's face. Albeit a twisted demonic half, with plural bug like eyes and fang lined beak. The cue stick he always carried also transformed. Three blades flipped out of the butt of the cue stick like an umbrella, turning it into a three pronged scythe. But then, magma gathered around the scythe and formed a single massive volcanic circular scythe, with volcanic rocks forming its blade. It length also increase in proportion with the wielder's size.

Gino gulped as his Great Grandfather's massive demonic half beast zoan form took a step forward, shaking the ground with a step. The shadow of his two headed eagle form hang over a horrified Gino.

"Now then, flesh and blood of mine…" His booming distorted voice roared, though none of his two beaks moved. "Have at you, boy."

Gino gritted his teeth and light himself on white fire, preparing for battle. "RAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" With a dash, he charged forward.

The two headed demonic eagle roared as well, and in response, the atrophied wings burst out its replacement: a flaming wings of black purple fire! The wings burst out and propel Sabo forward. The two half beast zoan clashed midair and as expected, Sabo easily overpowered Gino with just one arm and propelled him back.

Gino didn't expect it'll come out this early. Wrestling with his opponent in that form. It was a rather terribly bad idea. Even with so much bad blood between Sabo and his family, it's no question that his prowess in combat is the stuff of legend. Compared to his ancestor, Gino is like an ant trying to fight an elephant. Sabo slammed Gino to the ground and then grinded him across the ground, ransacking Gino's wings. Sabo's volcanic black fire clad claws shielded his body from Gino's white fire.

'I need to… break… free…!' Gino grunted as he struggled to pry Sabo's enormous claws open. It took all his strength to finally loosen the grip and gave him a chance to fly away. Sabo followed with a scythe slash but Gino managed to fly away just in time, though the cascading black flame from scythe caught a bit of his tail but they were quickly extinguished. Sabo twin heads screeched again and with one mighty swing of his flaming wings, the two headed demonic man eagle took to the sky, chasing his quarry.

All this under Kira's watch. "The hell was that?"

"Lord Sabo's Genma Beast Out." Brera informed the surprised and horrified Kira.

'Beast out? THAT'S a Beast Out?' Truth be told, this is the first time Kira had actually seen it. He heard it many times from Athrun, whom he knew was a Zoan. He called it a genetic dark destiny of all Zoans. Whenever he told him about it, it was always followed by a tone of fright he rarely, if ever, heard from him. Now he knew why. 'Turning into that… I guess you could look at it, in one way, fate worse than death…' Kira turned to Brera and his demonic raven form… with multiple eyes and that horn sprouting out of one side of head. "…and you?"

"Still long way off." Brera maintain his half beast form and pointed his two pronged Dark Aoiro Shiki to Kira. "Not that I need it."

Kira glared back and lifted his Aoiro Shiki. But instead of generating a new blade, Kira retracted it and still get into his battle stance. He took a deep breath… and then exhale. He calmed down… and focused. "I guess that means I really don't have much time dealing with small fries anymore."

'Small fries?' Brera twitched on the comment. Without further ado, he charged forward, the forked sword pointing forward.

"…Gatotsu…"

Brera's eyes widened.

Kira saw this technique only once, during the Archangel Siege Crisis.

"ZEROSHIKI!" Using only strength of his entire upper body, Kira stab the Aoiro Shiki forward, timing it with his stab. For a moment, Kira became a body double of Prayer. The combination of the thrust and Aoiro Shiki's explosive blade release shot towards Brera at eye blinding speed.

When the two blades collide, Kira's blade went right inbetween the fork of Brera's sword, and the force was such it cracked Brera's blade. Enough to halt Brera for a few seconds midflight. Before Brera can react, suddenly, Kira vanished from sight in a puff of smoke. In a blur of white Kira dashed atop the interlocked blade and went straight towards Brera, who still unaware of what's happening. Kira bite his black glove and pulled out a series of strings.

Brera can only see flicker of the strings. And all the sudden, both of his wings were all tied up by the said strings.

"Sticking with all you knights made me almost forgot…" Kira held the strings with both of his hands, kneeling behind Brera. "I'm a SHINOBI. Not a knight, or a soldier."

Brera grunted when the strings gets tighter around his wings. Smoke rising up from the strings, marking it was burning up his Genma flesh.

"In other words…" Kira yanked the strings.

An instant later, the wings were sliced and diced to tiny pieces. The pieces turned to dust. "My weapon… is not my ONLY 'weapon'."

The Hive Mother who was just focusing on Lacus a moment ago turned her attention back to the biggest threat in the field.

Brera quickly turned around and was about to swing his giant sword when he realized he couldn't. Brera looked at the cause: Kira's Aoiro Shiki was interlocked with his, and it was nailed to the ground. Courtesy of that head on collision just now.

The raven zoan contemplated to change weapons, but then, Kira has no intention of giving him the time to do it. Already he can see Kira was charging at him at full speed, creating handseals furiously. "Ninpou…"

Brera defended himself with what he got. He lifted his right claw and swing it towards Kira.

"AOIRO SHOUGEKIKEN!" Mwu's spiraling shockwave technique engulfed Kira's clawed left arm, turning it into a blazing blue claw made of chakra.

For a moment it looked as if it's going to be a head on collision between the two claws. But at the last second, Kira diverted his attack and went straight towards Brera's elbow joints. Brera's right arm was torn off its socket.

"You have the same weapon… parameter wise, you're better than me in all aspect… but!" Brera turned to see Kira engulfed in red feathers. "In terms of the experience of using the weapon… you are woefully… inadequate!" A red beam saber extended out of Kira's palm.

"Soar in your-"

Three extensions of Kira's Kurenai Shiki cloak vanished. "Gattai Ougi, Gurren Mikazuchi no Mai!" In an instant, Brera's chest was pummeled with three simultaneous red slash at super god speed. The shape of an enormous red glowing triangle instantly appeared on the spot where Kira and Brera battled, with Brera right in the center of the triangle. In a flash Brera was parted to pieces in a blink of an eye, and the said pieces are steadily turning into ashes as well. The Fake Shiki shattered to pieces.

Lacus gasped upon seeing the move. '…Was that… Lord Veia's…'

The Hive Mother screeched ever louder in rage. She then sent another one of her dragons towards Kira and Brera, intending swallow him… or the two of them. But Kira merely jumped away and fly back, avoiding the swallowing right at the last second. The Babylon only swallowed what's left of Brera and the fake Shiki. The Hive mother shrieked even angrier for missing her prey.

"Getting angrier with every 'child' I killed… that's rather motherly for a demon…" Kira had just took a breath of relief of finishing up one knight and then all the sudden, Megido went flying his way and crashed into a platform right next to Kira generating up a mountain of scorching smoke. The flaming lion demon struggled to get back up, holding on to her wheelsword for support. In the distance where Megido came from, was the S.O.F. returning back to its original fiery disposition, now larger than ever.

"You okay there, miss?"

"How does it look like?" Lamia roared back in frustration through Megido. "I was fighting a claydoll just before and I was already doing poorly… then he turned back to fire and suck up my flames!" And having done so,the S.O.F. grew to almost twice its original size, and quickly made a quick work of brutalizing Megido and tossed her back like a ragdoll.

"Then tell your sister she needs to come up with a different idea ASAP." Kira pointed out. "Earth bear Metal, Metal carries Water, Water nourish wood, wood feeds fire, fire creates earth… we need a different element."

In the Sanctuary… "But if I summon another, he'll just keep changing his element again and again!" Lacus squeaked to Lamia.

"Any better ideas?" Megido and Lamia roared.

Kira looked at the giant fiery S.O.F.. His main point of concern is the Hive Mother which supporting her children from the back using all that Babylons. They're slow, cumbersome, but, as he had experienced himself, pack a brutal amount of power. He already 'killed' one head, not sure he can deal with the other six. 'I'll just burn that bridge when I get there… I guess… for now…'

It's a good thing he's done with Brera. Now it's time he focused on stopping the S.O.F.. It has the ability to mess around with the battlefield. '…In normal circumstances we need something of water… but he could just change… wait…' "Lamia… did Lacus have any summon that can do water?"

"Lacus?" Lamia looked at Lacus.

"I have one." Lacus pulled out a Light Blue Haro. "Ummm… Levi!" The Light Blue haro turned into the privateer Lacus. "Cancel Megido! Megi! Come back here!"

Upon hearing her nickname being called out, Megido roared and was engulfed in flames. A second later, she reverted back to her Lacus in Chinese dress form. Kira frowned at this. Apparently Lacus can only bring them one at a time.

Back in the sanctuary, Lacus concentrated as she held out the light blue haro. "Rift of Water, rift of Snow, rift of Frost… Rift of the Fish, bring forth the rider of the tide… swift wave be your feet, mighty tidings be your guide… I pray thee come forth… Leviathan, breaker of the Tide!"

Like Megido, Levi also stood rigid. Her eyes became frosty blue. "I… am the Tidebreaker. By mine covenant with this little one, I shall break and swept all aside to naught but flakes and droplets. I am the scion of freezing age and harbinger of all swallowing tide…wielder of a name that will submerge all creation under my dominion. I am Leviathan, the Breaker of Tides." Levi screamed, but the sound of her voice was drowned by a burst of water that turned to icicles that engulfed her in an instant. And then, the ice breaks, and an instant later, Leviathan, a serpentine whale burst out of the confines of the ice. Once again Kira jaw dropped.

Leviathan, like Megido, is part elemental, part mechanical, and part living creature. Except that if Megido is a lion, Leviathan is a lean serpentine whale. Its length is easily almost twice the size of the Alliance Battlecruiser's length, though it's noticeably smaller in width. Its back and sides are lined with fins of various sizes. The whale had an enormously elongated jaw, with multiple large eyes. Its head is covered in armor. The serpentine whale has three rows of fins. Two rows of pelvic fins and one row of dorsal fins. The firsts of these fins are the largest ones, and progressively they get smaller nearing the enormous metallic tailfin. The pair of the first pelvic fins are disproportionately large, larger than the first top fin, and they are easily the largest limb of the serpentine whale. At the base of the top of the first dorsal fin, there's a protrusion of humanoid shape. She looked like a female knight with aquatic design. Her face was completely covered by a faceless mask (kinda similar with Megido) her hairs are octopus tentacles, attached to the enormous fin on her back. Her body is mostly watery, covered in ice white armor. A stark contrast with Megido who are covered in charred ash black armor. She carried a trident in her hands. And it has a flag fluttering about beneath the base of the trident, bearing pink color with a comical head of a smiling Lacus on it. She also has no legs. Her lower half from waist down was attached to the serpentine whale, in front of the base of the first dorsal fin. The Serpentine whale itself is part mechanic, with the entirety of her underbelly are formed of mechanical ribcages that seem similar to a ship's keel and frames. And even more terrifying, enormous icy cannon barrels can be seen protruding out of the various openings of the mechanical underbelly. It's a literal demonic battleship! – to say nothing of that ridiculously out-of-place pink flag.

The Leviathan swam out of the sanctuary and flow fluidly in midair towards the battlefield. Lacus took Levi's privateer hat and put it on her head. Leviathan swing her tail down and Lacus and Lamia step on top of it as Leviathan carried them up top, and dropped the two gently right in front of Leviathan's humanoid body. Once there, the magical circles of Leviathan encircle her and markings appear on her skin. A steering wheel made of runic figures appeared in front of her and she grasped it. "Ahoy Mateys! Shiver me timbers!" Lacus cheerfully shouted as she steered the demonic battleship Leviathan and sailed straight into the battlefield.

"Well… well… I have to say it… that princess is one heck of a girl." Kira whistled in awe. But that awe vanished quickly when Kira noticed something was wrong. "Hey… why… isn't she slowing down?"

Indeed, the Leviathan continued to sail closer and closer towards them… faster and faster, without ever slowing down. Worse… its altitude is quickly decreasing… Kira quickly realized what's about to happen. And as expected… the ship crash landed right ON TOP of him, nearly squeezing Kira flat by the millimeters. But worse, the crash generated a cloud of snowflakes and an enormous explosion of icicles which Kira barely escaped from with his Shunshin. But one icicle came very close to piercing his heart before they break apart to cold steam. When the danger passed, Kira exploded. "That's it! I knew it! She really is trying to kill me! I TAKE IT BACK! THAT BITCH WITCH IS THE MOST DANGEROUS CREATURE alive within 100 MILES!" Kira roared angrily.

Back in the sanctuary, everyone can hear Kira's roars of profanity. Lamia had to regretfully and silently agree to that.

"Lacus-sama… Shiver me timbers are used when you're in unexpected surprise." An apparition of a sweat dropping Levi appeared and corrected her master. "And please allow lady Lamia to take control. You are anything but an able seaman."

And for that comment, a sulking Lacus back away while mumbling a little something about able seaman and she's a woman not a man, and Lamia took control of the wheel, and effectively the Leviathan. The Leviathan floated out of the iceberg and menacingly faced the S.O.F. Its fins constantly moving in a rhyme, as if the giant fish is swimming in the sky.

Hao's eyes widened. The Onmyouji inside Hao quickly recognized the dire situation. 'That's another Greater Daemon… Megido the Carrier of Hell's wheel, Leviathan the Breaker of Tides? That girl has talents… but she really lacks experience…' Hao merely snarled. "How small."

"Say that after you first feel the temperature of -273.15 degrees!" Lamia/Leviathan, swished her trident. The serpent fish float and bared all her broadside batteries. "Absolute Zero cannon… FIRE!" The blizzard cannons fired a hail of blue energy orb at the Earth S.O.F.

Upon impact, the blue energy ball exploded, unleashing a spherical ice cold blue shockwave that froze everything inside the sphere. With one barrage, the giant Earthen S.O.F. was turned into an iceberg formed of a mass of gigantic balls of frozen air. Lamia looked with satisfaction at her handiwork for a moment… but then that smile vanished when the iceberg began to crack inside out.

"-273.15 degrees… the temperature of absolute zero. The Temperature where entropy is at the lowest." And then the ice finally breaks, revealing Hao's method of survival: S.O.F. had now turned to plant-like state. Its bodies are now mostly formed of wooden roots, decorated with branches and bushes, and even flowers. In particular, its broad shoulder supported several spire-like flowers. And it's incredibly foul smelling. "Eastern Skunk Cabbages. The flower bloomed at subzero state, and it can even generate temperature of 15-35 degrees. Imagine a thousand of enlarged versions of them." Indeed, the wooden S.O.F. is being covered by literally a robe of thousands of such massive flowers. And as he said, they generate incredible heat. But they fall off soon after, having died off freezing. It's a one off defense but, in essence, Hao is still unharmed.

A loud explosion also draw everyone attention and they saw Ace, flaming from head to toe, chasing after Lowe, who doesn't seem to be faring well either, both are jumping from one floating rock to another, trading blows kinda one sidedly (with ace sending most of the blows).

In the distance, the Hive Mother stood watch over the battlefield. But then she grabbed a giant rock, only a pebble to her, and then completely filled it with her dark bile spewing from her arm. And then, just like that, she threw the now pitch black rock straight at the platform where the pilgrims were standing on. The small black rock made a deafening explosion upon impact, scored a crater and knocked the whole platform several meters away from orbit.

And then, from the impact crater something rose up.

Genma knights. Hulks. Evolved ones. Numbering by the hundreds and the dozens.

"Damned monsters…"

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Back to Gino…

The battle between the two zoan had brought his battle to airspace rather far away from the chaotic battleground where the Mother rampaged.

The now demonic two headed human eagle Sabo made a literally one man tennis play with Gino as the ball. He smacked the poor boy to one direction, and while Gino is still flying to a direction, he quickly outflew the battered boy and then smacked him back to another direction, and so forth and so forth. Gino is now a body full of scars. A syringe can be seen sticking out of his chest, where his heart lies. First scratch he gets from that inhumanly powerful talon, one brief moment of consciousness before the Hell began; he managed to follow the instruction and stabbed the antidote to his chest. It has been 3 minutes since then, and after realizing he cannot be infected, Sabo started playing ping pong with him.

Finally, one final swing and Gino was slammed to the ground, barely alive, but still alive. Not an undead. But before he can do anything, the demonic eagle crashed on him and put a foot on top of him, crushing Gino under his immense weight. Amazingly enough, even through all that, Gino is still conscious. His disciplined training as an exorcist had steeled his mettle, and getting squeezed by a few metric tons of weight by the chest only earn him a grunt. What's more, he also noticed something. Zoans had immense physical power and endurance. They are notoriously hard to kill… but… there's also… 'that'.

"The Church had trained you well."

"Cough… gah… that… form… that strength… speed… could it be…" this has nothing to do with the Genma's corruption…

"…yes. The destiny that one day will be yours." Sabo two heads nodded. "Beast Out. I've suffered mine a long time ago. Right before I died. I overused my Zoan abilities… and became a monster. Killing as many undeads I can get my claws on… until I succumb to my own explosions."

Beast Out. The genetic dark destiny that all Zoan type suffer. Continual use of either of the two forms: animal and especially the half animal form will cause one's human form to deteriorate, turning them more animalistic with each usage. At first it was subtle changes and easily disappeared. But after some time, and frequent use of the transformation, the changes will eventually became more apparent and irremovable. Until one day the user simply lose control of their powers completely… and they become a raging monstrosity. An abomination that lose all their rationality and human mind. Just a beast that followed their primal instinct. The more they abuse this power, the quicker the flaw manifest.

Under that assumption, it is logical to think that being corrupted by Genma will made a Beast Out Zoan even more insane. "But you… you… how…?" How come Sabo can control his Beast Out in so lucid of a manner? In fact… Beast Out Zoans are raging monsters. They were unable to take human form ever again… but… didn't he just transform from a human form just now?

"A demon's whim." Sabo admitted. "Apparently the Genma decided I made a more effective killer when I'm sane. After a few decades of insanity, one day I just found my mind intact… while I'm in this form. By that time my head had split to two… and I had become like you saw me today."

"So you're saying… with enough willpower you can even control Beast Out?" Gino's eyes widened. Beast out is the greatest horror of every Zoan users. But there's no question that the power they give is unbelievable. They say the 100 Zoan users who participate in the battle of a Hundred fangs in Africa devastated the Alliance entire military forces numbering in the millions in just one night when they gone beast out. If there's such a way to control that incredible power…

"Don't rush." As if reading his mind, Sabo cut Gino off. "Don't rush young one. You still have time. I'm just saying the possibility is there. But… not like this." Sabo pointed at himself. It is to show Gino, being a demon is not the way. "Never this. I'm sure there's a way. If you walk out of here alive… that is."

"Right…" And Gino slapped something beneath Sabo's foot.

"?" Sabo bent down to look at what Gino has done. Imagine his surprise when his foot literally exploded. "Wait the…" The explosion was such, the force was enough to push Sabo backward, causing the giant demon zoan to fell on his back. Sabo looked at his the bottom of his foot and saw it was charred ash black. 'He blew up my leg… along with himself just to break free from my grasp… what a boy!'

As expected, Gino crawled out of the crater of explosion, worse for wear. But then, fireballs began to rose up. Each fireball has runic encryptions on them. Not dissimilar with the one that belong to Sabo.

"Ho, hoh…"

"What do you expect?" Gino grinned painfully. "I learned everything there's to know about you. Your biography, your life's work… your fighting style… it's inevitable if I implement some of them into my repertoire!" The fireball also changed shape. "And as you can see… I've made some improvements." Gino swing one of his sickle down and the fireball hatched into small miniature flaming bird that chase after Sabo.

"Impressive…" With one mighty flap, the demonic zoan took to the sky as the explosive bird bombs chased after him. "Very impressive." Sabo fly away as the explosive avian continue to follow him wherever he goes. In fact, they speed up as their quarry flew away from them. And with Sabo's immense size, he couldn't outrun the vastly lighter and faster bombs. The Explosive Regent could only dodge one or two of them, while the rest hit him multiple times, causing explosions here and there. Sabo was forced to lower his altitude while Gino quickly take to the skies, this time in his eagle form, coated in flames.

"This is my evolution of your time bomb fireball… Mk.22 Raptor Fireball!"

"Mk.22…? I can just about picture you blowing yourself up several times to get it right."

"Don't get me started." Gino swished his wings once again, and several of the flaming birds of prey appeared underneath his wings. "Try this again!" The eagle bat his wings, sending forth the raptors straight towards Sabo. The explosion regent batted his wings and unleashed his fireballs from his wings. They were noticeably slower than Gino's Raptors, arguably bigger. The two fireballs collided and exploded midair, filling the sky with fire and smoke that obscure the view for a moment. But then, another projectile appeared and headed straight to Sabo. Sabo merely readied his scythe, preparing to cut the Raptor down…

…except the fact that it's NOT a Raptor. It's something slimmer, almost needle-like in appearance, more like stork, with its wings stretched back.

And it went supersonic midflight and flew straight forward at blinding speed towards the unsuspecting Sabo. Sabo brought his hand up just in time as the needle pierced through it. But the projectile actually managed to pierce through his arm and hit one of Sabo's head, fortunately, on the demon half, taking one of its multiple eyes. The needles didn't explode, but Sabo couldn't help to note of how sharp it was, in addition of it being ridiculously fast.

"Supersonic piercer type… Lancer." Sabo, who was still reeling from the attack, turned around to see the now half beast Gino. His two pickaxes are engulfed in white flame… they became fire construct. But they have several winglike protrusion forming along the blade. In fact, the flame changed Gino's pickaxe-like weapon into something similar to Sabo's scythe. Except it's smaller, looked less demonic, and has wings. One scythe was larger than the other, but they are identical in shape. "And THESE are Predator and Reaper!" Gino throw the larger scythe, the Reaper, straight at Sabo, while keeping the Predator in hand.

The Scythe spin straight towards the demonic eagle, forming a disc-shaped chain saw, But Sabo merely readied his scythe. Taking note of the earlier experience, Sabo readied himself for any surprise and as precaution, avoid direct contact. So he rose up his scythe and generated a large fireball at the tip of the scythe, the largest he had ever made. He's going to stop that power with power. "Horaa!" Sabo brought his scythe down and launched the fireball at the Reaper. The two attacks collided, and for a moment, both are competing one another in a showdown of power. Sabo's fireball began to push back Gino's flaming chainsaw.

But then, the wings on the Reaper exploded, unleashing a burst of flames that not only enlarged the chainsaw, but also accelerated its spin. In an instant, the giant fireball was cut in two, but this is nothing Sabo can't handle. In fact, he was expecting this. Once the fireball was split, Gino found himself caught off guard when he suddenly saw Sabo is right in front of him, and the reaper is behind Sabo, missing him completely as it headed towards an empty air. The giant fireball didn't disperse once it was cut in twain, but it was absorbed by Sabo's scythe powering it up. "I'll hand it to you, Gino. Your fireball constructs are far superior then mine. But, you wouldn't think I would put all my chips into long range explosives now would you?" Sabo gritted his beaks. "Exorcismus Diabolus style… Diabolus Venor (Devil hunter)!" His flaming scythe turned all demonic with the mouth of raging volcanic black demon appeared on the scythe.Without further ado, Sabo swung the scythe towards Gino.

Gino growled. "PREDATOR!" The shorter scythe on his hand suddenly let go and in an instant, it spin rapidly around Gino, creating spiraling storm of fire that shielded its master. Sabo's Diablo Venor clashed against the storm momentarily and finally it was knocked back, unable to pierce the defense. But there's something else: the staff of his volcanic scythe cracked. Sabo quickly knew right away it wasn't because of the enemy's superior weapon.

"Predator… I see…"

"Predator is a defensive technique… but… more importantly… it's a weapon breaker." Gino caught the scythe back. "And remember, it's still a scythe… and I'm still an exorcist!" Gino roared. "Exorcismus Angelus Style… Angelus Glorificus!" The white fire gathered around Gino's flaming scythe, turning it into an even bigger scythe, with its blade composed of glowing blue runic figures, and its angelic wings grew more pronounced.

Sabo nodded. And then, the black fiery wings on his back generated even more fire. But this time, menacing balls of black matter explosives drip up from the wings, floating around it. Sabo pluck on of such black matter bomb and as a demonstration, he throw the bomb to a nearby rock. The bomb imploded and suck everything up around it in a small radius. "Black Vortex implosion bomb. The most powerful bomb I've ever made. To honor your achievement, I will kill you with this bomb." Sabo raise his black scythe and tightened his grip. The black vortex bomb went into the scythe, and the volcanic scythe's blade turned into a blade composed entirely of the said black matter. Gino can feel himself being drawn in into the blade. "You understand do you?"

Gino smirked nervously. That thing is like a scythe shaped black hole. Technically, the blade will suck him in. The vortex effect of the blade practically drew Gino towards the blade, denying him the ability to dodge the attack, as he will be drawn into the attack. That's diabolical alright. But he still have one last trick up his sleeve… "Enough talk! This is exactly how it SHOULD be!" Gino jerked his fist upward.

Sabo roared answering the challenge and brought up his black scythe as he dashed forward, intending to put his scythe down to Gino's flesh. In response, Gino shrieked as well and swing his white scythe forward. The two scythes clashed. In terms of power, Sabo obviously overpowered Gino. But Gino has no intention on harming Sabo and vice versa. Why, harming the fighter was never the intent from the very beginning.

'Lord Shadow… I'm sorry!' With another roar, Gino pushed his power to the limit, and the two scythes, black and white, cracked. But alas, Gino's shadowforged pickaxe break first under pressure, and Sabo's scythe gone through, albeit not unscratched. Sabo quickly switched his target from the weapon to the wielder. "This is the end, boy!" Sabo swing his black scythe towards Gino.

But Gino hasn't run out of tricks. He flew up, avoiding the black slash. But as Gino had predicted, the black vortex effect of the scythe brought him back down. He jerked his hand forward, as if reaching for the empty air. But the black vortex mercilessly forced him down.

"Come here!" Sabo roared and generate hundreds of black vortex bombs around him and began sucking some of them to power up his scythe even more, and to create an even stronger pull. It did, and almost instantly, Gino literally plunged straight towards Sabo. Sabo was ready to plant his scythe to Gino's heart…

Instead, Sabo was literally cut diagonally in half in an instant, along with his demonic scythe. "…wha…" Sabo was forcibly reverted back to his human shape, and his widened eyes looked at Gino… who just cut him with… nothing but bare hands?

Sabo narrowed his eyes trying to figure out what the hell just happened, he began to catch a shape… Gino was holding something with both of his hands… the distorted air formed the shape… something like a pole-arm… and then it hit him. 'An invisible scythe?'

"Stealth type… Spirit the Invisible Fire." Holding his returned and invisible Reaper Scythe, Gino grinned in satisfaction. "A fire so hot it was invisible. Melts through EVERYTHING." When he reached out to the sky, he was in fact catching his Reaper Scythe who was flying back to him after its failed attack. Of course, Gino had tinkered with it before he threw the scythe earlier so that it returned as Spirit scythe, an invisible fiery scythe. Which means, he planned all this from the beginning.

But, it did more than just cut Sabo in half. His arrays of black vortex fire-bombs are still floating around the airspace…

Armed and ready to explode with or without Sabo's consent.

Gino quickly transformed into his eagle form and flew away as fast as he could away from the danger area, and a second later, all the black vortex bomb Sabo had prepared beforehand imploded, engulfing Sabo at the center. Gino screeched as he furiously bat his wings, trying to escape the pull caused by the implosion. "KrAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHH!!" Several pieces of his armor were ripped off their frames as they were sucked into the implosion. After a moment of attrition, Gino finally break free from the gravitational pull and he managed to fly away safely just as the implosion began to died down. Though the act left him severely exhausted, and Gino was forcibly returned to his human form.

Gino pant and gasped. He checked his heart to make sure he's still alive. His heart still beats. He had already passed the time allotted for his limited immunity, but by thunder, he managed to defeat Sabo without getting injured again! Gino paused that thought. He did defeat Sabo… right?

To make sure of it, Gino crawled back to where he flew away just now. When he saw that area, there's a gigantic, deep and misshapenly spherical crater where his and Sabo's battleground once occurred. Laying at the center of the crater… much to his disbelief, was Sabo, still alive, but his lower half was gone, with one arm was blown out and the other arm was pretty beat up but intact. Gino gritted his teeth and descended into the crater to try somehow deal the finishing blow.

As he looked down upon his great Grandfather, he noticed something awkward. Sabo was looking at him… but there's something different in the way he looked at him. He seem… lucid. And he didn't regenerate or anything…

"Here to deal the finishing blow?" Sabo coughed. "If this was normal condition I would gladly let you end my misery… but you can't kill me. Believe me, I tried."

Gino put down his pickaxe. He didn't have that right from the beginning. "…you… were helping me didn't you… you… just now… you told me you died… when you have your own explosions shoved into you… in short… you were killed by a misfire…" Gino finally understand. "And now… you… you're…"

Sabo nodded. "Inferno Knights were once top of the crop Fire Knights and Exorcists… we died by various methods. But our will… our ego… they survived thanks to our above the norm mental fortitude. And even in death, we still refused to bow down… We were nothing like those Genmas. Yes we still consume each other… but our ego was too strong to be contained. Our bodies maybe undead… but our hearts, our minds, our humanity remained intact… at least for a while. Some of us even think of using our newfound undeath powers to aid our brethren during the pilrgimage…" As Sabo continue to talk, more and more he sound like a human. No longer cold or emotionless. "We were too naïve. We started under the desire to do good. But one by one… we all finally fall to the hunger… to the enslaving will. As time went by and our body deformed, we lost our humanity… we forget our morale… our will. We kill and eat, kill and eat… until some of us just… lose it… and became no more different than the monster we set out to oppose. The only way we can regain a semblance of our humanity enough to fight the thralls of the demons… is to have us experience our first death… again."

Gino nodded in understanding. Powerful as these Inferno knights maybe in life, the fact that they are now undead was the proof that they were felled somehow, somewhere. "So in order to kill you we have to… kill you exactly the same way you were killed when you were alive."

"Not kill us. But stun us. Paralyze us. Disable us. Choose your own terminology. We never forget the moment of our death. If not on conscious level, we'll always remember it subconsciously." Sabo frowned, remembering very clearly how he died. He was on a beast out, he was dying but a breath away turning into Genma, so he blew up his own explosive to take out as many Genma with him. Wasn't pretty… "But basically… it served as some kind of shock therapy that jog our humanity back to the surface… and with it… we can hold these demonic impulses at bay… the conflict between our humanity wrestling with the demon for control of our body, to say nothing of the damage you inflicted… will cause us to be unable to take any actions. But it won't kill us. Just stun us." Sabo shook his head. "…and it'll be temporary. In time, Mother will enforce her control over us again, and then we will be once again under the thrall."

"What if we destroy your bodies? Completely destroy it till there's nothing left?"

"Even if you did… the mother will simply suck our souls… and then transplant it back to a new more inhuman body." Sabo mourned. "It's not like we Inferno Knights cannot be destroyed. It's just that even if you destroyed us… the Mother will simply use her dark powers to wrench our souls away. I suspect she had already done sucking all the souls of the Inferno Knights who were drowned in that chasm awhile ago. It won't be long before she spawned them all back out. But…" Gino chuckled. "Inferno Knights are very hard to control. We are powerful because of our lingering humanity, but we are harder to maintain because of it. Not to mention that it took a lot to… 'build'… us. Remember, High breed Genmas are formed from fusion of Genmas. For everyone one of us… that's thousands of Knights sacrificed to breed us. That's why the Mother was furious when thousands of us were massacred in an instant."

"…what kind of monster is that… 'Mother'?" Gino swallowed a gulp in horror as he looked at the rampaging demoness. "Is she the true form of the Genma? The Mother of all Demonkind in this world?" Gino looked at his ancestor.

"Imagine like you're being chained tight. So tight, your body was completely rendered immobile, you couldn't even lift a finger. And then some day, someone unlocked one of the chains that shackled you. Say, he removed the shackle to just your hand. What would you do? Instinctively?"

Gino thought for a moment, imagining himself to be in that sort of position. "…I'd… probably be trying to use what little freedom I have to try to make sure the rest of my body also be freed." Gino answered.

"Yes. That's what mother is …the Mother… is a fragment. A piece that managed to slip away. Just a piece… but it tried to break the rest free."

Gino paled at the explanation. "A… Are you saying… that the Mother is actually a part of an even bigger devilry?" Oh my god. They had this much difficulty just to handle the mother, and she was just a fragment? "But… wait… a demon… in Junius? How… can there be a demon of that kind of power here?"

"…the mother is a piece of a demon that was sealed here. It was a demon that was supposed to be summoned back during the Bloody Valentine. But it was locked away." Sabo began explaining the truth to Gino. "Genmas were merely fragments… a spillover. Like droplets of sweat or spits from mouth or even scrape of toenail, or even blood cells in the bloodstream… we're just that insignificant, compared to the Mother's true progenitor."

"Are you saying… that Junius… is a prison?"

"A truth we all understand, after we became what we are." Sabo nodded. Then he began to feel something. His body… it began to corrode. Crumbling away. He smiled. "The Mother was sealed down by the holy powers you called Sanctuary. But that power is beginning to corrode as of late. I just said the mother is like an arm that was tied by chains… but those chains are rusted and corroded. Given time, she would've broken free eventually."

"But that was not what you said. You said she was unchained. So who was it? Who unchained the arm?"

Sabo smiled bitterly. "…I cannot speak the name. Even if I want to. The same person who had unlocked that mother… was also responsible for this." Sabo pointed his chest, where the empty cavity where his heart once lay can be seen. "…the Mother… created us… that much is a given. But she wasn't creative enough as to pluck our heart out to counter the creation of Shadowforged Weapons. Our heart was taken from us because it was aware that if the Shadowforged Weapon reached our hearts, the anti genma 'poison' will hit straight into our bloodstream. So in a shallow counter… our hearts were taken out."

"It was taken." Gino repeated as if to make sure he understood the meaning of that statement. "…someone… in response to Shadowforged Weapons… took your heart." And then Gino continued to further understand the full gravity of what Sabo had just told him. "And that same someone… was the one responsible for unshackling a piece of God Knows what kind of demonic abomination… that is the Mother?" Cold sweat trickled at the back of Gino's neck. Someone… is summoning another demon… here?

Seeing that Gino had fully grasped the severity of what he just implied, Sabo realized his time is short as he can feel his strength is leaving him. '…you want to shut my mouth? Heh. Do whatever you like, you won't be able to stop me from telling the clues to the truth!' "Ace was killed by a Volcano Logia. Got a hole punched through his chest by a fistful of magma. The Magma burns his fire, see." Sabo quickly break it down of the way the Inferno Knights died. "Hao died after a lethal mental backlash of his S.O.F. being destroyed. That monster maybe powerful, but it took a considerable strength of will to maintain, the larger it gets, the larger the mental backlash."

Gino looked at Sabo, who lightly smiled at him. Now he saw the face of his Great Grandfather in that smile.

"I don't know about Brera, unfortunately. He's new. Came last year. And Ray Yuki… well… I didn't know about it either. He kicked our asses without us being able to lay a finger on him. As expected of a Hakutenkun. Truth be told we were quite surprised when the next time we saw him, he was the Lifeless Lord." And then Sabo struggled to hand over something to Gino. His scythe. Its pole-arm handle was broken in half and the blade is in tatters, but as Gino came to notice… it was actually a splendid scythe. So splendid in fact that even at its battered state, it's still sharp and fully capable of being used as the weapon it was intended for. Even better than the one he used. Sabo clicked a switch and the scythe blade folded in, turning back into his familiar harmless cue-stick-albeit broken in half. "Think of it as a… late gift from your great grandfather… you may need to fix it up though. But even damaged it's still deadly. Our family's heirloom. I took it when I left. Use it. It's called Tristan."

"Tristan? You know, we have cannons named as Tristan."

"WHA~AT? We have cannons now? Damn it! Do you have any idea what they had me do back in MY day?" Now Sabo moaned truly like a human.

"Don't start talking like an old man now… wait… you ARE old." Even Gino start to see the resemblance between himself and his predecessor.

"Tell me one thing. I don't know what our family did to you but… you didn't leave our family… unscathed… do you?" A wide grin broke out on Gino's face. He knelt down and whispered a few short sentences. Sabo's bewildered look turned to muffled snickers. He tucked his head to Gino's as loving gesture. "That's my boy."

"I'm going, Gramps." Gino knelt one last time before Sabo's broken form, and then he took to the sky, leaving the smiling and satisfied Sabo. It's nice to know at least ONE of his descendants is doing well.

As he saw his flesh and blood flew off in the distance, Sabo began to slowly light up… until he was engulfed in black purple fire. Sabo smiled and embraced his end peacefully. He has done what had to be done.

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Back to the battlefield, the pilgrims were battered time and again with wave of wave of relentless attack from the Mother. The Mother now actively and telekinetically hurled one gigantic rock after another towards the pilgrims, in addition of continuously summoning up more grunt soldiers. Lamia had to use Leviathan's cannon to shoot some of the biggest rocks flying their way while Kira erected multiple stone fortress walls to defend against several relatively small ones. But the Mother can easily flay the walls off with impunity, and Kira's strength is at its limits. The Shadowforged Exorcists has no trouble dispatching all the extra knights the mother is throwing at them. The small area of their platform worked to their advantage, as the Exorcists excelled in close to mid range combat. But the frequency is increasing with each rock the Mother threw at them, with the overwhelming numerical superiority is taking their toll on their stamina. All this was made worse by the fact the remaining two Inferno Knights intensify their attack and bombard the pilgrims with streams of fireballs and rock balls from the distance. Lowe tried as best as he can to counter some of these attacks, but… it wasn't enough.

So it was to Kira's great relief when a salvo of holy fire firebirds suddenly landed on the two knights as well as a new batch of Genma knights that just rose up, slaughtering them en masse, halting their relentless onslaught momentarily. Kira turned around and saw Gino coming his way in his eagle form. "Gino?

"I'm back!" The phoenix knight grinned.

"Gino? What happened to that…?"

"I beat him up!" Gino grinned. "Listen! I know how to defeat them!"

"You know how to… SERIOUSLY?" Finally. A way out. "Okay. Break it Gino! How do you defeat the Inferno knights? ArgH!" Kira grunted when Ace sent another flaming fireball his way and nearly roasted his arm off.

"They're dead now, but they were once alive." Gino began to explain his findings to Kira and the other Pilgrims. "Hitting the heart won't do, they don't have a heart to pierce through."

Kira nodded. He had his suspicion ever since that fight with the bogus Lifeless Lord. "So we have to destroy their whole body? Dip them into the Sanctuary lake? That's not going to work on Hao…"

"Sanctuary Water can destroy their bodies. But it'll do so slowly. And even if we destroy their bodies, their soul will never be free."

"What?" Kira looked in horror to Gino.

"The moment their body was completely destroyed, the Mother simply wrenched their souls out and then transplanted them into a new body, respawning them again and again." Gino quickly moved to the important point. "The only way to stun them… to debilitate them without killing them… we have to kill them the same way they died the first time when they were still alive."

Kira nodded in understanding. "Good. That's just about the brightest idea I heard all day. So… time to jog your memory in history lesson. How did they die?"

Gino grinned. "Ace died by having his chest holed by a fistful of magma. Hao died of a lethal mental backlash when his Shikigami was destroyed. I don't know about Brera or Lord Yuki though."

"Brera's gone. Bisected him and then throw his pieces into Babylon's jaw. And now that you told me… it didn't do shit. Fine. We'll burn that bridge again when it comes. We'll focus on the small ones first. Let's start with the big one." The big one being Hao. 'Died of a mental backlash?' "Lacus! How do you cause a mental backlash to an onmyouji?" Kira turned to Leviathan, as in Lacus. But before the princess can answer, a giant flaming fist battered the platform again. It came from Ace.

"I'll hold him off while you guys concentrate on Hao!" Lowe gulped and charged forward, heading straight at Ace, dodging fire fists heading his way. "RAAAGGH!" Lowe roared and fearlessly crashed onto Ace and pushed him off the rock and into another platform, brawling and wrestling with the flaming knight.

With the fiery artillery attack partially stopped, Lacus answered Kira's question quickly. "One way is destroying the Shikigami. It took a significant amount of mind power to allow spiritual being to physically interact with the corporeal world. The act alone would drain a lesser onmyouji's soul!" Lacus gulped.

"You control mega demons in form of cute tidbit pets! In fact you control 12 of them!" Kira argued.

"My Shikigamis are different! They're tinier, cuter, and obviously weaker (at least until I unleashed their demons)! And they're for widget purpose! The amount of spiritual energy needed to maintain them is so small that I can do all 12! BUT they're nothing like the S.O.F.! That thing is a force of nature made manifest!" Lacus argued back. A Shikigami of that size… that's impossible for her.

"But… Lord Shadow has been filling that creature full of holes and we have done more than just destroying it, we blew his head off and… and…"

"We're not doing enough damage." Lacus explained. "A Shikigami's strength is dependent on the strength of mind of its user. Hao must've kept control of just how much spiritual energy he poured into maintaining that Shikigami, making sure that even when damaged or destroyed it is still within acceptable burden to his mind."

"Okay… so you're saying the bigger the Shikigami the bigger the backlash will be?"

"It's not that simple. We have to disrupt Hao's concentration. Basically we have to catch him off guard, destroy his Shikigami when he least expected it."

"Good. Okay, one last question… can you switch back to Megido in an instant or do you need some time inbetween?"

Lacus blinked upon hearing the awkward question. Lamia looked at Lacus, waiting for an answer. "Actually… I still need to chant the phrase to summon. I can instantaneously cancel my summon at any time though. Still, I can only bring one at a time. Why?"

"Okay. Lacus, maintain Leviathan for now. Prepare to summon Megido on my signal." Kira looked at Leviathan's features. She's truly a ship. She even came complete with a pair of anchors and chains. "In the meantime, I hope you don't mind if I borrow your ship?" Kira looked at the looming Leviathan.

Lacus nodded to Lamia. Lamia spin the wheels and the battleship Leviathan descended slightly. Her tail swing around and stopped before Kira, who calmly get on the said tail, and the Leviathan lifted him up and landed him next to the base of her upper fin. Leviathan's faceless mask looked at Kira. And then, the runic circle beneath Lamia's feet vanished, and they appeared beneath Kira's. A wheel made of runes appeared in front of Kira. "Master Kira, my chair's your chair sir."

"Thanks." Kira timidly took control of the wheel. This will be the first time he had ever taken control of a ship. With the Archangel he was just… on with the flow. "You'll have to forgive me if I hit into things. I never steered a ship before."

"Relax, lad. I'll help ya out." Leviathan giggled a reply.

"Alright… let's start with… other than those Absolute Zero cannons what other weapons do you have?"

"I have Steamchaff and Tsunami Torpedoes."

"Steamchaff… and Tsunami Torpedoes? Okay. I don't know what the hell that was, but I know that's water. Arm them all. Leviathan, you do exactly as I told you… this might be a bit gross on your part. But be ready to do what I say the instant I tell you to. Timing is the key here."

"Aye, aye, captain." The cannons on Leviathan's underbelly cocked and her scales extended out slightly. Her gills opened up.

"Attagirl. And you two…!" Kira addressed Lamia and Lacus. "You might wanna get down, things are about to get REAL wild."

Lamia consented and hopped down. Lacus look down and paled at the height. She finally gulped and jumped.

"FULL SPEED AHEAD!" At the same time, Leviathan started sailing forward at full speed towards the SOF at full speed.

…without realizing that Lacus was snagged on one of her fins.

By that time, Hao had realized the enemy has finally changed tactics from defense to offense. Upon seeing it was Kira who's directly at the helm and not Lamia, Hao quickly realized something was afoot. Putting aside the fact he couldn't fathom the reason as to why Lacus was dangling on one of Leviathan's rhyming fins, he quickly regenerated his SOF and prepared to fight. The Mother also ceased her disparate bombardment and focused her attention to Leviathan. Ace realized the Leviathan target is Hao, but he dare not to try to challenge a Greater Daemon head on, so he remain on standby.

"What is he up to now…? I better take no chances… Maintain Wooden Disposition and…" The wooden SOF slammed the ground and began draining the earth. The SOF enlarged and this time, it was also added with Razor Sharp rocks on the fist, and dirt also covered a part of the body, merging with the wooden roots. The SOF grew in size that it was almost twice as large as the Leviathan.

"Earth… and Wood… both are elements that react well with Water… fine. Maintain full speed and direction."

"Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean…"

"Levi? What did I tell you?"

"…sir yes sir." And so Leviathan maintained her direction and speed. The Earth Wood SOF began to lumber forward. Its movement seems to have slowed down. This is exactly as Lacus had explained, and this is what Kira had expected. Seeing him at the helm, Hao dare not to underestimate him, and so he took precaution and made his SOF more sturdy. But at the same time, it also made his Shikigami more difficult to maintain, hence the decrease in speed. And that's exactly what Kira needs.

"Umm… Captain Shadow… errhhh…" It was then Levi noticed an eerie extra weight on one of her fins.

"Yes?"

Kira turned around and saw Levi is looking to her left. What's more, back on the rock where the pilgrims were stationed, Lamia had just realized who was missing from the group and gone hysteric. Seeing that, Kira get one mind blowing realization. "What are you doing here… YOU STUPID BITCH WITCH!?"

"I GOT SNAGGED, OKAY!" Lacus yelled back in response as soon as Kira and Levi finished pulling the stowaway up upon the deck. "Plus, you forgot something! Something very important!"

"What?" Kira was somewhat alarmed, wondering did he leave something behind.

"This."

And Lacus placed Leviathan's Privateer hat on Kira's head.

Leviathan stopped midway to digest the look.

"…"

"…"

"It looks bad."

"I agree, bad idea."

Hat removed.

And that's all the fuss. And she turned away, intending to leave.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" Kira burst into rage and was about to do some further mischief to this god-help-her-idiot-is-an-understatement of a girl.

But then, a rock ball hit the Leviathan's side, momentarily knocked it off course. Lacus was knocked off balance and nearly fall. But Kira instinctively extended his hand and caught the princess midfall and pulled her back up.

"God Damn it! We can't turn back now." Kira groaned. "Find some cover, I don't care where. Find some cover!"

Lacus grumpily did as told and hide behind Levi's largest dorsal fin. The Leviathan maintained its course. The gigantic SOF easily shadowed the Leviathan. His massive arms encircle the serpentine whale, caging her. Both of SOF's arms transformed and they became a pair of gigantic blades of stone. Even the Tidebreaker began to fell rather nervous. What was Kira thinking? "Ready to maneuver on my command."

"And where exactly I should be maneuvering to?" Kira quickly whispered to Levi's ear. Levi paled behind her faceless helmet. "Oh… that is gross."

"You're not going anywhere." Hao concentrated again, and the SOF began to form an orb of black matter at his chest. The orb began to draw things towards it. It's a gravitational anomaly. Not dissimilar with Sabo's black vortex bomb. The Leviathan was pulled towards the SOF. Already heading straight towards the earthen shikigami in the first place, it simply accelerated Leviathan's cruise speed even further.

"Get ready…" But Kira smiled. Hao used the gravitational anomaly to limit and disturb his movements. He thinks he will maneuver Leviathan in an unpredictable way. Well… he's right about one thing.

The Earth Wood SOF raised both of his blades, preparing to crush the Leviathan.

"Wait…" The Leviathan cruise ever faster towards the black core of the SOF.

The wooden muscles of the Earthwood SOF bulged.

"Wait…"

Everyone held their breath…

"Wait…"

And with that, the Earthwood brought down his earthen blade towards the Leviathan.

"HARD TO LARBOARD!" As planned, the Leviathan quickly took a dive forward to the portside without slowing down. The gravitational pull from the SOF's gravity core simply accelerated her speed even further. The entire battleship throttle forward into a blur, missing SOF's blade by the inches. It slithered straight towards the SOF's armpit (hence why it was gross). "HARD TO STARBOARD!" Kira slammed the wheel to the right, and the whale literally slingshot using the SOF's gravity core, the Leviathan slithered around the SOF at incredible speed, entwining it in an instant. The Gravity Core of the Earth SOF backfired, and it pulled the Leviathan, already tightly wrapped around the SOF's spiritual flesh, even deeper to the core. Leviathan's starboard side battery of the Absolute Zero cannons sank deep into the SOF.

Hao gasped upon seeing all the cannons are pointing towards him. "Wh…"

Before Hao can recover, Kira yelled."Let's put some ice into this mother f-"

"FIRE!" Leviathan and Lacus shrieked. And with that, Leviathan unloaded everything at point blank range: Absolute Zero cannon and her scales which are the Tsunami Bombs. In an instant, the EarthWood SOF was filled with ice explosion. The Tsunami Bomb exploded inside it and unleashed a monstrous amount of water. The Shikigami bloated up uncontrollably at a very rapid rate. With a single salvo, the muscular SOF turned into a bulbous obese monstrosity. "RELOAD! RELOAD!" And Leviathan do so in a blink of an eye. Lacus shrieked as well. "FIRE AT WILL!" Second salvo, third, fourth… and so forth and so forth. The Earthwood SOF was force-fed with so much water that it began to overflow. But it was even worse due to SOF's current elemental state: Wood that absorbs water, earth that also sucks water. The SOF was forced to absorb all that water until it resembled a balloon and grew too strong whether it wants to or not.

Hao got the worse of it. His SOF absorbed that entire water element; it grew explosively too powerful, or more like, too huge in too short of a time for Hao's mind to handle. Not to mention he clearly did not expect this to happen. His mind are now stressed out just to maintain his overpowered (in a bad way) Shikigami. So much so that to maintain it is all he could do. But now Hao understood what Kira was up to. He has no intention of destroying his SOF. He wants to overload it. Using monstrous amount of water, he wants to enlarge his currently earthen level of SOF beyond what his mind can control.

One last salvo, and finally Leviathan can un-strap herself away from the bloated obese SOF. But Kira wasn't finished. The Leviathan swung her tail and wrapped itself on SOF's obese head. Kira spin the wheel and the Leviathan dashed forward, dragging the bubbly near spherical SOF behind her. Once they reached the agreed distance, Kira shouted. "Release the Steamchaff!"

"Are you sure this is the first time you steered a ship?" Leviathan had never seen someone controlled her with such expertise. She let go the SOF and unleashed a massive cloud of steam that obscured the view. The SOF lumber forward blindly, completely out of Hao's control. And then, before Hao can regain control, Leviathan's anchor chains tied to the rocks, courtesy to Gino and the other pilgrims, appeared right under him out of nowhere, and the obese SOF tripped and collapsed with a loud crash. The SOF was rendered completely immobile, wrapped in chains. Partly due to its obese shape, partly due to the overtaxing mental burden its user endured.

Veins popping out of Hao's forehead as he gritted his teeth in stress. He could maintain his Shikigami… but barely. Being undead spare him the physical stress. Not mental ones!

Leviathan quickly wrapped her tails on SOF's head and she began spinning around at a very rapid pace, pulling the giant bloated monstrosity into a swirl.

"LACUS! TAKE THE WHEEL! KEEP SPINNING!" Kira suddenly let go of the wheel while the Leviathan is still spinning and Lacus, in shock, quickly and rather clumsily took control. Kira rushed towards the tied up SOF and jumped over it as he stood over the SOF's bloated stomach, nailing his feet to the curveous stomach with Chakra.

"You think you've won?" Hao muttered. He's right beneath where Kira's standing. "You think I'll do harm to Mother even when the SOF were of this size? She'll barely feel anything, and I'll just turn SOF into water and be prepared to face the wrath of the most dangerous-"

"As I understand it…" Kira cut Hao short. "There's more water than either wood or earth in there. You haven't absorbed them all, have you?"

Hao blinked. True. There's so many water here that his earth and wood could barely absorb them all.

"You're an onmyouji. If two equal forces clashed one another… two equal forces but of completely opposing nature clashed one another. What will happen?"

Hao's eyes widened in realization of what Kira has done. Planted deep inside the bloated watery Earthwood SOF, fired inside him through one of Leviathan's salvoes… was one of Lacus' Haro… specifically… the Red Haro Megi. His Shiki transformed into the Midori Shiki and he began charging the arrow to full power.

"LACUS! LET GO!"

"HUH?" In panic, Lacus wasn't sure what she should be doing, luckily Leviathan understood and let go the SOF, catapulting the bloated monstrosity towards the Mother's direction like a giant cannonball. The giant SOF spin out of control towards the mother at incredible speed, despite its massive size.

Leviathan now understand what Kira really up to.

"…fire be thy flesh, magma be thy bones…" Lacus has gone ahead and halfway finishing her summoning chants.

"I am the scion of burning inferno and harbinger of smoldering ash…" Likewise, Megi hastily recite her own epithet.

The Mother noticed the gigantic projectile slingshot at her (not knowing the kind of surprise awaits her, and she moved to the side. Kira quickly took action and stomped the spinning SOF hard, bending its course and headed straight to Mother's head, and this time she just can't dodge it in time. Moments before collision, Kira quickly ran and jump away. Kira aimed the arrow and poured almost all of it into that one arrow. Target: Megi… who's already halfway transforming into her full demon form.

"Here's some BONUS!" Kira timed his shot carefully… the arrow is glowing green with all the fire bursting out of its seams.

"Lacus, if you summon Megido, I will… and we…" Leviathan nervously looked the black chasm just below them. If Lacus summon Megido, Leviathan will be forced to revert back to her haro form.

"I pray thee come forth…" Lacus didn't seem to care and continued her incantation.

"…wielder of a name that spureth the flames of hell and layeth ruin on this field…"

The arrow in Kira's hand is on the verge of exploding any moment now…

"MEGIDO, THE CARRIER OF HELL'S WHEEL!" Lacus summoned the Greater Demon of fire, right inside the watery SOF's chest. The Chinese dressed Lacus screamed as her body explosively combust.

At the same time, Kira unleashed Agni Kai and the arrow went straight towards Megi who caught with both hands and smirked.

"Thanks." Megido grinned beastly and then she screamed, finishing up her explosive transformation, and at the same time, absorbing the Agni Kai, which explodes violently.

Fire clashed with Water causing the expected explosive and destabilizing reactive cataclysmic force. The SOF is already like a balloon waiting to pop with a prick. And a greater demon of fire blowing up on its overstuffed belly is more than a prick.

At the same time Midori Shiki unleashed its full power, and Megido absorbs it all. The result of these two powers combined is a gargantuan explosion, larger than anything that Kira had ever imagine. The explosion came with a thunderous noise, the SOF finally exploded just as it collided with the Mother's head. The clash of Fire and Ice blowing up inside him, fracturing and shattering its earthen form to pieces, hot and cold energy burst out of its fractured skin.

Kira quickly transformed his Midori Shiki into the Kurenai Shiki (with a sleeve left) and somehow still managed to fly with it and went straight to the falling Lacus and her blue haro.

"Got you!" Kira caught the Princess mid flight and zoomed as far away as possible from ground zero.

At the point of explosion stampede of blazing lions and freezing school of aquatic fishes literally burst out in a violent explosion, engulfing an enormous amount of area. The blazing Lions and chilly fishes swirl spin around and around, creating blurry swirl of red and blue, a storm of ice and fire that sucks in everything to a single point, a point in between the small space between Mother's face and the SOF, pulling and sucking everything into the center of the storm: a dense core of unstable energies of ice and fire, neither hot or cold, but incredibly destructive. The suction was so strong, it was enough to flay the rocks off the ground, pulling, condensing, flash freeze it and burned it all into a single lump, rapidly growing in size. The wooden SOF and the Mother's head was no exception and they were slapped unto dense core, getting pummeled by flaming green rocks that hammered them as it was sucked into the core.

Lowe, who's still brawling with Ace saw the impending explosion and then swiftly abandon the fight and ran as fast as his feet can carry him, jumping from one platform to another with haste as they are getting rapidly sucked into that core. "Heavy stubbed shoes don't fail me now, don't fail me now, don't fail-… I shouldn't have bought this shoe on sale…" Try as he might, Lowe got sucked in anyway as his body was lifted off the ground. But midflight…

The instability of ice and fire core reached critical mass and finally exploded even more violently than before, causing massive shockwave that travelled at near supersonic speed and blast away all the flames in an instant. Enough force to actually knock the Mother down, with the SOF was torn to pieces by the sheer force of the shockwave – to say nothing of the damage of the whole process that lead up to the mega explosion. Even the gigantic floating mountains around the battlefield were knocked away, others on the ground zero were engulfed in the blinding explosion and consumed by light.

Kira and Lacus barely escaped the explosion, though Kira can feel the destruction is napping at his neck. For a moment, the two were engulfed in the explosion, but a moment later he finally managed to fly out of the danger and landed safely in the middle of the pilgrims, safe and sound, with Lacus and Levi in his arms, albeit a few shades darker.

Gino (and the other pilgrims) who saw the explosion can only utter the word: "Wow."

And then, finally in one final brilliant display of pyrotechnic of lava and inferno, Megido came out roaring from the explosion, the shocked Hao was securely impaled by her Wheelsword before she slammed him to the ground, nailed to his chest, right next to Kira and Lacus.

And just then, Lowe, with his ass on green fire, came flying towards them and he landed right next to Kira. Everyone flocked in and gathered around Kira and Lacus.

"Lowe, you're alright? Yeah I'm fine. I just try to outrun a mini nuclear explosion, got blown away, sucked in, and then got blown up again with my ass on fire. But I'm okay other than a few broken bones. Other than that I'm just peachy. Thanks for asking." And Lowe monologued to himself, hoping anyone would care. No one did, unfortunately. TT0TT

Hao's mouth was opened aghast. But not out of shock of having been defeated in such a way, but reliving his final experience when the mental backlash of the destruction of his Shikigami killed him. Megido twisted her sword to further secure the Onmyouji to the ground, just to make sure and a little sweet revenge. "One down."

"One more to go." Kira looked at the remaining opposition. The Mother was nowhere in sight. Optimistically, Kira would say the blast had vaporized her head. But somehow, he wasn't sure. Shiki turned back to her normal form, and worse… it's all greyed and phased out. But right now, there's another who had just rejoined the fray, namely, Ace. "And he died… by lava to the chest?" Kira frowned.

"Yeah." Gino nodded.

"Well…" Kira looked at the lava dripping Megido. "…this should be surprisingly easy."

Indeed. The pilgrims nodded in understanding. Volcanic lava? They've done that before, haven't they? Shadow has that one jutsu that can do more than just hole your chest with lava.

Ace realized the enemy doesn't seem to be that scared of him anymore. He didn't blame them. Anyone powerful enough to do THAT to Hao and the Mother can probably swat him like a fly. Unfortunately for him, fear of death isn't exactly something Undead feels. And with that in mind, he flared up and began to march forward. Until suddenly, he felt compelled to stop. Ace blinked. And now he noticed it, the Pilgrims also stopped. They were looking at something… or… someone.

Ace turned around and saw what they saw.

A giant road made of tree roots formed over him, crossing the chasm. Riding atop it, was Yuki, sitting on his Meteor… carrying the half dead Andy with his one hand.

The Pilgrims stood transfixed at the scene. They focused on the Mother and Hao, they forget to check the status of the fight between two of Zaft most powerful commanders.

Yuki threw the giant of a man towards the Pilgrims. Andy crashed on the shocked Kira's feet. Another syringe can be seen sticking out of his chest. Indeed, Kira gave Andy more than one dose of his blood. For precaution. Kira knelt down and touched Andy's vein. It's pulsing. He's still alive.

Andy choked upon realizing someone was checking his pulse. "S… Sorry kid… I couldn't… hold him down any longer."

Kira looked up and saw Yuki was gazing down on them. "Hao… Sabo… Brera… and you could've do away Ace too, given time. Impressive."

"Lord Yuki… h… how did you die? Please. Tell us. H…Help us." Kira exasperatedly pleaded in despair.

"I cannot help you, son." Yuki shook his head in sorrow. "You were right that you can debilitate me by killing me the same way I died… but… that solution is impossible for me."

"Why?"

Yuki tucked his head. "I died of exhaustion."

Kira's eyes and everyone's widened. "What?"

"At the end of my life… I fought and fought and fought… I must've put down a thousand Inferno Knights when my body gave in… then I start fighting with my life force. I was already drained dry… when they start hacking my body to pieces… I was already dead." Yuki explained. "…and exhaustion… was no longer possible in my current state."

So that's why Yuki was chosen as the Lifeless Lord. He didn't die getting killed by the hand of others… or any unnatural artificial causes… he literally overworked himself to death! Undead… don't… CAN'T… get tired.

"I'm sorry." Yuki pull out his sword and spear. The spear blade opened up, and he inserted the sword on the gap. Then, he unlatched the spearhead, along with a section of the spear, and then connected the two pieces with his whip. Finally, he placed his wing-like bow on the enlarged blade. The final result… is a nightmarish weapon: held on the pole arm, with a whip extending out from the tip, and a large broad sword at the end of the said whip.

The pilgrims who knew the Grand Knightmaster's signature weapon fell down in despair. "This is it… We're doomed…"

"The weapon that supposedly combined the three aspects of the Emerald Knight's combat disciplines…"

"The Quadra Whip…" Kira frowned.

Yuki swing his signature weapon and lashed them to the sky above the pilgrims. The whip was swung at such incredible speed, for a moment, it looked as if there are hundreds of whips flinging the sky. But then, several whips singled out from the rest and carved, in succession, a trail of fire, water, earth, wood, and steel, creating the shape of a pentagram star made of five elements, floating above the pilgrims. The star began to glow dangerously in the colors of rainbow as five elements began to swirl and mix around.

Kira can only looked on with despair at Yuki and finally closed his eyes in resignation. This is the preparation for Yuki's signature ougi:

"PENTAGON SHOCK!"

And in an instant, everything was engulfed and obliterated without a trace in a single five colored, five elemental explosion.

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The Founding of Orb, part 3

At first, left by their beloved Emperor, the Samurais were clearly confused. Usually, they will either: commit seppuku as proof of loyalty, or became unhinged and turned to a live as a vagabond, a Rounin. Others would simply break off the pack and wander the country on their own. But not so with these samurais. Bereft of Lordship and guidance of their beloved Emperor doesn't mean these Samurais will deteriorate. They are wiser, more mature, and far more mentally stable, though by no means less honorable and courageous, than their previous predecessors who would be so quick to choose self-destructive methods. So at first, they decided break their secret wandering and quietly, and wisely, see the world out of hiding. They're in for a big surprise. A last gift of the Emperor for their service: a new changed world unlike anything they've ever seen. Gathering various intels in secret to bring themselves up to speed with the current events that has been happening, they came to learn that what felt like mere decades for them, their secret wandering had actually lasted for centuries. The Emperor, during their wandering, had somehow shielded them from the natural passage of time. Some of their most veteran warriors had actually aged by the centuries, when they still look in their forties. And centuries is enough time for various horrible deeds of their ancestors to become legend and grudges became forgotten completely. They are no longer held accountable for the deeds of their destructive predecessors. When they introduced themselves for what they really are, they were welcomed with bewilderment at the least, even warm hospitality at the best. This is the Emperor's gift to them: a clean record. A chance for them to repent and absolve the sins of their past.

But the Samurais were also quick to find a series of disturbing changes. Most drastic of all, the Great World Empire is now being ruled by two Emperors system, the Crimson and Blue Emperor. The Samurais are now faced with a world far different than the ones they used to know together with their Emperor. This is the world… where Samurais are legends. That they are the stuff of myths and deviation of mortal imaginations. And that the deeds of the Old Ones, the Onis who had taught the humans everything… were now the stuff of fairy tales… and exaggeration in form of religion, which is based on partial truths… or even utter lies. The Samurais may not realized it, but having survived various battlefields together with Emperor, they probably knew more of the Emperor as a person compared to the other denizens of the realm who worshipped him as an exalted God. And having known the Emperor long enough that some had the honor to be called his best friends, these Samurais realized that the current world… is anything but what the Emperor had envisioned. What the normal people of this era see as common sense… the Samurais see only outrageous distortions, seeds of madness, and blasphemous lies. But it's not like they can just wage war in the name of the Emperor to wipe the slate clean. No. Their current power is but a fraction of their former glory due to their significantly smaller number. They are still powerful… but not powerful enough as to be able to challenge the whole world, as they once did. The Samurais of the old that was once known as the scourge of the world, the destroyers of nations… is gone. For good.

But it's not like they can just accept things and assimilate. And so the Samurais decided to reject this era and remain in wandering while continuously upholding and preserving the values and code of honor the Emperor had taught them, continuously pondering and interpreting the last command of their emperor as they lived the way they had been during the secret wandering, though without the Emperor's blessing, they are no longer shielded by the passage of time and age as humans do. The Samurai's leadership was handed to the 7 Shoguns and 5 Shinobi Clan leaders, the descendants of the first 12 that were handpicked by the Emperor, so many centuries ago. They will remain in wandering, away from the public eye; until they met someone with similar stature with their Emperor worthy of their service. Some of the Samurais decided to leave and serve one of the two reigning emperors when they feel the said emperor are worthy of their service. But the majority of the Samurais as a whole weren't so convinced that this two emperor system was what the White Emperor wished. They foresee that a great division will come soon, and they must choose side. And so they decided to remain unseen… yet continue to see everything.

Several decades later, what the Samurais had feared finally came to pass: a great civil war erupted. Advanced and Naturals, having been on each other's throat for so long finally decided on an all out war with each other. The war at first was won by Naturals, who possess the military supremacy at the time. And so began the long years of the bloody Holocaust. During this purge, the ranks of the Samurais surprisingly swelled up like never before, but this time, mostly came from the large number of refugees. Civilians. The wandering band of soldiers suddenly became a massive moving civilization. At this time, Kabukimonos, Rounins, and other many estranged sub factions of the Samurais, either in person or the descendants of those who previously did not join the Samurais began to flock together and be reunited with their fellow brethren in order to better their chance of survival in the face of a greater evil. At first, the thirst for revenge raised the voice to join up with Advanced and vanquish the Naturals, the Logos, and their Military arms, the Order of Blue Cosmos.

But a voice was raised from the Attha family, one of the 7 Shoguns who led the Samurais. In his opinion, it won't matter which side they choose. They choose Naturals and Advanced became their enemy. They choose Advanced and Naturals became their enemy. Their army, their group is now a mixture of Naturals and Advanced, many of which had even married and had a family that can no longer fell to either category. Choosing one side will necessitate them to expunge the other half of their people. A division arose. Some choose to side with Naturals, others choose to side with the Advanced. Arguments began to rise and neither side is willing to give in. And so the Last Samurai break apart, 2 shoguns left with their Shogunate to join the faction they deemed right, leaving the remaining 5 Shogunates to work together with the 5 Shinobi clans. They came to realize that the Emperor was indeed irreplaceable. They then swore an oath to dedicate their lives to uphold and preserve the Emperor's ideals in their own way, by standing neutral. Finally, the Leaders of the Last Samurais agreed that if they can't serve a faction, they might just as well create their own.

Under the cover of the chaos that ensued during the Holocaust, and later, the Foundation War of Zaft led by George of Glenn, the last Samurais consolidated their powers and created an alliance with likeminded nations. The Scandinavian Kingdom, ever the close friends of the fierce Samurai warriors was the first to join the alliance, followed by Russia. The Mongolians managed to finally set aside their differences and rivalry with the Samurais to see the greater good. By the time the war of the founding was nearing its end and the creation of the first Plant Continent, and then when both Advanced and Naturals were devastated by the Collapse, a new nation, a massive superpower nation suddenly emerged to the shock of the two factions. Adopting the isolationist doctrine (though less stringent) on its borders, with its capital in Onogoro, Japan and the breadth of the nation reached as far as northern part of Asia and Europe, protected by an army of legendary super soldiers, the Samurais and Shinobis, its seas were guarded by steel vassals of the most powerful navies in the world… the United Emirates of Orb was born.

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Remember what I said about Fuji is NOT my version of Destroy gundam? Well… that's because it's a role I reserved for the Hive Mother, AKA Harlot of Babylon.

And has everyone noticed that Kira is now the reverse traditional masked character of the gundam series? Reverse by that I mean that every masked character in the Gundam series cover their eyes and left their mouth open with white mask (often times it also cover the nose and the entire upper portion of their head). But with Kira, it's the reverse: he's dressed all black, and covered his mouth and forehead but not his eyes, all in black garments. Any of you noticed that? Smile, smile