"Tiamat," Enki said as he stared upwards at the oceanic goddess. She was over twenty metres tall at the moment, but when she saw him she began to shrink to match his size. 'Things have not gone well here', was the thought that rushed through his mind as he saw the final flickers of life leave the most heroic of the Dead Apostle Ancestors. He gave a respectful nod to a man who had done nothing but good for this world and he scanned the area, immediately seeing the bodies of the other two. Narbareck was also dead; a fact that Enki took no joy at all in seeing. Despite her unpleasant demeanour and love for perpetuating violence the first head of the Burial Agency was a hero that would always act in the interests of Humanity and the Church. Aoko was alive but tired; an overuse of the Fifth Magic seems to have rendered her almost comatose, again. It was a bitter and yet necessary cost; two of mankind's strongest defenders dead and one comatose and all to hold off the goddess for thirty minutes. Still in keeping her occupied for those thirty minutes they probably saved millions of lives.
All in all the obliteration of Kingu had taken under one tenth of a second. As soon as he felt the familiar taste of foreign authority used EA to break through the texture of the world and instantly teleported to the forming god. Kingu had always been a powerful god. As Tiamat's general, as the god whose blood gave birth to humans and as the god who had the capacity to take over as the leader of the gods he had a tremendous amount of authority, probably not that far away from his own. Still no matter his power he had barely even reached the form of an infant and thus Enki immediately took advantage of his foes incorporeality; striking him down and dispersing his essence for the time being.
Enki casually scraped flicked dirt from under his fingernails spawning two Galla demons. These were vagely humanlike creatures with oversized torso and arms and no sexual characteristics. They stood a full three metres and were similar in body makeup to Enkidu. Enki had long used them as hands and feet for specific instances in which he was unable to act directly.
"Go rescue her," Enki said, gesturing with his thumb towards the unconscious Aoko. "Then retrieve the bodies of Zelretch and Narbareck."
They took off but in the very next instant Tiamat dropped to the floor and allowed her feet to touch the land. Naturally the place which she stood didn't stay land for very long as black water burst from the area beneath her feet spreading towards Enki and the Galla. The water coalesced into the forms of various monsters and Enki's eye's hardened. Earlier he had focused almost exclusively on the threat possessed by Tiamat's greatest children forgetting (no, he didn't forget) setting aside the matter of her weaker children that would be automatically spawned by her very presence. While the difference between her greatest children and her weakest was incomparably, the countless numbers of sea borne monstrosities would surely kill more than the gods she produced.
While his Galla demons definitely had the edge in quality, he had no desire to see whether they could overcome the massive quantity of monsters. EA turned once, almost lazily, in his hand and space cracked and rippled erasing the monsters in the span of less than a breath.
"Protect people from her monsters," Enki said shaking his hands and summoning another eight Galla. This time Tiamat didn't allow monsters to go after them; instead she stood there and let the black water expand from the soles of her feet.
"Enki," she said to him in the ancient language, scrutinizing the other god. "It's good to see you again."
"I'm sorry?" Enki replied trying to get his head around that sentence. "We've never met before," he continued, narrowing his eyes at the saltwater goddess.
"Yes, this is the first time that we meet face to face," Tiamat said walking to the side forcing him to turn his head. "And yet don't you think that the impact we've had on each other's lives have been of paramount importance, despite having never encountered each other."
"Is that so?" Enki said, not denying it.
"I warned the younger gods about the threat that my husband posed to them," Tiamat said, speaking over Enki. "Never did I expect that any of our offspring were actually able to kill Apsu. It was an event that was impossible and yet it clearly happened."
"All events are impossible until that happen, Tiamat," Enki said not relaxing an inch. "If it was easy to kill a primordial deity then people would be doing it all the time."
"You cannot understand the fear that coursed through my body as I heard the news," Tiamat said. "Realising my own transience for the first time I was compelled to wipe out the rest of my children. But in the end I was killed by your brother without even the chance to meet with you."
"So that's the form of the myth we're going with," Enki whispered under his breath. "Which lead to my brother being declared King of the Gods which lead to the creation of the humanity, which lead to the downfall of the gods. I truly cannot understate the influence that you've had on my life either Tiamat," Enki said, his voice wary but respectful. "I however fail to see where you're going with this."
'I highly doubt that Enki," Tiamat said. "I'm sure that by this point you must know exactly where this is going. You and I are the same. Both of us are powerful gods. Both of us have created offspring that we dearly love and yet both of us have been gravely betrayed by them. You hold the domain of freshwater and I hold the domain of saltwater. Can you see where I'm going with this?"
"You're hitting on me," Enki said crossing his arms as he eyed up the dragon goddess. "Your husband's killer."
"The gods were given birth when the freshwater and saltwater mixed," Tiamat implored with genuine anticipation in her voice. "We can start again and do it better this time. Descendants that won't bear their fangs at us, that will never disappoint us, that will only love and respect us, forever." She stretched out her hand towards the Mesopotamian god. "We don't have to fight Enki."
"How did humans betray me?" Enki asked. His arms were still crossed and he scrutinized the goddess with eyes that revealed no emotions.
"They stopped worshipping you and the rest of the gods," Tiamat said with some insistence. "Their dismissal of the gods ended our age and forced us from the world despite everything you did for them. If that is not betrayal then I don't know what is."
The freshwater god's response shocked Tiamat. Laughter spilled from his lips and his shoulders shook as his chuckles grew. This continued for a few seconds until Enki stopped taking a breath as he looked at Tiamat with a rueful smile.
"Sorry I shouldn't laugh," he said. "You're entirely correct. We are very alike, but you did leave out one difference. Despite everything we both love our creations don't we." The sea goddess didn't answer but Enki didn't require one. "Do you know the day that Gilgamesh rejected the gods was the happiest of my life," he said shaking his head and ignoring the shocked expression that dominated his adversary's face. "There are a lot of things that I can say about that guy. He's a tyrant, a rapist and an asshole with an ego far bigger than any mortal should have and yet that was the one time that I was most proud of him. His creation was the last chance that the gods had to prevent themselves from fading into myth and they failed spectacularly. From then onwards there was no chance that humanity would go extinct as their powers waxed and the power of the gods waned. Humanity won," Enki said staring down his foe. "My own end is a small price to pay for that."
Only the sound of the waves of the black waters disrupted the silence. In an instant Tiamat stamped her foot on the ground and the Earth shattered beneath her heel. A tsunami washed over the land flattening the few upstanding buildings and heading towards the lone god. Still this much couldn't even be considered an attack. A twitch of his hand and a brief utilisation of his magic and the entire flood [froze]. With a thought he shattered the ice and sent the shards at Tiamat at speeds that were only possible in the age of gods before traditional physics kicked in and capped everybody at 300 000 kilometres per second.
"Have the humans not disappointed you," Tiamat said her voice rising despite her face remaining stoic. Every single one of the ice shards sent her way disappeared as soon as they drew near to her. "All of your principles lie desecrated by the usurpers. I watched as you yourself slew some of them. You cannot still express satisfaction with them."
"You've watched me a long time," Enki said to himself as he thought of the people he had killed. While the majority were dead apostles that had renounced their humanity he would be a liar if he said he hadn't slew his share of unscrupulous magi or even remorseless criminals. "You're entirely correct," Enki said sighing. "Yes humans kill and cheat and steal. They hate and destroy. As hesitant as I am to assign such a vague and subjective a term as evil, I must admit that SOME humans are evil," he said stressing the word 'some'. "But then again some humans aren't adulterers," Shirou continued with a rueful smile. "Some humans are my moral superior. They save and help and give. They love and create. I have faith that someday eventually the goodness of humanity inherent in the species will win." Enki reached up to his head and discarded his golden crown that would only get in the way during the fight. "Until then, I suppose I will just have to save the chaff along with the wheat."
With those words Enki and Tiamat reached their impasse and the fight began. EA flared spinning with its full might and dozens of blue tornados flickered into life around him. They spinning blades of wind casually tore space-time apart but they barely scratched the nubile body of Tiamt when they impacted against her figure nanoseconds later. Her response was instant and would have likely destroyed Enki and Japan behind him if he wasn't prepared. A blast of True Ether with the output of a dozen Holy Grails emerged into being in front of him just as Enki finished up his magic trick, using the fourth True Magic to give an area of space different space-time coordinates. He kept half an eye on the blast of prana as it left the atmosphere, momentarily outshining the dawn sun.
His concentration didn't waver for a moment and he watched as thousands upon thousands of icy arms as large as tree trunks formed and lashed out at him like uncoiling snakes. A word in response and a watery wall formed before breaking into pieces and blocking each of the thousands of the arms individually. Each wall had the concept of [breaking] [time] and [death] removed from them and were imbued with the concepts of [stillness] [durability] and [resistance]. Even still a single wall could only take at most three of those tremendous punches backed up by a god's authority and enough kinetic energy to crack the plates of the world.
This exchange lasted for thousands of milliseconds as each side conjured innumerable amounts of watery structures in an attempt to overwhelm the other. Unfortunately in these situations it is almost always the attacking side that has the advantage and in this exchange it was also the case. A single icy arm hidden in the debris of the shattered others and Enki had an infinitesimal time to brace himself before he was struck with the force of a meter and his body went flying against his will towards the ground below.
The concrete that marked the reaming roads on the relatively intact part of Fuyuki didn't even last for a moment as he broke through the thin surface with absolutely no decrease in his momentum. Hard ground disintegrated before his meteoric descent and he had descended far into the bowels of the world before he got the chance to remove [inertia] from his body allowing him to come to a sudden, impossibly swift, stop in the middle of a sea of molten rock. He was swiftly reminded of the advantages of being a god as the temperatures of thousands of degrees kelvin lead only to a bit of discomfort and a nasty taste in his mouth. With a thought he summoned millions of gallons of water and let it turn to steam in the boiling underground ocean. A slight spin of EA and he subtly manipulated the passage which his body created until it was firmly pointed at the dragon mother and then he forced the massive amounts of water vapour in the surrounds to escape in the only way possible. With the sound of an ocean falling onto solid ground a watery explosion of superheated vapour assaulted Tiamat forcing the goddess to instinctively close her eyes for the shortest time. That brief reflex allowed more than enough time for a crafty god to take advantage of.
The sucker punch he sent was textbook and would have been a devastating blow using only his speed and strength. However he would never let anybody accuse him of not stacking the deck and thus inches before his fist impacted with the face of the Mesopotamian goddess he altered the [mass], [velocity] while speeding up his own path through [time] by use of the Emiya crest that was still attached to his soul. A last focus of authority to the punch and he watched in something approximating horror as the shockwaves from the collision between fist and face exploded in the form of a horrifying burst of sound and light before Tiamat went rocketing towards the centre of the Pacific ocean like a falling star.
EA spun of its own will dispersing the deadly sound waves and Enki shook his hand regenerating all the superficial damage. He had miscalculated his own power with almost devastating results. That single punch rivalled, no exceeded that of the volcanic eruption at Krakatoa, and if EA had not negated the feedback then the rest of Fuyuki at a minimum would have been destroyed if not the entirety of Japan. He blanched as he remembered the impact of Tiamat against the water and he grasped EA again tightly and moved to the sight of the impact spinning and calming the innumerable ripples before they turned into destructive tidal waves. That minor matter occupied just enough his attention that he was barely able to respond to the massive hand composed of black mud that lashed out at his location with speed far surpassing the physically possible. Hurricane winds were created by its passing and once more Enki was forced to use EA again to contain the effects of the battle.
The Pacific Ocean turned black again, this time properly resisting the effects of EA, and Enki watched with some concern as dragons arose from the ocean in swarms. The pinnacle of phantasmal beasts reduced to nothing more than irritating bugs in this battle between supreme powers. Scaled engines of absolute destruction used to stall for time while Tiamat plans her next move. He refused to allow that to happen. Flexing his Authority over both water and the world he summoned countless pillars of ice down from the heavens that skewered the dragons in their dozens. However they were not his concern. Without another thought Enki dove down past the falling lizards and into the black waters below.
Coldness immediately assaulted him as soon as he entered the depths informing him that despite being in water this was not his territory. The tides turned against him and he reacted instantly as the waters bent towards him trying to crush him into paste. The black sea was a disadvantageous environment to him and so he changed it.
"[Freeze]," Enki said his calm voice resounding throughout the water backed up by both the power of the Forth True Magic and his own Authority over water. While Tiamat in theory had equal power over water he could tell that she didn't use it like he did, instead preferring to keep it in her natural state. Black water became black ice and Enki became [intangible] and allowed himself to be pulled by gravity downwards towards the hiding goddess.
What he saw when he reached the bottom was both concerning and disappointing. A modified version of Tiamat over fifty metres tall towered above him. Wings sprouted from her shoulders and her body took on a shade of crimson that reminded him of spilt blood. Her eyes flickered around before settling on his form and then she screamed, a dreadful noise with a high frequency that barely avoided reaching the decibel limit and just becoming a straight up explosion. That is not to say that Enki didn't feel like he was hit by an explosion. As the ice shattered into billions of sharp shards and he was forced backwards by the waves of force. One of the innumerable shards shot towards his eye and he flinched as reflexes he retained from his mortality caused him to blink. That was the worst move as in the next second he was hit by a passing planet and he felt his chest collapse and his organs turn to mush as he hurtled towards an uncertain destination. He never reached it as finely honed senses, only amplified by his watery location, warned him of an incoming assault and he twisted his body lashing up in time to block a massive crimson fist with his own hands.
His organs restored themselves as his body was pushed towards the seabed by the force of the dragon goddesses' punch. Pushing massive amounts [strength] into his body he barely kept his bones from fracturing under the insane force of his opponents punch until he hit the ground hard causing the rocky bottom to shatter and his body to be driven deep into the stony seabed like a nail hit by the world's most dragonlike hammer. Unfortunately he had no chance to even get his bearings as the second of the dragons hands came down.
Enki decided in that moment that he there was no way he could take another one of that and so he teleported the barest instant before her fist broke his body in two. Reappearing hundreds of metres behind her he could only watch as the punch of his giant opponent impacted against the seabed and with a blinding flash of light his body was wracked by a ferocious shockwave and all the water for miles turned to steam. Still that didn't stop him for a moment as Enki gathered the superheated steam coalescing it into a spear of boiling gas and froze.
Enki's face turned milk white as he heard a ghastly crack.
His godly senses clearly revealed that the Pacific Tectonic Plate had a new fissure running through it further than the eye could see and deeper than even he could tell. Enki gulped nervously as he once again came to the realization that they should really, really not be fighting here. Not this location but this planet. Turning on his heel he swam upwards at a speed ignoring Tiamat behind him and launching into the dawn sky. By now all the stars had faded to be replaced by the glory of the morning sun, except for one solitary celestial object. Time slowed down as Enki used both his knowledge as the god of wisdom as well as the knowledge he acquired when he was Shirou as he stared up at the far away object mentally plotting coordinates. The ripples created by the water informed him of the location of the goddess moments before she lashed out at him and he was forced to abandon his mental gymnastics to dodge her hands. The goddess paused when her attacks missed and she retreated. In the next instant a massive surge of True Ether materialised from her hand and Shirou spun EA up, bending local space-time to form a miniature singularity, to meet the all-consuming wave of energy.
For a split second the two were evenly matched and then Enki watched with pure astonishment as Tiamat moved at such tremendous speeds that she disappeared from his sight momentarily and he only managed to recapture her image a millisecond before she was in front of him crushing the singularity with one hand and with the next hand launching another blast of True Ether a few feet from his face.
"Too late," Enki said as he weathered the beam of True Ether, reaching through the blinding red light and grabbing her wrist. Drawing forth the power of the Forth True Magic once again and combining it with his Authority, so that it could actually affect the stupidly powerful dragon, he altered both of their positions to ones on which no man had tread.
In the next instant both gods disappeared from the surface of the Earth.
xxx
'The surface of Venus once you got through the hint of sulphur was a veritable paradise,' was the second though that went through Enki's head. If he was to summarize the appearance of Earth's sister planet he would use the word lush. Countless varieties of exotic and outright alien flora blossomed under the burning heat of the sun and a persistent warm mist hung over the alien landscape giving the air a sticky, muggy feel.
The first thought that went through Enki's head was something along the lines of 'pain, pain, pain, by the gods this hurts.' He hadn't realised the benefits that he had received on Earth until it suddenly disappeared and that coupled with the comparatively low concentration of True Ether made him feel like every one of his cells had been simultaneously punched. Still Tiamat would also suffer from the same drawbacks as him and the lack of True Ether wouldn't massively impede their ability to fight. Venus never developed a race that could deny the existence of the gods and thus there were still no restrictions on them. For a moment Enki contemplated just leaving Tiamat here and allowing her to recreate her own race far away from the race of humans. However a single look at Tiamat was enough to drown that thought, there was no way that she would ever cooperate with her in this matter. Even if he were to teleport back to the surface of his own planet Tiamat would swim back there and he would only have a couple of seconds at most to prepare before the fight resumed. In addition there was a chance Tiamat wouldn't even be able to be killed on Earth. It generally wasn't recommended to fight a god in their own domain and the planet Earth definitely counted as Tiamat's domain, just as much as it did his own.
Suddenly the surrounding vegetation launched towards Enki breaking his from his thoughts and forcing him to expend a slight amount of energy on his surroundings. With a wave of his hand the surrounding vegetation experienced extreme dehydration, turning brown and withered in seconds before crumbling to dust as all the water was sucked out of it. He watched as black water surrounded Tiamat and the native flora of Venus was crushed by the goddess.
That black water then launched towards him and Enki responded blocking the surge with his own wall of water and retaliating with an avalanche of ice. The next few moments could only be described as a torrent of escalation as Tiamat raised her attacks to ever greater heights to destroy the freshwater god. First tides of water, than ferocious whirlpools, then falling icebergs, then massive tidal waves, then abyssal pressure from all directions and then finally an icy meteor that fell from orbit, without fail Enki was assaulted by all of these and he repelled them magnificently using his magic to redirect the force of the damage with little care to the surrounding environment and the results clearly showed. Much of Venus' landscape was destroyed; the luscious forests replaced by miles and miles of desolate wasteland.
Shirou winced as he tore a spear of ice out of his shoulder. That last meteorite that she tossed his way could be compared to the KT extinction event and EA wasn't able to completely stop all the splinters that tore into his body. He repaired his body but the process was noticeably slower on Venus than it was on Earth. Even through all that he refused to take his eyes off the watery goddess and right now he was immensely glad he didn't. Tiamat had once more altered her features and to say Enki was not impressed with the change would be too light of a word. Where once his saltwater counterpart stood now there was only a fierce looking enormous dragon that towered over the surrounding greenery; it's very form was a perversion of Tiamat's motherly femininity. Its very form spoke of power and brutality and there was not one hint of restraint in its visage.
"So that's your answer then," Enki said with frustration in his voice. Abandoning reason and turning herself to a dragon focused only on his destruction. He was not sure if it was the atmosphere of Venus or his constant survival that put Tiamat over the edge, but in throwing away her sanity she also threw away her last chance of survival. From now on there would be no chance of reconciliation and he would destroy her as a dragon. In actuality Enki was weaker than Tiamat. It was an unavoidable truth. He was an immensely powerful god in his own right, somebody who can easily be spoken in the same breath as others such as Zeus, Amaterasu and Odin; however Tiamat was on a different level. The primordial sea was nothing less than the essence of life, the power that gave birth to all the gods. Only by drawing on the Forth Magic was he able to close the distance but he had reached his limit. In the end his limit as a god was fixed and while he had managed to overcome her husband by trickery and surprise the same thing wouldn't work on a mad dragon mother.
"So this is the where I get off," Enki mused to himself as he saw the primordial ocean spread out drowning the impossible vegetation. He leapt above the tides and came to rest on the surface of the water. Scarlet orbs stared up to the towering dragonic behemoth before closing and golden-brown eyes opened upon the scene of the destruction.
"Fuck," Shirou Inke said clutching his chest. "Is this what Type Mercury feels like all the time? I've got to give that mineral arachnid some credit for that at least." A blast of light was the only warning before the space around him disintegrated, turning everything with more than two atoms to rub together into a solitary existence.
"That wasn't very polite," Shirou said as he stood staring at the dragon mother. An instant before he had been hit by the beam of light he had removed the concept of [reality] from his very cells allowing him to slip away into imaginary number space briefly and completely avoid the attack. These higher concepts became almost trivially easy to understand when he completely merged with his past self and a frown briefly crossed Shirou's face when he realised that he wouldn't have the joy of discovering them himself. Still there were plenty of other things that were beyond even the first god of magic's knowledge and he could spend some time discovering them when he wasn't being assaulted by the mother of all life. The last thought spurred him to action and he used EA to block a blast of the black water that Tiamat fired at him. Still the waves came faster and faster as Tiamat focused her entire attention on destroying him until Shirou was forced to pull out another one of his trump cards.
"I would dodge this if I was you," Shirou said smiling at the mindless dragon. Letting go of EA and leaving the tool of his Authority to hang unsupported in the air he raised his hands in front of him. From the palms of his hand bright blue droplets of water formed. Shirou pulled his hands apart and the droplets multiplied until thousands of litres of the almost-glowing liquid was in front of him and then with a thought he directed it at the torrents of black water that Tiamat used as a method of attack. Despite the powerful Authority contained within her water every single jet of water disappeared when touched by the powerful water that was imbued by [annihilation] causing everything that it touched to not exist on a cellular level. Shirou focused on Tiamat, aiming two fingers in the shape of a gun and 'fired' sending his own jets of that destructive liquid and he was gratified to watch as the scales of his opponent burned and disappeared wherever it struck. Tiamat lost what remained of her mind and restraint at that moment and disappeared immediately from his sight, her large bulk belying the impossible speeds that she could travel at.
Shirou had no more chances to speak as he dodged the attacks of the dragon mother. The air was filled with water vapour that he had imbued with the concept of [slow] reducing her velocity by a factor of ten and he had slowed down time for himself using not only the Emiya crest that he still retained but his own control over the concept of [time]. Truth be told he he was jealous of those speeds. Tiamat was shattering the speed of light and even though Shirou could do the same due to being made from Enki his speeds were still far too low when compared to her.
A last dodge from a claw that would have left him dead and Shirou came up with his plan to kill her. When Enki had allowed himself to transition from his original self to his human self it had been because he realised that as a god he was limited; that due to his own omnipotence he could no longer improve himself. To that end this current [Shirou Inke] was the perfectly completed fusion of the two and far more skilled in the usage of the Fourth than his two predecessors. Shirou Inke clapped his hands imbuing the concept of [pain] into the soundwave. As the dragon instinctively recoiled he grabbed EA and dove down, lashing out with a punch. Even when she was in absolute agony the dragon mother still managed to block the attack one of her mountainous scaled hands. That wasn't out of Shirou's expectations and he still unleashed his full strength at the dragon which embarrassingly did fuck all to the tough goddess' gigantic hand. What did affect Tiamat was the concept of [death] that was pushed into her arm. Countless invisible lines spread out across her arm forming into abstract shapes that he couldn't see because he didn't have those stupid eyes. Still you don't need to see something to kill it and it was with that logic that Shirou drove the spinning weapon of mass destruction that was EA into the hand of the saltwater goddess.
Tiamat's arm shattered like cheap glass and the immortal goddess cried out with a painful wail that nearly burst Shirou's eardrums. Her legs, tail, head, one good arm and even the stump of her destroyed arm lashed out simultaneously imparting nigh infinite force in each direction. The destroyed landscape evaporated under this relentless barrage and Shirou wisely decided to abscond with all haste by teleporting directly upwards into the atmosphere.
"Wow," Shirou said noting that he was talking a lot for this battle, which was usually against his modus operandi. Still he had a good reason to be surprised as he watched an area greater than the size of Japan be obliterated. That wasn't the only surprise as Shirou caught the vague shapes of humongous winged things on the horizon of massive size. A dozen of them were slowly moving towards the place where the two of them were fighting and Shirou suddenly got the sensation that if they reached the two of them then things would get a lot more complicated.
Suddenly a spike of killing intent drove itself through his heart and he looked to see the saltwater goddess flying through the air causing minor hurricanes with every flap of her gigantic wings. She clutched the stump of her hand to her weirdly bountiful chest as she flew upwards with her teeth bared in rage. A nebula of black water particles surrounded her and Shirou got the feeling that if he tried entering her than he would suffer a lot more than he did previously. As the situation worsened a paradoxically bright smile came over Shirou's face as he saw the enraged dragon and he remembered all of his adventures up until now. By this point in his lifetime he was no stranger to being the underdog, humans have always survived not because they're the strongest or swiftest but the smartest. So what if he didn't have his guns, or his swords, or any of his artefacts or even Nine, he quickly made a mental note to fix Nine once he finished this fight, he'd been killing dragons since he was fifteen.
Tiamat breathed and instantly hundreds of lasers composed of True Ether blasted out causing the atmosphere. Unfortunately Shirou had already learnt how to counter this when he was still only Enki. He raised his hand touching the space in front of him and giving it different space-time coordinates and watched as the beams appeared behind the body of Tiamat slamming into the body of the goddess. The goddess screeched in pain and Shirou took advantage of that, diving forward towards the spray of black water. The spray coalesced as he knew it would and Shirou met it head on stabbing his hand forward into the wave. His despite its durability was almost immediately severed but Shirou had enough time to [freeze] the sea that was coming for him. He saw Tiamat recover and knew immediately that his time was short. Rocketing off the side of the frozen water he tore off his own frozen hand in a wild attempt to land a killing blow on Tiamat's head. He misread the situation as Tiamat opened her mouth to unleash another point blank blast of True Ether on him.
"Stupid," Shirou said both rejoicing and lamenting at the fact that his goddess opponent had been reduced to the state of a mindless beast repeating the same failed actions again and again. Using his one good hand he used the concept of [repel] on the air in front of him and then used the same concept on the air beneath his feet and launched himself upwards as the blast of True Ether exploded in Tiamat's mouth rocketing her enormous body. Despite her colossal size and the writhing of her pained body Shirou managed to reach her wings in a split second injecting [death] in her left wing before crushing it with the power of EA. Tiamat dropped from the sky and Shirou dropped with her losing his footing at the sudden drop, only barely keeping hold of EA.
Holding on tight the two warring enemies crashed into the water that covered the ground from both of their attacks and Shirou took the opportunity to give another infusion of [death] and take another chunk out of Tiamat's back. Leaking blood the dragon goddess opened her maw and released killing waves that were blocked by walls of thick ice that were thrown at the goddess when Shirou was done with them. The bloody and screaming Tiamat launched herself at Shirou. Every swipe of her hand caused hurricanes and every scream decimated hundreds of miles of the land. The water level rose to a level not seen since the time Enki had to prevent the other gods from wiping out all life and hundreds of mindless watery beasts sprung into being attacking everything around them. It was disappointing.
In the end Tiamat's final form reminded Shirou of an end game boss. She had a lot of 'health' and her 'mana' was nearly infinite. She was fast and hit hard and had a few deadly abilities but that was all she had. By turning herself into her most powerful form she had limited her intelligence to that of a beast. No not a beast, Shirou corrected himself, an automaton. Was this the curse of the gods that prevented them from changing and adapting? He hadn't seen it in Ishtar but maybe she was a special case.
His face grew grave at the thought of Ishtar and he looked at the twitching and barely alive dragon goddess. No legs or arms and most of her body was missing leaving only a damaged torso and a head that glared hatred at him from the one remaining eye. Shirou should feel angry at her but in the end all he could drum up was pity. He raised his hand to deliver the final blow and then he got a sudden chill down his bank. Looking upwards he swallowed as he saw the creatures that he had first noticed in the air, only this time they were right above the pair of them. With massive tree like wings and a torso like that of a flattened white bird the creatures were tremendous in size and a dozen of them circled the pair.
"Ultimate ones," Shirou said, finding it very odd to be using the plural form of that word. Next to him Tiamat struggled and let out a roar that sounded more like a wince of pain. Shirou watched with mute horror as a few of the smaller ones dove down grabbing the helpless dragon mother before dragging her into the air. At the same time a couple more dropped down in front of Shirou, although the Magician was not as helpless. Teleporting somewhat awkwardly to Tiamat's head Shirou performed one last infusion of [death] into the dragon mother before he brought down EA and finished her off completely.
"It's not your right to kill my mother," Shirou said to the uncomprehending Aristoteles. With those last words he left the foreign planet and returned to his own.
xxx
"I wonder if it's too late to go back to Venus," Shirou said as he looked at the carnage. Fuyuki was fucked. There was no possible way to understate how absolutely destroyed it was. If the city somehow managed to get back on its feet in a few hundred years then it would be a wonder. A motion caught his attention and he relaxed before he was knocked off his feet and onto the ground.
"You're back, Shirou," Arcueid said to him with tears in her eyes. "When she said you were dead, and I, couldn't see the body." At this point Arcueid was sobbing uncontrollably and Shirou raised his head off the concrete and kissed her head feeling like absolute shit knowing what was going to happen next.
"I missed you also Arcueid," he said smiling although there were also tears in his eyes. "Did you win?"
"It was hard Shirou but I killed him, that scorpions not going to bother humans ever again," Arcueid said smiling. "Is Ishtar," she said slightly hopefully.
"No," Shirou said flat out. "She's not." A bitter smile crossed the True Ancestors face and Shirou was quick to comfort her. "Don't worry she's a god. We don't really die we will see her again. You will see me again," Shirou said and a chill gripped Arcueid's heart.
"What did you mean Shirou," the True Ancestor said with sudden nervousness and Shirou responded with a bitter smile.
"Len," he said turning away briefly from his friend and lover. "Can you give it to me now?"
Almost immediately the familiar that once belonged to Arcueid and now to Shirou appeared in front of them with a vial in its mouth. The vial contained a black liquid that didn't look different from Tiamat's ocean but to Shirou's eyes it was far more precious. Opening it he pushed unreal amounts of prana into it before the form of Nine coalesced in front of the two of them.
"Nine," Arcueid said with a smile. She had been certain that he was dead and now that she saw him again she couldn't help but smile at the butler she had known for the last few years. However the normally sharp butler didn't respond, merely choosing to stare at Shirou uncomprehending.
"Ten, that is your name," the magician said. "Nine died Arc." A look of pain flickered on his face. "Arcueid is your master," he said pointing to the True Ancestor. "Look out for her and any of her descendants."
"Descendants," Arcueid said. "What?"
Shirou placed a hand on her stomach almost gently with a look of longing on his face. A smile lit up his face and he gave Arcueid a tender kiss.
"Descendants," he repeated. "I blame Ishtar for making me forget the birth control. He's still okay, although I would advise less exercise for the rest of the pregnancy.
"Descendants," Arcueid said pulling Shirou into a hug that would have crushed the bones of any lesser being. Shirou tolerated while smiling.
"Len," he said facing the white cat that had so faithfully served as his familiar. "You belong to Satsuki now. She will give you the prana that you need."
"What?" Arcueid said, once again getting that incredible feeling of wrongness. "Wait why would you do that? You've always liked Len."
"Arcueid," Shirou said not even trying to hold back his tears. "I'm a god. The age of gods is over."
"No,' Arcueid said reflexively. "No, no, no," she said after a long period of silence. "No you can do something. Get a fake body or something. Fix the atmosphere so that gods can…"
"Arcueid!" Shirou said raising his voice. "I fought my entire life to prevent humanity from being oppressed by gods." He gestured towards a spinning EA. "If I were to allow the environment to remain as is then humans would be ruled over as slaves by the gods within a week. As for creating a body it's impossible. As long as I remember that I'm a god then I would still be a god even if I tried to make myself forget then I would remember the first time I saw my own concept."
"We can, we can," Arcueid said frantically. "We need you Shirou. Both of us need you," she said clutching her stomach. "Please don't leave us."
Shirou walked forward and hugged her. There was not a lot of time left. He could already feel the various gods start to press against the textures of the World. At the rate that EA was removing the godly atmosphere he would honestly have less than five minutes left in the world. There was a lot you could do in five minutes. He could remind Illya to properly process his will. He could leave something behind for humanity or bestow some blessing on a family like the ones he bestowed on both Yukika and Kaede. He could even probably use EA to recreate Fuyuki. On second thoughts maybe not, EA was already working pretty hard right now. In the end he decided to spend the remaining five minutes with his lover, which was why he was so surprised when Arcueid pulled away.
"I get it," Arcueid said still teary eyed. "The survival of the human race is more important."
"Arcueid," Shirou said trying to console her.
"No Shirou," Arcueid refuted and there was determination behind her tears. "I'm in agreement with you. I would hope that I would be strong enough to do the same thing if I was in the same position."
"Arcueid," Shirou repeated. "I…"
"What do you need me to do Shirou?" Arcueid said.
"Guide them," Shirou immediately said. "Help them. You're a good person Arcueid. Don't restrain that aspect of yourself and I have faith that you'll do okay. We will meet again," he said with all the weight of a prophecy.
"That's great," Arcueid said as a tentative smile showed up on her face.
"You can also give this to Illya," Shirou said to Arcueid as he literally yanked off the Emiya crest. "I've got some good use out of it and I'd like for it not to get lost."
"I'll do that," Arcueid said with a brittle smile.
"There's some time left," Shirou said. "We can still hug some more."
As soon as he said that he was once again engulfed in the hug of the last True Ancestor. Well maybe the second last True Ancestor he thought as he wrapped her arms around her. He was never going to see him grow up. He opened his mouth to ask Arcueid for any thoughts for a name and then closed it in self-disgust. At that moment he plain hated himself for what he was going to do. In an unbearably short time Shirou felt the last of the True Ether leave the world and his body started to fade.
"No," Arcueid said her voice barely more than a whisper at this point and Shirou got to watch the heartrending sight of her breaking. The last sight he saw before he disappeared entirely was the True Ancestor collapse to her knees.
xxx
Akasha the infinite realm above all others, a place beyond time and space was awfully lonely. Shirou stood in the middle of infinite space with nothing except EA by his side watching reality, more specifically the reality that he had just left. This was the place where he had first met the mysterious being that called himself Inke, the being that would be a future version of him most likely. 'He should probably get around to doing that sometime,' he thought to himself as he watched the Fuyuki fire and the child Shirou.
Glancing around at the singular timeline, he noticed countless balls of translucent light leaving the lostbelt from all periods of time. Billions of them were leaving and returning to the root where they would once again become nothing and then return as blank souls. A sudden familiar soul got his attention and he focused on it, realising that he had seen it before. While souls were not his specialty, being part of the Third True Magic, he found himself unable to forget this soul as it was part of such a monumental if unhappy event. Namely the first time that he had ever used the Forth True Magic directly on a person. Visions of a raven haired girl that sat with him for tea and his unwarranted harshness flashed through his mind and then his mouth formed its first smile in a long time.
"I did say we'd meet again," Shirou said his hopeful voice unimaginably loud in the airless soundless place. "I wasn't lying. We'll meet again. All of us will meet again."
He grabbed EA firmly and held it up, the orphaned part of him reading his mind and spinning in anticipation as it eagerly began to draw more and more of his power. Shirou Inke smiled up at the Authority that was once part of Enki, the ability to create and destroy worlds and then with a grin that contained untold amounts of joy he brought it down.
Author Note: This chapter took me so long to write. I'm actually exhausted. Only the epilogue left and then I can finally say that I've finished my first story. Yay.
silversen11: Caubac Alcatraz. A vampire who turned himself into a padlock and sealed himself in a labyrinth inside of a treasure chest without any source of blood and yet still has enough ability to phone Arcueid and troll her. He's basically Zelretch's buddy.