Order #10: Sixth Seal, Desperation
Negi's POV: As I looked on, Lyn stood back up and took a step toward the Demon King, then another and another. As her foot touched down, a magic circle composed of eldritch runes and glyphs flared up beneath her feet, giving off an eerie purple glow that cast dancing shadows on the surrounding trees. She drew her sword and let it dangle at her side. The entire sword seemed to be alive, writhing and twisting, its surface taking on a fluid appearance.
Before my eyes, the sword elongated, its surface stretching and contorting into a shapeless mass of a silvery liquid-like substance, before reforming into a monstrous eighteen-foot serration-backed war scythe. Her hair went from a deep brown to a murky black, and grew until it reached her ankles. Gunmetal black gauntlets covered her hands and lower forearms. Heavy steel pauldrons clanged down her shoulders, and connected to a knee-length chainmail skirt by blackened leather baldrics. A heavy cloak made of an unknown black cloth manifested itself and a silvery-white helm crowned her temples. Her eyes changed from emerald green to an amethyst purple.
Just as I thought her transformation had finished, her left hand elongated and grew talons, bursting through the gauntlet's fingerplates. Her feet became clawed hawk's feet and metal vambraces wrapped around her lower legs, reaching up to the knee.
'So, you have decided to release the Seal of Absolution eh, Guardian? My I would of thought that you wouldn't react so drastically just to my appearance, have the old greater beings really become so weak as to pull their ultimate trump card on me, the lowly Demon King!" the Demon King boomed, his caustic voice echoing around the clearing. "If so, let's see how you deal with my Archons!"
Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, and the ground tore itself asunder, as flames roaring from massive fissures. A clawed hand grasped the edge of a fissure, followed by another, and another. Soon a horde of massive black and red beasts were pulling themselves out of the ground. Each stood about nine feet tall and looked like an overgrown satyr on steroids. They were almost entirely black, except for red-orange stripes that covered their torsos and heads. They took one look at me, the class and Lyn then charged.
To my immediate shock, Lyn stood there and grinned, and then raising her massive war scythe above her head, she slammed the butt-end of the shaft against the ground, causing a lone bolt of lightning to fly up and into the clouds. For a short period nothing happened, and then a beam of light pierced the storm clouds to Lyn's left, while the storm clouds stirred and whirled together off to her right. A beautiful young woman with bright bleached blond hair, wearing tanned leather body armor on her arms and legs and wielding a gracefully swept-back war bow appeared under the rays of golden light. While a short man of around 24-26 with dark brown hair and wearing steel plate on his right arm, chest, and legs and armed with a hand-and-a-half sword appeared under the swirling storm clouds.
"Tirips fo Thgil! Tirips fo Dniw! Wolf hguorht em dna ekirts nwod lla srevielebnon erofeb em! Purge!" A glowing ring appeared over the woman's head, and seven glowing bolts of holy energy flew from it, slamming into the Archons and killing two of their number. While injuring three more who didn't get out of the way in time.
"Tirips fo Eci! Tirips fo Dniw! Htarw fo eht Mrots! Lightning Tempest!" bolts of lighting appeared from the hands of the man and sizzled through the air crashing against the ground and demons alike, killing three Archons and wounding four others.
"So oh lowly Demon King, I have found a match for your beasts in my own Guards. Heh heh…by the way, this isn't the Seal of Absolution but the Seal of Darkness. I wouldn't waste Absolution on trash like you, now take your demons and beasts with you while you still have time to tuck tail and run, to not do so, will ah… lead to your unfortunate destruction, your call." Lyn said in a metallic tone that echoed across the clearing. The Demon King bared his teeth and took a step back in surprise, but then charged at Lyn with his head down, quite obviously in an attempt to gore her with his massive horns.
With the barest flicker of movement, she leapt straight over him, pirouetting in mid-air; she came down behind him and lunged forward, slashing downward in a vertical arc, splitting the hide, muscle and bone leaving a jagged slash down the back of the Demon King's right leg. With a bellow of pain he whirled on her and swiped at her with massive razor edged claws.
"HAHAHA! Is that the best you can do…? Oh Lucifer? Come! Give me a fight worth enjoying! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" Lyn jeered flipping over his claws.
"I'll show you the greatest nightmare!" The Demon King roared. "Ab Absol Absolute! Phasmatis of Obscurum! Phasmatis of Incendia! Obscurum quod Umbra, everto quod undead, quicumque est malum quod constupro! Flow per mihi quod tribuo mihi ops nisi malum super is uber terra. Abyssus Os! Absolution!" A fiery pentagram flared up under his feet, and the ground began to shake.
With a gasp of shock, I jump backward and climb back onto my staff as the ground below me crumbled away, revealing a gaping, and fiery chasm. To my horror, three-headed wolf-like beasts began to clamber out of its depths.
"Gwyllgi!" I heard Evangeline shout in warning. Turning back to look at the beasts, I hear the Demon King snap his fingers. As if with one mind, all demons other than the Archons and himself charged toward me and the rest of the class.
Aghast, I turn to Evangeline and Plead, "Oh God! There isn't any way we could fight that many of them! What will we do?" Her words were answer enough.
"IF WE ARE TO DIE THIS DAY, THEN WE SHALL DIE WITH OUR HANDS AROUND THEIR THROATS AND FIGHT TILL THE LAST MAN! UNLESS YOU WISH TO FAIL LYN, THE CLASS, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY THE ONE YOU HOLD DEAR AND ON WHOM'S SURVIVAL RESTS THE OUTCOME OF THIS BATTLE, ASUNA!" She screamed, as she tore at the throat of a Gwyllgi with tooth and nail.
Narration: As the words leave her mouth, Negi, emboldened by her words, turns back towards the incoming horde. With a shrill battle cry, he dives toward it and casts an enchantment, which lets loose a blinding light that purges the souls of any demon caught within its reach and incinerates their empty bodies. Landing on the ground, he reaches into the Song of Battle, cutting down any demon or beast foolish enough to stand in his path.
To his right, stands the Apostle of Destruction, the vampire Evangeline Athanasia Katherine McDowell. Unlike her young protégée, she has no need to use magic to amplify her fighting prowess. Instead, any fool unwise enough to stand before her is simply consumed by her dark magics or struck asunder by her vampiric claws.
To his left stands Setsuna Sakurazaki, who has successfully cleaved a narrow swath through any of the encroaching demons who threaten her ward, Konoka Konoe. Unlike her compatriots, who specialize in magic, she uses Chi, or the manipulation of the body's natural energy to empower her blows.
Farther up ahead of Negi and his class, stands the two Guards of the Nether-realm. The Crusader of Light, Elena, and the Swordsman of the Thundering Storms, Abel. In the unexplainable flux that is the future, one will fall by the other's hand, but their minds are currently set on the present, not the future. Now however they are battling against a band of Archons, nightmarish demons of considerable power spawned from some of the deepest pits of Hell itself. They have managed to cut down about half of the Archons' number. With festering corpses lying scattered around them, they raise their weapons and prepare to continue their fight against an enemy that knows no fear.
Ahead of even them, like two gods settling an age-old dispute, stands none other than the liar, Corrupter of minds, the serpent, the light-bearer, the wretched, the Anti-Christ, the Demon King himself. Standing before him, like a lone knight out to slay the dragon, stands the Guardian of the Nether-realm herself. Under the release of the Sixth seal that keeps her powers in check, she stands redolent in a silver helm, gunmetal black gauntlets and a black traveling cloak over a jet-black blouse and a chainmail knee-length skirt. In her right hand, she clasped a war-scythe of prodigious size. Grinning, she leaps into the air and twists around his scything claws. Landing in front of him, she slips through his guard and like a knight going to joust, she thrusts her scythe outward, scoring a hit that leaves a bloody gash across his stomach.
For the Demon King, this will be the third and final time he is defeated. Rearing back in pain, he exposes himself to two more blows as he tries to counterattack. In desperation, he calls back his army and orders it to attack just as it was about to gain the upper hand. His army swarms around the Guardian and for a moment she is lost amongst their numbers, buried under them like a rotting corpse covered by flies. Yet just like how the exterminator comes and sprays the flies with poisons, killing them in droves, so does the Guardian, as she tears free of the army and splits the ground with her war-scythe, opening up a massive fissure that swallows many of their number.
Seeing this, the Demon King makes well of the Guardian's offer to tuck tail and flee and runs toward the infernal Hell-Mouth, crushing any of his own demons who didn't get out of the way in time, and as he entered the mouth, he in his last vile act, absorbed small Asuna Kagurazaka into himself. He then began to seal the Hell –Mouth before any of his own demons and beasts could run in. Unfortunately, the Guardian wouldn't be stopped by the closing of the mouth and slipped in after him. Speeding down the stinking pit after him, she distinctly hears a strangled cry pierce the stale, noxious air.
Looking ahead, she sees that the Demon King has absorbed Asuna into himself. Knowing that she only has a minute at best, before Asuna's pathetically small soul is crushed, she doubles her speed, and cuts the distance between herself and her target by half. Reach out, she sticks the back end of her scythe out toward Asuna's prone form. A small spark jumps out from the end and sinks into Asuna's limp form. Asuna's eyes open slowly and, seeing the shaft of the war-scythe, she grabs a hold of it.
Holding the sharp end of her war-scythe in both hands, she digs her heels into the wall of the tunnel leading from the surface of the Hell-Mouth and brings the Demon King to an abrupt halt. With a sharp tug that slashes the palms of her hands, she begins to pull Asuna free, by physical force alone. Seeing this, the Demon King tackles her, slamming her head to the ground.
A sharp rumble pierces the air, and the sound of rock being shattered reaches their ears. Speeding down the tunnel, Negi Springfield comes around the bend and blinds the Demon King temporarily with a light spell.
With a loud cracking, tearing noise, the Guardian pulls Asuna free and raising her bloodied hand draws a small rivulet of blood from the Demon king, and sends a small stream of her own to him. His blood flows into her hand and along with it the pact that was made between him and Asuna. When her blood enters the Demon King, however, its spreads through him, burning and eating away at him like acid. Reaching his head, her blood ruptures from his eyes, blinding him.
Kicking him off, the Guardian leaps to her feet and lunges forward. With one clean strike, she pierces the roof of his jaw and his skull. Drawing back her arm, she strikes again, this time piercing him in the chest.
With a final earth-shaking wail of anguish, the Demon King crumbles to ash, and along with him, any hold he would have had on Asuna is lost. A rumble is heard overhead, and the Hell-Mouth begins to collapse in on itself.
The Guardian quickly shatters and deluge of debris that had started to fall directly overhead. Tossing Asuna to Negi, she orders him to get out of the Hell-Mouth and to not look back, to not stop, and to not falter until he feels fresh air and the night sky on his face. Negi leaves, holding Asuna tightly in front of him on his staff. With a forlorn sigh, the Guardian turns around and begins striking random parts of the Hell-Mouth, caving it in.
Negi erupts out of the Hell-Mouth carrying Asuna, just as it collapses. Touching down lightly on the ground amongst the entire class and the two guards, he whirls around looking for the Guardian. She is nowhere to bee seen. Disbelieving, he rushes over to the crumbled remains of the Hell-Mouth, and begins his fruitless attempt to shift aside the rubble. Abel, one of the guards, walks over and placing a hand on his shoulder, steers him away from the rubble.
Negi turns around and gathers his class and friends together, before he and his friends make their leave however, he makes a request of the guards to find Asuna a school and a safe place to stay. Just as they are about to leave, he go over to Asuna and kneeling down so that their eyes are level, kisses her lightly on the forehead, before leaving with the rest of the class.
*End of Mission*