AN: I'm trying to speed up my update rate, and while I can't guarantee a chapter a week, I'm going to have a chapter a fortnight be the absolute slowest that I go. Of course, if I really get into the flow of things, I might be able to get multiple chapters in a week out, but as I alternate between my two stories, well, we'll see. Also, for those who play SMT, yes, it is that sort of angel.
Beta'd by: NIX'S WARDEN
Chapter 11 – Big Fish
The next morning, at Breakfast, the staff and students were treated to the rather unusual sight of twitchy Weasley twins. No one had any idea what had caused them to act like that, but judging by the rather satisfied look on Harry Potter's face, while he stroked his two cats, it was pretty obvious who had caused it, whatever 'it' was.
Mcgonagall sighed in exasperation, and had to stop herself from rubbing the bridge of her nose. She just knew this would be trouble, and as Head of Gryffindor House, she also knew she was going to be dragged into it, meaning more work for her, and it wasn't like she wasn't busy enough already.
Sirius, who was sitting with the teachers, had a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. He understood the significance represented by Len and Nel being pampered by Harry so visibly, though he had to wonder whether it was Harry letting him know just what he'd done, or him simply deriving additional amusement by having the 'culprits' in plain sight with no one suspecting them.
Nevertheless, the twins looked rather out of it, occasionally twitching, and no one in the hall thought that was a good sign, excepting a select few. For most of them, their thoughts could be split into two groups, with group A thinking 'Someone managed to get one over on the Weasley twins!' and group B thinking 'Oh dear, this is not going to end well, for anyone.'
Sirius glanced at the four House tables, and saw a number of whispered discussions, and a few bets as well, all over who would come out on top in this new prank war. Most seemed to side with the twins, either through knowing their usual antics, or thinking that Harry's side had only got a victory because Fred and George's guard was down, and now wouldn't get another success.
Of course, on the other hand, there were a few who were betting in favour of Harry for various reasons, ranging from Harry's initial victory, to the fact they literally knew almost nothing about him, and didn't know what he would pull out next.
Some of the staff were also getting into the betting, which surprised Sirius a bit, leading him to ask Dumbledore about it.
"Oh, it's actually fairly normal." The old man replied. "We never wager much, maybe a few galleons at most, but there are a fair number of betting pools going on." He frowned a little, before continuing on in a quieter voice. "One fairly recent bet that almost everyone participated in was on who Mr Potter would end up courting."
"Really?" Sirius asked in surprise. "I wouldn't have thought the Professors would really do that sort of thing."
Dumbledore chuckled lightly. "Teachers are people too, and we do indulge in little things every now and then."
"So you have a good relationship with all of your staff?" Sirius queried, earning him a look from Dumbledore, who was wondering where the conversation was heading.
"Apart from Madam Umbridge, all of the professors currently here have taught for a decade or more, so of course I have a good relationship with them. It wouldn't do for my professors and myself to 'butt heads' all the time, would it?" The headmaster explained.
"No, it would be rather counter-productive." Sirius murmured.
After a few seconds where nothing further was said, Dumbledore decided to ask a question of his own. "Now, Sirius, I don't suppose you could tell me just what Mister Potter did to the Weasley boys that has made them so... traumatised."
Sirius couldn't help but laugh.
"It's pretty obvious, to anyone that knows him, what he did." He shook his head, shoulders shaking with mirth. "He sicked his two succubi on them and gave them some rather 'unique' dreams." Seeing the look on the Headmaster's face, he reassured him. "It won't be anything truly horrible, like watching their family be murdered or the like, just horribly disgusting, such as giving them sexual dreams about someone or something that disgusts them."
"You got that right." A voice piped up from right next to Dumbledore, making him jump in his seat, before turning to see who had appeared there.
He saw a little girl with straggly green hair, wearing a one piece bathing suit. There were patches of scales on her exposed skin, her mouth was filled with sharp fangs, and there was a twinkle in her slitted yellow eyes that seemed just shy of madness.
"Hey, Dream." Sirius greeted her. "I'm surprised to see you out and about up here, the experiments not going to plan?"
DoD pouted. "I need some fresh materials for my current projects, and so I don't have much to do until they arrive. I did come up with some new plans though, that was fun!"
"Nice to hear." Sirius commented, while mentally debating whether he actually wanted to know what she'd come up with or not. "So, do you know what dreams the twins had last night?"
"Hmm? You mean the redheads?" DoD asked, shrugging her shoulders. "Nel told us about it this morning, she seemed rather proud of it. One twin, apparently, had some rather erotic dreams featuring several males he found particularly unappealing, including white beard here, and the greasy one on the end. Len, not to be outdone, gave the other one erotic dreams featuring several creatures, such as acromantula and chimeras."
"Dream, I think even that was too much information for me." Sirius whined, his expression twisting in disgust.
"You asked." DoD shot back at him. "I'm just disappointed Origin isn't letting me prank them too."
"I'm fairly sure you know why he isn't letting you join in, restraint isn't really something you do after all." Sirius replied.
At this point, Dumbledore decided to insert himself into the conversation.
"Sirius, do you think you could introduce me to this... delightful young lady? I'm afraid I don't recognise her, and she does look a little young to be one of Hogwarts' students." He asked.
"She's 'DoD', which is short for 'Dream or Destruction', though I just call her Dream." Sirius told him. "She has an insatiable curiosity, and is rather fond of experimentation. She's highly intelligent, but also possesses rather ambiguous morals, and her own strength is nothing to scoff at."
"I... see." Dumbledore frowned. "However, I was more wondering what exactly is she?"
"I'm Dream or Destruction." The girl in question replied, turning to face the old man. "There ain't none but me, I am what I am, and what I am is me."
Dumbledore was about to ask more, but just then was when most students started getting themselves ready to head off to their first lesson of the day. Sirius himself slipped off to go down to the Chamber of Secrets to see what was going on there, as it was likely to be more interesting than what was on the surface.
DoD simply vanished, returning to Harry's soul before manifesting next to one of the versions of him in the chamber in order to continue her own projects.
xxxxx
"Hey, Harry, I'm back!" Sirius called out as he reached the open doorway into the chamber.
"I know you are, Sirius, I felt your soul moving around." Harry's voice called back. "Still, it's good to see you again, even if you have only been gone half an hour."
"Well, I thought that we could bond a bit. We fly together occasionally, and I'm trying to understand all of the stuff you research." Sirius replied, wandering over to the Harry that was talking to him, this one sat with a laptop in front of him. "What are you working on right now?"
"A few things." Harry replied. "Improving the programming for Prisma to see if I can work a few things out, finishing off a few old projects that I'd forgotten about, cobbling together a few theories, and designing some new hardware for when I'm done with my current projects."
"Okay, sounds interesting." Sirius said, and admittedly some of the stuff Harry made was really cool. "What sort of things are those projects?"
"You're curious?" Harry tilted his head to the side. "Well, there's no reason not to tell, or even show you." His hands then became less than a blur as his fingers tapped on the specially reinforced keyboard of his laptop, opening several windows and going through them one by one.
"This is Prisma's AI." Harry told him, though Sirius couldn't make heads or tails of it. "What I'm trying to do with this is encourage independent development. As things stand, Prisma is intelligent, but has no personality, she simply does whatever I tell her to do and no more. I'm hoping that she can develop a sense of self, mostly so that she can gain initiative, and actually do things without me giving every little command."
"Isn't that dangerous?" Sirius had to ask. "I mean, I've seen those Terminator films, and I don't want any SkyNet stuff happening."
Harry chuckled. "Already accounted for. There's a core of coding that is protected by magic that would allow me to shut her down if she did that. While she can channel magic through herself, and even refine and improve it, she can neither produce or direct it."
"Oooookay." Sirius nodded. "I guess that makes sense then, and it's nice to see you've got a solution if that ever did happen."
"Moving on." Harry minimised that window and brought another one up. This screen was split in half, the left side being programming again, while the right looked like some sort of engineering diagram that showed something that looked like a cross between an octopus and a starfish.
"What's this supposed to be?" Sirius wondered. "I can see by the code that it's a machine of some type, but I can't tell what sort or what its purpose is, as that shape doesn't seem to be optimised for mobility or anything else really."
"Nanomachines." Harry informed him. "This was one of my more fun projects, as I had to figure out how to put everything together in a package small enough, while also being capable of everything I wanted it to do. I'm rather proud of it actually, though DoD deserves the credit for coming up with the shape of it."
"Uh-huh, okay." Sirius nodded. "So, aside from that creepy thing, what else is finished?"
"A few more mecha designs; I've got a dog style one, power armour, and designs for a large one as well. Of course, getting the materials together for a seven hundred foot tall robot will take a little time, even for me." Harry admitted. "I've got some designs on spaceships as well, three of them in fact; one meant for up to three people, another for a light cruiser, and one more for a dreadnought that would double as a carrier for smaller ships."
Sirius rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I would ask if you're preparing for an interstellar war, but there's two things stopping me. First off, you'd probably tell me that it's 'better to be safe than sorry'. Secondly, knowing you, you'll be involved in such a war within the next half a century at most."
"Yeah, you're right." Harry replied, unashamed.
"I'm guessing you've already designed everything necessary to put these ships together?" Sirius asked.
"Yeah, the weapon systems were the easiest, and the armour wasn't much different as I'll be using materials I'm familiar with. The most difficult parts were the drive systems and shields." Harry told him.
"Shields?" Sirius blinked. "Wouldn't it be simple for you to use a few shield spells, but scale them up to the size of the ship?"
"I could do that." Harry conceded. "However, I get best results with a hybrid of both magic and technology. You'll find that most of my designs utilise a lot of engineering and physics in them, and then are augmented by magic. I've also developed some purely technological solutions for if I'm ever in a situation where I 'can't' use magic openly."
"Makes sense, I guess." Sirius agreed.
"Yeah, but that made developing the engines hell for me. Oh, the sub-light engine wasn't too difficult, but the FTL one – that's 'Faster Than Light' – was really hard, though at least the Warp Drive was easier than that. It helps that there are theories for such things already around today, humans simply have problems with energy consumption and scale." Harry explained, his eyes shining brightly and his lips curving into a wide smile.
A scream from the far side of the chamber made Sirius' head jerk around sharply.
"I-Ignore that, Sirius." Harry told him, but the fact that said Harry had also reacted to whatever it was, albeit more mildly than the other version of himself, didn't stop Sirius looking.
"Who the hell is that, V/V's kinky older sister?" Sirius asked, seeing a blonde woman with white wings on her back stood over a Harry clone writhing on the floor. What really stood out about her was how she was dressed. There was a blindfold over her eyes that somewhat resembled Harry's own Breaker Gorgon, and she was clothed – if it can be called that – only in three leather straps that wrapped around her body around her breasts, waist, and hips, all connected by a single vertical strap that went up the middle and around her neck, like a choker. Connected at her neck was a chain about half as long again as she was tall.
Harry placed one hand on Sirius' arm as he saw him reach for a wand. "She's here because I summoned her, Sirius." Harry calmed him down as best as he could. "Remember when I became 'Keeper of the Well of Souls'? Well, she's one of the ones that agreed to a contract with me."
"I see, but what is she doing? That looked painful." Sirius almost demanded, still seeing the version of Harry twitching and quivering on the floor.
"She's using holy power on me." Harry reluctantly admitted. "Remember that holy power is something I am incredibly weak against? No amount of holy power will kill me, but it is still one of the most painful things I can experience, and it messes with my own control, making retaliating difficult. I'm trying to build up a resistance, and as she is the lowest class of entity that can use holy power in her world, she's what I'm starting with."
Sirius calmed down somewhat. "Okay. Okay, I get it." He said. "That still doesn't mean I like it though, that really did look painful."
"It is, excruciatingly." Harry admitted. "I'd rather that though, than have such a weakness exploited in the future."
Sirius exhaled heavily. "I understand." He bit out, before distracting himself with something else. "An angel, huh? What did you have to do to tempt her away from the Christian God?" He waggled his eyebrows at Harry.
"Not a lot." Harry told him. "With Yahweh dead, killed by the Hitoshura, the angels kind of fell apart in that world. In actual fact, eighty-four angels agreed to my contract, simply because they were so lost."
"Yahweh? Hitoshura?" Sirius asked in bewilderment.
Harry waved him off. "Forget that, it doesn't matter. Suffice to say, 'stuff happened', and as a result, I have a number of angels willing to obey me."
"Okay, I can make sense of that." Sirius nodded. "Still, how many contracts do you actually have now?"
"Individual contracts or grouped ones? If going by groups, like saying all of my angels are one contract, then I have a hundred and seventy three. If you go by the number of separate beings that have agreed to my contracts, then an awful lot more." Harry replied. "A lot of them are like the Angel contract though, a group of not so strong, but numerous beings, like Nekomata, Valkyries, and minor demons. I have some contracts with beings that can match up pretty well with Heroic Spirits as well, but only a handful that are equal to gods or stronger entities."
"Enough of all this stuff!" Sirius suddenly declared, throwing his arms up in the air. "There's only so much my mind can process before shutting down, and I've reached my limit. What do you say to going flying somewhere?"
Harry chuckled. "Very well, Sirius, I can agree to that. Being stuck in this castle isn't doing me any favours, especially with most of me underground."
Sirius gave him a relieved look at that.
Finally, something he actually understood properly!
xxxxx
Several weeks passed rather peacefully. The twins kept getting hit with pranks from Harry and his group, minor things such as a potion that made them fart a lot ending up in their pumpkin juice, to major things such as them waking up in the morning and finding they were in the process of bungee-jumping over the lake, with the other end of the bungee somehow affixed to thin air.
They tried to retaliate, but found that every single time they tried something, they were always caught. What they didn't know was that this was an extra layer of Harry's prank. He'd charmed the pair of them so that whenever they tried to get up to mischief, an alarm would go off. The interesting thing about that spell was that Harry had twisted it so that it was inaudible to the pair of them and any that were trying to help the twins.
Harry was also finding that teaching his alternate's twin sisters was quite enjoyable.
Neither twin was a super genius who picked up everything he told them immediately, but they were quite intelligent, and worked hard. This meant that they were learning a lot of interesting things quite quickly. Of course, Harry had surreptitiously strengthened the magical pathways in their bodies, making the casting easier, but all of the actual learning was on them.
"Now, remember, you do not force lightning to do what you want it to, you let it do what it is meant to and direct it in a way that works with you." Harry was saying. "It's not like Fire which requires you to dominate it, feed it, and discipline it. It's far more eager than that, and will 'jump' at the chance to do something, anything."
Blake nodded her head and focused on the target before her. Her arm was extended before her, palm forward, and she focused on the tingly feeling that she had come to recognise from the previous lessons with Harry, the itch that made her arm twitch and that she soo wanted to scratch, but couldn't.
Suddenly, an arc of yellow electricity sparked between her and the target, jumping right at it, like one magnet attracted to another.
"Good, you hit the target." Harry encouraged her. "Still, your focus was too much on the lightning itself and not where you wanted it to go, so you only got the edge of it. Other then that, it was a good effort, and within a month we should have you casting lightning that can jump between several targets."
Blake pouted at Harry, even more so when he chuckled at it, before she decided to watch Harry teach her twin the element that she had chosen.
"Whereas lightning is fast, and can penetrate many defences, ice is slower, unstoppable, and solid. Think about the environment you would normally find ice in, specifically think about how cold those places are. You could melt all the ice you want, but as long as the temperature remains low, and there's water there, the ice will be back." Harry said to Rose.
"Gather together the water around you, whether it's in a puddle, a bucket, a river, or even the air. Water is everywhere, even in a desert, and there should be more than enough for your use here. Once you have grasped hold of the water, leech the heat out of it, cool the water down, freeze it. Those who are skilled in ice manipulation can transform that heat energy into motion energy, allowing their creations to be thrown through the air at great speeds." Harry instructed.
Rose, like her sister, focused on the target in front of her, her arm held out to her side, bent, with the elbow downwards. She focused on the air against her palm, the most gentle of breezes, and thought of how much moisture must be in the air, and how she could pull it together and form ice. There was a bucket of water at her feet, but she wanted to see what she could do when water wasn't readily available to her like that.
She felt something cold touch her palm, and immediately threw it.
The javelin of ice – for that was what it was, even if it was a bit small, thin, and fragile – hit the target and shattered, though she did hit close to the centre.
Rose yelped and clutched her hand close to her chest, tears in her eyes, as her hand hurt.
"Give your hand here." Harry said gently. "You tried too hard and took some of your own body heat when forming that sphere. Be more careful next time, though you're also making good progress, and your aim is pretty damn good too."
Rose smiled as the ache in her hand faded away. Her hand still felt cool though, mostly because Harry was holding it, and his flesh didn't have the same heat a human body did.
"This is amazing-" Rose commented.
"-but it seems odd." Blake continued.
"If we're picking this up so quickly-"
"-why don't other witches and wizards-"
""-use it as well?"" They finished together.
"Well, for one, it normally takes longer to learn how to do it." Harry shrugged. "I kind of made it easier for you two to do so. Also, it takes a fair amount of dedication and mental flexibility to pull off, which not everyone has. Aside from that, it just kind of fell out of fashion. As 'cool' as it is, how often would you really use it?"
"It still seems really awesome!" Rose said, with Blake nodding in agreement.
"Yeah, it is." Harry agreed. "It was more popular centuries ago, when wizards went to war. Of course, during those times, and even earlier, there were battle rituals and all sorts used to give their side an advantage in a war, which is also something else that's been forgotten."
"Battle rituals?" Blake asked curiously.
"Things like calling up thunderstorms, causing earthquakes, summoning bound beasts, things like that. Rituals like that tend to require five or more wizards working together and can take several minutes to cast, with the most powerful of them taking hours or more." Harry explained.
"Can you cast those rituals?" Rose asked.
"Yeah, I can." Harry nodded, before an incredibly complex magical array formed out of what appeared to be solid light appeared at his feet. "I can regulate my magic and 'split' it to act as multiple people, and I have the power to simply 'dump' it into the ritual to force it to work. It's a bit crude, but nevertheless effective."
"Can we learn that?" Blake wondered aloud, looking to Harry for an answer.
"There's no particular reason you can't, but that's one skill I can't make easier for you, and it will take time." Harry told the pair of them.
A shadowy portal appeared above his shoulder, from which a book was merged, which Harry duplicated before returning the original to the shadow portal. "Here, read this, there are exercises in there, and the theory behind it, for you to do it yourself."
""Thank you."" The girls chimed in together.
"No problem, it's a pleasure to teach the pair of you." Harry replied. "Seriously. I did some teaching in the other Hogwarts, and there were soo many students that simply turned up to lesson because I was there. Getting them to focus on their work and stop their attempts at flirting was almost physically painful with how difficult it could be at times."
"I can see that." Rose commented with mirth in her eyes.
"You are not unappealing after all." Blake agreed, laughing softly.
"Tch, shut it." Harry replied, though with no heat in his voice.
"I'll see you Thursday." He called over his shoulder as he left the room, the girls' own farewells being called back.
The twins jumped in surprise when, with a loud 'snap', Harry vanished in front of them.
xxxxx
"Ow!" Harry yelped. "What in Yomi was that?"
Harry looked around himself, and quickly shifted his magic to support himself as he stood upon the water's surface.
"Where the heck am I?" He grumbled, looking around.
He sighed, knelt on the surface of the water, and sent out a pulse of power to the centre of the earth, using the echo to determine where he was.
"The Mediterranean Sea?" Harry wondered. "Never mind, let's just go ho- Why isn't the Kaleidoscope working? Zelretch, if this is you messing with me, I am soooo going to make you pay for it."
Harry span on the spot, but failed to apparate. He then tried to form a shadowy portal, but for some reason could only make one large enough to put his arm in, and when he shifted into a smaller form, even that size of portal wouldn't manifest.
"There's something going on here, is this another 'test'?" He wondered, manifesting his Aspects around him, even Tyrant.
"The fuck, Origin?!" She swore. "I was just about to throw down with Horus and you drag me away from that fight?!"
"Something's up, Tyrant." Harry replied. "I've just been dragged away from Hogwarts and all means of transportation away from here has been shut down, I can even feel a barrier preventing me simply walking away."
"It better be worth it." She grumbled. "And you're going to send me right back when this is over!" She calmed down a little when Harry nodded at her demand, before she glanced over at a certain shadowy figure. "Who's the new guy?"
"Twisted Whisper, my Irritation." Harry replied. "Apparently, another fragment of my soul has manifested, but as I haven't gotten around to meeting my 'Affection', I thought it best not to summon her here right now."
"Too fucking right." Twisted Whisper spat. "Weirdo bitch would try and 'love' all your problems away, though even I'll say she's lethal with that chainsaw of hers."
"Chainsaw, Twisty?" Shadow of the Heart smirked at him. "You're not... envious of her, are you?"
Whisper hefted a massive double-headed axe in Shadow's direction. "You haven't met her yet, so you can't talk. Just you wait, you'll be trying to kill her in minutes of meeting her, if that."
"You two, shut up." Serial Phantasm commanded. "Something's coming."
The four of them spread out slightly, each one preparing their weapon of choice. Serial Phantasm held her spear in a read position, Tyrant tightened both hands on the hilt of her massive blade, Dream or Destruction held her whip in one hand, the other prepared to throw a blast of magic at anything that moved, Shadow of the Heart held his oddly shaped knives up, and Twisted Whisper raised his axe, ready to cleave apart anything he had to.
Harry held his Fae forged falcata short swords in his hands, scanning for anything that would give his enemy's position away. Strangely, he couldn't home in on where he felt power emanating from, simply because the entire area was saturated with its immense presence, whatever it was.
"Below the water!" Dream yelled out, before they all scattered.
Harry, his black wings emerging from his back, shot into the air. Twisted Whisper, with no visible means of supporting himself, went the same way, seemingly standing on air like Harry sometimes did.
The other four sped off to either side, Tyrant and Shadow one way, Serial and Dream the other.
"What the fuck?!" Whisper swore. "The fuck is this shit?"
Rising out of the water several miles into the air, was what appeared to be some sort of massive sea serpent. It's scales looked thick and rough, with those on its belly actually being sharp, like blades almost. It had a mouth full of long and sharp teeth, tongues of flame darting between them as it panted. It's eyes were bright, luminescent, as it focused on what it could see.
The serpent itself looked to be about two miles across, and given its immense size, Harry could only think one thing as he glanced towards land.
"Someone is going to see this." He muttered, wondering how Obliviators were going to cover this up. "Woah!"
The serpent shot forward at great speed, aiming right at Harry, and he barely got out of the way in time, the head of the monster going right by him.
Harry anchored his feet to it as it went past, grabbing onto one of the horns on its head, his eyes flicking to it, and then returning there when what he saw registered.
"There's words etched into here, Hebrew if I'm not wrong." He commented, before deciphering it.
'I am one of the meanest creatures that inhabit the sea.' Harry read, before looking towards the other horn and what was etched there. 'I am three hundred miles in length, and enter this day into the jaws of the Leviathan.'
"Leviathan?" Harry muttered in surprise. "LEVIATHAN!" He cursed.
Launching himself high into the air, Harry looked down to see how his Aspects were dealing with the beast.
DoD's whip had extended several miles, wrapping itself around Leviathan like a lasso., and she was trying to direct it, yanking it all over the place with one hand, while various coloured balls of magic were being hurled at it with her other hand. Unfortunately, regardless of the fact she was throwing around enough power to annihilate Servants with ease, she wasn't doing all that much to this particular Divine Beast.
Tyrant was hacking away at the body of the serpent, infusing her blade with energy to both increase its cutting power, and its effective size. Regardless of that, however, she didn't appear to be doing any better than Dream, as even when she cut clean through Leviathan, it healed at such a rate that the cut was closing even before she'd made it halfway through.
Serial Phantasm was on the beast's head, repeatedly stabbing Leviathan in one of its massive eyes, keeping it blinded, regardless of how fast it healed, while Twisted Whisper did the same with the other way, hacking away at it with abandon.
Shadow of the Heart was throwing hundreds, if not thousands of daggers at the sea serpent, a number of them going into its mouth, still more into its nose, and even a few finding chinks in its scaled hide. Unfortunately, this seemed to do nothing other than piss it off.
Harry considered what to do for a moment, before deciding that he only really had three options available to him. First off, he could launch as many attacks as fast as he could, and hope to wear the monster down, hopefully his infinite stamina would prove superior to the Leviathan's. Secondly, he could stay back, build up his power, and launch fewer, but far more powerful attacks at Leviathan, in hopes that it would make a difference.
His third option was making use of his recently gained contracts and summoning one of those who'd agreed to help him, and judging by the whispers in the back of his mind, Izanami and Shaushka were both eager to assist, and as both were goddesses in their own right, they were likely powerful enough to make a difference.
The only reason he didn't go with that third option was that, if this was a test, would whatever was testing him consider it a violation of its rules if he brought in outside help, and if so, how would it punish him? So, with that in mind, he kept that plan in reserve in case he couldn't do this fight alone without resorting to something extreme, like, you know, blowing up the entire planet.
For some reason, he felt that was a bit of a bad idea.
"I hope you're coming up with a plan right about now." Twisted Whisper snarked as he came close to Harry. "That thing's no normal Divine Beast, whoever threw it at us has powered it up somehow, and its regeneration is insane."
"I have a few ideas." Harry admitted, putting away one of his blades. "Here's one of them."
Harry threw out a hand, a complex magical circle appearing before him, while a matching one, many times larger, also appeared over the Leviathan. Immediately, he flooded the array with power, mixing together mana, prana, divine, deathly, and even cursed power, as he simply didn't know which would be most effective against his current opponent.
"GET BACK!" Whisper yelled when he saw Harry was ready, and the aspects immediately obeyed.
Harry clenched his fist, cutting off the flow of magic to the circle, as he flew backwards and away from the battle as fast as he could.
Above Leviathan's head, the array glowed brighter than the sun for a single second, before a vertical pillar of torrential power slammed into it from above. It detonated when it came into contact with its target, exploding into several waves of heat, pressure, and light.
Everything went white.
"RAAAAAARGH!" The Leviathan roared, the first thing that Harry and his aspects heard when the explosion was over with.
"That didn't kill it?!"Shadow yelled. "The hell sort of bullshit is this?"
"The kind I like!" Tyrant yelled back, her eyes alight with joy at discovering an enemy she could wail on as much as she wanted without having them collapse straight away.
Harry looked at the Leviathan, seeing just how rapidly it was regenerating from a blast that had blown a massive chunk out of the beast, seemingly serving only to irritate and anger it further, and he tried to think of methods to end this fight. The problem being, if he put more power into shots like that, they could destabilise fairly easily, causing more problems than they solved, especially if said instability had the blasts launching themselves towards land before detonating, which was a distinct possibility.
Once again, several of Harry's aspects charge in; Tyrant, Serial Phantasm, Shadow of the Heart, and Twisted Whisper. However, Dream or Destruction held back from the battle, and waved Harry down to where she was stood on the roiling surface of the water.
When he was close enough to hear, DoD yelled out to him. "We need something with more power, yet is focused enough that it doesn't affect anything beyond our fight."
"I know." Harry replied. "But what? If I go bigger, it'll be too easy to slip into 'too big' territory, and I don't think it's a good idea to start slinging around continent-shattering grade spells this close to land."
"Containment..." DoD muttered. "That's it!" She turned to Harry with her eyes shining brightly. "You just mentioned them to the twins before you were dragged here, battle rituals!"
"That could work." Harry admitted. "But if we're doing this, we need to do it properly, and it would take a minimum of six people, five for the circle, and one to keep that thing over there occupied."
"I coul-" DoD began, but Harry cut her off.
"No, Dream, that whip of yours is useful for binding things, but I have a few tricks of my own I can use, so I'm leaving you in charge while I keep this monster busy." Harry firmly told his Curiosity.
"I'll do it." DoD nodded, looking uncharacteristically serious.
"I know you will." Harry smiled, before yelling towards his aspects still engaged with Leviathan.
"SWITCH OUT!"
xxxxx
As the aspects beat a hasty retreat, before regrouping with Dream or Destruction, they beheld a sight unlike any other. Countless black chains, formed from the curses of Angra Mainyu, rose out of the sea. Literal miles of chain were wrapped around the immense sea serpent, fighting against its might.
The chains weren't truly strong enough by themselves to restrain the might of the massive creature they were attempting to restrain, but Harry made up with quality with sheer quantity. Hundreds of chains, thousands of them, rose from the waves every second, just as Leviathan broke dozens, if not hundreds of chains each time it thrashed around.
Making use of his 'stolen' Unlimited Blade Works, Harry traced dozens of copies of various blades, each one legendary in its own right, each one with the power to destroy mountains at least.
Then he broke them all.
The surge of prana each one received shattered its structure, making it unstable, volatile, even more dangerous than normal, explosive.
The blades were launched towards their target at several times the speed of sound, each one impacting against soft flesh such as eyes, nostrils, and the inside of its mouth. They then exploded, sending shards of highly magical and potent metal into the soft tissue, doing as much damage as they possible before fading away.
"RAAAAARGH!" The Leviathan roared in both pain and anger, as it was once again hurt by the small things running around it.
Harry mentally reached for its mind, and finding it, began to viciously pummel at it with brute force, hoping to keep it as off balance as he could, delaying it while his aspects finished the ritual they were in the process of casting.
He did note that the Leviathan's mind felt strange, and not in the 'unusual' strange way either, but the 'something's-not-right-here' strange way. It felt as if its mind was... obscured, covered, suppressed in some way, and then 'injected' with a massive amount of rage and aggression.
"Origin, move your arse!" Tyrant yelled at Harry, letting him know their ritual was ready.
He flickered out of view, reappearing a mile and a half above Leviathan's head, and slightly off to one side.
Below him, a spherical ball of blackness appeared. Surrounding it, at the five points of a pentacle, stood his five aspects, each one contributing to the ritual spell that was still going on half a minute after it had started. Obviously, some of his aspects were having an easier time of maintaining the ritual than others, being much more in tune with magic, but even Tyrant was holding her own in the circle.
When the black sphere vanished, taking a bowl-shaped chunk of the sea with it, Harry let out a relieved breath when it seemed that the Leviathan was no longer active and out to get them. This reprieve lasted just long enough for Harry to get knocked flying by a swipe from a regenerating Leviathan's tail end.
Having slammed into the surface of the water with enough force to turn bones to dust and liquefy several internal organs, Harry was understandably pissed when he got to his feet. He spat a glob of black blood as his body rapidly repaired itself.
"Okay, I was confused when I appeared here, worried when I saw your size, and I'll admit, a bit peeved off when I found out you'd been 'enhanced', but now I am getting seriously pissed off, so if the world ends up destroyed as a result of this fight, I'm blaming you." Harry growled out.
Prismakreuz appeared in one of Harry's hands, the other still holding one of his falcata short swords, and he charged at Leviathan with reckless abandon. Traced copies of broken Excalibur Morgan appeared by the dozens, from every direction imaginable, raining down on Leviathan in a constant onslaught. Each time an attack broke off a chunk of flesh, several broken phantasms were lodged in there, blowing it up and slowly whittling away at the serpent's massive body.
Magical circles were appearing everywhere, Prismakreuz calculating the optimum position for them to cause the most damage, with Harry simply dumping power into them to keep them coming. A clone split off from Harry, Prismakante, his bow, in its hands, with which it proceeded to rain down a hail of magical arrows on top of what was already being used to destroy the creature.
Still, Leviathan was three hundred miles long, and roughly two miles in diameter. That meant it was roughly nine hundred and fifty cubic miles in size, which was a significant amount. The countries around the edge of the Mediterranean Sea would undoubtedly have issues with the rising water level, especially with the way the massive creature was thrashing about.
SMACK!
Harry was knocked away by the writhing mass, the sheer force of it once more reducing organs to mush. Still, Harry ignored the damage, it wasn't like his body wouldn't fix itself in a moment, and he'd already all but shut down his nerves that responded to pain.
"This is taking forever!" He growled out, as even with them destroying large portions of the Leviathan's body with each hit, its massive size and rapid regeneration meant that they were barely chipping away at it, and frankly, Harry really didn't have the patience right then to spend hours on end blowing it the heck up.
"Alright!" He yelled aloud. "Whoever the heck is doing this to me, I've proven I can beat this thing! Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to end this here and now!"
A rumble of thunder overhead, though it might have been coincidence, was taken by Harry as acknowledgement.
"Izanami-no-Mikoto! Shaushka! Kali! Anat!" Harry called out, summoning the relevant deities that had contracted with him, after which they spread out around Leviathan and all brought their power together to destroy the serpent.
Izanami-no-Mikoto, who took the concept of 'Yamato Nadeshiko' to an extreme, though twisted by death and decay. A beautiful woman, whose pale skin was made paler by death, and her fine hair hanging lank, while her dark eyes stared out into the living world. She held a naginata in her hand, the Ame-no-nuboko itself, through which she channelled her power.
Shaushka, a Hurrian war goddess, stood with her wings spread wide, and with a lion at her feet. She gathered her power within her hands, ready to destroy Leviathan alongside her fellow deities.
Kali, blue skinned and four armed, had a wide, almost malicious grin that split her face in two. Her twitching did nothing to hide how she wished to charge forward and start rending the sea serpent into tiny pieces. Still, like the others, she gathered divine power into her four hands, though with less restraint than the others.
Anat, violent as she was, was almost as ready to tear apart Leviathan as Kali was, but she also possessed some restraint, and judging by how lovingly she stroked the bow and arrow in her hands, she was simply pleased that the bow Kothar-wa-Khasis had crafted for her, but which had been given to Aqhat, was finally hers.
All four goddesses, together with Harry, built up massive amounts of divine power, while Harry's aspects maintained a ritual circle which would keep it contained. It only took a few moments, and when they all released that power at their target, the barrier keeping things from spilling over into the rest of the world was put to the test.
When the light show was finally over – and the Obliviators were really going to hate Harry if they ever found out it was him – Harry gave a sigh of relief as he saw that Leviathan had finally been defeated. That thing had been pissing him off, especially as whoever had sent it had added that annoying regenerat-
Harry knelt down and scooped up a chunk of flesh about twice the size of his clenched fist, only to find it was getting bigger.
"That beast is most definitely persistent." One of Harry's summoned deities commented.
"Thanks for pointing that out, Izanami, I hadn't noticed." Harry shot back, growling when she did nothing but smirk at him.
"Are you going to finish it off then?" Shaushka asked.
"No, I think I'll add it to my Soul World. As has been proven, I can handle it, and it's not like there are plenty of them swimming around." Harry then turned and shouted up at his aspects. "Shadow, feel like keeping an eye on it?"
"So long as I'm allowed to beat the crap out of it when it starts pissing me off." Shadow of the Heart yelled back.
"Of course." Harry replied, tossing the growing hunk of meat to said aspect.
"I believe this is where we say farewell for now then." Izanami said. "After all, you should be in school." She admonished him.
Harry raised an eyebrow at her. "Doing what exactly? I'm not a teacher, and there's precious little they can teach me."
Shaushka interrupted Izanami before she could speak. "Ignore her for now, just remember to summon us again soon, kid, and against someone we can have a little... 'fun' with."
Izanami, miffed at Shaushka's interruption, nevertheless agreed with her, but before she and the other's faded away, she had a request for Harry.
"If you would, tell Amaterasu that I wish to speak with her. As much of a bastard as Izanagi was at times, I do wish to get to know his offspring." She told him.
Harry nodded in agreement, and once the four goddesses had faded, Harry's aspects returned to his soul, aside from Tyrant who he sent back to where she had been before, so she could have that fight she wanted.
"Now, to get back before someone notices that I've disappeared." Harry muttered to himself.
xxxxx
Sirius looked up when he heard a wet, slapping noise.
Harry had appeared before him, his clothes drenched in salt water and... was that blood?
Oh well, it wasn't like Sirius hadn't seen him like this before.
"While you were gone, a visitor arrived to see you." The man said, jerking his thumb at a woman who was sat on the end of a table, a half empty bottle of cider in her hand.
"Divinity... Love... Greek... Aphrodite?" Harry sighed upon examining her. "Just wonderful, what do you want?" He asked tiredly.