Chapter XXXV:
The Light of Lights
9S, Devola, and Popola were seemingly all that remained in the war-torn town. Buildings lay flattened all around them. They sought Id's bank of memories. The Festhall. Were it still standing, the trio could have recognized it. They were certain they had reached their destination yet nothing but debris and craters remained.
The building may be gone. The denizens and Id alike may well pulverized into Maso-infested ash. However, one "landmark" remained. An undeniable sign that the scanner and twins had arrived at the sight of this final duel.
The cherub in all his divine glory sat crisscrossed atop a mound of shattered bricks and cracked earth. His wings idly waved with every gust of wind. His curly blond hair remained perfectly styled despite the elements.
He smiled upon noticing his visitors. Large, innocent blue eyes lit up with sarcastic glee. "Still standing? That's good! Good on you!"
9S pointed his sword rightward. "The Legion's gone."
"I saw it from here," replied the cherub. "And here I thought Angelus would never fall."
The scanner stepped forward. "I'd like some answers, now."
"You say that like you have nothing to do with it. My boy, you were my biggest helper in all this."
"You sshaid," Popola stammered. "…You… ssshhaid you were going to rebuild YoRHa. Why?"
The cherubic figure smiled. His wings fluttered with subtle delight. "I did. That's still what I want, and who better to help me with that than its architect? Our good friend No.9! Well, he was by no means the one who built YoRHa but he stole operations away from another of your synthetic kind. Made it his own."
"But why," repeated Devola.
He shrugged his divine shoulders. "I just wanted to keep the war going. Give you soulless lot a reason to keep on living. I'm a part of this world too, now. So, unlike the rest of my kind, I wanted to keep it alive and thriving. Circulating. Keep things interesting."
Devola glinted to her right and then to her left. Not a single sign of life could be found. She cast both hands to the desolate horizons merely to accentuate her conclusion. "Some job ya did."
"The Legion's return was not something I wanted. That was all you and your good buddy Amos."
"I still don't understand," grumbled 9S. "What difference does a war against machines and humans make to a cosmic being like you?"
A chuckle was forced from the angel's throat. "You say that like I have another place to call home. Boy, this is my home."
"Huh?"
The cherub shook his head. A lonesome smile manifested in his eternally youthful features. "Banishment. Such is the price of daring to believe that my kind was a little too harsh on your creators."
No one had the time to make a reply. He gave them not a single chance to pry further. The unnamed beast from another world bounced off the ground and into the air with a single flap of his perfect wings. "Terrible weather for a fight, wouldn't you agree, my dears?"
An audible snap of his infantile fingers rippled across the city ruins. In an instant, the storm clouds that oppressed the atmosphere for months on end. The storm that never seemed to end finally withdrew. The clouds cleared and vanished as if they were never there. They swirled out of being. A flood of sunlight burned the ruins. The androids hid their eyes from the onslaught of solar rays.
He smiled. A bow of golden light manifested in his empty palms. He drew back the string and aimed with a radiant arrow.
"The name is Samyaza, and I believe we have a score to settle."
A bolt of light was shot into the air. It split apart into a thousand more and pelted the earth. Devola danced out of their paths. She darted behind a concrete barrier. She poked her head out and studied the field.
9S kept himself and Popola shielded with Skald's Song as they made their way to their own desired shelter. With them accounted for, Devola struggled to get a look at Samyaza. The daytime sky were still too blinding. She could scarcely see let alone focus.
They took the brunt of the angel's attention. Arrows peppered their position. They were just barely able to find a safe path to shelter. The distraction opened up opportunities for Devola. She studied hard in search of a path forward.
Samyaza cast a hand to the heavens. The third eye embedded in his forehead opened up.
"That looks like a good weak point," Devola muttered to herself.
Columns of golden light descended on the angel's command. The earth began to shake. Horrible tremors rattled Devola's metal bones. She nearly slipped off her feet at the violent earthquake. Discombobulation came and went before Devola realized what was happening. The entire city block was being torn from the earth and steadily lifted skyward.
An island of concrete formed in the sky beneath her feet. Stray rocks and platforms rose with this large mass of earth. Rows of shattered concrete gathered in the sky behind Samyaza. They formed a stairwell that fed straight into a mass of fluffy, white clouds. It was like a staircase leading straight to heaven, but where it truly led was a mystery that had to wait.
"No escape for any of us," declared Samyaza. "There is nowhere left to go. No enlightenment. No transcendence. Come to me and witness the abyss."
Devola watched as a barrage of light columns descended upon the shelter her two remaining companions hid beneath. Outcropping cliffs and concrete walls barely clinging to their forms under this insurmountable pressure. The angel so desperately tried to kill Popola first that he zeroed all his focus on her location. All while ignoring Devola.
"He's still afraid of her," she muttered to herself.
She pondered her options, knowing full well her severe lack of time. The path before her was clear. She watched as the bulbous third eye crowning his head split open. It never once so much as glinted her way. She gripped her sword. The festering remnants of its previous owner tickled her palms. Holding the favored weapon of Red Eye brought her the confidence she needed.
The cursed weapon seethed with fresh hatred as if the bloodthirsty phantom of its previous wielder still clung to it. Waiting for the better part of 10,000 years for this one moment to plunge itself into the skull of that angelic being.
Still, she hesitated. She saw the path. Fragmented rocks floating in the air that patterned the sky and all the way to her opponent. That center eyeball gazing out into the world. Unguarded for the moment. This fleeting moment.
A voice wormed its way into her ear. A familiar, feminine tone. Digitized words uttered in haunting echoes. "Go!"
"Pod," Devola mumbled aloud. She could not bring herself to look away from her target.
"Go now!"
Her legs took on a life of their own. She ran without a second thought.
She tore across the island in the sky and leaped onto a platform above.
Out of the corner of his three eyes, Samyaza noticed her advance. A flick of his wrists sent an arrow toward her platform. The gravity-defying boulder exploded and launched her right back to where she started.
Without bothering to confirm the kill, all too eager to defeat Popola first, the angel returned his attention to the other two androids. Devola was left lying flat on the ground. She breathed in and felt around for her sword. An infernal heat gently guided her hand. She gripped hold.
Her blurred vision started to refocus. A dark figure loomed over her. It took a moment for her to actually see who it was. A face she had never seen before. Tanned skin hidden behind a bushy, black beard. It wasn't his face she recognized but the uniform. A black, unmarked outfit. A bizarrely complex rifle dangled from its sling over his armored torso.
A gloved hand was lowered for her to grab. The muted soldier's lips parted.
"Remember us."
Devola reached for his hand without a second thought. She never grabbed it. Her hands passed right through it. In that instant, the phantom disappeared. Blinked out of existence as though he were never there at all.
In the end, she had to pick herself up. Her lips cracked into a smirk tinged with sorrow. "…Too hard to forget…"
She took off again. She chose a wider path this time. She leaped from platform to platform all while well out of his sight. Devola glinted at her companions. Occasionally, they darted to and from cover. She could not figure out if they were aware of her actions and were simply providing a distraction or advancing on their own. So long as they stayed alive, she could care less.
Every floating isle drew her closer to her target. She aimed higher and higher, leaping to whatever hovering surfaces she could reach. Before she knew it, she was poised for a final plunge. Even from that height, she could not see the top of the spiraling well of floating stairs behind Samyaza. It seemed to stretch on into infinity. She wasted not another moment on the view. She leaped.
Samyaza had but a second to react and it was a second too late. He could only see a scarlet blur descending upon him. The Prince's favored sword sunk straight into his pupil. It burrowed in and stuck like a dart to a board.
Samyaza flew into a discombobulated panic. Devola merely held on for dear life lest she be flung from the sky and back down to earth. He shrieked at the agony, but even that did not last long. The sword came to life. She felt it heat up. It pulsed. A fireball erupted from within Samyaza's third eye and burrowed into his brain, incinerating the inside of his skull.
In an instant, the angel fell limp and collapsed. The floating island tilted under his weight and nearly flipped over altogether.
Before it had truly started, the fight was over.
Devola picked herself up. The heavenly beast landed on his back rather than falling forward. Luck, for once in her miserable life, was on her side. She slid off the slain angel's head. His halo evaporated into thin air.
9S and Popola leaped from behind cover and bolted toward her. She relinquished a relieved sigh at the sight of them. Both were unharmed from what she could tell.
The dust and ash began to clear around them.
Not five seconds of calm had passed before 9S suddenly bolted forward. The twins barely had enough time to process that the fight was over before they realized he had left their side. The android charged for those heavenly stairs still floating at the edge of the isle. He climbed them without hesitation.
"The hell are you going," called Devola.
Popola raced after him. Devola was given no choice but to do the same.
The stair-like platforms were spaced out just far enough to hold a gap but it was easy enough to scale them. They span around and around. Devola felt dizzy as she ascended to what she knew in her gut would be the final destination to this warped journey. The platforms beneath her, once made from narrow slivers of concrete ripped from the earth, changed in form. They crossed through a wall of clouds, and the steps beyond were crafted of glimmering pearl. Gold crystalline minerals jutted out from the bottom of these floating blocks.
A bright light warmed their approach. It was as though they were ascending into the sun itself. They crossed another swell of clouds. Fluffy vapor tickled their plastic skin. Devola could barely see her own hand in the thick clouds, let alone the scanner she so desperately chased after.
"Ssshlow down," Popola pleaded.
They cleared the layer of fog. The world around them started to change. The clouds drifting above and around them were filled with golden crystals that jutted from the tops of a fluffy base. Cherubs soared between them on pearly wings. A few of them slowed to wave at the newcomers entering their domain. They smiled with ironic innocence.
At last, the peek of the ascension came into view. Another massive sky island hovering over mounds of clouds. Golden metal twisted in veins between pearly formations of immaculate marble. The pretty sight did not slow them. They pushed past the last stretch of steps and planted their feet firmly on the world above.
Finally, 9S stopped if only because he had no other choice. The sight before him stole the breath from his metal lungs.
Rolling dunes of paper-white sand lay stretched before him. A crescent moon exuded the light of a sun from on high. Stars twinkled across a daytime sky. Golden clouds drifted around impossible rock formations. Caves of crystal stretched across thin air. The walls of which were transparent at certain angles. You could see right through them. Cave systems in the middle of the sky.
An idea came to all three androids at roughly the same time. The thought to simply look down. And so they did exactly that. Below was a shell of storm clouds slowly but surely departing from the world. From above they looked like a blanket of eternal fluff covered by a rainbow film that shimmered between mountainous cloudscapes.
It was all so dizzying.
"Where," stammered Devola. "Where are we?"
"Looks like heaven," 9S muttered in an odd tone.
"Hey there," came an entirely different voice.
They looked forward to a spot they had somehow overlooked.
A table of ebony wood lay upright in the sand at a low point between two dunes. A darkly dressed android waited patiently in a chair hunched over the table, clearly bored out of his skull.
A black-haired scanner model with the same blue eyes that 9S had finally reclaimed after so much turmoil. He wore them as though they meant nothing.
The face was familiar. Painfully familiar.
He smiled at 9S and then a wink
"Well!? What are you three waiting on? The end of the world? Come sit down. Let's have a little chat."