· · · · · · ·

He just had to sing. Never mind the pain, the humiliation of that was what she'd remember most, she was sure.

Okay, the condition of her body was building up to be worse right now. A flock of marine devils had chanced across her body and gnawed on her limbs for a bit. She couldn't get in, or there would be witnessed. The had to fight off the pledge from pulling her in and heal her as well. So she had waited until Dalphin's order of retreat whisked them away.

Once the Aqualord's pull helped her get back in right, the pain hit her full force. It wasn't the magic itself, but the things it tried to fix. There wasn't quite a hole in her body, Xelloss had projected around her, but her spine was in pieces and her skull had cracked when it had hit the water. The currents had thrown her against rocks down the way and her lungs filled with water. There was no air to replace it.

It took Ragrairyos too long to teleport her away. In between the perpetual choking and the unnatural way the pledge forced her body to heal, there wasn't much room for speculating on why.

Only when the devil energy began to it hit her the little red light was still there. The talisman? She closed her better hand around it.

A little voice thrilled in her ear, "Finally! Listen, swim in the direction of where I pull. Once we're away from these accursed waters, teleport up in the air."

Filia forced her limbs to push her up. She gasped for air when she broke the surface, but couldn't get rid of the water. It took her three tries to teleport up, where she promptly transformed into her dragon self.

Having bigger lungs, she breathed in once before coughing up. She almost pummeled back into the water, but steadied herself at the last minute.

Right, onto business.

"What just happened?" she yelled at the tiny talisman in her claws.

"You tell me, you were ghosting around. All I know is that a fusion shield is cutting right through my stretched out body, and that this began shortly after I went to put you back into your body."

"I'm not sure. Zelas's had her full out projection, I couldn't see what exactly happened between her and miss Luna. I think they talked, but that's all I know. Then miss Luna ordered your puppet and it obeyed. I don't understand. Are there two gods now?"

"The shield doesn't cut my soul in half, just my body. I'm the astral equivalent of paralyzed neck down, and I hope they're not going to play with what that shield can do."

"What do you mean, going to?"

"They haven't let up the shield around Elmegiddo."

A multitude of new concerns crashed over Filia. What did that say about Luna? Would Jillas be okay, what would he do? When would the barrier come down for the injured? Would Ragrairyos be alright? What was wrong with Zelas? She had no answers, so she only asked, "Is Xelloss alright?"

"He got in without a hitch, at least with Dalphin. Now, we need to plan. You cannot hover around in the open like this. Prepare to teleport."

· · · · · · ·

Xelloss was supposed to teleport to Rygoon at his first chance, where he would meet up with the now informed islanders. In their absence, they could only wait on two things : when Xelloss showed up, and when the Sailoon royals would be back in their capital. Right now, they were up and about dealing with the war. Ragrairyos couldn't see so far in this state and spent her time inside the talisman, which at least dulled the cut a little.

For Filia, the hours numbed her mind with anxiety. She went over all sorts of problems, like Xelloss being found out somehow or the barrier never opening. They would open, right? They had to communicate with the outside world, unless they went ahead with reincarnating Luke — how soon would they notice something wrong with Ragrairyos? What would they think if it? Would anyone ask Jillas?

What if Valgarv had figured out all of Xelloss's word tricks by now, and would recognize them? What if Valgarv got fed up? What if he got curious about why Xelloss could channel Shabranigdu's power? Just how much did he still retain of Volphied's knowledge? If they did subtract Val, could he stand up to Valgarv on his own?

How was she going to ever explain this to Elena and the rest of the family? They were so near, she could go to Sailoon now and explain them ... and risk herself being seen by the wrong people. Did she even want to talk?

Val wasn't real, but we'll make him so and send him to what may well be his death.

Valgarv was simple. He was the enemy set to destroy the world, yet that simplicity felt so incomplete when he pulled out so much guilt and hatred and pity and remorse — some things she understood were well past what he deserved, but could not stop feeling regardless.

Claire had responded to Val's betrayal by deciding not to depend on individual attachment. Just like that, thrown out the potential to develop love. She had left it behind when she became part of Ragrairyos. Filia would never make such a choice, but still, she understood it now. If one had the option to never feel like this without having experienced the best of it, without it having really been part of her identity ...

Still, the idea someone could decide on what personality another had frightened her more than it appealed. Maybe Elena would get it, after a lot of explaining, but the others wouldn't. Neither Claire nor Val had loved them. Where to begin?

Jillas had written them already, but only given them an incomplete story.

There was still same paper lying around in the rooms here. She shoved an old drawing of Val under a book and focused on the latter.

Her hands still wouldn't cooperate, and she just got blotches of ink all over the paper. Again.

Another thing she would have to explain to her family; why she wouldn't be making vases again, and would need help writing the company documents. Because of Xelloss.

He'd broken just her hands. What she had gotten from him in Kataart wasn't even close to what he could do.

He'd broken her hands. He could have done something that wouldn't have left a lasting scar. To what extent was it his need to act versus a devil's sadism?

That kind of dichotomy surrounded him at every turn. She was sick with worry for his safety, but also worried about what would happen after they got Lina back. She didn't want him to die, but she didn't want him in her life either. She needed him for a plan that she hated having to do. If she could not begin to explain what he was to herself, she couldn't explain it to others.

A small sizzle, a golden glow and the sharp sense of devil presence startled Filia so hard her quill broke between her fingers.

"Oh my, I did my job a little too well, didn't I?" Xelloss said somewhere behind her.

"It's just my hands being difficult," Filia said without looking back.

It wasn't untrue, but it left out things. Her memories of him with bloodlust all around, screaming for her to flee, but she couldn't let them matter.

"Hmmhmm." He didn't believe her. "So, where is everyone?"

Ragrairyos covered that explanation in her usual dry tone, albeit a little vexed.

"Oh my, how unfortunate," he said too casually. She was tempted to ask Ragrairyos whether he really felt that way, but let it go. He'd notice.

"How are things on your end?" Filia asked.

"The demon clan believes that 'Dark Star' and Ruby Eye are gearing up to attack. The war is about delivering food to him. Personally, I believe Valgarv struggles with controlling Shabranigdu's power through the hosts. The traces of how he uses the demonsblood talisman are dim, but I know what to look for : his charade might not last long. He knows this and already talks about using his hollow to mine through the seabed, to slip below the barriers.

I have not yet planted any beacons. Valgarv stays in his little throne hall most of the time, and I only have an excuse to be there when reporting. We may need to risk a wider beacon, I have a better chance if I'm not limiting the range to a few meters. Will that make it much harder to teleport him out?"

"Yes," Ragrairyos whispered in Filia's ear. "Though, we might fix that if we bring in aid."

Filia nodded, they already had plans for aid in the valley, which might extend their function. She let Ragrairyos explain that by handing the talisman to Xelloss, and expected him to summon Lina. He did exactly that.

In the physical plane nothing happened clearly, but astrally the talisman became in sharper definition than even Xelloss on the top layer. The red of the talisman turned multiple shades at the same time, passing through black, blue and finally white. The entire astral plane shifted along with it, almost felt like one was pulled through soft walls.

When Lina appeared this time, she wore pajamas and had a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth.

"What is it now? ... Filia, why are you soaked in demon magic? Why are we in a tree?"

"That's a long story," Xelloss and Filia said at the same time.

A few minutes later, Lina had a though explanation on why they thought Val could be subtracted, plus a very basic outline of the plan that carefully omitted both the embarrassing and the bloody parts. Filia quietly thanked the Aqualord for her tact.

Not that the tact made it any better received by Lina.

"Why the everloving chaos would you take such a risk? Are you two completely out of your mind?!"

"Hmm, now you mention it, I actually have been. I wonder whether that affects my judgment," Xelloss said thoughtfully, and he might just mean it.

"Well, miss Lina, if you happen to have a better way to bring you back, I'd love to hear it," Filia said, crossing her arms. After all this trouble, being chewed out was a little much.

"Ugh, I don't have one yet. Look, you know my life motto is that you have to give your all, or you give up preemptively—"

"I thought it was give me food," Xelloss said.

"Hey, I'm a sorcerer, I need to eat. Anyway, I still stick to that, but I'm not a teenager anymore. Not giving up doesn't mean throwing yourself head first into battle without assessing all your options, or your limits. You're making a hell of a lotta gambles here and you already have a chink in the cable after stage one."

"Chinks in cables?" Xelloss asked.

Lina ignored that and asked, "How along before they're going to be suspicious of you?"

"I'm fine for a while, I'm sure. See, Valgarv cannot ask me how I feel or think about miss Filia. Dark Star is supposed to be interested in Filia exclusively due to her being a channel of Siephied, and he's previously left me alone with her to flee miss Leyunso. I already have Deep Sea Dalphin convinced I only played along with my liege to make my escape easier, if Valgarv starts questioning my motives now, he'll cast doubt on himself. He needs the cooperation of the retainers just to get his food. He won't want to make them suspicious of him."

"What about asking you whether you want to destroy the world?"

"I have my word tricks, they work fine so far."

"Does he actually believe you crossed over, or is he onto you?"

"I don't really know."

Lina pinched the bridge of her nose. "Way too much variables here, but it looks like going ahead with your plan is the best way to go. I can repeat what I did with Claire, but only if there's a real personality to work with. Granny, you're sure it's there?"

"Without doubt," Ragrairyos said. "I know what I'm looking for. It's not alive on its own, but can function fully on a body. That's why he worked so well."

"Right. So our one immediate problem is that you don't have all of your body. They need to open Elmegiddo's barrier some time to let the others in, right? Get a peg on when that happens. A good peg. The last thing we need is you two going onto a bad teleport zone with two prickly gods just to find no entrance. Hmmm, say, Granny, what are the odds of you flying over there and writing something in the sky?"

"In this shape? None. Even with more power, it'll just look like a trap, assuming anyone sees at all."

"Any odds Leyunso can get something done?"

"Yes, but unfortunately, your sister is immune and Zelas avoided her before. If she tried, I'm sure your sister and Zelas would agree on killing or sealing her."

Lina had nary a response to that.

"Your sister and Zelas are getting along right now. Doesn't that worry you a little?" Filia asked.

"My sister is a devil herself, she'll be fine," Lina sneered. "Never mind her. Go find Amelia and Zel, we'll talk once we have more people to plan with and I had breakfast."

She vanished in a puff of golden smoke.

· · · · · · ·

Ragrairyos needed a bit to scry for Amelia and her company, who periodically went under fusion shields. She eventually nailed the location by asking a few nature spirits.

Sailoon and Zephyria had fortified their borders to Kalmart, which had been overrun. Rather than full out offense on the two white magic countries, the devil armies tried to get through Kalmart into Lartigue, and thereby encircle Dils.

Teleporting this distance without any godly energy to replenish her took a huge chunk out of Filia's reserves, but Sailoon was the most likely to have an update on what went down in Elmegiddo.

A massive fusion shield covered an encampment low to the ground. Now, of course they could make a scene, but if any devil scouts were nearby that could collapse their whole plan. So, Xelloss summoned Lina again through the talisman, and asked her ghostly self to walk through the shield.

That worked, but the further Lina went from the talisman, the thinner her presence became.

Filia and Xelloss waited behind their own fusion shield. She quietly speculated on whether it was worth the risk to tamper with the camp's barrier, rather than sit in the same cramped space with Xelloss.

Lina returned soon. "I can't outright project over there, but I did get Amelia to sense me. Get closer to the edge."

Filia had the less conspicuous astral body, so she slipped out of their barrier and teleported to the very edge of the camp.

Sure enough, Amelia and Zelgadis wandered through the tents.

"It went here, I'm sure!"

"I'm not questioning your priestess powers, but for all we know—"

"For all we know there's some poor spirit in need of our help."

"They could have alerted any soldier, really."

Filia tossed the hell gem. The barrier wasn't calculated to keep this type of magic out, it went right through.

It hit Zelgadis right in the head and dropped off, but Amelia caught it.

"Hey, isn't this that ..." Amelia and Zelgadis turned as one to where it had come from.

Filia peeked out of the bushes. "Over here!" she said as loud as she dared.

"Miss Filia?! You're not dead!" Amelia said, eyes widening as she skipped over to the edge. "I knew it! It made no sense for mister Xelloss to kill you!"

"Not currently, no, but I will be if you keep shouting. Could you lower the barrier? It's all part of a plan, Xelloss is waiting out there, he shouldn't be seen by the enemy."

"This could be a trap, Amelia," Zelgadis said, following at a steadier pace. "We have no guarantee that really is Filia."

"Kill any beastmen with the Sword of Emo lately?" Filia asked, nodding at his weapon.

"Dammit, how often do I have to explain that Gravos misheard? That—Wait, Amelia!"

The princess had already stepped out of the barrier and into the bushes with Filia, ready for sneakiness mode. Filia led her to Xelloss, Zelgadis grumbling on their trail.

So maybe they were being a little overly cautious, but it didn't harm to be. After a minute of tangling through the shrubs, they found Xelloss, got him to transform into a cone to verify himself, and that was enough for Amelia to invite them in.

Filia was unfamiliar with the terrain so they landed between tents, but quickly slipped inside an empty one. There, Zelgadis crossed his arm and got a stern look, the investigator variation of his usual brooding.

"Right, you're alive and yourselves. That doesn't mean this is in order. The last time we saw you, you were terrified of him and he's broken your hands beyond repair. Next news we get, you're dating. You deciding to stick with them after all the shit they put you through? I know all about how that works," Zelgadis said to Filia. "And now you're here, alive and with him, hiding."

"Well, our little run in in Kataart is why we played up miss Filia's part as a Storkhelm Syndrome," Xelloss said cheerfully. "Don't worry, it's all part of our genius plan to fool Valgarv by fooling Dalphin by fooling my liege the Beast Monarch by fooling the dragons, so that we can kidnap Valgarv. Once we have him, we're going to rewrite his mind so he returns miss Lina and stops trying to end the world."

"What?" Clearly this needed a better explanation. Filia explained their logic, rushed through the embarrassing parts and well, ended up with almost the same closing line as Xelloss.

"How did you ever agree to this, Filia?" Zel asked.

"Valgarv broke her," Xelloss said, still with inappropriate cheer. "I assume that includes her ethics because she suggested this plan to me."

"I prefer to see it as being reasonable in this absurd war," Filia said. "And I know it's not your business to comment on."

"Yep, that's them," Amelia said. "You know what this means? We're going to win this war much sooner! I'm sure mister Xelloss can get all sorts of inside information!"

"Eh? I didn't—"Come here for that, Filia could imagine him saying, but she didn't let him.

"That's a great idea. Why don't we gather other leaders and see what we can do? Oh, and I have the talisman here, so both miss Ragrairyos and miss Lina can pitch in!"

After getting familiar with the flow and having Zel roughly point her in the direction, Filia teleported into the conference area central to the camp.

It was small castle crafted from the earth itself with golems and layers of protective holy magic shrouded it. Maps lay all over the place, and in the middle was a tired king and a small green plushie. Philionel still had his aura of justice, but was somehow worn down, more tired. Pokota had some scorch marks, but seemed fine. With him that didn't mean anything.

They startled when the group just appeared, but only Pokota spoke. "Huh? What's going on?"

"We're about to find out," Zelgadis said.

"This is the whole group?" Claire asked from within the talisman. "Liliane was supposed to send at least a councilor."

"It doesn't matter. The least people in on it, the less likely someone's going to be caught and tortured into leaking sensitive information," Xelloss said. "Which may in other ways too, if I end up sharing anything none of you are supposed to know."

"We'll cross that bridge later," Zelgadis said. "Get Lina in here."

Summoning her did a small wonder for the mood, even if Lina went on at length about how nuts this plan was. She got a more elaborate version of the story, her response started with the class what and ended with a thorough "What the everliving hell?"

"Well, it worked," Xelloss said, a little offended. "We just didn't expect my liege to suddenly get along with miss Luna and lock us out."

"Fine. Here we are," Lina said. So far, she hadn't said a word about whether she could actually do what they expected her to do, so nobody asked. It'd just offend Lina's self confidence, not unjustified.

"Here we are indeed," Ragrairyos said, sound far less confident and more torn down. Most people in the room didn't look too bright, and Philionel hadn't said a word all along.

"So how did you fake it anyway, Filia?" Pokota asked, perhaps in a bad effort to lighten the mood. "Obsessively calculating Pythagorean Theorems or Herons Formulas?"

"We should have thought of that angle," Xelloss said.

"We had a word trick, okay. Smoke and mirrors," she said stiffly.

"Was that bloody, convincing death we heard about smoke as well?" Zelgadis asked. That got Filia a sharp look from Lina; she could hear the chastisement already. Don't be a martyr.

"We fused magic, off course," Xelloss said. "As for the precise details ..."

He waited a moment, and Filia decided with a small nod. From behind, he stuck his arm through her stomach. This time she felt nothing, ... except irritation, because there was a projected fake heart complete with blood in his hand.

"Xelloss! You were complaining about tacky lines and then you do this? Can you possibly be more tacky than ripping my heart out?"

He pulled his arm back with a puff of smoke. "Words don't bleed, miss Filia. Organs do."

He thumbed at the audience : full of horrified faces. So much for lightening the mood; everyone here just came from a warzone. Note to self, Xelloss is always bad for sensitive situations. Shame on you for forgetting.

At least Lina didn't look like she was going to make a case about martyrs. Filia wasn't sure she could deny it.

"Enough of this," Zelgadis said. "We have a to figure out how to get that barrier down."

"If this has Xelloss written all over it, maybe Zelas will figure it out on her own," Pokota said.

Lina shook her head. "Xelloss's method is being upfront with incomplete information and steering people into pre-existing trouble zones. This is not his style, it's Filia's style : let everyone know something is coming and roleplay to make people assume what she needs."

"Oh come now. It's not a style, that would imply I do it regularly," Filia huffed. "I don't at all."

"Unfortunately," Xelloss said.

"Odds that Luna and Zelas are going to disagree soon? What I heard about them isn't pretty," Pokota said.

Filia clenched her teeth together and said, "I kind of, ehm, implied that it's okay to have a Storkhelm Syndrome. She ran with her own."

Lina got a most wicked grin. "Luna did? How would that even work?"

"She will not stop calling my liege Poodlywoo," Xelloss said with a sudden case of seriousness.

"I hope Zelas fixes that."

The callousness with which Lina said so bothered Filia, but at the same time she knew where it came from. Luna being coerced into the plot was vile, but so was everything she'd done to Lina. She forgave Lina, but maybe not for the right reasons. She's also forgiven Valgarv for the wrong reasons, and see how useless that had been.

It struck Filia that the three people most involved in her life all had trails of victims. She could have done something about most of that.

Zelgadis leaned to Filia and whispered, "Are you sure you're not having some sort of Storkhelm Syndrome?"

"She does, though not towards me," Xelloss said. "It was actually quite useful for our scheme. We need bait somewhere down the line."

Bait for him, said like they were going fishing and it was no big deal. That was the second time Xelloss did this in short order, and it didn't help keep her mind off of the worst yet to come.

"That was not for you to answer. Stick to strategy," Filia said through gritted teeth, standing up. "Please excuse me."

She walked out of the room, finding it too suffocating. Covering her face with a cloth in case anyone saw her, she sat in the corner of the front hall and listened.

Behind her, Xelloss cheerfully announced he could impart information on the enemy, but only insofar it wouldn't render him suspicious; ideas for traps that would be sprung later and plans that would pay off after he was safe. No amount of begging would get him to budge.

He sounded so damn bright, a sharp contrast to the urgent and sometimes explosive voices of the Sailoon royals, Phil less so than Amelia. Lina interspersed a few pessimistic comments on the likelihood of getting him to take risks. Zel's dried out frustration and occasional spitting at Xelloss spiced it at times. Pokota found himself as the odd middle man of all that, while also trying to convince people they needed to inform more royalty.

Everything in her life had become profane, down to herself.

When the meeting died down, Filia considered getting back in to have a word with Lina, but decided against it. The kind of conversation she wanted to have wouldn't do in front of everyone, or even with Xelloss there to keep the link going.

The remainder still debated on strategy, but Xelloss left pretty soon. Rather than phase away, he stepped out and closed the door behind him.

"What went wrong there?" he asked.

"Nothing. I don't know anything about warfare so why shouldn't I take a break?"

He sat down next to her, crosslegged. "Really?"

Of course not.

She didn't really want to talk to Xelloss about this, he'd probably say the wrong thing again. He wasn't supposed to even see it when she faltered

"You don't get to talk about my role for me. I'm trying ... just try to get it, I have to face him again and cut into his soul and ... do you have to talk about it like it's a joke? I can hardly keep myself together and you're bring it up like it's the best thing ever." She tried sounding angry, but was running low on that emotion. It just came out tired.

"Sorry, I slipped up a little," he said, doing that thing where he scratched the back of his head, and she could not tell how sincere he was.

"Shouldn't you get back to the demon clan? They'll be suspicious if you're gone for too long."

"True. I still have to get myself an excuse," he said, but didn't stand up yet. He just got a weird little smile. "But before I go, there's one more thing."

"What?" she snapped.

"Quack."

This time, there was no social situation to regard. Filia laughed despite everything and hated herself for it.

What else was there to do but laugh at everything, when she couldn't afford to cry? Silly devils in closets and chocolate ice cream, all part of the same world where children were adults and personalities were choices.

When the last chuckle died down, there were tears on her face anyway. That shouldn't be happening, she'd worked so hard not to cry.

Xelloss had a puzzled look on his face. "Not quite what I hoped to get as a response."

"Well, too bad. I have an appointment with hell now, so go find your entertainment elsewhere."

· · · · · · ·

With the talisman and its god inside, Filia teleported to the valley of the ancients.

Here it had been that Filia conceived her plan. The first thoughts had played out when Luna spoke to her about Val being a lie. Fragments of understanding soul gates coming together with knowing how Luna's split consciousness worked. The pieces fell together when she investigated how the hell trees Lina had grown here truly worked, and then Xelloss came forth and proved cooperative enough ... she had the means and the method. Valgarv would die where it would suit the world best.

They would bind Valgarv and his pieces of Shabranigdu in place long enough for them to get surgical on his soul. That was where the hell trees came in.

The trees had been grown by Lina under the instructions of the Knight of Shabranigdu, Laust and his eons of experience with the world. The trees channeled energy of Megiddo itself in such a manner that it could polarize a soul. Dead and broken souls had a hard time moving away from it. Best yet, souls from hell could easily pass to this place.

Limbo didn't exist, she had learned since her days as ignorant priestess, but this place deserved the name. The Ancients already had come to this place before Lina transformed it, their most sacred ground. Be it in death or life.

At the shore, she laid the angelsblood talisman in the water. With a sigh of relief, Ragrairyos drifted into the depths. A mirage of her true form reflected in the sky like aurora, settling into a circle over the valley. Her wings tucked close, she twisted and spiraled like a serpent and sang with the voice of whales — for gods, motion was prayer to nature.

Filia took out the hell gem and knelt down in her own way of prayer.

Humbly she bid a path through Megiddo, the first to answer were the three elders she had seen once before.

"She who bears the blood of the golden dragons, why have you called us here?"

Filia looked up, but kept her pose. "I call you for the fate of the world. Let me answer the question you once asked me with no. We cannot achieve peace simply by nonviolence. There is no ambiguity about our war, for the devils we fight are an absolute force of destruction that craves pain to pave its path. One of your own children would not stand down and now he seeks to remake the world in his image, using that same path.

So I have come to ask you, will you stand by idly again?"

"We have not been idle in guarding hell's pieces of Shabranigdu, but we may presume you mean something more active."

"I do."

"What would the bygone like us even able to do? And for what purpose?" asked the female elder. "Let us hear that before we say anything."

"I and a few of my allies have a plan to capture Valgarv and reprogram his intentions, so he will hurl himself into Elmegiddo. We will have him summon the Apostle of Chaos for us, or failing that, we will seal Shabranigdu's power, claim the talisman and try on our own."

"By what means?"

They stayed silent after she told them, long enough for her to become anxious. "Listen, before miss Lina, I never did anything truly useful, and she urged me to take action. My lack of resolve, my crippling guilt could have damned the world. I have to stand, and so do you. I know spirits can still hold power. Phibrizo gave the dead bodies, Ragraire can do the same for you. Do something for the world. You absolute pacifism only ever got yourself killed faster, you extended no one's life, alleviated no misery."

"What would you have us do?"

"If we want to reprogram Valgarv, we need him to stay in one place for us to work on. With your help, we can hold him, but you would have another purpose : to lure him here. Valgarv is a narcissist, a kind of person who craves recognition. It is as air to him, and so he will respond to an audience. I've seen him do it myself many times, his greatest mistakes stem from it. The one who helped him trick us for seven years is dead now. We can play him the way he played us."

"Will you tell us more? It seems a lot has happened to our last child that we do not know of."

Filia told them, but more often than not, Ragrairyos filled in when her voice wavered. The Ancients listened in silence, their questions scarce.

At the end of it, the leader faced Filia in particular.

"What are your motivations in this? We agree that our child must be stopped, but understand, you are a golden dragon seeking to reverse what once was your way to atone. Are you certain there is no other way?"

It wasn't really about the logic, Filia realized. It was the symbol of Val's rebirth they would lay to the grave.

"I must ... I want to atone for what my people did to you. But I can't do it, because the reasons I want to atone are a lie. I learned to believe in a great moral force in this world, where responsibility and duty is a natural fact. The Lord of Nightmares doesn't care, nor do the gods. By what standards would I atone? Who would tell me when it would be enough?"

She had rehearsed the words, even if she hated believing them.

"We might tell you, I suppose, but we are all individuals. We would not agree in perfection," the elder said. "It is of no consequence. We do not ask that you pay, for it does none any good. Let us consider your efforts for the child a sign of your good will."

Somewhere under the weight of her heart, she felt relief for those words, but it meant so little. Murderer of her own child. Innocent sinner.

"If that can be the last word on this, I'd like to never speak again of Valgarv as a child, be it yours or mine. He is the world's enemy," she said.

"Well then. We will aid you as dragons united under a god," he said to her, before turning to the god in question. "Aqualord Ragrairyos, you have our service."

· · · · · · ·

Under their song, the trees of Megiddo were kindled again. Filia aided by casting her magic on the nearest trees, one by one. She took its fire and lit candles for little baskets on the water, spreading their magic for the Aqualord's flow resonance.

Sleep tugged at her body, but she pushed it away. Ragrairyos expanded what little power she had, coaxing elemental spirits to aid in the construction of the region.

Soon, a low mist rolled over the grass and water, accompanying the ghosts as they wandered and chanted softly. Those ghosts in human form sang with alphabetical words, those in dragon form with the wails and humming of their kind. The hymn was in a language Filia did not recognize, but the tone carried sorrow and serenity. Soon, they synchronizes with Ragrairyos.

Next on her task list was refining the chains she had taken from Luna. They replaced their original plan for a seal, but had yet to be refined. Through the pledge, Filia could exert fusion magic, but only within specifics she had told Xelloss about beforehand.

Keeping fusion magic going wasn't easy. In the heat of a moment their goals might coincide, but sitting still with nothing to keep her single minded only steered her thoughts to how he was.

Right now, Xelloss was expected to assist in the war. He would be killing people, and it wasn't enough to tell herself that if he didn't, someone else would. She couldn't even begin to measure where he might be going too far. To what extent what she responsible for everyone who died? Could she do something to make it less? Should she? Why did she want to?

She spoke with the ghosts of the ancient dragons in the hopes of defining that line, at least, even if she couldn't change that right now countless were dying. Their ideas on Xelloss were at best ambivalent.

The more she spoke with them, the more she felt like an outsider. They told of virtue and lost wisdom, their elders most solemn and those who had died young only a little more lively. If there were any who had died before the genocide, she didn't meet them.

They wanted to know about Val and Valgarv, worried for her allegiance with the devil wolf pack and gave quiet but ultimately ignorant advice. It was impossible to be near them, and not have Val and Valgarv come to the front of her mind.

Ragrairyos, probably out of some detached realization this wasn't helping Filia, took to talking in her stead. Somehow this dissolved into a theological debate. She was not satisfied with their current concession to help out and wanted more. It surprised Filia a little, that she now had an interest in gaining followers, but she didn't know what to think of it.

Ranting at Luna about something trivial like merchants delivering the wrong clay would've been nice now ... and a rather weird thing to wish for. Luna who was always calm by the time she'd sat down for long distance communication and would indulge in fantasies on how to one-up whomever she complained about. But Luna was just another shattered idol.

Filia had about two days to tightly wrap herself into a blanket of solemn tragedy before Xelloss appeared.

She'd taken a spot on the edge of an artificial hamlet, once used for sacred rituals by the ruined temple. In the thick of holy magic and Megiddo's flow, she didn't notice him until somewhere far off, she heard, "How very dreary."

Relief that he was alright clashed with sheer irritation — leave it to Xelloss to disrespect the mood.

"Then go elsewhere. You don't need to be here," Filia said, a little louder than needed. She didn't mean it.

Xelloss projected at her side, hunched down. "I just got here and you're sending me away again? How rude. And I just got you this excellent crystal ball," he said with a fake pout. From his satchel, he pulled ... well, that was indeed some state of the art. "I guess I'll just take it along again."

Filia snatched it before he could put it away again. Carefully turning it over in her hands, she concluded it had to be dragon craft. That earned him a suspecting look.

"I just looted it from Kataart," he said. "They had me run through to mountains to find enemy hide outs and I picked up a few things."

He might have also taken lives, she couldn't help but remember.

The crystal resonated with the water; likely created to compliment the Aqualord's power and the sacred waters. Filia sat down at the water's edge where the roots of the trees allowed. She took her shoes off and let the magic connect in the most simple way — contrary to all the formality she'd been taught about elemental alliance magic. No circles and spells and ritual.

First she checked on Elena and the rest of her family; just a cursory glance through the window of their shelter. They were well, though worried sick. Elena had started an aid group for beastfolk and Palu helped out with the forging of armors. She didn't see Gravos at first, but soon found him outside gathering wood.

Amelia and the other leaders didn't advance in the war; they didn't want the enemy to know their supply of holy magic was cut off and so they feigned a focus on rescue missions and fortification. How long would that last was up in the air. The devil armies tried to pierce south every day. The Eternal Queen had the reserve not to move too soon, but Sailoon might not.

Zelgadis had gotten a dragon to teleport him to the eastern station, where he planned to leave a message for next time anyone from Elmegiddo checked. The crew had told him someone had already been by to inform them of the situation : the shield would stay up until they had completed a new talisman, had summoned Lina and incarnated Luke somehow. When asked about support for the war, they were told that they would devise a way to let holy magic pass out of the shield. Eventually. Zelgadis didn't end up telling them the scheme, after probing waters and getting weariness and suspicion.

"Tea?" Xelloss shoved a saucer with a cop before her nose.

She wanted to keep watching, but that tea smelled terribly good. She set the ball aside and accepted, not worrying there was a catch.

Mere months ago, she would have deemed Xelloss's silence to be blissful, and suspicious he was up to something. Now it reminded her something was very off, and that she didn't know what to do with him. He'd gotten more careful to the point where if she wanted to argue, she had to start it. Her anxiety about him was useless right now, but she didn't want to temper it. Once this was all over, he'd stop being congenial.

The leech shone through even now. He'd started kicking one of the little candle floats she'd so painstakingly put together. It wasn't an act to make himself seem less dangerous, he really was this petty.

He was also the reason putting those floats together had been painstaking, what with lacking a usable thumb on one of her hands. Did he simply act on a whim, or had he just figured out a way to vex her that she hadn't covered in the list? A whole new kind of paranoia, she now questioned every little thing.

Inevitably, this shot her thoughts back to Val. She should have been far, far more paranoid about his little quirks and — no don't think about Val.

The candle float toppled over and Filia elbowed Xelloss in the arm. "Quit that. And you know, you don't need to sit this close."

"But there's not much room here."

Filia waved around at the air. "Really? So I'm imagining all this empty space here?"

"It's air full of dull ghosts. You're the only tolerable thing in this valley."

She stuck out her tongue and shoved a little harder. Act as usual.

"I take this means you're alright with touch if you start it? Well then ..."

Xelloss shoved her into the water.

Sputtering, Filia burst from the surface with drooping mud in her hands, which she almost hurled at Xelloss. He dodged, but when she didn't throw he looked disappointed.

A clutter of ghosts had stopped a little beyond him, watching quietly and distraught. Guilt bubbled up and she let her hands drop.

"Really, that's all?" Xelloss asked.

"I shouldn't have done this, this is the wrong place," she said. "It's already bad enough to I brought someone here like you, what with your history."

"Hmmhmm."

"Don't you hmmhmm me, Xelloss. Everyone of their clan can never reincarnate or rebuild the nation. This is a solemn place."

"I'm well aware," he said dryly.

"Oh, for—do you have to be so insensitive?"

"That's because I just am not sensitive to this matter," he said, prickly now. Probably irritated he didn't get to play. This was the point where she should really just drop it, but he vexed her and he did so at the worst time.

"Can you at least try to understand why it's so awful if you kill people, either directly or by proxy?" The question was out before she'd thought about.

"And why are you bringing this up, now?"

Don't think about Val. Anything but Val. You have to condemn your son. He won't even become a ghost, like them. And this monster here, would laugh at the end. He's already laughing whenever he kills.

It didn't even feel like her own thoughts, came in the voices of old mentors and ill remembered preaches.

The Ancient ghosts had moved on, but Filia still stood in the water, staring back at one open eye of Xelloss. He was genuinely curious, for once, but she didn't have a good explanation.

"Just answer!"

"I can try, if you try to understand it doesn't hold weight to us. When I kill someone they do not end, they will still exist as ghosts. Depending on their mental strength, they can last forever. When we astral beings are destroyed, there is either nothing left or some remnant that becomes its own person. My killing of others only means they lose their physical form, which we go without most of the time anyway."

"You still take from them everything that defined them so far, their world, their friends and family still here, and stick them in a form they weren't even aware of before. And if they die before resolving their problems, they'll be stuck in a self induced hell on earth."

"Alternatively, I killed them before they have a chance to meet that hell on earth. Now, are you going to stay in the water out of protest, or ..."

She climbed out, on the opposite side of the hamlet. That left her work on the wrong side, but that was less important than making a point on ... well, it should be that Xelloss was being a pain, but it wasn't so bad this time. It was just everything else about him, in this situation, in light of what they had to do and then some.

He gave her a long, strange look, eyes a little narrowed. In rare moments like this, she wanted to know what he thought.

After a moment's pause, almost like he gave in, he continued, "It's not like it bothers me to kill, but I'm not an advocate for senseless mass slaughter. There's no sense to either the specific orders nor the grand war and I'm growing bored with herding prey. However, there is no way to do this without getting dirty, miss Filia. You know that."

She did know that, and that was the worst of it : she'd caused this.

· · · · · · ·

Xelloss didn't come by every day. When he did, it was only for a short window, just enough to adjust things on the chainwork or get familiar with the growing magic of the area.

The entire time, Filia resisted the urge to use the crystal ball to look at what he did. She used it to keep an eye on those she knew, just brief flashes to confirm they were alright. That included the survivors of her dragon family. A few members in the second order, and eventually she built up the courage to look for her mother in the deep south. That life seemed so distant and irrelevant now, and she found it hard to reconnect. Her own mother would be appalled at what Filia had become, she knew that much — and Filia shared the sentiment. With all likelihood, her mother had known of the genocide. She didn't have the courage to ask the ghosts whether they recognized her, nor to go south and ask her mother. Imagining her mother had left because she disagreed didn't work, she'd been too enthusiastic about Filia becoming a priestess in her father's footsteps.

Hello, mother. This war we're having? My son caused it, and you're probably losing new family to Xelloss, whom I put in the enemy's hands for use.

On the fourth day, the crystal ball glowed on its own; most likely one of the Sailoon faction. Filia jumped to take the call, hoping for good news and fearing worse.

Zelgadis's face appeared within the crystal, looking solemn.

"Mister Zelgadis? How are you doing?" she asked, worried already.

"I've been to the island."

Given his tense expression, she didn't expect good news. "You ... didn't tell them?"

"I tried, but we have a big problem."

Zel's gut instinct to not tell the station attendants had been right for two reasons; first in that Valgaav had sent devils to the station to take it over and the original attendants were abducted or dead. Second, the island was a big bundle of paranoia.

Zelas and Rangort had concluded that Xelloss, perhaps with Filia's help, had corrupted the Aqualord, and right now they were getting suspicious of Valwin and Orun. Rangort refused to talk to any mortal who knew magic, ergo could cast life law circles. Zelas did not project and had Luna at her side at all times. They were unreachable. He hadn't gotten a hold of Jillas, nor Leyunso.

"Why didn't you try to tell anyone else?"

"I met Milgazia, but when I told him you were alive he got suspicious at once. He started suggesting I've been fooled with a clone and wouldn't hear me out, and when I pressed on he got suspicious. I got out of there."

Filia cut off the vehement objections boiling in her throat — Zelgadis had a nasty history with being distrusted for the surface, so she asked instead, "How did you get in?"

"They didn't lower the barrier, they just let me through by teleporting me to the edge. I've the vessels refilled and a schedule for when we can visit them next."

"When is that?"

"They won't tell us because they want to be unpredictable. They expect Xelloss to use teleportation to bring the enemy close to the island and count on Valgaav still having access to that hollow that Val used to have. Top that with all gods being a mess right now, and I see why they're afraid. If Xelloss really were on their side and could get access to holy magic, even if they had to make short jumps in the unstable zone, they could pretty much walk in. An absolute barrier is the only safe way."

"Their motto might as well be, distrust everyone."

"You could wait till they finish a talisman and contact Lina, who will set them straight," Zelgadis said. It didn't sound very convinced, nor did it need to be said that the longer they waited, the more could go wrong. The more people died, the more time Valgaav had to either succumb to Shabranigdu or devise a way to control him.

"Maybe we can get a message to miss Luna. If I could get into her dreams, I could clear it up, but she needs to invite me."

"I don't know whether anyone can get near enough Luna, Zelas regularly destroys things."

Filia's heart sank.

She tried to wring every detail she could from Zelgadis, but he had little else of use to report. Yet somehow, he was disinclined to disconnect, so she asked, "Is there something else you want to talk about?"

He waited so long with replying, Filia grew impatient.

"They started sending him to Sailoon," he said at last.

It shouldn't be a shock that Xelloss would kill people in Sailoon when she knew what he did elsewhere, yet it still felt like another violation. So many died just to prop up an undercover mission to plan a few rocks in a room. Sailoon was just a little closer than others, it shouldn't feel more important, worse, ... yet it did, because of it rang closer. How weak.

"When Xelloss ... " Zelgadis's voice trembled, either out of uncertainty or rage. "Is he always like that, or just putting up a show?"

She didn't need to ask what he meant. "He usually kills quickly, but when he gets caught up, yes, he is always like that."

"He never let us see," Zelgadis said, more as confirmation than revelation; he'd been there when she'd spoken to Lina about what Xelloss was like. "Amelia's not talking about justice anymore. He spares us, if we happen to be on the battlefield. He goes out of his way to avoid us being captured by the enemy ... and then he'll turn around and murder our friends for show."

He didn't say it out loud, but Filia saw it in his eyes. Zelgadis had a far greater capacity for grudges than the rest of Lina's core friends, now kindled to her. She'd put Xelloss in this position, right?

"Filia, you've already seen his real self, haven't you?"

The weight behind that question didn't escape her either; Lezo's real self had not been what Zelgadis expected. She knew in this moment that Zelgadis would never forgive Xelloss and for now.

"So did you, just not all of it. Everything is his real self, even if he doesn't make sense to us. He's a godawful actor, really. That's why we have this ruse."

Zelgadis clenched his jaws, and Filia's throat tightened. There really was no excuse, nothing she could say to make it okay.

"It's alright, you have every right to hate me," she said before severing the connection.

She still heard the start of a sentence, "Wait, F—" but it wasn't worth hearing. Zelgadis had taken a cue from his more upbeat friends in the later years, might even say it wasn't her fault, that he understood. She couldn't hear such things now.

· · · · · · ·

Filia slept in a hole below a pillar she had shoved over, covered with blankets she had taken along in her pocket space. The past nights had been a chore, as she tried to perfect her astral projection without the power of Valwin or Ragrairyos. In the original plan, her ghost would have Ragrairyos's power to pass the distance, for when she would be bait. Now, nothing, and she couldn't go very far. Her awareness of the astral plane didn't diminish, but that was the most she could do now. She missed it a little.

The ghosts never stopped chanting. The noise did not bother her, it was rather peaceful and serene, but sometimes they struck a line about repentance. Tonight, every word built up in her mind. She could sleep.

Some infernal part of her mind, the one that managed memory, kept forcing her focus back to realizing she had sicced Xelloss on ... well, acquaintances. She wasn't sure she could even call the Sailoon family friends. It felt worse that Xelloss targeted them, and at the same time like it shouldn't matter so much. All loss of life was dreadful, equally, regardless ... but strangers didn't look at her like they knew. By all means, she should be feeling worse about everything Valgarv did because she hadn't seen through Val.

It tempted her to cast Holy Rezast and let all of it wash away for a while, but she had to get used to feeling this way and still functioning. She couldn't afford to shut down at the worst time again. This time there was no Inverse sister to help her through. That, and it didn't feel like she deserved it.

By morning, it began to drizzle. She gave up on sleeping and tried atuning herself better to the flow of the world. It was easier here, on these holy grounds, she imagined she could lose herself in its peace if only her mind wasn't drawn elsewhere. People who died because of her, who died because she hadn't seen through Val.

Just on the edge of her senses was the prickle of a demon and a brush of holiness. Xelloss appeared a moment later, almost going through his knees. A pang of worry shot through Filia, she almost got up, but then he righted himself. It had just been the usual discomfort of teleportation.

Ragrairyos projected out of the talisman, which lay cradled in the water. The form she took was her eldest humanoid, and with it came the relaxed expression and tone. They talked for a while. Filia couldn't see Xelloss's face, only the vaguely smiling one of Ragrairyos. If anything urgent went on, she couldn't tell. She considered getting up, but didn't feel like going into the damp cold.

When Ragrairyos vanished, he shifted to the entrance of her little cave, squatted before the entrance. "Are you asleep, miss Filia?"

"Well, I was until you got here."

He didn't get huffy, just gave her a long look before he said, "Where did you get that extra serving of guilt?"

"There's no point talking about this," she snapped. "I'm fine, I can handle it."

He wouldn't be Xelloss if he didn't take that as a challenge and she wished she'd kept her tongue.

"No, I think you're just pretending to be fine. You should be mourning, but it feels like you are flagellating yourself even more than usual."

Enough. She teleported out of her shelter, to the talisman. "Miss Ragrairyos, you can help Xelloss teleport away now."

Xelloss was at her side instantly. "How can you let her be such a mess?"

"I'm the wrong person for her to talk with, and so are you," Ragrairyos said. "Besides, it makes her perfect as bait for Valgarv."

"He'll take the bait no matter what," Xelloss said. "And I'm not leaving."

Despite being in a tiny red rock, Ragrairyos managed to impress shrugging before drifting off.

"I can't believe this!" Filia snapped. "I'm trying really hard not to live like a clutter of misery and neither of you are making it easier."

"I'm not arguing you shouldn't feel miserable, I'm arguing you have no business feeling this guilty. Haven't you been over this already with miss Luna and Valgarv, back in the north? It's not your sins," Xelloss said.

"That was different! Before you rejoined them, they didn't have any spare devils of your caliber. Look, how I feel won't matter, I won't back down." She forced the words out through a thickening throat. "If you despise it so much because I can't remake myself with a life law circle, then shut up. You don't get to dictate how I feel."

"Who is dictating your remorse? Are you going to take a trip to hell soon, do a body count? Will it be okay if it turns out less died than otherwise in this time frame? I suppose you're calling yourself all sorts of things in the meantime. Just sinner, or monster too? Devil alike, perhaps? Why do you need to be convinced not to destroy yourself?"

Xelloss didn't rant just like that, usually. Almost like she offended him somehow. The nerve of him. She considered telling him that right now, peace did mean that he left her alone, but she wasn't sure he wouldn't go kill people once he returned. Just kill them, not destroy them.

She turned around and walked back to her shelter. "I am going to sleep. Unless you have something important to tell me about beacons, don't bother me."

He was right behind her. "You know, I too should have noticed that something wasn't right about Val. Why don't you hate me for that? I'm an emotion eater, I could have paid more attention."

He really wasn't going to drop this, and Filia wasn't sure ... of what? That she wanted him to?

"Why are you angry with me over this?"

"You're playing into his hand by not healing, you're not — You can't let him be right. Valgarv is still tearing into you, let him go on for too young and the scars will last."

She turned back, just halfway. "And I do that by mourning, you say? How would you know I don't do that when you're gone? Maybe I only feel so guilty when you're around to remind me."

"Aqualord, is that true?" he asked rather loudly.

"No," Ragrairyos called back.

Filia sighed. "Fine, I'm not and I won't. If I were to mourn, I'd do it like a dragon. We sing songs, we remember and praise our lost ones and we learn from their wisdom and mistakes through meditation. Maybe you can mourn differently, but I don't have time for this."

He scratched the back of his head. "Now you mention it, I do recall a lot of noise after strikes during the Devil's Descent war. So that's what that was. I didn't get close enough to tell."

"I'm going back to sleep," she said, marching off.

He shifted between her and her spot, waving a finger. "You didn't really answer. You're still letting all sorta of ridiculous guilt get to you and we can't have that. Even if mourning isn't an option, there's other things you can do."

"And that would be?"

"Why don't you try to persuade me to change my tactics? You've gotten me to take risks before, do it again."

Aha, he wanted to play again. Fine. "You don't need persuasion. You already are up to something, so how about we skip this and get to it?"

"Letting her run around devils is too much of a risk," Ragrairyos said from behind them. Filia felt a prickle in the magic around them, Ragrairyos had blocked teleportive navigation.

"Then you better work very hard to spot them all, Aqualord." Xelloss held out his hand to Filia, space warping around him.

Whether he knew it or not, Xelloss dangled that precarious moral line right before her.

It didn't feel right to play with lives, but that feeling was more tied to her old notions on how to be virtuous. One would be sinless, even if others died all around them, if they personally hadn't done any sin. Virtue was a state of mind, they said. Wrong, filthy, sinful if you do.

Not that Xelloss in and of himself was such a dark temptation, but in this specific context he was weight that might pull her over the edge of the bridge. She'd been the one to throw him over the edge. To what extent was she responsible for every life he took if she went along?

Xelloss must've noticed her doubt, because he said, "You are already playing with lives, miss Filia."

"Not life and death, save one, but ... " Not that her concerns over her own virtue mattered to the victims of this war. "Right. I'm listening."

He could rival a cat with that content smile. "Actually, it'd be better if you'd talk."

· · · · · · ·

The worn down shrine at the edge of Kataart started to become familiar to Filia, to her displeasure.

One of the maintainers were in the central room, polishing the stained glass. He just gave a weary sigh when Xelloss, again, appeared in the middle of their room with a blonde in tow.

"Just no throwing heavy ladies this time, okay?" one of them said.

"Don't worry about it, we won't stay long. We just need a few things from my stash and then we'll be off," Xelloss said cheerfully.

"Stash?"

"I store my things here now. It wouldn't do if I lose anything incriminating around the lords, you see."

He'd apparently hired three of the small side rooms. Filia get to see just one, but even from that it was clear : Xelloss hoarded. Filia had some necessities in her own pocket space, but this was absurd. Magical items and tea were logical, but he had chandeliers, costumes, handpuppets, roadside show tickets from long ago, documents on farming, beanies, a probably sentient table, twenty bags of glitter, superglue, cooking books, history books, statues with giant heads and tiny bodies, a string bracelet, and a whole lot of other nonsense.

"I like to trade," he said. "Makes it easier to claim legality when it comes to special items that I shouldn't possess."

She gave him a narrow look. "You trade in glitter and costumes?"

"Uhm, well, those are for special circumstances."

"I see." She made a mental note to tell Lina that Xelloss was most definitely responsible for the redressing bit in the theme park. That is, if there was time before the showndown ...

"You just strayed into pessimism again. Care to tell me about what?"

"You used to be less chatty about what emotions you could taste, why don't you go back to that?"

She couldn't place the half look she got, and so ignored it.

Xelloss unearthed a nun's costume from the pile, which wouldn't look strange when worn with face covering. She'd just have to claim to be of a specific sect, should anyone see her. Plenty of those went around as healers during a war.

He filled her in on a few details after she changed, Filia tipped the maintainers for their effort, then they were off to play.

Xelloss went over a few details of the situation with her, then they were off.

The war machines that Azonge had left in the country were the kind that left devils (especially the less than bright servants of Dynast) wondering whether or not they should project to preserve their ego. Further complicating this was their partial workings of Zenaffa, by being able to block out magic to a degree.

The real reason they devils hadn't gone full out yet, however, was that this war served as a harvest. With their dark lord stuck up north, they had to capture people alive to bring them to him for feeding. They weren't supposed to outright everyone.

Xelloss wasn't involved with this part, his job was to hunt down and capture or kill dragons for the same purpose. However, they had him deliver messages at times the dragons disrupted the communication system. This gave them an opening, but Xelloss needed a few tailored truths.

"How did you avoid being sent to finish off everyone in the armies?"

"I asked Dynast why his home made priest hadn't succeeded yet, using such a way that made it a matter of pride. Beyond that, while it's relatively easy to wipe out all life in a district with a handwave, I get away with slow killing by claiming a need to feed."

Right. Feeding. Torture when the devils watched. He's probably look as happy and relaxed like right now when he did it, or maybe worse. She wished for the time when seeing him didn't constantly put blood in her mind.

She diverted that chain of explanation to the specifics of Xelloss's no lie habit. It might be a weakness for deception, but also a strength since the devil lords all knew about it. Fabricate the right scenario, and he had solid credibility. It just required some acting on Filia's behalf.

For example, if Xelloss said that the devil guards needed to go elsewhere to look at a particular gate because he had seen a hostile dragon nearby, this was entirely true because he'd asked Filia to hit him five minutes earlier at that location.

It was also accurate to say that given current enemy position, an attack at the northern camp might be happen. Filia was there, after all, and Xelloss didn't comment on the likelihood of the attack or its actual level of threat.

It counted to say something was orders from above if Filia sat five meters into a tree while snapping something at him. Really not his fault nobody asked him to define who the vengeful lady giving them was.

It was true too that he needed to return to his post quickly when Grauscherrer summoned him for thinly veiled interrogation about the war efforts, because Filia shouldn't be alone too long. Grauscherrer didn't ask what the hurry was about — he was expected to know and it made bad form not to.

Nobody wondered when Xelloss said he knew only a little of the beast lord's current plan, because he didn't say his liege the Beast Monarch, just the beast lord, which was a fair definition of miss Filia and her household of beastfolk with complimentary cat and birds. Nobody questioned about why he dropped the lord definition, and Xelloss honestly had no idea what plans Filia was hatching in his absence. Filia made a point of timely mentions.

Filia built one of her rock friends in a glade and had a one-sided conversation with them about the trap in Dills; the trap where they lulled the devils in a false sense of security and waited for them to launch their full invasion, at which Pokota and a new set of tanks would teleport in. Xelloss made sure to overhear and report this to Dynast, and then to Dalphin, while making sure they recalled Dills had been weaponized by the dragons long ago. He'd seen it himself. Dalphin got on Dynast's case for nearly walking into a trap and Xelloss bragged about how he'd seen it coming and wasn't Dynast fortunate to have him on the team?

She covered her face at the end of the day and wandered into an outskirt village, where she offered to heal the injured. Her ears stuck out, they assumed she was a rare merciful elf. Xelloss wasn't keen on the idea of her going out and being seen, but didn't stop her.

Filia didn't count whom she helped, though it tempted her to do so.

At least, not until someone asked her to please bless a graveyard because the devils kept reanimating the buried victims. Typical demonic food service doubling as warfare.

Filia did know circles she could cast, but she could imagine devils to break them. Xelloss's fall guy worked around here, who was about a fourth of his power, and thus strong enough to break anything she could cast that didn't involve raising conspicuous barriers.

No need to get convoluted, though. Once Ragrairyos gave in, she suggested her a contract with mother earth. It would both make the graves blessed enough to deter lesser demons and get the bodies disintegrated in no time. That way, she could respect the local customs and prevent further problems. She gathered up what herbs she needed, and waited till Xelloss returned from a job; it wouldn't do if she got caught in the field by devils looking for corpses.

Xelloss might've been the direct many of these people were in the ground, of course. And, with certainty none of this wouldn't have happened if not for Valgarv. She could spin all of that back to herself being inattentive, and then down to Volphied, to genocide, to gods and devils until she stood at the Sea of Chaos, where guilt didn't mean anything anymore.

She waited in the small church till he arrived, gave him a quick run down of what they'd do. He didn't like it either, but for a different reason than Ragrairyos's hyper vigilance. Xelloss might be asked whether he knew what had happened to the demons send to reanimate the corpses. So, Filia directed him to the city's defense squad and he could figure out some way to aid them, without knowing the fine details. He liked that idea well enough to get on with it right away, and now Xelloss was also the reason others would survive.

Filia figured out at least one thing to tell her mother when she ever met her again : dragon meditation sucked. What they called meditation was nothing to helped her arrange this in any coherent way.

She told the humans to leave her to work alone, implied it was for holy reasons, and secretly enjoyed the room to think.

Far off in the forest, smoke rose. Someone must have done the obvious and cremate their dead. Looking up at the evening sky with only the sounds of nature around her, she found a calmness she hadn't had in the valley of the ancient dragons. Death was all around here too, but didn't remind her with song. The sky was warm yellows and pinks, with only the sound of the wind through the forest and the chirping of trees. There were no gods, not even Ragrairyos. It felt safer here, more distant to her current life.

She only had to turn to see a church, but it was manmade and thus small and quaint.

It occurred to her that around here, she didn't feel as guilty as in the valley, despite being more responsible. Not even as much as on Elmegiddo.

Leave it to Xelloss to ruin the mood by shifting in right behind her, disrupting her latest magic.

"Shouldn't you be killing demon witnesses?"

"I killed them already. Till the Aqualord alerts you of a new wave, I'm covering my bases by feeding. Like this, I can tell Dynast that I just had a delicious meal of misery in the aftermath of the battle, to cover my time. I might as well get it from you," he said.

At least he was giving explanations now. In the past, it would've just been because he felt like it. Nowadays, everything about them felt like a dance of explanations and justifications.

"Fine," she said, keeping her eyes on the fine flowers she'd been trying to weave together. "Get back a few meters, I need to work.

He did that, but didn't take the hint to shut up.

"You know, I kept count for you. I killed those over on that side, they were a threat too big to be contained during transport north and they didn't want to waste any higher ranks on that. I didn't kill those in the city over there, Grau handled them. So, assuming all life is equal to you, I'd say that I'm at about eighty percent and Grau at five because he sat back and let his troops do the work. Now, Grau is entirely on board with the war, while I am not. Does that matter in the equation, or—"

"Xelloss, stop," she said softly. "What do you want?"

"For you to stop hating yourself and start giving yourself time to mourn. I thought the numbers might make it clear how futile it would be, right?"

She threw down the herbs and stood up. "How would you even know this isn't already me mourning?"

"I've done it before." Somehow he looked both harsh and sad at the same time; strange to see on anyone but especially Xelloss. "When the Lord of Nightmares destroyed miss Lina, her mind was gone. No soul to carry her to hell, no more of her splendid spirit. For her I let myself mourn. It means giving yourself the time to both grieve and face what happened. You are not doing that."

She didn't know what to do with that information. Part of her wanted to rage because if he did understand loss, then how could he be uncaring about all the suffering he spread? On the other hand, he looked so close to mortal, and for the briefest moment she could see why death meant something different to him.

"You respect the Lord of Nightmares, yet you fear and grieve for what she does?" Filia asked softly, not knowing anything else to say, and in need of a diversion.

"I expect nothing from Her," he said. "If She is by balance and whatever unfathomable dream, who am I to object? Above that, why complain? She must have some affection for the world too, or she would not have returned miss Lina."

"So She has," Filia said. "That doesn't explain it."

"Explain who? Her, or me? She needs none and if She does, we function without Her giving us any answers, so I am content. Heh, I suppose I must sound as ridiculous to you as you do to me. Everything you and I do now, we would not do if not for Valgarv, yet you—" He stopped and seemed to reconsider. "Why do you feel like that? Can you at least explain it? Please."

"Are all these questions just because your orders? I assure you, knowing this won't make our fusion magic better."

"No, that's not it." He shrugged, though he looked far more interested than that gesture implied. "I'm just curious, but I think you might need peace between your proud self and that side that calls you guilty all the time. Let me change my question from before : Why can you not forgive yourself despite all the lives you save, but were ready to forgive Valgarv in when he's done worse than you ever did?"

That made her pause long enough to remember to pick up her work. It wasn't new information, exactly, to hear she had a double standard here. However, the way he put it irked her. She must look ridiculous, and no doubt both Luna and Lina would scoff if they ever heard about this.

Of all things, it was pride that prompted her next choice.

"You think big existential secrets are some sort of trade, right? If I explain you this, how about you ... let's see, ... explain your fascination with miss Lina to me. Oh, and while you're at it, your fascination with everything. A thousand years wandering must've gotten you a lot to see."

"We don't need to trade, I would tell you that regardless. It's just that you didn't ask before."

"Take it or leave it, Xelloss. You asked the right question this time, but it's a limited offer."

Sitting down on the edge of a statue, he said, "Deal."

Filia finished casting a spell, then prepared the next set of herbs. Now she began to talk, as much to herself as to him.

"Like you were formed by what they expected of you, my clan controlled me too. While not in the way of forced obedience with a sheer command, I was trained to obey through belief in sin and salvation. I feared judgment of my elder more than of my god. They didn't need compulsive voices to make me act a certain way, I was theirs every second of the day. That's a lasting scar too. I can't not feel responsible for what you do when I just barely convinced myself to ... that I don't need to atone to him. I'm still counting those who he could have demanded that from, some of them alive. My mother likely one of them.

Valgarv is both easier to consider as a sinner and harder to feel contempt towards.

He appeared as the perfect story of salvation for a priestess like me. A fallen dragon, in need to be saved from his own darkness. Dragons are born to be the keepers of the peace, so I believed he had to have an inner goodness that I could appeal to. If not in my temple anymore, I had faith in the story of a fallen hero brought back to the light.

When I learned what my people had done, it was all too easy see him as the victim only. I'd reasoned he wasn't evil, just in pain. I could save him from that and the world would be right. He turned our roles around and charged me to atone by ending the world with my own hands, not unlike the tests gods would give their faithful. End the world, or don't atone. There was no right answer, so I hoped to find a third way. The riddle I had to solve to be worthy of my new faith."

"Then you took the burden of Valgarv's choices, his sins yours to bear as you exchanged an impassive god for a malicious messiah." He got a strange smirk after that. "Now, what I don't understand, you need a saint in your life for the world to feel right yet you're ignoring the obvious."

He pointed at her, which Filia found absurd. "That's not how it works, Xelloss. I can't be my own ... besides, I'm way too deep into dirty business to be."

"I beg to differ. People have more use for ragtag priests on the road who know when to play foul than for distant prayers in cathedrals. Well, maybe not always when it's me, but in general."

"Hmm. I'll see what I will be later. For now, you and I just have to accept my feelings don't make much sense." She took up the flowers and moved on to the next grave. Xelloss stayed where he was, watchful but silent.

"Also, did you know that another part of how we dragons mourn is by remembering, recounting and considering what has transpired? It's not all, but it's always been the first step."

That got one of those rare open eyed smiles.

· · · · · · ·

"The shield is open! Filia, wake up!"

The god's voice voice tore Filia from her sleep while the energy to teleport already kindled around her. She scrambled out of her shelter to the water's edge, where the talisman already waved up. The second she touched it, the glow of teleportation enveloped them and she transformed at the same time.

Upon emergence, Filia found herself in the cold midnight over the sea. Without the moon, the stars weren't enough to see in the physical world, and the astral plane only had the distant light of movement of Vrabazard.

Catching the wind, she swooped where Ragrairyos led her.

"Rangort's shield is still up, but the fusion barrier isn't. We'll take a few more jumps to get closer."

From the talisman came a fog of power around Filia and hurled her closer to the island, so fast that Filia fear she'd splatter onto Rangort's shield. Ragrairyos assured her momentum wouldn't matter.

Before they even got close enough to see, Rangort's shield opened at the top. A pillar of light shot into the sky and the fusion shield began forming again, reforming up around it. Central to the light was a familiar blue body writhing out and expanding only to draw back in. Filia had seen the same before, around Lyos in Kataart.

"Damn it, I think Rangort's trying to claim my power!"

Desperate, Filia acted on her first impulse. Pushing all her power out through the talisman, she reached for Luna Inverse.

"Luna! Luna, stop! Don't let Rangort have it!" Filia called. "Please, it'll kill her!"

The pillar's fusion shield flickered, and in this instant Ragrairyos pulled all her power out. The pillar broke and scattered, drowning both planes in vibrant blue. Filia closed her eyes against the light, but the rush of power tore at her senses.

Within seconds it was over. The talisman had fallen from her claw, trailing somewhere behind her. Ragrairyos seeped out, first small. Her power reattached seamlessly, far quicker than it had happened with Lyos in Kataart.

Yet she did not mend quick enough. The pillar vanished not from being withdrawn, but being cut off. The wider fusion shield was back.

"What?"

She tried to reach Luna again, but the flow ended at the edge of the shield. Instead of Luna, there was void and distortion ...

Wait, that wasn't there before ...

Vrabazard had seen it and roared this way. Ragrairyos tried teleporting them away, but the distortions of the area threw them off.

Filia could do nothing but hold onto Ragrairyos, who now hurled herself closer to the island tried drawing attention.

She got a response. The barriers opened again, the pillar reappeared and tried pulling her in. For a second Filia thought this was right, but Ragrairyos braced against it with all her power.

She caught a glimpse of Luna's thoughts now. Luna leaked, like she was in a perpetual state of half sleep. One pervasive idea underlay Luna's senses now : double cross Lucifer.

Ragrairyos's roar snapped her out of her focus a second before the light blinded her.

"You need to teleport us away!" Ragrairyos shouted as she slipped into the talisman. Filia took a jump of maybe four hundred meters to the left, closer to the island.

The pillar broke apart above her, confused on where to go, but still leaked towards her.

"Get back to the valley of the ancients!" Ragrairyos snapped in her ears. "Before any devils sees you here!"

Filia didn't want to, tried to find a way to teleport within the barrier, but couldn't navigate. The shield only let the pillar through, which drowned out any sense of the inside.

"Go!" Ragrairyos urged her. Vrabazard careening towards them served as extra prompt.

Filia jumped away, further and further until back in the valley. Here, the energy of Megiddo obscured any trace of Ragrairyos.

Chaotic flow replaced with serenity, Filia had time to process what just happened. The whole event had been maybe ten minutes and felt shorter. A blur passing by.

Already regrets crept in. She should have said something else to Luna, anything to make her realize. I'm alive. Filia began to wonder whether she was just poor at convincing people.

Ragrairyos drew together into the small form of Granny Aqua. "Well, that was interesting. I am not doing that again, and you need to quit hesitating."

"I'm sorry," Filia muttered, still dazed from the shroud of energy. "Are you whole now? Did that at least work?"

"The pillar's call wasn't on me for more than a second, I will be fine, but I need a few hours to get my body to work right ... ah, I have fresh inside memories to process. Do you want a verbal summary or a vision?"

"I'll take the vision, please," Filia said, and was obliged.

The godly doll had been without direction, but could observe. Luna's presence compelled it to follow her lead, which they eventually picked up on.

The exact machinations were unclear, but someone had done something that planted the idea that Rangort could absorb the power of Ragrairyos. Luna had compelled the doll to move into position; her and Zelas had then lowered the shield to draw in the part of Ragrairyos's power still outside.

At this point, the machine had exploded for some reason, causing it to lose grip of the holy power.

That covered, Ragrairyos shared various key pieces that her doll body had seen. It confirmed what Zelgadis had said, on both Rangort and Zelas secluding themselves. They were rebuilding the machine and didn't tell anyone what it was for. Most people suspected it was just to accommodate the new purpose of merging Earthlord with Aqualord, but some of the things Luna had been sent to retrieve, and orders she had given to the dragons, shed doubt on that.

Valwin and Orun had tried getting involved in the project, but Valwin continued being rebuked on behalf of hir persisting disharmony. That was all Ragrairyos had registered in doll form; without focus it did not attempt to record everything that went down in the corridors.

"Zelas controls the machine and feeds the fusion, so our question is, how do we disbalance her, or at least Luna?" Ragrairyos said. "From what my extension decided to eat, Luna is feeling entirely to chill with everything and ... ah, I think I get it now. Luna's dissolving Zelas of the affective part of her emotions. There's an excess of negativity being cast away from Zelas's area. How inconvenient."

"What's going on with them? Stop the cold facts, you must have an opinion, right?"

"In layman terms, I would call their relationship a codependent clusterfuck," Ragrairyos said. "Luna doesn't feel the sadness or disgust that normally makes victims excessively sympathize with their captors, so for the most part she just barrels on as her usual self-serving fiasco. However, she experiences both the liking the captor and the diminished cognitive space. Just because she doesn't full out experience sorrow or disgust doesn't mean she's immune to its related psychological effects. That kind of thinking started some time during her captivity on Wolfpack Island, I guess it lasted. Zelas for her part does regard her in some way, so I guess she might lean on her now."

Filia wished she could glare like astral beings do, just to make this damn god feel a little put on the spot. "And why, pray tell, did you not tell this to me or anyone else? I thought it just meant bad emotional attachment, not something this severe. We could have done something about it on the island!"

"Luna has always been a mess, but she wasn't unhappy with her condition nor in lethal danger, so it didn't matter to me," she said. "I suppose I should learn to account for future developments better. Anyway, we could have done a lot of things different, didn't we? I wonder whether having made a magical recording with signature would've been enough to convince them ..."

"No time for speculation, we have to do something!"

"I agree we should move ahead because of the risk that those two mess up the machine. The last thing we need is for us to have Valgarv figure out how to override the virus while we are undoing changes to the machine," she said sharply. "However, your reasons are just that some people are deteriorating."

"My reasons are that there are people dying all over the world and my friend is attached to a devil and my other friend is stuck in in another world!"

She kicked over a pillar, but reconsidered. Rather than wreck the ruins, she teleported to the nearest mountain and spend a few minutes laserbreathing it full of holes. Then she sat down and felt awful for how good it felt to steam off.

"Better now?" Ragrairyos said. "I can't really tell."

"Of course you can't, you left that behind," Filia said. By now, she was thoroughly fed up with uncaring astral life.

· · · · · · ·

When Xelloss appeared in the valley of the ancients next morning, those words had grown into intent. The moment Ragrairyos detected Xelloss in the valley, Filia teleported to him.

"Xelloss, we need to talk," she said.

He looked a little off put, probably had come for time killing again. "About what?"

Ragrairyos manifested in full form above them and said, "Those on Elmegiddo are changing the plan and the machine. We need to speed up our own scheme, preferably before Zelas does more rash things."

"My liege the Beast Monarch? Don't be silly."

Ragrairyos took charge of explaining what, precisely, they knew about the island. Filia added in what Zelgadis had told her. Xelloss was skeptical at first, but uneasy by the end of the story.

"... so if Zelas is willing to give Rangort the power of Ragrairyos, despite her fear of Rangort finding out the truth, she isn't thinking clear," Ragrairyos said for closing.

"My liege wouldn't stray from the plan without consulting miss Lina, not now we know she truly is the Apostle of Chaos."

"Would she? Even now that you're gone?"

"She would be angry about my apparent betrayal, but not burdened. The past is the past, we don't carry baggage from it, let alone are our lives built on it. The Greater Beast would never be so unstable she'd lose her mind on my loss."

"Just loss?" Filia said. "That's all you think that happened? Even if you can taste the despair and betrayal, you don't know what's happening in the mind. You don't know what it's like to live with betrayal when it gnaws at your thoughts and lies and breaks you down. It changes how you think."

"She is far stronger than you are. There must be a different explanation."

"You stubborn ... apparently she's not! You astral beings are all about power. You can't deny your own power or you implode because it's denying your identity, right? When you trust someone, you give them a little power over you. It doesn't matter whether it's trust that's felt or trust as a rational choice. Broken trust means you were wrong about a foundation in your life. And when it's broken faith? Then you're wrong about how the world works. Faith is like the child of hope and trust and a kind of reason. When these die, it tears down the sense of self."

"Could we talk about this with less nauseous words?"

Oh, for all the pillars of heaven, was there no way to make him think? "Sunshine and rainbows and fluffy pink unicorns, Xelloss. Radiant roses and sparkly weddings. Just cut it out. Blind faith drove me into the hands of a genocidal monster. And this—"

"You are not my liege," she said, an edge of venom to his voice. "Our understanding of the Lord of Nightmares is nothing like your faith. We know She exists. What else is there to it?"

"Then you have no faith in Her, just respect," Ragrairyos said. "You can take the world as it comes and never had to make choices about what you are like. You never had to guess. Zelas started out loyal to Shabranigdu, and she only knows the Lord of Nightmares sent you back. Now that this is gone, is she going back to her first option, or is she going to find a third, or will she abandon it all?"

"Neither if you even have yourselves figured out, what would you know about her?"

That was it. Nearly fuming, Filia got in his face. "Let's talk about what we know. I have been a priest too. Not the roadside variety, but the cathedral brand, and that cathedral broke down seven years ago. I've seen it in glory and in pieces. Now I live in the rubble, still waiting for the high priest to return and tell me how to rebuild. Faith can be a selfish thing, kept around to make one feel strong when there's nothing else to hold onto. Zelas can't know about Siephied being sent back and miss Lina is inexplicably incapable of returning to this world despite chaotic providence, so she only has you for evidence."

"She can't be like that. It's something else," he said through gritted teeth. He had his eyes open, but looked away. Almost like he needed it to be wrong.

"You spent a thousand years being a roadside priest, so you weren't in Zelas's cathedral all that much, right? And when you returned to report, I bet you were always on your knees. Did you ever talk with her?"

His fingers dug into his staff. "I wasn't always kneeling."

"Not literary, but you two were always elder and priest, right? You might have a blind spot as much as I did." Whether it was with her grand elder, the gods or Val.

"Xelloss, it's not alright in there," Ragrairyos said. "Just presume for a moment that Zelas doesn't care to stick to her original plan anymore. What would she do otherwise?"

"I know everything she told me, her plan was logical, it was ... I don't know this either."

Xelloss shifted away to the edge of the ruins, reappearing with his back towards Filia. Maybe he had tried to leave, but his damned curiosity must have kept him. He sat down where he was, back to her, scribbling something in the sand.

Filia was about to pace over to him, but Ragrairyos held her back. "Wait, don't disturb the energy. I don't know what he's doing, but it could be dangerous."

She felt it then. Everything about Xelloss seemed to spread out, then drew back in sharply. He flickered like a candle before his physical form snuffed out. On the astral plane, his usually compact form exploded in a torrent of thick energy. Filia couldn't see Ragrairyos anymore, and the natural flow only remained a thin stream.

"Oh for goodness sake, what's happening now?"

From the darkness, Zelas emerged ... no, not Zelas herself, but a projecting imitating her. On the astral plane, it was still Xelloss. The mirage turned from warrior wolf to wild animal, breaking into a run across the lake. Spreading out with it was a field of chaos. Hollowed out cones spun on their tops, some toppled over. Unstable projected wolves fazed across the ruins, hunting nothing.

Filia took a few careful steps until she sensed something familiar below her feet. There was what Xelloss had scribbled in the earth, enhanced with his own magic: a life law circle etched in darkness. His very essence pierced through the center, or perhaps the circle pierced through him. Beyond it lay a plane Filia had never sensed when awake, but recognized because after all, she had been dreaming her entire life.

Kneeling down, she carefully brushed her hands on the circle.

Like tearing himself inside out, he wrapped around the edges of the gate. The longer Filia looked, the more it felt like he had split his skin open and torn out his guts or brain and now twisted them around in his own hands. Filia clammed a hand over her mouth, instinctive against what must be nausea, but not in her stomach. This sense of wrong went down in the astral plane.

"Stop it, Xelloss," she whispered. "Can you hear me? Come back."

No response from him, at least not directly.

The walls thinned, and the light came back in. Ragrairyos poured around her, her form as condensed as she could be. "Don't worry, we'll get back on his own, just like before. You've seen it, he turned out fine, right?"

Oh gods, she meant when Xelloss has followed her to the valley? She had assumed his teleportation had gone wrong, not ... whatever this was.

"He wasn't fine until after Zelas helped him," Filia snapped. "You need to help me set this right."

"Oh, did she? Let me see, it should not be too different from my transmigration. Mind letting me in for a moment?"

Filia threw open her soul's gate and let the god possess her ... to an extent. She did not let her everything, just what was needed for them to share knowledge.

Possession by Ragrairyos was gentle, contrary to Vrabazard. Ragrairyos and Claire before her had been so cold and pragmatic, she had forgotten this god was kinder. Ragrairyos eased into her mind like a stream, filling in the earth without wearing her down or controlling her body. She offered sight and understanding of the astral world, merging with Filia's own grounded senses and familiarity with Xelloss's energy, they helped each other to work.

Astral bodies were as complex as physical ones, yet at the same time incomparable. They ate and they thought, similar only so far, but the way one thought about it cleared the way. Filia put her hands to work on the circle, both pulling at the flow and on pure astral energy.

Little by little, they pulled Xelloss out of the dream plane. All the while, she rambled below her breath. "You could have warned me, you jerk. Hey miss Filia, I'm going to defy my own value on not messing with the inherent nature of minds. I already have so much to worry about and there you go making it worse."

He must have heard that, because he projected a tiny green rabbit cat thing that jumped on her back to pull her hair. It relieved her more than it annoyed and she cracked a smile. If he had room for this, he wasn't losing himself.

Quite so much, at least. Could he tell she thought this?

A cathedral clouded the sky and she didn't remember when it had risen. Pitch black, pale blue, with a single dark spot in a distant horizon. The sanctuary before the Sea of Chaos, but she only knew because the dreamer thought of it this way.

Filia couldn't tell anymore whether the leaking was just on her hands or in her mind. Her dream corridor open, little bits dripped inside her own energy and thoughts. Those two things weren't quite the same ...

She stopped prying at just his energy at the gate, and thought about what he tried. Understanding Zelas, and before that, Filia on the command of Zelas. For all his spite to Filia playing the martyr to a worthless cause, he practiced self mutilation without much hesitation for Zelas.

Xelloss wasn't just dreaming, he dreamed of being someone else. Of being Zelas, of how she would act if he subtracted this and added that traits ... not if he were her, but just her.

Xelloss was made to want to serve Zelas. He didn't suffer along with her, so when he served her it wasn't to alleviate his own discomfort, he wasn't urged by anything negative. He did just. Only a creature of complete selfishness would create someone so selflessly devoted to them. Imagining oneself as another was anathema to astral beings. Xelloss had found a way to do it regardless, because it served Zelas.

Now Zelas had Luna under her thrall, and Filia had to force herself on the here and now, rather than speculate wildly what that meant for Luna.

For Xelloss, being made to be devoted to Zelas meant that he didn't think about her as a person when he betrayed her. She was a rule in his life, a foundation to function. He always learned from observation, not from innate understanding.

Filia herself couldn't tell anymore whether what she came to know now was innate understanding or just years building up. Small ways he had spoken about Zelas blending with the singleminded purpose, seamlessly blending with pieces of raw mind passing by her own soul, eased along by the immortality pledge.

Ragrairyos piped up for the first time. He wasn't yet considering Zelas so much as hesitating; she herself knew what that was like all too well. Through the much of dark sensation and soul gates, Filia dregged up memories of her own life — so strangely distant now — to remember her own shared dreams with Luna constantly got derailed. Of course, Xelloss did not really dream, just was himself.

He needed a direction. "Xelloss, have you ever heard of Radam Kadmon? The primordial soul named in a sect that was born from dragon religion but deemed heretical later, for it preached the reformation of the world. Radam Kadmon is the personification of this change.

Even I cannot turn a mass murderer as a messiah, but I saw Radam Kadmon in him. He looked sacred to me despite all his sin because he promised a change to a world where we didn't need the word for sin. What did Zelas see in Lina Inverse?"

A mirage of Lina appeared, rendered in fine detail. She said something to Filia, but there was no sound. Then the Lina mirage turned around, and there stood Zelas as an aristocratic lady, yet with the wings of her truest form. The two women observed one another for a moment, then Zelas lunged at Lina.

Darkness shrouded everything before Filia could see the outcome, then restarted.

The scene played out in subtly different ways over and over, faster every time, shifting without transition into a maddening hum. Other scenes — no, memories started to blend in, overlain and simultaneous. Filia needed all her focus to get the work done, until the looping scene faded and the other memories become more prominent.

She couldn't tell anymore whether they were projections around her, or leaking into her mind somehow; she should be able to do that and it unnerved her that she couldn't. Lina and Zelas continued being the central figures, but they no longer interacted.

At last, Lina went down her own path, Zelas another. Filia's hands burned from the darkness, but she felt more like the completion of tough work than tormented. She closed the dream circle.

All the chaos around Xelloss pulled back onto the astral plane, condensing into the cone he should be. His human projection pulled together and fell to the ground.

Only now did it strike her as strange that when injured his reflex wasn't to stop projecting like other devils, but to push out his human projection to the physical world.

He struggled to get up on his knees but didn't seem injured, just disoriented. Rather than stand, he just stared down. She knelt at his side, unsure of what to do now. "Xelloss, are you alright?"

"As much as I can be ... how much could you tell? You were prying." He sounded rather offended.

"Well pardon me. I sometimes just get visions, especially when there are gods around. Besides, I can't not watch when I have to fix your whole astral body. Why did you do that anyway?"

"I was looking at my blind spot. If she would—if I would—or of the Lord of Nightmares left us without ever changing her mind. I don't know, but ... " he muttered. "My liege won't want a third way, I think. She will take risks. Even if she gets a talisman and manages to contact miss Lina, we won't like what she's doing with that machine in the meantime. She won't stop now, and she can't believe that the Lord of Nightmares wants to destroy the world ... Whatever she becomes ..."

Claire appeared in her child form, clapped her hands with a flat expression and said, "Great. You could have just taken our word that something was wrong."

He ignored that and instead asked, "Aqualord, did you experience this too? Did you leave Claire behind out of fear?"

"I didn't leave that part behind, it's just on hold," she said. "Just like you're not leaving yourself behind, or are you? I will ... admit that justified fear contributed strongly to that choice, but I remember how to be that way. I simply choose not to be so."

He still wouldn't look up. When he spoke, it was stiff and forced. "We can use Valgarv's existing plan to tunnel below the barrier. We'll give the virus extra instructions."

"I hope you're right. I'd rather not find myself before an impenetrable barrier when we could have done it safer," Claire said. "Anyway, see whether you're functional before you go back to the demon clan. I'm going to see whether this mess wrecked our trapwork. Oh, and I'll have to explain the ghosts what went down."

Filia had it up to here with astral beings right now.

"See whether — for peace's sake, miss Claire. He just tore himself inside out and you're acting like it was a nuisance? Shouldn't your plight to help at least make do a double check?"

"I'm tending to survival and happiness, he's not gonna be happy anytime soon regardless of what condition he is in. Now please excuse me."

With that, the god stopped drifted off to the nearest patch of ghosts and slammed the door of Filia's soul. It cut off connections that she hadn't even noticed growing, both to the god and the devil.

Now Claire was gone, Xelloss finally looked up.

When his eyes opened, it usually was threat or shock or a certain kind of amusement. She didn't think she'd seen this one before, almost like weariness and horror. "How can you live like this? How can you bear existing when you're constantly feeling along with others?"

"Oh, it's easy when people like Valgarv, Zelas or Rangort don't use me as tool. Or you," she said, summoning a more or less sincere lightness. "Besides, I don't really have a choice."

He didn't have much of one either. Luna would probably complain about her bar still being too low, but Filia forgave him — again.

"We should contact miss Lina and inform her of everything," she said, quickly getting up to fetch the talisman.

Xelloss still sat in the same spot when she returned. He took the sliver, but only ran his thumb over it once before putting it down. "I don't want to see her right now."

Xelloss not wanting to meet Lina Inverse. Imagine that.

"Did I put you back together wrong?" she said, touching his shoulder, trying to sense whether something was off in his energy. With the circles gone, she couldn't tell anymore. "Xelloss, answer me. You better not be getting like Zelas, angst and—

"I am not being angsty. I am just very, very disturbed. There is a big difference!" He crossed his arms, offended again, but not the blood curling way. One eye closed now.

Ah, this was the kind of Xelloss she could deal with. "I didn't say you were, which you would have known if you had let me finish. Angst and emotional detachment and whatever are both mayor blind spots."

"I noticed that much, but it doesn't make me better at figuring what I miss," he said. "I first have to choose to think like that."

Choice. Another thing to bring down and consider all the way down to the Sea of Chaos, where it didn't matter.

She stood up, brushed off and went to her den. After grabbing the thickest blanket, she returned to Xelloss and sat down before him, back turned.

"You can fix my hair."

"Really?"

"If we're going to move soon, I need to get used to you anyway."

"Hmmhmm."

"That and I'm not going to stand before Valgarv with any more marks of him on me."

"Hmm."

"I did notice you like my hair, you know. The clan's going to be suspicious if you rejoin them inexplicably upset, right? You need to calm down or liven up or whatever is and I need to disprove miss Claire about your mood. So there, four good excuses."

"Of course," he said with a small smile. "And I can guess the one that came before them."

"Hmm," she said, because one got what they gave.

Pulling up her knees and looked at the candles, and not the ghosts.

"If I do it right through the contract, it'll shrivel once the contract ceases," Xelloss said. "I'll just have to fabricate the material and remend it, which will take a little longer. On the bright side, you dragons are part magical matter so I don't have to go find a source for keratin."

"Just get on with it," she said, and tried not to worry about what that meant.

Xelloss with his hands in her hair wasn't as awful as it ought to be, largely thanks to him being actually careful. He would take a few locks at a time and work in a steady rhythm. It was a different kind of calm than with chanting ghosts and detached gods. Absurd universe. The same universe that might get them all killed.

"What did you mean with putting me back together wrong?"

"Not much, just ... miss Luna messed herself up a lot despite doing emotional magic her entire life. I was grasping in the dark when pulling you back."

"Hmm ... it was miss Luna's gate that I used. Say, once you start tampering with Valgarv's through the dreamscape, does this give him similar option to change you?"

"Yes, but just option. He probably never learned to mess with that plane before he became a chimera, so he won't know what to do. Don't worry, he knows even less than I do."

Volphied might have known more, though, but risks like that weren't worth fretting over.

"I didn't realize dream magic and emotional cutting were related," he said, almost sounding carefully neutral. He either was very focused on her hair, or he tried not to be obviously worried. They could both use a diversion, really.

"All types of holy magic are connected a little. There's compartments, but they're made by the same walls. We can go over that later, though. Right now you owe me stories about the world and miss Lina in it."

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