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Five millenniums of freedom and death, children turned to those who killed them. Wails beyond the night, the night is not darkest before the dawn for there is no night and day. Only the motion of the world hidden by metaphors. Gods and devils did not exist for the world, oh no. In many an other world, the world existed without them, but power structures had to exist. It didn't need to be the gods.

He had many ideas on what the world had to be, but the dim witted devils made a worthless audience. He killed time by talking to Shabranigdu, whom he didn't have to pretend to be Dark Star to. Too bad Shabranigdu was the worst one to rant at. Nothing but mindless need to destroy the world. Not even any regard for the Lord of Nightmares. Fear and respect, but he'd throw a fit if she came up to him and didn't want to destroy the world.

Dugradigdu still lived in the Black World, but was less than cooperative. Right now, he didn't have much to do except feed on miasma and try to control the hosts.

The facts were that Valgarv had little idea on what to do. He could operate the machinery with ease, and frankly, he'd instilled his own will on Volphied and Dugradigdu to the point they took his directions. In this world, he had the astral side to his advantage. That wasn't the problem.

He needed to adapt the plan for the new situation. With the angelsblood talisman, he had a scarce link to Volphied's true self in the Black World. It wasn't as good as talking to her avatar, but she could at least hint at him being in the right direction. Now he had nothing.

Except Shabranigdu nagging at him to hand over the talisman, so he could do some serious world destruction. As if. Valgarv wasn't so easily tempted, but if he didn't pay attention, Shabranigdu might get it on his own. He needed to act before that happened.

He created his doves to explore the world, hoping to find Lei Magnus. Perhaps he could strike up an alliance after all, but there was no trace of him. His constructs could only cover so much ground. Not that he needed Lei Magnus, but it would have been useful to have cannon fodder in case any gods got in the way.

Getting to the machine was one thing, making it bring Volphied to this world, kill everyone and overtake all the planes was another and then some. He was supposed to have adapted a body for Volphied before they ever thought about controlling Megiddo or the astral plane. On top of that, Claire had become a god way ahead of schedule, and Lei Magnus was free. Two massive wild cards. The enemy had one talisman, so it was only a matter of time before Lina got back in touch with this world. They'd seek a way to incarnate Luke and adjust Milina to be Siephied's conduit. They had options to explore, and he didn't have enough.

He lost count of time in the everdark north and its monotone, so when one day a ghost walked into the throne hall, it had his full attention.

Especially since the humanoid was clad in the tradition of ancient dragons, when they took human form.

"What are you doing here?"

The ghost stopped before him, looked him over and sighed. "I had hoped she was wrong."

"What? Who?"

The ghost didn't answer, just turned around, shaking their head. "What a pity. You could have done so much good."

What the ... what did they think he was doing?

The ghost faded away, but was soon replaced by another, and another. He asked them what they wanted, but only got similar responses : disappointment, sighs, regret.

For every one that vanished, two or three came in place until they filled every room in the castle. With them the sound increased, building up from the outside. A quick look out a window revealed fields of ghosts stretched over the sea, and some confused devils near them.

Every single one of the ghosts had their eyes fixed on Valgarv. Countless eyes bearing down on him, headed by faces that he had distant memories of. Elders, names his parents had taught him to revere, before they all had died, and reverence with them.

The ghosts sang in a language he knew, though the lyrics were unfamiliar. Their content was not : acceptance, the world, and regret. When the fate of the damned came up, he understood they were composed in hell.

From the chorus, a humanoid elder emerged, flanked by two companions. They flowed to him without a single step. Closer now, he distantly recognized them, but could not recall their names.

"Valtera, we have come to speak to you," said the supreme elder.

"My name is Valgarv now, and your words are wasted," he said. "Your pacifism only brought you death."

"As you do to the entire world? The devil speaks of waste."

"What?" Valgarv snapped. "I'm reviving the world in a better way! You'll all come back from hell, don't you get it? I can rebirth who ever I want once I have the power of the gods and devils!"

"We would not be the same as we are now. Our legacy would die if you force all of us into reincarnation at once. That is assuming you can create life that Megiddo would surrender us to."

With those words they filed away, down the halls.

Devils did not see them, only he did. Odd, but not unusual. Any devil curious why he stormed down the halls was killed.

The flock stopped in the central room, which once had been Dynast's main chamber.

There cross that Luna had broken stood again, mended with his own magic. The Elder laid a hand on the intersection.

"Valtera, why did you choose to disgrace our legacy with bloodshed?"

"There's no other way to make this world better," he spat.

Nobody responded. Their voices muddling, they poured out more accusing questions.

"Why did you abandon the name we gave you?"

"How can you disavow the golden dragons for the violence they do in their false belief they may judge the world, right as you yourself claim you are fit to judge the world?"

"We have met those who died because of your crusade. You are just as dreadful as they are."

"You want to take over the world like they did."

"Don't compare me to them! They only wanted the weapon, I set out to change the world."

"Did you know Volphied had such plans when you first decided to unleash Dark Star?" asked another.

He didn't like this, they had it all wrong.

"Get out of here if you don't have anything useful to say!"

But they stayed and he didn't even know what he wanted with them. Variations of the questions repeated and they no longer responded when he answered. Those farther away still sang their hymns, now taking the questions into their rhythm.

Amidst the droning noise, one quiet voice stood out for what it said.

"Valgarv?"

"Young lady, are you here?" he asked, eager to have someone move responsive to interact with. "Come out."

The ghosts moved aside for her to approach, a shining contrast against their solemn, lifeless forms. Some of the power of Siephied lay around her soul,

He sneered at the elder. "How can you stand a golden dragon in your midst?"

"This dragon was unaware of the genocide and opposed it once she found out," they said.

He knew that, but wasn't the point. "She still bears their legacy."

"By that word, would that not mean you should bears ours?" said the elder. "Well, you have delivered us only shame. Rather than peace, you spread the same suffering that befell our clan. You have pronounced yourself worthy to be the world's judge, just as the golden dragons of Vrabazard have done. We ally ourselves with the one dragon who did not. There is no contradiction to our actions, unlike yours."

Filia stopped before him, raising a hand to his cheek. Though not physical, the holiness both repelled the devil's power and resonated with his dragon soul.

"It is not too late yet to stand down," Filia said. "Please, there are other ways to help the world. Don't let your grief cloud your mind."

Filia had the kind of innocence both true and built on lies. She tried to understand the truth, but always missed the mark. Her compassion was just a pointless feeling, devoid of logic and reason. The kind of idiotic simplicity that sought the reduction of pain, but also accepting its existence was the way to go.

He grabbed her arm; unlike her he knew how to handle transdimensional matter. "Don't lecture me, young lady. I am the only one in this world who can clearly see what is needed. You ... you've always thought the child that certain pain is necessary. I say none is needed."

"Then what would your world be? How can you remove pain without removing change? You're trying to bypass natural change, at what cost? Answer me, Valgarv. Please."

Again with the questions, it irritated him.

Maybe he should practice purging and remaking souls right here and now, see how far he got without hell's matter or Megiddo's assignment. In his new world, personalities would be managed as easily as Val had been. He rather liked the idea of reforming Filia in the same way, carve away the naivety and install the understanding of his plight. She was perfect to be the first.

"You'll see the cost," he said. "I can show you now."

"Would you let me show you something first? You may do as you wish if that fails, I will not resist."

"It will fail, young lady," he said. "I have seen all of this world and the Black World. There is nothing you could know better."

She looked so lost when she answered with, "Just one try, in name of whatever I might have meant to Val, if not you."

He smirked, intent to pull out the Val program the moment it failed and have it say it meant nothing.

"Go ahead."

A golden circle flared up around them and the ghosts closed in around them.

It took him exactly two seconds too long to realize she had just ignited a beacon to bring power in.

Too late.

The ice on the walls melted and the holiness took control of the area, snatching up him and all the power of Shabranigdu. He braced against it, but could not summon Shabranigdu's power swift enough.

How was she doing this? As Siephied's channel she might have the energy, there was nothing to tune into ... did she use the ghosts? What? He had to know to undermine it, but a torrent of holiness blocked his senses from all sides. Only Filia and her strange gaze were a constant.

The teleportation had a piercing white color. When it gave way, it was to a dark mountain range, one all to familiar despite the night.

Val had been here three years ago, when he was too young to pay attention to any conversation. He didn't know what was special about this place, how Lina had planted whatever those trees were or the details of Shabranigdu's defeat. Volphied had meant to investigate at some point, but had never come close — Megiddo gazed back, she had always said. They could not afford to be seen.

Once desolate, the valley now thrived with power of eternal blue. The stars above paled to the myriad of blue flames and the shining ghosts between them. Close to the lake stood those who had mastered human transformation, further in the darkness of the mountains flew true dragons. Their darker outlines obscured even the white peaks, and the hymns made way for a cacophony of disjointed questions.

A divine barrier covered the valley, one he could tear through if he tried. Breaking down part of the mountains would be enough to escape, but not to satisfy him. Why go back to the boring upper north with only dull devils as his audience, when here were his own people? Too stubborn to understand! They of all people should understand, yet here they were, lamenting while providing scenery for an intervention.

They should ... where had Filia gone?

For an intervention, there was a distinct lack of people confronting him. None of the ghosts came near, and even their questions become more quiet. He didn't bother listening or answering. The gist was clear, they didn't get it.

He started walking in no particular direction, looking for the one dragon that he needed.

Every step felt heavy, like he was on the brink of sleep. Between the chants of the ghosts was the sound of gongs and other instruments he distantly remembered. More than once, he found the environment entirely different without really knowing how he had gotten there.

In that manner, he found himself before Filia within the seeming blink of an eye.

She stood alone on the shore of a small inlet, calm with her hands clasped in prayer, yet her eyes keen on him. The water rose and ebbed around her feet, not through them.

When he approached, the heaviness fell away. She stood her ground, like she always did.

"Why did we have to be here for me to listen to you?" He circled her, trying to get a hang of the strange flow that made up her power.

"Valgarv, I've spoken with your people. They say there is a way to help the world that isn't so extreme," Filia said.

"What do they know? They've never spoken to Night Dragon and Dark Star. They're dead out of their own ignorance."

"But in hell are Lezo and others hosts, it is them who placed a new way in on the table."

"They're just stalling the inevitable, like you are. What for?"

"Would you believe it's for us to change your mind? I know a thing or two about lying to oneself. The first and foremost being that it's a defense. I've parroted what others told me, but when I realized, I stopped. If you were to realize your words did not add up, would you stop?"

"I'm not wrong, and I'm not deluded like you were and still are," he said close to her ear. "How can you hope for salvation when you can't even see the truth?"

"You're correct in one way. I can't change anything if I my life is written in bygone bloodshed, so ... I will not."

The hand she had clasped over her shoulder opened. He had only a second to see the chain wrapped around her arm, then pain in his right wing hit. The same chain had shot out behind her neck, piercing the wing below the fetus. It writhed down around, around the arm he had on Filia's shoulder.

Filia jerked at the chain and pulled his arm away.

"What—"

Hooking her her under his palm, she tore loose his other arm. The second chain bore through his other wing.

"And what I do change about myself won't be the kind you do at a whim. You went from claiming I had but one way to atone, to saying it was about purification, not sacrifice, and then back to my atonement?" Now she looked back, and her face was nothing like the demure woman before. "Whatever your game is, I know that I owe you nothing."

Her dress flared out like fire, singing his flesh and distorting the astral plane. Flares of yellow dropped upward around them, moving like both water and fire. Her was holiness lit his frame with light, and so she sensed its structure.

She strode away from him, pulling the chains tight and a trail of growing resentment in her wake, mingling with her sadness.

"The one I was before would have forgiven you a thousand times if only you'd looked down and seen what the world still has for you. Who I am now sees you always had been looking down, only to be displeased with the world, so to hell with everyone else who wanted it. You seek to play god."

"As if the gods of this world are worth anything! Someone has to take control of this mess!"

"Yes, we need change, but you don't bring that. You promised a world without suffering, but you already knew that the gods and devils didn't cause all war. You have seen the fate of mister Jillas and mister Gravos and who knew how many others. Either your excuse is another lie, or you would put the truth to it by taking away free will. You bring the end of all we achieved so far."

"Achieved? It wasn't enough to stop the genocide of my people!"

"Nor was it enough to stop you from killing other people, nor Erulogos from killing my people when he didn't have to, nor Xelloss from going too far time and time again. This world needs no mercy kill, it needs less of certain people to live out their power unchecked," she said without looking back.

"What would you know about the world? You never asked the right questions until I shoved the truth in your face," he spat. He tried to get closer — he could eat her emotions, but he wanted to see her eyes. Yet the chains dug into his flesh with more power than they should. Where did she get this strength?

"The truth? There has been no world war for over a thousand years. Societies evolve and change for the better by working on it, even if it takes long. Your people have suffered and are gone, yes, but there is no connection between that and the happiness of others. You have neither the right nor the wisdom to decide for them."

The more she spoke, the less she appeared the fragile little lady. Every word cut into him, drawing on his astral core. She had to know what she was doing. Lacing astral attacks in words ... she wasn't allowed to be able to do this.

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up!"

He brought out the Val program, meaning to change himself into it, but the chains jarred with his own flow. It would be easier to project him apart, so he did exactly that.

"Mom, please stop hurting us," Valgarv had him say — the simple command of "stop" was enough to translate into that. Val had always been oriented around ensuring Valgarv's intentions.

Filia looked back at last. He had a second to see her harshness before it broke away at Val's sight. Out came the tears, and her next words choked back in her throat.

He wanted her to throw herself around the child and surrender, but she stood her ground. The tears she wiped away, even as they kept coming.

"That is not my child. You destroyed him before he could ever be." Rather than embrace the projection, she raised a hand and gathered magic. Without another word, she set Val alight with a Chaotic Disintegrate.

The torrent of light blinded him fully, but the emotions she gave off were a mouthful for the power of Shabranigdu. Staying around her might be worth it for the meal alone — far away, Shabranigdu mocked him for telling himself that he wanted to stay. He refused to hear it, he had better things to do, like wring the blood from her.

This time he pulled out Volphied's form, pushing her own power into the puppet. Through this he jumped at Filia. With one slash, he tore her skull and chest open.

Limp she fell down, blood pouring out across the ground. At the same time, the chains faded away, the fire died and the fores holding him down fell away. He draw back the fake Volphied.

The ghosts fell silent, and Valgarv was left empty.

What now? Get back to the north somehow, wait to get more control, organize the armies.

Yet he stayed where he stood, looking down at the body. Maybe he should have saved her for a more fitting death. He had entertained so many ideas of how she'd witness the end of the world. Maybe ... hadn't she been dead before? No, couldn't be.

With her new found spite, she wasn't really unique anymore. Plenty of others would be like that, it wasn't the same anymore. Many looked at him with hatred, she had been the only one to look with the appropriate sorrow for him, and only that.

He waited for her ghost, but instead her flesh knitted back together. Even her clothes mended.

When she opened her eyes, they were almost triumphant. Almost, if he hadn't been able to sense the remainder of her emotions. Still betrayal there, even after all this ... but it didn't matter enough.

Unsure of what he wanted, he reached for her, but she teleported away the instant he moved.

At the edge of the clearing, she reappeared with her back towards him again.

"Filia, don't you dare play with me!"

"Hmm." The kind of contemptuous sound she usually gave Xelloss. "You hypocrite."

With those words, she vanished into the forest. Really vanished, for the trees obscured the astral plane, where they were nothing but white blue pillars to Megiddo.

Didn't matter, he had other senses.

He folded his wings back and shot into the forest. The moment he passed the first trees, pain sawed through his upper body and one of his legs. Grinding to a halt, he found scorch marks all over himself like he had run into wires, but nothing that caused it.

No ... not wires. The burn marks were of chains.

Ahead, a branch cracked and footsteps grew distant. He pushed on, only to be met with more of those infernal chains. The hollow didn't do everything it should do. What were these things even made of? Biting through the pain, he pushed himself on.

Where was she?

There, the red blur betrayed her. He flew after her, not caring whether his wings tore on the trees or what he knocked over.

Where ever she had stepped, the chains down through him. Every time he ran through them, they singed the magic of his construction. Not even Volphied's craft could withstand the neutralizing effect, so it tore into the very fabric of his hollow and his shield. What should be his protection now became a weakness, but he couldn't just let her get away with this.

Without the patience to untangle it, he had to seep power from the hosts through the talisman, but he didn't have the patience. She had to be shut up, one way or another.

The chanting returned, closing in all around him. It drowned out the sound of her running, but still he caught glimpses of that dress.

He herded her on till she lost the cover of trees, onto a clearing. Even there, she escaped his sight.

Here stood a small dome cathedral, barely tall enough to rise over the trees. By standards of ancient dragons this place was minuscule, reserved only for those who could take human form. Despite its age, it still looked whole.

Inside was the echo of her steps and a growing light. He landed on the ground and folded his wings closer to himself, closing the distance on foot. Because you hurt yourself too much, Shabranigdu said in the distance. Hah, as if he understood anything about holiness and respect.

He expected flashbacks when he crossed the borders, but they did not come. It was the chains that followed him in, moving through the walls like they did not matter. The ghosts would not enter, but they covered the ground behind him. Fine, let them see. Some might even had been here with him.

In the onset of the war, he had been here once. The Ancient Dragons prayed only to Siephied, none of the other gods. They had no statues or symbols, but plenty of memorials. Burning herbs and hallowed water had once filled basins, but more so they had attended to advanced machinery that employed holy direction and power.

Now it was empty, save for one raised basin that Filia lit with a spell. The crackle of dried out herbs filled the room.

He panted for breath and when he spat out the words, it sounded weaker than he wanted to.

"What the hell are you doing? Nothing's here that could change my mind."

"I never said we'd change your mind by showing you something. What would change you, truly? You rant about how terrible the servants of the gods are, but when you yourself serve a god who would like to stop a genocide? You stab him because he didn't make his mission revolve around you," Filia said. "I could lock myself into an endless cycle of forgiveness by waiting for you to stop making everything about you."

The sad little lady had been replaced by a typical golden dragon. How boring. He gathered up a holy spell, intent to kill her with her own means, but right then Filia turned around and looked him in the eyes. He saw everything he hated, and that she hated at last.

With the crossing of her arms, she tensed all the chains around him, shackling him in place — every single one he'd run into in the forest. They'd never gone through him, but anchored into his astral body. All of this weight now bound him to the earth.

He should have noticed. How had he not noticed? He's wrapped himself around their blade, followed their bait like a fool.

The chain pulled his wings and arms apart. The trees blazed up until the forest seemed like standing in the sun; the light pouring in nearly blinded him.

For once, Shabranigdu agreed with him and he did not have to leech off power. The full, free flowing burst of energy broke from his wings and hands in all directions. The cathedral groaned under the weight and the trees outside incinerated, but Filia stood untouched in the center.

As the inferno lowered, the sound of clapping emerged.

"Wonderful, miss Filia!"

Unmistakable, that was the voice of Xelloss.

Not all the astral darkness around Filia had been the power of Shabranigdu. He'd been spread out but now drew closer in form. When he projected his human form, she didn't flinch even a little. Xelloss leaned over her, his staff horizontal before her as she raised her hands. Upon claiming the weapon, the chains converged around it. With it encroached rushing water from all around them, onto Valgarv.

Xelloss now looked up, an insufferable smugness on his face.

It had been a trap from the moment Dalphin whirled into his throne room and declared that Xelloss was back home.

"Oh hear, we have him tongue-tied too."

Valgarv braced further against the chains, but water rushed onto him from all sides. Brimming with holy power, it from up his legs and wings, binding him down further. This power he could sense fully. Filia didn't have just a devil and ghosts on her side, but a god itself.

"Thank you for your self-distraction," Claire whispered in his ear, without ever embodying. "The pantheon is much obliged."

"How dare you!" he screamed. "You'll pay for this!"

It came out as a whisper that drowned in the water. They didn't even really pay attention to him. Filia planted the staff in the ground and turned her back on Valgarv again.

Out of the basin she raised the angelsblood talisman. Its radiance was so great, he could tell even when hidden by her form.

"That is not yours!" he screamed. "Give it back!"

This time there wasn't even any sound, except a dry chuckle from Claire. "Don't bother them while they work now. Try bother me and see whether I care."

Claire clawed at the framework of his hollow until she found the storage subspace. He expected her to take it and hoped to catch her, but she simply held on and kept pouring into the hollow. Little by little, she destroyed it. Valgarv could not stop her — Volphied would have known how but he didn't have the holy talisman.

It was so close, if only he could cross those few wingstrokes between him and Filia. He tried again, and again, and yet his body didn't move. He couldn't tell anymore whether it was the restraints or his energy having run out.

All this time, Filia wouldn't look at him, only at whatever she did in the basin. She spoke in hushed tone with Xelloss, who sometimes looked his way but not for long.

When he did focus on him, Valgarv prepared. What for, he didn't know.

"We're ready, Aqualord. Have you found it?" he said.

"Yes, but it's rather deep between layers. Might you give summoning it to yourself a try? You're most familiar with it."

"Gladly." Xelloss let go of his projection. Filia flicked one hand backward, unrolling another glowing chain. On that cue, Xelloss hurled himself at Valgarv.

He should have been able to hit him so close, but Xelloss simply channeled away Shabranigdu's energy. Fusion cut down any attempt to destroy the conduit, and again the mass of darkness was thrown to the environment. Xelloss delved through the layers of his makeshift astral body, following the directions of Claire.

The talisman responded to him, to add insult to injury.

The second Xelloss pulled it away, Valgarv lost control of the hosts. Without talisman, the embryos were too simplistic to unleash Shabranigdu, even if Valgarv might have let him loose just to get to these pests.

It left him a mere dragon in the claws of a god, a golden dragon and a demon. An almost perfect representation of his enemies, save Chaos and its apostle.

Xelloss preened as he shifted back between the dragons.

"It's certainly nice to have a great deal of power, but it only gets one so far in face of intelligence and technique. The finer the minds round you, the less power means," he said.

At first Valgarv thought he'd been talking to him, but Claire answered, "Oh, please. I would not have agreed to this if I did not acknowledge that, but it doesn't mean nothing."

"I'd say it's the framework that makes the difference, right?" Xelloss tossed up the talisman. When he caught it again, a golden mist burst from his palm.

Now the set of enemies was complete : there was Lina Inverse cloaked in the power of the Lord of Nightmares. Nobody was as trapped as she was, just as she smirked like she owned the world. Either a knowing ally of Lucifer or her most foolish slave, it didn't matter. She thought herself so much, just like at their first meeting. He could hardly believe that at some point, he'd decided she wasn't a big enough deal to keep fixating on.

She floated over to him. "Hey, Valgarv. Been a while. Still blindsided by your own ego after all this time?"

Her, of all people, saying that! She had nothing but abyssal gold in her eyes, yet she dared criticize him? He should have killed her he had the chance.

"Lina Inverse. You're determined to get in my way every time, aren't you?"

"You could say I'm destined to keep you from hijacking destiny." She flicked a finger against his forehead. Though ethereal, he felt it in every fiber of his soul. "And this time, tell Volphied I won't be fooled by her little false void. I've seen the real thing now."

"You can tell her yourself once she gets to you," Valgarv spat. "We will strike you and all of Lucifer's infernal game down!"

"Really?" Lina asked. "Volphied went through a lot of trouble to keep me away from her, I doubt she's gonna face me anytime soon." Lina shrugged. "Well, if she does, no big deal. By then, I will have learned everything she can craft from you."

"I won't give you anything!"

"That's why we're creating someone who will."

· · · · · · ·

Val remembered everything. Every gap in his own mind had been filled with him. His will, desire and motivation.

He'd been born just now, he knew that — Claire had told him — but he remembered living much longer. A life in which he wanted things only for himself, and everything he was now had been just a shell. Something carved in a body without a soul of his own, and even now, was he that?

Claire brought up old memories from Valtera. Long ago, that one had stood in this cathedral and thought only of how he could become so great that these cathedrals would not be needed anymore. How to make the gods answer, Valtera thought, at least until he found more engaging goals.

The world had been wider then, but now it was only himself within the water, with a red crystal as his egg.

Beyond the surface of the water was his mother. Careful, she laid a hand on the surface of the water.

She joined Claire in his waking dream, leading the way through the haze. He followed her close, safe in her presence. His hand in hers, one step at a time. He left behind something that he hadn't seen before, yet the farther he came from it, the filthier it seemed. He didn't like to think about it, and she was alright with that. In its stead, she offered him to relive happier memories, but also sad ones, and others. The full spectrum, except that which lay behind.

At last she brought him before Lina Inverse. Val had feared her name, once, but she didn't look so bad now. Rather shiny, which reminded him of his mother when she transformed or teleported.

He didn't really understand what she did, but it involved a lot of weird circles — life law and others — and only at the end of it did he realize he hadn't had a body. Now the sensations of water become clear, so came the need for air.

On reflex he transformed into his human self. On emerging, it felt a little different. His reflection in the water was wrong, he looked both older and younger.

Drops ran in his eyes, he really hated that. After rubbing his eyes dry, he looked up. His mother also had wet eyes, but he would bet she hadn't just taken a dip.

"Mom, are you okay?"

He was happy to return the embrace she closed around him, burying his face in her hair. He remembered it, yet the sensation was like a first time. His mother, and she loved him ... knowledge that somehow felt new.

His most recent memories of her were a mixture of resentment, boredom and frustration with her not understanding. Everything before that was similar, but overlaying that were a thousand little moments dismissed. The sunlight when she pulled open the bedroom window and announced if he got down in time, they could make it before the festival got crowded. Chores for a penny and transformation practice in the forest, where she brought along a picnic.

Claire took those and pulled them closer, and they began to matter as they should. He wanted to thank her, but he didn't know where she was. When had she even arrived? When he had come here?

When he had ...

Mere minutes ago, he'd killed his own mother. It dimly registered she'd come back, but still he might do it again.

He pulled out of her embrace and fell off the other side of the basin.

She was at his side at once, reaching out to help him get up. He crawled back while remembering getting closer and tearing her apart, driving astral attacks through her, to urge break her ...

"I'm sorry! Sorry, sorry," he sputtered, barely seeing her through his tears. "I don't want to hurt you anymore."

"It wasn't you. Whatever he did, they were not your choices," Filia said gently. She held out one hand. "Val, please come to me. I'm not angry at you and you won't hurt me, will you?"

He shook his head, but couldn't get closer. The memories wouldn't go away, and he felt Valgarv's eyes behind his own lids, like he could take over any second. He had been his skin all along, unable to even realize that or think for himself. Valgarv's underlying thoughts had been alone, and infrequent, but still the baseline.

Valgarv ... who he had been once.

Behind him, down the slope between two trees, Valgarv was tied up with iron chains. Below him was the outer edge of a massive life law circle carved into the barren ground, and he sensed a complex holy network spanning out from it. None of that had been here before, or at least he hadn't noticed it. There had been a big building Valtera had been once, but that hadn't even been in this valley.

Valgarv didn't move, he just sat on his knees with his head slumped down. Sometimes he muttered or an arm twitched, but the wings were completely still. Even the white veins holding the hosts had dimmed.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked, though it seemed trivial.

"He's asleep," Claire said. "He's been half asleep for a while now. You are now your own person."

"I don't get it ..."

"You used to be a program running in a mortal brain, without an astral side or even will of its own," a glowing Lina said as she knelt down. "You were made that way by Volphied to be a cover for her agent, Valgarv. Now you're just you thanks to me, the genius sorceress who figured out how to read the fine print of the life laws."

"Does that mean ... am I like that weird thing Luna is now? ... tell Luna I'm sorry for that, I don't think I can myself. She's scary."

"Egad, did you get that attitude from your mom?" Lina said. "If I come out of the power struggle in the future, which I will, I'm gonna write a new cosmic law that nobody gets to blame themselves for other people's shit. Cut it out, Val."

"Hmm, he's mostly the same, but there's something different too. I don't quite know what." Ah, and there was evil wizard cone person thingy. He hovered somewhere behind Filia, harder to see in the dark.

"Let's not talk about that now," Filia said. "Val's just a child who already has enough to deal with."

"Hmm. I wonder whether your change of mind about Valgarv had anything to do with how it lets you think about Val. Not that you're wrong, but—" Xelloss started.

"Xelloss, this is really not the time," she snapped.

"What's Cone Thingy going on about? Time for what?" Val asked.

"Xelloss is scared that I'm not going to ask you to help us with something and wants me to get on with it. You know how insensitive he is," Filia said.

Val nodded eagerly. Memories of his own fell into place more easily now. Valgarv hated Xelloss for a lot of silly reasons, but Val just had a long list of things that irritated him about the cone. That too had been kept low by Valgarv and Volphied — they hadn't wanted Xelloss to pay too much attention to him, and a feud would certainly have done that.

"Yeah, Evil Wizard Cone Person Thingy should know better. You always tell me my chores and I do them as well as I can," He looked down at the carved seal below his feet, he added, "But I think you're gonna have to explain this chore, mom. It looks super magical."

Except she didn't need to. The moment he thought about it, all the information came to the surface. He had an intricate map of the entirety of the machine, from the tiniest byte to the overarching concept of Megiddo itself. Coupled with that, an elaborate plan to seed this information where Zelas and later Lina could find what they needed. It began with a discarded piece of data from the Black Gods, crafted to be like a callous loss when in truth, made by Val's own hands. Dove constructs were sent to plant whispers, to observe and to collect and spread. They had made work what Zelas and Lina could not, and had installed functions in the machine they did not know about. All carefully organized so nobody would notice.

He had spent nights awake to piece together things for his pawns to find both on the island and in the shore's base. If it was really urgent and no teleportation was available, he would simply turn into an adult dragon and fly to the shore's base. Anyone unfortunate enough to see him, he had killed.

All of this he had done without a thought, the same way he didn't think about how he walked or chewed or blinked.

He gaped for air before he could get a word out.

"Mom ... I'm ... " He wasn't supposed to apologize, but everything felt so much like he'd done it. "Sorry, but I wanna say sorry to a lot of people."

"I understand," Filia said as she stroked his hair. "It feels so real, and it doesn't help enough to know it's not. You will have to bite through it, or Valgarv and Volphied will be able to manipulate you."

"Does that mean I have to do something near them?"

Filia's face already looked pained, now she looked on the edge of crying. "Yes. We ... we have to send you back into his soul, to make him do something. Do you remember what I've told you about birds and cats? What Valgarv is doing there, that's trying to save all birds by killing all cats. When the cats are gone, the sparrows will overpopulate and starve. Do you get the problem?"

"Yeah, that's easy, but we're not talking about real birds and cats though, are we?"

"We're talking about the world," Xelloss piped up. "And Valgarv decided that every animal in the world is a cat, even some birds, and that he and Volphied are the only real birds, even though they're cats."

His mother pointed at Valgarv. "He wants to do a mercy kill on a dove that isn't sick. He lies about his reasons, saying it is to save everyone, but he will kill even those who are happy and need no saving. Everyone will be reborn and lose their identities, there won't even be an afterlife."

"Like that double murder thing that Liliane tried to do to Luna, right?" Val asked.

"Yes, that's right," she said. "He wants to destroy the world and make something new as he pleases."

This too brought about a whole set of memories, such as conversations with Volphied and Dugradigdu, the fine purpose of the machine, and everything that had gone wrong since Volphied's vessel had died. It should feel like the worse, but seemed bizarre and distant compared to specific murder memories. World destruction and domination was the sort of thing from epic legends that didn't matter to real life.

Even in Valgarv's mind, the idea itself was more of an aspiration than the result was. It wasn't that he thought purifying the world was really necessary just to end the war of deities, he simply didn't consider the ramifications. It wasn't really about peace for others, just for himself. That meant compliance to his vision, and Volphied, whom he had taken a liking to. It wasn't the kind of liking that Val had for people.

He had to be stopped, because there would be thinking people, but they could never be free. To Val that sounded worse than the void.

"My chore is to stop them, or not?"

"It's not a chore, Val," Filia said. "I can't pay you for it, I can only ask. It will be dangerous for you : if we want to stop him, we need you to control him."

"You're made out of part of his soul, you can return to him and replace his drive with your own," Lina said. "Be him. He's worn you like a skin for years, now you can flip the tables. Wanna give it a shot?"

Val really didn't want to go back into the monster that tried to double-murder his mother, but if it was necessary for everyone he loved to be okay, he would do it.

"What do you need me to make him do, mommy?"

"Surrender the pieces of Shabranigdu to the gods. We might have some issue convincing Rangort and the others gods you've been converted, so be careful not to provoke them. We haven't been able to warn the island what we're doing. After the hosts are contained, you must open a gateway for miss Lina and her spouses to return. She will restore things." She sounded rehearsed now, that didn't happen often. Another reason to say yes, it'd be better for his mother if Valgarv were gone.

"Okay, I know how to do that! There's a secret command prompt that can be accessed manually with a crystal thing down on the second level that—"

Lina held up her hand. "We'll cover that later. I take it that means you're working for us?"

"Of course!" He took a step closer to Lina and gave her the Sailoon salute. "Miss Inverse, your knight is at your service."

Lina placed her hands on her hips, which peeved Val a little. Wasn't she gonna return the salute?

"I'm gonna hold you to that, kid," she said with a smirk, or a smile — you often couldn't tell with her. She knelt down to be at eye level with him. "Not as my knight cause I don't have my grand castle yet, but as my ally."

Oh, that's was better!

"I bet when we're done, I can build you a castle. I know how to build lots of things," he said. "I'm going to build a castle for my family too, cause I don't think I'm a little dragon without Volphied magic stuff."

"Nah, I can design my own castle," Lina said with smugness that Val knew was unwarranted so hard.

"No, you can't. Your house sculpting plans suck," Val said. "Mom says your designs are hell's bane of architecture and she praises chaos or whatever other deity for keeping you out of the home market."

Lina cast a glare at Val's mother, who just give a satisfied smile.

"You used to be less offensively blunt," Xelloss said. "I wonder what that means."

"Valgarv doesn't want me to be provoking anyone who could figure out stuff. So I had to be boring sometimes," Val said. "It's always the whole, there's nothing to say, there's nothing to say command override. I hate it. Well, I hate it now. I didn't think about it before."

Val turned to face Valgarv for the first time. Looking on someone who he remembered being was both jarring and surreal. How he thought and felt now, all that he remembered thinking ridiculous and trivial.

That made it a little easier, because Val didn't really know himself with that face. It looked harsh only because he knew what lay behind those closed eyes, but it wasn't his either way.

"There's a few things we have to do when we get to the island," he said. "Volphied's supposed to get in and possess the gods, she's gonna try when I open the gates for you, Lina."

"We better plan ahead then," Lina said. "Tell me everything that I don't know about Elmegiddo."

"Okay but where's ... Claire, are you around here? Come out, we have a job together," he said, trying to sound cool and optimistic like one of those heroes.

"I wouldn't call it a game, and I'm afraid you won't find me as fun as before, Val," said Claire, her voice drifting in from somewhere.

"Actually, you could be pretty boring before and I think Valgarv just made me be curious," Val said. "But I think I do really like you anyway. You were nice and I did like playing with you and finding old memories and things like that. If that was fun enough for you too, it's okay, right?"

A thick silence fell and the atmosphere shifted, as if the entire environment sighed.

"Claire?"

"She's not miss Claire anymore," Xelloss said. "The Aqualord has absolved herself of such base personalities as we are in favor of being useful. Fun isn't in the plan, it seems."

"Oh ... "

The next wave of memories boiled up. Unlike those before, these were harder to form an opinion on.

In Zoana, Claire had walked into his dreams — Valgarv's dreams — and gone unnoticed. Luna had blended because Valgarv already felt anger so often, Luna's one emotion didn't cause significant changes in the dreamscape. Claire herself simply felt too little.

He'd ruined her. Right when Claire had felt shame and then decided to become a leader and not a religion, Valgarv had ruined the seed. If Val had been there, he would have told her that yeah, she did mess up a lot of things, but she could make it better now and he'd help her figure it out. He couldn't think that though, because Valgarv wasn't like that.

Claire had never been all that vivid, but the one who stood before him lacked even the tiniest spark. Maybe she had put that personality in a box, the way Valgarv had put Val in storage. It was more sad than death : she was gone altogether, no afterlife at all.

"Can you wear Claire again?" Val asked, though he feared the answer.

"I've kept the structure and potential, but it is not a personality suit like you were," she said.

"Well, what do you want to be?"

Another silence.

Xelloss leaned over and said, "I think she's still figuring that out."

"I'm not! I simply do not know how to explain it to a child."

Val crossed his arms, peeved. "You didn't say that when it was about me getting memories of my old self, and I have lots of stuff in my head that I'm too child for. I ... huh, I also know a lot of stuff Volphied said ... she's doing machine things again."

"I'm a printer trying to run Rinux. I threw out some programs I don't need, but I have the data burned and in storage."

"Huh?" was as much as Filia and Xelloss could respond, but Lina nodded.

"Oh ... did it hurt, cutting away stuff?" He tried not looking sad and smiled at her. "I hope it didn't."

She chuckled and said, "It hurt far more to be, ah well, whole as folk than it is to be whole as god."

That was good enough for Val. Obviously, Xelloss was wrong about her not doing fun anymore and if she felt fine, he could be happy for her.

Now he just had to figure out how to get Valgarv gone and then everything could get back to normal. His mother could be happy again and Claire could get herself the correct hardware or software or whatever she wanted. To start with that, they needed Lina and her special magic back.

Val told them everything he knew about Elmegiddo. Only Lina understood all the terms because she had learned them in the Black World. Actually, as Val hated to admit, she understood them better. Now he thought about it, that was true for Valgarv too. Val had the memories, but he didn't really know what to do once conditions were changed or what exactly some things did.

Claire had a lot to say about controlling Valgarv from the inside and he asked as much as he could, but he wasn't sure he could pull it off. He didn't really get what some things were ... he knew how to fly, he knew why he could fly, he didn't know how to build planes or heal broken wings. So he asked more, but didn't say he doubted. He didn't want to let them down after they went through all this trouble.

Especially not his mother. Unless he had to draw something for Lina, he sat in her lap. Huddled so close, he could sense her tension and noticed she made herself keep smiling. It wasn't the first time she looked like that, but it was the first time he knew what lay behind it.

Just like with the plans for the machine, knowing what wasn't enough to understand it all. If he did understand, he should've been able to say something to make her feel better. He felt young, but he had so much time in his head, he felt old too. Then again, maybe being old didn't mean smart. Xelloss was old and he only had some kinds of smart and lacked lots of others.

All those ghosts between the trees were much older. He kinda wanted to talk with them, but none of them approached his little group. They just stayed near the burning trees, which cast odd pillars into the sky. It fed the barrier overhead, where Claire floated as a full dragon — two places at once.

The more he was here and the more memories fell in place, the smaller he felt. Knowledge without understanding, but understanding that he didn't know. The boy he'd been before wouldn't ever have even thought about any of this. What did that make him?

He took care not to look afraid and was pretty sure he pulled it off, but Xelloss and Claire could tell anyway. Xelloss in particular started to look more worried. By the time he and Filia had to cast a protective layer around the angelsblood talisman, Xelloss had both eyes open. It unnerved Val, because it brought up memories of how Xelloss had treated Val's mother in Kataart. There was also a time Xelloss had tried torturing Valgarv to death, but Val couldn't hate him for that. It was that he'd done similar to Val's mother.

After Lina gave Val the talismans, Val faced Xelloss and said, "Hey, evil cone thingy. I'm gonna go save the world now and mom needs to feel okay, so you have to be nice to her."

"I'm trying," he said with a tense little shrug. Val would bet that doing this annoyed him.

"Well try hard cause maybe we need fusion to keep the night dragon lady out," Val said. Then he turned back to his mother.

"I'll see you soon, mom," he said, laying his arms around her neck again. "You'll be proud, I'm not going to be like Valgarv."

She just held him tighter, and Val himself found it hard to let go.

Xelloss tugged at her hair. "Miss Filia, we really shouldn't draw this out. They'll wonder where he is in the north."

She sniffed. "I know, I know."

Val didn't think she'd let go first, so he did.

Hesitant, she stood up and took the two talismans from the basin.

"So how do I get back in?" he asked.

The ghosts of the ancient dragons closed around Valgarv and the nearby trees burst completely into blue flames. Lina stepped in front of them, holding her hand out to Val. He looked at his mother one last time before Lina's hand.

· · · · · · ·

Valgarv didn't sleep often these days, but sometimes had to. Not that he cared for the health of the hosts, it just wouldn't do for him to lose control due to something as trivial as neurological stress in underdeveloped brains. The embryos had copious potential, but even with his power and Volphied's structure, they were mere human matter.

The stone was a beacon akin to what Luna had used to serve as a teleportation beacon. A simple thing embedded with subtle holy structure, but this variety had a layer of fusion that prevented radiation. If he hadn't known it, he wouldn't have noticed.

How did he know anyway?

Xelloss appeared, but remained fully on the astral plane. He went about the room and destroyed the magical potential of two more rocks. Only before Valgarv did he project.

Holding out his hand, he said, "I'll take that."

Valgarv handed him the stone. Xelloss purged it, then tossed the rock over his shoulder.

"So, lord , ahem, Dark Star, when will you have fed enough for us to invade Har Megiddo?"

"Right now. Let's do it right now."

He was aware of all the reasons he shouldn't do that, but they sizzled out again.

· · · · · · ·

"Oh, I'm enjoying the unique situation of two persons producing one set of emotions to eat," Xelloss said lightly, but he had both eyes open.

"There is only me!" Valgarv said, even though he couldn't remember what he responded to.

"I just spent three hours making sure that's not true anymore," Xelloss said. "Admit it, miss Filia strung you along into her preferred world view. Not even mine, or Lina's. It's her who raised Val, and now all of that thrives in you. It's wonderfully ironic."

"I'll eradicate him! He was never for her!" Valgarv said.

"Why, because she's defending herself and the world against you? There you go again with the guilt by association thing," Xelloss said, dripping with disgust. "Really, festering grudges is pointless to begin with, but yours do not even make sense."

"Did you know this all was miss Filia's idea? That little dragon, how dangerous she turned out to be when broken into such small pieces that her values don't mean much to her anymore. I wouldn't say you gave life to her new self, but you certainly amplified her more, ahem, entertaining and useful qualities."

He roared out, but he couldn't transform. He slammed his fists into the walls, but couldn't charge it with energy. All he achieved was a tremors in the ice palace and a few icicles falling down.

"Hilarious, no? You have so much power, but you're not smart enough. Meanwhile, I'm relatively weak but I'm safe because I've been on top of the game."

Xelloss fed on his frustration, he could sense it ... but not even say anything else.

The noise had attracted a swarm of devils, but Valgarv ignored them until Dalphin herself stepped in.

"Where have you been, lord Dark Star?" Deep Sea Dalphin asked. "There were reports of your absence."

He did not want to, but something made him say it anyway, "I experimented with the dragon's ability to teleport. It works, so I want to go ahead with Elmegiddo's invasion."

"Are you certain? Did you not say you need to find a way to awaken at least one of our king's pieces?"

"Shut up!" Valgarv closed the distance between them. "I did just that by figuring out this world's flow. Don't you know how teleportation works? Pffft. Go inform the armies, they can have the rest of the captives and power up. We're going south."

He wasn't supposed to say this, yet at the same time, doing so satisfied him. He needed to do it.

· · · · · · ·

The next time he was aware, Dalphin and Dynast were jabbering about what strategy to use to avoid the gods, with Xelloss giving a few sharp hints ... that Valgarv now knew were a trap. They'd mentioned something about Orun working as Valwin's eyes, so it wouldn't just be Rangort and Ragradia. He tried to say that, it didn't matter anymore if his ruse broke, it ... just didn't happen. He knew he had to do something, he wanted to, but the inertia to move never came.

It had to be Val, but he couldn't detect him in any way.

Having another person in one's mind shouldn't be like this! When Luna and Claire had wandered into his dreams, they had been separate. How was he to face off against someone when he didn't know where to aim?

Claire had shown him right to his face with her damn expanding ball. The network of a soul. Ragradia had figured out how to control it, and every bit of that knowledge she had put to work here. Valgarv could not even tell whether Val was inside his soul, or he within Val.

The countervirus had laid claim to his link with the two hosts of Shabranigdu, maybe if he worked from that angle ...

He pulled the demonsblood talisman out. Last he remembered, Filia and Xelloss had stolen it— no, last he remembered Val had taken it back into him. Here he was, anchored in this thing where Valgarv couldn't get to him, but Val had every option to influence in return.

He tried closing his hand around it, destroy it, but nothing happened. His limbs had weight and feelings, yet the commands caused no response.

Shabranigdu agreed on something now : they had to destroy their common enemy. He wasn't as compliant as Dark Star, but it would do.

· · · · · · ·

Valgarv breathed on reflex, only to choke on the water. It got him strange looks from the surrounding devils, Dalphin most of all.

Where ... right, the sea. The devils and he himself were in the middle of digging into the earth to slip below the barrier. Now, what did he have to work with to undo all this nonsense Filia had started?

Grand displays of world salvation were for later, he wanted vengeance now.

Xelloss always stayed near, presumably feeding the fusion magic on the talismans. At first it confused him where he even got a fresh line from Filia, but then remembered her regeneration. That would be an immortality pledge, then.

He could think about killing Xelloss, but nothing happened. Every mundane move he wanted, he could do, but not that. He didn't have access to soul sight either, and couldn't detect the Val program in any way. It. He ... no, it.

Treating the program like a person was a nuisance. He shouldn't have to fight mental battles to control his own property. Be as that may, he didn't have the volition to attack Xelloss directly, but there were more ways than outright violence to get to someone.

A spiritual attack differed from the standard astral attack in that one laced their power through words and ideas. Xelloss was affected by the Life Is Wonderful variety sure enough, but it got little more than a migraine. For Xelloss, who so liked things to be fun and interesting, you needed something boring and desperate to really get to him screaming. Seven years ago, Valgarv variety of This Life Is Meaningless Just Give Up had sent Xelloss screaming within first touch.

Valgarv had the backing of a Phied and an Igdu back then, but he didn't need them to do it. He just needed Val to not care for whether Xelloss was healthy, so it wouldn't get in the way. Outright trying to kill Xelloss would no doubt get Val's full counteract, but mere torture? Volphied hadn't created the child to be so perfect he would object just because Filia did. Oh no, Val just needed to think of someone as a villain to be alright with it.

Why would Xelloss stop? Well, if he had reasons. When those reasons ran out, he'd be back to how he was before. He made a point of remembering the torture and what emotions he'd gotten from Xelloss. Really, Val

He didn't quite sense Val relent, but it became easier to hear Shabranigdu.

The lowlife demon king actually thought he had an in with Valgarv when he suggested they attack Xelloss. Ha! He'd take the help and cut him down once he ran out of use, Igdus deserves no less.

Valgarv needed an army as cannon fodder, so he didn't strike immediately. It would waste time if he had to deal with questions about why he suddenly attacked Xelloss, and if Val didn't work out how to deal with that well, things would become messy.

So, he waited until they emerged on the other side of the tunnel. When the pressure of Gaia diminished, the devil armies fanned out over the seabed : a network planned to give advance warning if a god approached and to explore the area.

"Dynast, it occurred to me that with Ragradia back alive, they'll have more Zenaffa. Go deal with that in case any elves come swimming out way," he said.

Dynast mumbled something through the water, and Dalphin his her eyes behind her hands in shame.

"Dear Grand Monarch, adapt your voice to aquatic environment," Dalphin said. "This is not my island."

"Phhjhdfhdf—I knew that! It's just all this magic. Anyway, lord Shabranigdu, as you wish!"

He gathered his higher devils and forgot to command Grau until Dalphin pushed him after.

"Now that he's out of the way, what are the odds you can make a second tunnel to approach the machine from below?" Valgarv asked. They were slim odds because she'd never gone deep enough to find out what exactly lay at the foundation of the island, but that didn't need to be shared.

"Hmm, we have gone rather far without interference. I honestly would have expected that new Aqualord to have come rushing in from the island. If it remains like that, perhaps we will have the time for that, but I would not count on it."

"I will bet you that they left out the god to go deal with the war. Go ahead and start, I will destroy the tunnel so that if the Aqualord comes, she can't get in quickly."

Dalphin narrowed her eyes. "Yes, I suppose we might take that risk, but what if you are wrong? If the god is here after all, we will have no way out."

"She's not here, I would have noticed any whole gods through my host's dragon senses. Go and do it," he said. "I will teleport over once you give a clear signal."

"As you wish." She shifted into her beastial form and shot off on the currents.

At this point, Valgarv took Shabranigdu's energy and fused it with some of the holiness he still had from Luna. The resulting shield was flimsy and breakable, but it should do enough to prevent any surrounding devils from seeing. The dark of the sea did the rest.

He couldn't cut the outward flow of that immortality pledge, though. Almost, Xelloss got away. Almost wasn't enough when Shabranigdu freely offered up enough energy to trap Xelloss in a barrier. The world around them turned into a black plane, a subdimension closer to the astral plane. To Xelloss, this act put raw astral pressure on him, but Valgarv kept impact back for now. He wanted him to be able to answer first.

"Xelloss, here's a question for you : first and second time you heard the name Elmegiddo?"

The first would be in the tunnels below Kataart, and Claire would independently have started on it sooner or later. He'd whispered it to her back when he'd stolen the demonsblood talisman at the moment of her creation. Volphied should have been there and further possess her, but even without that, he'd ... well, he hadn't been thinking at all, just running on auto pilot. Not that it made a huge difference.

Given Xelloss's confusion and weariness in response, Claire had indeed brought it up.

"What are you getting at?"

"Just how easy it is to plant ideas in astral beings without them realizing it."

"Val, make him stop this," Xelloss sneered. Already both eyes open.

"Val is still a creation of Volphied at the end of the day," Valgarv said. "You really thought you could control me through it? Then again, what would you even know? You can't even see how you are controlled."

"The only one controlling me is my liege, the Beast Monarch."

Valgarv scoffed. Xelloss was so complacent about that fact, it was disgusting. Shabranigdu's link to his other pieces was vague, but Xelloss didn't know how vague. All Shabranigdu remembered what that the third host, Levnas, had seen : Lina and Leyunso speaking about risks and reformation, and later Lina had sought out Xelloss. Whether Lina had done anything was pure speculation, but that was enough.

"Really? Maybe Lina changed you without you even noticing. Just like my useful item, Val, thought it was real before because it could not see me, just like you would not be able to notice anything wrong with your own behavior and thoughts."

There it was. A slight tremble in the shoulders. A clenched jaw. He had control on his emotions yet, but with a projection this human he couldn't perfect stoicism. So pathetic.

"Don't you think it's strange? Maybe you didn't notice, but you admire Lina now. When did she graduate merely from being that human who was unusual and useful? I remember what you said about her in the first four years you came by ... I could eat emotions all the time, I know how you felt about her. Do you?"

By now he had surrounded Xelloss with energy, exploiting the weakened defenses. He locked him in place with wire; it should have been chains like they had used on him, but he didn't know how to make those. On the lowest astral layer, there was no difference between words and blows. Needles tore into Xelloss's core, slowly because Valgarv had a point to make. Xelloss buckled forward, fingers digging into his core. He almost screamed, but bit it back.

He didn't fight back, which was less giving up and more preserving energy when he knew his enemy was stronger. That wasn't good enough. Valgarv wanted him to actually give up.

"What if she laced something in those words, the way astral attacks work, but it wasn't an attack, just the intent to change your mind. How much could she do when she speaks with the voice of Chaos? Wouldn't it be convenient for her if you and Zelas venerated her?"

"I would have noticed," he said, strained. So much doubt now.

"Val never noticed me even when I made him do things that made no sense. Remember when Val walked in while you and Filia worked in Kataart? He bled, but he didn't feel guilty, did he? He couldn't, because it wasn't strange to him that he'd keep a secret. If Lina is half as good as Volphied, you would never think about anything strange you did. Do you itch to defend her if someone disrespects her?"

Now he was screaming full out and Valgarv didn't even need to keep talking. He had an in now, but the sound was rather annoying. He wasn't done talking yet.

Well, why not see whether a devil could be tongue-tied too?

He turned his hand into a claw and closed it around Xelloss's lower face. Xelloss always projected blood from the head, which came built in because he inspired so many to punch him in the face. Val had thought it was funny, and for once, Valgarv agreed so much. The more he tightened his claws, the more red clouded out. Without the sensation of water, it looked rather amusing. Would it stay once out of this space? Mortals made to bleed on this plane didn't always take it to the full physical world, after all.

Cutting open an astral being was like cutting butter when you added in an effective spiritual attack. He took his time tearing down the complex system that Xelloss had to create sound. Less blood here, but it shut him up either way. Left was the undiluted miasma of a devil close to panic and despair. He couldn't just let that go, could he?

"Lord Garv told me that it wasn't the soul itself that made him desire existence. It was being reborn with a survival instinct of humans and without active powers or memories of his former life ... just being a human was that forced him to think differently. Lina Inverse isn't going to kill all astral beings or just give them souls. She's planning to do a different version of what I and Volphied are going to do with the machine : we change everyone to work better. Ours would unite all souls in rebirth, she just plans to change what's inconvenient for her. A soul alone mere adds options for change, but a soul inscribed with the command of the Lord of Nightmares determines what changes. Face it, Xelloss. The world has always been a trap."

Without screaming or moving much, the results were less interesting. Xelloss still wasn't on the brink yet, even if he was a mess in both senses. Hmm ... someone had done something with her energy core recently, it wasn't quite stable.

Was that a life law engraved on him? It wasn't anywhere on the higher planes, he didn't know how to move to touch it, let alone use it. Just knew it was there, if he strained his focus. Should he to use it—

He snapped back to himself when a sharp pain bore into his arm. Xelloss was half loose and had an iron grip on his arm, slowly pushing him away from his neck.

Rather than push back, Valgarv let go.

· · · · · · ·

Val couldn't keep track of all these connections. Valgarv being a full fledged person, there was no autopilot to switch to. Constant attention was required to keep him from being awake, and to control the body, and to keep Shabranigdu at bay.

Now Xelloss was a torn up mess in more ways than one. A huge gap torn from his head down his torso, bleeding at the top and showing green spots further down; two things that meant the same.

Val didn't know how to heal him, and didn't feel so bad for Xelloss either. It would disappoint mother, though, and he hoped he could still fuse magic.

Xelloss shot a few meters away the second he was free, but as he couldn't withdraw to the astral plane, that wasn't far. Valgarv had messed that up again, and Val didn't know how to fix it, or whether he should try.

"Sorry," Val said in Valgarv's voice. He didn't blame Xelloss when that didn't sound sincere enough to relax. The beast priest eyed him more like a cornered wolf than the human he usually resembled.

"I can make him want to go to the island, but every new idea he gets, I have to figure out how to deal with. I'm sorry ... I don't think it's safe if you stay here for much longer. On the good side, I think I dissolved his memory of summoning Volphied while he was busy with you."

That probably didn't sound so optimistic to someone with part of their body dissolved.

"Xelloss, please blink if you understand me."

Xelloss blinked, then pointed around.

Right, Val should take them out of this space. Before he did so, he formed a sphere of holy magic and held it out to Xelloss. "Here, ... it should be safe to teleport at least a bit. Go to mom, okay?"

Without hesitating, Xelloss grabbed it and teleported away.

· · · · · · ·

Dammit, he'd gotten away. Not that that would stop him. He just had to go ... do ... summon Lina Inverse. That was it.

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