With another flare of my halo — intentional, this time — I once again find myself floating in the skies. These ones lack the distinct heavenly glow of my previous location, and are instead the soft, gradually lightening blue of the oncoming dawn, signaling to all below that morning is on the rise.

I smile, proud of myself for managing to replicate my earlier teleportation feat. I wasn't entirely certain I could, seeing as how the first time I did it was entirely unconscious. Not to mention, this time I had an actual location in mind, which I wasn't entirely sure how to "specify" other than just intensely concentrating on it. Happily, that seems to have worked anyways — here in Purgatorio, the "limbo" of the Bayonetta universe, there shouldn't be anyone around to see me, and I should be invisible to anyone outside of it, making it the perfect place to work out exactly what I'm now capable of. Not really sure why I'm this high up again, but that's not a terribly big deal.

Allowing myself to slowly start "falling" in the same manner I did earlier, I turn my gaze to the land below. Sloping green hills and flower-filled fields sprawl out beneath me, together forming a picturesque vista so perfect it belongs on a postcard. A winding dirt road cuts through the center of the fields in question, leading up to what looks like a small rural town.

...er, come to think of it, I sure hope this is Purgatorio, and not the human world proper. If I messed up and this is actually the latter, then I'm probably being seen by a looooot of people right now, all of whom are doubtless freaking out about the giant golden woman descending from the sky. That would be... awkward, to say the least.

Thankfully, when I touch down near the outskirts of the township — well, "touch down" in that I stop about 50 feet overhead — I find that only a few people are already up and about, and those that are look like little more than semi-translucent shades of themselves; more like tricks of the early-morning light than anything else. Taken alongside the fact that none of them have yet looked up at me and started screaming, I'm fairly certain that I am indeed in Purgatorio right now, which is a-

I frown. There it is again. I've really got to figure out what's causing that... but, later. For now, since actions taken in Purgatorio can still affect the human world, even if humans can't see the cause, I should probably find somewhere slightly less inhabited to practice being God.

This in mind, I turn away from the town and take off over the nearby hills. Before long, I've left all signs of civilization behind, nothing but wilderness stretching out in front of me as I head even further afield.

I wonder, where exactly on the planet am I right now anyways? When I teleported out of Paradiso, I only really cared about ending up in Purgatorio, not where in Purgatorio I'd land. This certainly isn't Vigrid... I almost want to say it looks vaguely like the Netherlands?

I mentally shrug. I guess it doesn't really matter, but I should probably try and specify an actual country or city next time I teleport, rather than just leaving it up to fate. Maybe even pick a specific spot — wouldn't want to end up accidentally telefragging myself because I mistakenly zapped myself into the ground or something. Side note, wow is that a weird thing to potentially have to be concerned about now...

Bizarre personal problems aside, I soon find myself floating over an empty valley, surrounded by several large hills tall enough to verge on being small mountains. Just as I arrive, the sun begins to crest over the horizon, peeking over the tip of one of the aforementioned hills and bathing the valley in the first proper rays of daylight. It's a beautiful sight, and I take a moment to simply admire it, even as I mentally appraise the area for my purposes. Wide, empty, relatively private... yeah, this'll probably do.

Might as well get started then.

Drifting down and settling a couple dozen feet over the valley's floor, I idly run my fingers over the fabric of the huge red ribbon hanging from my arms as I consider exactly how to go about this. Let's see now... I suppose it would make the most sense to start with things that I already know Jubileus should theoretically be capable of. In which case, what kind of abilities did she use during her boss fight?

Hmm... I remember that she did a lot of punching, but... well, pretty sure I already know how to do that. She also made heavy use of various elemental powers to alter the terrain, which seems considerably more useful, and I think she could fire missiles or something from her hair-ribbons? Then there was that attack where she punched a black hole into existence on the exterior of the space orb, and those miniature galaxy projectiles she threw that reverted Bayonetta to a child if they hit her...

In retrospect, this universe is pretty weird.

Regardless, I'm not going to try that black hole ability — it seems too potentially dangerous, and that might have just been Jubileus smashing a hole in the side of the orb and letting Bayonetta get sucked out into space anyways. The rest seem potentially doable though, assuming I can figure out the right mental "muscles" to flex. I guess I'll try the elemental stuff first, and see where it goes from there?

Deciding that sounds like a decent enough plan, I raise my right arm and hold it out in front of me, imagining a lit flame dancing on the surface of my palm-

Before I've even finished visualizing it, a white-hot inferno flares up from my hand like I just doused it in gasoline, rising high enough to nearly lick at my face in all of half a second. Startled, I reflexively imagine the flames vanishing, and they just as instantly snuff themselves back out. Drawing my hand back to myself, I find that it thankfully bears no trace of the blaze's brief presence, not a scorch mark or burn to be seen.

...well, that was a bit of a surprise. I honestly didn't expect it to be that simple. Can I summon that anywhere other than my palms?

As it turns out, the answer is a very definitive "yes" — with a thought, more fire springs into existence, manifesting literally anywhere I so desire it to and continuing to burn utterly free of fuel without any apparent issue. Another minute of testing proves wind, earth, and water to all be equally effortless to control, the elements all but leaping to my command at even the slightest mental instruction. They bend to my will so freely and readily that it almost feels like they're literally a part of me, barely any different from an arm or leg.

This is so... easy...

I conjure up a floating sphere of swirling blue and orange flame, its surface roiling like a miniature sun as the heat pouring off of it blackens the grass below. A localized tornado descends upon it and blows it into nothingness, only to then itself be dispersed by the ground, which rises up beneath it like a cavernous mouth and swallows the cyclone whole. The just-raised monolith doesn't last long though, as a massive wave appears from nowhere and collapses on top of it like a tiny tsunami, cracking the rock in half... then I flex my will again, and the small lake's worth of water instantly evaporates. The wind stills and the ground churns, smoothing itself back into its previous shape as greenery rapidly re-sprouts from its surface, and a few seconds later, not a single trace of the various unnatural disasters I just summoned remains.

...think I'm starting to see why superiority complexes are so very common in fictitious "gods".

Unwilling to stop just yet, I push further, continuing to experiment. Even the base properties of each element prove a trifle for me to manipulate, seemingly every aspect of their existence utterly free for me to change and alter as I wish. I can "freeze" fire and have it continue on as a flame that now burns cold, spreading ice over all it touches. I can change the softest gust of wind to be as sharp as glass, its invisible edges an omnidirectional threat. I can transmute dirt to gold and back, make earth as intangible as shadow, force water to exist in an unstable state where it freezes and sublimates and condenses all at once...

On a whim, I trace a small circle in the air in front of me, and a brilliant gold portal forms in its wake. I then snap my fingers, and countless pillars of light burst forth from the opening, slamming into the side of a nearby hill and nearly blasting it in half. I fix that with a thought, the equally countless pieces of flying debris reversing course and re-merging with the hillside, and come to an abrupt conclusion:

The original Jubileus really had NO idea what she was doing during her fight with Bayonetta, did she?

I smile briefly, then let it drop for fear of karma coming back to bite me. Just because I can apparently do all this doesn't necessarily mean I'd be any more effective against Bayonetta in a fight than the real Jubileus was. I should probably stop messing around now anyways — while bending the elements to my will is proving to be almost addictively fun, it ultimately isn't all that helpful for my current purposes, ie. trying to figure out a way to fix this mess. So, what else do I have to work with...?

I raise my right hand to my face, tracing a finger along the surprisingly delicate filigree covering the exterior of my mask.

Well, there is this whole "Right Eye of Light" thing that I now technically possess, at least in as much as Balder possesses it since he used himself as a catalyst to revive me. It and the accompanying Left Eye of Darkness were treated as a huge deal in both games, basically being ethereal, ultra-powerful forces passed down through the Umbra Witch and Lumen Sage clans until they ended up with Bayonetta and Balder respectively, but to be perfectly honest? Outside of the context of reviving Jubileus and being used by Aesir to "see through reality", I'm not sure I know what either of the eyes is actually supposed to do, other than grant limited omniscience, bestow the power of creation, and allow one to manipulate existence itself-

I pause.

So, that's what those odd thoughts were earlier. The Right Eye was... correcting me? Answering me? Either way, this is certainly convenient...

I conduct a few tests, and rapidly come to a few basic conclusions — so far as I can tell, the Right Eye only seems to activate on its own occasionally, randomly chiming in at times to fill in certain gaps in my knowledge. To make use of it more directly however, all I have to do is ask it a question, and it provides an answer. It's like I've got internal access to the world's fastest and best curated search engine, right there in my... er, face.

I take a moment to look off into the distance and glare at nothing in particular. Sure would have been nice to know about this slightly earlier, before I had to ad-lib my way out of getting mobbed by the forces of Paradiso, but at least I know now, I guess.

Unfortunately, limited omniscience turns out to be considerably more "limited" than I'd really like. While every normal question I ask the Right Eye is answered in an instant — apparently I'm currently in Switzerland, not the Netherlands, there are no other sapient beings presently watching me, and Jubileus has been sealed away for just under 10000 years — when I ask it how exactly I ended up in this situation to begin with, it completely fails to respond. Nor does it tell me anything when I ask how to get the angels to stop being militant fanatics bent on controlling every realm, though perhaps that one is my fault for asking slightly too broad a question.

The Right Eye does tell me that I can potentially return to my former body and universe if I so wish, confirming in the process that they do in fact exist, and easing a few concerns I was starting to have regarding that subject. However, it seems I lack the power do so at present, and since I doubt that Bayonetta is going to willingly let me subsume her so I can attain the power of the Left Eye in addition to the right one, I suppose that's out for the moment as well.

I frown again, my ribbons idly lashing about behind me in annoyance. How frustrating... though I have to admit, I'd be kind of reluctant to return to being "myself" just yet anyways. I mean, it's not like I expected to ever be thrust into this sort of position, but after suddenly being handed the ability to do pretty much anything, even if only to a point, it's difficult to think of willingly giving that up to go back to being... well, me.

That being said, it's still a definite trade off. After all, if I choose to remain here and continue on as God, then that leaves me with all of God's problems as well, and this universe certainly has a lot of them. There's the ongoing war between Paradiso and Inferno, multiple self-fulfilling time loops that I may have forced into paradox states simply by the act of being here, the evil half of the God of Chaos scheming to regain his full power-

My frown morphs into a grimace. Damn, I'd almost forgotten about that — what am I going to do about Balder and Loptr? I'd assume that I can't take the latter out of me without bringing the former along with him, and since the Right Eye of Light is essentially serving as my primary power source right now, I can't really risk doing that without sending myself back into neverending sleep. At the same time however, Loptr was basically described as evil incarnate, and in being sealed inside of Balder, his soul ended up utterly corrupting the sage's mind and actions — something that might end up affecting me by extension if I don't do something about him soon, so neither can I simply leave this be.

My brow slants downward as I consider the apparent catch-22. If I can't act, but also can't not act, then how exactly am I supposed to resolve this-

I have a sudden urge to smack myself in the forehead. "How"? What do I mean "how"? I literally just learned that all I have to do to figure that out is ask "How can I get Loptr and Balder out of me without also removing the Right Eye of Light?"

…

Uh, okay, maybe not actually. How about "How can I make sure that Loptr's essence will not end up corrupting me from the inside?"

…

...hmm. This may be a problem.

I ask a few more questions in the same vein, but the result remains the same each time: if the query involves Loptr in any fashion, then the Right Eye remains utterly silent. It's not even just questions about removing his spirit/soul/essence/what-have-you from myself; I can't seem to get anything on him at all. For that matter, any questions about Loki get an identical result, the god's better half apparently just as hidden from the Right Eye's purview as his worse one.

I don't get it. Is it because Loptr and Loki are part of Aesir? Maybe the Right Eye can't/won't tell me anything about him or his respective "pieces" because he's technically its original owner, and therefore excluded from its scope of observation. Or...

I freeze.

Or maybe it's because, being inside of Balder, Loptr currently has direct access to the Right Eye itself, and is actively preventing it from giving me any information that could help me move against him. In fact, it's possible that he's even controlling everything it gives me, using its answers as a way to indirectly influence my actions. Granted, I'm not sure exactly what degree of awareness he retained after being sealed away, but his spirit was at least conscious enough to try to escape while Balder was dying at the start of the second game, and considering how in keeping with his manipulative nature and motives it would be to do something like this...

I swear internally. Damn it, I really can't put this off then. If I can't return to my own universe for the moment, assuming I'd even want to, getting Loptr out of me needs to be my top priority.

Unfortunately, if the Right Eye won't give me any information on how to extract or destroy Loptr — and I suppose I couldn't necessarily trust it even if it did — then I'm right back where I was before, without any actual idea of how to go about doing either of those things. Which leaves me in a rather tight spot, as my preexisting knowledge isn't helpful here, and it's not like there's anyone I can exactly ask about something like this-

...actually, scratch that. There is one being I know of that I might be able to ask about this, and who may be able to offer me actual advice on the subject in turn. But even the mere prospect of approaching them, regardless of the reason, considering just who and what I am now...

Well. This should be interesting.