Chapter 98

Aside from the tubes and another door at the end, there was nothing in here. The contents of the tubes however...

"It's a good thing those weapons didn't threaten to explode..." Raphtalia said, stopping next to me and looking into the tube I'd stopped in front of, "This place is..."

"I think it only proves he's here someplace." L'arc said with a grin, "I mean, if those things did go off, they'd blow the place up."

"Who is-" Yomogi stopped next to Raphtalia, looked into the tube I'd stopped at, then turned away quickly.

It was the Fool. The guy Tsugumi and the others were looking for. I was in a bit of a hurry the last time we'd met, but it looked like the exact same person Raphtalia had cut apart.

"Hey! Isn't... well... kinda that guy?" Tetsu, with the curiosity inherent in a child, had her dragon face pressed against the glass tube to get a better look with her wide angled eyesight. "He'd got all that fur on him!"

This had attracted the other women. I'd kept quiet, since the... well I was reasonably sure it was the real one... was certainly not getting up in that body.

"Here too." Kizuna said, "Urg..."

"Oh! That one there!" Therese said, pointing.

The last tube held a man with long black hair, kind features, a priestly robe, and a octagonal mirror resting between his chest and his crossed arms. "That must be Albert then?" I asked, looking back to the gaggle of women who were still in the other room and waiting for us to move ahead. "You all better stay out there."

"We will not-"

Kuro, helpful girl that she was, swung the metal door shut on them and pulled a lever to lock it. The look on her face though... She was losing hope at the sight of this place.

Then all the tubes shattered at once, glass and liquid crashing to the floor in a dramatic rush that had us all backing up. Hybrid clones of the Fool, including the one who had been cut apart by Raphtalia, started to crawl/fall/shamble out of the tubes towards us. Of all of them, only Mr. Albert seemed to lack 'mutation'.

Then he opened his eyes. White, blank, unseeing eyes. I was almost positive he was lost. A soulless husk.

"It's..." L'arc grit his teeth as Zombie Albert held the Mirror along the edges with each hand, "Raphy-girl, do you feel it too?"

Raphtalia gripped the Katana tightly, "Yes... There's only enough of his soul there to keep the Mirror stuck to him..."

"Moon...verse..." Albert mumbled, his hands surprisingly delicate on the mirror.

I jumped ahead of Raphtalia, the Shield of Marius coming up between me and the Mirror as a beam of light lashed out at her. It drilled through an Air Strike Shield, as well as the 'growing crystal' on the front of the Shield before pushing me backwards. I left a trail of sparks along the floor as the Shield scraped backwards with me.

Then Kyo came up from the floor on the other side of the room, a nice dramatic teleport circle entrance. That wasn't all though, there was a bunch of Tortoise Familiar monsters (the big Yeti-things mostly). "I see the Shield Hero is at least making an effort to keep her promise." Kyo mocked, raising into the air on a floating disk of light.

A small army of clones, monster hybrid and otherwise, filled the back half of the room with Kyo floating above the only other 'real' person, Albert.

"You all look so angry!" Kyo laughed, "But here you are, in my lab and trashing the place!" He shook his head like a disappointed parent talking down to a child.

"We're here to have you answer for the things you've done!" Raphtalia said, pointing her blade first at poor Albert, then up to Kyo.

"I'm surprised you managed to make it here at all! But... oh, I see... I thought I'd finally killed you too." Kyo looked past us to Ost, "And you've become something even easier to work with! How delightful!"

"Kyo! Why!? Why did you do all this? You were doing so many good-"

Kyo interrupted Yomogi with a growl, "SHUT UP! You bloody harpy! You aren't my wife! Why do you keep going on and on about 'doing good' and 'being honourable'?! HUH?! You couldn't even DIE when I gave you the perfect weapon to kill you and the hero who couldn't even hurt you back!"

"Then... and those women... and the friends of him there? Why..." Poor Yomogi seemed to be at a total loss.

"Of course I used them for my work. What else would I do with someone's used goods?" He laughed, "Since none of them wanted to join me, I just lied to them to get them to at least stop cluttering up my doorstep!"

Yomogi drew her blade and pointed it at him as well.

"You think you can kill me? Seriously? I'm a-" He moved a little to the side, my killer icicle zipping past him, "Not bad! But you're getting impatient too, I can tell." He laughed. "Capture her!" He pointed to Ost, "Kill the rest! Kyahahahahaha!"

I knew the sheer mass of monsters would make my Shield skills mostly useless. The clone of the Fool and Albert were already strong enough by themselves! So instead, I switched to the Book Shield, cracked it open, and looked up to Kyo, "You were about to say Genius, weren't you?"

And I created walls of ice between the monsters and our parties. If they attacked the walls directly, sure, they'd break those too, but until they did, they would funnel into smaller groups.

L'arc laughed as he rushed to hold a gap in the ice, Therese supported him as well, careful blasts of lightning lashing out to cover his back with each swing of his scythe. Kizuna and Glass took a place at another gap, the two of them dancing around each other in perfect harmony.

Raphtalia and Yomogi took the middle, both easily skilled enough to keep themselves from getting tangled in each other's movements, the weaker Yomogi focusing on defence, while Raphtalia and the Vassal Katana hacked things apart.

This left Ost behind Tetsu and Kuro, and me in the middle.

"You think you're so clever animal?!" Kyo mocked.

"Moon...verse..." Albert said, his body turning slightly towards me.

"Seen that before." I dismissed, making a little show of it by waving a hand to summon an Air Strike Shield, a second motion to Change Shield to the Mirror Shield, and angling it just so.

Kyo and his silly glowing platform had to dart sideways suddenly as my Mirror Shield deflected Albert's blast of energy up towards Kyo, vaporizing a couple metres of stone behind where he'd been floating.

Oh, and Albert's head.

Kyo looked at me, then down at the toppling body of the former Vassal Mirror holder, "No! I had plans for that one!"

His lapse of attention from the fighting gave everyone a chance to use big attacks to clear some of the monsters. L'arc used a lightning infused swing of his Scythe, Therese followed with a short chant and small meteors of flame. Kizuna and Glass created some kind of cone of fire, ice and razor blades that cut everything in front of their gap in the ice wall into fist sized flash frozen flaming cubes. And Yomogi covered Raphtalia just long enough for her to wind up the same skill that killed the Fool the first time around.

And just like that, we'd reduced the threat to less than a third with Kyo fuming on his silly little disc in the air.

"Working together, oh yes. Teamwork the tool of the weak!" He yelled at us, pages flying from the book and settling on some of the less mangled monster bodies.

"A nice way of saying you have no friends." I laughed at him, "I'm sure when your mother said 'go out and make friends', she didn't mean necromancy and growing homunculi!"

"SILENCE! Most of these? These were his work. Inferior, but still useful!" He motioned to the slowly reconstructing body of the Fool. The pages were acting like some kind of bandage, though glue might have been more accurate.

"So, you're just a copycat?" I replied, motioning with my head to the others when they glanced back at me. While we did a lot of levelling, I also explained a lot of my tactics for monsters back in Orario. With Kizuna's help to 'translate' it to things the natives here would understand, they knew how to deal with regenerating monsters. "Huh, I think that's the first thing I can't complain about with you."

I could practically hear his teeth grinding, but he smiled suddenly, "Funny you should mention that..." A spinning magic circle spiralled out behind him, "You'd interrupted my work inside the tortoise, but I did learn a lot!"

"Brace!" I called out, catching on a half second before the entire room was hit with Gravity magic.

We all grunted as the magic hit us, but aside from Yomogi we had no trouble keeping upright. And Yomogi was only down for a half second as her legs absorbed most of the shock. He had perfect control over the effect though, since none of the monsters were effected.

"That's all?" Kizuna said, Glass touching the Hunting Weapon and imbuing it with flame. "HYA!" Then she and Glass vaporized a half dozen monsters with cleansing fire, well beyond what 'type two' regeneration could recover from.

"Oh of course not!" Kyo laughed, the glow of his magic circle getting brighter, and the gravity effect along with it.

This time, everyone but Ost, myself and Tetsu had to drop to the ground, hardly able to keep their heads up. Even Kuro was flattened to Tetsu's back. I'd only kept my feet through experience fighting Mikoto back home, but I wouldn't be able to move.

"HA! Weak! SO WEAK! That's how you should all be! Kneeling before my genius!" He laughed, "Oh? Curious. You're still standing. I suppose you are a dragon... What an interesting thing you'd be to experiment on. And you... Well, I suppose it was your magic in the first place."

"Ost. Permission granted to reclaim your stolen energy." I said.

"What?! NO!" Kyo shouted as the gravity effect almost switched off. "That's not possible!"

Ost smiled as she held out the Emerald Compass. "Yet, it's happening, is it not?"

"NOW!" Raphtalia roared, "Phoenix dance! Flaming Pinions!"

Therese and L'arc snapped to their feet, winding up then, "Lightning Disc, Ruby Flame!" They said together.

Glass and Kizuna stood back to back, then twisted apart, a mix of blade and fan dance, "Sun glitters over scales!"

And I just looked up at Kyo, snapping the Book Shield closed to banish the ice walls so his entire half of the room was turned to just him, and a pile of monster ashes.

Kyo frowned, but then his face twisted into a smile again, "Not bad! That was actually pretty good!" He looked around, "For primitive monkeys." He laughed, "Flame formation: Magic Explosion!" He pointed at Kizuna.

She hardly had time to get into a defensive stance, before her body erupted into flame! "My magic! It's burning it away!" She wobbled then fell to a knee.

"No!" Glass went to help her up, recoiled a moment, but then grit her teeth. I could see the effect was hurting her too as she helped Kizuna back to her feet.

"I've never used it on a Holy Hero before." Kyo laughed, "How about you?" He pointed to me, "Rot Formation: Magic Explosion!"

It was a curse, that much was clear. But it was also clear he wouldn't shut up.

So I fell to the ground, hoping I made a convincing enough show of things as I clutched my chest, curling up into a ball, hoping my horns didn't give me away by glowing or something silly like that.

"Kodori!" L'arc called out before Kyo pointed at him.

"Strength Form Explosion!" And suddenly, L'arc's entire body erupted with little blades of light. As if his own power was bursting through his skin, little spurts of blood and long thin cuts just appeared over his body.

"Is... that... IT?!" He did manage to get within a hand span of Kyo's face with a slash, even through all that.

"Oh, not bad, but you're too close!" Kyo laughed, a stream of pages slapping into him and throwing him back across the room. Therese caught him, but it was only just. "And I think I'll kick you when you're down too! Sand Formation: Defence Dissolve!"

This time, my ability to eat curses couldn't soak up the entire effect, and I saw my defence stat drop to about half. It hurt too. But it wasn't nearly as bad as say... Growing into an adult over night. Still, I played it up a little, letting him get it all out of his system, showing me all those curses. I just had to trust that the others would remember all those nice potions I'd given them...

"Strong, and tough hmm?" Kyo floated directly over me, and I heard Tetsu cry out in pain, her 'human' voice changing to a primal true dragon roar as the floor reverberated with the crash of her falling over. "Fast and strong?" Raphtalia was next, Yomogi as well. "That little gem... What is that? Is it really pulling in all those souls I took from you?"

"You have no right to them, Kyo." Ost replied.

"The words of a sore loser! It's all you can do, with that little trinket, to keep me from crushing you all with your very own gravity magic! You can take back those souls, yes, but so slow it doesn't mean anything!" He flew over me finally, putting his back to me.

So I stood up, "I made it for capacity not draw."

"What?! How are you still-"

"Relinquish your pain, unto me." I said in the One language, "For I am the source of all power!"

It hurt. The pain hit me like that one time I got shot in the back by an arrow. Then burned like the time I'd taken a bath in half formed flaming dragon breath. It was no act now, as I writhed on the floor. Every negative effect, every curse Kyo had used hit me all at once and I had only my tolerance to pain as a defence.

But this was a two stage effect, and all the curses, all the pain, all the effects I'd taken into myself, were then reflected back out onto those I'd taken them from. The flickers I saw on my status screen as I tried and failed to open my eyes told me that my entire party was getting all kinds of strange white icons

This was also a two stage spell. The same one I'd used in the Zeltobe Arena, and while I couldn't see it, I could hear Kyo scream in agony, then flop to the ground near me like a fish. For a single instant, I'd cut Kyo off from all magic. ALL of it.

Then the pain was fading, though I was unable to do more than breath what felt like powdered glass.

"You think..." Kyo got up, staggering, the book coming open again, "What... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

I couldn't follow most of what happened next. All I could see were more of those pages flying out of the Vassal Book, and what sounded like a one sided defensive battle.

"You think-" Fire, the smell of burning paper, "this changes anything?!" Lightning, my tails regaining feeling just in time to feel an extreme static charge run up their lengths. "Ha! All that, and you still can't stick the landing!" The sound of fluttering paper and what sounded like metal on metal. "Unlike you ignorant savages, I know every method to empower my Book!"

I was just getting enough feeling back in my legs to get to one knee when I finally saw Kyo take a real hit. He skidded past me, that infinite stream of pages cut into tatters, his clothes showing real damage, and a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.

Raphtalia helped me straighten up, "You can't win Kyo." She said, letting me go once I brought up the Shield to the ready again.

"Oh, and what's stopping me? That was obviously an Ace, and it's left her so weak!" He pointed at Raphtalia and frowned. "What..."

"No." I said, "you may not."

He blinked, pointed at L'arc this time, and went wide eyed when nothing happened.

"No." I repeated, "You may not."

"What... what have you done?!" He fumed.

"Are you..." I coughed, then took a deep breath that felt like it was more ice and daggers than air, "so enthralled by your own voice, that you can't hear what others say?" I had so many red icons this time, and all my stats had basically been reduced to what I had around level ten. "I'm a Demon. I eat curses."

I did my best to just stand firm, while the others all took a step towards him. "Really now... I suppose I will have to keep your body intact for later!" He backed up another step, his back to the wall now, "But I am feeling a little outnumbered."

"Kyo... If you surrender now, I will kill you cleanly." Yomogi said, though it only made Kyo laugh, more and more pages coming off the Book

"GO!" Raphtalia ordered.

I felt so useless! My trump had basically just balanced the field, but even though he was struggling against the rest of us, those stat specific spells locked, and hopefully lost to him now, he was still able to evade, block or outright retaliate against the others.

I watched Kizuna get thrown across the room by a blast from what amounted to weaponized sheet music, L'arc's scythe get trapped by folded paper, Glass's fire and ice tornadoes cancelled by ice and fire tornadoes...

"You are all so weak! Predictable! Show me something new I can steal! Kyahahahaha!"

It was obvious he was slowing down, but so were we!

And now I felt stupid. Dungeon Rule, unnumbered: You will lose the next encounter with another adventurer, unless you learn something new.

"Oh? Trying to recover? If that was your trump, you'll be just as useless!" He mocked me.

I finished downing a magic potion, then changed the Shield to the Frisbee Shield. "Bet you've never seen this before." And I threw it.

Raphtalia stopped in mid charge, grabbed Yomogi by the back of her armour, and jumped backwards as hard as she could, "DUCK AND-"

I didn't have much in the way of memorized 'math magic'. Simple stuff mostly. Light, a small variety of elemental stuff, a few even had 'vectors' like my killer icicle spell.

What hit Kyo though, as a bunch of paper got in the way of the Shield to slow it down, was a super simple 'Flash and Bang'. If I had the strength in my legs to run, that's what I'd be doing right now. I'd recover the Shield, and jump into the monster's formation and pull as much attention to me as I could while the others of my party did their thing.

Instead, I got to see Kyo stagger back from the sudden blast of light and sound, then start getting kicked around properly this time.

"This much-" He just managed to parry L'arc as he swung his scythe. "Is nothing-" He rolled out of the way of a twin blast of fire and ice, "But and inconvenience!"

And just as he got to his feet, a bunch of pages from the Book blocking, absorbing, and just... making Therese's micro-meteor spell vanish, a little purple fishing lure bonked off his forehead.

He looked down at the lure as it clicked to the ground, "Really Kizuna?"

I heard a grunt of effort behind me and went to one knee. Tetsu had just thrown a fist (for a dragon) sized rock, and with an explosive whoosh of air and vomit, Kyo took it full in the gut, the pages from his Book unable to slow it down enough to stop him from really feeling it, especially after Kizuna's 'double damage' debuff.

"Bullseye!" Tetsu cheered, "Take that evil book guy!"

People were getting back to their feet as he got to his knees, "No..." He gasped.

"He's doing something!" Ost warned.

"Of course I am!" Raphtalia tried to slash at him, but instead her attack rebounded off of stone, as a pillar rose up from under Kyo, another cloning tank except filled with just liquid. "Different world, different reason!" The liquid inside was being evaporated super fast, "Shatter the Barrier walls and summon the great phenomenon!"

I tried to will myself to move, but only managed a couple of steps before he finished his chant, "Waves of destruction! Dimension Wave!"

I felt the shift in energy, the sudden but spiderweb thin link to Hestia, and with a flash of light...

Kizuna, Glass, Therese, Yomogi and L'arc vanished. The Hero of this world and here party were summoned away for a Wave.

With a sudden, almost euphoric lightening of my body, I figured out something new about the Shield of Pride and the curses it put on me for using it. It only scaled to my 'current' power at the time. With the Wave, my level had suddenly gained the power from Raphtalia's world, and my 'cursed to level 10' stats had gained an additional 80 levels. I could move again!

"Yes yes, I know." Kyo laughed from atop the now empty person sized glass tube, "You'll get a power boost from this, but so what!? Now that there's only four of you and that useless tortoise over there, and not only that, I've gained that boost too!"

He looked to me, grinning as the book opened up again, "I even made sure that stupid Shield of yours wouldn't take you back to deal with the Wave. Messing with your Hourglasses wasn't quite as fruitful as I wanted, but still! It's pathetic just how useless the other 'heroes' were. I could see almost everything!"

I let him keep talking, glad my mask hid my face because I was sure I had the dumbest look of surprise ever on it. It wasn't that he had used all the power up methods on the Book, or that he had done a bunch of things in Raphtalia's world. He was giving so much away, and lacked any sense of urgency!

"You're right." I said, moving the arm with the Shield on it, "This is a stupid Shield." Every second I kept him talking was a second the others could recover.

"You say that, but here you are, getting in my way! A stupid half animal with the Vassal Katana. A dragon with more teeth than brain cells. A bird who can't figure out what to sing. All led by a dog who is all bark and no bite! You say it's stupid, but could you do anything without it?"

"At least it isn't screaming in agony when you touch it!" Raphtalia countered, signalling to me she was ready to attack by stepping forward. "She's done so much with what little she's had, and helped people even when they tried to stop her from saving the world!"

"Bark bark bark!" Kyo laughed, "The Book is a tool! It doesn't have a say on how I use it!"

Then Kuro started to sing. Fast and upbeat, one of the many many many red icons I had just vanished, while everyone else started to glow with power.

"Not so fast!" Kyo waved a hand, but I put an Air Strike Shield between Kuro and him, then another between him and I when he tried to hit me. Both Shields lasted just long enough to stop the razor sharp paper, but that was it. "Really?" He gave me a patient look, then jumped backwards easily, a pair of those Yeti-things spawning where he'd been standing to get in Raphtalia's way.

"You say you've used all the power up methods and this and that and blah blah blah. Yet, I still stopped your attacks. "Tetsu."

One of the Yeti-things was suddenly a head shorter, while Raphtalia cut through the other one more or less instantly.

"Oh, so scary." Kyo waved off the loss of the two monsters without a care, "You know, I'm getting kind of bored. I think I'll just skip to the end and take what I want. Libraria!"

And Ost vanished. Suddenly, what looked like a couple of those pages he'd been throwing around all this time appeared behind her, turned into a book, and just... swallowed her. A quick look at my Status Screen showed she was suddenly 'out of range' of any of my abilities.

"You see now that the worlds are connected again, I'm going to take the last of the Spirit Tortoise's energy. Even with that little crystal you had with what you've recovered will be no match for my ability!" A handful of those yeti-things spawned in again, "And honestly, I can do this all day! I wonder how long you'll last?" He looked at me, the book in his hand, a thoughtful expression on his face as Raphtalia and Tetsu fought with the yeti-things while I did what I could with my defence skills and Kuro's singing.

"You know, you did something interesting there. A few things, but that magic you used. What was it?" Kyo asked, throwing a lightning bolt at me lazily, smiling with amusement when I just barely blocked it. Then laughing as he hit me again with fire. I let it throw me backwards, and Tetsu caught me.

"That?" I gasped, giving Tetsu's clawed hand a pat, then glancing to the side before looking back to Kyo, "You're trying to kill us, and you want me to tell you a secret?"

Raphtalia returned to my side as well. She was breathing heavily, but was unharmed by the copied minions from Ost's former body. "If you don't tell me... Hmmmmm..." He rubbed at his chin, his eyes looking just over my head, "Oh, I know, maybe I'll finally kill them? I mean, I already know how to make their weapons! Just a little more, and I won't even need them to do anything!"

He held out the Book, the pages fluttering madly, and the room behind him opened up even more. The walls raised and parted revealing three more tubes behind a raised stone platform. The platform itself had a jagged block of... bone? Petrified flesh? I wasn't sure, but it was organic looking and disturbingly solid at the same time.

The tubes however, held Motoyasu, Ren and Itsuki. Floating peacefully, their Weapons were resting against their chests under their crossed arms, like standing pharaoh in a museum exhibit. "Feel like telling me now?" He asked, snapping his fingers.

The liquid in the tubes bubbled violently for a second, and the three heroes writhed in silent agony.

"What a coward!" Raphtalia fumed, looking at me angrily as I put a hand on her arm to stop her from rushing forward, then letting my hand slip down her arm and over the spell bracelet.

"Where I'm from," I limped forward just a little, summoning the Book Shield and letting it open naturally on my palm. Slowly, I flicked some pages, and came to what I'd transcribed in that weird all angles magic geometry.

"Careful." Kyo grinned, "I'm surprised you've figured out at least that much from your Weapon. The others were so... basic..."

Complying, I found the page I wanted, and carefully tilted the book so he could see it. I was also watching everything on my status. The three heroes on the other end of the room were all showing up with that 'helpful' little arrow pointing down at their heads, a tiny little window opening up next to them to show me their name and level. All level one, all at less than half HP, and no magic power.

While I sent them all party invitations, I pointed to some of the images in the book. "Using exact angles and a bit of magic power, it creates effect. Magic was almost unheard of, you know how it goes, torches and pitchforks, angry mobs, that kind of thing. But those with a little power hid what they were doing."

"Bah, seems pointlessly complex for such little effect." He traced a finger through the air, a little glow following the pattern.

I threw power at the design he'd traced in the air, and a burst of smoke went off directly in his face. "You can't be stupid enough to not read the instructions, can you?" I taunted as I heard three distinct shattering noises, each followed by a gush of liquid. Through the black fog, my mask saw Kyo back up a few steps, but I was already running towards him.

"FOOL! You can't think this will help! You can't escape here even if you have freed them!"

He threw a blast of lightning and book pages towards my last position, but I had already stepped out of the way, as had Tetsu. If Kuro was still paying attention, she'd be flying overhead...

Raphtalia and I arrived just as Kyo blasted away the burst of smoke. "I still have the Tortoise's Power!" He laughed, backing away from Raphtalia to avoid getting slashed...

And right into the Book Shield's signature attack, Hardcover Spine to the face! "Want to know another secret Kyo?" I taunted, my body still feeling a bit sluggish after all the curses I'd eaten, but it was still quite satisfying when I heard his nose break.

"Gah!" He recoiled, but a scrap of paper flew from the Book to cover his nose, then fluttered away to leave it looking exactly how it had before I'd hit him. "I won't fall for that again!"

"I'm a better enchanter than you." I said, tossing an Air Strike Shield between Raphtalia and a blast of fire, then a second one to try and stop him from evading her slash as she easily ducked around the spectral Shield.

"You are not!" He screamed, a swarm of pages pushing at Raphtalia just hard enough to let him duck a decapitating strike, then forcing me to block a lightning bolt with the Book, stopping me from grabbing on to him.

"Tell me then, why aren't you growing stronger? Why aren't you draining all that energy?" I teased, both Raphtalia and I jumping away as Tetsu charged through what was left of the smoke and tried to bite Kyo's face off.

To my surprise, he turned his Book towards her, and a dragon's head popped out of the pages, blowing a blast of fire at Tetsu! She veered off, covering her face and rolling away from the stream of fire.

"If you're so bloody clever, you tell me?!" He screamed, the Book turning pages and suddenly throwing spiked chains from the pages.

Raphtalia dodged and slashed the chains away from her, while I changed the Book Shield to the Shield of Marius and turned off the 'Air Wake' enchantment to make it as heavy as possible.

"It's outside the system." I replied, holding my ground, bracing my feet and trying to pull Kyo off of his. "You think weird magic geometry is all I know?"

"WHAT?! Impossible! You've barely touched the limits of the Shield, how do you expect-"

"And that's not all!" I saw a little notification as Motoyasu joined the party, his level ticking upwards rapidly for a moment, his HP and MP going up as well. "This energy? You're using it like a hammer! No grace! No elegance!"

"NO! I will not be shown up by some animal!" He backed up again from Raphtalia's attack, the chains around the Shield vanishing as he was forced to give up the tug of war with me. "There's no way you could know more than me! Magic or otherwise!"

Ren joined the party, his levels going up, though not as far. But I could hardly have expected Kuro to be fair with how many earth crystals she gave to them.

"I even know why it's so easy for you to manipulate souls in the first place!" I laughed, then grunted as I had to block a truly killer icicle, Tetsu having to catch me again.

"Oh? You think so? We'll see about that!" He backed up again, putting his back to the altar with the weird knot of petrified flesh on it. "I will show you the true extent of my power!"

Itsuki joined the party then too. "Why bother?" I asked, standing directly in his line if sight, Raphtalia standing beside me, Tetsu standing behind me, her hands on my shoulders to help me brace, the Shield of Marius suddenly bursting with magical crystal, "All you do is take. I mean, you were copying our attacks, stealing the energy from the Tortoise, the bodies and souls of other people, even that BOOK is just stolen property at this point!"

"SILENCE! Taste my ultimate skill!" He put his free hand on the knot of flesh, then pointed the book at me, "You can all die together!"

"Have you tried creating anything?" I asked, "Like, say, a dragon who loves shiny objects?"

"REVELATION!" He screamed at me, all the Spirit Tortoise energy in the room funnelling into him through the thing on the altar, then towards us.

Only to be reflected back at him by Kotetsu, who had picked up the Vassal Mirror after it had decapitated what was left of the original owner. Holding her, as she held the Mirror, was that same dead body, except unlike a Spirit (like Glass) it was a true ghost. The initial blast from Kyo was caught and directed imperfectly towards the ceiling, then a moment later, swept down, and through him like a blade, into the floor, before snapping off. That was unexpected. I had thought she'd use the Shield as a perch, but ghostly help was still help.

"no... it isn't possible..." What was left of Kyo said. The blast had come down over his shoulder, through his torso, and down one leg. I was honestly surprised that he could do anything at all, aside from fall to the floor.

"thank... you..." A second voice said, Raphtalia looking at the sword in her hand, then the ghost of Albert as the headless apparition gave Kotetsu a headpat, then vanished, dropping both the dragon-noodle and the bright shiny mirror to the floor with a clatter and squeak of surprise.

"Is it... over?" Raphtalia asked, "Is that where he kept the energy?" She pointed at the petrified knot of flesh.

"Let's find out." I said, stepping towards Kyo, then pausing, looking around for a moment, then picking up the Vassal Book. Of course, I had no idea how to turn it off, so I tried something else.

"Wait!" Raphtalia started, then stopped, "Oh..."

I put the Vassal Book over the gem on the Shield, and pulled it into the Inventory. It resisted, almost like it was being pulled through syrup or something, but... it vanished. "I accept the task of finding you a proper owner." I said.

And Ost just popped back into reality exactly where she'd been a minute ago. "Oh! Oh my... I suppose you've done it then?"

"There it is." I motioned to the weird lump. "There's Kyo. And I had to put the Book into the Shield to turn it off. Figured it would act like any other item and 'freeze' when I put it in." I looked to Ost, the two of us touching forearms for a moment. This gave Kotetsu a bridge to zip across to her and wrap around the Emerald Compass again (now with a shiny mirror accessory!)

Behind the altar, Motoyasu, Ren and Itsuki were getting to their feet. It was obvious they had no 'mortal' strength left. Stats and System aside, they'd probably been in those tubes since they got captured. But it was precisely because of the System, they were able to do anything at all.

We all watched Ost put her free hand on the weird lump on the altar. With a flash, a glow that travelled up her arm, over her body, down the other arm, and then into the Emerald. Bit by bit, I could feel the energy of all those souls move over to her, and become truly hers again. As for the weird mass on the altar, it turned to dust bit by bit as the process happened.

Until it was done. Ost was standing there, eyes closed, floating just a tiny bit off the floor, and had that weird scarf thing back into a weightless arch over her head. Kotetsu, if anything, was even more entranced by the Emerald.

"Ost Horai." I said, "By our contract, is the job done? Have we recovered the lost energy of your former body, the souls of Raphtalia's world?"

She took another moment of silent floating rapture, stopped glowing, stopped floating, then opened her eyes. "Yes, Kodori Haruhime. My quest to you is complete. The contract between us is fulfilled." She took another deep breath, gave Kotetsu a headpat, "I'm sorry, but I need this now."

"I know... am sad..." Kotetsu pouted, but didn't stop Ost from popping the Emerald out of the Compass, "But have new shiny thing!" And with a little hop she jumped back onto my arm, the Mirror held in her front paws.

"Excellent." I nodded, turning back to look at Motoyasu, Ren and Itsuki. "I've fixed your mistakes. And I really really hope you've seen just how stupid you've been."

They were too weak to reply, but Motoyasu managed to give me a wink, and lean a little to rest his head over the top of Kuro's head.

"I can now return you all to your world." Ost said with a smile.

I looked over everyone, getting a tired smile from Raphtalia, a dragon sized grin from Tetsu, a thankful/tearful nod from Kuro, and exhausted malnourished glares from Ren and Itsuki.

I took off my mask, feeling my horns scrape against the metal slots I'd made for them painfully. "Go ahead. But I have work to do."

"Wha-" Before Raphtalia could do anything about it, I put one of those crystals used to teleport parties to the Wave Boss down her nice Miko robe's front.

I then left the party, and punched her in the chest, the crystal snapping and leaving only a puff of dust behind as they all vanished from the room. All that remained of my former party was Kotetsu, who blinked at me in surprise, then forgot about them when I started giving her headpats.

Season ending Epilogue.

I walked past the three broken tubes where the three heroes had been held, and used my normal demon strength to pull the middle one away from the wall. It fell with a crash of glass and stone, revealing a door.

Sniffing the air, I nodded to myself, "Amateur..." I sighed, looking at the exposed hinges. It was the work of about ten seconds to hammer the pegs out of the interlocking metal hoops, then push the door inwards with a crash.

Just in time to see Kyo finish putting on a pair of pants. Next to him, was another glass tube but it was empty. He started to run, but I was faster, a trio of Air Strike Shields appearing around him, leaving my path to him clear, but his exits all cut off.

"Let me tell you why souls are so easy to manipulate here in this world." I said, walking towards him, my hands weaving, using Senjitsu to create ice around him to replace my Air Strike Shields. "It's because there are no Gods here."

"No... Let me live! I do anything!" Of course, he started to beg and plead.

"Good." I smiled at him, a gem appearing over the Shield's gem, this one a bit of snowflake obsidian, "Except, to make sure you answer all my questions... I'm going to need to you to die again."

I put my hand on his shoulder, his teeth chattering in the cold, while I wound my other arm back. "But... Do you even know what you're doing?! How do you even know that there are no gods here?!"

"Because before I came here..." I put my finger just under the V of his ribs, and pushed. "I was as close to a God as I could be, without actually being one."

He screamed, flailed, punched and struggled...

NOTES

Remember what she said to Ganlion? The dragon soul that Tetsu ate?

Did you think she was joking about that obsidian thing?

Happy Halloween.

Thank you for reading! And if you want to see any full colour art, join the discord!

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