For Cid's perspective.
Native Earth Languages
Midgar Languages
Everyone else only knows one of them so they're all unbolded unless anyone wants me to do otherwise.
Eta let herself fall in with the crowded streets ignoring the faces of people she didn't need to care about. For there was only one truth she needed to know.
Red, yellow, blue, green and orange. She ignored them all for if she were to touch them right now their patrons would know. The plan itself would unfold before their eyes and of course they would act. Shadow had said so.
White. Filtered in amidst the other five alone stood abandoned, their god too far away to touch them as she let a single droplet of slime touch each of them in turn. For she was patient zero to a new plague so similar and yet so different from the ones that had come before.
From white to black, the corruption staining each in turn as it dug in and waited for the right time. For the hour of their ascent. Half were the wrong gender it was true to become true possessed, but they had made a change to it. Violet had said it was a remnant of an old experiment she'd made that had touched both genders equally.
The unspoken answer that she had created the vampires as well in ages past filed away. For a later experiment to see if she could replicate their feats as well in the future.
For now, she let them run dormant. An invisible infection buried throughout the city just waiting to explode out.
Alpha wouldn't have approved at all.
She kept that quiet truth close to her heart. A buried truth she would tell no one as another private little secret. For even if the rest of Shadow Garden might not approve of this choice.
She would accept all of the darkness as well.
Raiga paused at the outskirts of the city, the form of the Serene One seated just in front of him as he waited. They had some rudimentary sign language she knew, and the side of the mountain to carve if she really needed words.
But neither of those mattered today. A single finger extending out to crash down on the top of his head as the world melted away into nothingness.
And a reflection of the city around them sprung into being. Without any other people, without the other titans in the distance. And with the Serene One herself fading away, the once massive titan replaced with an old woman seated calmly in a shrine maiden outfit.
He inclined his head to her respectfully. "I see here at least you have your body back, so it works to some extent."
She grimaced. "My body doesn't ache, even if I feel like it should. I would hardly say human again in such circumstances."
From the sky came the outsider's voice. "It would hardly be fitting to be left aching for all eternity. Immortality should come with at least a few perks don't you think?" The figure hanging upside down as though it was perfectly normal.
She settled in place for a moment to watch him. "It would feel less fake to know it was my own again I think. But that hardly matters and it seems you were correct. The technique works and even if my control here is limited." She waved her hand, and the world melted away.
To a hospital bed with the old woman in front of him dying in it, even as the infection took hold as half her body had already begun transforming into crystal. Even as the old lady in front of him watching it grimaced. "They are certainly my memories embedded into this place at least."
The outsider paused watching it. "There was a time when they allowed you to be closer to the rest of humanity. Before they became afraid of you."
"In the first days of course. We were sick and they wanted to help us, but they could not and nearly everyone died." To a field outside the base. Still incomplete compared to how she was now and yet still obviously well on the way to becoming what she was now. "In the end they asked, and we chose to leave. I could say such a thing at least and it might even be true. But the magic that was pouring off of us was a threat to everyone else."
The outsider laughed from his place in the sky. Hanging upside down and watching it all beside them. "And if you had not done so the next request would have been far less polite."
"You would have been angry at it then I take it?" The question was only light-hearted. "But we were struggling in our own ways and at the time the younger ones would not have taken well to watching so many humans die around them either. By accepting it then we kept open a channel for further communication, and when they cast out more who were dying we took them in. For that is how the Alliance formed and at the beginning they gave us the food to keep them alive without a second thought."
The outsider laughed. "Did you shoot first or did they?"
"Shinji and Asuka would know." She drew a line on the world as it changed again. "But as a memory this is the first time I have seen it, perhaps it does not even matter though for we came to blows."
The same stretch of land, the same meeting of two sides. Orange and Red watching in the distance as even sound was unable to reach them. An argument wordlessly expanding on the ground in the distance as they watched from afar.
Guns were raised on the far side, and a moment later a red light crossed the distance and cleaved them in twain. The soldier's corpses falling to the ground. A handful of the possessed resting alongside them
A cannon fired in the distance and smoke billowed off the two Nephilim for a moment as more guns fired in the distance. Even as an orange shield stretched out and wrapped around the two of them catching the next wave of shots.
Not that it mattered as Red walked calmly free of the explosion unharmed and raised another blade out. The streak of red light flashing forward to bisect the tank in a single swing.
Raiga grimaced watching it all. A level of slaughter that he'd heard of in news reports but never truly witnessed. The Serene one had her head bowed in respect to the fallen as well, obvious discomfort on her face.
The outsider grinned. "Ah escalation of force rather requires enough strength to enforce it before the end.
"It didn't help regardless." She sighed bitterly looking down at them all. "For in using force we are now required to maintain it and we still needed to get food and medical supplies from them. After it everything held the threat of force and it tainted everything."
"Being unwilling to use it rarely does either."
The Serene one paused watching him. "Perhaps if we had a monopoly on it that might be the case, but they can escalate further. For if she truly ends up cutting loose they would just fire an atomic bomb at us and who could stand against such a thing."
The both of them were almost old enough to remember the first and last two. But that spectre was something a child had never had to truly worry about. A look of confusion on the outsider's face. "I suppose we all must make our own choices."
Raiga calmly held his pose. "It is an ever-present fear ever since they first asked for US weapons to be stationed by the coast in case they needed them against us."
"I can only imagine what it would be like to be hit by a nuke."
The child looked almost forlorn as he contemplated the great weight the rest of them had lived under. And looking at him like this he really was still a child. "It is something we have come to terms with so there is no need to worry too much."
"Beyond that." The Serene one looked askance. "This world feels complete, and while I can feel all the functions you have described and could easily use it to devour my followers the other side has not done so. Does that not count as a hole in your prediction for why it was created?"
"Why would it?" Shadows moved around the outsider. "Even once this place became complete there are still two other factors needed to properly use it. For to use it and then have the other four of you turn on them a moment later would still be a failure. And even if the four of you are broken Akane would still rush out. Even so it will not matter for I intend to crush them here."
With those words the outsider vanished from the world, leaving the two of them alone. The Serene one sitting calmly and so he broke the silence first. "While he attributes it to a third party could he have built the world himself and be trying to turn it against us?"
"It is difficult to say but I would think it would be easier to do so if he had not mentioned it. I would have not even known how to defend myself in here if he had attacked. Still even after only ten years it is hard to cling on to the memory of being afraid."
She paused thinking about it. "He has not lied at least. There is a final presence within this world separate from both us and from his own power."
"But that is different from telling the truth, and he himself is less human than he appears. When I tugged at his presence it slipped away, like trying to catch smoke and he left immediately afterwards. There is something he does not want us to test, so watch him closely and see if you can figure it out."
He nodded calmly as he rested for a moment. "You agree with the others that he isn't a threat himself?"
She shook her head. "There is no strength in his presence. It would be like trying to stop a train with your bare hands and learning all you could do is to be crushed before it. The magic he emits is weak, I agree with Yui on that perspective. He radiates less, even than the five of you and nothing compared to one of the Nephilim, and his companion is the same. But then where does that confidence come from? There is so much we do not know about our own powers and so where the line between a simplification and intentional lies aren't something I'm qualified to guess at. Perhaps Yui could tell but then I am not sure she isn't the one who built this place from the beginning."
"Then I will watch him closely and try and warn you if something comes up." He nodded calmly and rose. Even as he felt an overwhelmingly massive presence as she removed him from the dreamworld.
In the dead of night, even as darkness refused to fall. In a secret place of power lit only by magic itself as power thrummed through the world around him.
Six pillars each with a tiny fragment of slime sitting atop it.
One crystal, a blaze of pure white resting in the centre. The very nexus of power upon which the whole world would turn for a single instant. Cid smiled as he looked out over his own faux ritual to be conducted at midnight. "The hour approaches and all the world will be plunged into darkness."
"Is there a meaning to those words." The old green man watched him lightly having followed them. And that was fine because he needed a witness for there to be any glory in his actions.
He chuckled ominously. "It is the dark tongue, a language spoken only by the most eldritch of beings and thus it bends magic towards it as is natural."
That was the kind of motif he was going for.
"Observe closely and you will see how it leads the world itself to bend to my whim." He drew himself up and let the shadows around him writhe. "Aurora please raise the crystal in the centre a bit higher so it looks more dramatic."
It rose as a single speck of light encased within a pillar carved from the night itself.
There was a suitable look of awe, and he preened at it. The right reaction to let him play off it even further. "You wonder why we are here do you not? This place is a gathering place it is true, but that has also caused a nexus to form amidst the currents of magic. All magic flows through this point and thus to act here will allow me to bind our foe and prevent them from acting upon their servants."
It was nothing of the sort and the only actual thing he wanted was the six pillars and enough slime to let Aurora create her own little Sanctum around it. To pull the dream world into a Sanctum of her own power and thus separate it from the rest of the world for what was to come.
He let his voice fill with drama as he spoke. "As the witching hour approaches the veil between reality and the dream grows thin. The events of this world can influence it in ways beyond even your mortal ken."
"Aurora it is time."
From the centre the singular white crystal pulsated for a moment. A tiny draw of power dragging a blade that swung out and tore the six pillars asunder. All six of the constructs being drawn in towards the centre as the magic began to flow.
And with it the minds of the Nephilim were dragged in as well. Their attention pulled to the sudden attack as they reached across the divide in unison.
He tugged and the shadows rose, wrapping around the central dais. Forming the edge of a Sanctum as Aurora fled outside to hold the key.
With one last look he flicked a droplet of slime onto the old man. Watching as the virus he'd concocted from Aurora's presence began to take effect and the demonic possession began to spread. "Our truce is at an end then."
And with one step he grasped hold of the minds of the Nephilim and dragged them up out of the world.
Into the Sanctum.
Ena lounged in her seat a scene of opulence as a throne of golden power radiated strength around her. Even as she let a slip of her own magic free using it to pull up a glass of her own in a toast to those below.
A party that would only stop as they died for the last years of her life. That even if they were outcasts to society and had been abandoned she could at least spend the last few years of her life well. Right up until the ever-coming death at twenty-one.
The lights, the sounds and the laughter for as long as they could keep it going.
Died in an instant as they were plunged into darkness.
She made one of her own. Not as bright as those kept aloft by the Resplendent one's power but still more than bright enough to shine a light out into the darkness. "Calm down everyone I'm sure it's just a prank."
The lights would come back on any minute now.
Because they were more than just lights, they were a manifestation of their god's power. An inviolable truth written into the world more than an object that could break.
More lights were flickering into being as the others around her began moving a sense of order and calm returning. Even as she felt back along the connection trying to reach out to her god and finding nothing there. A few other wary eyes watching her for guidance. "Lady Enna do you know?"
She didn't have the slightest clue as she smiled sweetly back regardless. "Do you think we are in danger here at the height of our power?"
The lights were spreading now until even the corners of their little plaza were lit. Her own followers seemed fine, but a handful were scrabbling at their flesh, twitching where they stood. The white crystal that had grown on them stretching out as black marks seemed to spread out.
Reaching out to the ones around them as though in a panic.
Which was when the screaming started. A hundred tiny lights devoured in an instant as something moved in the shadows.
"Shine." Like a star.
The buildup of magic roaring to life within her veins as it burned away the darkness. Shadows evaporating under her power leaving only…
Leaving only…
Bile rose in her throat as she trembled and looked down at the rotting corpses. Flesh turning black as something continuing to writhe through their flesh. A nightmare spreading through the crowds below even as she pulled her magic in.
Condensing it even further until it would overload. A tiny burning flame pouring out as she hyperventilated.
As one the corpses stared back at her. Blood fountaining up and drowning the flame before it ever reached them.
A single tendril reaching up even as she froze in horror watching it.
And at her own rotting body. Starting to move even as she felt trapped like a stranger in her own mind.
Yuuka paused as the lights fell outside.
Around her the shield that Shinji had kept up for eons to protect her from exposure to his own magic faltered and collapsed in an instant. A small office trapped in an impenetrable darkness.
But even if everything had gone down her patients still needed help. Rising from her seat and stumbling through the darkness as she reached for the door. The mark of a light still visible underneath the door frame.
And after a few moments scrambling she pulled on the door handle and entered the main care room.
The girl who had come with Kagenou, Eta, watching back at her quietly with a lamp in her hand. Watching the room around her impassively. Every bed under her care was filled and that was normal.
The way they were sitting rotting in the beds was not.
As she pushed back the smaller girl and rushed to the nearest bedside. A futile hope as she pushed her fingers to its neck and felt a pulse. A sigh of relief even as she started looking over at the rotting flesh she didn't even begin to know how to fix.
Blood pack. IV drip.
She looked back to see Eta nodding at her charges and completely unconcerned. Even though such a thing was happening as a dawning horror grew. She pointed first at the beds and then at Eta herself.
The girl nodded quietly and smiled. Raising her arms as every single figure in the room got up. Like puppets under her control.
Slowly she reached for something, anything on the bedside table and swung. The blow crashed helplessly against nothing in the darkness, the retaliation throwing her back against the wall. A dark patch growing where it had struck as her own flesh began to rot.
Eta continued smiling on softly all the while. Marching off into the darkness even as her vision failed her.
The city trapped within the twilight; a broken demesne caught in the silence as it stood devoid of people as they stood within the dream. Even as he'd tossed the other five back into the depths of this world.
A maze fracturing and breaking within moments as what was whole was torn to pieces in seconds by the combined might of the Valiant one and the Serene one tried to hold it together using the technique he taught them.
And still it crumbled for how could it do anything else? For while the technique worked as he'd promised, while it truly let one bring a fraction of the city under their control.
With both of them struggling against one another it had become a tug of war, and the city itself was crumbling under the strain. The exit and everything else in between pulled apart even as he let it wash away under the strain.
Perhaps one day they would come to a conclusion and one of them would win. Now he just had to let the chaos take hold, to let the whole thing be torn apart while their focus was here. Floating away without resistance through the dream. Because only by fighting them would they react.
A simple step backwards and into the shadows as befitted the true mastermind. Victory from the shadows themselves without ever having to lift his fingers. The echoes of combat fading away as he found his other true calling.
For here in a dream he could have anything his heart desired as the tiny alcove shifted into an atrium. A piano seated in the centre calling his name.
He paused watching out over the devastation. The crater in the distance a familiar sight to him even as he knew none of the Nephilim had ever seen it. Which meant the Aurora's Sanctum had already started to bleed out into this one.
He grinned. To think such a chance would be bestowed upon him, he would have to visit it later. The place where even his own dreams might come true one day.
"Yuuka, Enna and Raiga are all missing." Gendo let the magic flow through his eyes, twitching as the world shifted from night into a wash of iridescent hues of magic. The tower in the distance growing out of the centre of the city all the more ominous for it.
Genshirou clicked his blades watching on beside him. "I thought you said it was a sham, that the last titan was an illusion of power and nowhere near strong enough to actually take action."
He winced. "Yui did confirm it as well." The Watcher had carved her answer into a lens that had been the same answer he'd seen. "And even now I think it doesn't have enough magic to actually clash against the Nephilim."
It was just that they couldn't wake the Nephilim up. Whatever had swung in and taken the five of them out had left them insensate to magic, and his own hands would break before he could hit them hard enough to even notice.
Gen clicked his blades again to draw him from his reverie. "Well as long as its building something from our corpses I guess I'm going to be fighting it anyway, do you see anything I can use or understand what it's doing?"
He grimaced at the answer. "Right now? Its tearing the crystal growths out of their flesh with brute force. And I think from the way the magic is flowing." He trailed off looking again even as he felt like retching. "I think the people inside are still alive."
A fate worse than death, to not just rot but to be aware of it for every moment.
Gen nodded his head and checked his blades. "It struggles to break them at least." A wry chuckle from the younger man. "I guess I fancy my odds then. I'll kill it and let you handle the rest of the aftermath."
He breathed in deeply. "It isn't strong by the Nephilim's standards, but it's still made for slaughter just like they are. We weren't built for war I don't think you can take it."
Gen ripped a small flask from his belt and eyed it. "You haven't been preparing for war. Me and Asuka have. I knew I was gonna make a final stand somewhere for a while now, at least here it feels like it'll count for something." The brat lifted it up and poured the entire thing down over his head.
Liquid magic pouring out as it engulfed the man for a single moment and ignited. The growths along his body spreading across the entire length in mere moments.
Like burning one's life with magic for a single flash of strength. "You have no regrets."
"Lots of them." The monster in front of him nodded. "But we all die one day."
He looked back at the giant tower growing in the centre of their city and nodded easily enough. Even as Gen had already pushed off into the distance to meet it. "I wasn't planning on being the last one left."
He had said it to no one.
But the blow to his back begged to differ.
A tendril of shadow darkness ripping his legs out from under him and slamming him back down. The girl who had come with the stranger walking out from the darkness behind him. A blank expression as she stared down at him. Watching him intently even as he felt his body begin to rot.
A moment later she smiled.
And then he knew no more.
The keys sang under Shadows fingers. The door slammed on the other side of the room as a kid barged straight in. "You really do love music in here don't you?"
He nodded as he focused on the keys. "If one only knows strength aren't you just a barbarian? A man must be cultured as well if he wishes to gain respect."
The kid nodded. "A beauty in the moment even if it is to end. Although to be honest I prefer my music to be pretty violent as well, for the drums call my name." Two sticks appeared in the kids' hands even as he swung them against the air. "Can I join in?"
He let his cloak grow out to make a third hand, gesturing to a corner of the room even as he willed the drums to appear. "Yellow I take it?"
The kid nodded. "The Lightbringer, the Resplendent one, oh almighty Lord of the dance. I might as well let them enjoy themselves before the end."
In the distance cracks spread throughout the city, empty buildings collapsing all around them. "What else is there to do in life if we do not at least enjoy it? Do you use sheet music or are you fonder of a freestyle piece?"
The kid grinned. "It has been some time since they made any paper in my size, so I've been marching to the beat of my own drum the whole time. But it is the mark of a true genius to understand the truth without any further instruction and so I'm still quite good. Ouranos has complimented me on it quite a few times. Although she's also planning on bringing back a library of our music as a gift to you I hear."
"I see." It was something he could deal with later on, because right now he was buying time for what was going on outside. "Then I shall go all out and see if you can keep up."
He'd use the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata as a basis for it and then play on from there.
"While the titans outside tear apart this city, let us play out a song worthy of the end of this world."
The drums kicked into gear, and he settled into his own place. Letting their own discordant sound be echoed even as the buildings crashed down around them.
Genshirou paused at the base of the tower, a wicked grin coating his own face as he looked up to it. The monster within pausing its gorging to stare down at him.
The swords that were his fingers clicked, magic pouring out into them as he sent it scything forwards. The figure splitting open around them before they even hit. But that just meant he had to throw more until it became a storm even as fire ran through his veins.
He launched himself up, spinning like a whirlwind as every part of him became a lethal weapon.
The monster shrinking back as it cowered behind a building under the force of his onslaught. The black tar like substance that most of its body had become dripping away as it vented mass to try and become small enough to escape.
As if it was faster than him.
He proved it wrong, fire burning away at the base of his legs as magic swelled up and fired him forwards even faster. Because like this he was invincible tearing through the frail whips of blood that poured out to try and stop his advance.
The blows light and feeble as they cracked against his new forged armour.
Nothing was enough to make him feel it over the burning in his flesh. This strength and invulnerability was the closest they'd ever gotten to the Nephilim. And he let the power pour through all of the blades sprouting from his flesh.
A maelstrom of power carving itself into a storm of blades as he laughed through the pain. Abandoning defence for a perfect onslaught of strikes as...
A flash of white light speared up through his armour. The lance of blood pouring into the open wound a moment later to hold him in place.
He swung his arms and…
A dozen more lances shattered his blades. Tiny white crystals formed from the Guardians power peeking out from the tendrils of blood as it poured magic in to activate them and impale him once again. The mass of power watching him intently as the main body opened up into a great maw.
Holding back. The whole time.
In response the great maw in front of him twitched. Spreading out into a smile of its own even as it nodded back at him. The simple act the perfect confirmation as it smugly looked down on him.
Then dragged him forward and devoured him whole.
Shadow pulled his fingers from the piano, letting the last notes fade away. Because it was time for talk to end and for the war to begin.
Through the fractures in the world a red headed girl in a full gothic dress was stalking towards them. An oversized blade trailing along the ground beside her. "It looks like things are going to get violent in a moment."
The little kid next to him paused. "I'm the one bringing her here, so you don't have to worry about it. I guess it can be called sentimental because at the beginning she was like an older sister to me. If you give me a moment I can bring her around."
He chuckled. "I doubt there is anything you could change about what happens next." Because that wasn't what he'd meant in the first place. The darkness seeping from the ruins at the centre of the world had shifted and soon the fight would start.
"Kihara step away from him." Red had brought her sword up even if she was pointing it in the wrong direction. Her eyes fixed on him as she laid out her accusation. "You are the one who has trapped us in here are you not?"
Yellow appeared in front of her. A smile on his face as he pushed the sword down and looked up at her. "Asuka it's fine he's been nice enough to be helping me and you'll get along with his group fine as well."
Asuka swung the sword up and around him to point at him once again even as she rested her other hand on the kid's head. "Just because you get along with someone doesn't mean he isn't a monster."
Cid nodded at that and raised himself from the seat of the piano. "True for instance there is nothing crueller in this world than a child. One who is willing to abandon all pretence at his humanity."
Kihara grinned up at her. "It's okay I called them to this world. Because if all of our followers were going to die anyway, at least by sacrificing them I can give their lives meaning. Like that won't you be able to get your vengeance as well?"
She looked between the two of them for a moment before turning back to Yellow. "I'm trying to help them."
Yellow nodded. "But you'll fail and they cannot be saved. So rather than letting you keep going on and eventually destroying yourself I'll save you from that madness. You'll realise I'm doing this for you."
Her sword lowered, the tip driving into his head and bouncing off, the gleam of yellow light burning out from beneath it. "You won't understand yet, but that's okay because in the end you'll see I was right. Vafthrudnir take care of her for a moment."
Cid drove his own sword into Yellows back. The blade skittering over but failing to penetrate at all. Even as Yellow was thrown forward and gaped back in confusion even as his body disappeared.
Reappearing on the other side of the room. "Ouranos." A knight with long puce hair stepped out from the shadows behind him, the spitting image of Eta in every way. Ghost Eta as he dubbed her now. "Wasn't this one supposed to be your friend."
"Wrong person." Ghost Eta tilted her head. "Made a mistake then. This one intends to lock us in, but still salvageable. But it is also his mistake, the seal only extends inwards."
Yellow paused. "Does that mean Akane is coming down the mountain, I'd rather not fight her myself."
"No concern. Even if she tries you will not need to fight her." Ghost Eta looked up at him. "It is your loss for I have already conquered this place and now you are trapped alongside me."
He raised a single hand and gestured to the world around them. "Only a fool claims victory when they are merely dancing on the palm of my hand."
"Sarasa." Ghost Eta spoke but a single word. But in answer the fabric of the Sanctum he'd built trembled. A hole punched in from the outside casting its shadow as a gate opened. "Take Kihara outside."
Ghost Eta let a small smug smile cross her face as she watched him. "A flimsy Sanctum built only to keep things in is no match if I have one more card to play is it now?"
He watched her calmly as the boy disappeared out behind her. Free to wreak havoc on whatever was left. But that was something he could not change.
Shadow laughed back at her. "To think such a little trick is enough to give you such confidence. But the prize is already gone, and I am two steps ahead watching you struggle. Seen through the cards in my hand? Let us see how far such overconfidence will take you."
The open gate became a pillar, a blackened tower erupting out into the centre of the world even as fragments of it stretched out reaching across the divide. Moving between the gaps in the fragments of the world and boring its way towards the Nephilim in the corner.
So he gave form to his own slimesuit, a sword as black as night deflecting the fourth tendril as it drilled towards the girl next to him. Even as he watched in the distance. Three giants beginning to rise as black tendrils grew over them.
He looked casually over at the girl holding her own sword and nodded. "Come with me if you want to live."
Then turned and stepped off the fragment of the dream. This wasn't a good place to fight, and he already knew the place he wanted to be.
The Resplendent One rose, a yellow light pouring out into the world around him as a manifestation of his own power. Like the Sun bringing in the new day.
That everything the light touched was his kingdom.
For every fragment of his power belonged to him, even the ones carved into the flesh of his followers. The pulsating fragment of existence that could be considered an extension of his self were like hooks buried into the flesh. And with one breath he pulled it all back in as the city crumbled and the everything within it collapsed back into his own self.
The tide returning to its rightful place as it was subsumed back into his body along with all of fragments of the first magic embedded within…
The tide pulled back only his own power. The waiting lives of his followers silent as the empty city in front of him.
What had they done?
He stalked the silent streets gazing out over the tracks. A monstrously large creature had torn its way through in his absence and the trail was still fresh.
Cid watched the fields around him.
A memory of tanks and missiles coursed over the fields. Tiny sparks flickering off into the distance like fireworks as they exploded.
He idly watched them go for the pretty colours and little else. "Have you figured out how to create something larger than a blade yet?" Well Red was at least following him for the moment.
She swung the single sword she had. Watching the trail at the end race out a cleave a tank in two. "This sword is still stronger than wasting time with tanks. Having been on the other side of it they feel less than pinpricks."
He nodded firmly enough. "This isn't the end of the journey; we are not yet when we want to be. But this memory is closer than we were to the events I want."
She pursed her lips. "Akane then, she was stronger but she was also further along changing. I don't think the her in my memory could kill the other three."
He nodded along easily enough. "I doubt so too." Because he hadn't even been thinking of such a thing. "But it is not one of your memories we are searching for anyway, but one of her own nightmares. Well perhaps it will soon be one of yours as well."
He let a clone loose, the image of it flickering into place on the shoulder of one of the Nephilim to stare down at Ghost Eta. "How brave to fight one who dwells amidst the darkness in a dream."
"It is my dream, your nightmare." As her words echoed a barrier rippled off the titan itself, space unfolding as it crushed his clone effortlessly.
He made another for his next retort. "And yet this is my place to mould in play, that chaos itself shall blow the earth's dust away."
The answer came in the form of an endless tide of green leaves pouring out into the world and over his flesh. The tiny blades tearing the next clone to pieces even as he laughed it off.
The storm hung in the air around it for a moment, flipping around to point outwards as they blasted forwards. The area around it peppered with holes that tore through every inch of flesh it struck.
A thousand meters away he stepped through the gaps without a care in the world. The attack too diffuse and too straightforward for it to be anything but trivial to avoid. "I guess blue is the only one that is a real threat then, but even then they are taking too long."
"Yui isn't much of a fighter. Shinji is a much bigger threat." The girl next to him was wrong, but in a way that probably wasn't obvious to her.
"Perhaps I shall give you the chance to fight him later then." He shook his head. "But his trick is a dead end and in a battle between equals you can ignore such flashy and pointless attacks with ease, tricks only good for slaughtering the weak. Blue has learnt the truth of this world and walked the path of a true tyrant. The only one who might one day be considered my equal."
In the distance the blue titan was slowly pulling together a vortex. The wind pouring into a single point on the tip of its finger. An overwhelming force of magic building up ever so slowly in the distance. A single point of devastation held in place that if only she made it flow faster it would be useable. "I suppose even then it's not like she can hit me, so that too is useless."
Critical mass was reached. The single point of devastation in the distance reaching the breaking point as it held itself in place for a single moment. The perfect tiny sphere of destruction racing out across the battlefield to strike the centre of the army formation.
But it wouldn't matter where it had struck.
"Well time to leave." He grabbed the girl beside him by the hand and dragged her off, into the next memory. "For soon we shall reach the field of my dreams."
Behind him the force of a nuke slaughtered everything around as the last handful of soldiers were reduced to ash on the wind.
The mountainside was huge, the darkness all-encompassing under an overcast sky.
Far in the distance she heard the mountaintop rumble. A single figure standing huge in the night above them. It was not the signal that he had given her though, so she only burrowed down further alongside the darkness.
The shadows themselves the home her master had shown to her all those years ago. Even as the massive form of Diabolos itself carried the thousands of bodies down from the mountainside. And even if it was huge, here in the darkness they were safe.
The figure above raised a single hand. Light pouring over everything. The titan letting its gaze fall upon them as it began its descent.
There were no longer any shadows within which to hide. Eta turned to Violet's now monstrous form beside her and nodded. "You cannot fight it can you?"
The monstrous assemblage gazed down at her. "Even if I crushed all the lives currently within in a single moment. I am still digesting the power from devouring so much and I would not be its opponent."
Eta held back on the obvious answer. To crush them all anyway and see if it helped. Cid wouldn't have liked that. "I will buy time then."
Not that she could buy much at all.
Eta paused running through an assessment. "The enemy is slow and unwieldy, high top centre of mass. May be able to slow it down. Should be able to run away after losing."
No hope of victory except to hold out until Shadow returned.
She bowed her head and turned to meet it regardless. Because Lord Shadow would not ask her to fight a hopeless battle and thus it was just up to her to find a path to victory.
The ground thundered as even the giant marching towards them paused to look into the distance. A second creature of white and gold crystal crashing towards them as a howl split the night.
Tail wagging behind it as it brought a trail of devastation in its wake. Even as a handful of tiny white lights were tossed helplessly off.
It was the same people that Shadow had spared earlier. Eta nodded to herself in quiet understanding. "Lord Shadows pet." Supposedly he had two other great beasts each equal to the Mist Dragon, and this was one of them.
"The one whose footsteps fall like thunder." Eta calmly nodded her head. "Master has sent it to aid us."
The mass of rotten flesh beside her tilted its form quizzically. "Cid was with us the whole time he never had the chance to do that."
She strode forward regardless because there was no one else closer to him than her. And so no one understood her lord better than she did. Even as the monstrous dog leaned in and took a breath she reached out a tendril of slime to ruffle its fur at the back of its neck.
Just like how Master treated Delta when he wanted to praise her.
A moment later it responded readily leaning in and licking her before rolling over onto its stomach and letting its tail wag happily. A small smile appearing on her own face at the proof of her own better understanding of Shadows intentions. "Master has provided us with a weapon to turn it back, even planning for such an event."
It was the only possible explanation.
She settled into play with it for a moment even as the titan in the distance paused. Looking out over the horizon from the way it had come. A moment later it resumed its advance, light pouring free of its hand as a golden blade flowed out into the world.
The dog rose back to its feet, and she settled into place on its back. Magic wrapping her in as a harness as the two of them turned together to face the monster.
"An empty crater?" Red seemed confused, uncertain what was here.
"It is truly the only place my dreams can come true." Mirth filled his voice as he looked out over it. Like a king of all he surveyed, confident and resolute. "But it is natural you do not understand, for you have never been here before."
A beautiful crater, the kind that he'd wanted to return to for so long. This time he would make his dreams come true and achieve it even if no one else believed in him.
He wanted to believe in himself. "This is truly the perfect place. All I shall ask of you is to distract Orange even if just for a moment." He spun, launching the girl next to him up at the first titan and watching her form unfold into the catastrophe she would one day become. The two of them collapsing over the edge of the rift.
The shadow encompassing the world stared back at him. "Then your dream is to die alone, with nothing else to hide behind in this place." Two other titans standing watch around them waiting. "These two are more than enough for me to deal with you."
But they mattered not.
"Is it not that we will all go together when we go?" He smashed his foot down and poured power out into the world. Separating this tiny memory from the rest of existence as they were all trapped in alongside him. "Have you not dreamed of witnessing such a moment, does not the very thought of it echo in your nightmares."
A pause grew on her face, a quizzical look as she glanced at the world around them in shock.
He nodded happily. It was truly from the same starting place; a Sanctum that was truly like the one Nelson had made to fight him. And because it was the same place everything was still here waiting for him. "This is not one of their memories but yours instead."
He could hear the glee in his own voice. "Is it not true that all humans wonder if they could achieve it? To know whether we are mere mortals or could challenge the gods themselves." He stretched out his arms to welcome the end.
The sound of a single plane flying overhead just as he knew it would. "To stand against the Judgement of Heaven and face it in single combat. To prove their superiority against even the divine truth that will be unleashed."
The bomb waiting within had his name written on it.
He pulled his magic in. A single point of devastation just waiting to be unleashed as he watched it fall. A final chance to match his own strength against the ultimate test that he'd waited for so long.
"SARASA."
For a single moment everything stopped. The rotors on the plane overhead, the Nephilim caught in place and even his own precious bomb hung in the air.
And in the next blood poured out through the dream from every surface. A single giant hand crashing in as the dream itself shattered around them.
Dawn, the sun peaking up over the edge of the horizon as he awoke.
Cid pushed himself back up off the ground. The city of shattered crystal lying broken all around him as reality reasserted itself. They had ended the dream rather than face the nuke alongside him.
He mourned for it. Deep in his heart that he had once again been unfairly robbed of the chance to face it in single combat. His entire life had been waiting for such a moment and once again it was as if everyone else in the world.
All living beings other than him.
Were afraid to get hit by a nuke even once.
Truly the path that he'd chosen to walk was a lonely one indeed.
Ah well he put a spring back into his step. Because if you couldn't get hit by a nuke then couldn't he still step forward and claim vengeance.
He raised a sword in front of him once more. Eyes flickering over the ruins for the shadow that had fallen alongside him. The accursed enemy, the bitterest of foes. The architect of nightmares who had turned all his dreams to ash.
Only the sight of the four members of the Nephilim, uncorrupted once again and rising up from where they'd fallen greeted him. And that was another problem because he honestly didn't feel like explaining to them why their city was broken and all their followers were gone.
Especially not if Yellow had killed them all and Eta and Violet had been forced to run away.
He shot up to the entrance of their domain. His steps light as he fled into the shadows once more. Even if it was dawn there was still plenty of space for him to run away in the confusion.
It was not dawn.
The battle below raging as light poured off of two titans crashing against each other on the mountainside below. Yellow and gold crashing against one another beneath him as shattered blades and broken claws crashed through the mountainside.
Furrows torn amidst the ground as everything beneath their gaze was ripped asunder. Mudslides crashing down around them as every attack shattered the mountainside itself.
Utterly unharmed as blades broke the moment they contacted their actual bodies, and the claws of the beast bounced harmlessly off of the titan's flesh. For both weapons and flesh were constructs held together primarily by magic.
But their flesh was at least a hundred times denser than any kind of blade they could produce and so it was only natural that the weapons could not compare.
The shadow itself was sprinting along the ground towards the fight. And even as she approached the two of them turned towards her. Yellow reaching out to catch her as he turned up and met eyes with him. The figure turning and bolting back down the mountain immediately.
Even as the dog turned to meet him and their eyes met as well. Eta perched atop it as the creature stared up at him, tail wagging softly as it stood frozen for a moment. Breathing in tentatively as it stared up at him.
John.
He pushed himself over the edge diving down to enter the fray. A grin on his face as he reached out into his own slimesuit and let his limb grow. "Who's a good boy."
John bounded up the mountainside to meet him, the ground thundering as it crashed through the few trees as though they were only splinters. His arms wrapping around the giant dog even as it bowled him over, crashing him backwards into the mountain and shattering his ribs.
He healed them a moment later while scratching its neck with a slime construct, laughing even as the torrent of blows rained down as he adapted and met them with his own. Just strong enough to avert the force that would otherwise have crushed him.
Eta sat watching him and he composed himself. "Eta I hope you realise this never happened."
She pouted and stared between the two of them.
He patted her on the head as well. "Eta is also a good girl and will remember that this never happened." She leaned into it, and he knew it was the right choice.
"My secret."
Above them the four remaining Nephilim stood atop the mountain looking down on them. A blade of red light tearing through the air to take his head. Even as John caught and shattered it casually before it reached him. It was like they weren't even going to negotiate as he looked around.
At himself who was utterly spotless and unharmed.
At Eta and John who were watching him calmly without a hint of panic or concern.
At Violet, the giant tower of flesh and corpses that was all that remained of their followers. A monument to humanities sins and a monstrous effigy in defiance of common decency.
Calmly he collected himself. "Violet release the mortals."
The tower came crashing down a torrent of rotting flesh spreading out in every direction. The lost and the broken, the wretched and the abandoned as he solemnly gathered his power and gazed over them. Slime wrapping around him for a single second as he condensed his power into a single overwhelming surge. "Atomic recovery."
Because now they were just normal possessed. The tide of magic ripping through their bodies and rejuvenating the rotten flesh in moments. The tide of rotting flesh changing back into something fully human as his magic flowed through and made them whole.
The last of it reaching back around as he pulled out some of the extraneous flesh and pulled it back into a new body for Violet herself. His eyes averted upwards as it took form for a brief moment. "Even though we are victorious, it seems some people are unable to appreciate my brilliance."
Eta raised her fingers in a v even as he sent one back. "Only we understand you best."
"But there is no time to make excuses to them while our true quarry escapes. As much as I would like to revel in our victory it is time for us to exit stage left."
He casually ignored the traumatised expressions, the horror and the fear that defined the eyes of those they'd 'saved.' His eyes aiming into the distance where Ghost Eta and Yellow had turned tail to flee into the distance.
AN: John. John I wondered at many points whether I was being too unsubtle with the fact that the immortal dog monster was secretly John. From Cid telling the JSDF the solution to it was to make it your pet. The fact that it was called Hachiko (After the famous dog that kept going to meet its owner after he died) and the fact that it kept on stopping outside Cids house. Yes the dog staying on the mountain with Akane is Cids dog all along. Ah well I never know when I'm being too subtle or too unsubtle so we shall just accept it is as it is.
Well, I am using Ouranos for Eta's ancestor for the moment as I can't find the official one. But I probably won't change it even when such a name appears now because the one I chose perfectly keeps a reference to the number and combines it with a Greek reference that matches well with the older Knights of the Rounds.
Well next chapter is the finale of this arc… so besides the truly obvious answer everyone knows who else will turn up next chapter. Well in a way many of you have been expecting his arrival since the arc started. Well perhaps that is a more meta-answer and the answer is only obvious to me.
BetweenIandgirl: Honestly a bit confusing might well be true. Both because this arc was written over such a long time frame in real life, and also because I am too close to the mysteries in this arc knowing the answers to them to be able to tell how well they come across to people who don't know the answers.
Alas as a solo writer I have no solution. All I can do is:
Answer questions posed in pms and reviews. Whether about the underlying mysteries in the magic system I have built, or plot developments etc.
Aniisomeone: I promise to get back to labcoats in the next interlude which of course starts after next chapter. Because Eta and Cid get some labwork time after that at least in my current plan.
Fateful Twilight: At least not as long this time. Your analysis remains good as always.