He munched down on his burger as they walked, the quiet steps of Cid slipping away to the confident swagger of Shadow as he ruled the whole world under his gaze on their way. Humming along as the two of them marched along to the arena. He had promised Alpha a meal and it seemed she had something to ask him.
"Cid." The question came and because she was worked up over it, he might as well listen for real. "Do you think the Black Rose would be better able to support you than we are?"
Complete nonsense, because the Order of the Black Rose was him and Beatrix operating out of Rose's attic. It would be like trading in his entire friendship group for some stranger he'd met by the side of the road. "No matter what Shadow belongs in Shadow Garden. That you all still follow me after all these years is a blessing of course."
She looked away for a bit, working up her courage for what she wanted to say so he waited. "If there comes a time where we aren't enough to support you, I don't want you to get in over your head."
"If there would ever come a time, I would be sure to bring you as well. We've been a team for a long time now, haven't we?" It would be a dramatic moment where at the punchline was that Azrael would take off his mask and reveal himself as Shadow all along. "Consider it a matter of trust that I know you will catch me if I fall, and that Azrael would not do so. But also consider it friendship because I enjoy my time with you all. No matter what I want to come back when it's all over even if there was no cult to fight." And then he'd make up a new game to play with them all.
"I'd like that as well." She stepped closer to him as they walked, matching his stride to walk alongside him for a while. "Azrael how you like us to treat him and his forces going forward then?"
"He is someone who drank the blood of demons, and who knows what he will justify to himself in the future. There is a reason to keep tabs on him, and against our common foe we should fight together. But I wouldn't trust a country in his hands or anything he'd destroy it in short order." Yes, this would give him some leeway for what was to come next, while still letting him keep them in his good graces.
She muttered something under her breath but after that a smile returned to her face and so they continued on their way. She'd wanted him to give her a personal update and given he was going to get a big scene running at the end of this wasn't it only natural to want to show it off.
So even as they made their way into the stadium, he let his magic reach out to the box he knew team evil used and confirmed it. Gaunt was still there and Mordred… Mordred had left before the final match.
Well in a way it was normal as Fenrir and Mundane Mann were intending to take the centre stage. Mordred had left only a shadow behind as a permanent construct of magic to watch over the battle while his real body had retreated elsewhere.
So only Gaunt remained truly inside the box watching over the battlefield. He pointed it out to Alpha with a grin, "That is the box seats reserved for the Rounds that Perv arranged at the beginning. They originally had three seats prepared to intervene but with Surtr's defeat yesterday and the Demon Kings retreat only Sir Gaunt remains inside."
"Is that what you've been working on while taking part in the tournament?"
He grinned. "The true match is not just on the battlefield but in the minds of those taking part, these last few days have been spent breaking their resolve and fostering the divisions that already existed between them before we were ready to make our move."
Alpha looked confused back at him so he explained further. "Fenrir and Mordred are like fire and water if you look closely."
"You can see it in the countries they rule." He tapped his fingers and grinned as he came up with some good lore. "Orianna is a static place their knights dragged low and any thought of violence seen as a break from the status quo. It is because the Demon King loves control and to feel as though everything goes as planned. Fenrir is different he built a kingdom of warfare and violence with bandits roaming every corner of it. An endless rebellion he can indulge his vices in crushing to his hearts content, but that is why he is weak here."
"The more you let Fenrir run wild the less his friends will support him and now he stands almost alone on the battlefield."
She nodded back in understanding; well she always had been quick on the uptake. "The Demon King knows to fear you while Fenrir can't quite fathom that he should."
As good a take as any of them.
Well, it still wasn't quite time to start, he would have to take a step out for his own couple of matches and wait to fight Fenrir until the final round. Still the names of who was on first eluded him as he looked around for it as… Okay that might not be such a good thing.
Fenrir wouldn't kill Rose and ruin his plans for an Orianna civil war now, would he? He thought about it for a moment, considered Fenrir's personal kind of showmanship presented with the chance to kill a princess in broad daylight and knew the answer.
He tapped his fingers lightly on the handrest for his seat. The tournament was important but not because he wanted to win. He was only here for the epic fights and the drama, so it wasn't like he cared about getting disqualified. Everything was prepared and he was just going to set things off early Gaunt would understand.
"Alpha is everything ready for me to set off the signal." All they were going to be doing was having the staff hide inside Mitsugoshi while the worst of the chaos erupted so it shouldn't take that long to plan out.
"Of course, we are only waiting on your orders for when to strike." She was as diligent as always.
He pulled Mundane Manns face from his pocket and slipped into the breastplate hidden by the seat. "The enemy expects me at the final and yet here we stand already prepared. It is always advantageous to steal the initiative in these things."
He fired himself from his seat at full speed to come crashing down in the arena even as the two contestants had barely stepped out a light drawl coming from Mundane Mann at the height of his power. "For the Midgar Devil to waste time fighting children, how the mighty have fallen."
With a hand behind his body he gave Rose a sign, one he'd made for Azrael to tell her to back off. Even as he began pacing around the arena, Fenrir fell into step across from him, the two of them circling each other on the battlefield.
"I haven't been called that in a long time but what of it? I will kill who I want otherwise I'd just end up bored. But now that the main course has arrived how could I bother with her when I can fight a real battle." Between one step and the next Fenrir changed the childlike body growing even as his muscles withered until it was an old man standing across from him. "Just like you for we're both ruled by our bloodlust in the end."
A figure touched down across from them and in a flick he'd swung carving a trench past them, even as Fenrir let his own bloodlust roll out across the battlefield. "You still chose to kill my knights when you could have just toyed with them. Do you think I will let you rampage as you like in my kingdom?"
Fenrir grinned back. "What drivel you don't even bother to remember their names, even your most trusted subordinates are just numbers. One, two, three, four so you can count them off without a thought."
"We have both given much to walk this path." He stopped staring across the divide eyeing the man across from him. It wasn't a lie because the battlefield had come first. That same feeling of being covered in blood as the Stylish Bandit Slayer was how he'd begun and whether as Shadow or Nyarlathotep or Azrael he'd never left it behind. "To walk the path of carnage and slaughter until no one can oppose you we're both like that aren't we."
"Do you really think that is all there is to things." Because he had something much cooler than just mindless slaughter on his mind. He was intrigue and skullduggery mixed in with the kind of presentation that made one a proper mastermind. He was cool. "A man must have more than strength if he is to command attention."
"Do you tell yourself that to make you feel better?" Fenrir stopped across from him. "We both know you're here for the same reason I am. A battle to get our blood boiling and push our limits one step higher, the thrill of the fight is everything." Fenrir's jacket bulged and tore a mass of rotting flesh and screaming muscle erupting out of it into the form of a sword. "That is why I made this blade, it is why you have stopped skulking in the shadows. Let us fight to our hearts content."
"Skulking?" He let the word draw out as he grinned back at his foe, a single hand swinging round as he released a single spark of magic up into the sky where it exploded. A simple enough signal that could be seen for miles.
The Mist Dragon had something impressive up his sleeve for their entrance, now just to wait and see what it was.
The sky darkened in moments as a roiling cloud swallowed the world, the last glimpses of light fading away beneath a sky of magic and power that seethed across the sky. The rumbling presence not quite enough to hide the roar as his friend announced to all his arrival.
Slime spread out across the lengths of his flesh, binding to himself and his armour alike in a semblance of his normal slime suit. The slime scraping away the rust on his breastplate to show the image of a dragon, white and silver-blue resplendent on the front of it.
"Welcome to my Kingdom of Shadows, are you so ignorant as to not know my name."
"You had the Dragon the entire time to think the Shadow King of Midgar dares show his face again." Fenrir grinned even as he readied the blade on his arm. "I'll bury you and your fossil here today it seems."
Fenrir swung the mutated blade on his right arm and it grew forth and split as it raced towards him.
Two blades crashed forward expanding as much as swinging even as the path in front was easy enough to see. A step forward at the right moment had one pass through on his left even as his blade deflected the second to his right and he was between them.
It was only the start, so he'd play Fenrir's game letting himself fall into an easy advance, even as the trick came into being behind him. But he had eyes on the back of his head even as the two scythes roared back along the same track. One for the back of his neck, the other to take his leg and a third blade forming in Fenrir's hand if he turned to track them with his eyes.
A single droplet of slime carrying a magic blade fired forward, even as he pulled his legs up and tucked his head down letting the blades pass around him. Fenrir had blocked the droplet of course but too late to advance and by the time he was ready he'd reset his stance and jaunty little wave at his opponent as he laughed.
Fenrir swung again, three blades scythed in from different angles, the swords extending and chasing him to cover all possible retreats. He gave ground and they followed past a second droplet of slime hanging in midair.
It erupted into a blade of magic biting into the soft unreinforced flesh of the tentacles at their base. The three tentacle blades falling limply to his feet even as he watched for the response. It wouldn't be a half decent weapon if this was all it could do. Fenrir did not disappoint new swords immediately jutting forth even as the mass of rotting flesh extended over his shoulders and reached down towards the other arm. Leaving both arms with two tentacles and one hand holding a blade.
"Are you really using a weapon you've barely trained to fight me, I'm disappointed in you."
Fenrir shrugged back with his own grin. "I can hardly train it against bandits who only know how to die now can I." The assault renewed itself as both arms swung two tentacles and he danced forward through them, closing the gap even as the two swords in Fenrir's hands rocketed forward. The first feint that he'd go low morphing into a second feint aimed for the head.
The third true strike was his cloak, the slime therein hardening and rocketing forward beneath Fenrir's field of view into the chest. "First blood."
Strength beyond reason answered him as Fenrir threw him back. Even as the tentacles returned. Four blades rocketing back to bisect him even in midair. But his hidden trick was gone so there was no point in hiding it further, the cloak carving out into tentacles of his own and slashing them away. "If you based your weapon on my own why are you so surprised I can pull the same tricks you do."
Fenrir eyed the blood flowing freely from his stomach dabbing at it faintly. "It is a good feeling, only in a real battle can we feel alive."
"I guess you'll have to cut me so I can find out." The rotting flesh of his blade grasping its way downwards towards the wound, even as it hardened into chitinous plates of black armour as it swamped over his torso. "If you could make it armour like that you should have done so from the beginning."
Fenrir shrugged. "It seems I need more work on it to get that trick up to par." The two tentacles pulled back inside the sword even as he extended a single blade from each arm. "But as you wish for it so much I will fight as I trained, I am a swordsman foremost as you understand."
Then he'd just crush him at his own game, even as the first lunge came his own sword tracing it lightly through the air, the measure as close as he could make it so the moment it passed he stepped forward his own lunge ready to score second blood.
He felt as much as saw the buildup of magic, a prickling up his spine. Fenrir's sword leaking an insane amount of sparks, even as he stepped in the magic was building on the wrong side of the sword.
He abandoned his swing sword crashing up even as the flame ignited and Fenrir's sword rocketed back, an overwhelming flash of fire and thunder crashing into and through his guard as he let himself be flung backwards.
One foot back on the ground as it crashed past again like a rocket barrelling into his half-formed guard and sending him flying backwards again.
He laughed even as he felt himself crash backwards. As a trick it was wasteful, mana inefficient stressed the body beyond normal limits. A single slime blade dug into the ground to give him traction and arrest his spin. The three others swung up to meet the shining blade in Fenrir's hand rocketing forward.
The sudden influx of mana tore the extra slime limbs to pieces, the liquid splattering inertly off to the side as he marvelled at it. Because who cared if a technique hurt, or if you couldn't keep it up for five minutes.
If it killed the other side in one it was worth it.
He casually flicked a droplet of slime up watching Fenrir's advance the both of them watching it rise even as Fenrir bulled through. A single appendage growing from his back to counter the sword raining down even the sparks gathered around him once more. Fuel ready to ignite and blast him forwards.
But he'd left another trace in the ground when he'd caught himself, a buffet of wind blasting upwards and scattering the sparks before they ignited. He tore forward grinning stepping on the broken tendrils as they became a spear running along beside him thrown forward to block the left blade. His own sword flicking up to match the right.
And he stomped the ground pouring magic into a puddle of inert slime as it scythed up through Fenrir's foot mangling it. His next step pulled him back out of reach, and he saw Fenrir wince as he put weight on the damaged limb. Well now it was just a matter of how the execution went forward.
But even as the blood flowed the weapon wrapped around Fenrir poured down to meet it, growing even faster than before as it spread up and down his body until he was fully covered. At last the mass grew up past Fenrir's head, a second skull of darkness and shadow forming from the tendrils above it and hanging over, even as the flesh around his wound suddenly bulged outwards.
The air changed, the stench or rot that had hung over everything increasing a hundred fold even as he shifted his own body to hide the feeling to wretch. A mist like miasma flowing outwards from Fenrir even as it began to flood the arena around them. The wisps bounced harmlessly off against his suit even as the second head lowered to meet his gaze.
"It seems you have been consumed by your inner demon." Fenrir's face had gone blank and unfocused as only the higher head newly formed still moved. The features within growing more defined even as its limbs grew as Fenrir was swallowed up within it.
The segmented pitch black flesh and claws rising out of it triggering the memory as it grew into another monster like the one at the Sanctum. Just this one was no shade of a memory but the full might of a monster stepping out into reality. "It seems we meet again."
Its head swivelled round to gaze at him, a deep voice booming out in response. "Such a shame I don't remember you."
"You won't have that problem for long." It answered with a swing larger and more massive than anything. The air screeching around it as it tore up the ground where he'd been standing, even as he came to rest on it calmly looking back. "Is that all?"
Its body turned to vines as a thousand sharp blades tore themselves free and raced towards him, a twisting path of destruction leaving no room for evasion. But it seemed like it was time and all he had to do was look back and smile.
Fire poured from the sky in answer as the Mist Dragon arrived, a torrent of flames that crashed down and vaporised the entire forest and he stood on the precipice watching down at the conflagration. Except it wasn't dead, even after being unprepared the flesh in the centre of its core springing back into existence as more mud poured forth. The head keeping its gaze on the Mist dragon and ignoring him entirely. "Albion then, I guess this is your latest contractor."
"Maggot king your spoiled stench still plagues the world."
It spread its arms with a hint of glee. "When the stars grow cold, and all hope dies I shall still stand there just to mock you in your denial. But I suppose I can watch as you annihilate this city just to destroy one avatar, it will amuse me to ruin everything you fight for."
The dragon paused and grinned. "Can you force such a thing, or do you just forget that I am here."
Shadow tested both of his legs and he still felt fine, so if he was being left out of the banter he just needed to steal back the scene. Letting a sliver of his suit loop itself into wires as he lowered himself and grinned.
It was true neither of them could go all out here in the arena and it had survived the dragons breath attack, but what of it. And since the Mist Dragon was buying him time the least he could do was make a good entrance.
One loop around each leg and he yanked tearing through the flesh as its legs gave way under it.
The moment it fell the dragon lunged, a torrent of magic and flame tearing through the sea of vines that tried to stop it as one massive claw crashed down and pulped the arm magic burning it away. "You think to fight with only half formed limbs have you forgotten our last battle."
Still the second limb swung round aiming for the Mist dragons wings, reaching up to tear the more fragile flesh therein. But he was already there a sword happily extended as he let it flash through magic pulsing through its edge as it fell short. "Going up."
"We are." The mist dragon grasped on to the mass of vines and launched itself upwards wings beating against the air around them, even as his own slime tore at every limb that tried to restrain them. If they couldn't kill it in the city they just needed to leave it behind.
The demon's limbs shrank as it twisted wrenching itself free of the dragons grasp. The two bodies falling away from each other for a moment, before he morphed his slime suit extending almost the entirety of it that remained into a series of chains. Wrapping around it's limbs and dragging it back up alongside them. "These chains have never been broken come let me teach you the meaning of futility."
The second head made of darkness twitched at his words, the voids where eyes would be directed towards him even as it grew a second and third pair of arms reaching out with blades of their own. It would be futile from such a position there was no way his chains could be broken.
It cut off its own limbs instead.
The majority of its mass slowing even as his chains carried the severed limbs up to his own vantage point. He dismissed them letting the chains vanish even as he launched himself down though because they were high enough into the sky already.
The city itself merely a series of lights far below them like ants beneath him.
The pitch-black mass ignored him even as it split in two one half containing the core of its being as it continued to generate more mass, the other half forming a shield between it and the Mist Dragon. He let his cloak billow around him, the surface expanding as it slowed his descent as he appeared beneath it. Hanging in the emptiness as he let his own magic run riot as it collapsed into a single point on his finger, an overwhelming force of power which nothing could hope to withstand held within his grasp.
With only the sky behind it he was free to let loose and tear the world asunder as he lined up a single spark of magic and poured everything into it. "I am atomic."
The world thundered around him as a force beyond reckoning crashed forth into existence and the darkened sky shone once more as the mass evaporated before his might.
In its wake the sky above was broken the mist covering the sun breaking as the true sun looked back and he fell. The shield half stood stark against the daylight even as it twisted trying to fuel some semblance of form, but the magic was gone its reserves no longer endless as every move caused it to dissipate more.
But that was a matter of hours not minutes and it could still cause a catastrophe in that time.
The Mist Dragon answered for him its claws out as it dived down on the blob and dragging it away even as the flames of its breath burned into it. The pallid strikes without its source of power helpless against the flesh of a dragon.
He leaned back content to fall confident it was already taken care of. Well after pouring out that much he only had fumes left to watch around him anyway as he took stock of what was left. And then he pulled back into a ready stance because it seemed he wasn't done quite yet.
Fenrir was falling in the distance his body free of the mass that had overcome him. A new blade red and longer than he was tall in hand. With one glance they both understood there was no turning back even as he pulled the last dregs of his mana back to the fore, preparing to cushion his fall.
He hit, bent and advanced in one smooth motion, firing himself forward even as he pulled on the fumes keeping him going. Fenrir had his new blade pulling round the sparks already forming around it ready to ignite. He wouldn't keep up with the speed, but the new blade was only a mortal sword.
He drew down and thickened his own blade, turning it into a shorter and jagged form. Hardening it as much as he could for a single moment as Fenrir's blade came down with the force of a mountain. His improvised swordbreaker slammed upwards and shattered it.
The fist crashed into his stern the magic infused into it vibrating as the last of his slime suit burst across the ground around them, the breastplate on his chest cracking inwards to collapse his chest.
A soundless laugh and his own hands crashed down on Fenrir's elbow shattering it and leaving the limp arm hanging loosely at the mans side. Not enough slime for a sword his hand flew to the blade he'd had for Mundane Mann, half drawn even as the shattered red blade came crashing down for his head.
He rammed his left arm up into it to catch it, magic pulsing through his spilled blood as Fenrir tried to make it explode outwards. But it was within his body and he let the magic fill his blood even as it tried to burst out, carving it into a one last magic attack in preparation.
His own sword swung up too slow to kill, but enough that Fenrir would move, tearing the blade free of his own mangled arm as he stepped back to find space.
Cid drove the spike made from his own broken arm and blood forward through the gap and into Fenrir's throat, heaving as his own barely working chest gave out on him even as the man seemed almost confused as he staggered back.
"I had fun."
Fenrir coughed up blood in response. His hand reaching for the blade in his throat as he paused and gave one final smile as he collapsed.
It was his victory then, as he took one step forward even as the world spun around him. His own body betraying him as he fell.
Into her arms.
Alpha caught him, cradling the broken body in her arms in shock for a moment. She breathed in, and out looking back into the city. Theta was the best at medical work, Eta was the best at magic in general and between the two of them they would be able to keep him alive at least.
Beside her Zeta had already removed Fenrir's head, the corpse left to rot as they departed.
They had a waystation set up near the Bushin arena in anticipation there would be injuries, it hadn't been made with the intention of treating Shadow but then they had never planned for that. It would be where to take him as she fired herself down the path towards it.
Beside them a misshapen mass of four limbs pulsated as it began pulling itself back together. It lacked the sheer power of the demon that had come before but even as they passed it began rolling after them.
"Zeta." Her friend didn't hesitate at all, slipping from formation as her suit expanded into a barrage of weapons that tore through the streets even as it gained speed bouncing after them. Tendrils drilling off of it for a moment to intercept each blade.
She wouldn't let go of Cid, needed to come up with something. Something that wouldn't jostle him in his injured state any more than she had to. The question was taken from her though.
Because Delta slammed through the sphere like a cannon sending it crashing into the building on the side of the street. And before it could recover, she was gone.
Their little medical tent was almost empty, still she moved as quickly as she could setting him down on a bed and well Theta was already taking him out of her care in seconds. Running through any number of tests to get him stable.
She looked out across the city still in the throes of chaos, at the rumbling in the distance as the monster thrashed around against Delta and Zeta and at everything she could still do. As long as she took just one more step forward. "I'm leaving Shadow's body into your care and heading off to fight for his dream."
She was gone before she could hear their response, because she knew and trusted them. Letting the crisis she couldn't change fall to the back of her mind as she took one step back into the fray.
Returning to the field the mass was still fighting, splitting limbs like spikes as Zeta and Delta bounced around it without a care in the world. Even as Epsilon stood at a distance weaving a number of blades at range to tear off its most extended limbs. "It's contained at least."
Epsilon nodded her head and spoke. "Its burning off a limited amount of mana and can't seem to regenerate, it's getting smaller. It's trying to eat people but we're not sure if that will let it regenerate or if it's just killing on instinct."
She nodded in understanding. "And it's better if we don't end up finding out." She let a trace of magic form from a droplet of slime on the end of her sword, launching it forward to carve a hole through the flesh of the creature.
There were more knights piling into the area, the war goddess Beatrix, Princess Iris and it would be difficult to stop them from getting in the way. Perhaps more so to try and get them to follow orders, Still Iris at least knew her and could see what was going on. "We have things under control here if you could leave it to us."
"You think you have me under control, how quaint. But I would rather finish before Albion returns." The shadows pulled back into itself taking the form of a man. The fragment tilted its head as it watched them before a mouth opened laughing. "To think so the descendants of heroes would rise again to try and foil me now. But this game has gone on longer than you know, and all mortals can only dance on the palm of my hand." A single hand was raised snapping its fingers.
On the far side Iris and Beatrix began to shift their flesh bubbling up with the symptoms of possession, the stench of rot bursting free even as the rest of them gripped their swords. "For I have cursed them all as… why aren't the rest of you changing?"
The effect looked like the possession yet faster. The degree of change transpiring in seconds equivalent to days while under the curse as normal. But then Shadow had declared them cured, and she wasn't about to explain how much that meant to the enemy.
"You were all supposed to change when I did that." The thing locked eyes with her but never let its smirk waver. "Although it doesn't matter in the end for it is just one trick, I have more you see. And even just these two will be enough to grant me victory."
The Beatrix possessed moved, a hand reaching out and Iris stopped changing. Even as her own form took a more solid appearance. Light blonde hair shifting to black as the night and a woman stepped forth from it. "Boo." Violet stood behind him a look of disgust etched into her face as she faced the creature.
"You." It laughed in response. "I guess you aren't here to throw yourself into my arms and apologise for your intransigence."
"I don't think so isn't it only fair to watch you lose for once in your life."
"Such an ungrateful wretch you are my daughter, I suppose this is all your doing then that I cannot touch the curse on them. Do you think it makes you free of my touch? It just means I'll make your next punishment worse." The monster reached out a hand of darkness towards Violet.
A step back and Violet's magic flared around her, lashing out at everything nearby. "I don't think you could."
"I will, whether it takes a day or a century I will see you suffer for this disobedience. I promise."
Alpha swung her sword, the droplet of power on the tip flying forwards as it burned a path through the back its head to shut it up. "Burn."
A dozen exploding knives followed afterwards, the air flickered and carved it in twain and still it tried to pull back those last few fragments as it struggled to get more words out. "I am inevitable, and I will re."
"Atomic." Light poured into the world in a line of devastation through the space where it had been. A momentary destruction that left nothing in its wake.
Violet standing at the other end looked down at her fingers. "I don't think I did that right; it wasn't as much power as when he did it." She shrank as all gazes turned back to her an awkward expression on her face before she martialled herself, a look of composure coming over her. "Well, it seems you all know who I am now that I've appeared like this."
Alpha sheathed her sword again ignoring it. There was a time for blades, and a time to put them down and Cid had already told her which one this fell under. Now just to hope the rest followed her lead. "You are on our side, Shadow has already said that much and it is enough."
She let her eyes flick towards the other shades present hoping they would side with her on this. Because she didn't actually have a good quote for it and even she felt her appeal to them to acknowledge a demon at this point was weak.
Epsilon spoke up. "It is the nature of Shadow Garden that we can use magic to overcome something as trivial as reality, it's only something like nature so it can be done away with."
Zeta spoke. "We hunt those humans who have fallen to the path of the demon, and just as they fall, we are allowed to see a demon rise to the path of humanity."
Soon enough the other Shadow Garden members had sheathed their swords as well, and with that no one else could dare to raise their blades. Maybe that was to be expected. Nearly everyone here had been a possessed once. The feeling of being abandoned by one's parents and called a monster hadn't been true then. It wasn't true now.
"When you are ready to talk about it you can, until then we will do as we were taught." And right now that meant conquering Midgar by the time Cid got around to waking up just as he'd planned for them.
Another Omake from Bluye – an expanded version of a scene from this chapter now in its final home
As Fenrir staggered back, drawing his last few breaths. Shadow too could feel bleariness muddle his mind and sight. But even through his foggy mind, something seared through every cell of his dull, aching body. His heart raced, pumping blood into his wounds but also out of something else.
What was this feeling? Was it pain? No, he knew what pain felt. He has felt it before. This was something different. Was it fear? That the chance of defeat was so very real? No, he'd faced that so many times in his previous world. This was nothing like it.
He and Fenrir crossed eyes, and in that moment as Fenrir conveyed everything through the window to his soul. Pain giving way to quiet, dull aches. Adrenaline dying as his body gave out. And most of all... satisfaction.
Ah, that was it. This feeling was... excitement. It had been so long. Had he ever experienced this level of intensity since that moment? When he had seen that eminence in shadow for the first time on television?
The pain of his broken arm no longer registered in his mind, overshadowed by the immense joy he had felt the entire battle. Not once since his reincarnation into this world, not once even in his previous world, had he ever felt the adrenaline surging through his body as much as it did at this very moment.
His consciousness would be measured in seconds. There was no time to convey everything. So he settled with...
"I had fun."
Fenrir met him with one last smile. 'Me too,' he could hear.
'You were a magnificent opponent, Fenrir,' he wanted to say.
He wanted to say it all. The pain in his body, the dull ache in his organs, and the sheer ecstasy he felt gushing throughout his body at this moment...
'I shall never forget you for as long as I live.'
Then, the world spun. And he fell. Into Alpha's arms.
AN: Ah fun chapter to write at least, I hope the climax to this arc came out well for everyone.
Probably the longest fight scene I have ever written, but I do truly love my fight scenes. It goes out now to die on the sands, I shall see how it fared after I wake up again. When I have the mental capacity to do things other than wonder if it needs more line breaks in it.
Apathetian: Welcome back. Twas in the era of no stats so not sure how many other readers went at the time. But alas M gives me more freedom for some of my darker scenes and I think I needed that.
InstructionsBear: Put on chapter 3, but in short I changed the rating to M, which removes it from the standard filter settings is probably the reason why.
Lezarth: Stories run on the strength of conflict, and watching an epic level character school on mobs is no fun at all. This lets me have fun playing them off as best friends, worthy enemies and rivals all in the same scene which is great fun for me to write. So its certainly my best choice.
Anisomeone: My intent at the moment is to race past the end of canon and keep going. Like all things fanfiction related that is a way in the future and subject to real life but I'd like to try.
But I have plans including the fact that I have been filling in some of the empty spaces for the Rounds, with two of them planned to get a proper introduction in the epilogue. It probably means I won't be including anything from novels that are not currently published but well they'll have to come out before I say more on that.
I won't be following the rails entirely and the next arc is Orianna and not vampires for all sorts of reasons. Mostly the fact that I have somewhat already set fire to the rails and there is no point trying to push the train back onto such stations when they don't fit.
Likewise, people can probably guess any play on the Right arm under Midgar academy won't be done by Fenrir, with him being dead now and all.