Creation began on 09-24-21
Creation ended on 11-02-21
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Grimoire of Evangelion: The Path to Zagred
A/N: They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but I believe the road to Heaven can be paved with good intentions if the person that paves them does so without wanting anything in return for their services.
It was a revelation that was unexpected. Impossible, hard to believe, difficult to accept or just outright insane. Hearing and seeing the revelation explained by Patolli, most of the Magic Knights present were told that they were serving as hosts for the suspended elf spirits that Patolli had aimed to resurrect through the use of the magic stones…and that Rika was there to revive the elves in their own bodies by separating the souls from the people they were residing inside of. There was disbelief, denial and a desire to understand why this was so.
Shinji looked at Gauche and Marie, now aware that they were hosts to a pair of elf spirits that had been slain by a devil over a millennium ago, and was worried for them. He worried for them, for Luck, even his grandmother, who was here to help the Elf Tribe by recreating their lost bodies for their souls. It was an amazing sight to see Rika be able to perform magic of such an extreme feat. It almost seemed like something out of a science-fiction film or a horror film, but Rika was able to perform the magic in a way that made it seem like she was creating living art, not monsters or inhuman nightmares.
Suki had never seen this side of her mother that was quite a powerful side, this lovely, peace-seeking, magic-wielding witch that was creating a dozen or so elf bodies in front of the next batch of Magic Knights that were glowing as the elf souls were removed from them. It was like looking at a immortal goddess or ethereal princess that brought miracles with her wherever she went, changing people's lives.
This Ikari is ruining everything! A voice, malice and hatred laced in its tone, uttered in her mind.
"Did any of you hear someone talking just now?" Shinji asked his aunt, squad mates and Marie.
"I heard an angry voice," went Marie in response. "I've never heard such a voice before."
"Same here," Luck added. "It said that one of you was ruining things (he pointed to Shinji and Suki), like there was something that isn't supposed to happen."
"I believe the voice was actually referring to my mother," Suki revealed her opinion. "Could it be the devil we're looking for?"
"Yes," went Guardian. "The devil is here, hiding among the people yet to have their elf spirits separated from them."
As ten mages walked away after having their elf spirits removed and incarnated within their created bodies, another ten mages approached Rika and knelt before her and the Wizard King.
Guardian noticed how one of the mages was one of the Golden Dawn members that possessed the grimoire with the four-leaf clover. As there were only three people currently in the Clover Kingdom that possessed four-leaf clover grimoires, and two of them were beside Shinji and himself, this was undoubtedly the orphan boy he understood was known as Yuno. Guardian had to suspect that this boy's degree of magic, despite being an orphan that most believed was descended from commoners elsewhere, had nothing to do with the everyday people that made up the majority of the Clover Kingdom. Even from just a distance (and along with what he learned from Asta and Tenshi regarding the young man), he could tell that the Wind Magic Knight of the Golden Dawn…was unusually strong. Not so similar to the strength level of the commoner Rades Spirito, but nearly exceeding the level of the majority of the squad's elitist members.
I'd have to have an extended conversation with this young man, but he may not have an ounce of commoner blood in his veins, thought Guardian as he saw Rika perform her magic to create the elf bodies of the slain spirits residing within the mages before pulling them out and channeling them into their revived states of being. What is this here?
As Rika pulled the elf spirits out of the Magic Knights, she detected an unusual issue with one of the recreated elf bodies behind herself. It was matching up with the soul within the Golden Dawn boy she heard possessed a four-leaf clover grimoire and was quite the gifted mage. Seeing the soul get funneled into the elf body to give it its shape and identity, she noticed how Patolli seemed confused by this.
"That's something you wouldn't see, even on the rarest of days," she expressed when the transfer was completed, seeing that one of the elves revived from death…was just a newborn. "Did anyone back then have any children that I overlooked, Patolli of the Light?"
"Nobody except Licht and Tetia were having children at the time," Patolli revealed to her. "Everyone back then was either around my age or all grown up."
"Then…this must be Licht's child."
Patolli came over and picked up the revived infant wrapped in white cloth.
"Yes, he is," he confirmed. "But where is Licht?"
"I don't plan to stop until all of you have revived and the devil responsible has been apprehended and dealt with," Rika swore, meaning every word of it.
As she was reviving the elves and setting free those that were unwitting vessels to them, watching from a distance, Damnatio watched with some measure of fascination and contempt as the matriarch of House Ikari was committing what he perceived to be an injustice and a crime against natural law. But, as this was a woman that clearly had the good graces of the Wizard King (and, more or less, had gone to him for permission to perform this service and was the only one knowledgeable on the elves and the magic stones), he couldn't do anything to express his disgust towards the woman or her family for having a wide range of magical abilities that had no limit. All he could do was watch and wait for something to happen.
"Scales unbalanced, sir?" He looked to his left and saw the creature that was associated with the Ikaris, standing beside him.
"What are you doing here?" Damnatio demanded of him.
"The same as the Magic Knights being released from the dark workings of the devil that orchestrated the massacre of the elves," he answered him, albeit cryptically. "I want to banish the devil that caused them pain and suffering. Once that has been dealt with, there will be time to be spent on dealing with my greatest foe."
"Harbinger. Do you honestly believe that this Harbinger can be dealt with by the Magic Knights? They have yet to face a devil, and from what has been learned from less than a handful of Spade Kingdom refugees, this Dark Triad had three devils…and they still fell."
"They fell because Harbinger was beyond their power, both individually and as a whole. You can't fight evil with evil…or a perverse form of righteousness."
"I'm certain that if I faced this Harbinger, I'd be able to do away with him."
"That's pride, not belief or conviction. And there is more to defeating Harbinger than having the most magic or being in a position of power or authoritarian influence."
"You locked him in this Void place long ago."
"Not alone. To do so alone is not an easy feat to achieve…and not one any should attempt, no matter how strong they seem."
"Why do you align with these Ikaris? What do you see in them?"
"It's hardly what is or can be seen. It's not a matter of what is or can be seen or heard. I value House Ikari. Is there anyone in life that you value?"
"I don't have the time for relationships involving trust and values."
"And why is that?"
"Justice never rests. To ensure order, the wicked must be hunted down and removed."
Guardian sighs and expresses, "That's a pitiful way to live. And by 'pitiful', I mean any life that deals in what you humans refer to as politics when you put it above all else."
"I take it you don't have a clue as to how politics work around a country, do you?" Damnatio asked him.
"Even if you were to give me a basic lesson, I would care nothing for them. I'm all for order and balance, but if there's no trust, no benefit of the doubt, no second opinions, no willingness to look the other way for even the most forgivable of crimes, how can there be peace and freedom in any country or domain?"
Damnatio got the impression that Guardian was not a creature versed in the way of the nobility, despite his affiliation with a noble family. It made him assume that this creature was exactly as he heard from old stories associated with the Ikari family; Guardian was so interwoven into their history that he made their beliefs his own.
"Guardian?" He heard a voice speak up, and saw the youngest member of House Ikari coming over. "What are you doing over here?"
"Curiosity," the Anti Magic creature replied, bowing its head to him. "I must confess that I have yet to meet nobles from other parts of the Clover Kingdom that are not…all about business."
"Oh… That's rather…bothersome."
"Bothersome…and deprived of something precious."
If Damnatio had used his magic to measure Guardian's level of magic or Shinji's, he'd probably feel threatened, but he came to his own conclusion just by looking at the young man this creature served. The boy was hardly a threat, despite being a Magic Knight, simply because he chose to associate with the Black Bull…and because he faced a threat that didn't get dealt with the expected way due to his beliefs. True, he might've defeated the leader of the Eye of the Midnight Sun without killing him, but if he lacked the will to do what was necessary, then all Shinji did was delay the inevitable and leave himself and the rest of the Clover Kingdom vulnerable to attack by a stronger threat that would see that he was incapable of committing the most necessary acts of ensuring the future of the country. What use was a boy that made a conscious choice not to end his enemies?
"You demonstrate no capacity to do what is necessary," he told Shinji, getting his attention.
"Huh?" Shinji responded, confused.
"You could've finished off the leader of the Midnight Sun…but you chose not to."
"That was unnecessary."
"Not every enemy is merciful, young man."
"Not everyone is an enemy, sir."
"Also, I will never understand what you see in the squad you chose."
Shinji got the impression that this man, this Damnatio Kira…was someone he couldn't trust…and for specific reasons. There was just something about him that didn't jive with him.
"They're not perfect," he told the man. "That's why I picked them."
"You picked them because they're not perfect?"
"That's right. Good day to you."
Shinji turned to walk away now that he found Guardian; he just wanted to get away from this guy and forget about him because he got the feeling that he was not a good person. Not in the reasonable sense or the personal sense.
-x-
"…Looks like he felt weirded out by this man," said Kaji to the others as they looked at the photo of Shinji walking away from Damnatio.
"Based on his appearance," Misato expressed, not liking the guy herself, "he just gave Shinji the total creeps. Probably one of those people that do a service to the kingdom that he knows very little about."
"Or maybe Shinji just doesn't like the guy because he has a personality that doesn't match up to what he does," Asuka suggested. "It wouldn't be the first time someone met someone else that did something that made the other person uncomfortable to be around."
Rei turned to the next page and looked at a photo on the upper left, seeing Shinji's grandmother reviving more elves from the massacre, and a photo under it depicting Yui cutting a little boy open on an operating table, strapped down and muzzled.
"What is she doing to those people?" She questioned.
"Oh, jeez," went Fuyutsuki; he didn't expect Yui to go to such extremes. "This is just wrong."
"Not just wrong," Misato expressed, disgusted with Yui's behavior. "It's sick. Who does she think she is? She gets found out, they'll likely kill her."
"If she gets found out," said Gendo, looking at a photo on the lower right, depicting a dark cloud with eyes and a mouth. "What is that?"
-x-
Rika was only twenty-five Magic Knights away from finishing the reviving process when this creature appeared in front of them from out of a member of the Golden Dawn, causing him to pass out in front of everyone. And this creature was able to instill a great measure of fear in some of the people present. But Rika wasn't among those intimidated by its presence; she had been exposed to the worst before.
"You!" It uttered, male in tone and sadistic. "You're messing up everything! What gives you the right to bring the elves back to life when that was part of my plan?!"
"I take it you're the devil we're looking for?" She asked him. "You're the one that caused the massacre of the Elf Tribe?"
"What if it was me? What are you going to do about it? You're just some hag that lost most of her family to an eradication move made by others of the nobility that despised you for treating commoners like equals. Even half their descendants carry this contempt against you just for existing! I have nothing to fear from a human that knows not their limits."
Whoosh! This ancient and unusual presence had taken hold in the devil, and it looked at the cause…as it came over.
"It's those that can't imagine what someone else is capable of," said Guardian as he walked to the base of the steps, "are easily deceived by their own arrogance…and deceived further by their own fear of whom they underestimate."
"Guardian of the Void. The Anti Magic Grand Master. The Beast Born of Nothingness. You have been called many names over many generations. Some consider you immortal, others consider you the top of the primordial system that still exists, which would make you…a god, for all intents and purposes."
Guardian had a face devoid of emotion, making it hard to read him. Either this devil was speaking a truth…or spilling lies for the people to hear.
"Own up to it," the devil told him.
"I will neither confirm nor deny any of what you said," Guardian responded. "The way you address me in such a formality, however… Is that fear I detect in your voice?"
"Fear? Me? Ha! You think I'm afraid of you?! You?! You've been out of time for over two millennia, and you suddenly return because of some human brat from a menagerie of human brats that are incapable of equality to do what you always do, which is to ensure that the cruelest and most unyielding of magical beings don't run rampant in the world! You think I fear the likes of you?! That's an insult!"
Guardian tilted his head to the left as he responded, "Coming from you, that sounds like fear. And for the record, it's been close to twenty-seven-hundred years…give or take a decade or two…since I last saw humans. If there's one thing about humans that I've learned to appreciate over the centuries, it's their adaptability. Sure, they're still an eternity away from an existence where everyone is equal, but I break no bones about that. I'm in no rush to see them evolve too fast, too soon."
"Yeah, that's true about you. You're never in a rush to see any particular race of creatures being made to change. You prefer subtlety over acceleration. A gradual pace. How human of you. Unfortunately, your despicable admiration towards them…may end up being your undoing if you can't stick to your perception of what is to come."
"And what do you know about perception? Ever since this conversation started, I've been paying close attention to your existence…and you're powerful…but still restricted because your body isn't in this world, preventing you from fully expressing yourself."
"Eh-heh-heh! Yes, I'm aware of that, my lack of a body, but my awareness of events in their entirety…isn't as limited as yours is. Your…passion for possibilities instead of a singularity…blinds you to what is to come. That creature you locked up in the Void all that time ago that recently escaped because someone too desperate for their own good, a human, no less, like the previous time, entered into a pact with it and let it loose on the country of Spade. I think you called him…Harbinger, was it? You have no idea what's coming."
Then, the devil fled the building out through the window behind it by smashing through it, indicating that it did possess some solidity to its current, shapeless form.
"Why do they always try to run?" Guardian sighed, inhaled a new breath…and ran up the steps on all four limbs. "I apologize for the window I'm about to smash through!"
Smash! He made a bigger hole in the window as he broke out to pursue the fleeing devil, running across an adjacent roof, seeing the devil float across several rooftops away from him.
-x-
"…Well, since we're not currently possessed by elf spirits," said Tenshi to his sister and nephew, "we should go chase that devil."
"Yeah," Shinji agreed with him. "Let's get this resolved."
The three left out the building, walking around the Magic Knights that didn't move to pursue the devil, leaving Rika to continue reviving the elves.
"This Guardian of the Void," went Patolli to Rika, "do you have faith in his capabilities against this devil?"
She turned to face him and replied, "It'll take more than just Guardian to deal with this devil. Even without a body of its own, it's still dangerous until apprehended. Not as dangerous as Harbinger is, but still dangerous. I wouldn't overestimate the effectiveness of three Magic Knights with Guardian. If this devil is indeed a high-ranking one, it will take a lot of Magic Knights just to make sure it gets locked up in the Void. As much as I have faith in my own relatives, it's best to err on the cautious side."
Julius looked at the Magic Knights that had been relieved of the revived elf spirits and then back at Rika.
"Do the Magic Knights that have been relieved of the suspended elf spirits need to be evaluated before they can return to duty?" He asked her.
"No, sir. They just needed to be relieved of the elf spirits. They can return to duty right now."
And with that, the order was given: All Magic Knights relieved of their elf spirits were to return to active duty and apprehend the fleeing devil and see that it was sent into the Void. The Magic Knights still needing to be free of their elf spirits were to remain until they were.
-x-
The devil fled as fast as its form would allow it to. It could've possessed some human to hide in public, but none of the ones out and about, including these members of the nobility, were up to par with handling its dark power. They would stand out to Guardian of the Void without question, so fleeing was all it could do until it found a person strong enough to possess. But fleeing with a creature like Guardian of the Void pursuing it was anything but an easy feat; each time it thought it lost the beast that chased after it, it continued to feel its presence like a fine blade or a sharp talon…pressed against the back of its nonexistent head…threatening to claim its existence and trap it in a dark place devoid of victims to harm.
He's ancient, but I didn't think he'd still be an active creature, it thought as it looked back after floating onto a wide street. He is persistent!
Guardian, running over the rooftops adjacent to the street, continued to pursue the runaway devil.
Several blocks behind, Shinji, Suki and Tenshi followed Guardian in a transport spell of Tenshi's. Once more, it seemed that the patriarch of the family had a wider degree of magic when it came to his recollection and creativity drawn from the past sources of fiction he turned to back in Japan.
"Tenshi, you have the drive of a maniac with spells like this!" Suki told her brother as he was behind the steering wheel of a large, heavy metal vehicle based off something he had either seen in real life or in comic books (A/N: Think the Matchbox from Fire Force), surprising several residents that saw it driving across the pavement.
"Suki, no offense, but when did you become the backseat driver from Hell?" Tenshi questioned as he sped up to keep up with Guardian. "Hold on, we're about to take off."
"Take off?" Shinji asked, grateful that this spell came with seatbelts. "Oh!"
Suddenly, the ground-based vehicle started to float off the ground and into the air.
"This car flies?!" Shinji gasps.
"If you have the magic to support it," Tenshi stated.
"Where'd this ability come from?"
"Reading the second book and watching the second film in the Harry Potter series. Flying cars were done sparingly, but I saw nothing better than how they did it in The Chamber of Secrets."
Shinji looked at Suki, who shrugged her shoulders and shook her head in the negative.
"I only saw the Harry Potter films, same as you, Shinji," she expressed; she had to stop reading most books when the small print was becoming blurry to her fading perception. "I needed large print and reading glasses just to keep up with plot of each volume. It's not easy to read when your eyesight starts to fade. I was lucky just to be able to see your faces without glasses."
"Looks like Guardian is chasing the devil right out of the Capital," said Tenshi, looking at a viewing screen showing the ground below them, highlighting two different energy signatures. "Damn, Guardian can really run when he wants to."
-x-
Setting her scalpel down after surgically removing her subject's heart and lungs, Yui tore off her disposable gloves and watched them fade away; just like her personal hideaway, every piece of resource she had here was built on her magic, but detailed to her memories of how things operated, enabling her to keep the place clean. With the sole exception being her test subjects, that is.
"I'm surprised that you were willing to do what you did to that child's mother before you did what you did to him," Harbinger expressed as she walked past him.
"Everything I do is for the good of the people," she told him as she sat in a chair. "This is my comfort zone. A place of logic and order, where science is the primary understanding, not magic. And studying people, something nobody here is actually doing, not in any major sense…helps with the goal unifying all the human race."
Harbinger looked at the dead boy on the operating table that Yui killed and then back at her. While he didn't care about the deaths of any number of lives, her lack of remorse had him wondering how she was going to be able to progress in their shared goal.
"Humans that inevitably bring about harm to other humans," he uttered. "I guess what I discovered about humans in the past is as true now as it was, then."
"And that would be?" Yui asked him.
"Humans are among the handful of species capable of some form of self-hatred, able to harm each other because of some form of hate that compels them to act against themselves."
"I don't hate humans, Harbinger. I'm human, but I'm a scientist. I do what I do…because that's what scientists do. Everything I do…is to ensure a brighter future for everyone."
"Just don't forget to go out there and be around them until the promised day where our goals can be achieved. The last thing I need is for you to be suspected of something when the goal is to be inconspicuous. Even if you hate it, you must be around others to ensure that you have a reasonable alibi to avoid suspicion from anyone that seeks to discredit your absence from the world. The less people have to suspect of you, the less you become suspected of anything."
Even though he didn't want much to do with anyone outside their agenda, Harbinger had no desire to feel or be rushed into doing anything when he was not ready or fully recovered from his time locked in the Void. And with Yui, after her last encounter with Guardian, he had to wonder if Guardian was able to ascertain whether or not his own magical energies, natural and recently obtained from his strongest victims, were blended in with hers, and had to conclude that he didn't. Not yet, at least. The less he was suspicious of his new partner, the better.
"Are you positive that Guardian of the Void couldn't detect my magic within yours?" He asked her, wanting to make absolutely sure.
"Positive," she answered. "He had the nerve to say that out of the four of us that joined the Magic Knights, my son, siblings and I, I was the weakest and stunting my progression and adaptation in the art of magic."
"Well, technically, you are stunting your progression and adaptation, so he was being truthful…if not blunt. You focus your primary spells on you know of the body, blood, bone and skin, eyes, tongues and muscles. After the body comes the metallic elements that dwell in the ground. Gold, silver, mercury, copper and cobalt. Sure, you use other forms of magic, but sparingly. Very sparingly. Even Guardian of the Void would find that unusual in someone from House Ikari; there's no point in having the ability to use multiple forms of magic if you choose not to it to its fullest. But even he understands the issue of choice when it comes to a mage's freedom to use their magic however they see fit."
Yui then felt a need to ask a personal question about Guardian.
"Why do you hate him so much?" She questioned.
"Hate is relative. I see order and balance being possible once all physical forms of existence are no more…and he sees order and balance being possible only as long as all physical forms of existence are left alone to progress as they always have. This, in and of itself, has placed us on opposite sides of the battlefield for as long as we have been alive. In a sense, we are two sides of the same coin that is no longer used as currency. We're light and darkness, but we both have purpose. We are, the both of us, eternal, bound to each other in one sense or another."
Yui found that hard to believe, as neither seemed willing to submit to the other and would rather be without the other in their lives like a bossy or nosy neighbor. But if Harbinger and Guardian were like opposites in something that was essential to something greater than the sum of their existence, then it was no different from the order of balance. Both of them required the other to be balanced, and no matter how much they detested each other, they couldn't deny this to be the truth between them.
"What do you hate about magic so much?" Harbinger asked her.
"No logic or common sense to it," she explained.
-x-
A wall of sandstone formed in front of the fleeing devil, stopping its progress in front of Guardian. It turned to face him and saw the beast accompanied by three humans.
"You three took long enough to get here," Guardian expressed.
"You run too fast for us to keep up," the boy responded, opening his grimoire and pulling out a dark sword with a curved blade. "How do you want to play this?"
"Open a portal to the Void…and hurl this cretin in."
The older man opened his grimoire and pulled out a similar sword from the pages.
"I can work with that," he told them, followed by the young woman opening her grimoire and pulling out a large bow with an arrow.
"You flee…and you get stuck up your demonic ass," the woman threatened.
"Yeah…what she just said," the boy added.
"Surely, we can be civil and talk about this?" The devil suggested, trying to talk a way out of this situation it was in. "Perhaps I can persuade you with hidden riches stashed somewhere in the Shadow Palace?"
The three humans looked at one another before looking back at the devil, all with expressions of annoyance on their faces.
"Ladies first," the boy went, and the woman fired the arrow from her bow, hitting the devil square in the shapeless form it possessed, pinning it against the sandstone wall.
"Aaaaah!" It howled in agony. "You can't kill me! I am eternal!"
"Whoever said anything about killing you?" The man questioned, walking over to where it was pinned…and wedged his sword into its shapeless form above the arrow. "If we could kill a devil, we'd probably go down in history. But then, we'd be faced with our personal demons and how to make sense of defeating a dangerous creature that couldn't properly defend itself and wasn't at its best on a good day."
The devil looked into the distance behind the three humans and Guardian, seeing over a dozen or so other Magic Knights flying towards them.
"Oh, you think that just because you lock me away, that all your problems will be resolved?" It spoke to them. "If there's one thing I know about humans, it's that they're constantly divided between their desires and interests! The royals and nobles, they always put themselves above the commoners! Sooner or later, when something puts them at odds, they will turn on each other just to see the next day! The rich and influential want to sacrifice the peasants…and the peasants want to live just as much as the rich and influential, even to taste the lives they have for themselves! Do you really think you'll resolve anything by locking me in some dark place?!"
"It's not just the humans you harmed with your twisted behavior, devil," said Shinji to him. "You made the Elf Tribe suffer for a long time, making them think that it was humans that tried to get rid of them. That's just depraved and messed up. And now…now, you'll suffer for a long time. Now, you'll be unable to express yourself when we get rid of you."
His grimoire flipped several pages and stopped on one.
"This the spell, Guardian?" He asked the Anti Magic creature.
"Yeah," he answered back.
"Anti Spatial Magic: Doorway to the Void."
Suddenly, behind the devil, a portal had opened up, revealing a black and gray vortex.
"I'll get out!" The devil threatened. "I'll get out! And when I do, I'll kill you! I'll kill you all! Do you hear me?! I'll kill you all!"
"Yeah, that's fear," Guardian expressed, and then raised his tail up and slammed it against the sword and arrow lodged into the devil, breaking the sandstone wall and sending the dark creature spiraling through the vortex.
"This isn't over!" It yelled at them. "I am the high-ranking devil Zagred, and I will have my vengeance upon House Ikari! I will have my revenge!"
Its shapeless form started to change, becoming a winged humanoid with horns, chalk-white facial skin, red eyes, a long tail ending in an arrowhead and clawed arms; somehow, his transition into the Void was affecting him on a physical level. If this was how it was for everyone that was sent there, it likely meant that this was the devil's true form…or a reasonable facsimile of its true form.
"You haven't seen the last of me!" Zagred declared, and the portal began to close in front of them. "You haven't seen the last of me!"
Blip! The portal closed with a sound similar to a television set being turned on or off, sealing the devil inside the vast realm known as the Void.
"And with that, the devil called Zagred…is now a resident of a place where those too cruel to accept redemption in their souls…can't escape from," went Guardian.
"That felt too easy," said Suki.
"Better easy this time than difficult later," Shinji expressed. "We were fortunate when that sandstone wall appeared when it did."
That's when Guardian became confused.
"That was not your spell, Shinji?" He asked him.
"No. By the time I opened my grimoire, the wall was already there."
"I didn't see that possibility."
One of the Magic Knights from the Crimson Lion came by and had to ask the obvious question.
"What happened to the devil?" He asked them.
"He's in the Void now," Guardian explained, raising his left claw up in front of them, showing a gaseous wad that showed the devil yelling out curses in a vast, dark space. "Was that wall of sandstone…your doing?"
"Yes. I didn't think it would reach that far, though. Did it help at all?"
"It helped plenty, sir," said Shinji to him. "Uh, Sandstone Magic?"
"Yes. A mixture of Sand and Stone Magic."
"It's very impressive. I should brush up on other forms of magic."
As the other Magic Knights got there, Guardian showed them that Zagred was trapped in the Void, unable to escape a place that was, more or less, worse than Hell itself.
"How can you be sure that it won't get out?" A member of the Purple Orca demanded to know.
"He basically got thrown into the part of the Void that's essentially akin to a labyrinth," Guardian admitted. "What's more, the Void is where Anti Magic is at its most potent. No other form of magic may work there…unless permitted to by any with access into and out of the Void. Any other form of magic, natural, artificial or demonic…just stays quiet. If you got lost in the Void and wanted fire, you would have to gather the resources necessary to do so."
"And you have access to the Void?" None other than Yuno questioned.
"I wouldn't be the Guardian of the Void, otherwise."
"And anything and anyone deemed too dangerous that ends up in the Void…can't ever get out without your aid? Or someone affiliated with you? Ever?"
"That's right. No…possible…way…to…escape."
-x-
Something was wrong with this revival plan. It wasn't the fact that Rika had brought back most of the elves, but it related to it. No, the trouble was that only most of the elves had been brought back. Only one elf was yet to be revived…and it was an important elf.
"I don't understand," she told Patolli and the Third Eye elves, shortly after reviving the elves Drowa and Eclat. "There are only a handful of people left in the kingdom with elf spirits that need to be revived, but none of them are vessels for him? But his soul was also suspended like yours were. Were any of you able to sense him here?"
"No," went Vetto. "Licht was not here."
"But…I knew I sensed his presence before," Patolli stated. "I sensed all of the elves."
"I don't know where the leader of the Elf Tribe is if he isn't among the remaining people that still carry their suspended souls. I have delved into the past to know what happened to your tribe, but what befell Licht was to stop the devil that tried to lay waste to each of you. He… Hold on. Maybe that's why."
"Maybe what's why?" Rhya asked her.
"Licht used the magic stones of your tribe to turn himself into a demon to keep himself and his grimoire from falling into the possession of the devil that orchestrated the massacre, intending to let himself be defeated by Lemiel. In the end, Licht was defeated and Lemiel was sealed away in the form of a statue to preserve his fading life. But being turned into a demon…doesn't necessarily means what it implies."
"What does that mean?" Fana questioned.
"We need to go to Hage and revive Licht there."
-x-
It was a strange thing to have light in a realm of darkness, as Zagred found himself in a dimly-lit space occupied by nothing more than stone walls that reached high into the air above him. He tried to affect his surroundings with his magic, but nothing happened; he had attempted to make the walls form steps when he found his wings unable to provide any lift for him to fly, but he couldn't even feel his magic power activate.
"Where the Hell am I?!" He yelled out.
"Welcome to the Void," a female voice uttered to him from behind, and he turned around to face them, seeing a fellow devil with a more-feminine shape and smaller wings. "We get checked in…but we can't check out."
"And how long have you been here?"
"A long time."
"There must be a way to escape."
"Unless you're affiliated with the creature that guards this realm and keeps us in line, there is no way to escape."
Zagred frowned as he ran off, away from the female devil, who was resigned to her continued fate of being a permanent resident of the Void.
He'll have no choice but to accept his fate here, she thought. Whether it's a week from today…or two-hundred years, he'll have to accept that he's not getting out any time soon.
-x-
Observing the devil they had encountered in the midst of the revival of the Elf Tribe, unable to forget what was witnessed, Damnatio and Julius couldn't believe that an actual devil had been behind the massacre that the Clover Kingdom's people were accused of committing. It was believed to be impossible for a devil to have existed anywhere in this world, but they were proven wrong by many factors; what was known by Guardian of the Void, what was claimed by the refugees of the Spade Kingdom, and what would be confirmed by another member of the Magic Knights at a later time. Every time it seemed like there was no other way to show what was beyond the usual realm of light and darkness that existed in a world where magic was everything, there was always something to raise the intensity of the situation up another level.
"…And you're certain that once this devil is locked inside your domain," Damnatio questioned for assurances, "it can't get out? Like…at all?"
"I'll say it as many times as I have to before the message gets any clearer than how crystal clear it can get to those that do understand it," Guardian told them as the image of the devil disappeared from his claw, "once you wind up in the Void, you would need either myself, someone blessed or versed in navigating around the Void enough to show how to get in or out…or just a very rare and very powerful miracle…just to leave the Void and return to this world. In other worlds, this devil, now a new tenant of the Void, isn't going anywhere else until I or someone else that can go back and forth between here and the Void, say any different for it."
"We checked it in," Shinji expressed, "and it can't check out. Ever."
"Then, that just leaves one other problem to be dealt with," Julius stated.
"Harbinger," went Guardian, nodding his head in the positive. "He'll make dealing with this devil seem like a game compared to dealing to with him."
"And a creature capable of intelligence," Damnatio uttered, "no matter how strong they are or how smart they seem…is not something we can be civil with if it intentionally goes after innocent lives and has every intention to cause genocide."
"If you still wanna judge the devil for its role in what the Eye of the Midnight Sun did, just say so…and I'll bring it back in Anti Magic chains for all to bear witness to."
Shinji, Tenshi, Suki, Rika, William, Fuegoleon, Nozel, Julius and Guardian all looked at Damnatio, expecting to hear his response to this suggestion.
"As tempting as that would be," he told Guardian, "I would prefer to do so after this Harbinger has been dealt with. So long as it is within this Void and cannot escape, we know where it resides until such a time where a trial can be held against it to charge it for its crimes. Between it and this Harbinger, it is the lesser of two evils that has been dealt with. As for the Eye of the Midnight Sun… As they were being manipulated by a devil with its own agenda that was different from their own, it stands to reason that any crimes they may have committed, past and present…were the result of whatever crimes this devil committed to orchestrate the massacre that the nobility was accused of committing against the Elf Tribe. Therefore…the elves will not be prosecuted for their involvement."
It was against his better judgment, but Damnatio didn't see any other choice in this matter. Because the devil was apprehended and still alive, they had their culprit and could charge them whenever they chose. And because the Eye of the Midnight Sun…or rather, the Elf Tribe…was a victim of the devil's manipulations, they weren't truly at fault for their own crimes, just an extension of the immorality this demon inflicted upon them, so they were ineffective as scapegoats in the pursuit of justice. If he felt he had a choice, he would've sentenced the elves to death, but then the Clover Kingdom would be the bad guys due to killing a newly-revived and restored race of people that were victimized already, being victimized twice just for existing, eliminating the purpose of justice.
"Find Harbinger…and resolve the issue with him," he told them.
The Ikaris and Guardian nodded in the positive and turned around to walk away from the chairman of the Magic Parliament.
"You three are lucky you were able to get rid of the devil," Rika told them.
"We didn't catch the devil on our own," Tenshi responded. "We chased after it, but it was a Magic Knight from the Crimson Lion that blocked its escape once we were outside the Capital. We then impaled it and Shinji and Guardian sent it into the Void."
"Still, I'm relieved that you survived an encounter with a devil. You did good out there, all four of you."
"Thank you, Grandmother," Shinji replied. "Um…are you sure you're okay with those stones?"
Rika still had the stones belonging to the elves that she was using to augment her magic to a higher level so she could revive them on her own, and her grandson was concerned for her safety. She assured him that she was fine; while it was taking all that she had to keep from being seduced by the greater power she was using to revive the elves, she refused to become a slave to the power that was only temporary.
"Power without restraint, without self-control, is a risk for everyone around you if you lose yourself to it," she stated.
"How many elves are left to bring back from the massacre?" Suki asked her mother.
"Just a few left, including the leader himself."
"Maybe you should've joined the Magic Knights, Mother," Tenshi suggested.
"No. I need to do as I do without the boundaries that limit the Magic Knights to a degree, but I still have boundaries. I don't cross the line."
"What exactly do you do when you're not at home?" Shinji asked her.
"Looking for curses to alleviate or break completely."
"That's good of you to do."
They stopped in the hall of the building where Patolli and the Third Eye stood.
"You three stay safe out there," Rika told her children and grandchild as she parted ways with them, going to the elves.
"You, too, Grandmother," Shinji replied, waving goodbye to her.
-x-
"…I haven't seen you in here for quite a while, Ms. Ikari," said Wong to Yui as he greeted her upon her return to the library. "What shall you be learning more of today?"
"Blood Magic," she stated her intention.
"Be careful with that one. Only eight or nine mages within the kingdom actually use Blood Magic. It gets a little creepy after a while. What's your reason for brushing up on it?"
"Creating helpful constructs and advancing my magical abilities."
It wasn't a lie…and it wasn't the complete truth; Yui was interested in advancing her Blood Magic, but only to progress her own goals, not for any other reason there could've been for studying Blood Magic and advancing it. That…and because she needed to keep up appearances for now until everything was ready to progress forward. Looking around the place, she noticed very few people present. Oh, how she pitied them most of the time; they had so much potential, so much drive to be more than what they already were, but squandered it all the time because they chose not to pursue other interests. But she endured her tolerance of them for a while longer, just until she didn't have to any further.
"…So, I heard that they finally apprehended that devil," she heard a woman tell a man.
"Yeah, the Magic Knights present had caught it, but that creature belonging to that Ikari boy locked it away in some place we can't get to. Damnatio Kira wouldn't prosecute the devil until after this other magic creature was found and apprehended," he replied. "I heard that the boy was a lot stronger in the time that has past since he joined the Magic Knights, and that that squad he joined, the Black Bull, had also gotten stronger."
"No way. The Black Bull is a bunch of rejects that can't follow the most simple of missions. They cause more trouble than they resolve. How could they get stronger?"
"Not what my sister tells me, and she overhears more than I do. Most of that squad is almost comprised of Intermediate Magic Knights now. They used to be Junior Magic Knights, but ever since two of those four Ikaris joined them, they have leveled up. I even heard that reject royal girl from House Silva has gotten stronger and is more efficient in controlling her magic. You think the boy is some sort of living good luck charm?"
"If he is, he clearly does something to turn a group of losers into runner-ups."
Yui didn't want to believe any of this, but had to admit that it sounded like something Shinji would do. However, it was only because he was trained by her brother, who was an adequate instructor once he was made young again and restored of his lower body functions. Not to mention that Shinji responded more to the positive reinforcement given by her mother and siblings than he would've from anyone else, which made him want to do better.
The greater his instructors and their praises of him, she thought as she grabbed the book that had more advanced steps on Blood Magic, the greater his own progress. I want to be proud of his accomplishments…but this is all…such a waste of time and energy. It's such a waste of his potential when he could put it to a more-constructive use.
She sat at a table and began to read the book.
-x-
"…You actually locked a devil away?" Noelle questioned as she and the rest of the Black Bull were being told what had transpired in the Capital. "And the elves are back?"
"Yes and yes," said Suki, noticing that two of their squad mates were absent from Henry's home. "Where are Secré and Mr. Faust?"
"They both left sometime after you left to the Capital," explained Asta, who was doing another series of push-ups. "We're not sure where they went."
Shinji was about to say something about that, when his curse mark started acting up, making them hiss in minor agony, the same as Suki's, alerting Noelle and Asta to the fact that both Ikaris were still under the curse placed upon them by Harbinger.
"Looks like you two need another healing session," the noblewoman told them.
"Yeah," Shinji grimaced as Suki felt the pain on her shoulder.
"The sooner we find Harbinger," Guardian expressed, "the sooner everyone cursed by him can be free of their curse."
Noelle offered to perform a healing spell for them, which Suki accepted vocally while Shinji nodded his appreciation.
"Say, Guardian," said Luck to the Anti Magic creature, "was this devil strong before you locked it away?"
"It didn't have access to its own magic before being sealed in the Void, but it was a devil of the high tier in the underworld. As tempting as it might've been to face it in combat, it would've been a difficult battle due to the fact that it possessed a form of magic humans don't have much of a capacity to possess yet."
"What kind of magic?" Vanessa questioned, picking up a liquor bottle in front of her where she sat, as indecent as ever.
"Kotodama Magic or Word Soul Magic."
"What kind of magic is that?" Yami wanted to know.
"If this devil had been restored of its body in this world, in addition to needing a grimoire of its own, the magic it possessed enabled it to create nearly any phenomenon it desired within its general surroundings…and all with its voice."
"Sounds like a real challenge."
"Only if restored to its true form and strength and had access to a grimoire that had been corrupted by despair. There's a major difference in the Clover Kingdom between grimoires corrupted by despair…and Black Clover grimoires. A grimoire corrupted by despair can be restored to its previous state. A Black Clover grimoire can't be used by a devil due to their being no despair whatsoever for them to use within them. Any form of magic is powerful when the effort is put in to make them as strong as they can get, but the more-versatile spells required for greater feats require a grimoire. Anyone without a grimoire, while still strong, can only access their magic's most rudimentary abilities."
"Does that include Anti Magic?" Asta asked.
"You're still four layers away from being able to use Anti Magic without your grimoire."
Meanwhile, in the kitchen area, Noelle was using her healing spell on Shinji and Suki, alleviating their current pain caused by their burn-like markings.
"Where does your pain feel most intense?" She asked them.
"Near my neck," Suki explained.
"Lower back," Shinji added, and felt the intensity as Noelle's Mercy of the Sea Goddess alleviate his pain. "Yeah. You're definitely in the right area, Noelle."
"This is unusual," she told them; as of late, this Healing Magic spell was enabling Noelle to feel the mana of whoever it was used on, and she was able to see that these two were in a different class that was almost…erratic…but very calming, too. "Suki, you're fine, but Shinji, you seem to have a lot of mana that's…twisted up inside."
"I have no idea how that is so."
"Guardian didn't say anything about it?" Suki asked him.
"No."
"How twisted is…well, 'twisted', Noelle?"
"Well, it's like he has this waterfall in him that's…unable to do anything. A massive waterfall with the water unable to fall to its greatest extent." Noelle explained to them. "It's like someone built a wall around it to block the water, but didn't do a good job of it."
"I'll have to see my grandmother about this. It could be nothing, but it could be something. Better safe than sorry."
When the healing was done, Shinji and Suki were fine until the curse acted up again.
"Harbinger won't know what hit him," Suki declared.
"If he's got balls, you're going to put them in a vice," her nephew expressed.
"Actually, if he's got balls, I was thinking about cutting them off and shoving them down his throat, just to prove that I could do it."
"That's very unbecoming of a lady, Suki," Noelle told them.
"I'm not so much a lady as I am just someone wanting to be myself in a different place and be accepted, quirks and all."
-x-
"…Secré?" Rika gasped, seeing the chronologically-older girl in front of the giant demon skull in Hage. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same of you," she responded, noticing that she was in the company of five elves, two Magic Knight captains and the Wizard King himself. "What are you doing here?"
"Reviving two young men that were forced to confront each other to deny a devil what he wanted out of the bloodshed and pain he caused."
"Lemiel and Licht? You're here to revive them?'
"That's why we're here."
"Well, uh… I was just here to see see Lemiel. I don't see how just three magic stones will be enough to revive either, though; Lemiel needs ten of the stones."
"Or just magic augmented temporarily by three of them."
"Can you really do it? Bring them back?"
"We shall see. Care to join us?"
To be continued…
A/N: I wanted to continue with the revival of the two best friends and brothers, but I decided to keep you waiting for it to happen. But what did you think about Zagred getting locked in the Void and Damnatio Kira having to look the other way after realizing a devil was responsible for the Eye of the Midnight Sun? With the elves being brought back and the enemies dwindling down to the ones that will be the most dangerous, I do expect for there to be more interest, especially around Harbinger and Guardian. Read and review and stay active in these trying times. Until the next chapter.