Apocrypha - Book 2: War

by LoneTaker

After weathering the storm of Demons, the world lulls back to a normal calm. But with every calm, a new storm brews as ghosts of the past and new threats alike all ready themselves for the second wave. If the world desires peace, then they must be ready for war.

40. Saga 40: Fortunate Son Part Finale

Disclaimer: Black Clover is owned by Yūki Tabata, Studio Pierrot, and Shonen Jump.

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Saga 40: Fortunate Son Part Finale

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"ARRRGGGH!" Lolopeckha screamed as [Babel] rocked violently as it took off towards the heavens and beyond, with Ziz's chest being burrowed by the cone of the spire as his feathered back was alight from the sheer friction of reaching terminal velocity.

Way behind the young Queen were Undine and Jibril, the pair being stuck onto the rearmost wall like splattered mud, especially the former, given that her body is 100% liquid matter.

"LOLO!" Undine screamed out as she tries to reconstitute herself, but found her own body being pushed back into her puddle-like form.

Jibril, with her borrowed human vessel (that of the long-lost daughter of Queen Scheherazade), combined with her angelic physiology, crawled her way towards Lolopeckha as [Babel] breaks past the atmosphere.

Ziz shrieked in agony as he can now finally feel his naked skin once hidden behind his quills being frayed away by the heat and then the cold vacuum of space, hastily deploying his specialized [Wind Magic] to create a temporary atmosphere around himself in order to no suffocate himself.

In fact, it was this very reason why he was able to reenter the planet's atmosphere without destroying himself, albeit with a bit of focus, which he didn't have when being caught off-guard by the sudden launch sequence of [Babel].

"Have to... get off...!"

Struggling, Ziz then slides his body around the spire carefully in order to not burn up his created veil of oxygen before the spire itself steadily ceases its propulsion.

"... What... what happened?" Lolopeckha remarked as she then saw one of the gauges clicking dry before "FUEL EMPTY" shone into her eyes. "... We... we finally stopped-WHOA!"

As soon as she took off her seatbelt, she began floating around the ship's interiors like a bubble, drifting about without control or any semblance of freedom within her autonomy.

"Lolo!" Undine then finally reconstitutes herself before peeling herself off of the wall, only for her humanoid body to then turn misshapen and compact itself into a sphere of water akin to that of a wobbly bubble. "WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?!"

Jibril then tries to reconstitute her wings, but instead of cascading waterfalls, they were instead a pair of large bubbles that Lolopeckha accidently bumps into and bounces off of. "... This place... that we're in... has no gravity!"

"No gravity?!" the young Queen panicked as she flailed about. "What kind of place beside a couple Grand Magic Zones has that-?!"

Then the whole ship violently rocks, as if it were shaken from the outside like a child's toy with its inhabitants as its rattle.

"Enjoy the sensation while it lasts!" Ziz screeched as his talons dug into the hull of [Babel]. "YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE UP HERE!"

The massive condor Demon then takes the spire back to the place where it called home. Once reentering, Ziz then hurls [Babel] towards the craggily surface, causing it to tumble and roll across the ground before coming to a stop after being ditched into a crater.

"Ow..." Lolopeckha groans after landing her head back onto the seat, the impact being not as hard as she thinks it should be. "... Is everyone okay?"

Undine manages to reconstitute her humanoid form, albeit rather crudely, akin to a featureless clay idol. "... I have opposable thumbs... so, yeah?"

Jibril then reconstitutes her wings back to their shape, but more akin to a child's drawing of that of an angel's wings rather than her unique forms. "... We will persevere."

The spire rocks once more, now the ceiling (or a close approximation of) caves in.

"I'M DONE WAITING FOR YOU!" Ziz's voice screeched through the collapsing hulls. "COME OUT OR I WILL MAKE YOU!"

The three inside [Babel] all look at each other as their time was running out.

"The Pact. Now."

Outside, Ziz was now stamping his taloned feet up and down upon the hulls that were steadily crumbling and worn down by his dive attacks propelled by his [Wind Magic]. Landing onto the spire's hull once more, Ziz then anchors himself onto [Babel] with his talons before lunging his beak into the breach, pulling against the tear to rip through the plates of ancient superhard alloy like how a carrion bird would dig into a corpse's decaying sinews.

"YOU... CANNOT HIDE... FOREVER!" the Demon of [Tyranny] growled in-between his efforts of breaking through the hull of [Babel]. "THERE IS... NO ESCAPE... IN MY DOMAIN!"

Ziz then lets loose another shrill hawk before plunging his beak into the spire, now breaching into the internals.

"I can now smell all of you...!" Ziz then opens his beak as a sphere of pressurized wind concentrated from within. "Now... DISAPPEAR-!"

From the same breach, a piercing jet of water strikes the Demon into his mouth, causing the prepared attack to rupture and blow the Demon back as a figure burst forth from [Babel].

Lolopeckha now stood before Ziz, her body now radiating with so much magic power that it could be described as nothing but "divine." Gone were the eyes clouded in hesitation and fear and shone ones filled with resolve and will. Her back and hair flowed with ambient magical power, the former now surging forth a pair of wings akin to surging waves of the ocean, and the latter now cerulean blue as a result of both Undine and Jibril imparting their powers to their Chosen Child.

Upon her release, the young Queen looks around her to find herself in the endless vast canvas of vantablack dotted with millions upon millions of stars. The earth around was chalk-white and stark, barren of all forms of life and motion save for the milky-transparent veil of stirring wind that hung over her like a gentle blanket, providing oxygen for both her and the Demon. And floating afar from where they were was a massive sphere of blue dotted with splotches of white, green, and brown, and even further away was a massive ball of blazing and eye-searing light that was the sun, only bigger, brighter, and even more blinding up close.

"... Is this...?" she then looks down before looking back at the spheres. "... Are we on the Moon?!"

This was beyond the pale for even Lolopeckha.

All of those times where she spent in the [Achieves] only mentioned that the realm beyond the clouds was something called "Heaven," where the Angels and the rest of the divine called home.

And yet, in spite of her expectations being shattered, Lolopeckha couldn't help but feel a sense of elation of being the first to see the truth.

The whole universe was lifeless and cold, but it's beauty couldn't be put into mere words. The world she may call home may be but a small, insignificant speck in the grand scheme of things, but it was still worth protecting because it was an insignificant speck in the grand scheme of things.

Centuries have passed since Sephira's decree was addressed since her passing. Now the time hath come to see it fully realized.

The power to save the world that she called home is now in her hands.

"... You... YOU COMPLETED THE PACT?!" Ziz exclaimed. "DAMN YOU!"

"It is as you say." Lolopeckha's eyes locked onto the Demon specifically designed to kill her and Undine. "You have damned yourself by letting me live up until now."

The wings of water then shapeshifts into both Undine and Jibril respectively.

"Ziz, bearer of the sin of [Tyranny]..." Jibril declared. "For too long you have deceived the people of Dama as your god while waging war against the Heart Kingdom!"

"For the lies that you have espoused and the lives you have trampled upon...!" Undine continued. "In the names of all those who you have tormented and slaughtered, we, under the Pact, have come to a consensus!"

Lolopeckha then wills forth her grimoire, now its cover shifting into a mural with a girl recieving a heart of gold from an angelic being descending from above, both basked in the afterglow of the divine light shining like that of the sun.

"We declare thee guilty."

Ziz then lets out a roar that gives away to a massive pillar of lightning blasted from his mouth as a crushing torrent of water that Lolopeckha summons forth from her pages, the two forces of nature clashing against each other.

Amazing...! the young Queen thought as she saw the waters from her spells actually holding up against the Demon's [Wind Magic] that was specifically designed to counter her own. ... This is the power of an Archangel?!

My powers were under the Heavenly Restriction of [Determination] has now been released, declared Jibril as Ziz then flies up towards the atmosphere to gather and generate even more wind before raining down arrows of lightning and cutting wind across the Moon's surface. Do not be afraid, my Chosen Child. I will guide thee through this tribulation! My powers are yours to command!

Too long, we let that thing cowering out of our reach bully us simply because who you were... because of who I was! Undine said as Lolopeckha takes initiative of dodging the bombardment, the torrential wings ripping through the void and the thin air as she made her way towards the Demon. Let's show him what for, Lolo! Show that bully that pests like him always get their eventual due!

With those words spurring her back, a burning sensation akin to adrenaline that had been steadily building up throughout her turmoil reignited.

Her torment under Caligula and their army of Thanatophages that had killed thousands of her own people that she loved with all her heart, to Ziz making himself known to simply spite her and everyone else she knew and loved, turning the whole world itself against her in order to make her suffer before shuffling off her mortal coil at her lowest point...

... She now fully understands why she suffered.

Kindness wasn't a weakness. Nor was it a reason to not fight back.

Kindness can be cultivated into strength. The strength to fight back against bullies like Ziz, who'd done nothing but seclude her from the rest of the world that she loved wholeheartedly.

For the first time in her life, instead of being backed into a corner and forced to act upon desperation, Lolopeckha, the young Queen of the Heart Kingdom, sheds her pacifism willingly.

"I WILL NOT LET YOU DESTROY ALL THAT I LOVE, ZIZ!" A massive blade of water akin to a scimitar formed in her hands as Ziz coats himself in lightning. "[ICHOR CREATION MAGIC: THALASSA SWORD]!"

"YOU WON'T BE AROUND TO SEE YOUR HOME IN RUINS, YOU FUCKING BITCH!" The Demon of [Tyranny] then lets out a shrill cry as he dove towards the young Queen. "[WIND MAGIC: SKY SUNDERER-THUNDERCLAP]!"

The Moon's surface came to life as the void of outer space alit with a divine flash.

---

Mimo Amazon, Heart Kingdom, Noon

---

"... aptin..."

"Captain..."

A low grumble was heard as Yami felt his throat being drier than usual.

"... Captain!"

He slowly opens his eyes to find Gauche, Vanessa, and Charmy looking over him in the backdrop of a jungle canopy that had escaped the destruction caused throughout their conflict.

"... How long was I out-ugh!" As soon as Yami willed himself back upright, a sharp sensation of agony shocked his stomach and chest, spotting several freshly-mended stitches covering his body. "... Huh. Good work, you three."

"We were cutting it really close..." Gauche sighed as he slumped his back against the tree trunk. "... Using my [Mirror Magic] akin to [Fire Magic] was the last thing on my mind."

"My [Cotton Magic] was there to plug up the leaks," Charmy informed before letting out a dry groan. "... I think I've seen enough internal organs for a lifetime. Soon as we go back, I'm sticking to salads for a week."

"I'm also afraid that I'm steadily getting used to stitching up other people's wounds with my [Thread Magic]..." Vanessa sighed as she screams into the cone of her pointed hat. "... Perhaps I should consider a career change sometime in the future."

"Might happen a lot sooner than you think." A voice then speaks out, revealing En, Gaja, Scheherazade, and Mosin coming through the brushes. "... Glad to see you all alive and well, Captain Yami... or Sukehiro... actually, what do we call you?"

Yami rolled his eyes. "... I legally switched my first and last names around after I formed the Black Bulls, so just call me 'Yami'," he scoffed. "Hanafuda's dead to me, so screw the formalities."

"Nor you were for one to begin with..." Gaja sighed. "... In any event, we've confirmed Akane's death."

"SAY WHAT?!" All three Black Bulls sprung back standing in surprise.

"That was kinda quick..." Yami remarked with a hint of skepticism. "... Are you sure that she's dead?"

"Can't be more dead than plunging a poisoned blade through her own chest," Mosin confirmed. "... I checked for her heartbeat with my [Gleipnir]. Still as a stone and cold as ice."

"In any event, we really shouldn't tarry here any longer," Scheherazade advised. "... We should make grounds. Now."

The group of eight now make distance away from the collapsed ruins of Elysium, now nothing more than a gaping sinkhole so deep that no light could ever penetrate through those who were left behind and buried under several layers of chipped rocks and blighted soil.

There was no time to mourn when the living still had to be protected. A silent agreement was made to make their way back towards he Clover-Heart Kingdom borderlands to rendezvous with the escapees.

"... Captain Yami?" Charmy said out loud as she looked back while traversing through the jungle. "... You're looking a little tense."

The Captain shakes his head. "... You know, if you're gonna make sure that bitch is dead, you'd at least cut her head off."

"After losing her twin sister?" Scheherazade remarked. "... She'd suffered enough. I know that her acts towards you were beyond forgiveness... but to go far as desecrate her is beyond the pale."

"Tell that to the bitch who did the same to my friends and sister back home!" Yami snapped before sighing. "... It just doesn't feel right. After all that she'd done."

"She took the coward's way out, so of course it would feel wrong," Gaja pointed out. "... Her devotion to the family that didn't love her is beyond craven. It's sickening how a mother would turn her own daughter into her own slave just because of superstition and tradition."

"And besides," Mosin added, "I tried talking her down, but she refused to listen. She couldn't be saved, let alone wished to be saved from her own damnation."

Yami growls before punching a tree, leaving a fist-sized imprint into its bark. "... It just doesn't feel right," he sighed out, his breath full of ire and seething rage akin to a low rumble of a volcano. "... She laughed at my face when she revealed that she killed my sister."

"So why did you leave her?" En asked, shocking everyone.

Yami scoffs. "... I killed my old man," he revealed, albeit omitting some details. "Bastard got too drunk one day and tried to take it out on Ichika. I burned the house down afterwards so that neither of us would have to live with the shame of filicide. That and I dodged a draft for more of the Daimyo's soldiers for a war that I didn't want any part of. Funny, I know. Thinking that I could escape war only to find another... I swear, sometimes this world has a sick sense of humor."

"Oh my god..." Vanessa gasped in shock. "... Why is my mother sounding like a more reasonable parent?!"

"Beats me," Gauche scoffed. "... Rotten adults outnumber the good ones sometimes, I swear. Hope that most or all of 'em dead after the Rain of Steel."

The group sighs in disgust at that reveal, feeling more demoralized the more of their own dirty laundry are left out in the open.

"... We have a lot of work to do once this is all over," Scheherazade pointed out.

"Agreed," Gaja consents. "... Our descendants deserve a world that is more than just a war-torn hellscape as far as their eyes could see."

Everyone else nods in agreement.

"Indeed," Mosin replies with a nod. "... For too long, this world was nothing but curses. Once the fighting is over, we must begin healing-"

"Wait." Yami then stops in his tracks. "... Say that again."

"... That the whole world being nothing but curses?" the High Inquisitor pointed out, to which Yami begins sweating like crazy. "... What's going on with you?!"

"Guys, be honest with me," the Captain requested. "... Did anything, and I mean ANYTHING, seem off when Akane committed seppuku?"

"No, nothing in particular happened," En answered. "... Except for her dying words, which were just the... you know, her last disrespects to us all and telling us to all go to Hell and whatnot."

"You guys remember the Kodoku Ritual and how it works?" Yami pointed out.

"Yeah, like the last survivor in that process becoming a... vessel for curses..." The Witch's breath draws short upon realizing what had just transpired. "... Oh crap."

Then, a thumb akin to a heart was heard resonating throughout the air. Then, a pulse that swept across the whole land, sending a frostbiting chill down everyone spines so biting that it makes them weak to their knees. And after everyone were forced to kneel, all flora began to wither and die, it's rot and decay spreading like the plague through what was left of the Heart Kingdom's nature and beyond.

A breathy hiss and heave rung through the now-stagnant air, the ambiance slowly being populated by fetid-smelling gurgles of boiling muck and lifeless stillness bordering on tortuous.

Then, a snap of a twig being stepped underfoot, yet nobody turns their heads around, their necks anchored and collared by their own fears as something approached from behind them.

"A thousand curses... released upon this world..." A gargling, heaving voice declared as the sounds of dragging feet and snapping bones were heard. "... All life ends... and I shall be the one to receive them..."

No one dared to turn their heads as they all knew who was behind them.

"... I told you you should've cut her head off!" Yami hissed under his breath.

A breathy, parched laughter was elicited by their unseen pursuer.

"Fool." The voice then snickers. "... I am death. ... I am decay. ... I am rebirth."

Gaja, in a moment, swallows his fear to finish what he had neglected to do earlier: finish Akane like Yami suggested.

"[LIGHTINING MAGIC]-!"

But the moment he turns around, any trace of valor igniting his heart was extinguished right at the moment when he looked at Akane's face.

Her eyes were pitch-black, her irises were burning amber, and a pair amber-colored of horns jutted from her forehead, ripping through her skull and skin as droplets of black blood cascaded down across her eyes.

Her teeth were blood-red. There are no stains as she smirked into an unholy sneer belonging to that of the Devil.

Her chest was impaled with her own [Murasame], the blade jutting from her back dripping with more of the black ichor akin to tar. And spreading from the breach were a cluster of centipede-esque tattoos that were fully animated like the real thing.

"A sacrifice."

Akane then points her finger right between the Spirit Guardian's eyes.

"It will suffice."

---

Approaching the Borders...

---

"HURRY!" one of the fleeing civilians cried out as the caravan made their way towards Clover Kingdom for sanctuary. "WE'RE ALMOST THERE! JUST A LITTLE LONGER-!"

Then, he and several other seize up, their chests aching as if they were stabbed.

"What's happening?!" a Daman refugee exclaimed as he and the others tried to to help their fellow man, the afflicted now screaming and wailing in agony as they begin vomiting blood that turned to black bile that foamed and bubbled like soap. "WHAT'S GOING ON-?!"

And before anyone can fathom what was happening, all of those afflicted had their skin and flesh melted off their bones like butter. All the unaffected Daman's can do was scream in horror at this nightmare happening before them.

It was as if a curse had taken their lives.

"... Why?" The Daman then falls to his knees in disbelief as all that were remaining of the Heart Kingdom's civilians were that of their own bones. "WHY?!"

All one thousand of them, laid to rest as their maws gaped in agony as their death masks.

---

"... It's funny, really," Akane declared as her clawed hand dug their nails into Gaja's temples as the victim was left to squirm and writhe in agony. "Growing up, there are some things that I wasn't allowed to as a child that the other kids were permitted to do. Once time passed and all that mattered to me was gone, I've appeared to have forgotten how having those dreams and aspirations felt."

Gaja's headless body falls as the rot sets across his neck, the rigor mortis of the body unable to support its own weight with the head alone, leaving the two pieces to decay rapidly separately, the pigmentations on their skin ripening like a fruit assailed by scavengers and worms.

"That's what I'm feeling right now." Akane then cruelly crushes the rotten head. "... Thank you for making me understand that everything I have strived for was pointless."

Then sounds akin to wails were heard rippling across the air as Akane cackled in elation.

"What is happening...?" Scheherazade shuddered in pure terror.

"Make it stop... make it stop... make it stop...!" Charmy winced in tears.

"... It will soon end," Akane reassured, "with your deaths."

She then grabs [Murasame] that she'd stabbed herself with by its handle.

"[Kojutsu: Yomotsu Magatsuhi]."

Akane then rips out her sword from her chest as she finally releases all of the curses that was housed within her body.

"RUN!" Yami was the first to rise as he took Charmy and Gauche under his arms before everyone else followed.

Akane's flesh began to rot away, revealing her now-rubicund bones stark as blood and dark as death. Her eyeballs, organs, and tongue slipped out of their crevices and rotted with the rest of her organic body, the bones now swelling and growing in size as every limb, joint, and segment began to creak and snap like twigs being broken in two.

Then the bones began growing their own bones, the spine itself elongating like a rising serpent. As the cancerous bone growth continued, more spines sprouted from each segment, wriggling and skittering like an insect's legs.

The upper torso hung like an unwanted tumor clinging onto what was left of the body, limb and disproportionately small compared to her lower half. Then the shoulders creaked and snapped, growing additional arms from the collarbones as the head, the long black locks clinging onto their bony scalps sporting amber-colored horns, creaked up and lets out a hellish and rattling screech that expels a stream of dark-red steam that shrouded all of Heart Kingdom from the sun before settling down to the world below like a thick layer of fog.

As those who have fled ran, the whole world around them turned into literal HELL.

"... I have ascended... I have surpassed... I have overcome... the Kijin." Akane's voice hissed with a reverb akin to the sounds of bones rattling like crude chimes. "I... am Izanami no Okami... the curse embodied... of a goddess scorned by the divine."

The others looked up towards the darkened world, seeing that the being once known as "Akane" was now towering over and above them, her serpentine form rimmed with wriggling spines greedily reaching out towards those who have turned their backs on her.

"None shall spurn me... none shall reject me... and none shall escape me!"

Akane, now Izanami no Okami the scorned goddess, begins chasing after the others as her skeletal visage screeched out their horrid candor, cursing her prey with each breath she took.

"HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FIGHT HER?!" Vanessa cried out as she ducked under a flung rock that took her hat off of her head, forcing her to ditch it lest she fell behind.

"I DON'T THINK WE CAN DO ANYTHING TO HER!" Gauche cried out as he tries to use his [Mirror Magic] towards the pursuing goddess, only for the mirrors themselves to shatter as soon as they cast back her accursed reflection. "SHE'S GOING TO FUCKING KILL US IF WE SO MUCH AS SLOW DOWN!"

"Then the next course of action is obvious."

Mosin then pivots her feet in the opposite direction and towards the goddess.

"High Inquisitor?!" Gaja exclaimed.

"I'LL BUY YOU ALL SOME TIME! GO!" She then unleashes all of her [Gleipnir]'s adamantine threads from her ten rings in hopes of slowing the goddess down. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS-!"

Then she immediately coughs out a lethal amount of blood as her vision went completely dark. Then immediately after, all of her bones snapped under the weight of her own body, instantly enfeebled by the mere presence of the scorned deity. Then her skin felt unfathomably itchy, as if she were were assailed by every disease finally known to mankind.

And finally, decay. Mosin was rotted down to her marrows, leaving nothing but a puddle of indeterminate sludge that was trampled over by the goddess' centipedal spine-like legs as if she never existed in the first place.

"SHE DID NOTHING!" En panicked as he noticed that Izanami's advance failed to cease for even a moment.

"JUST GETTING CLOSE TO HER SPELLS DOOM!" Scheherazade pointed out before she then trips on her feet, allowing Izanami to immediately close in on her. "BACK! GET BACK-!"

Her fable on her staff was withered away to dust as the rest of her body followed immediately after, reducing the deposed Queen of Dama to a shriveled-up husk that was mercilessly crushed underfoot by the mad goddess of decay and entropy.

"Maybe I can try this...!" En then opens his grimoire as he ran. "... My deadliest spell... that I never got to use... until now!"

He then points his grimoire's pages behind himself, the papers scattering a wave of spores that caused the grounds to suddenly flourish with small mushrooms that sprung up with the consistency of common weeds.

"Mushrooms... are surprisingly stubborn!" En explained as he and the rest of the group left a trail of mushrooms in their wake. "They can grow... just about anywhere...! My [Ravenous Mushroom Infestation]... will make sure that you're choked up to the brim-!"

"Fruitless." Izanami then proceeds to devour the mushrooms faster then they could germinate, even going as far to grow more skulls to eat faster and corrode the mushroom's spread with her own mixture of filth and rot, adding their own toxicity to her own and making her bile even more potent. "... I am the one who invites. Not you."

She then exhales a massive plume of dark-red fog that begins flooding the area with even more thick fog, further obscuring their vision with the bloody haze.

"DAMMIT!" En cursed. "I'M SORRY EVERYONE! I'M SORRY THAT I'M SO USELESS-huh?"

His tears felt... heavier. As the droplets rolled down his cheeks, his nostrils picked up faint scents akin to dull iron.

En then dabs the side of his hand onto his face to find only blood, and then realizing that he was crying blood for tears before the sanguine scent overwhelmed his senses as he could see everyone else hacking and coughing before they tumbled on their feet and collapsing.

"No...! NO!" En exclaimed as he tried to reach out his hand towards everyone else, only for his fingers to start decaying and said rot spreading up towards his shoulder, falling off piece by piece like an eroding rock. "It can't... IT CAN'T END LIKE THIS!"

A breathy hiss was heard from above, with En looking up to find Izanami's burning amber lanterns that she called "eyes" staring into his soul.

"... You resisted," she declared as her visage creaked towards the side askew. "... So I'm accommodating... for your... preferences."

En first felt his soul shrivel up like a dead leaf before the rest of his body just shut down, shitting and pissing himself before blood and then his organs followed outside, leaving him to sit on the pile of his own refuse and rot as the rest of his body melted into the pile.

"En...!" Gaja then coughs out more blood as he saw his own skin, once tanned and healthy, now turn sickly and pale before his very eyes. "... She's truly... a Demon God."

"Don't die on me!" Yami panicked as he tries to keep running, coming back for the rest of his own Magic Knight Squad, carrying all three of them on his back, and looking relatively fine compared to everyone else. "... Don't die on me, you hear?!"

Gaja nods as he prepares his grimoire, now crumbling as his remaining lifeforce ebbed and flowed on the edge of death. "... Yes," he replied. "... You're not allowed to die here, Yami."

He then blasts a bolt of lightning towards Yami, covering him in a blinding aura.

"Hey! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" he barked out.

"... Go!" Gaja begged. "... Only you can stop her...! I don't know how... BUT YOU'RE OUR ONLY CHANCE!"

"GAJA!" Yami then rushed towards the last Spirit Guardian in hopes of saving him from Izanami's clutches.

"[True Lightning Magic]..." he breathed his last words as his vision faded. "... [Arma Eleuthereus]."

The shining light around Yami and the others with him then casts as far away as Gaja's strength can take them, removing the four of them from Izanami's reach as Gaja smiles in satisfaction, knowing that he denied the mad goddess from another land a perfect victory, improbable as it sounds.

"... Long live the Queen."

He was then squashed like a bug under the goddess' many feet.

---

Elsewhere...

---

"AAAHHHHHH!"

Thunder booms as the lightning crashes back onto the ground, the Black Bulls emerging from the radiance in a pile.

"... Everyone alive?" asked Yami. "... Cough if 'yes'."

Gauche, Charmy, and Vanessa all cough in confirmation.

"... My mouth tastes like garbage," the surly [Mirror Magic] user groaned. "... I'm speaking from firsthand experience, by the way."

"Please... shut up," Vanessa grunted before reorienting herself. "... Where are we?"

Charmy then surveys the area as best as she could. "... Guys?" she said. "... My eyes are half-blind right now, but I think we're back where we started."

Yami and the other Black Bulls then better survey their new surroundings... only to realize that they ended back up at the bottom of the underground ruins where they all fell into prior.

"ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!" Gauche then punts a rock aside. "HE FUCKED US OVER AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR?!"

Vanessa nervously chuckles, clearly in denial of how screwed they were. "... Maybe she won't notice us that we're here-?"

A shrill shriek akin to a woman scorned pierced the air, shattering any delusions of safety that any of them might have left.

"... Fuck."

Izanami no Okami then skitters down into the pit's bottom, dragging her bloody fog down with her as the rest of her centipede-like body encircled the circumference of the gaping pit the found themselves trapped in.

"... You... abandoned your people... so why... are you... protecting them... like they matter?" Izanami hissed. "... For shame, Sukehiro of the Yami Clan! FOR SHAME!"

"WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT LOYALTY?!" Vanessa defiantly exclaimed. "YOU'RE JUST AN ABUSED DOG THAT NEVER THINKED FOR HERSELF!"

"Bitch."

In a blink of an eye, the Witch's entire lower jaw and tongue were ripped from her face and skull before plopped back before her eyes, leaving her to flail in agony and unable to scream.

"Still your tongue before I still other parts of you," warned the scorned goddess. "I'll start with your heart."

Then Vanessa's chest turns ice cold as the lower half of her body that touched the ground turn bloated and lumpy as her upper half turns deathly-thin and skeletal.

Her whole body resembled a hacky sack as she moved, the weight of her own body shifting about before the skin around her legs, back, and waist burst like a breached dam, spilling all of her bodily fluids down to their last drop, killing her in the most humiliating way possible.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Charmy wept in despair.

"How cruel can you be...?" Gauche grimaced as the chill of death enclosed around them like a coiling serpent.

"... It is not merely a single curse that kills you, mortals," Izanami revealed. "... I have over a thousand curses that were housed in my body, each inflicted upon me by those who scorned me. Their ire and hatred fueled my strength. Their spite and malice nourished my being. So, as a gift of gratitude, I plan to share you all this wonderful gift of curses... by experiencing every last one of them all at once!"

Overcome with pure fear to the point of madness, Gauche then runs headfirst towards the skeletal visage of the damned goddess in the vain hopes of striking a wound on her before he expired.

"[MIRROR MAGIC: REFLECT REFRAIN]-!"

All of the mirrors shattered as the shards shreds the Magic Knight where he stood before Izanami bit off his head with a single chomp, the silhouette of his decapitated body falling flat within the fog.

"Reflect on that, blasphemer."

"GAUCHE!" Charmy screamed out. "Why...?!"

Yami then tried to reach out towards her, only for the [Cotton Magic] user to rebuff his reassurance before charging towards the scorned goddess in absolute desperation.

As soon as she disappeared into the red mist, a splatter of blood baptized Yami as he was the last one left.

"... You really need to find better friends, Yami."

The goddess' six arms then seized the lifeless Captain, letting himself lose to the rot.

"After all, all you're good for is getting them killed."

His muscles and skin begin decaying in the goddess' grips.

"This is your limit, cur," Izanami declared as she brought her withered visage and burning amber lantern-like eyes closer towards Yami. "... Repent in the depths of Hell, for I have invited you there."

Yami lets out a breathy sigh. "... You're right."

He smirks in defiance.

"... I'm a good-for-nothing that gets the ones he gives a shit about killed."

From the corner of his eye, he spotted a metallic gleam from the indent where Gauche had kicked prior.

"... But you know... even pieces of shit like me... exist for a reason."

Raising his right foot, Yami then channels his own [Dark Magic] and [Yami Yōjutsu] through his boot.

"AND IT'S TO KICK HIGH-AND-MIGHTY MOTHERFUCKERS LIKE YOU DOWN A PEG!"

He then kicks an explosion of [Dark Magic] right below himself to blind the goddess holding him hostage, accidently releasing him.

"YOU DARE SPURN ME?!" Izanami then lunges all of her limbs towards where Yami was once held.

"We of the Black Bulls... DARE A LOT OF THINGS!"

All six arms were parried as the rend cleared the smoke, revealing Yami now wielding [Shien] that he'd excavated from the pit.

"YOU FOOL!" the goddess cackled as Yami's arm wielding the kamitsurugi drained his limb's vitality. "ONLY THOSE WHO ARE CHOSEN BY THE BLADES THEMSELVES CAN WIELD SUCH A MIGHTY BLADE! YOUR SOUL IS NOW FORFEIT!"

"... 'Wield,' you say?" Yami snickers as he then turned the divine blade of blue fire onto himself. "Okie-dokie!"

In a surprising twist, Yami then stabs [Shien] through his own chest, letting the blue flames consume his body as his own [Dark Magic] flared up with the soul-consuming inferno.

"SEPUKKU?!" Izanami cried out in disbelief as she then draws [Murasame] from her mouth. "THEN ALLOW ME TO PLAY MY PART!"

The condemned goddess then rushes in with her own kamitsurugi in hand.

"I WILL NOW TAKE YOUR HEAD AND REDEEM MYSELF, YAMI SUKEHIRO!"

Yami then blasts forth an explosive roar that sends Izanami flying back, her entire centipede coil unfurling and hitting the walls of the pit as Yami then grabs onto the handle of [Shien].

"... Surpass... MY LIMITS!" With a single pull, Yami then pulls out the divine blade from his chest.

Within the blue inferno, Yami's silhouette fades as [Asura] took his place, the mass of darkness then drawing in the soul-burning flames of [Shien], swelling in size as a pair of bovine-like horns of a great bull grew from his temple.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Izanami declared as Yami's soul was reignited from the brink of death. "MY CLAN'S KIJIN LINEAGE WAS CAREFULLY SELECTED AND BRED FOR GENERATIONS! YOURS FELL TO THE WAYSIDE AND DILUTED MY MIXING IN MORTAL BLOOD! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE THAT YOU'VE REAWAKENED YOUR KIJIN BLOODLINE THROUGH NOTHING BUT A SCANT CHANCE AND A PRAYER!"

"... 'Impossible,' you said?" a booming candor declared as the flames faded away in favor of darkness. "... Nothing is impossible... for the human spirit... to overcome!"

Gone was Yami Sukehiro, the disgraced scion of the fallen Yami Clan and Captain of the Black Bulls. In his place was a six-armed humanoid behemoth that which his sable bare chest brimmed with pure power of the divine, sitting cross-legged as his six muscular arms arranged in an esoteric prayer while a halo of blue flames alit his broad back and shoulders. And his head was that of a bull's, now braying in a loud yowl and howl that shook the earth itself.

"I... am perseverance. I... am determination. I... am the surmounter of hardship."

From its meditative stoicism, the bull-headed god then opened his eyes, revealing a pair of rubicund orbs for eyes as the flames around his back turns a bright violet, the six arms now breaking their meditative stances to reach into the flames, drawing forth several weapons including a woodcutter's axe, a fisherman's trident, a monk's rosery of prayer beads, a smithy's hammer, a farmer's sickle, and a giant version of [Shien], its blue gleam now licked with purple flames of its new owner.

"I am the god of adversity and hardship. I am the god of innovation and progress. I am mankind's whip and shepherd. I am Gozu Tennoh, the champion and testament of mankind's endurance."

Izanami no Okami shrieks in her horrid candor as she then raises her [Murasame] towards the sky, drawing forth the ambient energy of death into her blade in order to increase her own size as Gozu Tennoh did the same, but only through its own power drawn forth from Yami's own determination, now bottomless from the endless adversity that he'd overcome throughout his whole life.

The two reawakened Kijin then emerge from the abyss, confronting each other in a contest of whose champion's wills will prevail.

"... YOU! WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!" Izanami screeched out, her serpentine body writhing and crawling all over and throughout the blighted land of her own creation. "WHY CAN'T YOU DIE FAST ENOUGH?! YOU MAKE ME SICK OF YOUR AGGRAVATING PERSISTENCE!"

"Humanity didn't come this far to just lay down and die," Gozu Tennoh stoically replied, standing tall and proud before the foe several times its size. "All of their past tragedies... all of their present suffering... and all of their future hardships must be met head on. They will learn and grow from these experiences. Their survival shall be the testament of their stake in this cruel and merciless world!"

"SHUT UP AND DIE ALREADY!" The damned goddess then charges forth.

"YOU WILL NOT HALT MANKIND'S MARCH OF PROGRESS!" The mighty god then clashed his arms against his most antithetical foe.

In this land of death where the divine had descended upon the realm of man, nothing else matters besides death or glory.

---

Back at the Moon...

---

"DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOOOUUU!" Ziz shrieked as he continued shooting his barrage of wind blades and arcs of lightning at Lolopeckha, the latter being empowered by an Archangel's Pact, dodging his fusillade as she then counters by unleashing a barrage of high-pressure shots of water that cut into his feathers and skin. "DAMN YOU!"

The Demon then charges up with electricity throughout his whole body before charging towards her like a meteorite.

Lolopeckha, spurred by Undine and Jibril, meets his headfirst strike with her [Thalassa Sword], the collision sending both flying back, but with Ziz rolling across the Moon's surface as the young Queen was remaining airborne.

"How...?! How can some pampered princess who never threw a punch be beating me?!" Ziz bemoaned as he got back up. "HOW ARE YOU THIS STRONG WHEN THIS IS YOUR FIRST FIGHT THAT YOU HAD ON YOUR OWN?!"

"You accuse me of being spoiled," Lolopeckha snarled. "... You're right. I am blessed. More than I probably deserve."

Then several spherical urns made of water appear around her.

"But that doesn't mean that I am exempt from learning violence...!" she wept. "I saw my beloved people die while I could do nothing but watch as I heal the wounded! I had to order them to march towards their deaths so that the rest of the world doesn't suffer what we have! It's not just about me...! IT'S ABOUT HAVING TO STOP YOU FROM DESTROYING THE WORLD I LIVE IN!"

"BECAUSE YOU CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE BUT YOUR POSITION?!" Ziz then stirs up a massive hurricane before blasting it towards the young Queen.

"MY POSITION IS NOT JUST ME!" The urns then fire high-pressure streams of water that rend through the cyclone and the chalky earth, the blasts scarring the Demon even more as he tried to evade the barrage. "[ICHOR & WATER SPIRIT MAGIC: AQUARIUS PITHOS]!"

The sharp streams continued to purse Ziz as he went airborne, shifting their trajectories in his direction as the Demon then blasts a barrage of lighting at the water itself to have them disperse themselves through the stream and into the urns, destroying them outright as the playing field was reset.

Dammit... I can't keep this up! cursed Ziz as he was then forced onto the defense with Lolopeckha now unleashing several [Knights of Nereid] to chase after him as she unleashes several shots of dense water globules. Damn my creator for failing to take me fighting Archangels into account! Why didn't I just raze the damn Kingdom to bedrock the first chance I got?! Why am I so... so... SO STUPID?!

As he felt his back and wings being picked away bit by bit at by the water knights' swords and boring blasts of water, a certain epiphany struck Ziz like lightning.

Ever since he had come into existence by his master and creator, Lucifuge, the Demon of [Paranoia], he always had this "itch" that he felt that needed to be scratched.

The need to bully and control those who are below him.

It was why he flew up towards the Moon and called it his home for the past millennia and beyond. It was for this reason to literally look down upon everyone not him that made him invoke a sense of irony between two neighbors.

A bringer of death and calamity in the Heart Kingdom.

A bring of life and rain in Dama.

And yet, he realizes. Nothing really changed.

Heart Kingdom prospered into a jungle of a kingdom, whereas Dama, despite being a desert, thrived.

... Was I really necessary? he thought as the horror of this existential paradox weighed upon his mind.

But even as he tries to break through this stagnant mentality, his own better nature of as a Demon overtook him instantly.

No, I refuse to be invalidated like this! Ziz thought desperately. ... This is my only chance...! MY ONLY CHANCE TO FINALLY BE RID OF THIS ACHING FEELING!

The Demonic condor lets out a shrill hawk before pivoting its flight path back towards Lolopeckha.

"QUEEN OF THE HEART KINGDOM!" declared the Demon of [Tyranny]. "FOR TOO LONG I HAVE LET YOU LIVE! I SHALL CORRECT THAT MISTAKE RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!"

Then the Demon then draws the entire atmosphere into itself, the air around the Moon becoming thinner and harder to breathe, causing Lolopeckha to being feeling faint.

"LOLO!" Undine panicked before she began to feel more solid.

"We're running out of time," Jibril pointed out. "We need to end this, right now!"

Not wanting to die up here, Lolopeckha, Undine, and Jibril channel all of their power before their corpses floated in the void of outer space for the rest of eternity.

"I SHALL STAKE MY VERY EXISTANCE INTO THIS FINAL ATTACK!" Ziz's whole body then alights like the sun, the gathered air igniting like the sun's flames before charging towards the Chosen Child. "[WIND MAGIC: HEAT HAZE]!"

All three blessed by the element of [Water] then unleash their strongest attack towards the now-firebird Demon.

"[ORIGIN MAGIC: NOAH]!"

A massive magic circle was summoned above the Moon's surface, enveloping the entire sky before an ocean's worth of water fell onto the Demon, dousing his flames instantly before freezing him solid from the vacuum of space.

"... We did it."

Lolopeckha then draws her final breath as her body begins to freeze and suffocate from the vacuum.

And then, her motionless body is then pulled by the planet's gravity, reentering its atmosphere, her fading eyes seeing the frozen Demon drift into the eternity of outer space.

The quieting nerves began to feel warm to her body cold as death.

"... Lolo," Undine uttered. "LOLO!"

The heat increased as she, her host, and the Archangel began burning up as they fell back to their world faster and faster.

"I have to save her...!" Undine panicked. "I HAVE TO SAVE HER!"

"No," Jibril answered. "... We will."

Overriding her Pact, both the Spirit and Archangel poured their very magic into creating a bubble shield to both soften her landing and revive her from the brink.

"SHE'S STILL NOT BREATHING!" Undine cried out.

"There lies a way," Jibril answered as she uses her [Ichor Magic]'s endless supply of water to keep their safe space into a steady equilibrium. "... One of us has to maintain the barrier. You know what to do."

Undine, without hesitation, locks lips with Lolopeckha's own before instilling her own life into her host.

Lolopeckha... she thought as she poured both her mana and oxygen from her [Water Magic] into her host's lungs. ... Ever since the nation's founding since the first Armageddon, I have kept sentry in this fertile corner of land for generations. When I first met you, I knew you were special among your lineage, but that also made you especially vulnerable to the cruel reality of this world.

Undine's body began shrinking as Lolopeckha's heartbeat regained its rhythm.

... You've grown so much, but so fast that I couldn't protect your innocence from being shattered prematurely, the Spirit thought as her consciousness faded. ... Take care. You're a big girl now.

"... Undine?" Lolopeckha utters as she found herself falling back into the world encased in a massive bubble of water. "WHY ARE WE FALLING?!"

Jibril grits her teeth as she puts the young queen into another bubble before adding more layers to dampen the inevitable impact. "... Brace yourself."

---

Back on the Ground...

---

The two Kijin roared and howled as their armaments clashed against one another.

Sharpened bone appendences imbued with a thousand different curses that each can kill a man a thousand times over against six relics of mankind's innovation and survival, forged from countless trials and errors in the name of progress.

"[KOKATSU DENRYU]!" Izanami no Okami unleashes a massive, all-encompassing wave of rot that traversed all over the desolate and ruined land that had nothing left to rot sans her sole and equal opposition.

"[KONGO OH]!" Gozu Tennoh then brandishes his six tools of mankind's innovation to counter the rot, becoming an immovable rock against the ever-ceaseless current to decay. "[ASURA OH]!"

It's six arms then swell up to giant size before clamping all of them around the goddess, crushing her between the burly limbs before escaping by slithering through the scant gaps of its embrace, crawling all over the god of innovation and hardship with her centipede-like physiology.

"WHY DO YOU RESIST?!" the scorned goddess shrieked as she wrapped herself around Gozu Tennoh before belching another plume of decay onto his head. "ALL ARE SOON TO BE DUST!"

"You mean 'yet to be dust,' you bitch." the resolute god then grabs onto one of the segments of the goddess's long body before snapping it like a twig, then grabbing her upper torso, and then dropping himself onto his but to execute a stunner. "As long as the chance of victory is not a 0%, humanity will not surrender to decay! We will fight on to our last breaths and ensure that the future will be there for those behind us!"

"WHAT 'FUTURE'?!" Izanami rebuked as she then regrew her snapped body before crushing Gozu Tennoh in her bony embrace that cut into his diamante skin. "WHAT DO YOU EVEN FIGHT FOR WHEN THERE'S NO ONE LEFT TO DIE FOR?!"

"Do you honestly think that 'dying' for someone is an answer?!" The adamant god then lifts both himself and the scorned goddess up together before leaping into the air, sailing across the sky, and the landing both headfirst into the rotten earth and muck into a spinning piledriver. "TO 'LIVE' IS THE TRUE TESTEMENT OF MANKIND! I WILL NOT ALLOW SUCH SELFISHNESS TO PREVAIL OVER THOSE WHO HAVE YET TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT!"

"SO YOU STAKE YOUR VERY BEING FOR A BUNCH NAMELESS STRANGER THAT DON'T EVEN SHARE A SINGLE DROP OF YOUR BLOOD?!" Izanami howled as she bit into one of Gozu Tennoh's arms. "THEY DON'T EVEN LIKE YOU!"

"TO HELL WITH WHAT THEY OR ANYONE ELSE THINKS ABOUT ME!" The resolute god then strangles the spiteful goddess with his prayer beads like a garrote. "I'M HERE! AND I'M GONNA FIGHT ON WHETHER THEY STAND BEHIND ME OR NOT!"

The two Kijin then break off from their grapple, with Izanami unleashing a flurry of serpentine constructs made of the polluted earth to attack Gozu Tennoh, whereas the latter swings his [Shien] and axe to cut all of them down as they came before combining his trident and beads into a harpoon that which he casts towards the malevolent goddess of decay.

Izanami then lets out a howl so shrill that it disrupts the air, causing the thrown spear to go off course, but Gozu Tennoh then crosses his hammer and sickle before slamming them into the ground, sprouting forth various weapons and crops from the ground.

The female Kijin counters by dragging her [Murasame] through the rotten earth to unleash a tidal wave of pure poison, corroding the coming harvest right before Gozu Tennoh charges forth, retrieving his harpoon on the way before lunging the spear into her intersection where her upper and lower torsos met, staking through her hole length and out the back.

Izanami wastes no time retaliating by biting her antithesis in the neck, puncturing a vein before the bullheaded god headbutts back, goring one of its amethyst-shaded horns into the goddess' eye.

Both Kijin then pull back to recover from their injures, with Izanami regrowing her broken bones as Gozu Tennoh immunized his own body from the former's rot.

Nothing else needed to be said as both deities stared each other down as rain began to pour from the closed skies, each droplet hot as hell and caustic as acid melting down whatever was left standing, sans the two divinities.

Izanami resurrects after each destruction inflicted to her body. Gozu Tennoh adapts faster than the curses could kill him. Neither side could deal the finishing blow to end this stalemate.

Nothing else mattered, sans this fight. And ending it once and for all.

"... The nine roars of the closed heavens tremor."

"A single spark alights a fire..."

Decay.

Illumination.

"Rejected by all..."

"... To guide the lost."

Spite.

Hope.

"... I stand alone."

"Towards tomorrow and beyond..."

Rot.

Growth.

"And thus, I invite thee..."

"... And thus, I shall ignite."

Despair.

Suffering.

"... Into the DEPTHS OF HELL!" Izanami no Okami then plants all of her bony, rubicund limbs into the dirt, ingraining herself into the very world she'd been summoned through Akane's body as her cursed vessel. "[AMA NO MIHASHIRA: YOMOTSU NO SHOTAI]!"

An engulfing tidal wave of red skeletal hands akin to a bloody tsunami rose before the cursed goddess as their groping and empty hands all reached out towards their most hated foe.

Their antithesis, who refuses to submit in the face of imminent death.

"The light that shall pierce the darkness..." All six of Gozu Tennoh's hands crush then throw aside their tools before winding back all of them as diamante fists whose sable shade began to glimmer and shine like a single black diamond polished to perfection and beyond. "... [Kokusen]."

A single flash in the enveloping darkness pierces through the veil, breaching a clean, circular hole through the wall and into Izanami herself.

Within exactly .01 of a second, the accursed goddess of decay failed to recover at all, the strike of Gozu Tennoh being too fast to heal from.

However, Izanami's own attack of a thousand curses each multiplied a thousandfold still fell upon the resolute god, crushing him under the bony tide, overwhelming his adaptability at such a rate that the adamantine god rotted under the deluge.

The acidic rain ceases as the sun finally breaks through the fading fog, now shining upon a land in complete ruin.

"... Fuck."

Yami grunts as he gets up, now completely naked, covered head to toe in polluted muck, and his head now sporting a new pair of amethyst horns akin to that of Hanafuda's Oni.

"... How I am I still alive-?" The man then collapses face-first into the swamp, his legs feeling like pudding. "... Gonna feel that for a while."

"It's because... we're no longer human."

Lying across from him was none other than Akane, also lacking in clothing, covered in filth, and sporting a pair of amber-colored horns sprouting from above her brows.

"... Let me guess," Yami remarked, trudging through the mud like the world's ugliest mudskipper. "... We've awakened our Kijin bloodline, so now we're literally gods. Sure. That makes a whole lot of sense!"

Akane scoffs. "... You never learned how the Kijin earned their status as gods, didn't you?"

"They never thought us anything of sort at our local temple school... as if it were standing during the fucking war," Yami grumbled before rolling onto his back. "... Teach me, Mitsurugi-sensei!"

Akane smirks. "... The Kijin were originally common Oni, no different from a human being save for being stronger, bigger, and dumber. However, they all had an innate gift where every time they narrowly escape death, they gain power proportional to how close they came to dying."

"... So breaking their limits," Yami scoffed. "... Deja vu."

"Kijin became as gods by surpassing their fear of death, their once hearts of evil turning towards one of valor and courage," Akane continued. "... At least my bloodline was specifically bred to withstand torture so that our strength could grow exponentially. So how did you accomplish such a feat with a muddled bloodline?"

Yami smirks as he pivoted his head towards Akane's. "... Don't underestimate the human spirit," he answered. "If that weren't the case... there would be a lot less humans and more Oni back at Hanafuda."

Akane sighs in partial defeat. "... So in the end, you emerge victorious," she admits defeat. "... Not by strength, but by will alone."

"Ha!" Yami laughs. "... Although, not gonna lie, but you're one scary-ass bitch that you'd make the actual denizens of Hell cry."

Akane scoffs with a smug smirk. "... Damn straight."

The two Kijin lay down in silence as they both stared at the sun between the clouds, seeing something come down from above and shift away from where they were at.

"... Huh, wonder what was that," Yami commented.

"Who cares..." Akane grumbled in defeat. "... Who cares anymore."

The Kijin sighs as she lays despondent.

"... You have striped me bare of everything that mattered to me," she accused Yami while looking away from him. "My clan, my duty, my twin sister, and now my dignity. Are you proud?"

"I should be, but I can't," the other Kijin answered. "... After all, you did the same to me as well."

A bitter sense of mutual irony of being only able to defeat each other after literally losing everything they held dear at each others' hands has set upon the pair.

"... You are a cruel man, Yami," Akane growled.

"And you're a bitch, so we're even," Yami scoffed.

The two stare at the sun in a period of silence before talking.

"... So, I gotta ask," Yami began, "but your sister's little trip down memory lane works via her own memories, right?"

Akane nods in silence.

"... So how the hell did she end up showing your dirty laundry?!" he pointed out. "Hell! Most of her memories were about you!"

"... You know that in Hanafudan folklore, twins are two halves of a single soul, correct?" Akane replied.

Yami's eyes widened. "... You don't mean-?"

Akane nods. "... She told me everything."

---

Ten Years Prior...

---

"... You knew?" Akane gasped as she and Mari sat across from each other in a room at an inn while outside in jubilance of hunting down the last members of the Zogratis Clan after their Reign of Terror had violently come to an end.

"... I felt every nick, every strike, every strain, and every bite inflicted upon you, anesama," the younger twin revealed. "Mother forced me to endure what you have endured while I was learning how to prepare tea, all in the hopes of making me into her 'perfect heir'."

Akane couldn't believe what she had heard as she slumps down onto her bed, the sounds of screaming and crackling flames followed up by cheering could be heard from the streets outside.

"... I'm so sorry," the older twin apologized.

"You don't have to apologize for what was beyond our control," Mari reassured. "... After all, we're twins. We're two halves of a greater whole."

Akane was speechless as the realization weighed upon her. But her conditioning done by her mother left her paralyzed the moment when she tries to call out her mother for treating them like her dolls in the name of "tradition."

Mari then sits herself down next to Akane as the streets paraded with jeers and screaming women being dragged by their hair towards the burned out stake.

"... Maybe this can be our chance to start a new life," she remarked with a small smile. "Maybe... maybe we can have our own life here, without mother. Without Hanafuda. Without duty."

"... You don't know what you're saying!" Akane panicked. "Mother will-!"

"Will what? Come across the blasted sea of perpetual storms and dress us down before our new friends in the Revolutionary Army?" Mari deadpanned. "... Be realistic, anesama. Hanafuda, the Matsugane Clan, our own mother, the moment they put us on that ship full of the sick and infirmed... did you honestly think that they expect us to come back home?"

"... They have to," Akane answered, her voice mired with denial. "THEY HAVE TO-!"

Mari shushes Akane by placing her finger on her older twin's lips.

"I know it's hard, but trust me," Mari stated. "... Our chances of finding the disgraced scion of the Yami Clan is a million-no, a billion-to-one-chance. We'll be both old and gray by the time we find his tombstone, so why bother?"

Akane sighs. "... Are you sure about this?"

Mari smiles sincerely. "I have you as my 'guardian,' remember?" she reminded her older twin sister before giving her a hug. "... We're twins. We'll always be together through thick and thin."

Akane eyes watered as she could finally find a chance at a new life. "... I'll try."

"That's the spirit!" Mari then hugged Akane tighter before letting her go. "... Wanna go join the hunt for those Zogratis motherfuckers that are still hiding?"

"Fuck yeah." The twins then pick up their [Murasame] and [Shien] respectively before making their way outside to join the post-victory festivities.

---

"And Nozel just had to blab..." Yami rolled his eyes at that said "billion-to-one-chance" happening anyway. "... But if you cared, why didn't you stop your sister from joining you?"

Akane scoffs. "... We're twins," she answered. "We're bound together no matter where we go. Now look at me, unable to join her in the Great Beyond."

She then pulls [Murasame] out of the muck before slitting her throat with its edge, the cut closing immediately as soon as it was made. Yami then does the same with his recently-acquired [Shien], the blade literally passing through his body and along the closing cut, the gash behaving more akin to a zipper or a seam that closed itself back shut on its own as the blade literally passed through as if his body was now water.

"... Creepy," Yami commented. "... If this what being a god is like, then I want a refund!"

"We're now bound to the will of the people, Hanafudan or not," Akane explained. "... Despair. Spite. Fear. Death. Will. Hope. Determination. And innovation. Those are our sustenance now. As long as either of the spectrum of human consciousness continues to exist, we will as such."

Yami groans out loud as he placed his palms onto his face, muddying it further. "... So much for going back home, huh?"

"Deep down, I knew that we were never going home, but still...!" Akane began to weep. "... I wanted to believe! I wanted to believe that all that I have suffered for wasn't in vain! I want my mother to say that I've done her proud...! If not... then what was my life for?!"

Yami scoffs. "Congrats," he deadpanned. "You wasted 15 years of your life for nothing. I hope you're proud of what you've done getting to this point."

Then, a splash was heard from afar.

The two Kijin look ahead of them and find Lolopeckha, the knees of her dress staining themselves on the muck as her eyes, now revealed by her slanted glasses, shrunk in horror at what had transpired.

"Wha-What have you done...?!" her voice trembled in both rage and despair. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

Akane apathetically looks away. "... Rage, curse, and spite me all you can," she grumbled. "... This place is slain by my hand."

Overcome with fury, Lolopeckha then unleashes [Noah] unto Akane and Yami (the latter being an unintentional target), the crushing deluge being more than enough to pulverizes a man's bones a thousand times over, but as soon as the ocean's worth of water met the muck, it instantly turned putrid, washing the Kijin not in dense sea water, but a fetid brine that weighed as much as air.

"... Thanks for the bath," Akane deadpanned. "... News flash: I cannot die by mortal means. The same for the disgraced scion."

Jibril then looks at them, seeing that their souls are gone, and that their bodies now match her and the Archangels' own. "... They've transcended," the Archangel revealed. "... Just like Sephira when she first partook the Fruit of Knowledge."

Yami says nothing, realizing that they were beyond the point of mere apologies.

"... You ruined... everything!" Lolopeckha wept. "... How much did you need to kill for the sake of your agenda?! HOW MANY LIVE DID YOU HAVE TO WASTE ALL FOR YOUR SO-CALLED 'DUTY'?!"

Akane scoffs apathetically. "I would've damned a million more if it meant completing my mission," she answered. "... If anything, the fact that my mission has failed and unable to take my own life as atonement is a fate worse that what you can come up with, Your Highness."

The Kijin rolls over to her side, turning her back onto the young Queen in utter despair.

"... I'm just a puppet without a master," she bitterly remarked. "It took me experiencing true failure that I'm unable to atone for to realize that my mother was a Devil."

"Might be literal, given how much she manhandled your ass..." Yami rolled his eyes.

"I was like what, a child back then?" Akane pointed out.

"Nah, I don't thing five-year-old children decapitating grown-ass men counts as a 'child-like' behavior," the other Kijin deadpanned.

"You really know how to irk me still, don't you, Yami?" Akane growled.

"Hey, you and I are on the same boat now!" he pointed out. "So fuck you, fuck your mom, and fuck Hanafuda!"

"THAT'S IT!"

"OH?! YOU WANNA GO?!"

The two Kijin immediately spring back up to their feet before punching each other into each others' faces, restarting their prior grudge match as newly-minted gods.

"YEEEAAARRRT!"

All Lolopeckha can do was watch in horror as could do nothing before the face of two unkillable gods of fear and hunger resume beating the living tar out of each other.

"... We have to go," Jibril ordered.

"... But my home!" the young Queen sobbed in denial.

"Undine won't heal in this ruined land," the Archangel pointed out. "Anywhere else would be better than tarrying about here."

Unable to do anything to stop the Kijin from turning what was left of the Heart Kingdom into their playground, Lolopeckha leaves disgraced.

First, she passed through the husk of a jungle once full of life, now rotting to its very core.

Then, she passed through what was left of her home and the surrounding areas, expired from war.

And finally, just before reaching Clover Kingdom, she passed through the bones of her fleeing people, whittering away what little hope she had left.

She then tries to summon Undine as her last light of reconciliation, but the Water Spirit was reduced to a fetal state in her hands after expending her lifeforce to save Lolopeckha during the atmospheric reentry.

The sounds of sorrowful tears joined the dirge of Heart Kingdom's funeral.

---

Present Day...

---

"... And then a month later, Yami and Akane came to Quatre smelling like shit," Julius finished the story, with Jericho, Corrin, Letoile, Salim, William (Patry the Elf soul being asleep), Dorothy, Agatha, Dagda, Cernunnos, Ogmios, Danu (outside of the window due to being unable to fit inside), Lugh, Cu, and Mudo all listened in as their story lasted all the way from their ride on Zio's back to the settlement and into Julius' office. "... According to them, they got bored of punching each other, so they came in, Yami legally adopted Akane, and now they're our allies in the loosest sense possible, much to our now-last-living Queen of the now-former Heart Kingdom. And yes, I tried aging the Kijin to death, and this happened."

The Wizard King then reveals his withered right hand looking more akin to a shriveled corpse, to which he then uses his [Time Magic] to rewind its state, only for the rotten hand to remain the same.

"... That Kijin's curse is one powerful shit," Julius admitted before putting away. "Thankfully, it just feels like I'm dipping my hand in acid every time I move it."

"That doesn't make it any better!" Jericho pointed out before looking towards Yami. "And what's literally stopping Akane from cursing everyone here to death?!"

"Trust me, the finger-snapping is considered an improvement," Yami groaned.

"Really?" Corrin deadpanned.

Meanwhile, Agatha, the Witch Queen, was gnawing at her thumb in frustration to the point of bleeding. "... Damn Kijin, accomplishing what I failed to do," she muttered at their achievement of becoming akin to Sephira as she tried and failed to do with her Witches. "... Maybe I didn't kill enough Warlocks."

"And back to square one..." Ogmios rolled his eyes.

"Now I wanna fight 'em...!" Cu chuckled in anticipation.

"One kingdom already got destroyed in the process, so can we please not risk another?" Julius requested. "And before you ask, no, the former Diamond Kingdom territory is being occupied by Akane and Zio for their 'sparring' match."

"That's why we missed 'em?" Dorothy remarked.

"Ah, no wonder why she was in such a rush..." Mudo sighed. "... Lady Zio has always been a spirited one ever since she practically adopted the twins and their customs."

"Wait a minute!" Danu remarked. "... The whole kingdom turning into a swamp... IS THAT WHY THERE WAS SO MUCH METHANE IN THE AIR THAT MADE MY [JET OPTION] EXPLODE MID-AIR?!"

"I'm more shocked that we didn't die from breathing in that rank air..." Salim nervously remarked. "... Could've been worse, I suppose."

Letoile sighs lightly before stepping up. "... Now what?"

"What we can, I suppose," Corrin pointed out. "... Dig in our heels, and wait for the worst that's yet to come."

"Ye lot do dat," Dagda remarked as he jumped out of the window. "... I'm gunna go on a sabbatical back te de Spade Kingdom te look fur sum shite. Now dat Brigid and Cissonius are dead, I gotta go deal with whatever bastards dat got prior beef with 'em in particular."

"What about Aengus, boss?" Lugh asked. "She's still out of it back at our tavern."

"It'll be like the good old days..." Cernunnos then yawns as he floated on his floating pillow. "... Let's make 'em proud."

Danu nods. "And who knows?" she remarked with an optimistic tone. "Maybe if we double back, we can find more allies to our cause! Happens to us a lot!"

"Hopefully," Julius sighed. "... Alright, dismissed."

Everyone then leaves the room before making their separate ways.

"To think we had it bad..." William chuckled. "... God, I need a drink."

"Come by de tavern, den," Dagda suggested. "... Mead's still dere, so fill up on 'em before we bugger off."

"Save a seat for me!" Dorothy added as the majority of the survivors of the Forest of Denial beelined towards their much-needed alcohol, leaving Corrin and Jericho behind before the office building.

"... I'm gonna go walk around," Corrin said.

"Me too," Jericho replied. "See you around."

The two then split off, with Jericho wandering over to the commercial sector of the rebuilt capital.

"Now, let's see..." Jericho thought as he tapped his head for recollection. "... If I recall, then Yuno's Alchemist Guild membership should have taken place... around here?"

He then turns the corner, only to find nothing but an empty lot.

"... Did it get destroyed during our time away?" he thought out loud before an old man passed him by. "Excuse me! Was there a building here before?"

The old man squints before scoffing in dismissal. "... That place was barren as far as I reckon."

Jericho, even after recieving his answer, was left befuddled at this revelation.

"... I could've sworn that there was a potion shop right here!" he remarked in shock. "What's going on?!"

---

Back at the (Former) Heart Kingdom...

---

Amidst the land that was lush and vibrant with green, a great and wide pit of gravel surrounded by the stale and toxic muck of the swamps laid silent.

Then, a small rumble jolted the collection of loose stone below, rocking steadily until it began to swell upwards.

The pile scatters its stones, revealing a large Dragon's skull emerging from the rocks.

A groan, followed up by a grimace, the skull then begins morphing its shape into something more humanoid.

It's lower jaw shifted into legs, its cheeks changed into arms, its forehead turned into its torso resembling armor, and its horns turned into its head, completely featureless save for the lines running around its circumference like an upwards spiral.

"... Who... am I?" it grunted. "What... am I?!"

Then, a sensation of pain struck its head like lightning, with different flashes and images overwhelming its immature senses.

Graveyards, rotten manors, sacked laboratories, underground testing labs, a quiet room, and a burning village.

None of these memories had any correlation nor continuity between them. They were simply... glued together haphazardly, without rhyme or reason for anything sans for simply... existing.

"... I... I am... I am...!"

The Dragon-morph howls in agony as a foreign sensation was then overwhelmed by another memory, with the following words being repeated ad nauseum.

Project A.L.E.P.H.

Find the numbers.

Project H.O.L.O.N.

Check their bodies for signs.

Become the God of Magic.

I am.

I am.

I am.

A god.

Kill everyone that is not me.

Trust nothing but my own mastery.

Stand above all creation.

Become a god.

No matter what it takes.

The screams of agony then turned into maddened laughter as a devilish candor screeched from the bottom of the pit and throughout the dead lands.

"... Ah, it all makes sense now," it spoke clearly, its tone confident of itself. "... Mammon, Morris, Mari, Rades, Valtos, Sally, Angra, and Mainyu! A composite existence after their untimely deaths!"

The creases around its conical head hums in a sinister tone, like a machine of pure evil coming to life on its own. The lines around the horn then glow as it then extends its arm outwards, willing forth five separate grimoires and a necklace with four magatamas hanging from the thread by their holes.

"The soul of the Hanafudan... channeled through the Dragon's latent energy...!" it hypothesized as it began learning about its existence. "The grudges of the necromancer... triggered upon expiration!"

The five grimoires all begin breaking apart page by page, each individual sheet orbiting around the newly-realized being, while its now-emptied covers melding together into a singular construct.

"The hunger for knowledge from the scientist... spurred by denial!" it continued. "The despair of the lost... guided by hatred!"

The covers and pages all collide into one, turning into a massive grimoire the size of a house's door and thick as a tree's trunk.

"The spite of the blind... moved by greed bordering on delusion...!" The being then grabs the necklace of magatama by its strings. "... And the desires of the forsaken and abandoned... SATED BY THE DEATH OF OTHERS!"

It then snaps the strings, letting loose the jewels before all four of them indent themselves into the large grimoire's cover into a spiral-like formation at its center, branding an esoteric magic circle around the central emblem.

"A new life... calls for a new name."

The pages open, revealing a registry right behind the cover.

"We... are Kepler."

The name "Kepler" is burned on top of the line before the grimoire closes, shuttering like an actual door for how dense it is.

"No longer a man... or a Demon... or a Dragon... or even a god," they boasted as Kepler and their grimoire floated out of the pit until they were overlooking the ruined land. "... We am simply us, a culmination of eight different souls united into the bones of a Dragon long lost..."

A faint ache bothers Kepler before a remedy was discovered.

"... We will pay them a visit." Cracking open the large grimoire, they then will a pitch black portal leading elsewhere, walking into it and into a lab where two tubes of glass containing two beings akin to Demons or Devils floating in a colored liquid like preserved fruits or vegetables.

And both were being bothered by two nosy people who couldn't help themselves, with Kepler vaguely remembering them as something called... "Illuminati."

"Who-WHO ARE YOU-?!"

Kepler remembers Helena as they smashed their massive grimoire across the top of her head, the puny frame being crushed to mush by the spine's sheer weight.

"STAY BACK! STAY BACK-!"

Kepler then remember "Alister" as he slips on the blood of his companion, hitting the back of his head against the base containing the two beings that they finally remember as "Maxwell" and "Laplace" so hard that he both snaps his neck and splits open his head upon the impact, killing him instantly as his [Fate Magic]'s karma debt finally caught up to him in the most mundane way possible: not minding his surroundings.

With the loose ends now tied up, Kepler then begins searching their bodies (or what's left of it in Helena's case).

"Not here..." they scoffed as they tossed Helena's shoe aside before searching the relatively-intact Alister for their desired objective.

They first stripped them of his clothes. Then they skinned him. And finally, they gutted him, leaving no stone unturned until they find what they were looking for: a heart branded with "V" on one of its largest chambers.

"At last...!" Carefully, Kepler, following the instructions left behind by their prior lives, sets the organ next to where the hands printed with "IV" and "VII" were at, storing into a jar as they begin making the final preparations for their long-awaited Project A.L.E.P.H. to come into fruition.

"... Need... an army," they mumbled as they began making the final adjustments for their plan regarding the two artificial Demons, Maxwell and Laplace. "... Undead... won't do... they... need to be stronger... Strong... like... me!"

Opening their massive grimoire, they then tap into [Soul Corpse Magic] from parts of Rades' grimoire they managed to cannibalize, along with Valtos [Spatial Magic] and Sally's [Gel Magic], their brain coming up with various ideas and made them compete with each other in a Darwinist-style free-for-all, until nothing but the bare essentials and necessary parts for said ideas were left.

"... It can work...! It will work!" Then they combined their ideas into a singular spell, using the underground city of Agartha itself as its conduit. "[Triad Compound Magic: Spartoi Farm]!"

The whole city, from within the secret chambers, roared to life as its ruined buildings and empty roads were swept flat and turned into numerous lines of production akin to an automated factory.

The machinery that were once homes of its long-lost inhabitants hummed to life as it conveyor belts began rolling, the furnaces lighting up with heat, and the pistons and gears turning to begin their magic.

The line first produced zombies via Rades' magic, carried by the belts before they were dumped into the vats of heated liquid akin to slime provided by Sally's magic, bathing them into this bizarre substance before they were intricately molded and honed by Valtos' magic, coming out as metallic, humanoid soldiers with Dragon-like features on their new armored bodies.

Once the process was done, their metallic coatings were blued by Angra's magic, turning the silver sheen into a tougher matte dark-blue hue before they were inserted with smaller metal plates printed with commands carved in by Mainyu's magic, burrowing it into the back of their necks as a pointed cable then connected with the back of their heads, shocking them life with a force akin to Mari's esoteric magic, signaled by their heads opening up to reveal a black orb of energy akin to an eye's iris.

Once the process was done, they were then lined up in order like disciplined soldiers, waiting for the next batch to take their place as they were shipped elsewhere to make room.

"The [Spartoi]... fusing human ingenuity... and a Dragon's might... honed by a Kijin's wisdom!" Kepler declared. "... We will be ready!"

Project A.L.E.P.H. then needed a location to take place, and one which the amalgam being knew the best.

"... Clover Kingdom... shall be Ground Zero!"

Away from the world, an army bent on conquest is forged, sequestered within a rotten and damned lands where all life died upon entry.

---

"Well, isn't that just fortuitous..."

Perching from one of the many trees from the edge of the Forest of Denial was none other than Ereshkigal, the vulture Demon now wearing a necklace of skulls that she'd extracted from the fleeing Damans a few months prior, peering out towards the open plains to spot a young man, his Fae companion, a nun wearing a modified cloth that can be taken into battle, a redheaded young woman wearing a blooded white coat over her two-piece ensemble made of beast fur, and a gloomy-looking bard carrying a lute across his slumped shoulders, all traveling through the open plains leading into the Spade Kingdom's very heart.

"... I could just kill them now," she mused until her sense of [Deception] got the better of her pragmatic nature. "... But I can just leave them to tarry a bit longer... so that their deaths will be extra-painful."

Spreading her black wings, she then takes off and flies high into the open skies, away from plain view to stalk her prospect prey.

"Enjoy your farcical journey's dying gasps," she snickered as her body shifted into that of a common [Harpy], completely hiding her malevolence and blending in with her surroundings. "I'm sure that it's end will be spectacular."

---

... Fools.

It was Quatre, right before the Royal Palace's gates.

You assumed that killing me was the end?

Standing before this empty world was none other than Yetzer, cackling like a madman as the denizens of the Clover Kingdom were hapless pawns to his master plan.

Now you will understand there are fates worse than death.

Flying into the main courtyard, the bat Demon then transforms his whole body into a circular machinery, shedding his bestial form to reveal a clockwork-like being that floated in place, with the face having numbers 1 to 666 surrounded in a ring of brass snakes and a lion's maw, with a sword-like arrow pointing towards the latter, kept in place by both angelic and demonic wings flapping it aloft.

Now...

The arrow ticks down to 665.

Who can count backwards from 666 to 1?

---

27 Days, 17 Hours, 59 Minutes, 59 Seconds Remaining...

---

The clock giggles in anticipation as it waits for the countdown to come to an end.

I am Yetzer, the inclination of my one, true master.

The first hour of this world's end ticks down towards its next.

My true name is Abraxas, the Great Herald.

---

To Be Continued...

---

Author's Notes: I listened to Limp Bizkit's "Rollin'" while typing this. That's all I will explain on why this chapter feels like a series of whiplashes.

ANYWAY!

Finally, the "Lost Three Months"-saga is now OVER. Meaning that I can move onto the other chapters.

And speaking of, I only have around 20-ish chapters/3 arcs and an epilogue waiting in the wings. And just to ensure that the fic is coming to an end, I'm putting an in-story timer until the end saga (BTW, 27 Days, 18 Hours equals 666 hours).

My only regret with writing this abomination of a fic is that I never learned to love Black Clover with the respect it deserves until it was too late.

I will not use my poor mental health during High School and College as an excuse. All I can do now is own up to my mistakes and end it in my way: with a whole lot mind screw that makes one wonder if I'm on drugs (I'm clean, I swear), and double down on the bullshit.

And now, onto the process writing this chapter:

Akane is one giant reference to Izanami-no-Mikoto:

- When first making herself known post-resurrection, she cannot be looked at lest they die, similar to how Izanagi was requested by Izanami to not look at her face while escorting out of Yomi.

- Her number motif being "1000" is a reference to the number of people she'll curse to death every year, and the number of sacrifices Akane needs to fully ascend into a Kijin.

- Her black eyes with amber-colored irises are mythologically accurate to the Shinto folklore.

Conversely, Yami representing Gozu Tennoh makes a lot of sense:

- His general "Jerk with a Heart of Gold" personality is evocative of Gozu Tennoh spreading disease to mankind to make them find a cure from the blight.

- Asuras and Gozu Tennoh come from Buddhist faith, an "outsider" religion that came to Japan, like how Yami was a foreigner before being naturalized into the Clover Kingdom.

- Both are bull-headed to an extent, and in Gozu Tennoh's case, it's quite literal (his name literally means "bull-headed heavenly king") to Yami's founding of the Black Bulls.

- More esoterically, Gozu Tennoh is later integrated into Shinto Mythology as an aspect of Susanoo, the Japanese God of Storms and Destruction (an allusion to Yami's canon moniker of "God of Destruction").

Simply put, Akane represents the "Black Pill"/nihilism whereas Yami represents the "Red Pill"/confronting the cruel reality. More loosely, Mari can represent the "Blue Pill" in that she at least tried to make something of their new reality and live a new life away from Hanafuda when the prospects of returning home was nigh-impossible (until Nozel's loose lips were heard by the twins nearby after the War for Libratium), and her sharing the fact that she knew about Akane's circumstances this whole time meant that she was well-intentioned in her regards of keeping Akane away from her set duties.

Overall, this mess started because of the Mitsurugi Clan matriarch, and it ended with her plans failing to take into account of the chaotic factor known as "human stubbornness" (including that of her own daughters ironically enough). And it ends with Yami becoming the "Fortunate Son" ala a becoming an immortal Kijin, and Akane cursed with the same thing, living utterly alone without the people that cared for her/Mari.

And if you wanna know how Kepler came to be, recall the last act of Morris/Mammon TOUCHING the Dragon's skull, enough so to cause a reaction that killed Mari, implying that he used his [Result Magic] as a sort of Hail Mary that resulted in their creation. And remember that the combined host and Demon had Rades' grimoire on hand after the necromancer ditched it in favor or Leopold's.

There's a recipe for disaster, and then there's this.

We're approaching endgame soon.

Tune in next time, to my remaining readers, where we're gonna go full-on D&D!

... And deal with childhood existential trauma and horror as they go Dungeon delving.

PRAY FOR ME.

---

References:

- Lolopeckha's reaction to seeing outer space is partially based off Lowji's epiphany from The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World.

- The others being unable to turn their heads towards Akane before Gaja jumped in is a reference to the debut scene of the Darkness Devil from Chainsaw Man.

- Akane's declaration of sacrifice using Gaja as a jumping off point and the scene following after it is based off Berserk's Eclipse and Persona 5's Yaldabaoth retconning the Phantom Thieves after their support hits 0% during the final arc.

- Akane's speech after killing Gaja is loosely inspired by Naoya Zen'in's speech during his time as the Worm Curse from Jujutsu Kaisen.

- Akane's Izanami no Okami-form is designed after the Persona 4's final boss of the same name, with some elements of Mistress Centipede from Inuyasha, Muzan Kibutsuji's battle form from Demon Slayer, and Bitores Méndez's Las Plagas mutation from Resident Evil 4.

- Izanami's "I am the one who invites" is a double reference to her name etymology ("she who invites") and a Breaking Bad quote-"I am the one who knocks."

- Gaja's [Arma Eleuthereus] spell is named after one of Zeus' many titles (in this case, it loosely means "deliverer") while "Arma" means "chariot" in Greek.

- Gozu Tennoh's appearance is loosely inspired by his appearance in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, with some elements of Shin Megami Tensei IV's Minotaur, and Vulcanusmon from Digimon. And its overall vibe/creed is based off the titular God of Fear and Hunger.

- Gozu Tennoh's [Kokusen] technique is named after the Black Flash from Jujutsu Kaisen.

- Kepler's name is named after the Kepler's Dream thought experiment that was used to describe how the Moon appeared (and to absolve his mother of being accused of witchcraft). Its grimoire's size and width is a reference to the real-life Codex Gigas, aka, the Devil's Bible.

- The [Spartoi]/"sown men" are Greek warriors of stone/skeletons sprouted from a Dragon's dropped fangs. Design-wise, I based them off of the ones from the Anti-Monster Squad webtoon with some elements of Ethereals from Zenless Zone Zero and the Graze from Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans.

- Abraxas is named after an Aeon who was worshipped by a sect of Gnostics in the 2nd Century, who was the one that sent Jesus Christ down onto the Earth as his phantom, and whose name contained the seven letters that formed the number "365," the same number of virtues he represents and the number of lesser gods that he commands. Its clock form is based off the Dooms Clock used by Hundred from Kamen Rider Gotchard and Norn from the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. It also quotes Diaboromon/Diablomon from Digimon: The Movie/Our War Game!