Baka-Tsuki - User contributions [en]

Dantega:Volume 3 Chapter 4

2013-09-25T17:30:35Z

76.216.193.41:

Chapter 23: Revelation

(PART 1)

"It's about time we took a rest! What is this some kind of death march!?" shouts Xavier.

He is complaining to his little brother Luke who has an embarrassed smile on his face.

"Well it looks like we've almost made it to the first gate and we have only been traveling for ten days." Luke replied while scratching his head.

Aria chimes in, "Yeah, this way is quicker than the way Strauph and the others went. Papa wanted to explore more of this world so he came back to our hometown in a giant circle."

When she says circle she means that the map is shaped in a perfect loop around the massive crater that Abaddon created, making it look very similar to this (|) shape.

"Well what's the point of moving so fast if they don't even catch up for a few days!? We should move slower!"

Phoenix comes up and tries to calm him down. "Now now, it's not our choice to decide how fast we should go." he says as he twitches his head toward Rage who is sitting on a rock.

Xavier looks at him and quickly looks away when he sees that Rage is shooting him an angry glare.

"It's best that we get to the Gate before them, I'd prefer it if Ubica would not fight unless he absolutely had to... I don't want to hear anymore complaints." said Rage in a stern voice.

Xavier turns away and blows air out of his nose.

Phoenix chuckles and proceeds to walk to Rage's side. "Do you not want him to fight because you are afraid he will lose himself?"

Rage's eyes widen with surprise and asks, "You know who he is?"

He smiles and gestures Rage to join him to walk further away from the group into an area clattered with large rocks.

"That's right... I am a man of God after all, I can feel his evil pulling at my soul every second I was near him."

By now the two are close to a hundred yards away from the rest.

"What made you come to the conclusion that he is who he is?"

Phoenix opens his bible and looks to the newest testament of Revelation and says, "This book describes him pretty well does it not?"

Rage sits on a rock and twirls his scythe. "Hmph... I guess it does if you can figure out that the now kind Ubica is actually the Anti-Christ."

"You know what the word Anti actually means, by putting Christ on the back end of that word means that he is the exact opposite of the Messiah. As much as Jesus Christ is the embodiment of love, Ubica is the embodiment of evil. One would have to be foolish to not be able to feel that presence in him."

"Well it would seem if that there are a lot of fools in this group." Rage takes a deep breathe and continues, "Speaking of Jesus... It always seems that when things get bad like this, he and God are nowhere to be found."

Phoenix shuts his bible abruptly causing it to make a loud thud, he reveals a sharp glare accompanied by a faint smile and says, "Oh... He is a lot closer than you think."

Rage gets a funny feeling in his chest at his words, he stands up and looks straight into his eyes and asks, "Do you know something I don't?"

Phoenix laughs a little, "Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't. But one thing is for sure, you'll find out which one it is soon enough."

He turns away and walks through the hill of large rocks that lay between him and camp.

Rage is left their wondering about what this priest had just said, with a mind full of suspicion all he can do is sit back on the rock and scowl.

-------------------

"Hey Sora..." Aria asks.

Sora pauses and thinks of her one word to say, and comes to struggle replying in her usual robotic tone, "...What..?"

Aria looks a little troubled when she says, "I've been meaning to ask you for a while now, Papa's book... Since you could read it I want to know what he said about me."

When she says 'could', it means that the book is no longer here to read. Back when they were avoiding falling into the massive crater at the stone house in her home town, the book was dropped into the abyss and it will never be seen again. Rage never bothered to tell her or Strauphius the caring words that Achille wrote in that book, though Strauphius shrugged it off easily, this has been eating at Aria since it happened.

Sora is very annoyed at the fact that she has to say something but her face is as stiff as ever so it looks like nothing is bothering her when she tries to explain, "...I... Didn't... Read it..."

"What? T-Then how did you know it was that language called Latin?"

Sora sighs with a straight face, "... I... Only know... A few... words..."

Aria looks really displeased and sits on the ground to throw sticks into the camp fire. "Then tell me... What word did you see the most?"

Sora puts her hand on Aria's shoulder and simply says, "...Love..."

Aria turns in surprise, to her, Sora doesn't look like a girl who would lie about something like this, she'd be more like a person who'd just stay silent about the whole thing. This means that even though Achille left them to go to the Gate on his own, he truly did care about them and that he left with nothing but good intentions, he did not heartlessly abandon them like she thought.

"Thank you... That's all I needed to know." she says with a happy smile.

And with that, the group all sits around the campfire and readies for the travel north that lies ahead of them in the morning.

---------------------

Dawn breaks and the sight of the area they are in can now be seen clearly, fairly large hills are tattered with both large and small rocks. If one were to compare this scenery with that of an Earthly one, it would be most similar to a chaparral but without the brown shrubs, instead the plants that lie between the stones are long light green grasses.

With the group gathered and ready to go, they set off northward.

"I wonder where Daey is right now." said Niera while looking to the ground in a concerned way.

Cyrus puts his hand on her shoulder and says, "I'm sure she is fine, we'll be seeing her soon."

Niera has never been separated from her older sister before, this and being trapped in this strange world for close to a month has gotten her very homesick.

Luke is walking just a few feet away from them and can't help but overhear their conversation. "It must be tough for you Niera, but like Cyrus said, things will turn out alright." He said his words of comfort while thinking of his own little sibling.

She sees that he is probably struggling as well, if anything it is worse for him, his father was murdered and his little brother is all alone and most likely leading his country in a massive war.

"Thanks Luke..."

"Though we'll be at the Gate a lot sooner than they will... They are probably strapped for cash by now, our side of the house had the trunk of valuables that Aria and Strauphius had stolen over the past few years so we have nothing to worry about when it comes to finance." Cyrus says as he ponders both group's situations.

"Do you think Rage will want to wait for them at the Gate?" asks Luke.

Cyrus looks to the back of Rage who is leading the group and replies, "I would think so... I don't see why he wouldn't."

"That's good to hear." says Niera as she sighs in relief.

Cyrus can't be sure so he doesn't want to get her hopes up, but he'd rather do that than make her sad in any way. So all he can do is follow Rage and walk up and down these rocky hills and wait to see.

------------------------

"I want you to head to Purgatory." said Damien with a steely glare.

He is speaking to a man sitting comfortably in a large red velvet sitting chair, he is wearing a gunmetal colored overcoat over a white v-neck shirt and necklace with a black scarf underneath. He has tight black jeans and gray dress shoes, and a gray beanie atop his head covers his messy dark brown hair. With a few earrings on each ear and light facial hair along with dark blue eyes, he really gives off a laid back and stylish appearance.

"Ehhhh, do I have to?" he asks while he groans in displeasure.

"Of course you do."

The man who looks to be in his mid twenties stands up lazily as though his body is stricken with severe weariness.

"Huahhh... Well where are they?"

"I don't know, you'll have to start at the first Gate and work your way south on one of the sides of Abaddon's crater."

The man sighs extremely loud, "That sounds like a pain in the ass."

Damien faintly smiles and ignores his complaints, he continues with a game plan, "You'll either run into Rage or Ubica depending on which side you choose, they have split up so you don't have to worry about fighting both of them at the same time."

"That's all fine and dandy, but I would still rather have someone else do it."

Damien calmly walks to him and ambiguously begins to threaten him. "I think that it might be time for Abaddon to move up in the Hierarchy... Perhaps your spot will be open soon?"

The man frowns, "Like I'd ever let a former Angel take my spot."

He says this because Abaddon was created first as an Angel of Heaven to play a big part in God's final Judgment. And that he did; but when he was fulfilling his duties he became infatuated with killing so he was easily tempted by Satan into changing sides. Ever since then he has been obsessed with becoming a high ranking member of the Hierarchy.

It took a long time for the demons of Hell to accept him as a comrade, some have never come to terms with it, plus a lot of them just simply don't like the guy.

"Then allow me to up the ante, if you don't go and kill at least two of the humans... Not only will I give Abaddon your seat, I'll kill you myself." Damien said that with his usual blank smile at its most cynical.

The man cracks his neck and begins to walk out of the candle lit room they are in.

"Alright then, I guess I have no choice. Hehehe, all I need is a little motivation for me to move these lazy bones of mine."

He exits out of the room and Damien says to his back, "Very good... Belphegor."

--------------------------

After traveling for yet another day, the group reaches a small village, the buildings and houses of which are carved out of the large rocks the rest on the sides of large hills.

"Do you think we'd be able to stay here?" asks Cyrus.

Rage looks around and sees that there is nobody around, he is immediately suspicious and doesn't answer his question as he walks into the center of the town. Rage looks through the window of one of the stone houses and sees a man, woman, and a child sleeping on a bed.

He does not want to disturb them so he walks along a dirt path and peeks into another house, though without the child, this is the same kind of thing, the people are sleeping. By now he starts to feel a sickening feeling in his stomach, it isn't anywhere near dark yet and these people are sleeping as if they are nocturnal.

He checks what seems to be a convenience store and sees that there are a half dozen people scattered on the ground in sleeping positions.

Phoenix is following him and spots the same sight, "Well this doesn't look good."

Rage turns to say, "There is definitely something wrong here."

He walks into the little store and examines the people on the ground, he turns a man over and he can see that he is obviously sleeping.

Rage takes a sigh of relief until he hears Phoenix say, "You're going to want to see this."

Rage looks to Phoenix's position and notices him leaning over a downed woman, he walks closer for a better inspection and sees that the woman looks a little blue. Her mouth is open and her tongue is black, her eyes look like they have melted out of her head as a stream of blood rolls down her face from her sockets, she is obviously deceased.

A gasp is heard from the doorway, it is none other than Niera who wanted to check in. She is horrified at the sight of such a gruesome body.

"Get out of here!" Rage shouts.

She quickly turns and runs away, leaving the two back to their business.

"What do you think happened?" asks Phoenix as he pulls out his rosary and touches his four corners.

Rage ponders for a moment and comes to a conclusion that he would hope to be false, so instead of thinking about this answer he tries to come up with a different one.

"It could be poison... Or a plague of some sort."

Phoenix puts his hand on her skin and says, "No I don't think so... These people are still warm, they died recently."

"Damn it all!" Rage shouts as he slams the butt end of his scythe on the ground.

"What is it?"

Rage walks out of the door and takes a deep breath. "I'm sure you might be familiar with what I'm about to say, this wasn't caused by anything other than a certain person... Belphegor."

Phoenix jumps up and his whole body turns tense when Rage continues.

"Let's just hope that he's already left this town."

-------------------

Aria and Sora are looking throughout the town for any sign of life to no avail.

"Where the Hell is everybody??" shouts Aria in frustration.

Sora is thinking the same thing but doesn't say so. She walks to what seems to be the town hall, it is much more designed than the rest of the houses, what makes it stand out most is that it's three stories tall. Many windows and pointed roof tips give off the feeling of the Kremlin in Russia, but with less colors.

Sora uses the knocker on the door to send a loud noise throughout the building, after hearing the sound echo for a few moments, she decides to try and walk in, and to her surprise she finds that it is not locked. She opens it slowly and about halfway she hears the sound of snoring.

"Hey Sora! You can't just walk in there like that!" Aria shouts as she runs up to her after being left behind.

Sora puts her index finger across her lips, gesturing for her to be quiet. Aria raises her eyebrow and goes along with it quietly as the two slowly walk into the large building. Since the blinds to the windows are shut and this place is carved into mountain and rock, the large lobby is completely dark, the sound of the snoring can be heard deeper into this room but they can't see who it's coming from.

Aria gestures that she is going to open the blinds and walks to a window until she is halted by her feet being tangled on something that feels like a sandbag. She trips and when she falls, she grabs the dark blinds to the window to save her but she rips it off its shingles causing an extremely loud noise.

"Owwwoww..." she groans as she winces and rubs her head.

Now that the blinds are down and the sunlight has entered the room, she can see what she had just tripped over.

But what she finds is an image that will last in her mind for as long as she will live. On the ground is a man who's eyes are gone and blood is rolling down his face from his sockets, his mouth is grotesquely open making his disgusting dry black tongue visible.

"Hiiyaaahhhhh!" she screams loudly and backs away, only to back into another dead man with the same look. She screams even louder than the one previous and stuns Sora.

Sora opens the blinds on her side and now the entire lobby can be seen. At least a hundred people are lying piled and scattered dead on the smooth stone floor.

Sora jumps back in shock and Aria's face turns blue with horror.

On a pile of a dozen people there is a man sleeping comfortably, once the light hits his face he stops snoring and starts to wake up. The two girls stand silent as he sits up and yawns while he stretches, he rubs his eyes and looks at the two with a look befitting of a bitter man having to wake up to do a miserable job.

"Huh? Who are you?" he asks.

Sora still has her emotionless look on her face when she tries to answer his question with one of her own.

"...You..?"

He twitches his head back in confusion, "I'm Belphegor..?"

Though she doesn't know who he is, his presence sends an immense pressure barring down on her, she knows this is the feeling of fear. Seeing that Aria is frozen stiff, she also knows that as of now, if this is an enemy, she has to fight the cause of this fear.

Sora pulls out her twin small swords from the sheaths clasped to her thighs and readies to rush him when the voice of an incoming Niera can be heard from just outside the door.

"Sora! Aria! I saw a dead body!"

Niera decided to console in them first because throughout the past couple weeks she feels that as the only girls in the group, they have bonded better than the others.

Niera runs through the door and sees the mountain of dead men, women and children, as a result her pupils shrink and she puts her hand over her mouth and gasps.

Sora tries to block her sight by walking in front of her but the damage has been done, Niera faints in the doorway and becomes even more helpless than usual.

Belphegor nonchalantly walks down off the bodies like he would walk down a set of stairs and asks, "Are you from this town?"

Sora doesn't answer but instead holds her ground in front of Niera.

He sighs, "You don't have much of a personality, I'm not good at dealing with people like you."

He continues to walk toward her, making her increasingly more nervous.

"Doesn't it get tiring holding all of your emotions in like that? Don't you think it'd be easier if you could just sleep?" Belphegor scratches his chin and continues, "You can forfeit all of that troublesome effort if you could just go to sleep... I can help you if you'd like."

Sora doesn't quite understand what he's getting at, because she is no good at picking up other people's subtle tones such as sarcasm and hidden innuendos, she can only come to the conclusion that he is trying to hypnotize her in some way.

"...No..."

"Ehhhhh, come on now, I can't tell weather that was an enthusiastic no or a maybe kind of no... You know what I mean?"

"...No..."

Belphegor drops his laid back demeanor and frowns. "You sure are useless, earnest people like you are better off dead."

He lifts his hand out and points his fingers at her, an odd colored blue smoke shines around his arm and drifts slowly to Sora's face. She knows this must be toxic but she cannot back away because of Niera, so instead she holds her breath and readies to slice his arm off.

But before she could...

ZOOOOOOSSHH!

A black beam of dark energy shoots past her head from behind and slams into Belphegor's chest, causing him to shoot back and land violently into the pile of dead bodies.

"You two get out of here!" shouts Rage from behind the door.

Phoenix runs and lifts Niera over his shoulders and backs away. Aria is still in shock so Sora quickly switches her mindset from fighting to escaping before Belphegor can stand up. She grabs Aria's arm and literally drags her out of the building.

"Hey now, where did that come from?" asks Belphegor as he slowly lifts himself to his feet.

He thinks that this attack somehow came from Sora so he lifts his head to look and expects to see her, but instead the only one standing in the building is a man that he knows pretty well.

"Whoa! Where did you come from Rage?"

"I should be the one asking you that."

Belphegor starts to laugh in relief, "Wow, how lucky this is... I never thought that when I left Hell I'd find you or Ubica so quickly, to be perfectly honest, I gave up on even bothering with it when I stumbled across this town."

Rage looks around the room and is angered by the carnage, he frowns and asks, "Was it necessary to kill everyone here?"

Belphegor cracks his neck and replies, "I didn't kill these people, they killed themselves." He once again walks through the corpses and smiles. "It's amazing how people are so easily tempted with such trivial things. This is a poor town and the people here were working so hard, yet they were still struggling to get by. So I simply offered them an easy way out."

Even though he's sure that he already knows the answer, Rage asks, "What was it?"

Belphegor shrugs his shoulders. "I told them that I can give them wealth for free... All they needed to do was forgo their natural talents and relax, sleep is what they truly wanted so sleep is what I gave them."

Rage slams the butt end of his scythe into the ground and says, "No, you gave them death, your logic has always been twisted when it comes to people who work hard in life."

Belphegor laughs and points his finger at him, "Hehehe well there is a reason why the definition of my being is called 'Sloth'. It is my job to offer people a life of leisure, they have a right to be lazy and be wealthy at the same time, they have a right to know that if their talents are given away to a bed, it is still possible that they can obtain happiness! Do these people not look happy!?"

He starts to show a cynical smile and Rage looks around the room and stares at all of there horrified and painful faces, it is obvious that these people were not happy when they died so miserably.

Things have always been like this for Belphegor, the object of his existence is to simply tempt people into laziness. As this is one of the Seven Deadly Sins that if overly abundant in a human, their soul is seen as foul and rotten, and perfect for collection by the Devil's reapers.

Even the simplest of things can be considered 'Sloth', if one were to sleep in too long it could be a Deadly Sin, thus making Belphegor a very important demon because everyone has to sleep eventually, and he can even tempt people who are merely looking to get an extra minute of rest and turn them into lifeless corpses before they wake up.

"This is what they wanted! By believing me, they chose death over a miserable life! Hahahah how could I not oblige!?"

Belphegor shouts as he moves his arm in a throwing motion toward Rage, and along with it a huge and seemingly solid gusting blue wind that carries the dead bodies and slams into the walls. This along with the fast moving solid wind cause the building to violently explode outward and send large pieces of stone, rock and numerous parts of dead bodies hurling into the light of day.

Once the smoke clears Rage is still standing around his black cloud, he looks behind him to check on the others and sees that Phoenix and Sora are safely guarding Aria and Niera in the rubble and dust. Out in the distance comes the final three group members running toward the noise, and when he sees this he gets a bad feeling in his back of his mind because everyone here other than himself is very vulnerable.

He turns to look in the smoke and what he sees are two bright blue light beams coming out from the eyes of the silhouette of Belphegor. From this, an evil snickering can be heard moving closer through the body tattered terrain.

Rage readies his scythe and takes a deep breath, he is about to fight one of the 7 Demons of Hell by himself and even he is nervous about this.

Now, is the first battle fought with these legendary foes where the fight began with the intent that it will be a bloody fight to the death.

He knows that either he or the demon will die here.

But the stakes are even higher than just that, if he dies, the humans accompanying him die as well.

<noinclude>
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|-
| Back to [[Dantega:Volume 3 Chapter 3|Northbound Reunion (Part 3)]]
| Return to [[Dantega|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Dantega:Volume 3 Chapter 5|(Part 2)]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

Dantega:Volume 4 Chapter 10

2013-07-01T18:20:52Z

76.216.193.41:

Chapter 41: An Angel's Revenge

(PART 1)

“The Archangel!? What the fuck are you doing here!?" shouts the man voice of Cerberus. The blood from its middle mouth falls to the island floor as it grits its teeth in both shock and pain.

"I'm here for a few reasons actually, none of which you need to know of." replied Michael as sharply as can be.

He then turns to Sora and holds his hand out to lift her off the ground, she naturally obliges and stands to her feet.

Sora glares at him in awe as his aura causes a warmth in her body the likes it has never felt before. It's as though she is staring into the eyes of salvation itself.

She ignores the presence of Cerberus, the beast she was once so frightened of and says, "T-Thank you for saving me..."

Michael smiles and shifts his eyes back to the demon. "It was my pleasure, by helping you I'm killing two birds with one stone."

Cerberus hears this and the woman voice inquires, "Did you actually come from Heaven just to stop me??"

"Don't be stupid, I wouldn't waste my breath on a mutt of the netherworld like you. If I had any intentions of that sort I'd most certainly be after the demon you are accompanying at the moment."

"Amon?"

"Yes, there's no way I'd miss a presence like him, but I can sense that the Angel of Death is occupied with him right now... None the less, I'm here because I have a much bigger fish to fry, one that makes you two look like worthless worms."

"Is that so?" The woman voice asks, the voice of the child quickly follows, "Then allow me to take my leave momentarily."

Cerberus then turns and retreats into the jungle.

For reasons unbeknownst to both Michael and Sora, the threat of the dog demon is over.

"That damn mutt, it isn't going to just leave like that for no reason." Michael says as the spear in his hand burns brightly and then disappears into thin air. He then turns to Sora, "It's planning something, and I'm sure that it won’t rest until it tastes your blood... Come with me."

Michael starts walking in the opposite direction in which Cerberus went, leaving Sora behind.

He's obviously expecting her to follow him and considering the situation she was just in it'd be foolish not to do so.

She quickly chases after him and walks alongside the last remaining Angel of God.

-----------------------------

"Did you feel that?" Amon asks, halting his attack on Rage.

Rage doesn't pause though, instead he uses this as an opportunity to gain the upper hand on the situation. He rushes Amon and swings his scythe horizontally in the direction of Amon's neck.

The demon narrowly avoids it by forming a ball of distortion in front of his face, causing the scythe to veer off course.

"Hey hey I'm being serious."

"So am I!"

Rage yells as he sends another swing of his scythe in the demon's direction.

Amon easily parries the attack and sighs when he says, "Your seriousness gets you in trouble sometimes you know that? There's a reason why you were never able to retrieve Ubica's soul, your judgment gets clouded far too easily to notice the little obscurities that go along with a battle."

"Shut it!"

"I'm just trying to help you out, I want to get you out of your 'retrieving mindset' so you can actually fight me on even ground. I mean really, this is just boring."

When Amon says 'retrieving mindset' he is referring to Rage's nature of being the Angel of Death. His natural instinct is to retrieve the souls of the departed without so much as a second thought; with such a strong base of action, it is very difficult to diverge such feelings onto anything else that goes on around him. It isn't as though he is physically unable to sense something odd in the process of a battle, after all, he was able to save the lives of his human comrades on more than one occasion. It is just that this mindset that he has been in for all his life causes him to single-mindedly attack his enemy in the best possible manner in order for him to retrieve his or her soul.

However, this solitary thought process is causing him to turn a blind eye to something very important.

Amon on the other hand, notices quickly and slips out of the way as quick as possible.

Rage, not understanding quite what his sudden retreat meant, is met with a gold blast of heat and energy directly onto his side, he is then sent flying with it at an incredible speed through the thick trees of the jungle.

It takes a good twenty collisions through those trees before he even begins to slow down, the cracking noises echo in the darkness as each impact seems louder than the last.

Amon keeps backtracking while laughing at the same time. "Hahaha I told you to pay attention you idiot. You should've listened."

As soon as he finished saying that, another one of those golden beams is sent in Amon's direction, except since he saw it coming, he was able to avoid being hit.

The beam misses and zooms through the jungle, but surprisingly, no damage was dealt to the trees and surrounding shrubbery.

"Don't be so impatient." Amon says, he then cracks his neck and in a manner similar to that of someone quite annoyed he finishes. "Michael."

"It's been quite a long time since I've seen either of you. Over a thousand years right? Hmph, how about that." said Michael as he reveals himself from behind a batch of thickly leaved trees.

Following closely behind him is a certain body guard named Sora, she is wearing a surprised face and queries, "Why did you attack Rage?? He's on our side!"

"Oh I must apologize, I have been raised my whole life to regard death as an evil being. Attacking him was a natural reaction."

Judging by the tone of his reply, it would seem that what he said was completely honest. He knew beforehand that Rage was in the process of fighting a demon but the mere sight of him triggered something that flipped the switch to attack mode deep inside his body.

Amon laughs momentarily and speaks, "This is all too interesting. So much so that it has got me thinking... Just what the fuck is the last Angel doing in a place like this?"

"You don't think I'm here to stop you?" Michael replies sarcastically.

"That presumption would lower my intelligence points. Thinking that is more on Cerberus' level not mine."

"Then why don't you take a guess?"

"Oho I love playing games... If I were to guess it'd be..."

Amon doesn't finish, instead he immediately attacks Michael, he moved so fast that the Angel didn't have much time to react.

Amon opens his palm and a ball of distortion forms; he slams his palm into Michael's gut and sends him flying into the jungle similar to the way Rage was.

"I don't have the patience to fuck around with shit like this!!" Amon shouts furiously.

He walks rather fast toward Michael, who is now tangled in the branches of a low tree and his spear which was knocked out of his grip in the attack is lying in front of him just out of reach. He has truly become defenseless.

With each step Amon creates more swirling vortexes of distortion, while doing so he says, "It's not as though I feel you are important enough to interrogate by torture. It's just my natural reaction to want to inflict bodily harm upon Angels. Makes sense right? It's the same way with you and Death."

A wide grin forms on Amon's face, out of the crescent moon shaped hole in his face, a maddening laugh filled with pleasure comes. "By any chance, are you interested in abstract art?"

Michael glares at him in a way that's asking, 'What in the world does that have to do with anything?'

"I've always been fascinated by artwork where the paint seemingly melts down the canvas. It's something that I like so much that when I kill people I try my best to make it as similar as possible."

Even though the 7 Demons of Hell usually seem so calm, all of them have a twitch to umpteenth level which makes them absolutely insane. Usually that twitch is caused by their Original Sin, but something even more cynical molds into their bodies and causes them to teeter over the edge occasionally. These vices that they gradually succumb to more often than not causes the death or torture of someone else, it is something they have gotten so used to they hardly even notice that they're doing it.

In this case, Amon intends to distort Michael’s body into a swirling form of liquid and use it to make one of his own forms of abstract artwork. If one has ever seen one of these paintings, they'd get a grasp on how gruesome a human body would have to look in order to mimic it.

Michael smiles at the vice Amon is showing him, it is almost a pitiful smile. "So this is what I am beginning to be..." Ignoring the obvious danger in front of him, he continues, "It's great isn't it?"

"..?" Amon looks at him in a confused manner, this isn't something that a man like him should say at a time like this.

But before Amon could get a chance to speak, Michael shifts his gaze toward Sora, who at this moment is only a few yards behind the back of Amon with weapon in tow. The look of determination on her face signifies her intent to attack Amon on his blindside in order to save Michael. This new face is a far cry from the one that was twisted in despair when Cerberus was on the verge of devouring her.

A mere human attempting to interfere in a battle of such fearsome participants borders on the edge of insanity, but she couldn't convince herself to sit idly by while the man who saved her life just minutes earlier has his life in danger.

"Do me a favor Sora." Michael says, ignoring the presence of Amon. "Can you take about twenty steps to your left?"

"W-What?"

"Don't ask questions now, just do it."

Though Sora doesn't understand the reasoning behind this, she does it anyway. Discouraged at the fact that she is now farther away from Amon than before; she begins to think that Michael really might be slain without her being able to do anything about it.

Amon also doesn't get it, but in all truth he doesn't care. He didn't even notice that Sora was sneaking up behind him because of just how small her presence is, he is about as threatened by her as someone would be to an ant crawling up one's foot.

He sighs and turns back to Michael; he lifts his hands and readies to send the swirling vortexes of distortion down when he is once again interrupted by the words of Michael.

"Do you know why it is so great to be similar to you demons?" Michael smiles and gives Amon a short moment to ponder that question before answering it himself. "Because you have all become so predictable."

As soon as the air of those words exit his mouth...

CCCCRRRAAAAAAAASSSHHHH!!!!

Cerberus comes storming out of the thick of the jungle at full speed in Sora's direction; pulling leaves, branches, and even whole trees with it.

This happened so fast that Sora has no time to react to it, and even if she did her legs wouldn't move fast enough to avoid being snatched by one of Cerberus' three sets of jaws.

This was its plan all along, it knew that Michael was going to confront Amon at some point, all it needed to do was lay in wait for the exact moment where the two were occupied with each other and stealthily move in for the kill.

Michael begins to laugh loudly, his eyes shine and in the brief moment that Amon is distracted with Cerberus, the spear that was just out of reach stands itself up in between the Angel and Demon. In a flash the spear is engulfed in a bright white light and grows brighter as Michael laughs pleasurably, its size doubles, then triples, and multiplies further on until it stands like a solid wall some 10 meters high and 10 meters wide.

"!!??"

Amon tries to flee but before he could even move an inch...

VVVVVVVVOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!

The blazing hot white light shoots forward faster than the speed of sound and completely engulfs Amon. The light zooms in a straight line directly past the spot in which the demon once stood, and in that straight line, at this very moment, is a certain three headed dog demon.

This strange hot white light carries no noise, rather a distinct base sound that pounds on the innards of one's ears. This sound is much to the akin of being in a small room and having a large speaker to one's head while a base guitar hits a constant note that never stops. Multiply that feeling by a thousand and this would be it in a nutshell.

The light crashes into Cerberus and its skin is immediately peeled off by the force, its flesh literally dissolves off its bones and the liquid in its eyes boil and melt away. Cerberus didn't even have time to scream before the white light completely engulfs it and its silhouette disappears.

Sora watched as much as she could of this until the brightness caused her to instinctively slam her eyes shut and turn away. If she had stared any longer her eyes would've suffered the same consequences of staring into the sun for an exceeded amount of time, she most certainly would have gone blind.

There is something odd about this assault, though she doesn't know exactly how close she actually is to the initial attack, she knows that she should be close enough to be affected by it. But if she had her eyes shut the entire time and never saw the light, she would almost have no clue that there has actually been a devastatingly strong attack in the first place.

She can't feel the heat of the light that shined brighter than the sun nor can she feel any energy permeating from it, she can only feel the base beating on her ears. A normal person might only think that this was an earthquake because of how the ground is shaking. But for some reason, this feeling makes her feel safe and secure; it has taken away all sense of danger that has been beating of her since arriving on this island.

The base noise eases up until it finally comes to a stop, all feelings of angst quickly disperse and an overwhelming sensation of peace fills the air.

Sora slowly opens her eyes and tries to look around the now quiet area, she blinks repeatedly as to shake away her momentary blindness caused by the light. The darkness eventually comes to blurry vision and her sight begins to focus in on her surroundings.

She finds that the entirety of the jungle, barring the area Cerberus ran out of is relatively unscathed. Which is surprising figuring the destruction that light caused to the dog demon was so great. To have the flimsy in comparison shrubbery still be standing is quite the shock.

Sora takes a huge sigh of relief and stands to her feet; she readies to turn her head in order to look in Michael’s direction when the sense of peace and security is shattered by a warm and putrid smelling breath beat on the back of her neck.

She quizzically turns around to see Cerberus standing there, but this time it has an even more gruesome appearance than ever before.

The fur, skin, and all the muscles and tendons that connect to the bones are now gone, stripped away as if it had just made a trip to the butchery. Cerberus’ eyes and ears are melted away, and its bones shine white as if all fluid has been sucked out. Its bones are like a cage for all of its now visible organs, each breath it takes its lungs expand and retract and can be seen as plain as day. Every time its heart beats the blood that is supposed to flow to the muscles slides off its bones and falls to the ground.

“I... can still... smell her...” says the child voice as raspy as can be. “She’s here, I know it!” shouts the man.

Cerberus moves its heads all over and the sound of bones rubbing against bone is heard, something like this shouldn’t be possible but it would seem there is enough strength left in this powerful demon’s body to instinctively move itself.

The three heads point in Sora’s direction and the woman voice shouts, “THERE!!”

“No way...” Sora said to herself, her voice full of fear.

Realistically, all she needs to do is get up and run as fast as she can, chances are Cerberus would not be able to catch her in its horrific condition. But she is so stiff in shock that she can’t even budge, her legs will not move.

Cerberus inches closer to her and her shoulders jump, her teeth chatter together and she begins to mutter, “Save me...”

She turns to where Michael was tangled in those branches and to her absolute horror she finds that he is no longer there.

(Where did he go?) she thinks to herself.

Chances are, he left soon after the blast assuming that the job has been done or there was another enemy he needed to attend to. Either way or for whatever reason, Sora is once again in a situation that will lead to her death without the assistance of someone. Unfortunately for her, this time no one will come, with Rage likely injured off in the jungle somewhere and with Michael’s sudden and mysterious departure, she is alone.

“Someone save me...”

“Huuaahahahaha.” The child laughs, “Even if I die, I won’t go without tasting your blood!”

“Someone!!” Sora yells, throwing her eyes in every which direction desperately trying to find salvation that won’t come.

“IT’S TIME TO EAT!!” The three voices of Cerberus yell as all three heads lunge down at Sora.

“SAVE ME!!!” Sora shouts at the top of her lungs with her eyes forced shut.

She takes a deep breath and awaits her doom but is shocked to find that nothing has happened. She keeps her eyes shut until a couple seconds pass with no change; this gives her no choice but to look.

What she sees is a man, clad in a silk black coat wearing a hood over his head standing in between her and the dog demon, holding Cerberus’ nose on the middle head with the palm of his hand.

Her natural reaction is to think that it is Rage, but when she sees that he isn’t holding a scythe, she knows that it isn't him.

Even though Cerberus’ eyes are melted away, one could still sense the surprise on its face.

“Who are yo--------“

GGGAAAASSSSHHHHH!

Before Cerberus could even finish its question, its bones crack and break into thousands of pieces as though it was a glass window that just had a rock thrown through it. Its organs expand violently and explode in a dazzling flash of red, sending the broken pieces of bone along with it flying into the green of the jungle.

The entirety of Cerberus was literally blown to oblivion in just a flash.

Sora is left speechless, she was once again saved at the nick of time by yet another strange man, and this time there is no way that ferocious beast will come back.

She takes a huge breath and falls to her knees, this was truly a miracle and she has no clue how to fathom her luck or thank the person who saved her.

“That was the first time I’ve ever heard your voice.” The man in black said with his back still turned to her.

“Huh?” Sora mumbles, she recognizes this voice.

The man in black turns around and takes the hood off his head with one hand, and holds the other out to help her back to her feet.

“It’s been a while Sora.”

With his facial features clearly seen, Sora’s eyes widen and her jaw drops.

“UBICA!?”

----------------------

“Holy crap did you see that crazy light!?” Aria shouts to Niera and Cyrus.

“W-What do you think it was?” asked Niera nervously.

Aria quickly replies, “Who cares let’s go!”

Cyrus frowns and steps in front of Niera. “Don’t be ridiculous, we can’t just go rushing into an area like that, it is way too dangerous.”

“Oh come on!” Aria begins to drool, “I gotta see! I gotta see it, that explosion was incredible!”

“U-Um Aria... Are you getting turned on by this?” Niera asks while peeking behind Cyrus’ shoulder.

Aria smiles wide and lifts her new sword up over her shoulder. “Of course I am, I love explosions! Besides, one of our friends might need our help over there, we can’t just wait around.”

Cyrus takes a sigh of resignation and says, “I guess you’re right.”

Aria giggles and immediately runs toward the direction of the light.

“I’m glad you can finally see things my way ya old coot!”

“I’m not agreeing with the explosion part!”

“Yeah yeah!” she turns and sticks her tongue out at him.

“And I’m not old! I’m only 23!”

She gets a considerable distance away from them and he sighs, “What’s with that girl anyway?”

Niera begins to chase after Aria and back trots so she can face him when she says, “No offense but you do act a lot older than your age you know?”

“What?? Not you too!”

“Hehe come on let’s go!”

She leaves him behind as well, he scratches his head and asks himself, “Just where the hell did that scene come from?”

Without giving it much thought, he quickly chases after the two girls in order to find out the cause of the light.

-------------------------------

“Wow that light was incredible!” Xavier exclaims in awe, he is still looking up in the night sky as the remnants of that light linger.

“It sure was.” replied Phoenix as nonchalantly as possible.

“Hey shouldn’t we head down there to take a look?”

The two of them are at the Gate already, so going back would mean they abandon their position at the helm of the next level.

Even though Phoenix had already said that he has no intentions of waiting for the others, Xavier is still surprised when he answers,

“No need.”

“B-But—“

“The source of that light is already here.” Phoenix interrupts and looks down on the other side of the lake.

Standing there is none other than Michael, fresh off his battle with Amon and Cerberus.

He walks atop the water rather slowly toward Phoenix and Xavier.

“Who is that guy?” Xavier asks, worried that he might be an enemy.

Ignoring the Prince, Phoenix walks off the steps and back onto the water; the two walk toward each other in silence until they are within an arm’s length. The two share an intense eye to eye stare until a slight smile surfaces on their faces. These smiles are followed by a pleasant handshake between good friends.

“You answered my call.” said Phoenix.

“Of course, I didn’t waste a second when you revealed yourself unto me. I give you my humble thanks.”

“Now now you don’t have to be so formal, we’re not in Heaven right now.”

“I must disagree, whenever the Messiah graces me with his presence I must take this moment as though it was a miracle bestowed unto me by God himself.”

Upon hearing Michael say that, the smile on Phoenix’s face twitches awkwardly for a split second and reverts back.

“God huh?” he said in a breathy voice quietly.

“Excuse me my Lord?”

“No it’s nothing... Anyways, might I ask what exactly the Archangel is doing here as a Gatekeeper in Purgatory? ”

As soon as he asks this, the atmosphere around the Archangel drops and seriousness settles into his eyes. “I must ask you to forgive me. But I’d be too ashamed to tell you.”

Phoenix raises an eyebrow, “Is that so? Then answer me this, are you doing this on your own accord or did God grant you permission?”

Michael keeps a straight face when he responds, “God was kind enough to let me go on this endeavor upon my request. Though to be honest, I would have gone without his permission.”

“Oh? It’s that important to you huh?”

“Yes messiah, more than you’ll ever know.”

Michael takes a sharp breath after saying that because he accidentally slipped up on his formal talk for a second. He glares at Phoenix to see if he noticed and gets ready to apologize but Phoenix speaks first.

“And why wasn’t I notified of such a thing? I assume this was pretty recent correct?”

“I apologize, but I requested this to be a secret. No one knows that I’ve been working this position for the past couple months.”

“Hmmm. So did you know that I was here in Purgatory?”

“No my Lord, I am currently fighting back my shock that my Lord Jesus Christ has been put in this situation.”

“Well you now know that the original 'plan' for me back on Earth has gone awry. I needed to improvise so I’ve come up with a new one since being here, and in order to fulfill that, my comrades and I need to get through the Gate. I’m sure you can make an exception for me right?”

“I’m sorry to hear that the world must suffer a little longer due to your absence. God must be disappointed as well.” Michael bows and finishes, “I trust in your holiness, I believe that by you getting back to Earth, peace will come to the Heavens and all the lands below. If I can assist you in anyway it would be an honor.”

Phoenix lowers his head slightly and a thin grin slightly forms on his face, “Peace to the Heavens and all the lands below huh? Sure, if that’s what you wanna call it.”

“Hmm?”

“I want you to tell me...” Phoenix raises his head and his voice along with it, “Why are you here?”

Judging by his tone of voice and the overall look on his face it is obvious that this is an order, an order that Michael is trying his best to avoid answering.

"...."

He stays bowing and doesn’t speak, somehow hoping that Phoenix will perhaps give up on this inquiry. But that is not going to happen, a frown surfaces on Phoenix’s face when an answer still doesn’t come, he takes a deep breath and gets ready to speak when from up above an unfamiliar voice is heard.

“He’s here to kill Ubica you damn idiot.”

Michael and Phoenix both look up simultaneously.

Standing atop a flat rectangle of distortion is none other than Amon.

“!?”

“I thought I!”

Amon lifts up his index finger and shakes it from side to side like a parent would to a child. “You didn’t actually think that you defeated me did you? Geez I get no respect.”

“Then how?”

“Think about it, light is the easiest form of anything to distort because it has no mass. I’ll admit that attack was something else, but that attack is probably the worst possible weapon to use against me.”

“....”

“You certainly did a number on Cerberus though I’ll tell you what.”

“Then it looks like I still have some work to do.” Michael readies his spear and prepares to jump up to Amon.

But before he could he is halted by the words of Phoenix, “Is that true?”

Michael turns back to him and shows him a look of shame before shifting his gaze to the ground and answering.

“I must apologize... It’s true.”

“For revenge right?”

“That’s right.”

Amon starts laughing and clapping his hands from above, “Hahaha bravicimo! This is amazing, is the Archangel still mad that he burnt his two little girlfriends to a crisp because of Ubica?”

“Shut your fucking mouth.” Michael hisses.

“Woah such foul language coming from the last remaining Angel. I’ve learned so much about you today, I’ll have some good stories to tell to the others. Such things like how the man who once defeated Satan now thirsts for revenge against the Anti-Christ. And let’s not forget the most important thing you revealed to me...”

Amon takes his index finger once more and points it at directly at Phoenix.

“!!!”

“That’s right! I came here just at the right time to find out that this priest is actually the Son of God! Hahaha I just might be promoted for this.”

“I won’t let you escape!” shouts Michael.

“Oh yes you will, do you wanna know why? Because a certain somebody has just showed up on this small island.”

“What?”

“A certain someone who is at the center of every action Heaven and Hell makes.”

“I-It can’t be...”

“Yes that’s right, and this someone regrets more than anything the things he did to both of you and your comrades, so much so that he’s forsaken the one thing that gave him life. But I wonder what would happen if he was thrown into just one more life or death battle with the Archangel? Not only that, but 'the' last Angel! This couldn’t have worked out any better!”

“WHERE IS HE!?” Michael yells, a bright light surrounds him and the water of the lake begins to boil under his feet.

“Hahaha I can see it! I can see the Wrath in your eyes! I can feel the hatred just waiting for a place to crash itself into! Oooh how I wish I could stay and watch, but sadly I feel my job here is done, all that’s left is to pick up the pieces of the aftermath.”

Amon starts laughing and sinks into his rectangle of distortion, the rectangle shrinks into nothing and the entire presence of the 4th ranked Demon of the Hierarchy is finally gone.

But now there is a new dark presence that has taken form on this island, and it goes by the name of Michael.

He doesn’t turn to Phoenix but speaks, “Do you know why I gave you my flame?”

“I never gave it thought.”

“Because that flame is the power that was used to burn Catherine and Margaret into dust. How could I wield such a thing after I used it for that? I thought that by giving it to you, the fire would become pure once again.”

“I see, so then what is your new power for?”

“For a thousand years I’ve developed this light specifically to destroy that wretched darkness of Ubica’s. Every day since the Apocalypse, every breath I’ve taken since then, was to give me the strength to drown that darkness in light and avenge their deaths.”

“....”

Phoenix stays silent and glares at Michael’s back without much emotion worn on his face.

“So don’t try to stop me.”

This time it is Michael’s turn to make an order, the manners and formalities he had are blown away by the mere thought of the Anti-Christ.

Phoenix takes a quick inhale and responds, “I won’t.”

Without another word, Michael dashes off in a flash of white light, leaving Phoenix alone standing atop the water of the lake.

Phoenix clinches his fist momentarily and then releases them. His lips mold into a slight smile when he begins to speak to himself, “I won’t stop you Michael... But I'm sure Ubica will put an end to your revenge one way or another.”

He then sighs and looks up to the sky.

“Why would God let Michael come here specifically for something as dark as revenge? God should know how badly this situation could turn out... I don’t get it.”

He turns back toward the steps and starts his walk to the confused Xavier. Because of the sound of the waterfall the prince was too far away to get a proper grasp on what they were talking about. He was only able to pick up bits and pieces of their conversation and from what he heard he was unable to make anything out of it.

Phoenix has his eyes on the ground in front of him as he takes his steps, with his thoughts running rampant, an ugly frown forms from his eyebrows and the corners of his lips sink down to his chin.

He again clinches his fists and grits his teeth.

“Damn it all... Just what are you scheming, God?”

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