Editing Dantega:Volume 6 Chapter 8



(PART 2)




It’s been a few days since the reunited group made their way through the 3rd Gate and on to the 4th level of Purgatory. 

The scenery they've found themselves in continues change drastically with each level. The first level started as simple flat lands with rolling hills and the occasional village. The second level was a waterworld akin to the pirate age of the late 17th century. The third was a mix between the early 20th century and an untouched Middle Eastern dessert. It even had such things as cars and zeppelins.

So naturally one would expect the 4th level to be somewhere further along in the time-frame of pre-apocalyptic man. However, the scenery of this new world have digressed back into the middle ages of the 15th century. Things like cars and zeppelins were not even fathomed as of yet and the people here live much simpler lives.

But that doesn’t change the fact that where they are isn’t as beautiful as any other. They are in a small town that rests in the middle of a 5 mile wide diameter of vineyards similar to the country land of southern France. Rolling hills and vast greenery spread alongside each other in perfect unison with the different colored grapes growing on the vines.

The quiet city serves as a beautiful balance with the outside lands; stone buildings and wooden houses zigzag their way on the edges of the 4 clear water rivers that cut through the fertile ground as though they were snakes weaving through the brush.

This city’s peaceful serenity so far outdoes the hectic third level that the silence echoes with phantom sounds that were heard just a few days earlier.

Trying to eliminate those noises, they’ve been doing everything from sightseeing all the way to wine tasting, and currently, all of the girls of the group are on a gondola that gently moves through the winding rivers of the town.

But there is one guy in the group and he’s paddling in the front of the gondola with quite the bitter look on his face.

“Come on Ubica don’t be so grumpy.” Tsubiri said as she throws a grape at his back.

The grape misses the big target of his back and beans his head.

He clicks his tongue and replies, “If you said it’s going to be a girl's day out, then why in the world did I have to come?? I was sleeping!”

“You’ve been sleeping pretty much the entire time we’ve been here.” Daey interjects, “And besides, shouldn’t you be happy that you get to hang out with a bunch of cute girls? I’m sure any other guy would love that.”

“I wouldn’t call this hanging out, I’m just carrying all your stuff and chauffeuring you around!”

“Oh please, I don’t wanna hear it! You’re stuck with us and you’re not going anywhere until I say so.” Tsubiri yells.

To which Ubica sighs in complacency and droops his shoulders, the paddle sinks a little deeper into the water with that. He’s not trying to face the wrath of Tsubiri so he isn’t going to fight her on this one.

“Umm... Th-Thank you for escorting us.” Niera said while blushing.

Ubica turns around and smiles. He then turns to Tsubiri and halfway sneers at her, “At least someone is nice enough to thank me.”

“Whatever.” Tsubiri replies, and throws another grape that hits square on his face.

“Well you have to admit that this is nice though right?” Aria added, “We don’t get many peaceful moments like this after all.”

“I agree.” Sora agreed while wearing a rare smile.

“What do you think Trojia?” Daey asks to the girl sitting the furthest away from Ubica at the back of the boat.

Trojia looks very defensive as she leans against the railing with her arms folded across her chest. Her sharp glare is paying no mind to the scenery around them, her bright green eyes are planted firmly on Ubica’s back.

It’s only when she is asked this question she coldly turns to Daey and replies, “There’s nothing peaceful about this place. We shouldn’t be wasting time like this, I can honestly say that I’m shocked at your fleeting sense of urgency now that Ubica’s here.”

“Hey don’t be like that. We all need an occasional break from the stress.”

“Don’t be like what? Normal? I don’t know if you’ve realized this but we’ve been in Purgatory for close to a year now... Have you not thought about what the world we actually live in is currently going through?”

Such a serious subject brings quite the dour atmosphere weighing heavily on the gondola. Although Aria doesn’t quite grasp the situation on Earth, even she feels the pressure of those words.

“.....”

Daey stays quiet and looks away, not knowing how to respond to that.

So do the rest of them for that matter; only the sound of Ubica’s rowing is heard through this awkward silence.

That gentle rowing alongside everyone’s silence angers Trojia in a way that can’t be described in words. And that anger brewing in her chest is directed at the only person who can physically do anything about it all.

“What about you Ubica? Don’t you have something to say? I thought you promised that we’d be back so we can save the world? All of our families could be dead right now, and you’re just going to leisurely row us around this stupid city without a care in the world!?”

“Hey that’s not fair!” Tsubiri shouts, “You of all people should know that he’s the one who’s done the most for all of us! Don’t you dare talk---“

“I’m sorry.” Ubica interrupts.

Tsubiri looks at his back and is about to say something when Ubica again stops her.

“Let’s leave it at that.”

“But!”

“That’s all I can say for now, until I get you guys back home there’s no way I can argue. I’m worried about the people of Earth too, there’s no telling what kind of horrible things they are being put through right now... She’s right, we need to get a move on, every day people are dying because we aren’t home.”

“Hmph.” Trojia puffs with a frown as she leans back into the railing and looks away into the city.

Seeing how distraught the rest of the girls in the boat are, Tsubiri goes to Ubica’s side in whispers in his ear. “You’re putting way too much pressure on yourself. I don’t know what her problem is, but the rest of us don’t see it that way, so let it slide okay?”

He shows her a strained smile and replies, “I’ll try.”

After a couple more minutes Ubica docks the gondola and pays the fare to the man in charge of rentals. The girls all get off and walk towards a decent sized stone and wood building that they have been staying in as a hotel for the last few days.

In this city, almost every hotel is banked alongside the rivers that wind through the town. The reason for that is because those said rivers are used as somewhat of an expressway for the citizens. It’s rather convenient to hop on a gondola or boat and go shopping clear on the other side of town without exerting the effort of walking and carrying whatever goods bought that day back on foot. The boats allow travelling merchants to purchase just about as many items as they want, and makes them able to bring it back to the hotels being used as temporary residences.

The group of girls and Ubica took advantage of that luxury as a simple sight seeing trip, but what Trojia said turned things sour so they decided to come back and spend the rest of the day contemplating their next move towards home.

Ubica lets everyone inside first and when Trojia is straggling behind them, he is overcome with an urge to speak out. He reaches out his hand and gently grabs her before she can enter.

“What?” she asks coldly.

“Can we talk?”

“Go ahead and talk.”

“Um... Not right here okay? There’s a lot of people around.”

He’s right, there are dozens of people walking around, in and out of the hotel and alongside the street. It’s not like they’d even pay attention to what the two of them would be talking about but it does seem a little odd to talk around so many others like that, especially if it’s something important.

Trojia pulls her hand away from him and hides it behind her back when she says, “Lead the way.”

The two walk around the back of the hotel and enter a very beautiful garden. There are flowing fountains and a multitude of different colored flowers all organized neatly to present a peaceful environment for the guests. Stone pathways lead to benches alongside bird baths resting under the thick greenery of old oak trees.

They pick a bench and Ubica sits down, there’s plenty of room next to him but Trojia chooses to stand with her hands still resting behind her back. The sun shines through gaps of the tree they're under and the soft wind sends brilliant shapes of light racing across the ground they’re standing on. The gold beams dancing atop of Trojia’s blonde hair makes her presence seem almost untouchable; her eyes occasionally glowing with each touch of light look more dazzling than ever before.

Ubica feels a strong tinge of unease when looking upon her like this, it’s as though she has become a person so far away it’s painful.

“So what did you want to talk about?”

“I don’t really know where to start... It’s been months since we’ve really had a good chance to talk, I guess I just wanted to see how you were doing is all.”

“Do I look like I’m not alright?”

“No no it’s not that, I just...”

By now it is extremely awkward for Ubica, he’s at a complete loss for words because Trojia isn’t giving him any foundation to build upon a topic of any sort. Since they’ve been reunited she’s been very short with him and hardly responds to any of his attempts to interact with her. More than anything, this is what has gotten him thinking that something might be wrong, before, she and Ubica were always talking about something, even if that something was completely pointless.

What's even more shocking than her attitude is the fact that she is the one who killed the Gatekeeper Lilith, and she hasn't even mentioned it. It was only when he heard it from Rage and Napoleon a later that he fully understood just what happened. Lilith would have been a formidable opponent for anyone, but for Trojia to behead her and seemingly feel nothing about it seems off. And if that wasn't enough, what Rage said about her eyes being red at the time really has him worried.

Trojia becomes impatient at his long silence and says, "Would you spill it already? Stop beating around the bush and say what you have to say."

"Ah... Sorry... They told me you defeated the Gatekeeper, I guess I want to know more about that."

"There isn't much to go into detail, she tried to control me with her powers but it didn't work. I caught her off guard and that was that."

"Don't you feel anything about that? Surely you must be holding it back."

Trojia puffs and her lips faintly rise before she replies, "I'm not the fragile girl you want me to be Ubica. Not everyone has to rely on you."

"That's not what I mean at all!"

"Then what is it? What do you want from me? Just what are you trying to ask me?"

Trojia is really digging into him, and it's making him doubt even what it was he wanted to talk about. What compelled him to even ask that? He's sure he was only trying to help, but it's obvious she doesn't need it, and he somehow offended her while doing so.

"....."

“You know what...” Trojia says, ending the couple second long silence. “I’d like to ask you something, would you care to listen?”

“...Sure.”

“What is Messor to you?”

He wasn't expecting her to ask that, and now that she's mentioned he remembers how she's not here with the group. The truth is, Trojia isn't the only person he was worried about, he has no idea why Messor would leave the group when he specifically told her to stay with them. He knows she isn't one to blatantly defy him, he knows that there must've been something that forced her away.

And the reason why he's so confident that something has gone horribly wrong can be found in his answer.

“She’s another part of me.”

“She said the same thing, I’d like to understand a little bit more about that.”

“I don’t really know where to start...”

“Start with how she became the False Prophet and end it with the eternal pit.”

She said that so effortlessly that it once again catches him off guard. Ubica doesn’t know that Trojia has seen everything that the two of them did as the Anti-Christ and the False Prophet, if he did know it’d explain why she didn’t ask about their relationship during their reign of terror.

Ubica leans his back against the oak tree and looks up through the leaves and into the sun. He’s stored away the memories of the time he spent in the pit in the furthest part of his brain as to sooth the guilt. What he did to Messor is something he still hasn’t gotten over, even though they are one the two of them still are completely separate people with their own emotions.

“If you don’t mind a long story, I’ll tell you.”

“Go ahead.”

“Alright...”



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



It all starts with a little girl of 11.

Her name is not known, her origin of birth is not known.

The girl has shining white hair and bright gold eyes; she's dressed all in white and is standing on the plank of a ship sailing in the middle of the ocean. Her wrists are tied with a silk like cloth and her ankles are bound in the same fabric as well.

The white hair that falls all the way past her waist waves as a cool ocean breeze gently makes its way past her. She wears a straight face and looks to be very calm, but someone with sharp eyes can she that her nose and cheeks that are flushed red indicates that she had been crying for quite some time beforehand.

"You must stay strong Holy Light. This is for the greater good of all of mankind." a woman's voice said from the safety of the boat.

The little girl turns her upper body and towards the woman and says, "I'm not your highness, I'm your daughter. You can't even call me by my name anymore?"

The woman on the boat is surrounded by a couple dozen people clad in white swinging cencers expelling some kind of incense. The woman looks relatively young but is none the less plain, she is pock faced with brown hair and brown eyes, she looks nothing like the little girl on the plank.

"You were never my daughter, from the moment you were born you were always the vessel to the Holy Light, sent here to cure us of all our woes."

"Mother... Please tell me you don't believe the lies of the people behind you? I'm just a normal girl, you and the others made me out to be something else!"

The woman's eyes widen as she shakes her head. "You don't understand, the voices have told us your future. You are to become the Holy Light and outshine the darkness of this world!"

"Destroy the darkness!"

"Fulfill your destiny!"

A couple of the men behind the woman shout in an almost dazed fashion. It would appear that the smoke from the incense they're burning is making them crazed. By now the whole boat deck is engulfed in the gray.

"What voice?? What darkness? You have gone mad mother! Please don't do this!"

"I have gone mad? You will soon hear the voice, but first you must see the darkness! Only then can you ascend to your throne in the sky! Look, Holy Light, look at the darkness!"

The woman and all the others point out to the sea behind her, prompting the girl to quizzically turn around. Upon doing so she she is shocked to find that the sea as far as her eyes can take her is pitch black. The feeling emitting from the water almost buckles her knees as her body is overwhelmed in a great pressure. 

Looking down at the water just below her feet, the girl is frightened when she sees faces in the black water, horridly pale faces that look tormented as though they want to escape. Then the white and water ravaged hands of the tormented faces writhe out into the air as though they wish to grab her, their moans bubbling to the surface are deep and disturbing. 

"Mother! Let me back on the boat! Mother!!"

"Do you see it now? The darkness calls for you, it's pleading for your light! You must save them, and save our souls as well!"

"No it's not true! I can't do anything like that!"

One of the men dressed in white comes from behind the woman with a paddle used to row the wooden boat and doesn't hesitate to push the girl away from the plank and send her falling into the ocean.

With a light slash, the girl quickly resurfaces, but with her legs and hands bound it's only a matter off time until her awkward squirms fail to keep her afloat and she drowns.

"Mother! Gbfhhh---- Mo-!!"

Her desperate attempts at pleading for them to save her falls on deaf ears, and only quickens her path towards drowning. Every drop of seawater she swallows steadily steals her voice and her ability to cry out. And if that wasn't enough, she can feel the slimy pale hands of whatever those ghoulish creatures are grab at her and try to pull her in.

"Only your soul can free us from the darkness!" The woman shouts, and then the men behind her join in when her expression turns cockeyed and they all simultaneously yell, "Thank you!!"

They smile and wave as though they had just dropped their child off for her first day of school. Their expressions are so amazingly fake and twisted with insanity it's as though they are really bad actors in a low budget play.

This poor girl's fear hit the ultimate high before the inevitable doom awaiting her. She feels the pure hopelessness as she watches the wooden ship carrying her mother quickly move further and further away.

Even if she tried to scream out once more, her voice would never be heard; she can only sob and flinch every time she feels a pruned hand slide across her face.

And that's when all the sudden the hands tugging at her stop, and the moans of the voices disappear, leaving her bobbing alone in the sea. However, she doesn't feel the kind of relief one would expect at the sudden departure of things wishing to harm her, it's more of the feeling one gets when alone in the forest and the birds all collectively stop chirping.

There's an ominous danger looming in the form of some kind of predator that scares away even the most frightening of beasts.

And that very predator quickly swims right beneath her, it's scales so bright and blue that she can even see it from within the black water. Whatever it is, it's massive, like a snake it continues to move past her and she knows that if she lets herself sink she'll land right atop it.

She watches it make its way past her and towards the wooden ship out in the distance until its blue scales can no longer be seen.

Then comes an eerie silence.

But that silence is quickly destroyed when the wooden boat is shredded by a massive dragon like creature flying from the sea. The blue sea serpent's jaws and sharp teeth bit down with so much force that it sent people and wooden planks flying in every which direction until everything fell back into the ocean with an incredible splash.

"Mother!!"

The little girl, even in her last moments cared for the safety of the mother that so mercilessly bound her and tossed her into the sea. She even feels pity as she watches the few remaining survivors floating in the water get devoured one by one by the jagged mouth of the serpent.

That's the kind of selfless girl she is. 

But, when that very serpent finishes it's last floater, it's massive head shifts in her direction and the two catch eyes. Even the most selfless person becomes selfish if their life is in danger, any thoughts of the others are shattered and are replaced be pure fear. 

The serpent immediately starts swimming towards her at a speed so fast it won't be more than a second before she shares the same fate as her mother and the men in white.

"Hiiiii--!!!"

She slams her eyes shut as she feels the giant monster's presence get closer, and that's when she feels a very sudden and sharp tug at her legs and she is pulled into the water so fast that she almost blacks out. She feels her insides rise into her chest as the intense pressure of the fall continues to pull on her.

It went on for a very long minute and then stopped on a dime. 

She doesn't try to breath in, but senses an odd emptiness as though there were nothing around her. She opens her eyes and is shocked to find that she's alone in pure darkness, she can see herself but can't see anything else, her once bound hands and ankles are untied and her hair and clothes are completely dry. She takes a breath and can feel the sensation of air enter her throat; she knows she's not in the water anymore, but if not there, then where?

"...Am I dead?" she asks herself, her voice echoing in the darkness.

This is a very valid thought, the last thing she remembers is a dragon like monster coming to eat her, and then she remembers falling, but there's only one problem.

"If I really am dead... Then why do I only see black?"

The girl starts crying, never has she felt more alone. There's something maddening about this place, and she doesn't know what to do. Thoughts like, (What if I'm stuck here? What if this is Hell? What should I do!?) roll through her mind, sending her into despair.

Her tears don't stop until she feels someone's hand gently touch her shoulder.

"!!?"

She quickly jumps forward and turns around to see a boy standing there naked. He has silver hair and looks to be the same age as the girl, by all accounts he looks like a normal boy, except the fact that his eyes are completely black. 

"Yaaaaah!!!"

As a natural reaction to his appearance, the girl covers herself and cowers in fear.

The boy walks to her, he tilts his head, leans to her level and asks, "Who are you?"

The girl doesn't answer, she just sits on her knees and covers herself with her eyes tightly shut.

"She was a girl worshiped as a goddess in a certain country up on the surface." replied a voice from out of nowhere.

"That doesn't mean anything to me, Leviathan."

"Her appearance here should mean something to you. Didn't I tell you that you're going to need someone to share your power with? Well here she is. Satan manipulated this girl's followers and forced them into committing horrendous atrocities in her name."

The boy stays straight faced and keeps his black glare pointed at the girl when he asks, "And what makes this one special?"

"If you knew how many thousands of people we've tried to send to you, you wouldn't find the need to ask that." The voice pauses for a moment and then continues, "Satan had this girl's followers commit terrible sins in her name just to darken her soul, but she was resilient enough to not be tainted. Anyone or anything humans worship other than God are susceptible to corruption, yet his girl's soul stayed pure despite all that. We've tried to send a someone with a pure soul here many times, only to have Dantega devour the darkness and rip them apart. This is the first person to make it. She's your perfect partner."

"Listen Leviathan..." The boy says as though talking down to the demon speaking to him. "I understand what you and your leader are trying to do. All this effort is going to do you any good, I'm not going to be swayed by gifts like a child."

"This girl is more than a gift. She's the only person with a soul pure enough to carry the weight of Dantega without being consumed by it. She's your ticket to the surface. You do want to go don't you?" 

"....."

"We've told you what you need to do in order to get there, now you have the key to do it. It's your choice how you want to use this key, though I'd hope you'd already know what to do with it."

Though one can't tell with their eyes, the presence of the voice disappears and leaves the two alone in the darkness.

The boy once again turns the girl, it's obvious she heard that conversation and looks very confused, the two's eyes lock and once again she quickly shuts her eyes and turns away.

"Don't come any closer!"

"Why?" he asks as he inches closer

"Please! Just don't!"

The boy doesn't stop and grabs her arm, he turns her towards him and asks, "Why?"

Her eyes start to water and she reveals an expression similar to a scared kitten when she replies, "Because I'm afraid! What's going on? Who are you?? Who was that voice!? What about my followers!? What am I---!"

The boy holds out his finger and interrupts her. "No more questions. You don't need them anymore."

"B-But..."

"Listen girl, from now on the world outside of me means nothing to you. You're mine now."

The little girl again cowers, to her, that's like hearing the big scary monster in the closet shout out 'You now belong to me!' Anyone would be scared considering the situation.

The boy tilts his head and asks, "What wrong?"

"P-Please don't hurt me!"

"What makes you think I'm going to hurt you?"

She pauses for a couple seconds and answers, "Y-You're eyes."

"My eyes?"

"Yes... They're evil, they're frightening."

"Just because my eyes are evil doesn't mean I am going to do anything to you."

"....."

"How about I do this..." 

The boy shuts his eyes and covers them with his palm, after a second or so he moves his hand away and shows her a pair of green eyes that look no different from any other human.

"Better?"

Now that the boy's eyes aren't jet black, she can actually see expression in his face whereas before it was as though she were looking at an emotionless statue. She's taken aback by how different his appearance is from just the look of his eyes, and she's also taken aback by how good looking he is. She's never seen anyone like him before, and now he doesn't seem like that monster in the closet she was so scared of.

"Y-Yeah..."

"Good..." He puts his hands on her shoulders and gently pulls her towards him as he says, "You are mine, and I am yours. You don't have to be afraid."

"...Okay."

Even she doesn't know why she so readily accepted him. She has just been sacrificed by her mother, she has just watched her and the others devoured by a giant sea serpent, she has just been taken to an unknown darkness, met a strange boy with black eyes, heard an ominous voice talking of things she cannot possibly understand, yet she now feels calm. Him just telling her that she doesn't need to be afraid soothed her in a way she can't explain. 

"So tell me girl, what's your name?"

She hasn't even said her name in so long that it's hard to say, she's been called the 'Holy Light' for as long as she can remember, but she knows her parents gave her a real one before she began to be worshiped.

Her lips faintly rise when looks him square in the eye and replies,

"Messor."
 


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



In the aftermath of the Apocalypse...



Ubica the Anti-Christ and Messor the False Prophet are falling uncontrollably into a pit of eternal Hell fire. However, they are not burning; in fact they don’t even feel the heat of the endless abyss of orange, yellow, and red. The two of them are surrounded by a darkness that seemingly stretches for an eternity, protecting them from the heat of the pit.

This is Ubica’s doing, he’s using the vast amount of power from Dantega as means of a barrier. Although it may seem that there is no way the fire can ever reach, each second is dwindling away the evil power of Dantega, just as Michael designed it to do.

Ubica isn’t happy about this at all, other than the betrayal of Satan and the others, he and Messor ending up in the eternal pit is exactly the way the Book of Revelations predicted. That thought is quite infuriating, but he refuses to show it, he instead throws his hands over the back of his head and floats as though the darkness is water.

“Aren’t you worried about what will happen when the fire reaches us? We should try and find a way out of here.”

Ubica opens one of his eyes and looks to her before replying, “I’m not worried at all.”

“But... If we don’t find a way to escape we’ll die eventually.”

“That won’t happen; it’ll take thousands of years before my power would ever fade to the point where our lives would actually be in danger. I’m certain that someone seeking Dantega will be foolish enough to open the lock to the pit.”

To Messor, that sounds like wishful thinking, but seeing how certain he is she finds it very hard to doubt him. The power of Dantega is far too great for someone to just leave be until it is finally destroyed; someone, from either side of the battle of Armageddon will be overcome with the desire to have it, it’s just a matter of time.

“Judging from your confidence I take it you have someone in mind?”

“I do.” Ubica says as he grabs Messor’s arm and pulls her into his chest. “The son of Satan... Damien is going to be the one that will free us. I could always see it in his eyes, his motives are far different from his father’s, and something tells me that Satan is one of the obstacles in his way.”

“And you think that he needs us to fulfill his plans?”

“I know he needs us. He may be able to hide his emotions from the others behind that blank smile, but I’m no fool, I can see right through him. The desire to control me, the jealousy he holds towards me, the disdain and hate... He wants my power, he needs my power. And I truly believe that us being here is all apart of his plan, when he feels that the time is right he’ll come for us.”

Messor wraps her arms around him and asks, “So what will we do until then?”

“Imagine anything you’d like, and you’ll be able to do it here.”

“Huh?”

“You’re in my soul, just like you were when we first met, I can create any kind of world you want.” Ubica says as he points out into the darkness. “Take a look.”

In a flash of brilliant light, the darkness that stretches as far as the eye can see is replaced by a field of green grass cascaded under an expansive crystal blue sky that seemingly never ends.

“This is the scale of the power resting in my soul, I didn't use much of it when we were young, but I have the feeling we're in for a longer ride this time.”

Ubica snaps his fingers and the world of grass flips over as though it were a picture book and turns into yet another breathtaking environment. They find themselves on top of a mountain overlooking a stunning forest below, the sun is stuck on twilight and steadily disappearing over the horizon in such a fashion that the dark blue sky directly above their heads projects an array of multicolored stars.

Words wouldn’t do this scene any justice, the beauty is that much farther than the lengths anything other than firsthand sight could describe.

“Amazing... I had no idea you could do something like this.”

“Enjoy it, picture anything you like and it will be there for you until this is all over.”

“You say that like you’re going somewhere...” she replies as she sits atop of him and latches to his collar.

“I’m just going to be asleep... Just like you.”

“..?”

“You’re actually asleep right now, I’m looking over you from within the darkness. Think of this as an eternal dream of sorts. It’s more of a way to pass time, there’s no telling how many years have already gone by back on Earth.”

One of the many powers that Dantega is capable of. Ubica is literally manipulating the time inside a large area in order to make the world around them move as fast as possible. Along with that he’s making the world inside Dantega become a heaven like paradise where anything can be attained. Although there aren’t any guarantees, it could only take a week of their time for hundreds of years to pass and they can be released. The only thing that can be promised is the fact that Damien will come for Dantega, all they can do is wait it out.

“I joined you in the pit so I could be with you... If you fall asleep now and leave me it’d have been for nothing.”

“Not necessarily.” Ubica says as he strokes the side of Messor’s face. “I told you that anything you imagine will come true here didn’t I? As long as you want me to, I’ll be here. You are apart of my soul, I am yours as much as you are mine. I will never leave you. So I’ll be going to sleep now, until you and I both wake up this will be the last time our physical bodies touch. From this point on it’ll all be just a dream.”

“Okay...”

Messor so easily agreed to that because as far as she is concerned, this is the best possible outcome. When she entered the pit she fully expected herself to be scorched to eternal death in a fiery inferno, to have Ubica put so much effort in surrounding her with such a paradise is more than enough to hold her over until Damien releases the two of them.

Ubica shuts his eyes and prepares for sleep. With a very slight smile, he leaves her with some final words.

“Thank you for following me.”

As soon as he said that he vanishes from sight in a plume of light particles as if he were an image displayed on a computer screen that had just been closed out. The feeling of loneliness should already be surfacing inside of Messor’s heart but strangely she feels more surrounded by his presence than ever before. She can feel him in the trees, she can feel him in the mountains, she can feel him in the stars above and the ground below. She can feel Ubica everywhere; and this makes her feel secure and warm.

She puts her hand on her chest and smiles, looking out at the beautiful scenery she says to herself, “I’ll always follow you Ubica... From now, and to the end of time.”




Ubica awakes to a scene of pure darkness. But something is different, he’s confused and distraught. It’s as though he's a man who has been drugged and kidnapped and in his daze found himself in an extremely unfamiliar place with no idea how he got there.

If he looked in the mirror he’d find that the sclera of his eyes are now white where they once were black; the black lines that fell down his cheeks are no longer there either. Barring his reptilian like pupils there is no longer anything that separates his appearance from that of a regular human.

He’s breathing hard, struggling to grasp the rough air of this darkness into his lungs. He puts his hand on his chest as a way to help himself breath but finds it odd when he feels an emptiness where his heart should be.

“What..?”

Nothing. His heart has either stopped or it’s no longer there. For whatever reason, his instincts are telling him that it’s the latter of the two. He doesn’t know what happened to it, but the strong feeling of being surrounded by the presence of something is assaulting his senses. To him it feels like he has died and his ghost is staring down on him from above. For the most part, that’s exactly what it is.

He has found himself in a flask containing the power of Dantega. What was once in stored in his soul, has now exited his body and is steadily burning away by the heat of Michael’s fire.

With the strength in his muscles numb with weakness, he attempts to stand to his feet within the darkness. While pushing himself up with his hand, he presses against something soft. Looking down towards the sensation on his palm, he finds a beautiful girl sleeping peacefully.

“...Messor.” he says, his voice raspy as if not even a word has exited his mouth in years.

He clears his throat and rubs his eyes, that’s when all of the sudden the flash of scenes of absolute horror zooms across his mind. It only took him a second to realize what is going on, and that realization nauseates him.

“What have I done?” he speaks into his palm in disgust.

He quickly stands up and backs away from Messor. The urge of wanting to escape overwhelms him and without thinking he jumps away from her as far as he possibly can, and to his surprise he easily escapes the darkness. As soon as he does, he’s engulfed with a searing heat that burns his skin and sends him writhing in pain. Ubica opens his eyes and the moisture from them is immediately sucked dry and begin to feel like two burning blocks of charcoal planted in his head.

All around him as far as he can see is the orange and red of fire. He escaped out of one prison only to be led into one far worse. 

Looking down on where he jumped from, he sees the circle of darkness that is Dantega, only a small fraction of what it once was remains and it is dwindling from the pressure of the surrounding flames.

“Damn it!” he yells to himself as the heat becomes unbearable and he reluctantly falls back into the safety of the darkness.

He lands right back to the side of Messor and collapses next to her, coughing violently in an attempt to expel all of the hot air still residing in his lungs. 

Once he calms down, he begins to think of ways to escape the pit along with Messor, dozens of different ideas all begin to prove unfeasible from within his mind. Starting to feel hopeless, he succumbs to desperation and accepts an idea that proves to be his only hope.

The problem is that this idea leaves Messor out of the equation, and brings the evil power of Dantega back in.

The plan he is forced to pick is to leave a large chunk of Dantega protecting Messor from the encroaching flames, and taking the remainder of that power with him to the surface to use as a barrier. He wouldn't be able to take all of Dantega with him along with Messor because exuding all his power in simply moving it runs the risk of all three of them being destroyed. Both parts of the only working plan is the last thing he wants to do.

Because of Michael’s fire weakening Dantega with each second over an extended amount of time, Ubica’s soul has instinctively found it necessary to separate from its vessel to protect itself.

Though he doesn’t know it yet, this has caused him to wake up as someone separated from that evil and end up absolutely disgusted with himself and with Dantega, the only thing he has left is his urge to leave it behind and bring Messor with him. But he simply cannot do both, he can’t even choose one or the other.

“Damien... He’ll come for you, I know it.” Ubica says, looking horribly disturbed as he looks down on Messor with a quivering brow. “And when he does I’ll be there to take you back... I promise you.”

Ubica strokes her cheek and takes a deep breath in determination, he then jumps once more, this time with even more strength than the last. Exiting the huge chunk of Dantega that's keeping Messor safe, he flies upwards through the flames at a tremendous speed surrounded by a body sized amount of darkness. He knows that he doesn’t have much time before the eternal fire burns away his last wall of protection so he puts every last bit of strength in flying upwards. No matter how long it takes, he’ll never give himself a break, once he gets out of the pit, he’ll rid himself of Dantega and repent.

With those thoughts in mind, he travels upwards for what seems to be hours until the fleeting barrier of darkness above him hits something solid.

“The exit!?”

Without a moment of hesitation he punches with all his might, and is very disgruntled when nothing happens, the only thing that came out of that was a hurt right hand. He should know that the only way to open the gate of the eternal pit is from the outside with the use of the key, and the only person who could possibly have that key is Abaddon. But that doesn’t stop him from trying to punch his way through a few more times.

Seeing that no matter what his physical body does won’t help him break through, he decides to risk everything on one final move. He’s going to use the last little bit of Dantega to smash the dimensional wall barring him from leaving.

Not giving any time for doubt, he forms the last bit of darkness protecting himself over his fist and sends it screaming towards outside world. In a brilliant explosion, the heat of the fire dissipates momentarily and he truly feels that his daring plan has succeeded. That’s when the heat immediately returns and he see’s that nothing has changed in the wall before him.

Ubica can’t help but reveal a strained smile at this. 

(What was I thinking?) he says to himself in his mind. (This place was made to imprison the entirety of Dantega and destroy it. Of course that little bit of power wouldn’t be enough to break out of here... Damn it.)

In his haste he’s made a terrible error, one that will most definitely cost him his life. It won’t be long until breathing becomes impossible and the fire begins to char his skin. Regret fills the area of his chest where his heart is supposed to be and an extremely strong feeling of an resentment brews in every corner of his body.

Is this really it? 

Isn’t there supposed to be more? 

Was he really destined to fail as the Anti-Christ and die in this pit?

No.

There is something he must do outside of this hell, there is definitely something inexplicable telling him that he must live at all costs. There’s something inexplicable telling him that there is a task he must fulfill back on Earth. And that nonexistent voice is giving him a power that reigns far superior than Dantega.

That very power is forming in the palm of his hand in the shape of a bright light that shines even brighter than the yellow flames surrounding him.

“UURRRYYYAAAHHHH!!!”

He releases a shout of determination to live and to fulfill that unknown task ringing in his mind. With that, he punches the light in his hand with all his might and demolishes the gate of the pit.

Once again, the heat of the flame disappears and he jumps through towards the cool air of the outside world.

The next thing he feels is the soft green grass of the Earth’s surface pressed against his face. The surface of the great green Earth is seen under the bright blue sky. The world looks so much different now than the last time he saw it, now there is life and beauty where there was once so much death and ugliness.

“I’m... Back.” he says to the ground as he slowly makes his way to his feet.

He gazes down upon the hole he created from the eternal pit and sees that it’s retracting into nothing once again. He can’t help but feel like he’s leaving a huge piece of himself behind as Messor and the remainder of Dantega still resides there.

Ubica finds it very hard to turn away and begin his new adventure into this new world, but once the last little opening of the ground shuts and disappears to nothing, he sighs and shows his back to his past.

That’s when he’s met face high with something that shocks him, sending his body in to a jolt.

A little black ball of a smokey substance is floating in front of him as if it had a mind of its own. This little black ball is a very small fragment of the power Ubica thought had been left behind.

Dantega is still here and fully intends to resume its rightful place inside of Ubica.

Ubica grits his teeth and prepares to destroy it when the sunny skies above him are blotted out and the bright sun is replaced by darkness.

“!?”

Looking up, he sees Dantega manifesting above him.

“How!? Dantega is still in the pit!”

The darkness doesn’t listen, it simply moves to where its vessel is and shoots downwards and engulfs Ubica. All areas around him where the darkness touched is killed off and rotted away to nothing, the plants all die, the animals all die, the ground below his feet melts away into a dark brown liquid. The power of Dantega holds that much of a negative effect on everything it touches, that is, everything but Ubica.

A lot of human sin has accumulated since Ubica was cast away into the pit, unbeknownst to him it's been close to a thousand years. Billions of people have lived and died since then, and those sins have finally found a place to go once Ubica came back. 

It’s the cycle of destination that’s unavoidable for both parties. 

Ubica is Dantega, Dantega is Ubica, and there’s no escaping that.

With all the darkness that once blanketed the sky fully returning back into Ubica’s body, he’s left standing there with wobbly legs. 

There’s no doubt that the Anti-Christ has returned to torment the world right?

Wrong.

Ubica’s fighting it with the unknown strength he found while breaking through the wall of the pit.

“If I can’t escape my fate... It doesn’t mean I can’t fight it.”

Ubica lifts his head and reveals a face unchanged by the power of Dantega. 

He walks away, to a future goal not yet made, to a task he doesn’t know of that needs to be fulfilled. He walks towards a new and unfamiliar world, not knowing how much time has passed or just what kind of scars he left on the face of humanity as the Anti-Christ.

He walks forward as a new man.



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



“That was about five years ago...” Ubica finished with a strained smile.

“So that’s what happened... Is that why you were chasing after Damien back when all of this started?”

“That’s right, soon after I got out of the pit, I found out just how long I was in there. Since it was closing in on the thousand years of peace foretold in the bible, I began my search for Damien with hopes that he had freed Messor by then.”

Trojia folds her arms and says, “Then she must be really important to you...”

“More than you know.”

Trojia feels very indifferent to his feelings for her, she understands why he’d feel that way, but it doesn’t even come close to swaying her desire to seek revenge for what she did to Niomyo. Trojia just wanted some closure to the story of the two before she commits herself to a path of vengeance.

“Ubica.” she sternly said as she gets close to him to look him square in the eye.

“Hmm?”

“I’m going to kill Messor.”

“...What?”

“She was the one that killed Niomyo all those months back. She lived with me, looked me in the eye, she acted as though nothing happened as she watched me suffer the loss of the one person I considered my older sister. For that, I’ll never forgive her.”

“Y-You’re kidding right?”

“About what? The fact that she murdered Niomyo, or the fact that I won’t rest easy until she’s dead?”

“Both! Messor wouldn’t do such a thing! And how could you say something like that with a straight face!?”

Ubica stands up off the bench and grabs her shoulders.

That straight face he was talking about remains when Trojia replies, “She told me herself when she tried to kill me back at the third Gate.”

“That can’t be true...”

Ubica is stricken with disbelief, there’s nothing telling him that Trojia is lying, and nothing keeping him from believing that Messor would do such a thing. Even though he’s told her to get along with the others, he still knows that the only thing that matters to her is him. If she did kill Niomyo, he believes that there had to have been a reason, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a good one, as long as there’s something there it can be explained.

“The truth is the truth, and I’m going to kill her for it.” Trojia said through her teeth. 

She brushes his hands off his shoulders and turns her back on him. 

While walking away she says, “I hate that woman with all my heart. I hate her for what she’s done as the False Prophet, I hate her for what she represents as the False Prophet, and I hate her for what she did to Niomyo.”

“I-I..."

Ubica tried to speak clearly but his tongue is having trouble moving.

Trojia stops for a moment and waits for him to say something.

“I can’t let you... I won’t let you do that.”

“Think about what I said for a second Ubica..."

“.....”

“You just got done telling me that the two of you are one, so where do you think that puts you?”

Ubica can only stare in silence as she turns around and shoots him a cold glare.

“That’s right, I hate you too. For everything that you’ve done as the Anti-Christ, for what you represent, I despise you for being apart of the person that took the life of my dear friend. So now that that is out in the open, I want you to think about what I’d do if you tried to stop me.”

Trojia exits the garden and opens the door to the hotel lobby. Before entering, she leaves him with some final words, 

“I’ll stop at nothing to get my revenge. Remember that Ubica.”

The door to the lobby shuts and Ubica is all alone under the tree of the garden. In his shock, he drops to his knees and slumps his shoulders. His worst fear has come true; one of the people he’s vowed to protect with his life has grown to despise him. What’s worse is that this particular person wants to take the life of another person he’s vowed to protect as well. 

How should he handle such a horrible turn of events?

Such a thing was so far from his mind at this point in their tenure here on Purgatory that he’s genuinely devastated. Especially coming from Trojia of all people, she’s the one who brought him into the world of caring and love, for her to become someone who can so easily immerse herself into a world of vengeance breaks his heart.

The worst part about it is that it’s more or less his fault.

He puts his hands over his face and asks, “What should I do..?”

That’s when he feels an unfamiliar hand on his shoulder followed by a scarily familiar voice. 

“I asked myself that very question not too long ago.”

Ubica instantly jumps away and guards himself. Whoever has just touched his shoulder and said that completely shattered all thoughts of internal conflict and replaced them with a throat clinching shock. Ubica locks eyes with this person and is overwhelmed by the presence of a man with wavy blond hair and teal eyes.

The appearance of this man couldn’t have been any more relevant to the topic of conversation between Ubica and Trojia.

The man standing in front of him is none other than the Archangel himself.

“Michael!?”




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